You’re right.
I did it—I dropped the “f-bomb.”
I could have easily chosen a different word.
Maybe “flip,” or “damn,” or “crap” of “rats” or even “shit.”
But I didn’t. Why?
Because, none of those forced me out onto the ledge of your potential rejection, shaming, and condemnation in quite the same way.
Perhaps like never before, in consideration of all the factors, I have dripped the sweat, counted the cost, and looked square into the face of your disapproval, knowing for sure the cataclysmic series of dominoes that could fall in response to this one article. In fact, in some ways, I could be, I surely am—risking it all. One word, one simple word, could set into motion a tsunami of distancing, disassociation, and abandonment from which there could be little to no recovery or return.
It’s all so sad, isn’t it? No, flat out disturbing. Not only how quick we are to summon people onto the plank of our disapproval, but how little pressure it takes for us to buckle under another’s.
Above all else, it seems we Christians have become cowardly wimpy people who care most about ourselves, vigilantly shielding our lives from what we fear the most—rejection, the true kryptonite of our faith living. We’re so married to perceptions, our platforms, reputations, and the god of approval. When it’s time to take a stand, travel uncharted waters, speak fiery light to the darkness, and defend the oppressed—when it’s all said and done, we’re most concerned about perceptions and their personally felt consequence.
Instead of counting the enormous cost of being silent, complacent, disengaged, blindly compliant, and politically correct, we’re addicted to the personal ramifications of truly giving a damn no matter what. So many of us simply refuse to be bothered outside the comfort of our pristine black-and-white pre-packaged starch-pressed Americanized Christian lives. When push comes to shove and we are cornered into our moment of truth—our followings, relationships, ministries, popularity, image, comforts, acceptance, and approval reveal themselves to be the true gods we worship. As Jesus leads us onto the path of becoming the Good Samaritans of our day, thwarting the countless religious crucifixions of the God-imaged, and facing the evil religious systems of much of modern Christianity—our withheld actions, tempered empathy, and shrinking back speak to the true confession of our heart. “Sorry Jesus, when it’s all said and done and it matters most, I just don’t give a f**k. My life, my stability, and all that I have and built, is just too important to risk. I won’t say what truly needs to be said, I won’t do what truly needs to be done, and I won’t pay the price of what it would most certainly cost. Oh yes, I love you Jesus and all people—but I’m sorry, not that much.”
And so I ask, with all due respect. If you’re uncomfortable with the title of this article, just wait until you’re confronted with these questions.
Whose life, besides yours, will finally become important enough to be worthy of your unrestricted risk?
At what point will spiritual integrity and human dignity become important enough for you to truly consider, perhaps your anti-gay interpretation of the Bible is misguided at best?
How many lives and minorities must be destroyed before you give aggressive consideration to the presence of racism and privilege in your own life and worldview?
How many parents of LGBTQI children must lay sleepless at night, feeling alone, frantically afraid, and viciously condemned before you have the courage to chart a new path of compassion, solidarity, and understanding towards this entire community?
How many sisters, brothers, children and family members alike must you shame, condemn, or reject all together before the carnage of so many destroyed people and relationships compels you to have the courage to fully examine the evils of embracing such a legalistic, graceless, bigoted, and twisted brand of faith, and do the hard work of thinking for yourself and questioning long-held beliefs?
How many times must we Christians be on the wrong side of history, before we muster the bravery to pump the breaks, jump ship, and disarm the right-wing conservative Evangelical machine whose worship of the Bible and their interpretations of it have been the catalyst to some of the most diabolical evil atrocities and injustices ever manifested on the planet—all in the name of Jesus?
How much regret are you willing to risk and careless damage to the lives of good people around you, simply because you refuse to listen and give genuine consideration to opposing views in light of fresh revelation?
How many mass shootings, suicides, murders, wars, holocausts, and people imprisoned by depression, shame, and religious condemnation must ensue before the non-violent, all-inclusive, sacrificial, serving, welcoming, affirming, forgiving, equalizing, non-discriminating, unconditional-loving, pure Grace message and Gospel of Jesus will be given top priority by you—met with your willingness to move His Beattitudes from being a faith accessory or flat out inconvenience to becoming your main way of living, no matter the cost?
Perhaps you’re offended that my heart is no longer afraid of your religious glare of disapproval or the ramifications that might come my way—as your voice of displeasure, disassociation, and pity no longer haunt me. Or, perhaps you’re most uncomfortable and even resentful of the freedom within me to live at peace without your affirmation, and instead can confidently speak my truth without reservation.
For Grace has given me, perhaps, the greatest gift of all—the power, joy, and honor of being a Christian who is compelled to give a f**k, when to do so stands as my moment of truth and another’s hope, healing, and salvation. My heart has been captured and my soul is convinced, nothing is more important than standing for truth, defending the religiously oppressed, proclaiming the God is who is Love, and manifesting His Gospel of unconditional love, acceptance, and affirmation for all—no matter the cost.
Go ahead. Pull your support, remove this post, de-friend me, or curse me all together—but here’s the stone cold truth I hope you’ll consider.
The world will keep on ignoring your message, the poor will keep starving, and black lives will continue to not truly matter. Transgender people will still keep committing suicide and the LGBTQ community will continue to be mocked, marginalized, and condemned in every arena. The religious evils rampant in much of right-wing conservative Christianity will still keep flourishing, minorities will still be discriminated, and racism will still divide us. Millennials will continue to exit the building, atheism will be ever increasing, human rights will keep on being denied, and women will still be seen as second class humans, Christians, employees, and citizens. All, until we start becoming Christians who not just give a tear, a thought, a sympathy, a glance, a nod, or a condolence, but actually love Jesus and love people enough to give a f**k, no matter the cost.
While you’re building your multi-site church campus, planting the next “Elevation,” or becoming the next famous Christian writer, preacher, or blogger. While you’re getting voted into elected office, preserving and protecting your income and way of living, counting your followers on Facebook, keeping your relationships peaceful, and enjoying your privilege—a whole world of people are asking, why should I believe in your God, worship His name, and sign up for your way of believing and living, when at the end of the day, no matter what person, truth, tragedy, injustice, or evil is before you, you simply don’t and won’t give a f**k?
Until we love Jesus who is Grace and people unconditionally to the point of truly risking it all, the one thing the world knows for sure—we Christians don’t know the true nature of God, the value of people, and what it means to love. In fact, all we probably have is just another worthless, impotent, and destructive religion and its spirit working within us.
Every time we buckle, every time we choose comfort over resistance, every time we opt to place our interests over truth and justice, the world screams out a resounding sigh, “we were right, it’s all a fraud, nothing ever changes.”
So with all due politeness and respect, please save your “you’ve gone too far with this one” and “my how you’ve lost your way” comments for someone else. For I fear, that’s the very kind of religious pretentious attitudes too many of we Christians have selfishly adopted that are enabling catastrophic problems and postponing and preventing countless much needed solutions.
Perhaps you would have said it differently, or chose a phrase devoid of profanity, but don’t miss the pure metaphor behind it all as to what it must look like specifically for you to love enough to stomach the risk and go the distance to be a true force of Grace and the God who is Love in the lives of the oppressed, religiously abused, and discarded.
Now, like never before, we must set into motion and call up from within our souls the courage to rethink, reexamine, and reconsider everything we think we know that years of unchallenged faith tradition, believing, and doing have lured us into—a spiritual complacency that has us nursing at the breast of evil while being convinced we sit at the table of Jesus.
Until our theology is Love and our countenance is sheer bravery no matter the cost, we will forever be leaning on our own understanding and enabling evil to live and flourish to the detriment, dehumanizing, and destruction of God-adorned people.
Grace is brave, Be brave.
Give a f**k.
I do give a f**k. And you’ve gone just far enough. And you have certainly found your way, as far as I believe.
“Until we love Jesus who is Grace and people unconditionally to the point of truly risking it all, the one thing the world knows for sure—we Christians don’t know the true nature of God, the value of people, and what it means to love.”
That preaches. Thank you for all you write.
Wow. It’s so sad… you are so right.
The whole “don’t use vulgar language” thing has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with classism. “Vulgar” means “common,” i.e. nobility vs. commoner. The real reason you don’t curse is so that you can appear more cultured. That’s it.
I think this is the perfect way to broach that topic, too. If Christians were to be honest, they would admit that using supposedly bad words has nothing to do with sin and everything to do with societal standing. It’s about their comfort and social class. And if that’s why you care…are you quite sure you’re tending to those who you’re setting yourself above?
Shawn, I tend to agree and find that people will use issues like this to deflect being confronted wth the truth of this article.
I agree with you overall, but I suspect most people will respond TLDR. If you edit out from “Perhaps like never before…” to “the true gods we worship” then you would get to the point faster and potentially insult fewer people to your right. You have a powerful message, but it would have a greater impact if it were more concise for our sound bite society.
Thanks ME, I’ll give that consideration, along with the opposite comments I receive at times that I am not thorough enough. 🙂
Wow!! That’s quite a rant. I’m not one who worships the Bible. I worship the one who is the author, God. Every verse is Holy Spirit inspired and true in its context. If your Bible can be changed over time to fit a narrative, then it’s not the Word of God, but a convenient excuse for conduct you approve of. If some of it isn’t true, then none of it is. Yes, God is love, but He is also just. When we are truly repentant of sin, He will forgive, but as in the His Word, we are expected to go and sin no more. His love is for everyone, but His justice is sure.
Thanks Randal for sharing your thoughts and reflections. While I disagree with you, I respect and appreciate you and your opinions.
Where are you getting that idea?
Any reason why you didn’t actually spell out the word? Because, to be honest, if you aren’t going to actually drop the actual word-of-words, you blow your credibility. The reason I despise bleep-TV is because it’s phony. There are “reality” shows in which the performers use vulgar speech to show their intense feelings. Then the monitors hit the bleep button, and everyone’s sensibilities are preserved. And cowardice is ascendant.
If you didn’t plan to actually spell out the full word, instead of bowdlerizing it, maybe you shouldn’t have used it in this blog.
Otherwise , you shouldn’t have ended your blog with the words “Be brave”.
Gerry, I appreciate that perspective, I didn’t write out the word mostly because of the restrictions it would likely bring from Facebook.
My only critique is you didn’t spell out the word “fuck” , but I say that in pure fun.
I thought this post spot on cutting to the core of what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus gave a fuck about those whom the religious leaders and society marginalized, but he didn’t a fuck about those Pharisees whose hypocrisy he blasted–using the harshest language of his day, I might add.
Thank you for writing this. I’ve been arguing similar things, and I thought I stood alone in my thoughts.
Ron, thanks so much for reading and commenting, and having a sense of humor with it all. In all serious, I didn’t spell out the word because of the ramifications it would have be being restricted by Facebook.
I use the word fuck on Facebook almost daily and have never been censored for it. Where do you get the idea you would be?
Just find your own tribe. Not everyone is going to always agree with you. I def disagree but I’m an intercessor and I understand the stronghold of perversion. I see people get set free. I don’t understand the world who controls and says people have no choice. Doesn’t mean I can’t love you and gay people. If you think I’m a hater for ministering people to freedom, I’m okay with that. I’d rather bless God and my tribe and the people He brings me along the way.
Ashley, thanks for reading and commenting. Question, are you saying that people in the LGBTQ community are perverted?
Of course she is. That’s the “hate the sin, love the sinner” stuff. She “loves” other full human beings who are LGBTQ, but believes that if they’d just give their lives over to Christ they would no longer be LGBTQ. I just had a long conversation with someone about that. He told me that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was proof that god hates homosexuality more than any other “sin.” Never mind that God *made* people gay — good Christians try to “save” the gay by telling them that they must give everything to Christ and then they won’t be perverted any more. Drives me nuts. And this was a guy whose faith I admire and envy, and who walks the talk and is the most Christ-like person I’ve ever met besides my mother. Who loved everyone unconditionally (as does my friend, in his own way/mind) and never, ever said anything about gays being perverted.
I wish I had had the courage to write this myself because I totally understand and agree. I don’t fit into any Christian circles because of what I believe and have found it so hard to listen to Christians who have no love for those whose lives they just cannot understand and they condemn outright anyone who challenges their perception of God’s rules and regulations. They forget we are not God – he is the only one who can condemn but he made love the number one rule and that overrides everything. This world is screwed up and as a result people might not all be just the way they were made to be in the garden of Eden but it’s not something we can do anything about as it’s a done deal. Love will conquer evil, hate, injustice and inequality. We have to love everyone in the name of Jesus who loved us so much that he died for us. I do give a f**k and that you for your bravery in writing the truth.
Thanks Jane, I’m right there with you! Sure do appreciate you reading and taking the time to comment!
Great article. I don’t fit in anymore to the institutional church any more. I swear, I enjoy a couple of wines, I am me. I try to be authentically me and connected to God in all I do and say – the good, the bad and the ugly. The conventional church isolates and ignores me- God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit “sees” me. They are not shocked or disapproving. We connect on a level of relational and intimate honesty. I would not settle for the counterfeit expression of that in a manufactured environment of clone- encouraging religiosity. Thank you so much for this article.
Ess, thanks so much for reading and taking the time to comment. You are not alone as many feel your same way and are walking this same path. Hope we can stay connected.
I’m a Christian and I approve of this article. Mostly because it sort of puts into perspective an important thing: The only one that can say that you’re a “true Christian” is you, but you also don’t have the right to tell anyone else that they aren’t being one. Every human is an independent individual and their belief system is their own and cannot be anyone else’s. They might agree (if only in principle) with many or all of the tenets of their religion of choice, but that doesn’t give the Pope, the local preacher, or even their parents or spouse the right to tell them that they’re not acting like a true (insert religion of choice). There might be rules to follow, but the point was to “hate the sin and love the sinner”. You can’t “love the sinner” while simultaneously deriding them for being a bad person at having committed the sin in the first place. In my religion, we don’t drink coffee. That doesn’t mean that I’ll immediately look down on every coffee drinking person and consider them hellbound. Even the people in my church sometimes having difficulty giving up coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol. I don’t give them shit for that, I try and support them and see if I can help them move away from that addiction (assuming they want to). Judgment, in my opinion, needs to be… not eradicated, but softened enough that support will come long before anything negative can occur from opinions.
Geoffrey, thanks so much for putting together and articulating such a well thought out comment! Sure appreciate you and your perspective!
It’s amazing how some would view using an obscenity in this article as so offensive. They are blinded by one word and will unfollow you with disgust. If only there was the same reaction when reading about human suffering… what a different world this might be.
Ah, but then they would have to broaden their perspective and consider important, wide-ranging, and very VERY difficult topics. On the other hand, giving someone the fish-eye and ignoring them because they decided to be a fucking foul mouth son of a bitch (sorry, I don’t swear much, but it seemed appropriate, given the circumstances 😉 ) is exceedingly short sighted. To whit, if every third word out of your mouth is a curse, yeah, you could use a little expansion on your vocabulary. On the other hand, if you’re erudite and well spoken and just choose to relieve your stress by sounding like a drunken sailor (with apologies for the teetotaler sailors out there) by all means, curse away, but be inventive about it.
Chris,
With each post you seem to express exactly what is or has been I my mind. Keep on speaking truth and encouragement to those of us that are like minded.
Karl, thank you so much for appreciating my work!
What a great take. The entire Christian alt right movement is backward. When a group can look at so called liberals, atheists, and humanists and label their caring for the down trodden as “evil”, then I fear the damage is too great to be fixed. The American middle class version of Christianity if assessed by any car insurance adjuster worth his salt would undoubtedly be declared “totaled”.
Matthew, to be sure, these are difficult times and spiritual realities. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Whose life, besides yours, will finally become important enough to be worthy of your unrestricted risk?
Lots of people’s lives. I don’t have a number, but my wife and I have served and helped many people struggling with addiction, suicide and more. When you say risk Chris, what are you asking us to risk? It seems it is you that is risking less bc you are agreeing with the liberals and a moral majority in this country. If you really want to get risky, why don’t you and I meet at the Charlotte airport and head to Iraq and share the gospel over there?
At what point will spiritual integrity and human dignity become important enough for you to truly consider, perhaps your anti-gay interpretation of the Bible is misguided at best?
Let me first by saying that I love my gay brothers and sisters as much as I love the people that I mentioned before that I helped. But our neighbor Dr. Michael Brown has done some great work in this area. Because I love my friend who is struggling with alcohol addiction that doesn’t mean I don’t take them to rehab and sit with them as they process through what is going on in their life and love them through that.
Perhaps you need to spend some time supporting your gay-affirming bible interpretation and I suggest you start with scholar Robert Gagnon here. To think that we hold some position just to put people down is misinformed. I hold the view I do because I love people enough to seek the truth and deliver it with Grace.
How many lives and minorities must be destroyed before you give aggressive consideration to the presence of racism and privilege in your own life and worldview?
I am not even sure this follows here. People are sinful (Romans 3:23). People will choose their sin over God (Romans 1:18-20). But there is HOPE in Jesus and Jesus alone. When we make Him leader of our life, radical things start to happen. There is racism in our country and in our churches, for sure, bc there is sin. But the answer is a surrendered life to Jesus, but to some the gospel is offensive. The rich young ruler did not want to sell his stuff but Jesus told him he must because it was a heart issue, not a money issue. The girl at the well, Jesus was truthful and graceful when he pointed out her sin and told her to drink the living water. The gospel in one sense MUST destroy one’s life so it can be built back up in Christ.
How many parents of LGBTQI children must lay sleepless at night, feeling alone, frantically afraid, and viciously condemned before you have the courage to chart a new path of compassion, solidarity, and understanding towards this entire community?
This breaks my heart. I don’t know the details of what you are referring to here(detail isn’t your strong suit). But I do know this. The answer is Jesus. Jesus forgives, Jesus comforts, Jesus sustains. If someone is lying awake with resentment in their heart they can turn it over to Jesus. The parent of the LGBTQI child can pray, love, and follow the Word of God, and seek first His Kingdom. If the parent is a believer and has truly been sinned against they should follow the steps in Matthew 18 of their local body. Jesus said that He would divide families bc what he is calling people to was so radical. Prayer is where I would start with these parents.
How many sisters, brothers, children and family members alike must you shame, condemn, or reject all together before the carnage of so many destroyed people and relationships compels you to have the courage to fully examine the evils of embracing such a legalistic, graceless, bigoted, and twisted brand of faith, and do the hard work of thinking for yourself and questioning long-held beliefs?
The again is a lack of detail here, so I need to fill in some blanks of what I think you are saying. If I am wrong, please correct me. If someone has a relationship with a non-Christian and presents the gospel to them, through the way they live and through words, and that person rejects it and breaks off the relationship with them because of this, that is the sin of the person, not the Christians fault. If a preacher stands up on Sunday morning and says that sinners need to repent and turn from their sin of sex outside of marriage and the person in the seat is offended by that, I would say it due to two things. 1. Their sin and rebellion 2. The lack of relationship and respect for the preacher. But neither of those are legalist, bigoted, or graceless. In fact, I believe the most loving thing is to invite people to knee with me at the foot of the Cross as there is always room. We are not to lean up against the cross telling people they better get right. If this is what you think people are doing, please give examples.
How many times must we Christians be on the wrong side of history, before we muster the bravery to pump the breaks, jump ship, and disarm the right-wing conservative Evangelical machine whose worship of the Bible and their interpretations of it have been the catalyst to some of the most diabolical evil atrocities and injustices ever manifested on the planet—all in the name of Jesus?
Again, examples here would be nice. If you are going to reject the teaching of the church I think you need more than an assertion. It is a hallmark of non-conservatives to throw out the teaching of the bible that is backed up by proper hermeneutics. I would like to see your reasons, for rejecting that teaching. If it is because it might hurt people, that isn’t a reason to change the Word of God as God knows what he is doing.
How much regret are you willing to risk and careless damage to the lives of good people around you, simply because you refuse to listen and give genuine consideration to opposing views in light of fresh revelation?
Here, Chris, I would really love to know what you mean by “fresh revelation”. Are you saying that the God speaking to us through His word wasn’t right the first time? Are you saying that God is speaking to you directly and giving you a new revelation? Please clarify.
How many mass shootings, suicides, murders, wars, holocausts, and people imprisoned by depression, shame, and religious condemnation must ensue before the non-violent, all-inclusive, sacrificial, serving, welcoming, affirming, forgiving, equalizing, non-discriminating, unconditional-loving, pure Grace message and Gospel of Jesus will be given top priority by you—met with your willingness to move His Beattitudes from being a faith accessory or flat out inconvenience to becoming your main way of living, no matter the cost?
“Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English.
E. Randolph Richards;Brandon J. O’Brien. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Kindle Locations 769-772). Kindle Edition.
Chris, you asked these questions. I answered them the best I can. You may have meant them to be rhetorical, but I think it is important to give you answers. I am serious when I say that I would love to meet face to face and talk through your understanding of these things. Sometimes I think you just need a hug bro. You live 45 mins from me. I will make myself available for a meeting if you want to meet with a fellow Charlotte area pastor and sharpen each other. My email is below. Thanks!
Tim, thanks for your invitation. As you might guess, my schedule is very busy with people reaching out to me. I wish I had time for everyone, but I simply can’t, at least until that day I am a full time writer. As of now, I have to prioritize my time by spending as much as I can with people who are genuinely desiring to explore these issues as they reconsider their own beliefs and are searching for new pastures. I don’t sense that is the desire nor the need you have, so please forgive, for now, I need to pass.
Ok. The offer stands. It seems like you are just as immovable in your position as you think I am.
No, the difference is, I used to share your beliefs, perhaps even more strongly than you. My sense is that you have never shared my beliefs, maybe not even seriously considered them. Blessings and peace to you.
Tim, you have, of course, shown exactly why evangelical Christianity is losing ground in our country. Your biblical idolatry blinds you to the possibility that God’s revelation continues today. I expect that you would insist that the Holy Spirit communicates with you, but he/she cannot reveal anything that is not in the Bible already. You should see that for what it is — self-fulfilling prophecy.
BTW, I’m delighted to know that when the Bible says I’m blessed, it means I’m in my happy place. Seems sort of shallow, like the way one feels after a couple of beers while watching the home team lead a ballgame. But, hey, if that’s what the experts say, I’ll try to incorporate that into my reading.
Sorry Cody, but if you think that the Holy Spirit is giving you new revelation that contradicts what the Bible teaches then you make God a liar. I would say that creation is God’s general revelation, the bible is God’s special revelation and the practical communication that the Holy Spirit gives Christians is a specific revelation. None of them will contradict each other. Example, the Holy Spirit will not tell you it is ok to cheat on your wife when He is clear that adultery is a sin.
I also, suggest you read the book mentioned above. Great insight into the world of the Ancient Near East, and our own cultural biases we bring to reading the Bible.
So very true it hurts. Let us all be God’s children as we were born, without labels. Equal in each others eyes as in Gods. Amen.
Thanks Kevin for your encouraging words!
Thanks, I enjoyed this. I recently had an exchange with a fundamentalist over some political issues, you know, the whole Democrat versus Republican thing and so forth, so we debated the issue of why fundamentalists abandoned the Democrats all but completely. His response was to send me a link to an opinion piece from the (Bill) Clinton Presidency era by some concern troll pundit lamenting Democrats’ foul language and sexual openness, the evidence for which was scant. I can’t remember it all. I can’t even remember the seemingly (to me) innocuous examples they gave. I don’t know, maybe Murphy Brown having a child out of wedlock, that sort of thing. So I read the opinion piece and responded, “So, essentially what you are saying is you can’t support democrats because y’all are a bunch of prudes.” He had no response to that. Thomas Perez, the new Democratic National Committee Chair, is known to drop an f-bomb here and there. I appreciate that. The Right-Wing anti-Trump scold George Will, the scumbag who stole Jimmy Carter’s briefing book in 1980 and gave it to Reagan’s aides, whines whenever he can over the “coarsening of the culture,” but not so much anymore now that the most ribald, vulgar President we have ever had, certainly exceeding Jefferson, Jackson, Harding and Nixon, to name a few known for their foul language, is in office right now and is a Republican. Mostly what activates Will’s scolding is rap lyrics and such. The ones who demand political correctness in the form of serving as language police cannot steal Jesus from those who cuss. As Rev. Ivan Stang said, “The Lord himself cusses! He gets mad!” And another thing, what is it with the middle class these days always talking about “poop” but to them to say “shit” is gauche. Why the hell? It’s the same stuff whatever you call it.
The Gospel message is not Jesus calling us to work for justice; He calls all to repent (Gr. Metanoia: To change the mind) regarding their sins (unrighteousness) and shift their faith from whatever object one may be trusting in (i.e. good works, religious sacraments and rituals, church membership, etc.) and place that faith in Jesus Christ’s FINISHED work on the cross … His burial and resurrection (Ephesians 2:8-9).
And that’s the Good News — the Gospel. That’s the message that organized religion has corrupted, edited and mixed with philosophy. Unfortunately, we have come to a point today where we have to define terms. As an example, today the term “Christian” has as many definitions as it has adherents. In fact, very few understand the Biblical definition. Christian means “Christ one” and it refers to one that has become a child of God through the new birth (born again). And by the way, there is no other definition that the Bible recognizes … one is either born again or they are not. Being religious, moral, kind, attending a church regularly, baptism, etc. does not make anyone a Christian. Only placing one’s faith in Jesus Christ’s finished work alone … on their behalf … for salvation transfers a person into the family of God. It’s an EXCLUSIVE offer conditioned on faith alone in Christ alone … adding anything to it nullifies the GRACE-basis by which it is offered (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Now, violence and intimidation toward any human being is UNBIBLICAL. Every human being has been classified as a sinner (Romans 3:10). Sin was an archery term and was defined as “to miss the mark.” We have ALL missed the mark … and that mark is God’s perfect holiness and righteousness. The Good News, the true Gospel, is that God is providing a perfect righteousness to all that accept Christ’s finished work on THEIR OWN behalf (Read: Romans chapter 4). Whether someone is a white-collar criminal, a thief, a hedonist, a bigot, a racist, an arrogant bully, etc., the ultimate solution is the same … they need to be born-again through faith in Christ. Mankind needs a brand new heart and God’s solution is in His Son.
Love this
Grow a pair. Write out the word fuck. You obviously don’t mind writing the word shit or damn… What is up with with the timidness man? You put it in the title but don’t can muster the courage to type the word?
Please explain yourself. Why was this such a scary word? Obviously you wanted shock value. Obviously you wanted to be the “cool Christian” that isn’t afraid of the word fuck – but you chickened out man, you became what you criticize.
*If you feel the need to use the word fuck in a blog focused on the grace of Christ – yikes.