Growing up in Pittsburgh, I could seldom remember a Sunday in the winter months where football wasn't on the living room television. The house would be filled with cheers, laughter, and words that I wouldn't properly know the meaning to until I became much older. (You know, like 5.)
Mind you, we're talking Pittsburgh. Every Pittsburgh native knows that it is absolutely essential to one's survival that he be a Steelers' fan here. It does not matter whether you are a football junky or whether you do not even know the first thing about the game. If you valued your image at all, you would be cheering for the Black and Gold when that TV came on. You just wouldn't be caught dead toting any other colour.
Of course, there were certain advantages to actually, you know, knowing something about the game. At 5 and 6 and 7, I really can't say I did. I just cheered when everyone else did.
I suppose the problem came when I got just a little too excited. I'd start cheering or booing at random -- every time something even remotely exciting happened. I'd say inane things. I think I cried the year the Steelers lost to the Cowboys in the superbowl. Because of my ignorance of the game, I could do nothing but be caught up in the emotion of it, and I'm pretty sure that if I knew shame at that age I would have come into a lot of it. Truth be told, I had no idea what I was yelling about at all. I just wanted to "win," whatever that meant.
... It is a sad thing when football culture and the visible church culture begin to find too many things alike. I'm not talking about the fact that both meet together on Sunday. (Though you can probably guess the reason this particular "Steelers' fan" will no longer watch Sunday night football.) Rather, I am referring to this increasing abundance of excitement spawned out of ignorance.
Though I have grown somewhat quiet around deviantART and the rest of the internet these past few months, I've been lurking. I've followed friends and acquaintances and many of the professing Christians I have known, and I have encountered something rather horrific. There is seldom any discernment between truth and trash.
I delight to see that where the gospel is preached, spoken out as it ought to be, there are those who can go and testify and rejoice in the message of of salvation that we have known. Left at that, I would say that these are very keen-minded Christians to delight in the gospel. Yet I then turn around to find things which are bordering blasphemous, and though well meaning as Christian artwork and literature, it is dry of any biblical relevance. (For instance, how many of you knew that Christ died on the cross for hedgehogs? I didn't.) It is bad enough that people ignorantly make such art in the first place, putting aesthetics and personal preference above doctrine and discernment. But what actually shocks me are the ones who praise and support it! They are the many folks who are wise to the gospel, and instead of kindly reproving their brothers, they cheer on blind blasphemy and neglect to see for themselves that God isn't in it!
I am using examples that perhaps some of you can relate with, but this is not the root of the issue. It is that familliar, youth-group "anything goes" mentality that, though I've only been saved for a couple of years, I suspect has been around for several, now.
The problem is this. We have this "Jesus-fish sticker of approval" mentality. Meaning, if something seems to promote Jesus, we dive in head-first to support it. We cast out all discernment for what is scriptural, what is holy ("set apart"), what is TRUTH, and we base our judgment instead on the "emotion" that has gone into the piece. It is as though we were rather following some new-age religion in which "Jesus" is made idol, but WHO He is and what He has done is completely forgotten!
Suddenly, "Jesus bobble-head" becomes a funny novelty. And since "God didn't specifically forbid that in the Bible!" there is "nothing wrong with it."
What draws tears from my eyes is the source of it. It is the teachers. It is those leaders who run the most popular churches, who could with their time be preaching Christ and Him crucified, speaking of the atonement, of the wrath that was satisifed, of we, if we are in Him WILL be sanctified ... (It suddenly occurs to me that a good sermon has a very good chance of rhyming. Hm.) But instead, they focus their time organising sports events and fun-n-games filled youth retreats and all of the unneccessary trash that was never in the Bible in the first place. I mean, just today, a friend of mine told me that as a kid, her sunday school's way of interpretting "our daily bread" in the Lord's Prayer was to glue two bobbly eyes onto a picture of bread. And we find this cute? What wasted opportunity to speak of the need for God's word!
... And I fear that I will have no hair left to pull out if I see one more children's book on "Noah's ark" that completely neglects the whole wrath-of-God part. Some may think I'm being too harsh on the things regarding children, but really just think for a moment here! THIS is what is being taught in so many buildings and amidst so many gatherings which call themselves churches! And unfortunately, though many of you might go to such a church as this, you will pretend I am speaking of some other extreme and your church patriotism will make you blind to the fact that I am talking about you.
And this is why there are those like myself who wander for months and years after we know God, seeking to be fed, starving for God's word, and our hearts are still stunned the first time we hear someone actually preach the gospel from a pulpit. For it is in that moment that those who are fortunate suddenly saw the dryness behind all of those other things which have been given Christian face but were puffed up like leavened bread, with pride and hot air and nothing else. Our eyes were opened to the emptiness to the happy-go-lucky message of Joel Osteen and the prosperity lie of TBN's cast, and the gospel-void 40-day-good-works programs promoted by Warren, because we finally see what the pulpit should have been for. That not just any message which quotes a bit of scripture is truly of God, because even Satan quoted scripture ...
That eyes would be opened! How can a people praise both truth and lie and fail to see the stark contrast between them? Unless it is because we are ignorant, because we have joined the church because it is the "thing to do," and have fallen in love with a culture and an emotion -- wanting simply a team to cheer for, something to be a part of, and we have no problem making Christ no different than a rockstar idol -- instead of the one and true, holy, righteous God. Will we be shown so ignorant and void of truth in the end? That it were never in us in the first place?
... Oh, pray that is not the case.
I would warn every one of you, before you even consider responding to this with every approval and passionate praise -- is it simply because I have posted a "passionate, Christianity-themed message"? ... Or is it because of truth? But I confess that even I have said some foolish things in the past that my bretheren (though I love you dearly) have blindly applauded. It is because there is plenty of Christian "passion" around the web, but hardly enough Biblical truth.
I confess that I cannot open the eyes of the blind and undiscerning, but how I dearly hope that God will.
Mind you, we're talking Pittsburgh. Every Pittsburgh native knows that it is absolutely essential to one's survival that he be a Steelers' fan here. It does not matter whether you are a football junky or whether you do not even know the first thing about the game. If you valued your image at all, you would be cheering for the Black and Gold when that TV came on. You just wouldn't be caught dead toting any other colour.
Of course, there were certain advantages to actually, you know, knowing something about the game. At 5 and 6 and 7, I really can't say I did. I just cheered when everyone else did.
I suppose the problem came when I got just a little too excited. I'd start cheering or booing at random -- every time something even remotely exciting happened. I'd say inane things. I think I cried the year the Steelers lost to the Cowboys in the superbowl. Because of my ignorance of the game, I could do nothing but be caught up in the emotion of it, and I'm pretty sure that if I knew shame at that age I would have come into a lot of it. Truth be told, I had no idea what I was yelling about at all. I just wanted to "win," whatever that meant.
... It is a sad thing when football culture and the visible church culture begin to find too many things alike. I'm not talking about the fact that both meet together on Sunday. (Though you can probably guess the reason this particular "Steelers' fan" will no longer watch Sunday night football.) Rather, I am referring to this increasing abundance of excitement spawned out of ignorance.
Though I have grown somewhat quiet around deviantART and the rest of the internet these past few months, I've been lurking. I've followed friends and acquaintances and many of the professing Christians I have known, and I have encountered something rather horrific. There is seldom any discernment between truth and trash.
I delight to see that where the gospel is preached, spoken out as it ought to be, there are those who can go and testify and rejoice in the message of of salvation that we have known. Left at that, I would say that these are very keen-minded Christians to delight in the gospel. Yet I then turn around to find things which are bordering blasphemous, and though well meaning as Christian artwork and literature, it is dry of any biblical relevance. (For instance, how many of you knew that Christ died on the cross for hedgehogs? I didn't.) It is bad enough that people ignorantly make such art in the first place, putting aesthetics and personal preference above doctrine and discernment. But what actually shocks me are the ones who praise and support it! They are the many folks who are wise to the gospel, and instead of kindly reproving their brothers, they cheer on blind blasphemy and neglect to see for themselves that God isn't in it!
I am using examples that perhaps some of you can relate with, but this is not the root of the issue. It is that familliar, youth-group "anything goes" mentality that, though I've only been saved for a couple of years, I suspect has been around for several, now.
The problem is this. We have this "Jesus-fish sticker of approval" mentality. Meaning, if something seems to promote Jesus, we dive in head-first to support it. We cast out all discernment for what is scriptural, what is holy ("set apart"), what is TRUTH, and we base our judgment instead on the "emotion" that has gone into the piece. It is as though we were rather following some new-age religion in which "Jesus" is made idol, but WHO He is and what He has done is completely forgotten!
Suddenly, "Jesus bobble-head" becomes a funny novelty. And since "God didn't specifically forbid that in the Bible!" there is "nothing wrong with it."
What draws tears from my eyes is the source of it. It is the teachers. It is those leaders who run the most popular churches, who could with their time be preaching Christ and Him crucified, speaking of the atonement, of the wrath that was satisifed, of we, if we are in Him WILL be sanctified ... (It suddenly occurs to me that a good sermon has a very good chance of rhyming. Hm.) But instead, they focus their time organising sports events and fun-n-games filled youth retreats and all of the unneccessary trash that was never in the Bible in the first place. I mean, just today, a friend of mine told me that as a kid, her sunday school's way of interpretting "our daily bread" in the Lord's Prayer was to glue two bobbly eyes onto a picture of bread. And we find this cute? What wasted opportunity to speak of the need for God's word!
... And I fear that I will have no hair left to pull out if I see one more children's book on "Noah's ark" that completely neglects the whole wrath-of-God part. Some may think I'm being too harsh on the things regarding children, but really just think for a moment here! THIS is what is being taught in so many buildings and amidst so many gatherings which call themselves churches! And unfortunately, though many of you might go to such a church as this, you will pretend I am speaking of some other extreme and your church patriotism will make you blind to the fact that I am talking about you.
And this is why there are those like myself who wander for months and years after we know God, seeking to be fed, starving for God's word, and our hearts are still stunned the first time we hear someone actually preach the gospel from a pulpit. For it is in that moment that those who are fortunate suddenly saw the dryness behind all of those other things which have been given Christian face but were puffed up like leavened bread, with pride and hot air and nothing else. Our eyes were opened to the emptiness to the happy-go-lucky message of Joel Osteen and the prosperity lie of TBN's cast, and the gospel-void 40-day-good-works programs promoted by Warren, because we finally see what the pulpit should have been for. That not just any message which quotes a bit of scripture is truly of God, because even Satan quoted scripture ...
That eyes would be opened! How can a people praise both truth and lie and fail to see the stark contrast between them? Unless it is because we are ignorant, because we have joined the church because it is the "thing to do," and have fallen in love with a culture and an emotion -- wanting simply a team to cheer for, something to be a part of, and we have no problem making Christ no different than a rockstar idol -- instead of the one and true, holy, righteous God. Will we be shown so ignorant and void of truth in the end? That it were never in us in the first place?
... Oh, pray that is not the case.
I would warn every one of you, before you even consider responding to this with every approval and passionate praise -- is it simply because I have posted a "passionate, Christianity-themed message"? ... Or is it because of truth? But I confess that even I have said some foolish things in the past that my bretheren (though I love you dearly) have blindly applauded. It is because there is plenty of Christian "passion" around the web, but hardly enough Biblical truth.
I confess that I cannot open the eyes of the blind and undiscerning, but how I dearly hope that God will.
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