Posted on 07/08/2016 6:45:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last week, a young Christian male asked me a pretty direct question. He wanted to know whether I ever worried that my blunt commentary on social media was “turning people away from Christianity.” I thought it was an honest question. So I gave him an honest answer. I told him that I believe the problem is just the opposite of what he considers it to be. In other words, it isn’t occasional blunt commentary that turns people away from Christianity. It is the constant displays of Christian cowardice that make people both reticent to join and quick to attack us.
During the year 2000, when I was in the process of my conversion, there was only one prominent pastor I would even listen to on television. His name is Greg Laurie. He was bold without being rude. He was physical fit, casually but sharply dressed, and, to top it all off, he rode a motorcycle. And he could deliver the Gospel in a way that made even gang bangers weep and respond to an altar call in front of thousands at his Harvest Crusades in Anaheim Stadium.
In the fall of 2000, after I actually converted and joined a church I started to notice something unusual about my pastor. He was a lifelong Republican leading a liberal denomination. But the only time he ever talked about politics or social issues was when he quoted people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The blanket statement that always followed those quotes was that he wasn’t “that kind of Republican.” In fact, he was so afraid of his mostly-liberal congregation that he never told them what he actually believed. He only told them that he did not believe what all the other “mean Republicans” like Falwell and Robertson believed. It got old pretty fast. So I left his church and found another.
I wish I could say my next pastor was different. But he was not. He was privately appalled by the concept of same-sex marriage. But every time he broached the subject you could see him shaking from the pulpit. His voice would tremble as he tried to express his views in coded phrases. Unfortunately, the congregation was too obtuse to know what he was saying. When push came to shove, he failed to take a firm stand on Amendment One, which was North Carolina’s traditional marriage amendment. Clearly, he cowered out of fear of offending the droves of Obama supporters that helped pay his massive mortgage. I could no longer stomach his cowardice. So I left his church in frustration.
A personally anti-abortion pastor led another church I attended briefly. The problem was that his personal anti-abortion stance remained private and did not make its way into his sermons. In fact, he would not allow any discussion of the topic in his church for fear that someone in the congregation might have had an abortion. So he tossed any chance of redemption out the window for the post-abortive congregant. To make matters worse, he adamantly opposed pro-lifers showing pictures of aborted children in the public square. In other words, he was “pro life” so long as no one ever talked about it inside or outside the church. To make matters even worse, two of the members of his congregation later castigated pro-lifers for showing pictures of abortion on the UNC-Wilmington campus (where I teach). There is an obvious lesson here: If the pastor is a coward, it will always spread through the congregation.
It has taken several tries but I am happy that I have finally found a pastor and a church that is solidly pro-life and pro-family and not afraid to say it. I’m just sad that in the last sixteen years, I have learned that at least three quarters of the pastors who actually know what is right still lack the intestinal fortitude to take a stand for what they believe.
Many Christians are fed up with the capitulation of the church and respond in a way that is different from my chosen response. Rather than continuing to try and find a courageous pastor, they simply stop going to church. So this raises an interesting question: If Christians actually stop going to church because they are tired of pastors refusing to take a stand is it possible that some people never seriously consider Christianity in the first place for the same reasons?
I think I got the answer to that question nearly five years ago when I received an email from a troubled reader. Some of my regular readers may remember the story as I have written about it before. The man had lost his home and job and family and was about to commit suicide. Before he did, someone forwarded one of my columns to him. The column was one of those typical “blunt commentaries” where I was tearing into a corrupt administrator who was intentionally violating the rights of college students. The suicidal reader was captivated by the tone and content of the article and decided to start reading other columns from my archive.
After reading several hundred of my “blunt commentaries” he came across one talking about the New Testament and how to approach reading it. So he sat down and read the New Testament. Instead of killing himself, he converted to Christianity.
I had the pleasure of meeting this fine young man two years ago when I was speaking in Ohio. He is now very happy and living a productive life working in the conservative movement. I’ll never forget his explanation for previously refusing to consider Christianity. It is a paraphrase but he basically told me the following: “For a long time I would never consider converting because I thought you had to be weak and passive in order to be a Christian.”
Let that sink in for a minute. The next time you self-censor you may be hurting Christianity, not helping it. We need brave young warriors not spineless “evangelists” who are more concerned about being liked than influencing the culture.
In a nutshell, Jesus was not Mr. Rogers. He had little tolerance for the smug moral superiority of those who grasp the truth but lack the faith and courage necessary to defend it.
Yes, he does..
“...God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
James 4:6
Well played, ‘Pod. Well played!
What is it that makes this Church ‘very liberal’?
And so did Billy Graham; a lot of it is the accompaniment of the Holy Spirit that God deems to grant to a gospel witnesser.
And preaching for the sake of ego, even if it’s all the “right things,” isn’t blessed as much as preaching for the sake of love.
You Tube Paul Washer. Now there is a manly preacher.
amen
Read #26
Exactly. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. I’ve heard that in heaven the greats might not be the ones sitting in the front pews. Not Billy Graham, not John Wesley, not even Saint Clement. It might by old widow Smith who spent her life on her knees with no recognition from anyone at all except God.
In the same way, we might discover the pivotal ingredient of the age might have been fellowship or joy or kindness, and we missed it because we were so busy adding two gallons of political fervor for every quarter tsp of fellowship.
John 15:5
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
John 15:26
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
LOL
Yeah...he gets stoned, dragged out of the city, left for dead, picks himself up and GOES BACK, says I'm not done yet and continues where he left off.
2 Corinthians 11: 24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
Somehow I don't picture Paul as a shrinking violet.
Jesus called such "preachers" hirelings (John 10:12) and has been going on as far back as Simon Magi trying to buy the gifts of the Spirit in Acts 8.
More recently, Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, et al, are indicative of wolves that depend upon a gullible audience; an audience that cares nothing about Truth or the Jesus of the Bible.
...and it’s the congregants that choose who the pastor will be, in many cases. Most congregations nowadays obviously have itching ears.
2Ti 4:2 preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts;
2Ti 4:4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.
"The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." Isaiah 32:5
Jesus is the standard against which the principals which inform conservative and liberal thought patterns may be assessed and the premise against which one's respective world views are measured.
He is more than the conservative of liberal label. He is greater than any such label.
"And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Colossians 1:17
As the saying goes, "I don't know whether Jesus is a Republican, or not, but I sure as hell know he ain't a Democrat."
FReegards!
Adams rocks. He is one of the better features of my home state.
And, she might have then gone out doing kindnesses to her neighbors. But they wouldn’t be any undistinguished kindnesses; they would be kindnesses that witnessed that there was a Lord who cares.
Maybe tangent, maybe unconnected, but it came to mind. A good message could be made of “Go and sin no more” with half of it on “Go.” It isn’t Christ saying “don’t bother Me any more.” It would be more like “Proceed and please ‘bother’ Me, about all the right things, and I will ‘bother’ about you too.”
Multiple reasons. Here are a few. Message me if you want a more in-depth discussion. I'm happy to oblige.
1. Former pastor came out as gay. Never made an actual announcement or addressed the issue directly, but started living with his gay activist boyfriend.
2. "Social justice" is a frequent topic.
3. The environment is a frequent topic.
4. This week's lessons were Galations 6: 1-16 and Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20. The sermon was focused on discussing racism and slavery (wolves and sheep). But oddly there was no mention of this verse: "Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load." - Gal 6:5
5. Several members are very vocal Democrats. (I suspect there are more conservatives in the congregation than people realize, but they are mostly old and too intimidated to speak out.)
6. Lots and lots of stuff for the "poor". As a Christian, I feel an obligation to take care of the poor, but I'm not sure how poor these people are. Furthermore, I am unwilling to participate in caring for the poor when it involves (as it does at my church) turning over food, clothing, and cash to the government to distribute without any mention of where it came from, as if it were the benevolent government handing it out.
7. There is a quilters group at the church that sends quilts overseas to the needy. They are not allowed to send any quilts that have a red/white/blue theme for fear of offending non-Christian, anti-American recipients.
My personal feeling is that charity from my church should come with a message telling people where it is from, inviting them to attend services, telling them they are loved and prayed for. This is banned. It might offend!
My approach is to put my charitable donations elsewhere. I am not ashamed of my Christianity and I will not hide it under a bushel. I will ESPECIALLY not be a slave to the (democrat) government that co-opts my money/time and acts as if it comes from them.
Jesus, telling his disciples to call down judgment on towns which will not receive them (by shaking the dust from their feet) is anything but a namby-pamby position to take.
Jesus knew that the Spirit-filled life in this world would be a battle zone.
The majority of most church’s ministries seem to be centered around giving the children fun things to do (and often the adults.) Vacation Bible School is a big one, where bounce houses litter the landscape, imparting exactly what biblical principle I know not.
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