Slaveowners, Racist, Murderers, War and “Gays”: The Church and Hypocrisy
Jan 16
The Church of Jesus Christ has been over the last 2000 years done more good than harm. Way more good than harm. From feeding the poor, to clothing the naked, to providing aid to the destitute, to starting hospitals, and clinics, providing seed to the begger, digging wells, creating jobs to even ending slavery. But………..
The Church of Jesus Christ has also been plagued with hypocrisy. From Constantism, to Thenomist, to Manifest Destiny, to Slavery, to Jim Crow and Segregation.
I want to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. I have written about this in the past, but want to reiterate it. Let me start with a question. How is that we can let slaveowners, murderers, racist and those that supported the idea that unless you submit to God’s will you die… how do we give those guys a pass, while simultaneously telling someone that if they are gay or support homosexuality that they have no place in the Kingdomg of God.
For the life of me I don’t get it. I don’t get. So a person can murder someone because they disagree with them theologically and get a pass because thats the way it was, but if a person sleeps with the same sex they can’t be a Christian because it is an abomination (actually God calls murder an abomoniation also). For one it was just wrong theology but for the next it is rebellion against God.
What about the slave trade? A man can go to another country, bring a rifle put someone in chains, pack them in the bottom of a boat like worthless tuna, take them across the Atlantic, unpack them and then sale them like live stock and it could just be a product of the time and they get a pass, but a person who says God has made me this way and if they attempt to teach the word of God they are an abomination. Not to mention these men used the bible to support such a slave trade but somehow the Spirit never came to them and convicted them, but the same Spirit must have come to the gay.
What about Jim Crow and segregation. You see these men would support segregation, not allowing people with dark skin to have access to same things as them. They had to drink from dirty water fountatins, go to broken down schools, get 5th handed books given to them, hung from trees, sprayed in the face with water hoses, having dogs sicked on them, no voting rights, no employment rights, but they were just raised this way, as if the Spirit couldn’t bring conviction to their hearts. These same men would preach holiness and how they are to love their neighbor as themselves but because the color of someone’s skin they weren’t their neighbor. But if someone is “gay” it is demonic. I think any “Christian” who supported Jim Crow was just as demonic, but nope they get a pass also.
I could go on about war, women rights, the Trail of Tears and so forth but you get the point. This is why the image up top is fitting. By the way I don’t support Homosexuality just used it as a reference point.
And please don’t take this one down!
Lionel,
The only reason I can think of why those blokes get a pass is because of a religious mindset that text-proofs for justification. Homosexual activity can be textproofed against whereas slavery can’t.
So, as the saying goes; “A proof-text without a context is a pretext.”
I’m glad you’re still kickin’ man!
T
Volkmar,
Thank you sir. I actually just posted a comment about something like that on my FB account. Here is what I said:
“In the past I bought into the lie that the Gospel is a list of abstract facts. You know Justification, Salvation by Grace alone, the death burial and resurrection. The greatest tragedy of the American church is that the Gospel has been reduced to these fact. I have now come to believe that “Gospel” carries much more weight than that. And a Gospel void of loving neighbor and brother is not a biblical Gospel”
Lionel,
My walk with Christ began in my early teens when an aunt gave me a novel by Charles Sheldon,it’s title, In His Steps. That novel had a huge impact on my life. As Scripture began to open up for me, I was often reminded of the tramp and his words to a church full of people, words which helped me avoid the problem you mention of regarding the Gospel as “a list of abstract facts”.
With your permission, here are some of the tramp’s words, “I lost my job ten months ago. I am a printer by trade. The new linotype machines are beautiful specimens of invention, but I know six men who have killed themselves inside of the year just on account of those machines. Of course I don’t blame the newspapers for getting the machines. Meanwhile, what can a man do? I know I never learned but the one trade, and that’s all I can do. I’ve tramped all over the country trying to find something. There are a good many others like me. I’m not complaining, am I? Just stating facts. But I was wondering as I sat there under the gallery, if what you call following Jesus is the same thing as what He taught. What did He mean when He said: ‘Follow Me!’? The minister said,” — here he turned about and looked up at the pulpit — “that it is necessary for the disciple of Jesus to follow His steps, and he said the steps are ‘obedience, faith, love and imitation.’ But I did not hear him tell you just what he meant that to mean, especially the last step. What do you Christians mean by following the steps of Jesus?
“I’ve tramped through this city for three days trying to find a job; and in all that time I’ve not had a word of sympathy or comfort except from your minister here, who said he was sorry for me and hoped I would find a job somewhere. I suppose it is because you get so imposed on by the professional tramp that you have lost your interest in any other sort. I’m not blaming anybody, am I? Just stating facts. Of course, I understand you can’t all go out of your way to hunt up jobs for other people like me. I’m not asking you to; but what I feel puzzled about is, what is meant by following Jesus. What do you mean when you sing ‘I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way?’ Do you mean that you are suffering and denying yourselves and trying to save lost, suffering humanity just as I understand Jesus did? What do you mean by it? I see the ragged edge of things a good deal. I understand there are more than five hundred men in this city in my case. Most of them have families. My wife died four months ago. I’m glad she is out of trouble. My little girl is staying with a printer’s family until I find a job. Somehow I get puzzled when I see so many Christians living in luxury and singing ‘Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee,’ and remember how my wife died in a tenement in New York City, gasping for air and asking God to take the little girl too. Of course I don’t expect you people can prevent every one from dying of starvation, lack of proper nourishment and tenement air, but what does following Jesus mean? I understand that Christian people own a good many of the tenements. A member of a church was the owner of the one where my wife died, and I have wondered if following Jesus all the way was true in his case. I heard some people singing at a church prayer meeting the other night,
‘All for Jesus, all for Jesus,
All my being’s ransomed powers,
All my thoughts, and all my doings,
All my days, and all my hours.’
and I kept wondering as I sat on the steps outside just what they meant by it.”
How familiar that all sounds to this old bird! The tramp had experienced what the “list of abstract facts” causes.
As a zealous, sincere, idealist, I created tsunami sized waves railing about some Reformers, Arminians, Catholics, and their “intellectualism without feet”, etc. You know what I mean.
I was wasting my time, bashing my head against a brick wall, trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear
Only the living Lord, Jesus Christ can do that, indwelling a person by His Holy Spirit and molding the hearts and minds of sinful humans to be living stones in the Church He is building.
I began to learn that idealism, must be tempered by realism.
As you rightly point out information IS NOT transformation.
I’m glad you clarified here that you don’t support homosexuality, since Scripture is clear on that. I wish I had read this prior to my comment to you over at TCR’s. But, you create a false dilemma. I don’t support the slave trade — at all, vehemently oppose it — and, with the same vehemence I oppose homosexaulity or heterosexual sex outside of marriage (Heb. cf. 13.5).
Clearly the Gospel is not a set of moral codes or cluster of ethical standards; the Gospel is a person. And yes, the “Right” and James Dobson style of Christianity has clearly failed by portraying Christianity as synonymous with socio/cultural ethical standards. Of course that is not to say that issues of holiness do not matter; it’s just to say that the horse must come before the cart (which the “Right” has gotten backwards).
What Bible are you reading that slaveowners, murderers, racist and those that support the idea get a pass? Sin is Sin and we all need the redemption of our Saviour Jesus Christ. We should all be slaves. Slaves to Christ!