15 August 2010
Author Anne Rice announced on her Facebook that she had left both the church and organized Christianity (Vancouver Sun, August 10, 2010, A11).
This is what she wrote on her Facebook,
“Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or being part of Christianity.”
Her statement is disturbingly representative of today’s so-called followers of Christ.
Many today’s believers claim that it is alright not to belong to a church, that the important thing is loving Jesus; minus all the organization and ‘commands’ stuff.
In short, it is following Jesus ‘MY WAY’. My expression of worship is what counts in the end – that is commitment to Christ.
While I can understand Anne Rice’s (and many modern sincere followers) frustrations and disappointments with the church, I have to differ from their conclusion.
Christ is the head and the church the body of Christ – you cannot follow the head and discard His body. Christ’s commands are absolutes and cannot be bent to suit the world’s majority views.
It is either one or the other – when we embrace Christ, we get the full package deal – the perfect Saviour, with our imperfect spiritual siblings and many a times spiritually dysfunctional family.
Christ is committed to His church and His people.
Commitment to Christ means loving what He loves – and it means dying to ‘My Way’ and taking on ‘His Way’.
It means that when things do not go our way, we follow on. We praise Him regardless of feelings. We give Him despite fears. We obey Him without reservation.
Commitment to Christ is RADICAL. Radical in the eyes of the world but only matter-of-fact and should be a natural logical conclusion to him who calls Christ LORD.
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Great artical. When people ask me if I am a Christian, I say, "No, I'm a follower of Jesus."
ReplyDeleteI think this is a practical way to explain our disappointment in the insitituional expression of Christianity in the US.
It seems to me that there is a way belong to local church and still keep your faith. My focus is to balance gathering with scattering. The two primary functions of Christ's church is to gather and then scatter. There's time to do both and every local church needs both.
Paul Schlieker