Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Some Thoughts on the 4th

I would love to be able to put all of Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians on my blog but I can't. He makes some very profound points in that book about the United States and the part that Christians and the Church have in the United States and its future.
If you don't know by now, the main line denominations are shrinking, in fact the number of Christians in the United States is shrinking. A lot of people are shocked when they hear this, but I was not. After all the reasons people are leaving the church are many of the same reasons that I want to go to seminary. I want to change the way people view the church.
So now for some quotes:
1. "The only way to break that cycle is for someone to absorb it. A true leader of a new exodus would have to resist ever using power in the form of violence against another human being."
2."In the same way that entitlement can cause us to loose perspective, it can also cause us to resist checks on consumption. If a particular resource becomes scarce at home or in other parts of the world, it can be very difficult to cut back, because the powerful forces of entitlement convince us certain things are deserved. Empires naturally accumulate, accumulation has consequences, and those consequences are expensive."
3."If you are a citizen of an empire that has the most powerful army in the history of humanity and is currently on the way to spending a trillion dollars on a war passages in the Bible about those who accumulate chariots and horses from Egypt are passages about you and your people."

Jesus said that the peace makers would be blessed. The Church should be the greatest peace maker. People are leaving the church because she has forgotten the call to be light and salt.

go in PEACE. be PEACE. live PEACE.

No comments:

Post a Comment