response to an article in the school paper

I"m thinking about sending this in to the sojourn, any thoughts you have would be nice ...


I like America. I like the Church. I like the American Church. There, I’ve said it. I am stepping out of the closet and saying that I appreciate Christianity in its current form in America. I realize this is not the chic position to take, and I realize this makes me less “post-modern” and therefore less “relevant” to society, but I am “emerging” with my point nonetheless.

I have become tired hearing how horrid the church in America is. I have become weary of everyone feeling as if they are the next prophet, spewing woes to the American church. “Woe to you American church,” they say, “You have money and are lazy. You cannot preach a Gospel of Joy or one of blessings from God. God wants us to be persecuted and miserable.”

Joel Osteen has become the most recent target. Your Best Life Now has sold a ridiculous amount of books on the concept that God wants you to be joyful and happy right now. And Christians go bezerk? Never mind the Wesleyan position has traditionally been that God does want you to have his best for you now. Never mind that Jesus wanted to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth. “Nah,” would be the response “not like it is here in Babylon a.k.a. America.”

Don’t get me wrong; I realize the church has flaws. It is made of people, and people are fallen. However, whether we want to admit it or not, the church is the body of Christ. America church included. Unless, (in the words of the illustrious Dr. Keith Drury) we want a beheaded Jesus, we need to work within that church.

We have romanticized this concept of persecution here in America. We talk as if that is the only way to form “true Christians.” We hold up signs saying, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” This may or may not be true; either way we must fertilized the ground live bodies spreading The Gospel. Without a “state church” we would not have the bible in the form we have it. Whether we want to admit it or not, history is written by the winners, and if a successful church was never in place, I am not sure we would have Christianity at all. (I know God would have found a way, but to play the God card here means you have to say he can do it however he wants, and who are we to say it has to use persecution and not success.)

I do not have all the answers, I am aware of that. In addition, you may feel that I, as a person going into ministry here in America, am much like a turkey voting against thanksgiving. You are probably correct. Nevertheless, I am sick of watching Christians shoot at other Christian’s who are doing their best to bring as many to Jesus as possible. We are all fighting the same battle; let’s focus on the enemy and not on each other.