01/15/04

Christians are like the proverbial ostrich, sticking their heads in the ground, fervently trying to hide from danger.

I was driving my dad's car tonight, listening to the radio. Before I got home, I switched it back to the station it had been set on, which, incidentally, is a Christian radio station. I don't know what the name of the program was, but the people on there were talking about ways to make sure that you are influenced by the right values. The host encouraged the listeners to read their Bible...pray...read a good book...fellowship with other believers...etc. He said that you needed to watch yourself if you were just reading the newspaper, or watching movies, or watching TV all the time. If you were, then you shouldn't be surprised if you start going down the wrong path.

At that point, another host chimed in. He said something like "You know, people just need to stay away from the edge. I'm tired of people wanting to live on the edge of things and ask 'How far is too far?' As Christians, we need to stay as far away from the edge as possible and cling to the Rock. Stay away from the edge and you won't even have to worry about it."

When he said that, I turned off the radio program.

The message I got from those statements is: "The world is a bad, bad place. If you don't want to be contaminated by the world, make sure you surround yourself in a Christian bubble with Christian thoughts and everything will be just peachy!"

How asinine! It is this kind of thinking that has made Christianity ineffective as it tries to reach the world. Even if you take the guy's statement (the original one, not my interpretation) at face value, there are some serious logical problems with it.

First is the assumption in his statement that "the world" is going to contaminate a Christian if that Christian gets too involved in "the world."

I will admit that the Bible tells us to be careful of this. John the Beloved wrote in 1 John 2 that we do not need to love the world or anything in the world. If someone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

What does John mean by that? In 1 John 2:16, he tells us. He calls it the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. A simplistic way of looking at it is coveting other people, coveting things you see, and being proud. I could go into it in more detail, but I'm in a hurry to get this written.

It is only by doing those three things will you have a love "for the world." It's not wrong to love things in the world. God created the world for us to enjoy. He created people for us to have fellowship with. In fact, John 3:16 says that God "so loved the world."

Christianity as a whole has interpreted warnings such as that given in 1 John 2:15 & 16 to mean that Christians should have nothing to do with "the world" and to avoid "being worldly" at all costs. If we do this, however, and think that the more spiritual we are the less we interact with the world around us, we are killing ourselves.

How can Christians influence "the world " for the better without interacting with the people in it? How can we be more and more like Christ if we aren't willing to do the things that He did? Jesus hung out with those that his society deemed unacceptable, and those people liked being around Jesus. This must mean that he was fun to be around. Ask yourself if non-Christians like to be around you. If they do not, then maybe you aren't interacting with the world around you.

If the light of Christ shines in our hearts, people will take notice. Christianity makes you new inside, and profoundly different than you used to be. The old has gone and the new has come. You can still be yourself. People will notice a change, though...and you won't have to beat them over the head with a King James Bible for them to notice.

The second issue I have with the statement by the radio show gentleman is the assumption that we should not make our own choices about what is appropriate entertainment. Sure, it's easy to just decide to surround yourself with Christian influences, but you do so at the risk of losing touch with the world in which you live.

It is much easier to say "stay away from everything that might be bad" than to make decisions about what you should and should not participate in. So we simply stick our heads in the sand, hoping everything turns out okay.