You can’t judge Christianity by the product it produces.
Or so I am told.
Even though we judge the veracity of virtually of everything by the product it produces, Christians think that Christianity should be exempt from such examination.
Raise the issue of the disconnect between the way Christians live and the truth they say they believe, and you’ll be told the only issue is the truth of the gospel.
“Christians are hypocrites”
So what? The gospel message is what matters.
“Christians live lives that are not any different from their non-Christian neighbors.”
So what? The gospel message is what matters.
Christians go around with bumper stickers that say “I’m not perfect, just forgiven,” expecting non-Christians to understand.
Unbelievers are told time and again that Jesus is the answer to what ails them.
Jesus will change their lives if they will trust him as their Lord and Savior.
Jesus fixes the broken, heals the hurting, and makes every follower of him a new creation.
Jesus forgives sin, wipes slates clean, and the Holy Spirit lives inside every believer to teach and guide each of them.
The Bible says Christians have the mind of Christ.
The Bible also says that Christians are to be perfect, even as their Father in Heaven is perfect.
Christians are even told in the book of James their lives must be sinless, and 1 John says anyone who sins is of the devil.
The Bible also says Christians are to be holy just like God is holy.
The same Bible that tells us the gospel message that we are told we must accept as TRUTH also presents a Christian lifestyle radically different from the way Christians live today.
A lifestyle, it seems, that despite having their sins forgiven, being made new creatures in Christ, and having the Holy Spirit living inside of them, Christians are unable to live it.
We live in a nation inundated with Christian churches, Christian books, and Christian TV and radio. Christianity is the professed religion of 65% of Americans (down from 85% in 1990). Almost one out of four Americans is Evangelical (depending on how you define the word). The United States is the most Christian nation on earth.
Yet, for the most part, those who profess they are Christian live lives no different from those of their non-Christian neighbors.
They preach Jesus is the answer, but non-Christians look at them and say “how’s that working out for you?”
If Christians truly want to impress the world, if Christians want to give the world a reason to pause and consider the truth of the gospel, then live like it matters.
Stop preaching and start living.
In other words, put up or shut up.
While I believe the Bible to be an errant, fallible, non-inspired work of largely unknown men, if Christians truly lived their lives according to the words of Jesus, it might make me pause for a moment to consider the veracity of their claims.
But, I know I am safe. Christians love money, food, power, sex, pleasure, entertainment, material goods, etc. just like the rest of us. For all their talk of Heaven, Christians seem to want to stay alive right here on earth with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world.
The product produced shows that the advertising is false.
Change the product and people might start believing the advertising.
I see nothing within Christianity that says to me “come home.”
I like my new residence.
And I can sleep in on Sunday.
Go Bengals. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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