Ok so let me set the stage for this blog. Monday night was “The Bachelor” season finale and Ash made me miss 24 to watch it. So last night, Ash and I sat down to watch the recorded 24. In case you don’t know 24 is the greatest show on television. But anyways, this episode was awesome! Tony had figured out that there was going to be a terrorist attack on Washington D.C., but they just didn’t know where it was going to be. They figured out that a Senator’s assistant was helping the terrorists and that he was going to be at the White House and had the information they needed.
So Jack, who is the MAN, heads over to the White House to interrogate the assistant and to try to get info from him. Again if you haven’t seen 24, then you need to know that when Jack Bauer interrogates you, you will give in. He basically beats the crud out of people until they give him the information he needs.
At the beginning of the season, Jack was being brought before the Senate by the same Senator and his assistant (the bad one), to be tried for crimes against humanity. This Senator wanted Jack thrown in jail for the extreme measures he had taken to protect our country. So as Jack is interrogating this suspect he begins to give Jack the information, but then everyone busts into the room and makes him stop, and they arrest him. The Senator walks into the room and starts confronting Jack. He tells him that the way he handles situations are wrong and blah, blah, blah. And then Jack says one of the greatest lines I have ever heard……
“You are weak! I am willing and able to look evil in the eye, and deal with it!”
How awesome is that! Yes….I do have a man crush on Jack Bauer.
But anyways, it got me to thinking about myself and the church. I am weak. The church is becoming weak. Let me explain.
Christianity as a whole, is the largest “religion” in the world. Yet we are weak. We are scared. We have the God that controls this entire universe in our corner, yet we back down and fall into the same behavior that the world does. Why is that?
Because we do not allow God to be our strength. Yesterday I was at work and this kid who was probably 20-22 years old comes in wearing this shirt that had the words “bad religion” on it. Underneath it was a picture of the cross with a circle around it and a line through it. How has it come to that?
It has come to that because we are weak as a group. Churches around the country are getting smaller and smaller, and shutting down more and more. Christians aren't living a life that reflects the glory of Christ. We are living lives of hypocrites and failing daily to show the love that Christ gives.
Is it because God isn’t big enough? No.
Is it because we don’t have time? No.
Is it because we aren’t united with Christ and each other? Yes.
We need to become united as a group of believers or this world is just going to continue to get worse and worse. We need to be able to look evil in the eye, deal with it, and then fight it! Even as individuals. We need to be desperately seeking God’s strength everyday because we can’t do this on our own. We need to start taking stands in our own lives, so that people can stop looking at Christians and relate the word hypocrites to us.
Should I have said something to the kid about his shirt? Should I have asked him what it meant to him? What has Christ ever done to you? Do you even know what the cross stands for?
Let me give some reason why I didn’t….
I could lose my job. The kid could punch me in the face. If he started causing a scene it could be embarrassing.
There are probably a million more reasons. But the main one that it comes down too, is that I was weak in that moment. I failed. I didn’t allow God’s strength to guide me.
I should have taken the opportunity to talk to the kid. Not bash him and scream at him about wearing a shirt like that, but gone and at least attempted to have a conversation about, in a loving and respectful way. What if he just thought like that because his dad was a pastor of a church, but beat him when he was a child? I might have somehow been able to develop a relationship with him, and maybe opened his eyes to what a picture of the cross should really imply.
At this point, I just encourage each of you to wake up everyday and ask for God’s strength because we are weak, but in Him, we are strong! In Him we can stand for things that matter eternally. We need to realize that we are mighty in God and we are mighty in numbers. In Him, we can look evil in the eye and deal with it!
Be an example.
6 comments:
After reading this post I was initially planning to write out a long explanatory response.
I then read on the discussion board where I had originally discovered the link to your blog that you had deleted all the previous comments.
Rather than taking the time to construct a detailed and thoughtful response that would only fall on deaf ears, I will just respond with a relevant quote that I hope you will at least take a moment or two to reflect upon before hitting delete:
"As you ruminate the hopeless sands of time, do you wonder how your life has been defined? You know eternity can never change your mind. So think; think before you die."
-Bad Religion
"Before You Die"
Hello. I'm curious as to why you deleted people's previous comments. I felt that they were calmly-stated, well-reasoned, thought-provoking ideas. And now they are gone.
I think that to be an example of a loving, caring Christian requires some willingness to consider the points of view of other people, rather than to just dismiss any ideas that are "controversial". Looking at the authors and books that you have read and enjoyed, I am sure that they would agree - so many Christians today are afraid of rational discussions; they feel like disagreement is a bad thing, rather than a necessary part of drawing relevant conclusions or establishing a system of belief.
Maybe you deleted those comments because your inbox was full or whatever - I just hope that you would be willing to have rational, thoughtful discussions with those who may believe differently from you. In my opinion, this would truly set you apart from so many other Christians today, and would make you the kind of example you hope to be.
Ok...and if this sounds rude, I am in no way meaning to be. The only reason and I mean the ONLY reason that I deleted those other posts, was because of the foul language that was used in the comments. I will not delete either of the two posts that are on here now. I am always up for discussion and enjoy hearing other people's opinions. I will admit that maybe I should have done some research on the "Bad Religion" thing before I posted my blog, but I would have never dreamed it would have meant more than what I already posted about. My question is, "why a cross?". Why not a Quaran or Buddha? But I apologize if you guys thought I was deleting the post based on what the other two had to say. I just have many youth that read this blog, and I personally just didn't want the language on there. Sorry.
"Why a cross?" Two reasons.
1) Because Bad Religion comes from America... where Christianity is far and away #1. Just comes with the territory, really. Putting a Star of David or a Star & Crescent instead of a cross would communicate completely the wrong message; as if they were knocking these small groups as the wrong particular faith.
2) Bad Religion's influences in the days of formation were people like Falwell, Roberston, Focus on the Family, etc... Christian groups that wielded oppressive influence into social life and were anything but "weak". It was a response to that kind of religion which was... well, Christian.
By the way, if you ask members of the band, they'll tell you different things about the logo. Graffin will say that it's innocent and akin to a "No Parking" symbol... basically meaning that "No Christianity practiced here."
Jay Bentley (who I've always thought the most frank of the group) thought it was incredibly offensive from the start. It's simple, eye-catching, controversial, defiant... everything an artist's logo needs to be.
It worked, didn't it? It got you to learn who they were.
-A Bad Religion fan
I feel it necessary to praise you for your thoughts of what you thought you should have done. Your initial response was anger, and that would have been wrong to confront the person wearing the t-shirt in this manner. Your after thoughts were that you should have approached him and asked him calmly about it, which would have been the right thing to do, which, although you didn't do is still something you thought and I think that's very good. A lot of Christians would have had your same initial thought of anger, but not the following approach of how to handle the situation.
As an atheist myself, I don't (although admittedly I wasn't there) believe he was necessarily trying to cause offence, rather displaying his own beliefs. Many Christians hang pictures of Jesus up on their walls or have stickers on their car praising the Lord. This is exactly the same, but atheists don't get angry about it, because it is common place. It's something we accept, so it is something you should accept too.
By the way, 24 is awesome, and Jack Bauer is the coolest person alive. His 'rants' on the show this season have been fantastic.
The crossbuster does not want to cause offense to Christianity in an unnecessary way. I personally think that the logo of the band raises for (as Jay would say) defying what you believe, question the answers that are brought to you and think about what feels to be dogmatic. As one of the guys posted before, the message would have been wrong if a David star was used, the reason is to make people think about, not to offend a minority or majority.
I'm glad that you are open to discussion. Take for granted that we will discuss about the things you post, but we will accept your thoughts, because that's the main reason about discussion.
Cheers from Argentina.
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