Saturday, March 18, 2006

10 Suggestions by Aaron at TwoorThree.net

(HT: Joe Carter)

Below is a segment of a post by Aaron at TwoorThree.net. A very good post, thought provoking.

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Adherents of any faith should be conscious of how they portray their belief system to the outside world. I am constantly concerned about how Christianity, specifically conservative, evangelical Christianity, is being demonstrated by us, the followers.

I began thinking about the issues that define Christians for nonbelievers and I was saddened by the list that formed in my mind. To address those concerns, I came up with some possible reevaluations for Christianity, the Blogdom-of-God and myself.

This is not intended as a rebuke for posting on certain issues. I post on most, if not all, of the issues I mention. However, sometimes we get caught up and forget the reason why we are here.

Having no authority, not much of a platform and no real desire to do so, "commandments" from me make no real sense. So with an abundance of humility, I offer my 10 suggestions:

10. Stop with the extremes on the environment. It is possible to have a position in between "Rape and pillage the earth" and "Save the animals, screw the humans." One does not have to sell out completely for the theory of global warming in order to view Earth as something to be cared for and to be stewarded by humans. It is also not required for Evangelicals to support drilling for oil on every piece of protected land. There must be a balance here for Christians.

9. Worry more about living the 10 commandments, instead of displaying them. Quick, name all 10 Commandments and give their location in the Bible. If you are like most Christians, you have a hard time passing that simple test. Yet, for people with such ignorance about a topic, we have managed to display some passionate outrage over their removal from public places. In my opinion the displays do not violate the Constitution, but living our lives contrary to Jesus' spirit of the laws is a violation of Christianity. (Click here for the answers to the commandment quiz.)

8. Trust God, not money or slogans. This is very similar to #8. Christians are intensely concerned about keeping "In God We Trust" on our money, but most seem less concerned about actually trusting God instead of money. As a Christians, when was the last time you gave God "the widow's mite." Unfortunately, too many Christians will spend beyond their means to get a bigger house or a nicer car, but find it conveniently difficult to give God much of anything - a tithe at best. Our actions speak much differently than our words. Our actions say we really don't care what's on the money as long as we can spend it however we want.

7. Focus more on teaching your own child about creation. Christian parents are lazy. I know because I am one. We would rather send our child to church and have Sunday School teachers tell them about Jesus. Now we would rather send our child to school and have science teachers tell them about creation. I am actually a supporter of teaching Intelligent Design in schools - advocating the "teach the controversy" approach. However, too many Christian parents are fighting evolution because they do not want to spend the time instructing their own children. It would take a good deal of work to learn about the issues and then teach them to your child. Why not just pass that off to someone else?

For the rest of this post go HERE.


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