CHURCHES & CHRISTIANS HAVE AN IMAGE PROBLEM. (26 JUNE 2016)

Christians & their churches are not the only group that has to deal with negative stereotypes; Poles, Germans, & Italians & many other ethnic groups & races also deal with negative stereotypes. But Christians are obviously the PC choice group to slander & put down, esp. in Hollywood & universities. If you don’t agree with homosexuality, you are called a homophobe. If you don’t agree with Jews, you are called Anti-Semitic. But we have no term for anti-Christians…perhaps “Christophobic” would fit.

BEING A FOLLOWER OF CHRIST IS NOT EASY. Christ asked his followers to forsake all. He taught them a radical kind of love that means one has to balance loving non-Christians while totally rejecting their worldview & sinful ways. Christ said that the World would persecute his true followers. Being a disciple is a special calling…it is no wonder that his true church is called a nation of spiritual kings & priests.

WHAT’S GOING ON? Several things are going on. First, devote Christ-following Christians are a minority, they have little Worldly power to tell their side. Second, many of the statistics that make Christians look bad which are published & even circulated by Christians are bogus. How you ask a question on a survey, how you score an answer, what group you actually survey, etc. all influence the final result. Many surveys of “Christians” classify people with a group… whether they are regular church attenders or not. A survey of regular Catholic, or Mormon, or Baptist or Evangelical regular church goers will give totally different results than a survey of those who call themselves Catholic, Mormon, Baptist or Evangelical. Many surveys don’t make that important difference. There are countless deficiencies that surveys can incorporate, more than I can explain here. The bottom line is that surveys often give false impressions—and many now-a-days about Christians give false impressions, but are quoted even by Christians as if they are the gospel truth. Think for yourself is my advice. If a survey’s result seems bogus—guess what, it may be!! Many statistics are made up out of thin air. I’ve been amazed to see it done. The World is not going to report Christian successes, and they are going to misrepresent facts. Third, Hollywood uses Christian ministers as stock laughing-jokes, and Catholic clergy as stock evil villains. Lay-Christians are used in scripts when they need a violent bigoted person. People get many of their ideas of things from movie images. Four, we focus on what goes wrong. The news reports planes that crash, buildings that fall, and ministers that fall & crash; while most planes, building & ministers function like they are meant to function. Fifth, too many are playing religion and not being led by the Holy Spirit. Jonathan Swift said, “We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough religion to make us love one another.” There are other dynamics besides these 5, but these give a good share.

TRENDS. There are several trends which I have observed and have seen enough confirming legit surveys, polls, & stats to know are genuine trends. First, people are seeking places where they believe they can find the Holy Spirit. The mainline Protestant denominations are being perceived as spiritually dead, and people are abandoning them to find the Holy Spirit. The Catholic church is having a big problem retaining members. What is keeping the Catholic church membership numbers up are 1) immigration…46% of immigrants to the USA are Catholic. One quarter of Catholic membership in the USA is foreign-born! (Only 6% of Protestants is.) 2) t.b.m.c. is promoting its victims to participate in Catholicism. (Gen. Michael Aquino, a Satanic programmer w/ U.S. military intelligence, often has his victims programmed to participate in Catholic activities.) The third trend, is a general weakening of the moral fiber of America across the board. While Christian morals are weakening, they remain significantly better than other groups (in spite of some bogus survey results). So these 3 trends are affecting Churchianity, but what people fail to see is that Christ’s chaste Bride (his true devout believers) are still as pure & devote as they always were. The Bride of Christ is a beautiful vehicle to enhance humanity spiritually…it is growing from glory to glory…it is not a sinking vessel. It would be reprehensible to ask people to join something dysfunctional about to go under!

SOME INTERESTING FIGURES. One in 4 Americans dislikes Fundamentalist Christians. One in two dislikes atheists. So basically Americans don’t like the two extremes, and dislike atheists twice as much as radical Christians. And indeed most Americans are believers in God, but rather wishy-washy about their other beliefs. What is really eye-opening is higher education. In American universities, more than half the faculty members have negative feelings towards evangelical Christians, while only 1 in four have negative feelings towards Muslims!! And only 18% have negative feelings towards atheists. So our university faculty are not representative of the general population’s attitudes BUT are relative to them very negative towards Christianity. Indeed, it was these kind of faculty members that convinced both my parents (who were raised in Christian homes) to abandon Christianity as an outdated superstition. Indeed, a university faculty member can get by with saying anything derogatory about Christianity that he or she wants. These kinds of cruel put downs would not be tolerated by the universities if they were said about any other ethnic or religious group!! It is o.k. to slam Christianity. Do the same to any other group, esp. a pc beholden group like transgenders & gays, and you as an instructor will lose your job immediately.

FINAL REMARKS. Hollywood movies, the World’s mass media, and our higher education are all relatively anti-Christ, anti-Christian, & Christophobic. Unfortunately, they are who are in control of most of our young people’s minds. One can see where all these bogus ideas about Christians being immoral haters are coming from. Further, people need to understand the real meaning of hypocrite. A hypocrite is someone is says they do one thing and doesn’t do it. You are not a hypocrite to try to reach a standard and then fail. A high jumper is not a hypocrite for failing to pass the bar. A hypocrite is someone who says they are a high jumper but isn’t. Christians who try to reach a standard are not hypocrites for trying & failing. At least they are trying. In spite of all the bad press & personal failures, the Bride of Christ continues to be a beautiful spiritual specimen, & continues to inspire people all over the planet in all the nations & races. This Bride is truly in love with its bridegroom, Christ, Yahshua ha Messiach.