I read an interesting article this week in Harper's Magazine. It's by Bill McKibben, and I have to say that I don't completely agree with him and I think that some of his theology is a bit off, but he raises an intriguing question. He starts off by giving a lot of statistics and examples. And then he writes:
And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox ... Illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.
If you like to read more there is an introduction on Harper's website. Link
or you can stop by your local library and read it.
Anyways, what do you think? More and more I see a nation and a church that is without fruit. We say we are committed, yet we make other plans (our own). We say we trust Jesus, as long as things are in our favor. We say we love people, as long as they don't make us uncomfortable.
Paul writes in Roman's 1:21-32
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the CreatorÂ?who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
America knows a lot about God, but we have chosen to go our own way. So what about us? Us, as in, true believers, here and now. Are we Christian in both voice and action? Or do we just give lip service to God and pay our dues at the local chapter's weekly meeting? James says that faith without works is dead, and works alone are not enough. It is both faith and works in concert together that pleases God and proves what we say we are is truely what we are.
later...
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