The Farce of Not Living What we Preach

I loved the two streams of sentiment expressed recently in a post by Bob Carlton over there in the USA. He’s titled it - Are Evangelicals The Darth Vader of our Faith Universe?

Bob writes about “being most [himself] with God & with these people” [People outside of what he calls the “churchianity bubble”]. My experience of the last 12-months in particular so resonates with what Bob is describing!

A related book well worth reading is Gordon Lynch’s Losing My Religion: Exploring the Process of Moving on from Evangelical Faith.

Bob continues:

One of my favorite truth-tellers - Ron Sider - has a book coming out  - The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. [It] looks like it will be sensational.  In the book, he shares this anecdote in an attempt to frame the moment we find ourselves in:

Graham Cyster, a Christian whom I know from South Africa, recently told me a painful story about a personal experience two decades ago when he was struggling against apartheid as a young South African evangelical. One night, he was smuggled into an underground Communist cell of young people fighting apartheid. "Tell us about the gospel of Jesus Christ," they asked, half hoping for an alternative to the violent communist strategy they were embracing.  

Graham gave a clear, powerful presentation of the gospel, showing how personal faith in Christ wonderfully transforms persons and creates one new body of believers where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, rich nor poor, black nor white. The youth were fascinated. One seventeen-year-old exclaimed, "That is wonderful! Show me where I can see that happening." Graham's face fell as he sadly responded that he could not think of anywhere South African Christians were truly living out the message of the gospel. "Then the whole thing is a piece of sh—," the youth angrily retorted. Within a month he left the country to join the armed struggle against apartheid—and eventually giving his life for his beliefs.

The young man was right. If Christians do not live what they preach, the whole thing is a farce.

Comments

[Tom Smith]

Paul,

Thanks for the post … As a South African allow me to share my initial reactions to the post. It’s sad how the Christian community in my country at twisted the story of God to exclude certain groups and people! Thankfully there have been some wonderful people living the alternative kingdom during the darkest part of our history (Byers Naude being a great example http://kleipotgemeente.typepad.com/soulgardeners/2004/09/beyers_naude_a_.html). It saddens me that the man in the story was not connected to one of these life-giving streams … A great reminder to not isolate ourselves.