The editor's comments for the July 29, 2008 edition of "The Christian Century" starts out by saying "The version of Christianity that appears in the media often embarrasses me: it's narrow, sectarian, exclusive and sometimes mean-spirited." This is unfortunately very true. It is no wonder that many people are so completely turned off by Christianity and "organized religion".
It is our mission as followers of Jesus and local church community to work on our witness in our communities to prove that this is not true. It will require work as it is hard to change peoples minds and the truth is that many people have been wounded by the church.
But I'm convinced that each one of us, in our own unique ways, can work on changing this attitude in our communities.
We need to not be ashamed to speak out against that which claims to be Christian, but is anything but.
Easter III - Because He Lives
5 days ago
4 comments:
Oh this is so true and it is so much what my life and my blog are about.
When I started blogging I did not go into faith too much, but then I did. I often struggled between the two poles because many of my readers are the people who do see Christianity as a big sham and filled with hypocrisy.
Or worse yet, they have been (and one case stands out for me, God have mercy) so hurt by the institutional church.
The reality is that often between our denominations - all 30,000 (i think that is the figure i heard for how many Christian denominations there are!) we need to also build bridges.
This is a great post.
I would love to read that magazine. I don't subscribe because it is just not in my budget right now, but it is a great one.
(Hey I was an Episcopal for the day on Sunday! Really!)
Thanks Fran. Glad you enjoyed being an Episcopalian for a day!
This also came from the wonderful FranIAm:
This sort of reminded me of your post about Christian embarrassment and action.
Pax!
Trying So Hard
Frederick Buechner
We try so hard as Christians. We think such long thoughts, manipulate such long words, and both listen to and preach such long sermons. Each one of us somewhere, somehow, has known, if only for a moment or so, something of what it is to feel the shattering love of God, and once that has happened, we can never rest easy again for trying somehow to set that love forth not only in words, myriads of words, but in our lives themselves.
Source: The Magnificent Defeat
Indeed I must admit i am not a great fan of refering to myself as a christian as the term seems to hold so manynegative conotations. I only need to see someone holding a placard telling people witches go to hell so they shouldnt see harry potter films, to feel like i want to hide!
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