Modern Laodicea, all across the fruited plain. Christianity, more and more each day, is ceasing to look like Jesus. It is neither Cold; not entirely dead to some semblance of morality; capable of recognizing injustice in the community and in the world.
Nor Hot; actively up and demanding of itself separation from immorality; unwilling to stand for justice in the community or in the world. The salt is swiftly losing its savor. The Church has become tepid lumps of useless flesh sitting in false-piety on soft padded pews.
How can anyone look at the Church-- as a whole --and see something the Lord would not immediately spit out?
A bunch of fence-sitters! Leaning neither one way, or the other; not willing to make waves, or rock the boat. Who knows? Christianity may need the good will of the Cold Faction one day! Perhaps the pendulum will swing the other way and the Hot Faction will be the only choice worth making. But until that day the fence looks quite fine. No need to stir up hatred by choosing one side or the other. No need to display insensitivity to one side or the other. If by taking a stand the Church might offend even one person, then take a stand she mustn't!
"How dare the Church stand on Christ alone for Salvation! What will the poor Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jew do? How hateful you appear in our and their eyes; worthy of all our condemnation!
"How dare the Church cling to the false idea that God condemns the poor homosexual? Doesn't the Church know that God made them that way!? That He's unwilling that any perish? God is Love! Can't you freaks understand this!?
"How dare the Church take the words of Jesus as absolute truth!? Don't you people know that the Gospels were written decades, if not centuries after Jesus' death? His words are a good starting point, but what kind of idiot relies 100% on the Bible, claiming it absolute truth, without error!? What a bunch of morons!
"The Church needs to care for the environment! Eschew outdated interpretations which divide rather than unite! Modern scholars are far more enlightened than those of the first century! Good Grief Church! Get your butts up on that fence and don't you dare offend anyone with your "Exclusive" Gospel of hatred and intolerance! That's not the Jesus of the Bible! Jesus said all could come! Whosoever will! And that includes men and women in committed homosexual relationships. How dare you judge these people for being who God made them to be!
"And how dare you suggest that God needs to be let back in our schools? Have you ignoramuses not read the Constitution!? Hello! Separation of Church and State!? It's in there, bub! How dare you insist that children in public schools be allowed to pray! What if they offend an atheist!? God forbid! They have rights too, ya know!
"How dare you criticize the film and television industries for the "crud" they offer as family entertainment? At least we get object lessons on what it means to be a man or woman living in the real world! So there's a murder every hour on the hour 24-7, 365! This is the world we live in! Don't like it? Change the channel!
"How dare you suggest people work for what they have!? How fair is it that you have a bank full of money and this poor guy in a van down by the river has nothing but the shirt on his back and the shoes on his feet!? You mean to tell me you object to "contributing" more of your hard earned wages so this poor Joe can have a warm blanket at night and a cup of coffee in the morning!? What kind of greedy bastards are you guys, anyway?
"And don't you dare utter a peep about abortion! Why, don't realize that if we force women to have their babies we'll all be saddled with the responsibility of caring-- on the public dole, no less! --for all those unwanted kids!? Yeah, you want to force women to have children but you don't want to shell out a single dollar to care for the kids! Some Christians you turn out to be!
"So don't you dare take a stand on anything! Keep your mouths shut, and your butts firmly on the pew! Don't you dare try to save anyone from their sins, and when we tell you to shut up, by God, you shut the frell up! You freaking hypocrites!"
...
Sorry. I can't do that. Jesus is coming. Soon. And you need to get ready. Now. Take another look at the Bible while there's still time. He said it himself:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
--Matthew 10:34
If the world hates the Church, the Church must be doing something right.
6 Comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Absolutely true. Sometimes.
But it is also just as true that the world hates the church because the church is being hateful, or hypocritical.
So, not all the time, but sometimes I would absolutely agree with you.
I would like for you to give us examples of the kind of things that you know of churches being hateful or hypocritical. I don't really know of anything like what I could possibly call that kind of behavior in my area or surrounding counties.
P.S. I'm back. :)
Young people have graded Christianity, and so far, the report card doesn't look good.
Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label...
"The Christian community's ability to take the high road and help to deal with some of the challenges that this (anti-gay) perception represents may be the ... defining response of the Christian church in the next decade," said David Kinnaman, Barna Group president and author of the book, "UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity."
"The anti-homosexual perception has now become sort of the Geiger counter of Christians' ability to love and work with people," he said...
Such views were held by smaller percentages of the active churchgoers, but the faith still did not fare well: 80 percent agreed with the anti-gay label, 52 percent said Christianity is judgmental, and 47 percent declared it hypocritical.
Kinnaman said one of the biggest surprises for researchers was the extent to which respondents — one in four non-Christians — said that modern-day Christianity was no longer like Jesus.
ouch.
Based on whose standards? Christians or non-Christians? And who did Kinnaman's Poll? It's hard to take the perceptions of young people who do not know God-- unregenerated minds --as qualified opinion on what Christianity really is. Couple that with the indoctrination children have been receiving in schools for the last twenty years or so, and it's no wonder the Church has such a bad reputation among the unsaved.
From the USA Today report on this:
"[R]esearchers reported responses from 440 non-Christians and 305 active churchgoers.
The vast majority of non-Christians — 91% — said Christianity had an anti-gay image, followed by 87% who said it was judgmental and 85% who said it was hypocritical.
Such views were held by smaller percentages of the active churchgoers, but the faith still did not fare well: 80% agreed with the anti-gay label, 52% said Christianity is judgmental, and 47% declared it hypocritical."
I'm not impressed to the point of "Oh, my!" by the opinions of non-Christians. The Church is supposed to stand separate from 'The World' to be IN it but not OF it. This is viewed by non-Christians as pride, arrogance, hypocrisy, hatred, intolerance... This doesn't mean the Church needs to compromise the message.
Admittedly, this DOES make the Church's task of reaching the world that much harder, but I think you can place much [not all] of that blame on the concerted efforts of Education in America to mold young minds that care nothing for GODLY morality.
Naturally, I can't put the onus entirely on the efforts of educators, and media, and Liberal anti-Christian policy. Some of that DOES lie at the doorstep of the Church... but not nearly as much as Kinnaman suggests, or media outlets imply.