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Christian Authenticity (Help, I’m trying to find you!)
By Julie | January 25, 2008
This morning (yesterday for you) in my Google alerts I stumbled upon an article, “Faith Found Outside Church”. The article summarizes a new study of people who profess to be “un-churched.” Here are a few of the findings, (as quoted from the above link):
72 percent say “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” But just as many (72 percent) also say the church is “full of hypocrites.”
44 percent agree with the statement “Christians get on my nerves.”
More than one in five (22 percent) of Americans say they never go to church, the highest ever recorded by the General Social Survey, conducted every two years by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In 2004, the percentage was 17 percent.
And 61 percent say the God of the Bible is “no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.,” although Buddhist philosophy has no god and Hindus worship many.
Most of the unchurched (86 percent) say they believe they can have a “good relationship with God without belonging to a church.” And 79 percent say “Christianity today is more about organized religion than loving God and loving people.”
78 percent would “be willing to listen” to someone tell “what he or she believed about Christianity.”
And 71 percent agreed that “believing in Jesus makes a positive difference in a person’s life.”
New forms of community, such as Internet Bible study and prayer circles, also mean some people don’t believe they need a church,
I’d say that’s proof something has gone screwy, wonky, or whatever you want to call it. When people are willing to listen to the message of God from a believer, and think the presence of God helps a person’s life, but they are unwilling to step foot inside a church, then churches have major problems to overcome.
Not to mention the huge problem with the belief that all religions follow the same God. As the article pointed out, how can this possibly be true when Buddhists believe in no god, Hindu’s believe in tons of gods, and Christians, Muslims and Jews believe in one God. Reading this idea explains why, when Muslims send out suicide bombers, Christians are criticized. Well, it’s all the same God, isn’t it? When Hindus in India are burning churches, and beating and killing Christians, is the media failing to mention it because they don’t think it matters? After all, it’s all the same God? Right? When a video of Tom Cruise (if you haven’t seen it, it’s good for a laugh, or to make you say, “What the heck is he even talking about?!”) surfaces that makes him look so whacked out even Scientologists want it removed from the Internet, should we criticize Christians for it? Why not, they all serve the same God, right? But, if that’s true, why aren’t Christians going on the same rampages, and using the same tactics when we are insulted? Why are we free to be criticized, while Muslims are called “peace lovers”? When’s the last time a Christian killed a nun because someone drew an unflattering picture of Jesus, you know, kind of like what happened with Muslims and Mohammad recently. If it’s all the same God, he sure is asking for different things from each religion.
The article mentions another point, with the major shifts in how we communicate faith no longer needed to be carried out or learned in churches alone. Now, there are millions of internet sites, dedicated to bringing the gospel, and even fellow Christians, right into our own homes. (Without them actually being there to annoy us, right?) Well then, that’s great. These people must be finding true faith at work in the Internet. I hope so. But, last week I stumbled upon another article that made me wonder:
100 Greatest Quotes from Fundamentalist Christian Chat Rooms
I realize it would really easy to go to atheists, Muslims, Jewish, or any groups chat rooms, pull off their most incriminating comments, put them in one article, and bash that group. That appears to be the intent of this author. And they did some pretty terrible things, things that would make many members not want to be a part of said group. But, I have seen many good things, loving things, said online, with a much different spirit.
I was told recently, “You will always find the bad if you go looking for it.” This article composes some stupid comments, and some pretty cruel comments. It’s the cruel ones I find I have the hardest time with. Especially, this one:
Seriously, does anybody ever cry at an Atheist’s funeral?I mean, since Atheists have no value whatsoever as humanbeings (they’re not even human, but only inhuman animals),since Atheists are nothing but miserable Liars, Cowardsand Murderers, after all, why would anybody in theirright mind weep over the dead rotting corpse, or bonechips and ashes (that get mixed together with those ofothers from the crematory) of a worthless dead Atheist?And what epitaph do you engrave on an Atheist’s gravemarker? “Here lies the only good Atheist, which is adead Atheist”. What else is there say? Nothing at all.No last words, no last rites, no flowers, no anything.Every time an Atheist dies, the world is better off as a result of that dead Atheist being dead, & its damnedGod-forsaken soul burning in the fiery pits of Hades. :)Which begs another related question, do Atheists cry atfunerals? If so, why? Since Atheists hate God, and theyhate Family, and they hate Country, who are they cryingfor? It is true: The only good Atheist is a dead Atheist.
I would cry at an atheist’s funeral, a lot. And, how can this person say that just because someone does not believe in God that they don’t love their family or their country. Furthermore, hell is no laughing matter. I do not find anywhere in the Bible that God wants anyone to go there; I believe he is very much saddened by it.
This person seemed to have forgotten a few fundamental points: he was once no more then an atheist to God himself. If he became a Christian as a child, there was a point in his life when he had declared himself, and thus, he was no more committed than the atheist he dare write of “Here lies the only good Atheist, which is adead Atheist”
It is not our goodness that saves us. We are no better then anyone on this planet, and by biblical standards, God has a plan for all of us. He has ways to use people who don’t submit to his plan, even an atheist. He is in charge, Buddy, we’re not. He determines our worth, not you, Pal. Furthermore, that dead atheist was a life He created, and it meant just as much to Him as yours. So, before you decide the worth of another human being, you might want to prove you are worth something first. If we want members of a group we do not belong to, to love us, we need to be kind to them and stop judging. Because, honestly, if I wasn’t already a Christian when I read comments like that, I may seriously re-think it.
It’s easy to get online and randomly post anything, without much thought. Even if we are just typing about God on the Internet, we are still representatives of Him. Some places our comments are not really seen. But, what if our thoughts do get read? And read with the purpose of harvesting our words to make us look horrible, and violent, and mean, and stupid. People can always twist what we say, to make us look different than we intended. But, in some cases they don’t need to, because we’ve made ourselves look bad without any effort on their part. We need to be authentic. (If you don’t believe me, just go watch the Tom Cruise video above.)
Topics: Faith |