You may have heard
the news story about how Christians knew less than atheists about their own religion. This would be a perfect opportunity for Christians to start beating up on themselves, and many have already started doing so.
But maybe that's not such a good idea.
In his excellent new book
Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites . . . and Other Lies You've Been Told, Bradley R. E. Wright examines Christians' tendency to believe -- even to embrace -- every stereotype and label that's flung at them. In
a recent interview at
Christianity Today, Wright remarked, "What we hear is, 'Christianity's going to fail. You're all a bunch of failures. But if you buy my book, listen to my sermon, or go to my conference, I'll solve everything.' These fear messages demoralize people, hinder the message of the church, and hide real problems."
As Wright explains, some statistics are manipulated or faked (e.g., statistics about Christian divorce rates), while others show a genuine need for improvement (such as statistics about our racial attitudes, or this new study about our religious knowledge). But neither is a reason for wallowing in what I call "Christian guilt." Instead, why not simply be thankful to God for the areas where we're doing well, and humbly pray and work to improve in the areas where we need to do better?
Comments:
….beating myself up.
Just kidding.
I am sure there are a lot more hate-filled hypocrites who CALL themselves Christians than there are true Christians who are that.
Unfortunately, the worldly-minded are always looking for our dirt and failures b/c, in addition to the financial incentive mentioned, the only sure way to make the unrepentant feel good about their prospects a the Judgment Seat is to make us look just as bad or worse; and there’s nothing worse than those who scold others for the very sins of which they themselves are willfully guilty. On that we are agreed.
I've been to some fine churches, but have them start a building campaign, and the guilt comes out, "You aren't giving enough in faith." The consultants they hired pushed that message. Exact same thing happens to churches when it's Missions Week.
Or talk to a missionary and they're adamant that you should be out in the field...even to the neglect of your children!
Or bring up other hot-button issues, like alcohol, home-schooling or birth control, and you get the same thing.
So again, it's so ingrained into the culture that it's not easy simply to turn it off.
My understanding is that the Church should be encouraging and helping people to love God. When you love someone, you want to do right by them. (I read a recent discussion on romance for Christians that touched on this. It was so good that even reading poetry was beneficial). That involves at least two things:
Getting to know the other being, so you know what they like and don't like.
Willingly doing those things they like and avoiding those things they don't.
Not a lot of need for guilt when you have love as motivation.
Brendan Manning covers this well, IMO.