Theological Excuses

I brought some of this struggle up at a church class today and the response (which I've heard many times before) is about how people (meaning the church) will always disappoint you because we're humans, "sinful fallen humans." It's a sentiment I've heard and even used before, but now I look at it as a bit ridiculous. Those outside the faith don't use some theological excuse to explain their misgivings or the wrongdoings of their groups. It seems mostly like a very creative excuse for not being better then we are.

One of my biggest struggles for the past 10 years has been with the hypocrisy of the church. Even before I starting having these serious struggles and doubts, I lamented that most church goers weren't crazy passionate about telling everyone about Jesus and making sure everyone got saved. Now, I'm mostly just disappointed Christians look nothing like what they claim they believe in the Bible and they live barely any different from their secular neighbors (particularly when it comes to cost of living, giving and wealth).

I guess I just don't buy the excuse that because we are all "sinful" the church is never going to be a convincing witness to Christ truth and God's reality. Seems if anything, the apathetic church is just proof there is no supernatural power behind it at all, just make believe.

About this entry

Youre currently reading Theological Excuses.

Published:
at 11:26 AM on Sunday, April 11, 2010
Previous:
Older Post
Next:
Newer Post
 

4 comments:

  1. Joel April 11, 2010 at 2:55 PM

    It's true. Those outside the faith don't use some theological excuse -- they usually just say that they don't really need an excuse at all:

    "I'm not perfect, but you know, generally I'm a pretty good person."

    But I'm not going to defend the American church, or even myself, from the heart of what you are saying. Why? because I feel like God has called you to be a prophet. Not one of the ones that predicts the future, but a prophet in the old testament sense. Those prophets were sent to the chosen people (Israel) to remind them that they were God's people, and that as God's people their lives should reflect Him and the law that He gave them. You have always been sensitive to this area, and I think the reason is that some day (maybe soon, maybe it's already in motion) God is going to use you as his mouthpiece to confront the hypocrisy and immaturity of the church.

    You may not think that it makes much sense for me to be telling you this now, when you are in the midst of doubting if God is even real. But realize that if God doesn't exist then none of this really matters anyway. If God doesn't exist then Christians are just another group of people living their lives, the only difference between them and other groups of people is that Christians are stupid (and to be pitied, really) enough to think that there is some over-arching and greater purpose to their lives. I mean, if God doesn't exist, your frustrations with the church really don't matter.

    All I can really see you saying is that the path of following God is more difficult than many people, many "Christians", think that it is. But I don't think that it's fair to look at the church you're attending and say that it is "The Church" as a whole. If you want to find out how to hit home runs, do you go to to the little-leaguers that have trouble hitting the ball out of the infield or do you go to the pros that consistently hit 50 home runs a year? After all, they are all baseball players. But of course you go to the pros. Are the little league baseball players proof that no one can hit a home run? Of course not. Is the apathetic church or apathetic Christian proof that there is no God? Of course not. They might be more sparse than you'd hope that they would be, but you need to find some "pros", some Christians that do look/live like what they claim they believe in the Bible, and then search for the proof that God exists.

     
  2. Melissa April 11, 2010 at 3:06 PM

    i know i don't comment very much but i wanted to respond to this post and say that although a lot of christians may have been a disappointment to you, you've come to a false conclusion that there is no supernatural power behind the church. Maybe there is no supernatural power behind the apathetic churches that you've described, but it is a perfect lie from Satan that just because some fail while representing his name, God cannot exist.

    Of course christians fail and disappoint and will continue to do so. The disciples walked with Jesus for 3 years and consistently did not understand what he was teaching, and failed at what they were supposed to do. But does that imply that Jesus had no transformative power in their lives?? I think Peter, the simple fisherman and bottom of society who went on to be a respected leader would disagree. I think Levi, the tax collector (read: professional exploitationer of the jewish poor...) who went on to live in relative poverty, spreading the Word throughout Persia and Africa would
    disagree!

    I don't know who says that because we are all "sinful" the church is never going to be a convincing witness to Christ's truth and God's reality. I think it is exactly because we are all sinful that the church can be a conivncing witness to Christ's truth and reality! The apathetic church is more of an evidence that there is a supernatural battle going on behind the scenes if anything.

     
  3. Ariah April 14, 2010 at 12:35 PM
    This comment has been removed by the author.
  4. Anonymous April 14, 2010 at 12:36 PM

    Joel, I appreciate your words, and I think there have been times I've been more open to hearing claims of 'prophet' then others. I know that regardless of where I stand in my own spiritual beliefs, I feel a passion in my heart to challenge the 'church' to actually do what they claim they believe.

    And while I appreciate your baseball analogy, I guess I struggle with knowing who the big leaguers are and what if there are "big leaguers" on both sides that I respect and trust? It gets complicated when you have all these people you claiming some supernatural involvement in what appear to be rather ordinary things.


    I guess, Joel and Melissa, what I see both of you getting at is that I should ignore the majority of the 'church' which is by and large off-base and look to the small few that are living within the 'Christian calls' I see in the scriptures. While that makes sense and has been my view for a while when I felt confident in my belief of the spiritual truths, it's harder to ignore the majority of "Christians" when I find myself using others experiences and witness as a basis or evidence of this supernatural realm we claim.

    Does that make sense?

    (Thank you both though, for your thoughts, your care for me and your passion on the topic)

     

Post a Comment