Musings of a "not so good" Christian

“BABY KILLERS”
“GOD HATES FAGS”
“GODLESS LIBERAL/DEMOCRATS/PROGRESSIVES”
“HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA”
“SOCIALISTS/MARXISTS/COMMUNISTS”
“FORNICATORS”
“DEMONICALLY INSPIRED MUSIC/TELEVISON/MOVIES”
“ENVIRONMENTAL WACKOS”

These are just a few of the words that I have heard come from the mouths of the Christians I have known over the last 2o some years of being an Evangelical. These words are usually spoken with a sense of self-importance or arrogance. These words are meant to give you a mental image of all people who fall into each of the above categories. And it works.New converts to the Christian faith embrace these words because it gives them a feeling of being right and others being wrong. I admit for the first few years of my Christian experience i used some of them too because i believed it was what I was supposed to do.

I also learned another phrase, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” This phase gives justification to the idea that the most loving thing you can do for someone is to point out to them that they are bound for hell unless they repent of their sin. There is a problem with this idea though. What if the person does not agree with you that what they are doing is sin? Generally the unconditional love we claim to embrace suddenly is withdrawn from that person. And we are seen as unloving, or worse a hypocrite.

Most non believers today see us Christians as mindless, arrogant, judgmental, unloving, uncaring and acting as though we are morally superior to the rest of humanity. No wonder that the gospel is foreign to them. And it is our fault.

Please don’t tell me that the Bible says that we will be hated for the Gospel message. We are hated because of how we fail in presenting the  Gospel message correctly. We are giving people a false gospel. The message we give is not about forgiveness of sin and an amazing loving relationship with the Creator of the universe. It is about being moral, following rules, giving up culture and intellect and reason. It is not about Jesus.

We focus so much on the sins of others that we forget that behind the “sin” behind the label we have given them is a person with joys, hurts, failures, feelings. and thoughts.

The most loving thing that we can do for a non-believer is to love them unconditionally, without expecting anything. It will be the first time that non-believer will sense in a small way the unconditional love of God in Jesus and they will want more.