I really don't want to give the impression that when I speak about things that bug me, that I am talking especially about the United States, or that I am speaking politically. I think you know that but if anyone reads this they might not know it. So just for clarification....
Paul said that in Christ there was neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. In Christ there is no nationality, and I don't want to make it American versus Canadian either. I wasn't even thinking about Giuliani specifically.
Without meaning this to be taken politically or from a nationalist point of view, as a Christian I find it offensive when Christians reflect badly on the name of Christ no matter where they are from. If I take issue with some of the things that American Christians do, it is more along the lines of Paul giving the Corinthians or the Thessalonians heck, if you see what I mean. He wasn't giving them heck for being Corinthians or Thessalonians but for not acting like Christians.
From a purely faith perspective, I just don't get that American Christians put up with political leaders invoking the name of God at every opportunity. To me it is like when someone tells me, "To be perfectly honest...." If that person is perfectly honest, why does he need to preface his words with assertions of his honesty?
I would just love to be able to ask my questions about religion in America openly and directly, instead of the embarrassed way that non-Americans, in real life, face to face with American Christians, tend to broach the subject. I always fear that questions about religion will be taken, by Americans to be anti-American or about politics. Politics and religion are co-mingled in the US in a way that is unheard of except for Islamic countries, and so it is easy for it to seem as if it is a political discussion.
It is terribly hard to discuss Christianity with Americans.
Americans do have a we're-the-centre-of-the-universe mentality and so Americans, even American Christians, don't realise how utterly strange and mystifying they are to Christians from other countries. To many Christians from other countries, the American form of Christianity seems unchristian. And most non-Americans wouldn't ever want to get in any one's face about their practise of faith.
So where an American Christian might, in the cause of evangelism, have no problem telling a German, or a French or a Spanish Christian that they see a problem in how they practise their faith, and how it seems to be more a cultural thing than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and tell them that they should be born-again - a German or French or Spanish or Canadian Christian would have a really hard time saying that to an American Christian. And yet we are told to be our brothers' keepers, to keep the faith we received from the apostles alive and true. To take it to heart when we see a brother or a sister straying from the straight and narrow.
You see much of Europe as post-Christian and the United States as sort of the last bastion of Christendom. But many Christians in Canada and Europe express dismay at the absence of Christ in American evangelical Christianity. To many, the United States only has a veneer of Christianity, lip service. To many, American evangelical Christians are the epitome of the cultural or social Christianity they disapprove of in European Christians. To many Christians, American Christians have lost their way.
But few, if any, will ever say that to an American because they don't know how to do that. What they say won't be understood at all. It is so much a part of your culture to be righter and better than everyone else that all criticism is brushed off as anti-Americanism. And it isn't meant as bashing the US - it is meant as concern for one's brothers and sisters in Christ. It seems, to many, that Americans are Americans first, long before they are Christians.
Why have American Protestant Christians , when Protestants have traditionally been adverse to Catholicism and "the Pope running around as the ultimate authority on faith," crowning emperors and claiming the right to rule the world in religious matters, and political matters, come to the point where they want to impose their faith on their countrymen?
How has it come to that? It seems anti-American. For sure it seems anti-Christian. I have never taken the view that there is only one interpretation possible for anything at all in the Bible, and I leave room in my personal theology for different interpretations, but this is something I don't get at all. I don't think see how that is the fault of the press - if a majority of evangelical Christians were against it, politicians wouldn't be using faith as a platform and Pat Robertson wouldn't be either.
That's a fault in the church, not in the world. Many of these evangelical churches now making the news have huge congregations. There is something wrong with the people that they are attracted to fool's gold.
You are absolutely right when you bring up the example of people carrying Bibles they have never opened. But there are people who can quote the Bible as well as Satan, chapter and verse, but Christ has not affected any part of their everyday lives in how they look at the beggar on the street, the welfare mother, the street kids, the illegal immigrant looking for a better life.
I submit the story of the Good Samaritan as the example. He may never have opened his version of the Bible either - but he lived it. Then you had all the other religious leaders passing by, who were very familiar presumably with the scriptures - but didn't live it. You can have faith without ever once having opened your Bible. It is better to read for yourself but the fact is, that most Christians don't think for themselves as to how they interpret what they read in the Bible. Some Christians know all the 'technical' stuff and none of the stuff that counts.
The religious leaders of Jesus' time tried to draw him into politics. And he deflected that entirely with "whose image is on the coin?" To claim power in earthly terms was treason but Jesus did not claim power in earthly terms when asked about his political aspirations by Pilate and he is the example we ought to follow.
33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?
34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?
35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?
36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
What is hurtful to me as a Christian, is that far too often non-Christians are absolutely right when they accuse Christians of picking and choosing which words of Jesus they will follow. That makes me want to sit down and cry tears without end. Christians are their own worst enemy and it isn't enough to excuse all our sins with claims of how we are forgiven, not perfect. Jesus said, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
I am absolutely horrified by how Christians behave :-(
Layla
