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5 Ways Christians Worship and Glorify Satan

By Jeremy Myers
141 Comments

5 Ways Christians Worship and Glorify Satan

Was that blog post title too provocative?

Here is something even more provocative: There is much in Christianity that is Satanic.

In fact, many elements of Christianity might make it the most Satanic religion on earth.

If you are already offended by this post, you may simply want to stop reading here. But if you keep reading, you will learn five ways that Christians worship and glorify Satan, and these five areas strike at the heart of much of what goes by “Christianity” today.

glorify Satan

1. We Give Credit to Satan

Christians often say that one of Satan’s biggest deceptions is convincing people that he doesn’t exist.

This may be true, but I sometimes think that an even bigger deception of Satan is convincing people that he does exist, and that he is more powerful than he really is.

We Christians often give credit and glory to Satan for things which he had nothing whatsoever do with.

It is not uncommon to hear Christians “blame Satan” and pray against Satan for things that in any other person’s life, would simply be the result of poor choices, poor planning, or just poor timing.

Christians sometimes say that they are being tempted by Satan, or were sent bad dreams by Satan, or were kept by Satan from witnessing to a friend. With such ideas, Christians are attributing omniscience and omnipresence to Satan, which are attributes of God alone. Satan is a created (but fallen) being, just like you and me. He cannot be everywhere at once, and so it is nearly certain that none of us will ever have a personal encounter with Satan in our entire life. He has (in his mind) better things to do than give you bad dreams or tempt you to look at porn. The bad dream might be a result of the movie you watched, a stressful situation at work, or the anchovies you put on your pizza. The temptation to sin most likely comes from your fallen “flesh,” the part of each human which naturally pulls us toward our baser desires. In both cases, Satan has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Christians sometimes complain that Satan created problems for them at the airline customs gate or in coordinating travel plans. This is especially true if these Christians are “missionaries” who are headed to another country to “carry out the great commission.” Any problem is therefore attributed to the power of Satan. Yet these things happen to tens of thousands of “normal” travelers every day. To give Satan credit for these is to give him way too much credit.

I once talked with a woman who wanted me to cast Satan out of her car. She said that she wanted to come to church on Sunday morning, but when she got in her car, it would not start. Clearly, this must be because Satan wanted to keep her from coming to church. I told her, as gently as I could, that Satan was not possessing her car, and it would do no good for me to pray over it. More than likely, her car wouldn’t start because of some completely natural reason. Maybe her car was old, or the battery was dead. Or maybe it wouldn’t start because it had been extremely cold the night before. To give Satan credit for keeping her car from starting on Sunday morning was to give glory to Satan that he did not deserve.

Make sure that as you go through life, you don’t give credit and glory to Satan for things he has nothing to do with. Life is full of problems, and everybody has problems, and these problems do not come upon you because Satan is targeting you. In all likelihood, Satan doesn’t even know you exist, and even if he does, he’s not going to waste his time by freezing your car engine or slowing you down at the customs counter.

But this is not the only way we Christians worship and glorify Satan.

2.We Accept Satanic Offerings

worship satanIn Luke 4 and Matthew 4, Satan comes to tempt Jesus, and in the process, offers three things to Jesus, if only Jesus will worship him.

The three things Satan offers to Jesus were riches, control, and fame, and Jesus rejected all three.

Yet within 300 years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the church had accepted and embraced all three as tools to help them spread the Gospel. But these offerings from Satan did more to hinder the message of the Gospel than help it.

Whenever Christians today chase after riches as a means to spread the Gospel, control over others as a means to manage sin, and fame or glory as a way of gaining the world’s attention, we have sacrificed the Gospel on the altar of Satanic offerings. When we do this, we not only fail to advance the rule and reign of God, but instead help advance the influence of the ruler of this age.

I wrote a lot more about this in my forthcoming book, Close Your Church for Good, and so I won’t say anything more about this point here. (Sign up for the newsletter to get a free digital copy of this book when it is released.)

3. We Diagnose Someone as Demon Possessed

I know that this point might be controversial (But which of these 5 points are not?), but I do not believe we Christians should ever diagnose someone as “demon possessed,” for doing so might actually glorify and honor Satan.

I sometimes think that we diagnose someone as “demon possessed” because we don’t want to deal with the psychological, emotional, mental, or spiritual issues that the person in question is actually dealing with. It is so much easier to write someone off as “demon possessed” than to do the hard work of loving, healing, restoring, and mending that may need to be done with someone who suffers in such ways.

But more than this, when we consider the “deliverance” ministry of Jesus in liberating people from demon possession, it is important to recognize what Jesus was, and was not, doing.

In Jesus’ day (as in ours, though to a lesser degree), people associated sickness with sin. People believed that if you sinned, one way God might punish you is by sending a sickness upon you. Therefore, if a person got sick, this was taken as an indication that the person had sinned and God was punishing them.

One of the reasons, therefore, that Jesus went around “casting out demons” was to turn this religious lie on its head. Jesus wanted to show that God didn’t punish sinners with demon possession, nor was demon possession an indication of God’s punishment or of that person’s sinfulness. The so-called “demon possessed” person was just as loved and accepted by God as anyone else.

Furthermore, what Jesus wanted to reveal was that the most demonic thing about demon possession was not the demon possession itself, but was the diagnosis of demon possession. To diagnose someone as “possessed by a demon” is to diagnose them as being outside the grace of God, underserving of His love, care, and protection, and as having been so sinful as to incur one of His greatest punishments.

But to show us that God does not send demons and that God does not punish sin, Jesus “cast out demons.” When God is truly at work, it is not to punish someone with demons or accuse them of having a demon, but to rescue, deliver, and free people from such hopeless and condemning accusations.

So to accuse someone of having a demon or of being possessed by a demon is to remove a person from the sphere of God’s grace and love, and lock them in a prison of shame, fear, and darkness, which is demonic. Therefore, to keep from glorifying Satan, we must never accuse someone of being demon possessed.

In fact, this accusatory spirit — for which we Christians are often known — is the fourth way we Christians worship and glorify Satan.

4. We Engage in Satanic Accusations

Christians worship satanThe word “devil” in Greek is diabolos. It is built upon the Greek words dia, meaning across, and bollo, meaning to cast or throw. The devil is one who casts or throws across something. In the various contexts of diabolos, it refers to one who maligns, slanders, or sows discord and division.

The word “satan” is similar. “Satan” is a Hebrew word (the Greek is satanas), and it means “accuser.”

Both of these meanings are clearly seen in nearly every passage in Scripture where Satan, or the devil, is described. He accuses God of withholding something good from Adam and Eve (Genesis 3), and he accuses God of showing favoritism to Job (Job 1). In Luke 4 and Matthew 4, he accuses, challenges, and questions the mission and purpose of Jesus. The New Testament refers to him as the “accuser of the brethren” (Rev 12:10).

While God only loves, forgives, and accepts, Satan only judges, accuses, and condemns.

So when we Christians judge, accuse, and condemn others, whose example are we following? Are we more like God or more like Satan?

When we demonize our enemies so we can condemn them, we mimic Satan rather than God.

When we accuse and condemn those who we think are “sinners,” we mimic Satan rather than God.

When we sit in judgment on others, because they believe something different or behave in ways we think are wrong, we mimic Satan rather than God.

If we were to mimic God, we would love unconditionally, forgive infinitely, and accept unreservedly.

But by mimicking Satan, we worship and glorify him instead.

And this judgmental, condemning, accusing attitude leads to the fifth and greatest way we worship Satan.

5. We Commit Satanic Violence

The most Satanic thing Christians do, however, is committing violence in the name of God.

If one person murders another, this is evil.

But it is infinitely more evil when one person murders another in the name of Jesus Christ.

The same goes for war, vengeance, lust, greed, gossip, slander, and any other thing that is contrary to the character and nature of God.

When Christians go to war against their enemies in the name of Jesus Christ, we are not worshipping the God who told us to love our enemies, but are worshipping the demonic being who loves nothing more than to get us to do his bidding while blaming it on God.

We commit adultery because “God wants us to be happy.” We retaliate against our selfish neighbor because “God wants us to stand up for what is right.” We become rich on the backs of the poor because “God wants us to be wealthy.” We tell lies about others because “God wants us to share prayer requests.”

And on and on it goes.

Satan, having failed to become like God, tries to get God to become like him. And though God will never fall into such a trap, we who worship God have made God into Satan by doing what Satan wants while attributing it to God.

how we worship SatanThe most blatant way we do this is by committing violence against our enemies and claiming that it was divinely sanctioned, that God wants our enemies dead as much as we do.

While it is the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy, God gives generously to all, grants life to those in the shadow of death, and mends broken lives and damaged souls. If we are going to follow God, we will do what God does — even (especially!) for our enemies.

The Glorification of Satan

I know that this post will be somewhat controversial, but I believe that if the church is ever going to rise up and reveal to people the outrageous love of God, we must begin by jettisoning everything that looks like Satan.

I have suggested five ways we can do this above. Do you have anything to add?

God is Redeeming Church Bible & Theology Topics: Luke 4, Matthew 4, satan, Theology of Angels, violence, worship

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God is not a Vampire

By Jeremy Myers
12 Comments

God is not a Vampire

The impression we get from much of what passes for Christian teaching is that the closer we get to God, the more like Him we will become, and the less like ourselves.

In this way, God is sort of pictured as a being who sucks the human life out of us and injects us with His own life so that we become less like “me” and more like Him. As part of this exchange, we also get eternal life.

is god a vampire?It occurred to me recently that this sort of Christian theology makes God sound like a vampire. He “bites” us, and while we continue to “look” like ourselves, we get injected with His “blood” so that we “die” but remain alive forever. As the years go by, our human nature starts to fade away, and our “divine” nature starts to show through.

And as is the case with many vampires, they stop being too concerned about the humanity to which they used to belong, and use humans only for selfish reasons and personal gain. This is the dark side of being a vampire, and the dark side of being a Christian.

More Like God

It is not uncommon to encounter Christians who act as if their primary goal in life is to become less “human” and more “like God.” They give up their old friends, interests, desires, hobbies, and tastes, and instead hang out just with other Christians while studying an ancient book and speaking an arcane language that nobody else understands. They look down their noses on all the “unenlightened” humans around them who are “not filled with the Holy Spirit.” They sneer and scoff at all the ignorant masses who “live lives of emptiness and insignificance.”

But is this the way it is supposed to be?

No, I do not think so.

I believe that God wants us to be more human; not less.

God wants us to live

Jesus came so that we might have life, and might have it abundantly (John 10:10). He did not come to destroy fun and turn our smiles into frowns and our laughter into mourning, but to show us how to really have fun in life, to give us joy, and to turn our mourning into laughter.

God did not save us so that we might die, but so that we might live.

God made life, and He made this world, and He gave both to us so that we might enjoy it. Food tastes good because God made it taste good and gave us tastebuds by which to taste it. If God didn’t want us to enjoy food, He wouldn’t have given us tastebuds.

The same goes for the beauty of creation, the joy of good music, the physical sensation of touch, and even the pleasure of sex. These things are not bad or evil, but are good things God gave us to enjoy.

We worship God when we saturate ourselves with the good gifts He has given to us.

Near the end of his life, Bonhoeffer taught that God is not God at the price of emptying me of my humanity; humanity does not consist in letting oneself be sucked dry by a divine vampire! (Wink, The Human Being, 37).

The 19th Century philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach criticized Christianity by saying that we have made God in our own image, and in so doing, have become less human. He said that by putting all of our best traits onto God, we decide that these traits are not “human” but divine, and thus, we are dehumanized. Having projected what it means to be human onto God, we have become less human as a result.

The Christian religion has argued the opposite, but with similar conclusions. Seeing from Scripture that we were made in the image of God, we argue that the goal of life is to empty ourselves and become more like God. Life, we say, is found in conforming to the image of God and becoming less human as a result.

It seems that Jesus revealed a different path than either of these. While agreeing that God made us in His image, Jesus disagreed that this means we must empty ourselves of our humanity and become more like God. Jesus came that we might have life and might have it more abundantly. Jesus wants us not to empty ourselves of our humanity, but rise up to what it means to be fully human.

become godly by becoming yourself

Becoming Fully Human

God is not most glorified when we become more like Him, but when we become more like us.

God did not make us to be God, but to be human, fully human.

We become more “godly” by becoming ourselves; that is, by becoming who God made us to be.

To fully worship God is to fully live as humans. He made us to be humans, and we fulfill our purpose by living as humans.

And this is what sets a relationship with God apart from all other belief systems in the world. Most religions in the world try to get us to be less human so that we can become like God. Atheism rightly reacts to this wrong idea, and says that to fully live, we must be fully human. The problem with atheism, is that they believe we must reject God to become fully human.

God agrees with atheists. God too believes that our purpose is to become fully human. But Jesus teaches that we only become fully human when we live as God intended. The “rules” of God are not provided to destroy life and fun and pleasure, but to maximize them.

Atheism says: “You have made God and by giving him up, you become more human.”
Religion says: “God has made us and by following Him, we become less human.”
Jesus says, “God had made us, and by following Him, you become more human.”

Jesus became human, not to lead us back to God, but to lead us back to humanity.

So start to become more “Godlike” today. How? By learning to live like yourself. This is what God wants.

God is Redeeming Church, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: anthropology, atheism, Discipleship, freedom, godliness, humanity, John 10:10, life, Theology of Man

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Jesus told stories, and so shouldn’t we

By Jeremy Myers
16 Comments

Jesus told stories, and so shouldn’t we

Yes, you read that title correctly.

I know, I know. Popular preaching advice tells you that โ€œPeople learn through stories,โ€ and that โ€œYou need illustrations to make your point.โ€

I do not disagree that stories and illustrations are helpful in preaching. But they are not always helpful …

I do disagree, however, that the reason we should use stories in preaching is because Jesus used stories. While He did tell stories, He didn’t use stories in His preaching. At least, not the way we think.

stories Jesus told

Let me clarify by stating five points about the use of stories in preaching and teaching.

1. Maybe your sermons are too long

One reason it is true that people need stories sprinkled liberally throughout sermons is because the sermons are too long.

Like it or not, people have a short attention span these days, and the stories, jokes, and illustrations help keep people’s attention.

Stories help revive people’s interest in what you are saying, especially when it takes you 40 minutes to say it.

But what would happen if what you were saying was shorter? Maybe fifteen minutes? Or ten? Or *gasp* five?

Would you need tear-jerker stories and cute illustrations then? I think not.

Which makes you wonder … why is the average sermon about 35 minutes long? I have my theories, but that’s another blog post…

2. Yes, Jesus told stories, BUT …

Second, while much of the Bible is narrative, people often say that we should use stories because Jesus did, and He was the best teacher the world has ever seen.

I do not deny that Jesus was the best teacher, but I do question the logic of the statement, โ€œBecause Jesus used stories, so should we.โ€

Just because Jesus does something, this does not mean that we should do it too. But more than that, if you carefully examine why Jesus used stories, it was not to illustrate His point or to help His listeners understand what He was saying. No, Jesus clearly stated that the reason He spoke in parables was so that His listeners would not understand (check out Luke 8).

Jesus told stories so that people would be confused!

So if you really want to teach like Jesus, make sure you pick stories for your sermons that are confusing and mysterious and which hide your point rather than reveal it.

jesus told storiesIf you want to include stories and illustrations to help people understand what you are saying, this is fine to do; just don’t say you are following the example of Jesus.

3. The facts can teach too

Thirdly, while it is true that stories do teach, it is also true that just presenting the facts is also a great way of teaching.

While I often learn great truths from watching movies or reading novels, most of the things I have learned about theology came from reading books about theology, reading commentaries, and just studying the Bible.

I think there are large numbers of Christians today who learn similarly. They just want to know what the Bible says, and they don’t want a bunch of stories, illustrations, and jokes to get in the way.

4. The Bible is One Big Story

Fourth, the “Jesus told stories and so should we” argument often points to the fact that large chunks of the Bible are “stories.” This fact is used to bolster the argument that people learn by stories and we should sprinkle our teaching opportunities with stories.

But notice that when the Bible tells stories, it is not sprinkling a fact-based teaching with cute illustrations and funny jokes.

No, when the Bible tells stories, it tells a story and then shuts up about it.

Sure, there may be a point to the stories, but the point is often up for argument and open to interpretation.

So if you want to “tell stories” the way the Bible tells stories, then you need to make sure that your story is the teaching. If you want to tell stories like the Bible tells stories, then tell a good story and leave it alone.

I am all for using stories as a teaching method, but the best way to use stories as a teaching method is simply to tell a story. Stories as a teaching method are the stories themselves, not a regular teaching with a couple of stories sprinkled in.

5. Tell Good Stories

Finally, if you want to tell stories in your teaching, or as your teaching, make sure the story is a good one. The biblical stories are really good stories. They are full of mystery, intrigue, betrayal, sex, war, and everything else that makes a top-notch story.

tell good stories like JesusMost “Christian” stories are too sanitized to be any good.

This is why movies are so powerful today. This is also why (I am convinced) movies do more to teach people about life and relationships and theology than sermons ever will. Movies are (usually) well-told stories that are nothing but stories which people watch and have their life and thinking changed as a result.

Stories and Illustrations in Sermons

I am not opposed to using stories and illustrations in sermons. I use them myself when I preach. I think they do aid in the teaching and learning process.

But I think we Christians need to do some rethinking about why we tell stories and what sorts of stories we tell. But I wonder if people would learn just as much if our sermons were 80% shorter… or maybe if they were just one well-told story.

But whatever we do, whether we include illustrations or not, whether we preach for 40 minutes or 5, we cannot say that “Jesus told stories, and so should we.” He did tell stories, but not the kind of stories we tell, and not for the reasons we tell them, and not in the way we tell them.

If you truly want to tell stories like Jesus, do these three things:

  1. Your teaching time should be nothing but stories.
  2. Your stories should target religious people only.
  3. Your stories should be confusing so nobody understands them.

If you know someone who teaches that way, send me a link to their podcast, because I want to hear them.

God is Redeeming Church Bible & Theology Topics: illustrations, Jesus, Luke 8, parables, Preaching, stories, teaching

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Stop Calling Yourself a Christian

By Jeremy Myers
87 Comments

Stop Calling Yourself a Christian

love like JesusI think all of us “Christians” should stop referring to ourselves as “Christians.”

Nor should we ask other people if they are a “Christian.”

I have two lines of reasoning for why we should stop saying we’re Christians.

1. They were first called Christians in Antioch (Acts 11:26)

When the term “Christian” was first invented, it was coined by an outside group of “pagans” who observed the way Jesus-followers behaved and recognized the similarity between what they were doing and what Jesus did. And so they called these Jesus followers “Christians.”

In other words, the first “Christians” did not take this title for themselves; it was given to them.

The term means “little Christ,” and while some scholars think that it was maybe intended to be a derogatory term (sort of like Yankee Doodle), I do not think so. I think the people of Antioch noticed how “Christ-like” the people were who claimed to follow Him, and so they started to referring to this Christ-like followers of Jesus as “Christians.” It was a way to identify them and talk about them.

they will know you are christians by your loveThe Christians of Antioch were not known for their hate, venom, judgmentalism, or religious pride, or even for their good theology, pious life, and vast Bible knowledge. Instead, They were knowing for looking and acting and behaving like Jesus Christ, and as a result, they were “called Christians” by those who were not Christians.

If the watching world started giving titles and nicknames to those who proclaim to follow Jesus today, what sort of titles do you think they would give us?

I am not sure I want to know … but I doubt it would be “Christian.”

But this leads me to the second line of reasoning for why we should stop calling ourselves “Christians.”

you keep calling yourself a Christian

2. They will know you are Christians by your love (John 13:35)

If you truly are a “Christian” you don’t have to tell people. They will know it. How? By your love.

Those who truly act like a “Christian” do not have to tell people they are a “Christian” because people already know it. They know it by your love.

I follow Jesus t-shirtI walked by two guys in the store the other day who were both wearing Christian t-shirts. One was saying to the other, “Yeah, they all hate me at work, but that’s okay, because I’m standing up for Christ.”

Now, I cannot say for sure, but I imagine that since I heard this about five days after the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage, that this man’s idea of “standing up for Christ” consisted of telling his coworkers that LGBT people were headed for hell, were destroying our country, and were signs of the collapse of modern society and traditional marriage.

Some religious people think that “standing up for Christ” in today’s culture means telling others that God hates gays. Just check out some of the comments on my post from two days ago.

Look, I don’t know where you stand on the gay marriage issue. I don’t care. What I do know, however, is that wherever you stand on gay marriage, the proper response to gay people is love.

The same goes for other groups of people some Christians love to hate. Like Muslims. Whatever you may think about the Muslim religion, the proper way to treat a Muslim is with love.

Love is the proper (and only) response to ALL people, no matter what they believe or do, if we are followers of Jesus.

If you want to represent Jesus to people, don’t do it by hating or condemning them. (And don’t use the line about how you “Love the sinner, but hate the sin.”)

Anyway, back to the conversation I heard in the store, I wanted to tell this guy who was proud of his “stand for Christ” that just because people hate you for what you say doesn’t mean that you are standing for Christ.

In fact, in the Gospels, the only people who really hated Jesus were the religious people. Those who were condemned and judged by the religious people loved Jesus and hung out with Him and were accepted by Him.

So if the world hates you but religious people love you, you might not be following Jesus.

Also, if, like this guy in the store, you have to tell people you are a Christian by broadcasting it on your t-shirt, you’re doing it wrong.

If we want to tell people we are followers of Jesus, we do it by loving them. Just as He loves us. Unconditionally. That’s what Godly love is.

I am convinced that the person who loves others unconditionally but doesn’t claim to follow Jesus is closer to the Kingdom of God than those who claim to follow Jesus but doesn’t love others unconditionally.

love is of GodIf love is of God, and everybody who loves is born of God and knows God because God is love (1 John 4:7-8), then it only makes sense that love will be the prevailing characteristic of one who is born of God and know God!

It is not a person’s words that make him or her a Christian, or what they post on Facebook or wear on their t-shirts, or even how many Bible verses they can quote, or how often they attend church and Bible studies, or whether they can “take a stand for Christ.”

They will know we are Christians by our love, and if you have not love, they will never know you are a Christian, no matter how much you tell them you are.

Or maybe I should put it this way: If you have not love, you can never properly act like a Christian, no matter how much you tell people you are one.

The REAL Question We Should be Asking Ourselves (and others)

So the question we should be asking is not “Am I a Christian?” but rather, “Am I Christ-like?”

“Do my words sound like words Jesus might say?”

“Do my actions look like things Jesus might do?”

“Do I love unconditionally, forgive freely, serve sacrificially, and accept all?”

“Do I challenge the religious status-quo for setting up barriers to God and creating groups of us vs. them?”

“Do I break down the walls of religion by eating with the so-called ‘tax-collectors and sinners’?”

If so, then keep living in love and looking like Jesus, and maybe, just maybe, someone might call you a “Christian.”

God is Redeeming Church, Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: 1 John 4:7-8, Acts 11:26, Christian, Discipleship, evangelism, hate, John 13:35, looks like Jesus, love, love like Jesus, missions

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3 simple words to say to an atheist who criticizes Christianity

By Jeremy Myers
48 Comments

3 simple words to say to an atheist who criticizes Christianity

A while back, a man sent me a question about how he should respond to his atheist son who has nothing but criticism for Christianity. He told me that he had read several books of apologetics, had used numerous arguments for the existence of God, and had tried to show his son all the important things that Christianity had done in the world over the past 2000 years.

Despite all the evidence for the existence of God and the arguments for the goodness of Christians, this man’s son was still not convinced, and remained an atheist. The son pointed out to the father all the hateful things that Christians said and did, as well as all the violent things that God commanded in the Bible. As a result, the son told his father that he could never believe in or follow a God like that or trust anyone who represented him.

This father wrote to me to see if I had any insight into what he could tell his son to show him how wrong he was.

There are two possible ways I could have answered him. First, there is this possible answer:

arguing with atheistic criticism of Christianity

Somehow, I don’t think the flowchart above would help any atheist. Sadly, such a flowchart is the route many Christians choose to use when arguing with atheists.

So below is the edited and revised version of what I actually invited this Christian father to tell his atheist son:

My son,

You wrote about all the mean Christians you know, and how we have done and said so many hateful and hurtful things in history, and even in our own day.

You also wrote about all the violence in the Bible which was done in the name of God, and apparently by His command, and how abhorrent this appears to be.

Regarding these issues, I have only three words to say:

You are right.

You are right that there are lots of people all over the world and throughout time doing lots of horrible things in the name of Christianity.

And there is no point in me saying that all those people who are doing these evil things in the name of God are wrong, for they would probably say that I am wrong for disagreeing with what they do in God’s name.

So all I can do is agree with you.

Those hateful things should never have been said. Especially not when said “in the name of Jesus.”

Those hurtful deeds should never have been done. Especially not “in the name of Jesus.”

And while I do believe in God, I believe in the God revealed in Jesus, who looks nothing like the violent deity of the Old Testament. This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in the Old Testament; I do. I just think something different is going on in those ancient texts than what most Christians assume. But whatever the Old Testament texts teach, they do not and should not give Christians a license to act like the devil in the name of God.

Here is what I believe:

I believe that Jesus called us to love people unconditionally.

I believe that any time anybody claims to follow Jesus but they do not love people, they are not following Jesus.

I believe that if what I practice is true, then these practices will help me love others more.

Yes, I know that there are lots of “religious” things about Christianity with which you object. But please know that none of that is important if it doesn’t help me love others like Jesus.

If these other religious activities do not help me love others like Jesus, then I hope that one day I am able to weed them out of my life as you suggest and become more like you. If they donโ€™t help me love others, then they probably arenโ€™t true. And If they do help me love others, I hope you will be able to see it in my life by how I treat others.

I love you,
Dad

I do not think that what I wrote will help this man’s atheistic son become a Christian, but it will certainly help the father live more like a Christian.

And that’s the point, isn’t it?

Christianity is not about proving others wrong, but about proving others are loved.

Do you have atheists friends or family members? I invite you to take a similar approach with them. Agree with our atheist critics! Admit and confess to the numerous places where Christians have got it wrong, and state that the only real goal of following Jesus is love.

If you do this, you may come to realize that maybe, just maybe, atheist are more in tune to the Holy Spirit than Christians are, and that maybe, just maybe, God is calling Christians to follow Him more closely through the prophetic voice of the atheist.

God is Redeeming Church, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: atheists, Christianity, following Jesus, love like Jesus, love others

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