nothing is yet in its true form

Lately I have begun performing experiments with Google, more specifically with Google News. Every now and then, I will go to the news search engine and enter the word “Christian,” just to see what articles it will find. To make the search more interesting, I perform my own person filter, and skip over all the articles that come from a Christian publication. I don’t perform this search to regularly, but I always seem to find something interesting when I do. Today I found a May 7th, 2006 article titled, “America, A Christian Nation?” in the “American Chronicle.” The author of the article was giving evidence for why America was never supposed to be and is not a Christian nation. The author gave quotes from the Barbary Treaties and Thomas Jefferson which clearly stated America is not a Christian nation.

It is not the particular article or even the idea that America was or was not founded upon Christian morals; it is the attitude behind the argument that troubles me. I’ve read many articles about removing the Ten Commandments from courthouses, “One nation under God” being in the Pledge of Allegiance, or “In God We Trust” being minted on our money, and through all of the debates it is not the laws in question that make me worried. Many Christians nowadays feel like we have to fight to assert our presence in the country or in the world, and agree with them. However, I do not think the battlefield is in the debate whether it is over church-state issues, abortion, same-sex marriages, or any of those issues. The issue is with the way we Christians are representing ourselves and essentially Christ to the world.

Let me first begin by discussing what the main ideas of Christianity are. First, and foremost we believe that Christ died for the sins of the world. Second, we believe that He has called us to a way of living that is higher than what the world has to offer. Thirdly, we believe that this life is better with Christ, and life after death (for those who believe) is an eternity to live with God. All of these things sound fantastic and to Christians it seems incomprehensible that people would want to believe anything different, but perhaps we lack perspective in that area. We need to see what the world sees when they view Christianity, the church, and Christians. If what we claim to believe is so amazingly good, how is it there are people who are vehemently opposed to what we are supposedly all about?

Let me give an example. A very good friend of mine, who just happens to be a homosexual, at my college once saw me coming back from a church event. In his own personal history, he has probably been burned by one of his friends who was a Christian or he has heard some famous Christian on TV say something hateful about how all gays are going to hell. Because of this past, my friend asked me, “How can you be part of such an ignorant, exclusive, judgmental group?” My friend has been personally condemned by the church, so of course he is going to have some major problems with the people who spit in his face. But we must also remember that everyone sees how Christians act. Even people who have not felt outright condemned by Christians are going to recognize when a group is being treated poorly, and they too are going to pass judgments about Christianity based on this information.

The majority of Christians will argue that this is not a fair way of judging the whole of Christianity because every follower of Christ does not act this way, and I agree with you. The problem is that the world we live in is not fair, so we have to try as hard as we can to get things right. It is easier to launch a preemptive strike on how people view the church than it is to change people’s minds who already have their stereotypes in place. Paul said, “For while I was with you I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)” As Christians we need to remember that though we preach Jesus, the body of Christ (the one that walked around Palestine 2,000 years ago) is not here on earth for people to see today. We, the church, are the Body of Christ. If people want to see Jesus, we at the very least are the rough sketches of Him.

Therefore, if we represent Christ here on earth, we should be doing the things He did, and living the way He did. People should be attracted to us like people were to Jesus. We often think that people in Israel followed Jesus because merely because His name was Jesus and that is what people did. Keep in mind that Jesus’ name was just another translation of the name Joshua. It was not a name that attracted the people, it was the person Himself. He made bold and sometimes downright outrageous statements, but he backed them up by living the perfect life. So much to the point that just from watching Jesus die, a Roman centurion said, “This man certainly was the Son of God!” One could argue, that Jesus was God; of course He was able to do such awesomely powerful and attractive things. But we must also remember that in John 14:12, Jesus promises us that “one who believes in me will also do the works that I am doing.” In fact, He tells us that such a person “will do even greater works than these.” In that passage Jesus was referring to the miraculous works that He had been performing, but surely if we can join in Christ with His miracles we can join with Him in our attractiveness to men.

My question is a very simple one. If Christianity is so great, then what have Christians done to make it so repulsive to much of the world? We could sit around and talk about how much the world resists Christianity and how they have evil hearts that hate God, but we really can do nothing about that. What we can do is change the way we live. If I say I am going to be a representative of Christ, I intend to do it wholeheartedly. We have a giant world to reach, but we have the truth, and it is going to set this place free. The world just does not know it yet, because they have not seen what freedom is. Let us show it to them.