Good news is that 2,000 years into the resurrection, many people actually get it about Jesus, in spite of the distorting glass Christians have so often been in our blindness, folly and fallen nature.
Bad news is that the distorting glass is often bottle green and six foot thick.
“We preach Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake.” Really? How?
video h/t Bethany
6 comments:
Yes to almost all of that!
What I found particularly interesting is that some people described Jesus in very lively terms, whereas others just said “my Saviour” – and I always want to ask them what they think he’s saving them from and how. There’s so much religious language that’s used without reflection that it almost becomes meaningless – for me, at least, until I know what that particular person means by those words.
In this video, I really like the lively Jesus who inspires and who fires people’s imagination. That’s the one I’d want to get to know better.
Interesting, there would probably have been a different response in Houston :-), (I lived there for a while)... I wonder though how folk in Leeds or Lincoln might respond???
I'd love to see a UK VoxPop that explored similar territory.
I was interested by the great Atheist vs RC debate in Westminster (The Ann Widdecombe/ Stephen Fry one) to note that our English atheists are Protestnt atheists not Catholic atheists. They criticise, in that case, the RC Church for not being identifiably Christlike, compared to Jesus. People may think the critique justified or not, but it's an interesting line to take.
Erika: "Saviour" is one of the things God tells us about Jesus. Isn't taking the words of Scripture a good place to start in getting to know Jesus?
I don't think the problem is with Scripture. The problem is that people read the words of scripture than can't see the Jesus thus conveyed reflected in the ship of fools we call the Church. There is a line that this is entirely the fault of the beholder, but I think most of us in the Church know we are sinners enough to recognise we need to take more responsibiity than that.
Erika wasn't talking about anyone's view of other Christians, or the view of Christians by non-Christians, but about what people said when asked about Jesus. (I can't remember the exact question, sorry). No?
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