Saturday, 03 October 2009

• un-unChristian

  Within the past few years, books such as Barna's "unChristian" have paved the way for campaigns of critique in the Evangelical Christian world with statistics,studies and calls to reclaim Christianity. Much of this critique seems to point to the idea that Christianity has failed in one way or another, especially when it comes to how we have represented Christ and His message.
  

  I've noticed that there are still many similar movements popping up, all with the purpose to restore Christianity back to truth, and all attempting to salvage the tarnished, despised image of the Christian Church. Some say we need to offer more love and acceptance. Others say we need better teaching regarding the atonement. Still others insist that we need to become more familiar with the secular world. Church needs to be smaller, Church needs to be called something other than Church, Church shouldn't have sermons...and on goes the list of solutions.

  Book after book, study after study, page after page…all describing the embarrassing reputation we’ve gained in the world around us. Revealing all of the not-so flattering things people think of when they think of Christianity, all of the ways we have been getting it wrong, and how to make it right.
  

  And I, like many, have read this information and often thought to myself “wow this is messed up. We(Christians)should do something about this.” In fact, if you look throughout my blogs you will definitely see strong influences of this movement (although I must point out I blogged much of that before ever reading any of those studies.)

  Now, I have no problem with the research groups like Barna have done. I think it is extremely important to know what the world around us thinks about Christianity. I also think it is just as important to know what those who consider themselves Christians think about Christianity and the secular world. I also appreciate those who want to approach Christianity with a fresh, bold zeal and spark the Church into radical Christian servitude. But my concern isn’t with the information or it’s presentation, it is more with our reaction to the information.
  

  Consider this: the Barna-esque movement has also sparked a growing protest against the marketing and commodifying of Christianity and the Gospel. Ironically, the immediate reaction to these studies is a concern that Christianity has a plummeting image, and so we need to improve that image so that more people will be attracted to Christianity.

  In other words,  we have this product called the gospel of Christ, and it has suffered from poor marketing and an unattractive image. We need to find positive ways to market our product so that people will be more willing to buy it.

  So here's what I'm getting at: at what point does this all turn into nothing more than seeking the approval of the world, thus dodging Christ’s promise of persecution, mockery and suffering for the cause of the Gospel? Where can we find the balance between "they will know we are Christians by our love" and "do not be surprised if the world hates you"?
  

  When the world says we are hateful, we can scramble to find ways to come off as less hateful, or we can take it as a sign that the message of Christ is in fact working powerfully and encountering the natural resistance it should face from an unbelieving world. If the world calls us judgmental, we can shy away from calling sin sin, or we can consider such accusations to be symptomatic of opposition to the Spirit's conviction.
  

  Has this recent wave of scrutinizing Christianity gone too far? Is the world’s critique of us really an accurate way of determining if we are appropriately carrying out Christ’s mission? Do you think these movements lead to watered-down Christianity, or is Christianity really in need of a revolution?
  

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