Sunday.....Christianity.....Missionaries

My wife and I had coffee at Starbucks yesterday with a missionary couple on furlough from Senegal. Regular church-goers in America are familiar with missionaries visiting their churches for support and running their slide shows. Yesterday was similar as we watched a DVD showing the smiling faces of those who these two missionaries have dedicated their lives to help. They've been on this field in Senegal now for two decades. I remember, quite some time ago, seeing a comic where a Crusader on horseback had his spear at the throat of a Moslem laying on the ground. The caption had the Moslem saying Tell me more of this Christian God of yours. When Christianity radically departs from the gospel, which it has at times, it is no longer Christianity. Conversely, there were times in history when Islam showed compassion, restraint and mercy towards its enemies. Today, there are over one billion Moslems in the world and if only one percent of those are Jihadists, it would be enough to bring the world to chaos, and there are far more than that. These Jihadists know our laws very well. They know that we are vulnerable in that we protect the liberties, even of the very ones who want to destroy us. They know our media as well, a media that would rather gamble with our security than find themselves on the side of the Conservative, so when Jihad strikes as it did at Fort Hood, they look for any possible reason, other than Jihad, to focus on. If the media should come to realize that this relentless defense of their own political philosophy makes our nation more vulnerable, and if our legislators come to recognize that liberty in our country is predicated on the good will of those receiving it, the Jihadist missionary may fail. There is another reason that we find ourselves in the peril we are in and that is the condition of Christianity if America. How many of you who are reading this, who attended church today, can say that the topic of the sermon that they heard was Christ? I've asked this question to Christians many times before! The initial response is usually yes, but after further questions it is evident that Christ was not the topic, but merely a blurb as on the cover of the sermon that was actually about any one of a number of other biblical themes. We value an impressive church building with a cafe bar, dynamic youth ministry and vibrant believer's community. We are sitting too confident. We have forgotten how to mourn over our own condition. I've probably offended a good portion of contemporary Christianity here and many would take me to task on this slight of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ but they would do better to be concerned about the slight to Christ in our pulpits. This issue may be moot, for if these missionaries of hate succeed here, we, the church, will do what we always do in times of distress, and that it is humbly forsake the baubles of this world and seek Christ's mercy while proclaiming His glory when we meet..