Now I know the media has a general bias against Christians, fair enough, but there is something sinister about the desire to publicise every stupid Christian group they can find. This month we had the idiots from California and not long before it was the idiots from Florida. Now I have no desire to defend such stupidity but why should it be international news? Do they say of every madman, murderer and fraudster in the news who isn't a Christian, "and of course this man never went to church" as if that has anything to do with his madness? Why then does peoples' idiocy, which would otherwise not be newsworthy, suddenly becomes worthy of international attention because they are a "pastor" in the USA?
*headslap*
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Maybe because these nutjob's crazyness is directly related to their faith, and we put up with too many who are nearly as bad without a word. Think of all the thousands who do dolally about the whole "rapture" and "pretrib" "posttrib" fantasy. Or of all the crazy gay bashers... There are times when my "co-religionists" make me think that the media have it right.
ReplyDeleteIs it a product of their faith or merely manifested in their faith? However I take your point about tolerance, but should I really be spending my time as a pastor condemning all the bad teaching out there? Where would I begin? Where would it stop? I guess Paul's example might be that I should . . . :-s seems a dangerous track for pride and negativity though. There are probably alrweady enough churches that spend their energy fighting heretics within the faith but never get round to using that energy to reach those lost without it.
ReplyDeleteI suppose, in a sea of competing discourses, these whackos stand out because their message is radical enough to grab attention. In the Comfortable West our gospel isn't radical enough often enough. I suppose a question worth asking is - Is the lived gospel in me so radical, that my non-believing family/friends/colleagues see these dweebs and automatically say "That's not Christianity, I've seen it and it don't look like that"
ReplyDeleteWish I could answer a resounding yes to that question.
Helen, would that chuch helped us to say yes. Sadly too often it is not about really changing us, just adding whitewash.
ReplyDeleteNaive little me might respond to your comment t by asking - Is the lived gospel in me so radical that it calls my fellow congregants and church leaders to say "I'll have what she's having".
ReplyDeleteIf not - what are Jesus and I going to do about it?
I -again perhaps naively - aspire to John Newton's approach: "My principal method of defeating heresy is by establishing truth. One proposes to fill a bushel with tares: now, if I can fill it first with wheat, I shall defy his attempts."