A friend of mine shared this article with me and it was really good.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/when-did-christians-get-so-mean
More and more, I see some folks with a very negative view of Christians, and as a Christian myself, I can't say I blame them. This of course, doesn't apply to all Christians but it's hard not to scroll through my Facebook wall and see some angry post about homosexuals and liberals are ruining the world. If people put as much time into bettering themselves as they did scanning the Internet for articles and memes to make their point, well, I wouldn't be here writing this blog.
A couple weeks ago I was attending my church's Bible Study group. This is something I usually enjoy at least when we're actually sitting down studying and interpreting the Bible, but half the group wasn't there whether they were on vacation or whatever leaving me with a bunch of over 50 folks who ended up spending the entire hour complaining about how homosexuals and liberals were "ruining" everything and how everything was better in the "good old days." You know the 50s and 60s where we were under constant threat of nuclear annihilation and were told you would survive a nuclear blast by hiding under your desk. Part of me wanted to leave halfway through when I was sure we were never going to get to our studying because if I want to listen to a bunch of old people rant, I can watch Fox News anytime I want.
You constantly hear how many people are drifting away from church or religion in general but no one seems to know why or they blame TV or something inconsequential, yet if I was an outsider looking in, I'd get the impression that being a Christian now seems to mean being a xenophobic, narrow minded zealot who doesn't want to hear an opinion that differs from their own. This of course doesn't apply to all Christians, but sadly the most vocal ones like the Westboro Baptist Church folks, are the ones getting all the attention. Apparently if you're gay, like science or vote democrat, you're not welcome.
That's something that really annoys me is when religion and politics start mixing. Folks, politicians say what they think people want to hear in order to get votes. If someone wants the gay vote, they'll say how they support gay marriage. If they want the Latino vote, they'll talk about immigration reform. If they want the middle class Christian vote, they start quoting Bible verses or talk about prayer in our schools. They are saying what we want to hear even if it has no bearing on the issues at hand. As of lately, they also use scare tactics to get your attention and we buy into it because we're paranoid and gullible. Let's strip this thing down to it's bare bones definition. "Liberal Means Large" and "Conservative Means Small." Do you want a large or small government? All that other stuff is just fodder tossed in to get more voters on either side and, for me that's gotten out of hand to the point where there is no longer a happy medium. It's one extreme or the other. George Washington warned us of what a two party system would do but we didn't listen and look where it's got us.
The same applies to religion these days it seems. If you're a Christian who is accepting of the gay lifestyle or thinks that maybe evolution is true but that God created those first single celled organisms, then you're an awful person who's going to hell. I truly think when you die and you're standing in line to go to heaven that St. Peter isn't going to care whether you voted for Obama or believed in evolution, rather he's going to look at how you were as a person and whether or not you were kind and generous to others and followed the Ten Commandments as best you could. You know not killing, stealing, bearing false witness, etc.
This is not being a "cafeteria Christian" and picking and choosing what you want to believe. This is adjusting to an ever changing world. The Bible was written over 2000 years ago and those who wrote it had no idea how things would change in the future. If we don't accept change and adapt to the modern world, more and more people will distance themselves from church and religion in general. People want to be lead, not pushed. Instead of wasting your time behind a screen typing angry things in comment sections or posting random memes on Facebook, go out and do good deeds for others. I'm sure if Jesus existed in this modern technological age, he'd have better things to do than blog about what's wrong with the world. (yes I know the irony of that last statement)
Excellent. It was a pleasure reading it.
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