Ah, to be an American Christian. The freedom to worship our Savior how we choose. 25 years ago, that meant we could say anything. We could walk up to total strangers and say, "Hey, you are going to hell! Here is a gospel tract." People would take the tract, say thank you and either walk away or if we were lucky stop and have a conversation about their eternal destination. We (I've only been a Christ follower for 15 years or so, so I have only heard about the glory days) were tolerated by people. But then something happened. Our society changed. The rise of Political Correctness. All of a sudden the one began to outweigh the majority. If I was offended, it didn't matter if the other 300,000,000 people in the US were ok with something, I have a right not to be offended.
(Hold on Christians who are beginning to agree with me. There is bad news on the way.)
All of a sudden, people were offended by the 10 Commandments. And then the cross. And then nativity scenes. The courts began to tell people what religious symbols that could or could not be displayed in public on public grounds. Then "Merry Christmas" was changed to "Happy Holidays." This made us mad. So mad we complain about it on Facebook. We avoid certain businesses (Looking at you Disney...oh wait, they did the Narnia Movies? Ok Disney, we are cool again.) We fight in the political arenas. If only our guy was in power then we would be ok!
Well, I hate to break it to the few who are still fighting the culture battle. We have lost. There may be a few skirmishes that will be fought, like in the Civil War, where people months later are still fighting battles because the news hasn't gotten to them yet. We have absolutely lost the culture war. Don't believe me? Ask an average person who the most influential people are in society...will they say Christians? Ask an average person who has the most influence in our culture...would we be in the top 200? So here is my question, why do we think that we are relevant in our culture today, when we have things like TBN, BBN, and bad TV preachers who are the only ones the culture gets to experience in mainstream. When the music that is put out to our culture is the "fluffy stuff." (Meaning the music is feel good and uplifting, yet is only speaking to an insider audience.)
So what do we do?
We rejoice! Wait...what? This is what Jesus says, "Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets."
So here is the takeaway...quit whining. They took the ten commandments away...boo hoo hoo. They said we can't put up a manger scene...waaahhhh! Get over it. Whining is what my children do. He took my toy....waaaaahhh! It's not fair....waaaahhhh! When is it going to be my turn...waaahhhh! Whining just makes people want to ignore you.
The world should look at us and go, "we taken all their stuff, yet they are still happy. They can't talk openly about their 'religion' but they are still adding followers. We have started to tax the churches and some of them have closed their doors, but they are still meeting in record numbers."
What if American Christianity was known more for our ability to be content in every circumstance. I think I read that somewhere...
No comments:
Post a Comment