Spread the Love

“I’m not often comfortable in church…it feels so unlike the Christ I read about in the Scriptures.” – Bono

“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians…You are so unlike your Christ.” – Gandhi

The youth group and I have begun a pretty in depth study of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. I am amazed by the lack of knowledge that we (myself included) have about our Messiah and His message. A recent Barna poll asked individuals who would not consider themselves Christians to rank various social groups from most favorable to least favorable. Christians came in 2nd to last comfortably seated between lesbians and prostitutes. It is pretty obvious that the message of Christ is being lost in translation.

Evangelicals are not identified with the Christ of Scripture. The church has become more akin to a political party than a place where God’s grace meets this world. Those who do not walk with God seem to know everything that we are against: “Don’t drink, smoke or chew or be around people who do and God hates homosexuals, Democrats, hippies and Elmo and Harry Potter.” They do not know what Christ was for: “Love your enemies, walk humbly with God, remain in Me, live life to the fullest.” Do we as the Church even know what he was for? When Christ saw the sin of Judea he was moved to compassion when Christians see the sin of America we point fingers. I am not advocating that sin should not be dealt with. We are commanded to speak the truth but we often forget to do it in love.

There has been a disconnect somewhere. Somewhere the lines have been crossed and the opposite message of Christ is being sent. I am wondering how this has happened. How has the greatest gift to all mankind been so misrepresented? Most point to history as a result. The Crusades and colonial missions efforts were public relations disasters but I think that is blame shifting at best. Some might say more service projects and good will things and that will do the trick but even Hollywood does that.

Scripture tells us that they will know we are Christians (little Christs) by our love for each other. Maybe the true test of a follower of Christ is not the amount of service projects we do but the amount of love we have for fellow Christians. We are the body after all and a body (house) divided against itself will not stand. I believe our enemy knows this intimately and he knows that we get our power from our unity. As we walk with our Trinity and each other let us remember that we are all in this together.

Article from the May 2005 edition of the Spotlight written by Justin Gentry