5 Reasons Why the Church Failed Yesterday (Re: Chick-fil-A appreciation day) [Meh!]

MatthewPaulTurner.net ^ | August 2, 2012 | Matthew Paul Turner

[2ndDivisionVet]

Thousands and thousands and thousands of people proudly lined up to support Mike Huckabee’s “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day” yesterday. By all accounts, it was a successful campaign, perhaps one of Huckabee’s most memorable actions, a deed that might warrant etching “#ChickFilA” on his tombstone so future Americans will learn of the greatness that occurred on August 1, 2012.

Many of yesterday’s appreciators were born again Christians, people who, I can only assume, claim to love God, put their trust in Jesus, and have a desire that all people hear and experience the Good News of Christ. That fact alone changes the headline of what happened yesterday.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Chick-Fil-A owners felt loved, made lots of money, and greatly appreciated the somewhat positive press they received all day long. And yes, Mike Huckabee has reason to be proud (dare I say, even cocksure?) of the influence he wields to get Americans to buy chicken. Those CFA cows no doubt love Mike Huckabee!

So good for Chick-Fil-A! And three cheers for Mike Huckabee! And good tidings of great joy to cows everywhere.

Yet, amid all of that CFA-appreciating success, the Church (at least, the part that exists here in America) failed miserably. Every member of the Church isn’t to blame, of course. Many individual churches and denominations played no role whatsoever in promoting yesterday’s Great Chicken Awakening. Some Christians, churches, and denominations even tried to throw a social media wrench into the festivities. Some of those attempts went viral and garnered a great deal of attention. But still, chicken-loving Christians everywhere rallied behind CFA yesterday. The crowds were so big that you might have thought that Chick-Fil-A was giving away free iPads or Cabbage Patch Dolls or freshly fallen manna from Heaven. And while lots of Christians chose not to participate for various reasons, many did and the Church as a whole suffered.

Here’s why.

one

Yesterday’s campaign, while I don’t think it should be considered or called “hate,” neither can it be called love. Christians all over America ignored the second greatest commandment: to love our neighbors. Call yesterday what you want, freedom of speech, a rally behind “family values,” a sincere fascination with CFA’s brand of fried poultry… but it cannot be called love. It was not love.

two

People felt hate and we ignored that. At the end of the day, regardless of whether or not your Christian understanding of scripture harbors hate or not, a large group of people felt hated. Again, we can debate this point all day long, but that does not change the fact that people felt hatred because of what happened yesterday. Whether or not hate actually existed is not the point, people felt hated. And rather than acknowledging those feelings or trying to understand or engage them in any way, Christians everywhere marched off to their local CFA like it was a cross to bear, a necessity, a battle cry of some sort, the waffle fry’s last stand.

three

By rallying behind CFA, Christians put an issue above people. And it’s impossible to follow Jesus when issues trump people. Jesus never said “love God, love causes.” That is not the message that gets preached in churches all over America on Sunday mornings. I’ve heard a hundred different explanations from patrons of yesterday’s rally and nearly every one of them gives precedence to “the cause”. We can’t embrace love, mercy, hope, and peace when our causes (or a place of business) trumps people.

four

Once again, the mass actions of Christians built another wall of distrust between the Church and the GLBTQ communities. Nobody was surprised that the CEO of CFA is against gay marriage. Nobody was surprised that Mike Huckabee made the decision to rally support behind CFA. And nobody was surprised that Christians took Huckabee’s words as marching orders, leading the charge with more passion, delight, and Instagram pictures than what we express for so many more important issues facing this country. If Mike Huckabee had declared yesterday “Homeless Appreciation Day,” would the response have been even half as large and loud? Yes, I know; that’s an unfair question. But we’re Christians, so we’re very familiar with the use of unfair questions to make a point.

Once in a while, our culture needs to be surprised by how much we love people–all people. Once in a while, our culture needs to be overwhelmed with joy that we are involved in the greater story. Once in a while, our culture needs to see us being a part of the solution and not the problem. But yesterday? There were no surprises. And no surprises only builds more distrust, not peace, not grace, not hope, and not love.

five

Yesterday’s hoopla surrounding CFA did nothing to prove that Christians don’t hate gay people. Oh I know that most Christians will say, “I don’t hate gay people!!”

But did supporting CFA Appreciation Day prove that?

Trust me, I understand that most people who ate chicken sandwiches at CFA yesterday did not do that as an act of hate. I get that. And that’s cool and all, but did the act of going out of your way to CFA prove that to be true? Do you think that the GLBTQ communities believe you? Would you, if you were gay, believe you?

Now before you answer that, remember that yesterday’s CFA Love Day was just one action in a long line of many. Because let’s face it: Christians go WAY out of their way to “hate the sin”–i.e., by voting against gay marriage, voting against civil unions, voicing their angst about gay people adopting children (just to list a few). Is it possible that Christians lose the ability to truly “love the sinner” because they’re so busy “hating the sin”? Do Christians put anywhere near the energy into “loving the sinner” as they do “hating the sin”?

All I know is that the GLBTQ communities are becoming quite used to feeling unloved by Christians. And with good reason.

How many times do we hear Christians say something like, “I don’t hate gay people. I may not agree with their lifestyle. But I don’t hate them… “

If you were gay, would you believe that? Think about it. Would you feel loved by somebody if they included rules, context, and/or explanations about your lifestyle every time they spoke about how much they don’t hate you? Only when talking about gay people do Christians feel the need to preface their “love” or “non-hate” with some variation of “I don’t agree with your lifestyle, but…” Christians don’t talk about any other group of people like that–only gay people.

So, I want to believe Christians when they say “I don’t hate gay people.” But sometimes proof of that is necessary. And yesterday did not prove that. Honestly, yesterday proved little more than how shallow Christians can be sometimes.

Not only did supporting CFA Appreciation Day declare that Christians believe that an issue is more important than people, that declaration was made by the mass consumption of junk food. That fact doesn’t need a punch line. It is a punch line.

Yes, on some level, yesterday was successful. I’m sure that today CFA feels really loved. And I’m sure Mike Huckabee feels loved, too. And I’m sure lots of people, many Christians included, feel great pride for supporting the cause. But there’s also a large group of people, good people, people you might disagree with, that today, feel really unloved.

If it’s true that Christians don’t hate gay people, today would be a really good day to prove it.

UPDATE: This post is getting slammed with traffic right now. So that you don’t lose your comment, please make sure you copy & save prior to trying to post. Several have lost their comments. My apologies. I had no idea that this post would end up receiving as much attention as it has received. Thank you for reading.

[SkyPilot]

I guess Christ (who by the way, is God) is a "Hater" in the mind of this liberal atheist Obama voter?

13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] [b]

15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. 16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’

17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it. 23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. 29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous.

30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

Matthew 23: 13-33

____________________________________________________________________

Confront a liberal atheist with Christ's ferocity, and ask them, is the Son of Man a "hater?"

The scriptures condemn homosexuality, in the most strongest of terms. Liberals say Christ never spoke about homosexuality. He didn't have to! Christ said He came not to change one jot or tittle of the Law. In His own Law, Christ condemns homosexuality. Christ also spoke more about Hell than about Heaven. He warned humanity that sin's wages are eternal punishment. He has His arms wide open even now for all sinners! Yet these people refuse to come to Him, and they mock Him and His sacrifice.

[Rashputin]

Faggots would have never gotten to the point that they think forcing their behavior on others is reasonable without decades of Christian love working to ignore their sins and try to reach them. At this point, they're trying to force and coerce others into participation in their sin.

They moved themselves into the "let them be anathema" category. The whole sexual pervert community proves by the way they live that they have no idea what love is or how love works. When such folks demand that everyone should accept their sin and perversion as normal and modify existing laws to suit them, they should feel unloved. The amazing toleration and love Christians have poured out on these sick people is the only reason this crowd thinks they can bully the rest of the population into being an accessory to their sin.

[savagesusie]

It is the Marxist’s revisionist bible.

I for one could not go to a CFA because there is not one in my state. But if I did—it would be because I HATE SIN—not people.....and I HATE the Marxist agenda of evil people trying to normalize pederasty and Vice again in Western Civilization when it was Christianity which put that destructive practice in the closet in the first place.

That is the only reason Christianity is targeted. It was successful in vilifying the debasing, dysfunctional acts which always centered around pederasty and were common in the whole world.

Read about the Leftist hero, John Maynard Keynes-—the sodomite who had boys at his homosexual orgies with his Fabian Socialist friends-—he even went to 3rd world countries to castrate the boys after they used them—for their recreation. This is the same economics guru WORSHIPPED by the left—his worldview was sick and perverted as is usual for one corrupted in childhood.

I have read and seen homosexual pornography-—(I researched pedophilia and serial killers and pornography and homosexuality and SA Brownshirts and their rampant homosexuality-—along with the homosexuals that founded the German equivalent of our Boy Scouts-—to sodomize boys in the woods).

I was writing reports in school and studying child development and raising 5 children (four boys) at the time. I was shocked!!!!! at what I learned—I was so naive-—I was shocked at how truly evil people can be since when I studied Hitler and the Nazis—they had left out so many details—like the skins on lampshades and the twin studies and sodomy by the guards and SA Brownshirts and the Hitler Youth.

The vile, evil, inhumane way homosexuals degrade other people and themselves (and call it “love”) is beyond sick and revolting. What they do is Satanic and goes all the way back to Occultism and is learned behavior.

There is an agenda—it is Satanic—and it means to kill God, particularly Christianity, which literally put Satan in the closet and created this country of Moral Absolutes with Rights from God. God goes—our Natural Rights go-—and then we get unnatural “rights” like sodomy “rights”—arbitrary laws—moral relativism which will destroy all freedom. Logic and Reason and Justice can not survive with arbitrary laws-—tyranny results. There is NO Rule of Law with arbitrary laws and moral relativism (Cicero).

[spunkets]

He didn’t say anyhting about the gay kiss in. I wonder why?

[unlearner]

The author is clearly a false teacher who masks his personal opinions behind his twisting of scripture to support his self-superior flavor of Christianity.

At best, Mr. Turner is a misguided believer like Lot who pitched his tent toward Sodom, Abraham had to rescue his nephew (and the sodomites) and then later intervene by asking God to spare the city. In the end, Lot lost his family and saved none of his friends in Sodom through his tolerance.

The best way to show love toward those damaged by sodomy is to call it what God calls it - evil.

Wednesday was a great day for the Church because truth was proclaimed, a message was sent that there are still many people in this nation who are willing to stand up and be counted when it comes to the open floodgates of evil.

The only thing disappointing is that we have not acted sooner and more assertively. We have allowed not only the open practice of perversion but also put vulnerable children into the care of these perverts through foster care and adoption.

[Sioux-san]

EXCELLENT!!!!

Those Pharisees thought Jesus was a real meanie and he hurt their feelings. That’s why they wanted him dead, just like the Lib/Lefties of today. They can’t take the Truth.

This is all designed to shut us up. Poor dumb LBGT folks - beware of unintended consequences - You are all just tools for the purveyors of CHAOS.

[Honorary Serb]

http://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2012/08/5-reasons-matthew-paul-turner-failed.html

Holy and glorious Prophet Elijah (Sveti Ilija in Serbian), pray to God for us!!!!

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Elijah

[fwdude]

Has this moron even read the New Testament? A real one, and not some liberal transliteration?

[fwdude]

I agree that the churches failed yesterday. They should have been telling their members to go to Chick Fil A.

Yeah, I thought that's where this article was going at first. Man, was I wrong. This idiot is a squishy whack job. He worships an effeminate metrosexual "Jesus."

[Salvation]

Meet S. Truett Cathy, The 91-Year-Old Billionaire Behind Chick-Fil-A

Some history and historical pictures at the source link of this FR thread.

[YHAOS]

Mr Turner is right . . .

People (mostly Christians, but not exclusively) did feel hate.
Hate directed at them from much of the Press Corpse . . . from Academia . . . from Democrats . . . from sanctimonious gays . . . (most particularly) from Mr Turner.

Look to the beam in your own eye, Mr Turner.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I think a more appropriate story is the kindness Abraham showed to Sodom, bargaining down that if just ten righteous men lived in Sodom, it would not be destroyed.

That’s love. Not condoning or accepting their sin, which is not love.

[fwdude]

[YHAOS]

Thanks for the article, 2ndDivisionVet

[Letmarch75]

A few months ago I ordered 300 bookmark tracts Titled: “49 Ways to Love God and Others”
This tract was published by: Basic Life Principles”
The it lists the 49 commands of Christ.

As I have meditated on these I have had to ask myself:
1. How can we love God if we do not know who He is?
2. How can I love my neighbor when I do not know them?
3. How can I keep His commands if I do not know them?

[Ms Mable]

Hey, this is off topic, is Mike being vetted for VP? Anyone know?

[foundedonpurpose]

Bump

[Shery]

I take issue with this writer’s views. Gays feel “hate” if anybody disagrees with them. I’m sure that hateful things have been said in the past, and in isolated instances. However, taking a stand to say that we agree with Dan Cathy, for freedom of speech and for Christian values is not hate speech. The hate speech has been directed toward Christians who dare to speak out about the dire straight we are in morally. The Bible NEVER tells us to keep quiet so as not to offend. The Gospel is offensive to many. Truth is offensive to many. We have never been instructed to shut up in the face of persecution.

If we are guilty of anything, it is for not standing outside the SC doors after the January 1973 Roe vs Wade decision was made, and until they retracted it or the Congress overturned it. Many would’ve registered that as hate speech, as well. Any speech that is given in support of moral issues upheld in Scripture is considered hate speech by the likes of our POTUS, Pelosi, Reid, etc. Sorry, but supporting Dan Cathy was not hateful. He said nothing hateful, only that he felt that God had given the template for marriage between a man and a woman. This is opinion supported in Scripture. I do not support abortion. Does that make me a hater of people who have them? Nonsense! I think many who came out in support of Dan Cathy also pry for the gays to see their need of Christ, for people who do and have abortions to see their need of Christ. Does this make us haters? Not in God’s eyes, and His opinion is all that matters.

[erkyl]

I take issue with this article because it assumes (incorrectly) that everyone who supported Chick-Fil-A on Wednesday did so as a Christian. While I am a Christian, I did not go to Chick-Fil-A on Wednesday to support the traditional view of marriage. I went as an American to support the first amendment. All this rhetoric from the left (and the middle right) is doing is redefining the motives of people and assigning guilt as well as projecting erroneous attitudes on the participants.

This writer seems to have decided the intentions and motives of every Chick-Fil-A patron on Wednesday, passed judgment on them, and condemned them all in this post. Shame on him. Judge not, let ye be judged. Guess he forgot that little tidbit from his Bible.

[444Flyer]

This guy needs to read the scriptures.

"And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." Jude 1:23