Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Disqualified
I've been realizing more and more lately how easy it is for Christians to portray a sense of disqualification to non-Christians. What i mean is this- we often exude, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not, a sens that if you don't measure up to my standards you can't follow Jesus. I saw a somewhat extreme example of this the other night. We were sharing the gospel with people and a friend of mine kept getting into arguments about evolution. He decided that it was good evangelism to challenge non-Christians on the topic of evolution because you can't be a Christian and believe in evolution. My point is that i think we all end up doing something like this, and Jesus wouldn't. Whether it is smoking, socialism, home-schooling, or something else, we often portray an idea that if you don't believe what i believe you can't follow Christ. If you respond to this post, please don't engage the topic of evolution vs. creation. Let me know what you think about how we end up turning people away from Christ not because they realize they can't merit righteousness but because we let them know that they can't be a Christian unless you see things my way.
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This is why I like the creeds, like the Nicene Creed. Everything that is "necessary" in belief in God is there. No statement in the Nicene Creed stands apart from the atonement.
ReplyDeleteChristians cannot always blame themselves for "turning people away" from Christ. One time, I watched a conversation unfold between a girl and my friend who is a Christian. They were talking about sin.
"Do you think practicing homosexuality is wrong? " she asked.
"Yes," my friend replied rather sheepishly.
"Oh my gosh! My friend is gay! I'm really offended. You're such a hypocrite..." The girl exclaimed, and she stalked off leaving my friend feeling rather humiliated despite the fact that he told her the honest truth about his thoughts on homosexuality.
The point is that some people are not interested in following Christ. Sometimes people use the beliefs of some specific Christians to justify their disdain for the Body of Christ and to legitimize their own values which they truly believe to be of greater worth than Christ. So sometimes there is not much that Christians can do in the way of being a light for the Gospel, because some people are not interested in it in the first place.
Also, from personal experience... Before I became a Christian, I voted for democrats, acknowledged evolution, voted in favor of same-sex marriage, and was pro-life. Yet God still "saw fit" to save me by means of the Cross of Christ. Christians cared for me though I was in sin (real sin, not the junk I listed above) and loved me steadfastly though I was undeserving. They were an image of Christ and by using their witness Christ brought me to himself.