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A couple weeks ago I ran a survey on what my readers thought about sinful employment for Christians. The results are below.

Sinful Employment for Christians

The first survey was about what forms of employment would be sinful for a Christian. I received well over 100 responses to this survey, but the survey company I used only allows me to see the first 100 responses for free. I didn’t want to pay to see the rest. I have made the result public, and you can go see them yourself here: Sinful Employment for Christians

Here are the questions and their responses:

Is it wrong for Christians to serve in the military?
Yes: 11%
No: 89%
Is it wrong for Christians to work at (or own) a casino?
Yes: 44%
No: 56%
Is it wrong for Christians to work at (or own) a buffet restaurant (because it encourages gluttony)?
Yes: 5%
No: 95%
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) a bank or investment firm (because they sometimes promote greed)?
Yes: 5%
No: 95%
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) a television or cable company when one of the channel packages includes pornographic material?
Yes: 37%
No: 63%
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) a secular publishing company when one of the arms of that company publishes pornographic material?
Yes: 48%
No: 52%
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) a bar or liquor store?
Yes: 34%
No: 66%
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) a medical marijuana dispensary?
Yes: 31%
No: 69% – (By the way, check this out… a Christian Pot Shop!!!
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) an abortion clinic?
Yes: 84%
No: 16%
Is it wrong for a Christian to work at (or own) a strip club?
Yes: 84%
No: 16%

Analyzing the Survey Results

One of the drawbacks to that “free” version of the survey site I used is that they only allowed 10 questions. When I initially wrote this survey, I had about 20 questions, and also had room for people to leave feedback and explanations for why they answered as they did. On the one hand, I am glad that I was limited to only 10 questions, because it made the survey easier to complete, but on the other hand, I am super curious to know why people answered the way they did. Thankfully, some people left comments on the original post which helped explain their answers. If you took the survey and want to add further explanation in the comment section below, feel free!

Also, some people pointed out that the questions were not well asked. Very true. For example, rather than ask, “Is it wrong for Christians…” I should have asked “Would it be wrong for you…” Though many Christians try to state universal rules for all Christians everywhere about these sorts of topics, many Christians realize that what is wrong for one Christian may be perfectly okay for someone else.

As you look over the results above, are there any surprises for you? What are they?

I think what would be most interesting is if we could have First Century Christians take this same survey. From my own reading of what early Christians believed, I think most of them would have said it would be wrong for a Christian to serve in the military and in the banking industry. Also, many of the biblical prophets come down pretty hard on greed and gluttony, and even Paul has some harsh words for those who overeat (1 Cor 11). Yet our society sees nothing wrong with these sorts of things. I am not saying we are wrong… We live in different times in a culture with different values.

I personally work in a job that many people would find quite compromising. I regularly have discussions with Christians who think that I am sinning by working where I work. Early Christians might agree. Some days, I agree too!

Yet I think that part of following Jesus in this world means taking the light of the Gospel to places that otherwise might have no Christian witness at all. If we are not lights in the darkness, there would be only darkness. As I have written elsewhere, when we seek to follow Jesus, we must not be surprised when we follow Him to the gates of hell.

Besides, if we tried to have a place of employment that was completely free of all sin, we would not be able to work anywhere! All businesses, companies, and organizations (even churches) have sinful habits and behaviors which compromise various aspects of Christian values and ethics. Thankfully, the grace and forgiveness of God is without limit!

If you think I am a lying heretic, let me help you out…

By Jeremy Myers

20 Comments

One downside to having the “Ask a Bible and Theology” question section on my sidebar is that some people feel it is an invitation to send me hate mail.

Ever since I put it up, I get a few nasty messages every week from people who think I am a lying heretic leading poor lost souls to the pit of hell through false teaching and heretical ideas.

Usually, they want to engage me in a back-and-forth email debate. Often, I get the feeling that if we lived in a different century, they would want to put me on the rack or give me up to the flames to burn the error from my soul.

Here is one such email I got last week:

Jeremy I am a very well educated theologian and I am personally challenging you to Scripturally support the LIE in which you propagate upon immature Believers.

Scriptural proof is one thing but personal IMO’s are of little theological value.

Once again – I am here should you want to defend you LIES.

I have neither the time nor the desire to engage in fruitless email debates with people like this (or to point out his grammar mistakes).

However, people are entitled to their opinion, and I fully admit that there are areas of my theology which need correction.

So, if you think I am a lying heretic leading immature believers astray, let me help you point out my error. Take these two steps.

Start a blog of your own
Writes posts on your blog in which you refute my ideas, point by point

If you include a link in your blog post to my blog post you are refuting, I will get a notification in my blog that you have written this blog post, and I can come over and read your post to learn about my many errors. If you make good points, I may even comment, or notify my blog readers that I am changing my views because of your compelling Scriptural and theological arguments.

I am so serious about this, I am willing to help you start your blog for FREE. Learn more here about starting your own blog.

I just checked, and these domains are currently available:

jeremymyersisalyingheretic.com
jeremymyersisthemouthpieceofsatan.com
alltheheresiesofjeremymyers.com
iamsmarterthanjeremymyers.com
jeremymyerssucks.com
thebadtheologyofjeremymyers.com

Jump on these domains quick, though, because once they’re gone, they’re gone!

I Support a Woman’s Right to Choose…

By Jeremy Myers

47 Comments

I am not talking about abortion. …Not yet anyway.

I support a woman’s right to choose between paper and plastic at the grocery store.

I support a woman’s right to choose what kind of light bulb she uses at home.

I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not she and her family have health care.

I support a woman’s right to choose what kind of food to put her children’s lunchbox.

I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to carry a gun.

I support a woman’s right to choose when, where, and how to discipline her children.

I support a woman’s right to choose her religion and whether or not to talk about it in public.

I support a woman’s right to choose how she defines marriage.

I could go on and on about all the ways I support a woman’s right to choose.

But what I find so sadly ironic is that the same people who support a woman’s right to choose about whether or not to terminate her pregnancy are often the same people who do not support a woman’s right to choose all the things listed above. They want to give women the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, but they don’t want to give women the right to choose between paper and plastic.

You know a great business idea for somebody? A puppy abortion clinic. Or maybe a kitten abortion clinic. You know how many stray dogs and cats there are on the world? Wouldn’t it be great if a pet owner could take their pregnant cat or dog into a clinic and have all the little puppies or kittens aborted? Then they wouldn’t have to deal with the mess of delivery, and standing outside Walmart for hours on end trying to get rid of puppies and kittens to strangers.

I am jesting of course, but do you know what would happen if somebody started an abortion clinic for puppies and kittens? There would be outrage! You might even get arrested for cruelty to animals. Who knows? Maybe someone from PETA would come and bomb your clinic.

And yet most people think nothing of it when we talk about aborting children. A woman has a right to choose what to do with her body.

But that’s just it. It is not her body. It is someone else’s body. A child’s body. It’s a little girl or a little boy. Do not they have the right to choose what happens to their body? Tell you what…. I support a woman’s right to choose as long as that same right is extended to the little girls and little boys. Let them be born and then when they are old enough to understand, give them a choice about whether they want to live or die.

People talk about how conservatives wage a war on women. I think it is time to start talking about the war on children. And unlike the so-called war on women, the war on children has millions of casualties.

Millions of babies have been killed, slaughtered, burned, and destroyed.

In this ongoing war on children, more children have been killed than all the Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Are you “Pro-Choice”? This post probably won’t convince you to change your mind. But if you want to remain “Pro-Choice,” please start to be consistently “Pro-Choice” and let women (and the rest of us) have the right to choose in the other areas of life as well.

Is it loving to say, “You’re Going to Hell”?

By Jeremy Myers

41 Comments

I have been studying the doctrine of hell recently, and by coincidence, ran across the following video.

The quality is pretty bad, but you don’t really need the images to get the… horror of it… Not the horror of hell, but the horror that Christians would use such tactics to try to scare people into heaven.

What makes it worse is that this video is obviously geared toward High School Students. The video is called “A Letter from Hell.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZ1pt0WX5c

Yikes!

I recently heard of a church that at a Youth Rally had 100% conversion. The speaker passed out little pieces of paper and had everyone write their name on their paper. Then he brought up two garbage cans, and in one, put some paper and lighter fluid and lit the thing on fire. Then he told the kids that the flaming trashcan represented hell, and the other represented heaven. He had the kids line up, and pass by the cans putting their piece of paper in the can where they wanted to go when they died…

Amazingly, not a single kid put his name in the flaming can! Instead, everyone wanted to go to heaven. The church reported that 100% of the kids at the rally were converted.

Now that’s evangelism success.

…Or is it?

Last week, Mark Driscoll tweeted that all unbelievers are going to hell.

https://twitter.com/PastorMark/status/421674123132416000

Thanks for clearing that up, Mark. We wondered where you stood on this issue and am glad you gave the watching world yet another reason to realize how kind and loving we Christians are…

But seriously, Mark’s point was that it is loving to tell people they are going to hell.

I know, I have heard the arguments:

If a man was about to drive his car off a cliff, the loving thing to do is to warn him. So also with hell. If a person is headed for hell, the loving thing to do is warn them.

If that’s true, then why did Jesus talk about hell so little? Why is it rarely (if ever) mentioned by Paul or Peter? The New Testament authors do not try to scare people into heaven with threats of hell.

OK, some of you Bible scholars are thinking to yourself, “Jeremy doesn’t read his Bible. Doesn’t he know that Jesus talks about hell more than He talks about heaven?”

Yes, I know that this is what some people claim. But it simply isn’t true. The passages where Jesus mentions “weeping and gnashing of teeth” are not talking about hell, but about profound regret for a life poorly lived that some Christians will experience at the Judgment Seat of Christ (cf. Matt 8:12; 22:11-13). Most of the references to “fire” in Jesus’ teaching are not about hell, but about some sort of temporal divine discipline; not eternal conscious torment.

I think maybe the only place Jesus talks about hell is with the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (which is likely a parable), and when Jesus says that hell was made for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41), and sadly, some people end up there as well.

…Speaking of which…. if hell was made for the devil and his angels, why are they on the earth now? Hmmm…. simmer on that one for a while.

Look, when Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and everyone else in the New Testament sought to invite people into the family of God, they did it winsomely. They didn’t threaten or coerce. God does not force people to love Him. God does not rape.

Even in the early church, people became Christians because they saw how loving and generous the Christians were (see Acts 2-3).

Look, people are never going to truly respond to the Gospel if you tell them that unless they accept Jesus they will be going to hell. Many people are already living in hell, and they think God has done this to them, and another such threat from God only reinforces there idea of this angry God up in the clouds who is out to kill and hurt them. Do we seriously want people to “come to Jesus” with this sort of picture of God in their minds?

No!

Not only because it doesn’t “work” but more importantly, because it isn’t true!

God looks like Jesus, and Jesus always loves people into the Kingdom.

You know what is really loving? Not warning people that if they don’t believe in Jesus they will go to hell. That’s not loving, nor does it draw anyone to God or into His Kingdom.

What is really loving is living in such a way that people notice a difference in your life. They see your joy, your grace, your generosity, and your patience in trials. They never sense judgment coming from you, but only acceptance and love. If given the opportunity, you can use words to invite people to follow Jesus with you, and experience the true contentment, peace, and joy that comes from living in such a way.

That is loving, and best of all, it’s true.

Gossip – Stop it!

By Jeremy Myers

2 Comments

One thing we Christians love to do is gossip. I suppose that due to the Papparazi gossip machine and gossip-heavy magazines like “People” it is only natural Christians fall into this social trend of listening to and spreading rumors about other people. It’s natural, but then, so is all sin.

Ironically, in churches today, we are more prone to condemn “homosexuals,” “abortionists,” and “democrats” than those who gossip. But did you know that the Bible speaks out against the sins of the tongue more than any other sin? I have a sneaking suspicion that the Bible condemns gossip more than all the other sins combined. Someone should do a study on that.

So, if you like to point the finger at others, and send e-mails about how Mr. Leader is moving into heresy (i.e., anything you don’t believe), and make phone calls to put your neighbor on the “prayer chain” (Gasp, Can you believe she got pregnant out of wedlock?!), what you are really doing is committing the number one sin of Scripture.

You know what I say to all of this? Watch the following video to find out.

This poor lady is dealing with a different issue than gossip, but the advice she received can be applied to those of us who gossip: STOP IT.

Survey Results on Sinful Employment for Christians

Sinful Employment for Christians

Analyzing the Survey Results

If you think I am a lying heretic, let me help you out…

I Support a Woman’s Right to Choose…

Is it loving to say, “You’re Going to Hell”?

Gossip – Stop it!

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