If I started shooting over your head with a gun (any gun, doesn’t matter that it’s got a bump stock or illegally large magazine) you would duck. That’s a reflex. Danger kicks your instincts into overdrive and you’ll try to avoid contact with a projectile traveling at hundreds of miles per hour.
If I start spewing ideas onto your internet space (any social media, news feed, blog, video channel, doesn’t matter) you don’t duck. You don’t sense any danger. The idea penetrates your brain and does catastrophic damage without even making a hole in your skull.
The most serious problem facing the Church today is not persecution. Christians should expect abuse. In fact, a little persecution often makes spreading the Gospel easier. (See China, for example…) The most serious threat to Christianity isn’t mistreatment, misrepresentation, loss of liberty, injustice, famine, disease, pestilence, climate change, the Democratic Party, Islam, Donald Trump, homosexuality, or abortion laws. The most serious threat to the Christian Church is — ignorance.
When professing Christians don’t understand Christianity, the internet becomes a loaded gun in the hands of a toddler. Their theology is cobbled together from memes they’ve seen on Facebook. They only know the Bible says, “Don’t judge”. They believe Jesus approves of abortion. God is a mashup of pop psychology, cultural norms, worship music lyrics, and personal feelings. So they open fire on the internet with Brain Bullets like this one:
There is nothing wrong with posting this meme as long as you don’t profess to be a Christian. If you claim to be a Christian, you undoubtedly know John 3:16 because that’s the first Bible verse you were taught as a child. It says, “For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”
The reason God sent his Son is because — prepare for a shock — You are NOT enough. Everything in your life is nowhere near perfect. If it was, God wouldn’t have needed to send Jesus to fix your mess.
When you posted this upbeat meme to encourage people to “live life happy”, you were doing the work of an “apostate”. That’s a person who betrays Christianity for another religion. The Bible warns about people like you (in some of the verses other than John 3:16). I’m told to be careful that you don’t “lead me astray with fine sounding arguments”. And for the record, you didn’t. But that’s because I’m not ignorant. I know what Christianity teaches.
You are the biggest threat the Christian Church faces (no offense). You are only pretending to be a disciple. You can’t follow the teaching of Christianity if you don’t know what Christianity teaches. Christianity teaches that Jesus is enough. You are not. If you don’t like that idea, you are free to reject it. Just don’t be ignorant about what that means. Rejecting Christ means you’re not “a Christian”. You are free to believe anything you like!
…but it will never be enough.
15 Responses
“The most serious threat to the Christian Church is — ignorance.”
Very true. And most atheists I encounter on the Internet are just as ignorant of Christianity. Of course, many of them are made up of these formerly ignorant “Christians.” They left mom and dad and went to college and heard a professor, or read something on the Internet or watched a YouTube video, that sounded like an argument against God and were cowed into embracing their current incoherent worldview. This is a product of being taught what to think instead of how to think…or worse, social media. The movie, “Idiocracy” comes to mind.
True
Don’t you think that’s a bit misleading at best, or perhaps dishonest?
No. Smart people understood the point of the article.
However, your post implied that they did
Yes.
I didn’t see anything on the other person’s post or website that professed they were Christian
Perhaps they do not identify as Christian.
*memes* like that are not true. Your post is truth.
John, your post is enough, just as it is. Each emotion it touches, everything it says and does not say… where it is and what it is right now is enough. It is perfect. It is perfect enough.
The best news ever is that posts like that are NOT true, and that I don’t have to be enough or perfect enough. Thank God I don’t have to live up to what is intended to make me feel better but only makes me feel worse because I KNOW I am not enough in my failure to live up to even my own expectations, let alone the expectations of others and the perfection demanded by the Law. Thank God Jesus paid the price.
And thank God for you and your willingness to speak boldly, truthfully and without apology to those who have itching ears.
Agreed, that was meant to be sarcastic I should have clarified.
It seems like the only logical course is to ban all social media that might be considered offensive to a certain group of people. But Twitter and Facebook have already started doing that I suppose.
We shouldn’t ban ideas. We just need to be able to recognize garbage ideas. Christians need to know how to think so we can shine a light to help other people through the darkness.
Bravo! Foot-stomping, Hands-clapping, Cheers, Standing Ovation!
That “you are perfect” goo is part of the very corrupted self-esteem, pop-psychology crap that I noticed rearing its very ugly head back in the 70’s. Ewwww… It’s origins go back straight to the personification of pride, rebellion and evil itself (that little self-proclaimed god I will not name).
I could go into a rant about this ego-stroking crap destroying lives and our country, but I’ll restrain myself, mine wouldn’t be said in a humorous / ironic way.
Nice piece, John. Thank you. 👏
I appreciate the encouragement, Katy. Thank you!