Five Things Christians Need to Stop Doing

Let me start out by saying that I am a terrible Christian. I am full of pride, anger and lust. I am the last person who should be giving spiritual advice or preaching to people. I am busy looking for the splinter in my brother’s eye while ignoring the full-grown California redwood firmly lodged in my own.

However, I believe in Christ and His message and I believe that the world desperately needs it. Unfortunately, the message is not getting out or is distorted, because the messengers are doing things wrong, destroying their credibility, distorting the message and turning people away. Here then, are five things that, in my opinion, Christians need to stop doing:

5.) Voting Republican

I understand why we do this-Republicans are supposed to stand for “family values,” by which they mean anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-feminist. Throw in the fact that Republicans are anti-evolution, and you’ve got a political platform that warms evangelicals’ hearts. I am NOT going to deal with those four issues right now; that’s for another blog post. What I want to talk about are Republicans’ true core values.

Republicans are about making lots of money, despite the fact that the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Timothy 6:10) There’s nothing holy about capitalistic greed, and yet Christians line up to vote for evil. The early Christians were SOCIALISTS. (Acts 2:44 and 4:35)

Republicans are, by and large, social Darwinists. They hate welfare because they want people to become successful without any help. If those people perish, too bad-they were stupid and lazy. It’s amazing that people who claim to be creationists believe in economic natural selection. They’ve also apparently never read the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 31-46, where Christ says that giving free stuff to the poor is the mark of a godly person ( the sheep,) and not doing it is the mark of the devil’s people (the goats.)

I have not heard a single Christian speak a word of condemnation against Wall Street bankers and their evil plunder of our economy, which has brought ruin and misery to hundreds of thousands of people, but every one of them dislikes those godless communist Occupiers. Which group do you think Jesus would have associated with? Would he have rolled up to the Sermon on the Mount in a fat limo, after His SWAT teams had secured the perimeter with tear gas, batons and pepper spray? If you think so, I don’t know what Jesus you serve, but I’m pretty much interested in the opposite one.

The other thing that Republicans love is war. They love to send in the troops. They love to order bombings. They love to build weapons for “defense” and then use them for offense. Jesus said the peace makers were blessed, He told us to forgive our enemies, but Christians endorse violence against those that politicians with ulterior motives claim are the Christian’s enemies.

I also want to point out is that Republicans often don’t believe in family values or practice them; they just say they do in order to get votes and their fat paychecks. They may pass a few laws here and there that support these values, but it is a complete waste of time. That leads me to the next thing Christians should stop doing:

4.) Legislating Morality

Christians love to support the passing of laws that attempt to force non-Christians to act like Christians. On its face, it’s absurd. How can we expect the world to live like us? They don’t have Christ. They don’t have the power to obey Him, which is why He died in the first place. We’re saved by His grace alone and then we turn around and protest, petition and legislate (kick, scream and cry) because people who are just like we used to be can’t seem to do what we couldn’t do: be Christian without His help. And, by the way, obedience to His will should come from choice, not the threat of fine or imprisonment. Jesus never sought to establish a visible Kingdom whereby people would be compelled by law to obey.

Often our morality is based on mere belief. We cannot prove that a fetus is a human being. That is a matter of faith. We also can’t prove that being gay is unnatural. That is our belief. We cannot scientifically prove Creationism-it is a matter of conviction. When we try to use force to dictate obedience to principles that seem like opinions to other people, they seethe with resentment.

Legislating morality can be dangerous. By trying to get people to “be good,” we send the message that getting to Heaven is a matter of doing good deeds, not accepting Christ by faith. People cannot be saved by their own efforts, but people believe that they should try, thanks to us. So why do Christians try to stamp out sin in others? It’s because sometimes they are guilty of…

3.) Hating Sinners

I once read a description of Judgment Day by a Christian author, and he felt that it would be pretty short. He actually used the words “rocket docket” to describe the process where God judges sinners and puts them in Hell forever. This guy couldn’t see people put in Hell fast enough. Throughout history, Hell has always been the trump card for people on the losing end of an argument or conflict. “Just wait until my God puts you in Hell,” they chortle. “I’ll look down from Heaven and see you roasting in the flames.”

Where is the compassion for the sinner? Where is the Christian who weeps and agonizes for the lost? Where is the man or woman who has deep affection for his or her enemies and cries out to God daily that everyone he meets would be saved?

Log into any website talking about politics or religion, and there will be a Christian, spewing hate for atheists, liberals, gays and abortionists. This kind of bitterness, anger and self-righteousness gets justified because the “cause” is supposedly just. It’s an excuse to glorify the self, and it finds a thousand outlets; every right-wing talk show host (all of whom claim to be Christians,) the members of the Westboro Baptist Church and the televangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who exploited every tragedy to shake their fingers at sinners-every one of these people has poisoned the well. They think they should act like Old Testament prophets, forgetting that we are New Testament people.

So why do Christians vent their wrath against the lost? It’s because they are against sin, but their anger is misdirected. They are busy judging the world before they judge themselves. They are…

2.) Not Confronting their own Sinfulness.

Christians from a century or two ago had a horror of sin. They rooted out sin in their lives and killed it the way you would kill a wild animal trying to eat your family. Nowadays, people “struggle” with “issues” that they have to “pray through.” They claim they just need to “grow.” They seem to feel they have easy, endless forgiveness and no chance of losing their salvation, despite numerous Bible verses to the contrary.
The reason for this lukewarm attitude is simple. Churches don’t confront sin. They don’t kick Christians out for adultery. They are comfortable with worldliness. A church service in America today is about making Christians feel good. Making them feel comfortable. The bigger and more expensive the church, the more non-confrontational towards sin, and the more they talk about God’s blessing, not His wrath. This is because they…

1.) Have Leadership that Loves Money

No minister wants to turn people off, because that would mean the cash stops rolling in. And the God business is a good one. Churches enjoy tax-exempt status AND they strongly encourage tithing (giving 10%) AND most of what gets donated does not make it to the poor or the lost. There’s a reason the pastor has a nicer house and car than most of his flock. The money is just flowing in.

Contrast this with Jesus, who:

Paid taxes (Matthew 17:14-27)
Encouraged others to pay their taxes (Matthew 22:15-21, Mark 12:17)
Didn’t even have a house (Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58)
Commanded church leaders to NOT be lovers of money (1 Timothy 3:3)
Preached against wealth (Matthew 6:19, Mark 10:21, Luke 16:19-31)
Instructed that people should make up their own minds how much to give. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

I cannot overstress the significance of that last one. Tithing is an Old Covenant principle. It is the Old Law, and the New Testament is quite clear that we are not supposed to follow it, and that we are under a curse if we do. (Galatians 3:10) The New Testament mentions at least 38 times that we do not follow the Old Covenant. Yet go to any church for a few months and the pastor will have a series on “Biblical giving,” and by that he means “tithing.”

Think what would happen if every Christian sold what he or she had that was unnecessary and gave it to the poor? What if they were on their faces in church every Sunday, repenting for their lust, their anger, their hate and their pride? What if they stood up to Republicans and right-wingers and said, “No more money, no more votes. You’re through.” What if they quit every mega-church and met in simple, sparsely-decorated buildings? What if every minister had to get a day job, just like the Apostle Paul? What if Christians were known not for what they were against, but for having the answers for the lost when they finally had enough of their sin and came to church to see what it was all about? And when they did, what if they were greeted with open arms of love by people who knew that they themselves were sinners?

Well, we’d probably have something like what Jesus intended, wouldn’t we?

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