Great post by Carey Nieuwhof this morning… Carey writes:
It bothers me that Christians continually express shock, disapproval and judgment at the way non-Christians live.
You’ve seen it, and maybe even done it:
Doesn’t anyone believe in marriage anymore?
I can’t get over how many people today smoke weed.
Can you believe they just sleep in instead of coming to church?
Did you hear they moved in together? That’s so bad!
What’s wrong with our government? Why don’t they uphold biblical values?
Whenever I hear that, I I feel like saying “Do you seriously expect non-Christians to behave like Christians?”
Think it through.
Most people in the West no longer consider themselves Christian.
Or even if they use the term “Christian” to describe themselves, few believe in the authority of scripture or profess a personal faith in Jesus Christ.
So why would we expect them to behave like Christians? Why would we expect people who don’t profess to be Christians to:
Wait until marriage to have sex?
Clean up their language?
Be celibate when they’re attracted to people of the same sex?
Pass laws like the entire nation was Christian?
Seriously? Why?
They’re not pretending to be Christians. Why would they adopt Christian values or morals?
You can continue to read here…
I agree with Carey. As Christians, many times it is much easier to belly ache about how bad things are in our culture, and how evil the world is.
Truth is… we really can’t expect the world to live ‘Christianly’. Can we?
If you weren’t a Christian… if you didn’t know Jesus… would you NOT live differently?
Why wouldn’t you?
So… rather than crying foul all the time, maybe we should just get back to work, and make the changes one life at a time.
Thoughts?
 |
 |
Well Todd;
I have to hand it to you. This is right up my line of thinking.
It’s hard to push Christian values when Christians are doing the same thing.
It makes us look like hypocrites, which we are. If not in deed at least in our arrogance, pride and lack of love for the world.
My cowboy cousin would say, you can’t draw flies with vingar. Non-believers are not flies, but you get the point.
People are drawn by love, real love, not imitation, fakey stuff on Sunday morning. Real, messy, dirty, get your hands dirty kind of love.
The expectations of Christians on the world is just another way to marginalize the “inconvenient” and “uncomforatable” element of things we can’t change, or control.
To love unconditionally is an element we talk about but rarely if ever see in our churches.
Performance, criticism, demands, expectations, these are what we understand and practice. But God’s unconditional, non-performance, no expectations of perfection love is not what we see in the Church.
It’s in Jesus, but we’d rather form another religion, than just BE a believer.
Thanks Todd. You’re hitting on a sacred cow. Your article on Pastor reprimaned for praying from the Lutheran Missouri Synod is a case in point. “They’ll know we are of Jesus, when we have love for one another.” Unless your from the Missouri synod. Too bad, they’re missing the greatest blessing of all and that is to grow in grace, love and God’s wisdom.
Quite making any expectation of anyone and just start loving people. Jesus can love everyone because he has no expectations of us. Now that should light a fire under some of you good Pharisee/Christians so bring the debate and we’ll dicuss how religion and relationship are at opposite poles of God’s love. And religion I do mean American Christianity.
Blessings in your pursuit of what’s real and not a counterfeit to God’s love and grace. The truth does set you free.
James
Where is the solid statistics that most in the west do not consider themselves Christian?
go look at the research George Barna has done – according to his definition of an evangelical, only 9% of Americans are true believers and Christ followers -
I do believe we needto let non-Christians off the hook, but I sense we are afraid to confront Christians’ moral behavior.
I like the quote from JC Ryle, “don’t leave the real truth at the alter of peace” There can be a fine line between tolerance and acceptance – its hard for me to know when to speak up and when to keep my mouth shut
Depends on what you mean by “let them off the hook.” We should be compassionate not condemning at all times to Christians and non-Christians alike, but moral and ethical values are a basic building block of society. It isn’t unkind to insist people behave in a socially responsible way. God’s laws are both a reflection of HIs character and are also designed for man’s joy and for stable community. It is our attitudes and motives which most often need a closer examination, not our values.