The Comedian Ron White has a routine he calls "You can't fix stupid." He is probably right and that is too bad. If we were able to fix stupid the Church of Jesus Christ would probably be doing much better at our of job in reaching this world for Christ. In the church, just as in the world, stupid seems to be the state of much of our leadership.
Like me, you are probably astounded at the obviously senseless decisions our governmental leaders make on a regular basis. For example, millions of tax dollars were spent to send us cards to tell us that the government is going to send us some money later this year. There was a good idea. Is there anyone who had not heard that the Bush administration is going to be sending all tax payers some money to help stimulate the economy? And if, out of 130 million households, there are a couple of dozen who hadn't heard, what difference does knowing ahead of time make? When the check arrives I'll bet they can figure it out. Just check the return address.
The Church and many of its leaders seem to suffer from stupid. Many also suffer from Sanctimonious. It amazes me how much time, energy, print space and arguing is used up in the Church attacking each other. It is one of our behaviors that those outside of the church most easily observe and the behavior that most turns them away from the church, which would be fine except it also generally turns them away from Jesus. We get so wrought up nitpicking each other's statements, theology and actions that little time is left to do the work of Kingdom that Jesus left in the hands of His followers. His Great Commission was to "Go into all the world and make disciples." It was not a call to arms against our brothers and sisters in Christ. The calling of the church is not to root out everyone whose theology differs from ours so we can publicly verbally beat them to death.
Now I realize that there are people who are wired like that. They just love to argue, find fault, root out "evil" so that they can be a part of the "Perfect Church." Unfortunately they are a part of that church so there goes perfection down the drain. I find it interesting that these people rarely have much of a life, have few friends, have never led anyone to Christ, have little influence for Jesus in the lives of unbelievers and rarely are involved in ministries of serving others. They tend to have a "fortress mentality" that shows itself in a need to defend the faith against infidels, wants to withdraw from the world for fear of how the world will influence them (Completely forgetting that Jesus wants us in the world so we can influence the world for Him.) or their loved ones and often have food and water stored in the basement "just in case worse comes to worse." My question is always, what will happen if worse does come and people show up at the door asking for help? What will these good Christians say to those who come with them asking for food and water?
The Christian Stone Chuckers have been around since the inception of the church. But with the amazing communications available to us today they can spread their "good news" of bad news worldwide with spectacular speed. I find it interesting the every Christian leader of the past 20 years who has influenced a large number of people has attracted more criticism from people inside the church than from unbelievers and the secular press. Billy Graham was criticized for hanging around Presidents, D. James Kennedy for being to narrow, James Dobson for being to politically involved and poor old Rick Warren for doing stupid things like hanging around non-Christians in an attempt to influence them for Jesus and suggesting that the church would do well to do something about hunger and the AIDS epidemic.
Frankly, I don't think any of these Christian leaders are perfect, spotless and completely correct in all they have said and done. But I am pretty sure they have done more to impact the world for Jesus than I have even dreamed of doing. I find it difficult to criticize them when I know how pathetically imperfect my life has been. I have some issues and problems but sanctimonious and holier than thou are mine.
Ron White was right - you can't fix stupid. It has been my experience that you also can't fix sanctimonious. And this is sad. Because the combination of stupid and sanctimonious is rendering the witness of the Church impotent. The world of unbelievers watches us and thinks, "Those people are no better off than I am. They are as hateful, nasty and unkind to each other as me and my friends are to each other. They are as miserable, depressed and more narrow minded as I. Their relationships are as bad as mine; they are in as much in debt as I am; they hate their jobs as much as I do; their kids are as bad as mine; they are running around in circles just like me and my family. The only difference is they go to church for a couple of hours on Sunday morning and I stay home, have a leisurely breakfast, drink my coffee and read the paper. Gee, I think I'll become a Christian - NOT!"
My prayer continues that we who claim to know Christ somehow figure out how to get our heads out of our .......... and stop attacking each other and start gathering together a group of unbelieving friends to love into the Kingdom of God.
Just a thought.
Copyright (c) 2008, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
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