iMonk 101: Why Do They Hate Us?
March 11, 2009 by iMonk
One of the first big splashes this blog made was when this post (2002!) made it into the atheist blogosphere. I got about a hundred notes from atheists saying “Thanks.” I’ve always agreed with what I wrote here, and I’ve always felt it was important. I also know that many culture-warring Christians will say this is a surrender document and I should join in the hatred of those who sometimes hate us. Check with Jesus on that one.
Here’s “Why Do They Hate Us?” from this blog, 2002 version.
I don’t really know why someone thought it was necessary to do a poll to see just who were the most disliked groups in society, but the results are in. While serial killers and IRS agents still come in last, hot on their heels are evangelical Christians. Not Christians in general. Not Roman Catholics. Not all Christians, but evangelical Christians.
If you’re like me, you have three reactions to this news. First, you tend to blame the media. Almost every portrayal of an evangelical Christian on television or in movies makes us look like the worst version of every stereotype we fear. Of course, one cannot expect the mainstream media to take up the cause of rescuing the evangelical public image, and these days virtually every group has a list of complaints with various kinds of media portrayals. There is more to the public perception of Bible believers than a media vendetta.
The second reaction is what we tend to say to one another to reassure ourselves that we are really OK after all. “It’s the Gospel,” we say to one another. Evangelicals are identified with a message that no one wants to hear, and so they are disliked. If you don’t believe it, watch what happens when an evangelical leader appears on a talk show. It’s like raw meat to hungry lions, no matter if the evangelical in question is rude or wonderful. (I have seen some of the nicest evangelicals torn limb from limb in these settings including liberals who gave away the store.)
I would never argue with the basic premise of this observation. I have seen its truth too many times. They crucified Jesus. Enough said. But as true as this is, it is too simplistic to explain the increasing level of general despising of evangelicals in our society. It explains one thing, but it does not explain many other things. It actually may tend to blind us to our own behaviors. Like the residents of Jerusalem who were convinced their city could not fall because the temple was there, evangelicals may explain this dislike as reaction to the Gospel and then be blind to those things- in addition to the Gospel- that create legitimate animosity.
The third reaction is the guilty knowledge that evangelicals really are, very often, easy to dislike for many obvious reasons. Many evangelicals know exactly what the survey is registering, because they feel the same way themselves. We’ve all observed, in others and in ourselves, distinctively evangelical vices, hypocrisies and failures. We hoped that our good points would make up for these problems, but that was another self-deception.
It is easy to say that people’s dislike of Christians is the dislike of the Christian message, but that simply doesn’t hold up in the real world. It may be true of the Christian you don’t know, but the Christians you do know have it in their power to either make it easy or difficult for you to dislike them. For example, the Christian in your car pool may believe what others refuse to believe, but his life provides a powerful antidote to any prejudice against him. Thousands of missionaries have been opposed for simply being Christians. But hundreds of thousands have lived lives that adorned the Gospel with attractive, winsome and loving behavior. A past president of our school was revered by Muslims during and after 6 years of Peace Corps service in Iran, years where he talked about the Gospel to Muslims every day and saw many trust Christ. The fact that the Gospel has penetrated into many hostile environments is evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit, but it is also evidence that one way the Spirit works is by making Christians a display of the fruits of love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control.
We are loathed, caricatured, avoided and disliked because we often deserve it. There, I said it and I’m glad I did.
Here’s my list of why evangelicals are among the most disliked persons in America.
1. Christians endorse a high standard of conduct for others, and then largely excuse themselves from a serious pursuit of such a life. Jesus is the most admired person in history, but evangelicals are far more likely to devise ways for Jesus to be like us than for us to be like Jesus.
If it hasn’t struck you lately that you do the very thing you condemn others for doing, (Romans 2:1) urge others to do what you don’t do or excuse in yourself what you require in others, then you probably don’t get this article at all.
Did it irritate you when your dad said “Do as I say, not as I do.”? Then you get the picture.
2. Evangelical Christian piety in America is mostly public. Whether it’s our entertainment-saturated “worship” services, our celebrity cults or our mad obsession with worldly success, we love for others to see what “God is doing in our lives.” Of course, Jesus had plenty to say about this, and the essence of it is that when your piety is public, then there is almost certainly a lack of serious, life-transforming, private obedience and discipleship.
I have lately been strongly convicted by J.C. Ryle’s little book, “A Call To Prayer.” Ryle makes a devastating case for the obvious absence of the discipline of private prayer among Christians. What would Ryle say today? Does our public manner grow out of a true inward experience of private prayer? You see what I am talking about. If its public, we do it well. If it’s private discipleship, we probably don’t do it at all.
3. Many evangelicals relate to others with an obvious- or thinly disguised- hidden agenda. In other words, those who work with us or go to school with is feel that we are always “up to” something. You mean, they know we want to convert them? Apparently. Ever been yelled at for saying “I’ll pray for you.”? Maybe there was a reason.
You know that feeling you get when a telemarketer interrupts your dinner? I get that feeling sometime when my Pentecostal/Charismatic friends are trying to persuade me into their camp. It’s not that I don’t know they are good, decent, law abiding people who like me. I just want them to quit treating me as a target or a project and start treating me as a person who is free to be myself AND different from them.
This same feeling is prevalent among those who dislike evangelical Christians. They are annoyed and sometimes angered that we are following some divine directive to get them to abandon their life choices and take up ours. They want to be loved as they are, not for what they might become if our plan succeeds.
Evangelicals have done a lot of good work on how to present the Gospel, but much of that work has operated on initial premises that are irritating and offensive. I have taken my share of evangelism courses, and there is a great blind spot on how to be an evangelist without being annoying and pushy. We somehow think that the Holy Spirit takes care of that aspect of evangelism! Thank God for men like Francis Schaefer and Jerome Barrs who have done much to model evangelism that majors of maintaining the utmost respect towards those we evangelize.
4. We seem consumed with establishing that we are somehow “better” than other people, when the opposite is very often true. Many evangelicals are bizarrely shallow and legalistic about minute matters. We are frequently psychologically unsound, psychiatrically medicated, filled with bitterness and anger, tormented by conflicts and, frankly, unpleasant to have around.
I have an atheistic acquaintance who never misses an opportunity to post a news story about a morally compromised minister. Is he just being mean? No; he is pointing out the obvious mess that is the inner life and outward behavior of many evangelicals, truths we like to avoid or explain as “attacks of the enemy.” Our families are broken, our marriages fail and our children are remarkably worldly and messed up. Yet, we boldly tell the world that we have the answer for all their ills! How many churches proclaim that a sojourn with them will fix that marriage and those kids? Do we really have the abundant life down at the church, ready to be dispensed in a five week class?
We are not as healthy and happy as we portray ourselves. The realities of broken marriages among the Christian celebrity set underlines the inability of evangelicals to face up to their own brokenness. Was there some reason that Sandi Patti and Amy Grant were supposed to be immune from failed marriages? Why did their divorces make them pariahs in evangelicalism? The fact is that most evangelicals are in deep denial about what depravity and sinfulness really means. The world may have similar denial problems, but I don’t think they can approach us for the spiritual veneer. The crowd at the local tavern may have issues, but they frequently beat Christians by miles in the realistic humanity department. Maybe they should pity us, but the fact is that, as the situation becomes more obvious, they don’t like us.
5. We talk about God in ways that are too familiar and make people uncomfortable. Evangelicals constantly talk about a “personal relationship ” with God. Many evangelicals talk as if God is talking to them and leading them by the hand through life in a way only the initiated can understand. Christian testimonies may give a God-honoring window into the realities of Christian experience, or it may sound like a psychological ploy to promote self importance.
Evangelicals have yet to come to grips with their tendency to make God into a commodity. The world is far more savvy about how God is “used” to achieve personal or group ends than most evangelicals admit. Evangelicals may deny that they have made God into a political, financial or cultural commodity, but the world knows better. How does an unbeliever hear the use of Jesus to endorse automobiles, political positions or products?
In my ministry, I have observed how difficult it is to evangelize Buddhists. One of the reasons is that the Buddhist assumes that if you are serious about your religious experience, you will become a monk! When he sees American Christians talking about a relationship with God, yet does not see a corresponding impact upon the whole of life, he assumes that this religion is simply an expression of culture or group values. Now we may critique such a response as not understanding certain basic facts about the Gospel, but we also have to acknowledge the truth observed! Rather than being people who are deeply changed, we are people who tend to use God to change others or our world to suit ourselves.
6. Evangelicals are too slow to separate themselves from what is wrong. Because ours is a moral religion, and we frequently advertise our certainty in moral matters, it seems bizarrely hypocritical when that moral sense is applied so inconsistently.
I note that my evangelical friends are particularly resistant to this matter, but the current Trent Lott affair makes the point plainly. Lott says that he now repudiates any allegiance to segregation or the symbols of segregation. Suddenly, he sees the good sense in a number of things he has opposed. But bizarrely, Lott stands behind his evangelical Christianity as the explanation for his sudden conversion.
Watching this spectacle, there are many reactions, but what interests me is how Lott’s Christianity only seems to apply now that he is being dangled over political hell. Where was all this moral sense in the 1960’s? Where was it ten years ago? Why does it appear that Lott is using his religion at his convenience? It’s not my place to judge what is going on between Lott and his God, but his apparent pragmatism in these matters is familiar to many people observing evangelicals on a daily basis.
Most evangelicals are not the moral cutting edge of contemporary social issues. Despite the evangelical conscience on issues like abortion, it is clear to many that we no longer have the cutting edge moral sense of a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a William Wilberforce. Evangelicals are largely annoyed at people who tell them to do the right thing if it doesn’t enhance their resume, their wallet, their family or their emotions.
What is odd about this is that many of those who dislike evangelicals have the idea that we want to impose our morality upon an entire culture. Fear-mongering liberals often talk about the Bush administration as populated by fundamentalist Christian Taliban poised to bring about a Christian theocracy. I wonder if they have noticed that President Bush- an evangelical right down to his boots- is practicing religious tolerance over the loud objections of evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell?
7. We take ourselves far too seriously, and come off as opposed to normal life. Is it such a bid deal that Christians are offended at so many things others consider funny? I’ll admit, it is a small thing, but it is one of the reasons ordinary people don’t like us.
I read an incident written by a preacher to an internet list I monitor. He told about taking his youth group on an outing, when the students began singing a popular country song about a guy who leaves his wife to pursue his fishing hobby. It’s a hilarious song. But this fellow’s reaction was predictable. He asked them to not a song about a marriage that breaks up, and to instead sing something that honored God. I routinely hear students ridiculing a fellow teacher who labels much of what students find funny as “of the devil.”
These incidents show something that evangelicals need to admit. We are frequently unable to see humor, absurdity, and the honest reasons for humans to laugh at themselves. What very normal, very healthy people find laughable, we find threatening and often label with the ridiculous label of “the devil.”
The message here isn’t just that we are humorless or Puritanical. The message is that being human or being real is somehow evil. This is one place I can feel exactly what the unbelievers are talking about. When I see Christians trying to rob young people of the right to be normal, ordinary and human, it angers me. I feel threatened. It’s hard to like people who seem to say that God, Jesus and Scripture are the enemies of laughter, sex, growing up and ordinary pleasures. Some Christians sometimes seem to say that everything pleasurable is demonic or to be avoided to show what a good Christian you are. Isn’t it odd that unbelievers are so much more aware of the plain teaching of scripture than we are?
I am sure there is much more to say, but I have ridden this horse far enough. Certainly, unregenerate persons are at enmity with God by nature. And, without a doubt, Christians represent a message that is far from welcome. Christians doing the right thing risk being labeled enemies of society. Much persecution is cruel and evil. But that’s not the point. Christians are disliked for many reasons that have nothing to do with the Gospel, and everything to do with the kind of people we are in the relationships God has given us. The message of salvation won’t earn a standing ovation, but people who believe that message are not given a pass to rejoice when all men hate you…for any reason, including reasons that are totally our own fault.
No doubt someone will write me and say that, to the extent people like us, we have denied the Gospel. Therefore, being despised and hated is proof that you are on the right track. And there is a certain amount of truth to that observation in some situations that Christians may find themselves in. But that is an explanation for how we are treated, not directions on how to make sure we are rejected and hated by most people for reasons having nothing to do with the message of the cross. I hate to say it, but I’ve learned that when a preacher tells me he was fired from his church for “taking a stand for God,” it usually means he was just a jerk.
The scriptures tell us that the early Christians were both persecuted and thought well of for their good lives and good works. What was possible then is still possible now. I’ve seen it and I hope I see more of it…in my life.
(COMMENTERS: You can discuss the article. We won’t be debating atheism vs Christianity, nor will I allow either team to generally accuse the other of atrocity. Heavy moderation ahead.)
Put in starker, more visual terms: What is the difference between New Life Church and Taktsang Temple?
John Blue: The phrase “heavy moderation ahead” is because I’m not going to have either side just slinging the same old tired rhetoric. Which is what you posted. Call me what you want. Go find another Christian who would write that article.
j: On the level of religion in general, probably not much. On the level of how they each understand ultimate reality and the specifics of their own beliefs, considerable. From the standpoint of anti-religionists, probably none.
New Life looks like it has better parking.
Jesus Himself said the “world” would hate us. A righteous person is a “walking rebuke” to the unrighteous–without ever opening their mouth.
Those who hate our God will also hate us.
Why should we expect “lost people” to act any differently?
Phil:
I don’t argue with that scripture, I accept it. But if we act like jerks- and we do, all the time- then that scripture isn’t an excuse.
And that’s how we use it- as an excuse for refusing to treat other people as Jesus has treated us.
peace
ms
I am one of the “theys” you are speaking of and I felt I needed to comment. Your post made plenty of good points and I believe you must be quite a preacher/pastor. I was brought up in a churchless home by agnostic parents so naturally, I followed their direction. This caused problems when I was going to marry my wife of six years. Her family, whom are Presbyterian, were unsure if I was a good, moral person since I didn’t attend church or claim a religion. It took a long time for them to warm up to the idea of a morally just person without a religion. Thankfully, I changed their minds and the wife and I have been happy ever since.
The issue that I see, often first hand, is that many Evangelicals don’t believe that a person can make the right decisions without going to church every Sunday. That is a huge judgement that has no real merit as it relates to most of society. My personal beliefs follow those taught in the Bible very closely, but I don’t believe that I should act as I do because of God’s will. I act as I do because it is my duty as a human and, additionally, nobody likes a jerk.
You are correct in saying that the bar group is more real than many Evangelicals. The bar group makes no qualms over their lifestyle, beliefs and morality. Many times, those people’s beliefs follow the same lines as your own, but they are condemned for the activity of sitting in one place rather than the other. Both the bar and the church are man made buildings where people go for support, friendship and relief from the stresses of the day and both places have addicts that abuse the facilities. Unfortunately, those abusers are the people that are the public face of both establishments. It is unfair on both sides and it does more harm than good.
I would hope that Evangelicals will realize that there are plenty of good people in the World that do not attend church. Truthfully, I feel most spiritual in nature. Being in a building never did it for me. It seemed artificial and that is suited man’s interpretation of what God wanted, but that interpretation has been bastardized by making churches into businesses. When I need God, I go surfing, hiking, or anything else in the World he made. I wouldn’t dare think that my building was God’s house.
Sorry for the long post, but if we can have a better understanding between our two groups, we can all be better people and our society can progress. Keep writing these and I’ll keep reading them.
*On the level of religion in general, probably not much. On the level of how they each understand ultimate reality and the specifics of their own beliefs, considerable. From the standpoint of anti-religionists, probably none.
New Life looks like it has better parking.*
Mayhap it is so. There’s probably more places to tie up your mule at Taktsang, though.
But you don’t feel slightly, I dunno, *warmer*; more caressed and embraced and respected as a human being looking at Taktsang (or, if you prefer, Yemrehanna Christos church in Ethiopia) than you do at New Life Church or the Crystal Cathedral?
Me, I look at New Life Church’s facade and think: “Yes, that’s the definitely sort of place I’d go into to have my Borg implants installed.”
In the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t been much, but my work with training youth has proved encouraging when they are taught a less traditional message. Teaching the Apostles Creed, showing what “love your neighbor” really looks like, discussing the value of repentance, and the like seems to bring up students who have more humility and grace for those who are aren’t Christians.
Call me “over-the-top,” but I think we can mis-represent holiness to such a degree that it, in practice, it has the stench of something else. Say it with me…
P-H-A-R-I-S-E-E
j:
The fellows at the BHT have long said that if we abandon Christianity, Shinto is our next choice.
Church architecture— not a concern of Jesus, thankfully.
peace
ms
J: The difference between the two temple and New Life is that the builders of the temples used the natural landscape that God gave them in their designs while New Life obliterated his creation to install a God Mall.
J, ” I look at New Life Church’s facade and think: “Yes, that’s the definitely sort of place I’d go into to have my Borg implants installed.””
I can’t help but smile and laugh everytime I read your comments. I love the wit!
Interestingly, on the subject of the buildings per.se (ignoring all esle in imonk’s article if I may), there was a wonderful documentary produced her in the UK which I saw about 18 months ago. The doco examined changes in British architecture, and had an episode on ‘places of worship’. It’s interesting to note how the protestant reformation theology greatly influenced the understanding of design in terms of church buildings. The “escape from rome” was reflected in protestant and later evangelical architecture by their erection or largely unadorned, buildings. The thinking being A) in part reaction to the material excesses of Rome and B) following the notion that God could/would communicate with all directly and didn’t need to go through a priesthood/ papacy.
As time has gone on, these architectural and design norms have been freed from their original philosophical intentions, and have become almost doctrinal in their own right. Hence, in part the proliferation of minimalist warehouse style places of worship. Like perhaps yourself and others, I’d much rather spend my time someplace nice . . . with a log fire in the corner, a glass of Piper Heidsieck in my ahnd and some Edward Elgar on the stereophonic.
A very thought provoking article. I agree we evangelicals do much to harm ourselves. I often think we spend to more effort on the political moral issues rather than reaching out with love to those who are hurting. If we take care of the harvest, God will take care of the politics.
I would agree also agree that we need humor. But I would like to point out that a major form of humor I see that is being used is sarcasm. I think Christians need to be very careful when they use sarcasm. Sarcasm might look funny on television but the target of sarcasm is almost always a negative attack on the individual instead of something they did. It’s humor at the expense of the individual. I watched a band teacher who proclaimed to the class that he was a Christian but then constantly used sarcasm to deride their performance. He thought he was being funny and humor was a soft way to correct the students and get his point across. Unfortunately, he crushed their spirits and demoralized them. In the end he lost his job because of so many upset parents and my child is still in counseling. I hate to think what kind of image he left in the minds of those kids for what a Christian is.
So I agree that we need humor, but avoid the sarcasm that attacks the person and is just for your own personal laughs.
some interesting thoughts
a little over a year ago i got to tag along as one of my seminary professors had a lunch with an evangelical biblical scholar & culture guru. i’ll leave him unnamed, but he said something about this topic which really stuck with me: “unfortunately our culture as witnessed evangelical churches who are quick to dish out criticism but unwilling to receive any.” i think that soundbite speaks volumes.
These incidents show something that evangelicals need to admit. We are frequently unable to see humor, absurdity, and the honest reasons for humans to laugh at themselves. What very normal, very healthy people find laughable, we find threatening and often label with the ridiculous label of “the devil.”
It reminds me a lot of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” (sadly, I only know if the movie with Christian Slater and Sean Connery, which I saw in my high school history class) – the motivation behind the murders being that the monks who got killed had the utter gall to read a book about comedy.
Great post. I no longer like to associate myself as an Evangelical anymore for the above reasons you list. I agree 100% with what you are saying. You spoke my mind (thanks, so I did not have to write it myself) After 10 years in the institutional church, I have left to follow Christ as the head of His Church.
Thanks again for being bold for Christ.
Brian
Phil, 1 Peter 2:19-20
For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.
If a person acts like a total jerk, he has no standing to say he is “suffering for the cause of Christ.”
Insight…reflection…honesty…compassion for ALL as well as ourselves…
No matter the denomination Christians are called to follow the radical message of love as exemplified by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
In order to embrace this message we must discard the all to human tendency for arrogance and judgement. That’s not to say we should confuse compassion with compromise of core Christian theology, but we must return to the exact words of Christ. There we will find that God commands us to be the balm for those in pain, the QUIET friend who listens, and an example that people WANT to follow.
Your article hits the nail on the head. How many times do Christians profess a “faith” from a street corner yet fail to comfort and feed the homeless man on the same street? How often do we take an anti-abortion stance, calling it “pro-life”, and then turn to shouting for the support of war. I could go on and on, but you have so eloquently expressed the great challenge that needs to be addressed by ALL American Christians.
Thank you so much for posting this. As an Evangelical myself, I’ve seen every item in your list, and more besides.
I have to admit I can see why so many feel dislike towards us, I feel that way myself at times.
I know this is re-posted and I’m sure you did and are currently receiving a great many shots that don’t show up in the comments. If we are going to address these problems though, we must call them out for what they are. I’m glad you can have the voice and platform to do just that, we need more of this.
We need to distinguish between “national evangelicals” and the local Christians. I am evangelical. While a sinner, this article does not apply to me yet I am part of what is blamed as the problem. The root of this problem is a lack of righteousness. Period. It is a spiritual problem which has a spiritual answer. My challenge to all on this site who profess to be Christians is this, have you prayed for your evangelical family? As I recall “one who is spiritual” is supposed to restore a fallen brother. Yet most of what is here is simply further condemnation.
Although most of what you wrote I believe to be accurate, you omitted a crutial aspect of Christianity. Christ did not want to build the perfect church – if He wanted that then he would not have built it on man (Peter). Where man falls short (which you detailed above) God’s Grace comes in. God knows we are not perfect, and many times we should step aside and let the Gospel speak for itself… But if someone is seeking God, then His Grace and the Holy Spirit are more than enough to overcome the imperfections of the Church. And even if all the “imperfections” with the church were removed, the world would still despise Christians because of the Gospel.
Many good points are made by your posters, as well as some very astute observations by yourself.
Some other things “we” find disturbing about evangelics, not just Christians:
The whole agenda thing you refer to – the hi-jacking of huge sections of your movement around the single agenda item of abortion, as well as the inherent judgment that is behind recruitment to begin with.
The “grow at any cost” mentality from a mega-church perspective.
The presumption that a “saved” teenager has anything to say to an un-saved adult. Go LIVE your religion, then get back to me.
The lack of emphasis on internal growth, the over-emphasis on externals.
As one poster pointed out, the presumption that moral strength requires a religious – even denominational basis.
I just noticed how many times I have made reference to states of prejudgement, how about the moral stance that presumes to judge others at all?
But I don’t have to go to evangelical Christians to find these behaviors, so don’t feel like the Lone Rangers here.
I fall into the under-surveyed and ill-defined group of “spiritual but not religious”. I don’t trust organized religion for many of the very reasons you have so eloquently pointed out in several of your articles.
But the Catholics and many others have fallen into the same traps. Specifically the Catholics have some historical authors of staggering strength and wisdom. But they don’t like talking about their spiritual side either. So who is the message designed to draw then?
Great and TIMELY post! I see apostate evangelicals As being represented by the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like ‘those sinners.’ I see the true evangelical as the other man who prayed ‘have mercy on me a sinner.’ The true evangelical is the Daniel, in the world of Babylon, but spiritually not of Babylon. But in the midst of pure ungodliness, Daniel quietly lived his faith. And he was loved for his kindness, gentleness, and respect for the ordained…God-given seat of authority held by an ungodly King Nebuchadnezzar. Later, under the rule of Belshazzar, Daniel was loved (Daniel 5) by the King. Daniel was a man of God and he was loved by pagan kings? How could that be? It was so because Daniel loved them….and his love for them was genuine. (Rom 13:10) The genuine Christian has no ill towards his fellow man….even though he be sinful. Romans 12: 9 says to ‘abhor’ evil. It doesn not say ‘abhor the sinner.’ Spiritual warfare involves wickedness in ‘high’ (spiritual powerheads). The war is not against flesh and blood….the sinner.
The culture war being fought by selfrighteous evangelicals has provoked the rejection of their sincere attempts at naming sin. But, like the Parisee, the attemtp is doomed to failure because it is not rooted in love. Love never fails.
Sunday, during our visit with female inmates at the county jail for Bible study, a new inmate was brought into the cell block. She had just dressed herself in the black and white striped clothing and had been given a grey wool blanket. We, my sister and myself, we greeting, laughing, hugging, and lifting up the other inmates. We invited the new inmate to join us but she was too upset. She wouldn’t even respond to others at all. She was housed in an open-door cell cubicle directly attached to the common area where we and the others inmates were socializing. After about 45 minutes, I could no longer leave this troubled young woman to herself. I quietly left the group and walked into her cell cubicle. She was on the bed with face buried in her pillow and the grey blanket covering her head leaving only space to breath. SHE WAS HURTING BAD! I didn’t need to know why she was arrested. I didn’t need to know anything about her. My heart was absolutely filled with compassion (from God) for this lonely being. I leaned down, touched her shoulder saying, “Are yu asleep?” She pulled the blanket back just enough to look at me. She didn’t speak. I knew in my heart that the only thing I could give this very needy young woman was ‘love.’ I leaned down and pulled the strands of hair from her eyes and stroked her temple….gently….while saying to her, “I am so, so sorry! Can you believe me when I tell you that all this will get better? I love you. I’m not your mother. She’s not here. But I am. If you were my daughter lying there in such desolateion, I would hope someone would encourage her…would have compassion for her hurts. Again, I am so, so very sorry for the situation you are in. I love you.” Then..I left her and went back to the group. I shared with the group about the deceiver’s trap concerning homosexuality. I shared how God wanted them to have the joy of a right marriage union. How God wanted them to have the joy of holding the offspring of that right marriage union. How much God wanted them to know the joy of ‘trust’ within that right marriage relationship. Then I shared what the deceiver desires for them . I leave all the outcomes to God.
As ‘evangelicals,’ I guess you could call us, these inmates NEVER fail to welcome us with hugs, smiles, open arms, and lots of tears. They are PRECIOUS. And they ‘know’ we see them as PRECIOUS.
.
Once again, a very impressive, honest and self-introspective piece. As an interested nonbeliever, I appreciate the topic, tone and tenor very much.
Let me add one other offputting characteristic of among evangelicals – The tendency to play victim.
Whenever a particular article of faith, doctrine, political stance or public pronouncement by some preacher, cleric or other public figure of a religious bent is challenged, somebody screams “anti-Christian bias” and claims the mantle of the persecuted.
Relating this to your main point – It’s like the unpopular high school student who says he behaves obnoxiously because people pick on him rather than seeing that people pick on him because he behaves obnoxiously.
Why am I angry with evangelicals?
Because I grew up with them. Because they raised me in ignorance and fear. Because I spent my childhood terrified, feeling guilty, wanting to die or be tortured for Jesus to prove my earnestness, dreaming of the apocalypse and my school friends burning in hell.
And because now that I am grown, and have learned, healed and live an ethically superior life without guilt — they tell me that I am hiding from God like a thief from the police, they tell me that my education and research is meaningless, and pretend that they understand evolution better than I do — even though I teach about Miller & Urey at the university level and they can barely cough out the words “amino acids”.
WOw! I have only just started reading your postings here– very encouraged by your insight. Thanks
Jared, sorry to be blunt, but you are wrong. The World doesn’t despise Christians. The World despises hypocrites. Be true and you will have respect.
It is funny to me that we are quick to take hold of verses that make it look like people hate us because they hate God or the Gospel while ignoring verses about God giving favor to us among men.
We will do almost anything to avoid seriously considering critisism..
Forgive me for reposting–I put this on a lower thread (where it is still awaiting moderation), but felt it fit the conversation here better. feel free to remove the other copy from your moderation queue.
You are the first (and last?) christian blog that has been added to my RSS feeds. We don’t agree on everything, but if I’d encountered a minister like you in my teens, I might have followed up on what I at one time devoutly believed was a Call to Ministry (until i was pointed to I Corinthians and assured that it was a False Vocation planted by Satan).
I am what you might be called a “convinceable agnostic”. While I try to live my life as best I can in reflection of Jesus as depicted in the gospels (and fall short much of the time), the rules of “salvation” as explained to me by evangelicals, etc. seem arbitrary, sadistic, and simply don’t make rational sense. I’ve no use for the radicals of either the PZ Myers Wafer Crucifixion crowd or the people who shunned me and other intelligent, creative young people out of the church as a teen by behaving far more like Pharisees and Saducees then anything else.
I’ll spare the gory details, but in a nutshell, I couldn’t get adequate (to an angry 15 year old geek girl) answers to the following questions:
a: Why is homosexuality considered a greater abomination in modern society than eating shellfish?
b: Why were we sure the world was going to end before the year 2000 even though Christianity had a centuries-long tradition of Rapture Predications, all of which turned out to be wrong? (and for that matter, why couldn’t I find a clear reference to the rapture in the bible?)
c: Why were the contents of our Bible decided by Emperor Constantine and a bunch of squabbling men in Nicea 1500 years ago?
d: Why was my youth minister fired for saying “Creator God” instead of “heavenly father” when she led prayers?
e: If we can “name it and claim it”, why do Good Things and Bad Things seem to be randomly distributed amongst honorable christians, hypocritical churchgoers, and nonbelievers?
Alas, everyone in youth group (after the aforementioned pastor got canned) was too busy gossiping about the sexual depravities that took place at the competing brand’s (er, denomination’s) Youth Camp and explaining the “lay hands on the engine manifold” school of car repair to engage in such theologically rigorous questions. The final straw of churchgoing came the year I did an “in-depth” bible study class the same year as I took a great books course in college that covered the bible, and figured out that my professor actually knew the bible’s history and contents better than my pastor did.
I wandered through other faith traditions for most of the next decade, before settling into my current position of honest agnosticism, realizing that George Carlin made a more coherent case for Atheism than most pastors I knew had made for the Resurrection. I live an ethical life by most philosophical and christian standards, we “tithe” 10% of our income to charities we care about (ranging from a local church soup kitchen to No on Prop 8), and I know that most of you are going to be praying for me to be born again tonight.
I’ll be honest though–if I find out that all that the “biblical literalists” say is true, and that there is a God that arbitrarily has condemned 4/5ths of the planet to damnation because they weren’t lucky enough to have been heterosexuals born in the US or Western Europe after 500AD or successfully converted by someone from that group, who speaks of universal love after committing multiple genocides in the Old Testament, I will take my chances outside the Pearly Gates, thank you.
That said, as an outsider I do see the Church changing, and would be open to returning if there was a place for me and those like me. For those reasons, I lurk here, and I listen. But please know that at least some of us who have left are not self-centered or evil. We’re the same as you–looking for a community that will accept us as we are and who will help us become better servants of our fellow men, and who look up from our books to stare into the sky at night and ask…why?
On the mark as usual, Michael. And still true in 2009. If evangelicals were questioned or hated (though I think true hatred is rare) only for adherence to the gospel and Jesus’ radical call to love and sacrifice, that would be great. Sometimes evangelicals are despised for that, but not usually.
Usually I find evangelicals seriously questioned and even despised for doing things that aren’t the gospel. In a strange way that gives me hope because it shows that many people really do have some fairly accurate idea of what being a Christian is supposed to look like. One example of this is the newspaper column at this link and the comments on it. The subject of the column is an evangelical pastor.
Jared,
Good points, and yet I think the main thrust of iMonk’s essay was this:
While the world may hate the gospel, don’t use that as an excuse to be a sinful jerk to other people.
Hey man, i appreciate your insight. The truth is that Jesus always spoke the truth (which sometimes was hated) but He did it in love not in defense of God. God didn’t need defending. WHat you highlighted, and accurately so in many cases, is our motives for speaking the truth. The people we scorn now a days are the people Jesus showed extreme love and forgiveness to while at the same time coming across harsh to the ‘righteous pious’ ones.
All that being said I am striving to let my motivation be love, not righteousness, defending, or even truth but love. B/C while the bible does say that you will be hated and endure suffering it doesn’t say that will happen 100% of the time but it does say that kindness leads to repentance. So what if instead of pushing our agenda we simply pushed kindness out of love and see what happens. The disciples and other New Testament leaders took this route and turned the world upside down with out ever comprising the message of Christ.
Thanks for you thoughts
I understand why they don’t like us. The truth is that most days I don’t like us. I don’t like our legalistic, self-righteous, condemning, nature that keeps us locked inside ourselves; scared to open up and be vulnerable with what should be our supportive family in Christ.
I used to play in a band comprised of Christians but our focus was playing in bars (the goal not to evangelize from the stage, but just to portray Christ by loving people.) I felt, and still feel, freer to be myself in a good bar than at church.
As the late pastor Adrian Rogers said; “Hypocrites in the Church, do tell!” Of course there are hypocrites in the church. There are false teachers, sinners of all shape and size, etc… In the end only God and the angels will be able to tell the difference between the wheat and the tares. Blaming the church because it contains false teachers, hypocrites, and tares is unbiblical thinking. Those who judge the message of the cross because the churches have sinners in them do so at their own peril. Dr. George Sweeting taught me many years ago that I am not responsible for the soil, God is. My job is to toss seed. The Good seed that is the Gospel. Sometimes the seed lands on rocky soil, or it actually sprouts a bit is choked by weeds or burned by the sun. Then again, God may allow it to take root. Blessings.
I very much liked what you wrote until I got to one of your closing paragraphs which seemed at odds with your message.
“Certainly, unregenerate persons are at enmity with God by nature.”
This type of spiritual arrogance is why evangelical christians are disliked by us unregenerate persons.
Christians, evangelical or otherwise, are not disliked for their beliefs. They are disliked for their behaviors.
Peace,
Paul
Thank you for posting this.
So much I have see just like this, both as an Evangelical and as a Catholic.
First off, I’m an atheist, but I don’t consider myself an ‘anti-religionist’ in any sense.
I just wanted to add to the mix my own thoughts on why people seem to dislike evangelicals. For me, I never feel like I have a problem with the fact that a lot of what they do is directed outward, rather my problem is with WHAT they’re directing outward.
Here at my evil liberal university, we actually had to read the synoptic gospels in a Western Civ class. Even as an atheist I was very impressed with Jesus. What jumped out at me most about him was his style of outreach. Maybe I’m off-base on this, but seemed to me that he INTENTIONALLY sought out the dregs of society…the sinners, the poor, the sick and the wretched. I don’t remember feeling like he sought them out to convert them or to condemn them, either. He seemed purely interested in helping them for the sake of helping them.
I guess what I’m getting at is, it seems like when I come into public contact with someone evangelizing, it seems like what they’re directing outward is more of a message of warning or condemnation or what’s wrong with myself or society. I would love to see more evangelicals directing outward things that Jesus actually modeled for them. Reaching out to the wretched and helping them for the sake of helping them, rather than simply telling them they are wretched and need to be like they (the evangelists) are. Just my two cents. Good post. Thank you.
I like what Dan Kimball said in regards to his book about this topic:
“It will be interesting to see the response to They Like Jesus but not the Church, as I imagine some church leaders won’t be too happy about how people view the church or how I agree with a lot that is said about the church. I don’t blame them for how many outside the church see us. But there is great hope, if we only realize that we have not been to Jesus-like in many situations or realize how we hide in the Christian bubble and get so entrenched in the strange sub-culture that most people don’t get to meet us and build trust in us.”
http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2007/02/they_like_jesus.html
Your blog post on the collapse of Evangelical Christianity made it to the CSMonitor online oped section so I followed the backlink here.
I can really appreciate the honesty in this post and would like to present a personal account of why I have come to be extremely angry and more than a little upset with the vast majority of Christian denominations and churches.
This is not an attack, but it is an angry diatribe. I was just as guilty in most senses as the people you describe in your observations.
See yourself in it or not, I just appreciate a forum to be heard on and would welcome the chance for dialog.
I grew up Catholic, dismissed it in eighth grade is irrelevant to my life (it truly was) and then fell for the trap of a sense of community at the youth group of an Evangelical Church.
I call it a trap because I lived in a house as part of a “family” that was really a group of people I couldn’t trust. My family was so dysfunctional that none of us kids could trust an enabling mom and a verbally abusive father and tormented each other as a way of dealing with the abuse.
I was desperate for a sense of belonging and affirmation that I thought I would find in the youth group. Unfortunately, there were two problems that made that unworkable.
The first is that someone who’s that desperate and needy gets the same cold shoulder – sometimes even colder – from other Christians in most cases. They don’t know how to cope, don’t want to in the first place so you get gently routed to the edge and politely ignored by most other attendees. Hey, Jesus solves all your problems and makes you a better person right away, right?
My second problem is that I was and am gay. This was long before Exodus or any other form of church sponsored response was formulated and I fell into that class of “stubborn problem” people that pastors, elders and others avoided because they had no answer.
As I became more open about that and family related issues, I was even more marginalized in the youth group. Having grown up in the Midwest, I was indoctrinated by my family, the larger community and the church to believe I was inherently defective and disposable.
Over time, I drifted in and out of a variety of churches and ministries. I kept seesawing between being feeling alienated and guilty because of my sexuality and spending long periods isolating and having anonymous encounters with other gay men.
I can definitely identify with Ted Haggard’s situation in more than one way. I struggled with the inherent conflict between my sexual orientation and my faith, the above behavior and had to do it alone.
The only difference was at the last church I attended. It was a “Fellowship Bible Church”. For those of you not familiar, that was a movement that sprang from Dallas Theolgical Seminary for founding churches with a focus on grace and authenticity about personal struggles. The founding pastor was an excellent model of both.
While there, I also benefited a great deal from a sort of ersatz friendship with the counseling pastor. By ersatz, I mean that he was far more a mentor than a counselor but still setting some counselor style boundaries. Regardless, for the first time, I felt like I was making some progress in a sense of self respect and appreciation for my own judgment.
So why did I leave? It’s because of a handful of issues that you captured in the blog posting I’m commenting on, Although they loved to hear it because it made them feel good, most attendees were just as unwilling to present anything other than a perfect front. Most were absolutely clueless with how self obsessed and bigoted they were.
At a dinner hosted by a couple promoting small groups, I got treated to some commiseration between two couples about how awful California was with all those bizarre gays. They even made a hobby of driving to gay areas and just sitting in their car watching and making fun of them. Note that one of the couples were the ones who organized the gathering.
It was at that Church that I was introduced to an Exodus ministry in Denver – also very grace focused. Unfortunately, the message there was just as painful. We were “broken people” who had to find resolution with God and our sexuality.
Just what that resolution was wasn’t specified. They were emphatic that it wasn’t a group therapy aimed at turning me straight but they also refused to say what the goal was.
With that kind of message being hammered home and no resolution in sight, I ended up suicidally depressed. Even without meaning to, Evangelicals by their very actions teach revulsion and hatred of anything homosexual.
Eventually, I came to believe that the suicidal depression was because I really was gay – not broken. I couldn’t continue in the Church and live that out, so I left.
They teach that because that’s really how they feel. Christians talk about how much they’re hated by non-Christians but refuse to take the log out of their own eye.
Those attempting to impose their world view and ethos through legal means is nothing short of Pharisaical. Those who do this while claiming to be Christians are anything but. Instead of getting out of their comfort zones and welcoming relationship with the very people they see as sinful (like Jesus), they are drawing thick, black circles of exclusion and telling us that our behavior is the only thing they care about.
Guess who did that in Jesus’ day? Guess who he spent the largest amount of time being publicly critical of? People like them – the Pharisees.
Jesus was publicly critical for a reason. He was trying as hard as he could to discredit that mindset so he could finally get them to understand that welcoming, loving actions were the essence of what he was teaching and THAT was what God wanted.
The bizarre thing to non-Christians is that most of you are so clueless. You’ve managed to convince most of us that, at best, you want to dominate us and you’re totally indifferent to our well being. At worst, you actually do hate us.
When was the last time YOU (any of you) actually visited someone in prison? When was the last time YOU took care of a non-christian who was sick? When was the last time any of YOU invited an abortion doctor, prostitute or homosexual over for dinner?
Most of you won’t even get out of your comfort zone enough to actually evangelize. Oh – and God forbid that one of you would be willing to admit to your own problems!
Is the rate of divorce for Evangelicals still higher than the overall average? The counseling pastor once told me that the incidence and severity of disfunctionality in families was just has high in the church as out.
Interestingly enough, the only people I ever heard publicly admitting that their lives weren’t perfect were the counseling pastor and the founding pastor at the last church.
Am I sounding angry? I believe I have reason. Do I hate you with too broad a brush stroke? Yeah, I have to admit I do as a gay man these days.
But I’m far from alone. I’m also far from alone in seeing many Christians as followers of the hypocritical Pharisees rather than the guy you name yourselves after.
You want cultural relevance? You want us to stop angry with you and hating you? Stop trying to run our lives. Start loving us where we are by what you DO rather than just mouthing the words. Just like with Jesus, we’ll know you don’t approve – that’s a given. But that didn’t stop him from eating meals with us sinners – nor should it stop you.
Finally, stop hiding your own problems from each other and us. It’s painfully obvious you ALL have them. How can you expect us to trust you when you’re so dishonest even with each other?
I guarantee you that if your church unanimously starts doing this you’ll stand out immediately. In fact, you’ll probably get far more media attention than you want.
Wow, this is solid. Thanks for reposting. How I’ve been unaware of your blog for so long I don’t know. I’m subscribing right now.
“Fear-mongering liberals often talk about the Bush administration as populated by fundamentalist Christian Taliban poised to bring about a Christian theocracy. I wonder if they have noticed that President Bush- an evangelical right down to his boots- is practicing religious tolerance over the loud objections of evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell?” Don’t mistake George Bush as the architect behind any Dominionist designs on our country. In this, like so many other things, the man was largely a figure head who placed in power a large number of subordinates who were not so tolerant and benign. For example google “Monica Goodling Regent University Justice Department” for just one example of how the Bush administration acted to inject a Dominionist strain into a department key to the execution of the laws of this country. And controlling the law, what gets enforced, what gets ignored, who is prosecuted is a very powerful way of molding the country to follow a certain direction should that be your goal. Christian Taliban is certainly hyperbolic, but the actions of this administration have not been consistent with the First Amendment. And this is why some of us fear you Christians. I could go on, but you’ll probably not allow this post so I’m not sure if I’m wasting my time.
A good word Michael. Thank you.
This re-post reminds me of a few things:
1) Perspicuity: I must watch closely who I appear to be to others and so not shame the name of Christ. Let the world see our good works and rejoice.
2) Christ-centeredness: when I speak to a watching world (verbally or behaviorally), I attempt to lift up Jesus above all, especially myself, and point to His perfection and my need of the Physician’s touch; even regenerate, I am sick, and Jesus heals. People will understand the applicability of this genuineness.
3) Repentance: the more I know who I am, the more I see who He is, the more I follow Isaiah and eat the dirt before the throne. But, and it’s a big but, I then get up, dust myself off, and rejoice at this great salvation. It is this joy that will draw the greatest numbers to my side to see what gives me hope. But to get to the joy, I should first see the sorrow born on the cross and my own lingering sin. Nothing is holy about merely happy (I remember the warning of the Sermon on the Mount).
4) No Fear: In reading your post, Michael, I’m finally reminded of John Piper’s words after 9/11 when he was speaking with his wife regarding a scheduled ministry trip to England. She asked him if he was still going, and he replied (paraphrase), “I’m a calvinist! Of course I’m going! I am invincible until God is finished with me.” It is God who saves using broken and spilled out vessels who aren’t nearly broken or spilled out enough. But that’s why it’s called grace, eh?
Blessings. Peace.
“5. We talk about God in ways that are too familiar and make people uncomfortable.”
I would add:
5a. We talk about God in ways that are unfamiliar and leave people wondering what we mean.
Examples:
-Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?
-I’m a born-again Christian.
-Have you been washed in the blood?
-We have a burden for the lost!
Huh?
“a message that no one wants to hear”
Annoyance and hypocrisy are undesirable, no matter what their persuasion might be, theological or otherwise. But this is not why those uncommmitted to the Christian religion don’t like you guys.
We don’t like the veneer of smug certainty when what you’ve got, at best, is an inherited, amalgamated guess about our collective origins and destinies. If Christianists would admit that belief doesn’t equal truth, and that they are likely to be as wrong as the other faiths they implicitly denigrate, then perhaps the rest of the world might give them respect.
If Christianists would realize the endless ability of humans to fill empty signifiers with meaning from their own culturally conditioned minds, to succumb to the power of suggestion, to ignore any evidence that would suggest they may not have the best perspective on Truth, received as it is through countless mediating elements, then perhaps the rest of us could turn to you and say: “Now, how can you aid us in correcting our current, actual ills?” Certainly those from the faith traditions have some wisdom and comfort to bring–this would be a welcome addition to the conversation, and indeed these people have aided us greatly in the past. But as it stands, Christians have poisoned that well with a certitude that disables them from approaching reality and its inhabitants.
Let’s be clear: it’s not that the message is intolerable (I assume you mean the humanist ethics espoused in, say, the Beatitudes–and in many other wisdom traditions); it’s that belief (another sticky term) without sufficient evidence is far from noble. This assault on the nascent minds is the greatest crime perpetuated by the faith industries–worse even than the innumerable lives lost in the name of God.
With all due respect, it’s sad to see otherwise mature, intelligent adults succumbing to the allure of faith. It’s sad, and from an outside perspective, the behavior of the faith-bound appears like mental instability–seriously. It looks like a crippling psychological sickness.
We aren’t repelled by your hypocrisy and your other all-too-human traits. We are drawn, instead, to reality and repelled by the mindset of the faith-bound which is ever at odds with apprehending and engaging the actual.
“The message here isn’t just that we are humorless or Puritanical. The message is that being human or being real is somehow evil.”
Thanks, Michael,for reposting your frank and penetrating insights. I think the inability to deal properly with our humanity and the rather neurotic way we look at “sanctification” in our lives (usually humorless and without grace), may be the biggest Achilles heel of evangelicals.
We are trying so hard to LOOK sincere and at the same time fail miserably when it comes to pursuing a Christlike lifestyle that is both freeing and gracious.
Greetings InternetMonk,
I was one of many that linked to your Blog from Drudge. I also listened to 2 of your most recent podcasts. And I returned today and have read this post.
Here are my thoughts for what they are worth. As a former rabid Atheist, I disliked Christians because I saw them as ignorant, intolerant and absurdly convinced that they had the Truth. The only evidence for this was TV and the people I came in contact with. Also, many of my College Professors found them easy targets and I enjoyed laughing at these poor deluded Souls. But I was empty if the truth be told. However, I was won over to the other side , in the San Francisco Bay area because I personally witnessed the love amongst Christians and I had had enough of the self righteousness of New Agers and fellow Freethinkers to know they were a bunch of lost souls. Your quote below can easily work with nonbelievers in the Berkenstock Bay Area…
Many unbelievers are bizarrely shallow and legalistic about minute matters. We are frequently psychologically unsound, psychiatrically medicated, filled with bitterness and anger, tormented by conflicts and, frankly, unpleasant to have around.
So personally, I find alot of your insights a wash. As the only difference between the 2 groups that I see is that the Christian is aware that he needs a Savior outside himself. He is no longer Autonomous. Since you seem to speak for all of Evangelicals I wonder if your experiences have something to do with regional Christianity in the South. If you were to give a survey here in Northern California and ask ” Is the South ruled by a bunch of hicks?” I would argue that the percentage would be really high that it is…regardless of the truth of the answer ( I would not agree by the way, but if we are giving surveys weight, then the results are just as valid..although misleading ).I am afraid that as a result of many years of secular education, any graduate now in the system has been thoroughly indoctrinated that truth is maleable if not totally irrelevant anymore.
HOWEVER, I agree with many of your points. But if you lived amongst the left winging, Berkeley types like I did for 15 years…then hanging out with some of these Evangelical Pharisees is alright by me.
I am a half Full kinda guy. You and I could ( I am 52 like you ) easily have a chat at a cafe and tell all the tales of Evangelical corruption, Vice, Adultery etc etc etc. that we have seen for ourselves. So what? What else is new. There was a guy in the Corinthian Church having an affair with his mother? I don’t think the first century Church was as Ideal as many Church Primitivists make them out to be.
But all in all, I find your Blog thought provoking , challenging and very important. Keep up the good work. :v)
When it comes to church architecture, give me Polish Cathedral Style any day.
Preaching the truth is a lot easier than living it. Even sincere devoted people fail all the time; but that’s no excuse to avoid doing better.
Nice post, explains the aversion to red envelopes.
*Jared said* “Christ did not want to build the perfect church – if He wanted that then he would not have built it on man (Peter).”
Jared’s right insofar as the church is not perfect, because saved though a person might be justification/sanctification does NOT equal perfection. We’re all fallen, fallible, and sinful.
However, Christ most certainly did not build His church on a man (Peter).
Matthew 15:16-18
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus said, “thou art Peter,(Gr. – “petros” a small stone, or even pebble) and upon this rock (Gr. – “petra” a foundation stone or a boulder) I will build my church…”
Peter (like all of us) a small, unremarkable, insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) stone or pebble, certainly not suitable to build anything upon.
Peter’s confession that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” is the “petra” upon which He would build His church. Besides being the head of the church (Ephesians 5:23), remember that He’s also the “chief cornerstone” and the foundation of the church (Psalm 118:22; Acts 4:11-12; 1 Corinthians 3:11)
To iMonk: Outstanding article. First, let me say that I never quite understood how the term “evangelical” got hi-jacked by one particular sub-group; I mean, according to the “great commission” from Matthew 28, isn’t every Christian evangelical/and evangelist? When I was in the Marines, regardless of your particular MOS (cook, motor pool, supply, artillery, infantry) EVERY Marine was a rifleman first.
I am a Christian by God’s great grace and mercy, a Baptist by persuasion. When I say Baptist, of course most people instantly lump me in with the Moral Majority, Pat Robertson, hateful “separated” “fundamentalists” – another hi-jacked term, and so on. But nothing could be further from the truth. I am a Baptist because I believe in the fact that the Bible is literally true and God is always right, not because I have a cape with a big ol’ “B” on it and fly around trying to save the world from Hell. I daily aspire to be conformed to the image of Christ through humility – I think if we can get that one under control, the rest will fall into place. The next most important thing – hiding God’s Word in your heart, as King David said. If we get it in there, way down deep, then it will cleanse us, change us, and flow forth in our lives. Notice I said our lives, not our words. I believe that if people can’t tell that you’re a Christian without you ever announcing it verbally, then you’ve failed. Jesus said be salt and light. Light shines, so people should see something before they hear anything. Then our testimony and verbal witness will have legitimacy. We’ve got to be out to win relationships, not debates, arguments, or elections.
Sorry this is so long. I just found your blog through and email of an email of an email….
I really dig it.
In getting to know myself over the years, I’ve found that I can be a relentless bastard no matter how many times I read through Divine Conspiracy and commit myself to being more Christ-like. I could hide it when I was in youth ministry, but being deployed and around people all the time—I’ve found ways to hide it, but the closest people to me, know the real me—and I am a broken man with no excuses.
The world would still despise Christians because of the Gospel?
Honeychile, if I’d been drinking milk it would have come out my nose when reading that one! Despised? BECAUSE OF the Gospel?
You make me revert to a question that now and then bedevils me, is evangelical “christianity” propaganda or is it something else? Many Evangelicals i meet feel the world hates them, when it’s my experience that most of the world doesn’t even consider them unless faced with one who thinks s/he knows what’s best for everybody. Sort of like being a Son of the Old South who thinks the Yankees hate Southerners, whilst the fact is, most Yankees don’t even think about southerners from one Christmas to the next.
It is impossible for me to imagine that any of my atheist friends would despise me when I brag on the Gospels and tell them the Olde Testament describes the evil man does, while the New Testament shows us how to be the best we can be.