Barneyisfat

Adam and I watched one of my favorite movies, Saved!, the other day. He had a difficult time with it because he felt it mocked Christianity.

I have two stories to illustrate something that has been on my heart. We as Christians need to examine our lives. If we as Christians do something that the world cannot handle, we must examine the issue and decide if the world has a problem with our actions because they go against its worldview and the peoples minds are not enlightened by Christ or if we are simply being idiots.

There are things the Christian world believes that the secular world find literally unbelievable. There are things we do that it cannot swallow because it lacks the light of Christ as its very core. Corrie Ten Boom is immortalized because she valued life (the life of others) over her own self.

There are things the Christian world does that are so shocking and so countercultural that the secular world has no response. We canonize Mother Teresa because we cannot fathom the faith that would lead so far away.

There are things the Christian world believes that the secular world finds crazy … because they are crazy. It’s inane to believe that Jesus would be so radically pro-life as to murder an abortion doctor or so worse yet, be so focused on saving fetuses and simultaneously so enamored with making sure every murderer is executed ... just … like … he … was?

There are things the Christian world does that are so shocking that the world stands back in disbelief because our actions are so horrendous. We live in McMansions while most of the world can’t find enough water to survive.

We must examine our actions and see if they shock the secular world because they exemplify Christ or if they do so because the hypocrisy is only hidden from our own eyes.

A friend apologized to me today, he recently decided that he could no longer identify himself as a Christian, but when asked to pray in class he did. He was concerned that I would feel his prayer was irreverent because he didn’t mean it.

Some of my most succinct prayers have been four letters long. Some people have their best prayer moments while having one night stands. I truly believe the most irreverent prayer is one offered by a Christian without any passion behind it. I’ve prayed a few of them. I’ve also prayed some passionate prayers that would make sailors blush. I don’t consider any of those prayer irreverent.