Continuing on yesterday’s find…
My email is still being bombarded by thoughtful posts on John Shore’s blog. A couple of thoughts:
Although many if not most of those who primarily identify themselves as “Christians” like to think that anyone who does not belong to their narrow sect is not also a “Christian”, in fact anyone who believes in Jesus as divine is by definition a Christian. I was raised a Lutheran, and we did not go out and try to convert anyone (though I can’t speak for other Lutheran sects or those in other parts of the country where attempts at religious hegemony are the rule, rather than the exception). The majority of Christians I know do not proselytize. To what extent is it a mandate to evangelize? Only within certain sects? Or is the proselytizing mandate something that is fulfilled by having some other sort of outreach that can be fulfilled by the minister or outsourced to missionaries?
I see true “witnessing” not as trying to preach to others but as setting an example in the way you live your life. If you can’t live your life according to what you preach, we don’t see you as a sinner who is “still working on it”, we see you as a hypocrite. We see “Jesus forgave me” morphed into “Jesus will forgive me no matter what I do, so I’m going to go ahead and do it” all the time. Otherwise your leaders would lead holy lives, or at least attempt to, rather than hiring gay prostitutes while working against gay rights and claiming to be straight.
The idea that we haven’t heard The Word is so laughable it is stupid. Seriously stupid, use your brains, please. After you walk away offended because we won’t listen, consider how many millions of other believers out there are waiting in line to harass each and every one of us who told them to go away. You’ve chosen to single out people who have no interest in what you are saying. In the very least you need to learn to live with rejection.
You’re out there trying to convince people that they lead wretched, impotent lives. Once in a while you find somebody who already feels this way. But aside from that, you are just trying to spread misery and apathy in the world by trying to make people who are doing just fine feel miserable.
The “good” you are trying to do is to convince people to be satisfied with their miserable lives and not take action against those who are responsible for their misery – rich politicians, usurious mortgage and credit card companies, larcenous banks, and churches who take their money and spend it on expensive buildings and lavish lifestyles. Your leaders are rewriting the Bible to edit out much of what “God’s Word” used to be, because it conflicts with their worship of money. If you are politically active at all, you are trying to make more people miserable by preventing them from getting the same government benefits you love to draw.
Go away. Your words are hollow, like the wind.
