Why some Christians frustrate me.

Tonight I had an extensive discussion with Sharon (my wife) on my issues with some segments of Christendom.

It turned into quite a heated argument in parts, but was good on the whole as it made me order my thoughts into a set of rational points.

On the whole I believe that I do believe that Christians desire a better society for all and want to see people live healthy, happy lives (not too sure about Eric Abetz though).  However in the broader society they are often seen as hypocritical, judgemental and ignorant.  Churches, especially the large ones, are seen as money grabbers that exist only for the enrichment of their leaders.

I recall a Christian songwriter sharing that when he spoke to people in pubs, that often they quite liked Jesus, but really didn't like Christians.

Why is this? Well I think it largely that while they have a vision of what healthy may look like, that have no idea on how to cope with those that don't share the same vision, nor do they have any idea of how to start the journey towards it.  In many cases they are similar to many other middle class people and have fear about a changing society.  I also believe that in some cases the vision that they have is at odds with the Bible.

To give some examples:

I don't doubt that many would disagree that for most people heroin use is very harmful.  In an ideal community we would not have heroin addicts.  But the reality is that we do and as such we need to provide services to them just like we do for any other health problem (addiction is a health issue).  I think part of an overall strategy is to provide safe injecting rooms for heroin users. Yet we have some segments of Christian representatives (eg Family First) suggesting that these are somehow bad policy and suggesting that we vote against any one that seeks to introduce them.  I think the reason that some Christians are opposed to these are, they are seen as promoting drug use (no evidence for that) and therefore pose a danger to others, notably their kids.  I also think that they somehow think that having these falls short of a desirable community as we suddenly acknowledge that we have drug use that we are unable to prevent.  So we see them rail against against anything that is seen to "approve" of drug use.  However I believe that this sort of harm minimisation in our less than perfect world is a Christian response to the problem of drug addiction and hence we I see Christian opposing this I get extremely frustrated.

Another example is providing condoms to teenagers to prevent the spread of sexual diseases and teenage pregnancies.  The response from many Christian groups is "well they shouldn't be having sex outside of marriage and we should preach abstinence".  This ignores the reality that many young people experiment with sex regardless of what the parents want and that providing condoms or not will not prevent this.  Again to me, while I think that having sex at a young age, without being bonded in other ways is hardly ideal and to young women in particular can, to a degree, be physiologically damaging, that we as Christians have a responsibility to reduce that additional harm caused by an un-wanted pregnancy or sexual disease.

I could go on.

To me if Christian want to create the community they desire that need to change their thinking.

- Want to reduce the abortion rate? provide places for those women who want to have to their baby, that gives them the security they need and assists them in reaching their life potential.

- Want to reduce drug usage?  Get alongside kids in schools and find out what their real issues are so that they don't seek drugs to find a happy place

- Want to keep families together?  Stop building ever larger worship centres and use that income instead to fund social workers.

James 2:15-17 says the following (The Message Translation)
For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

Whilst there are many Christians out doing this work, there are equally many that need to heed this message and take a good look at what Bible really says.