First let me say that I am a Christian and I am embarrassed by the misuse of my faith by the Hutaree militia and other extremists.\u00a0 Their words and actions are giving Christians a bad name across a country that is already suspicious of the religious.<\/p>\n
That said, groups like the Hutaree are not the problem with Christianity\u2019s decline in America.<\/p>\n
Christianity has been in decline for a few years.\u00a0 Ten percent fewer Americans identified themselves as Christian between 1990 and 2008 according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey.\u00a0 Though the ARIS reported more than 77 million Christians, only 21 million of those reported identified with a mainline Christian denomination.\u00a0 All told, only 34 percent of the American adult population identifies itself as Christian at all.<\/p>\n
I believe this is largely because people say they believe in God, but their actions and beliefs don\u2019t reflect that commitment.\u00a0 Don\u2019t take my word for it\u2014that\u2019s according to The Barna Group, a research organization that has tracked American Christian attitudes since 1984.\u00a0 Their 2009 year-in-review said non-believers are accepting of Christ but don\u2019t become Christians because they don\u2019t want \u201cthe institutional framework and limitations of the Christian world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only that, but Christians often don\u2019t know the scripture that founds their beliefs, if there is one.\u00a0 In fact, the Barna Group says most people don\u2019t care to learn, preferring to accept or reject scripture based on whether it supports previously held beliefs.<\/p>\n
Pastors are partly responsible for this problem.\u00a0 The Barna Group reported that a majority of Protestant senior pastors believe immaturity is a problem for Christians, but not in their church.\u00a0 Any spiritual growth is often measured in attendance or participation, not in spiritual understanding or \u201ctransformational fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n
In short: Christians are preventing others from accepting Christ because of their own ignorance and lax commitment toward their faith.<\/p>\n
Jesus himself said, \u201cYou are the salt of the earth.\u00a0 But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?\u00a0 It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.\u201d\u00a0 (Matthew 5:13)<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t some random comment to a struggling follower; this was part of the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus\u2019 most famous teachings.\u00a0 Jesus isn\u2019t preaching to random passers-by; he\u2019s talking to his disciples (Matthew 5:1-2).\u00a0 For better or worse, that translates to Jesus telling every Christian if they fail to have a positive effect on the world, what good are they?<\/p>\n
Forgive me for being preachy, but I have stood by and watched my faith go to the dogs on more than one occasion because ignorant followers like the Hutaree don\u2019t know the Jesus I follow but claim his name anyway.\u00a0 In a time like this, I can\u2019t keep quiet and risk being thrown in the same ideological boat as extremists who misuse their faith.\u00a0 What I can do is encourage Christians to really know their faith and beg others to realize that extremists and the ignorant don\u2019t represent my Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First let me say that I am a Christian and I am embarrassed by the misuse of my faith by the Hutaree militia and other extremists.\u00a0 Their words and actions are giving Christians a bad name across a country that is already suspicious of the religious. That said, groups like the Hutaree are not the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1088,1087,1976],"class_list":["post-4589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-christianity","tag-christians","tag-meagan-ewton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1c1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4589"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4655,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions\/4655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}