Catch Up

Sorry about the disruption to my little schedule. But, it was necessary. I felt it better to take the rest of the week off than to put something up half-heartened. Thursday was pretty busy, or at least seemed to be more busy than normal. By the time that I realized that I hadn't gotten around to saying anything on here, it was almost 4. Then of course, Friday I was similar to the walking dead with the lack of sleep. But, now I am back, with a bit of free time, and a rested self to give you some thoughts that I have been thinking about.

I have mentioned, I think, that I am currently making my way through unChristian. Well, there have been quite a few good points that have made me stop and just reflect on it. The first area of critique that they tackle is hypocrisy. This is one of the areas that they say that young people (18-29) tend to think about people who would label themselves as Christians. The most stunning revelation isn't that they see us as hypocrites, but rather that they don't see a difference between the way that we act and the way that everyone else in the world acts. Think about that. We are the same as those who claim to have no connection to Jesus Christ. Does that not just floor you? Now, of course, you might be saying that well, those aren't real Christians that they are seeing. The thing is that it doesn't really matter. Whether or not the people who are being labeled in this manner are completely sold out to Jesus or not doesn't seem to matter in this group's mind. As a whole, Christians haven't been transparent enough to show a difference between our life and the way the world lives. They (young people) think that people are just trying to make themselves look good and when we, as a group, don't show that while we want a better life, but are flawed people, they just lump us in with everyone else who has proven themselves as just trying to make themselves look good. That just breaks my heart.

Another thing that just made me broken was the surveyed born-again Christians and their view of what it means to be a Christian and lifestyle decisions. Now, this study focused on younger people (18-29). They also defined born-again Christians as some one who made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important to them and they believe they will go to heaven when they die because they confessed their sin and accepted Christ as savior. Now, obviously, they don't know the respondent's heart, but this was as best of a way as possible to weed out the differences. Of these people who claimed to be born-again Christians, 59% said they thought it was morally acceptable to co-habitat with a member of the opposite sex. That 44% thought is was morally acceptable to have sex outside of marriage. But, only 7% thought it was morally acceptable to use the f-word on broadcast television. How messed up are our priorities? How much of the world have we allowed to teach our kids? I can't say that I was ever perfect in these things, but I know that thought even when I did things that I shouldn't that I was doing something that was completely not morally acceptable. But, the problem isn't that we aren't following a rule, but that we are causing hurt for ourselves in the future. My heart breaks when I think of how completely we miss it sometimes when teaching the next generation.

I know that I just spouted off and said a bunch of things that might not really fit with anything else, but they just shocked me and I wanted to share with the chance that if they shock you, maybe we all can make a change. No, I am not quoting Rocky IV. I don't really have anything much going on other than that in my mind, but I felt it was important enough to talk about it for a little while.

I don't know if this week will keep up that schedule that I had set up, but that's ok. I am just trying to get on here and run through some thoughts that I have had. So, I will be back here sometime soon.