ENCOURAGEMENT
by SteveThe Bible has much to say about encouragement, my favorite verse being this from Paul: “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” (I Thes. 5:11) I have been greatly encouraged lately by the words of three men who have made outstanding progress in their theology and practice.
Brian McLaren, a leader and writer for evangelicals and conservative Christians, has a new book titled, Everything Must Change, in which he explains how he has come to believe that Jesus cares more about the 27,000 children who died of starvation and disease yesterday than he cares about gay marriage.
Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian writer and political activist, said in an interview last week that the Christian Right is dead as a political influence because a recent poll showed that if the election were held today, less than half of them would vote for the Republican nominee, down from 85% in 2004. (I’m not talking politics here, but theology!)
Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, and pastor of Saddleback Church, one of America’s largest, recently apologized for his list of 5 non-negotiables, saying it was a mistake, and became a signatory to the Evangelical Climate Initiative!
What’s happening in American Christianity? It is as Wallis has written, the Religious Right hijacked our faith, and now that we have it back, we have to do something with it. There is a great spiritual awakening going on across America, mostly on behalf of the poor, the outcast, those most marginalized by society, and also concern for the environment, and this awakening keeps in mind the importance of personal spirituality! It looks as if we’re finally beginning to recognize that Christianity is about following the WAY of Jesus…paying as much attention to what he said as to who he is. I think he (Jesus) will be pleased with that.
RSS
I too am encouraged when some of the move away from the right. If Wallis is correct and we have an opportunity to discuss what we have learned with others we also have a responsibility to share what we know to be the gospel,GOOD NEWS. The more I listen to the younger adults, 20-30, if we do not share this better understanding of Who GOD is and what Jesus is about the more I am convinced that if we do not share this knowledge we stand to lose them. We must take that responsibility with as much seriousness as we did when our young adult children were babies in caring for their health and physical nourishment.
One way to do this is to become more educated as to what others believe and why. By having a better understanding of where others come from we stand a better chance of relating to them on a more personal level.
One of your recent sermons touched on the difficulty of reaching the ‘un-churched’. I’ll carry it a step further, and address the ‘anti-christians’, those who, on hearing the word Christian, Jesus, or church, instantly draw images of Crusade, inquisition, and the greed which brought Martin Luther to tack his theses to the door. I have a few friends who fall into this category, and they almost gleefully paint the excesses of the ‘Christian Church’ in the dark shades of the Religious Right. At a particularly low point, when trying to explain to one of these friends that we weren’t all like that, and could save the Church from this image, his response was “Why? Why not let them have the name Christian, and let them kill it? Then you can start something new, without all the negative press.” I could offer no answer to him.
I’ve always known Jesus would be appalled with what has been done in his name. I’ve never understood how people can use his deification as a shield to protect them from his teachings. No matter what the issue, His teachings remain the example. We can even argue if Jesus really is the Christ – and His life’s story remains a guide. In this day, in the midst of the Information Age, knowledge of almost all the worlds religions are not much more than a mouse-click away. Anyone who claims to have a monopoly on God, including us Christians, is at best ignorant. But, even if we were to find that some obscure culture, just discovered in the heart of some unexplored land, had a closer relationship to God, the Gospels still remain, and those stories still hold out an example of what we need to learn to begin to get that close. If the conservatives who call themselves Christian can reach this realization, and stop using their religion as a club with which to bludgeon those they disagree with, Jesus may yet be their Messiah, and indeed smile upon them.
Bj
Thanks, Berry and Mike…we’re certainly on the same page, and I appreciate you both! sk
We not only need to be telling people the GOOD NEWS, we need to SHOW people and let them know we are behaving and doing in the name of Jesus. It can be easy to do “the right thing” sometimes or to do “good”, but it isn’t as easy (for me at least) to add onto the effort that we as Christians are CALLED to be doing the right thing, doing good, helping others, showing compassion, etc. Sorry, but I do have friends and aquaintances who give me “the funny look” when I bring up the “christian thing”. I am trying to make a strong comittment to adding that extra “Jesus part” to my actions and efforts……
The other part is the joy of our actions anomymously being done behind the scenes-we are called to our actions for the glory of GOD, not for our own glory….