MrsSpringsteen said:
How do you fight the stereotypes that many people have about Christians, and how do those stereotypes impact your life?
A lot of my beliefs and convictions that have changed for me have actually been pretty recent. It was a gradual change. To this day, I don't know what was the real catalyst. I know that it was God I, but yet, I don't know why. It started with U2's music and then lead me to books such as "What's So Amazing About Grace" by PhilipYancey, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning, "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell and many others. It was through them that I began to question the wisdom of what I'd been taught under the mega-church prosperity gospel that I've grown up in. (My church has about 8,000 members and is very similar in terms of message to any church you'll see if you turn on TBN or something similar.) I began to realize that the focuses of most churches today, especially those of the TBN variety, are so contrary to the message of the Gospel and to much of the New Testament in geneseeral. I began to see how much of it was based on works as opposed to grace and how much was focused on gaining power and riches instead of focusing on loving and caring for people. Anyway, that's just a background of what changed in my life in case anyone was wondering what was the general cause for my differences with much of the Evangelical church. Btw, the 3 books I mentioned above, are all great starting points to look at a different take, so to speak, on Christianity. I would recommend any or all of them and many more I didn't talk about here. The Philip Yancey one is one of
Bono's favorites. I firs heard about it throuh him, and I'll be greatful forever. To answer your question, Mrs. S, the biggest way I fight agains the TBN sterotype is by genuinely trying to be different. I was your typical Christian teenager who's just a smaller version of your typical Christian TBN adult for most of my life. When I look back at that bubble now, being outside of it, I just feel a sense of disbelief, that I could've held those beliefs and been so convinced that I was right. I couldn't believe that I'd just missed the point, the first 18 years of my life. I couldn't believe how judgmental, how arrogant, how fake I'd become without realizing it. I still struggle with all of these things but now it's directed towards the church. It's something I want to get rid of so, I can hopefully, just really show them what unconditional love and acceptance is about, which is what Jesus is calling those of us who are Christians to. TBN Christianity, which includes, the church I grew up in, refuses to see reality as it is. That's why we've created churches that are one-stop Jesus shops. My church, for example, has a healthclub, a bookstore, and a cafe on the grounds. The idea is to get all the Christians together in all the Christian places running on the Christian treadmill, while listening to Christian music from the bookstore and then going for Christian coffee and Christian scones. It's ridiculous. This idea of creating our own perfect little world in order to ignore and condemn the real one is absolutely against the message of The Gospel. We can't try and live in our own bubble world and then decide to use law and government to make everything line up with our beliefs, which are only focused on 2 issues. I realized I had to begin to care about what God says is important; poverty, taking care of the sick, the war in Iraq, the environment, healthcare, civil/human rights, Darfur, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the federal budget and how it's being spent, education, and numerous other issues. I began to look at how I felt Jesus would respond to them, and I began to see it would be the opposite of how most Christians do. I have to make a choice now, every day, do I want to live in the lap of comfortable Christianity and not rock the prosperous boat or do I want to work with Jesus and really live the message of the Gospel which will be much more difficult, but to me, much more worth it. The short answer, I suppose is by just trying to love and accept all people without condition which goes agains current church and secular wisdom.