Finally, Christians are beginning to see the problems ...

See, not all Christians are stupid.

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_.../20060729195809990004?_mpc=news.10.5&cid=2360

 

Read that in the Times yesterday. Good article by someone who is passionate about his faith and is willing to stand up for his principles:

“America wasn’t founded as a theocracy,” he said. “America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn’t bloody and barbaric. That’s why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

“I am sorry to tell you,” he continued, “that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.”

He lost a lot of his congregation over this.

Good for him.

 

Brave stand for an evangelical preacher.

 

Makes me wonder more about the people who left the church than the preacher himself.

 

I can understand people leaving a church where the preacher considers abortion a petty sexual issue.

 

Did he say it was a petty sexual issue or did he say it was a social issue he felt the church had no business debating? He personally is against homosexuality.

 

One passage seems to indicate he said the former, but either way, I can see folks leaving.

 

I can see folks leaving, but for every one who claims he's leaving because of a religious belief, there's one who's leaving for a political reason disguised as a religious belief.

 

I think Boyd says it best here:

He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch’s worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing “God Bless America” and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses.

“I thought to myself, ‘What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?’ ” he said in an interview.

This flag-waving jingoism is an affront to many Christians who believe it has NO place in the church.

 

I definitely like being able to keep my love of America separate from my love of God. And there's no harm in keeping the two separate, for crying out loud.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the evangelical movement isn't a monolithic organization like say, the Catholic Church, is it?

So, there's no greater power to chastise him or boot him out, is there?

 

The congregation definitely has the right to depart for other churches or to see to the obtainment of a different Pastor. At the same time, those looking at the angry portion of that congregation have a right to view them as a mob more bent on forcing you to believe their way through the barrel of a gun than through actual reason.