Offensive Christianity

“I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it. Seeing that Christ went about the world giving the most violent offense to all kinds of people it would seem absurd to expect that the doctrine of His Person can be presented as to offend nobody. We cannot blink the fact that gentle Jesus meek and mild was so stiff in His opinions and so inflammatory in His language that He was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever His peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference; and He said in so many words that what He brought with Him was fire and sword.” Dorothy L. Sayers Creed or Chaos?

There are a lot of popular misconceptions about Christ and one of the most tedious is that Jesus went about his work taking utmost care not to offend. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today those who have taken up the mantle labor under these same misconceptions. It seems jump break the more ignorant people are of Christ, the more shocked they are by Christians who, like Christ, refuse to placate and pander to those who are offended by the word of God.

It was suggested to me that I might want to be a little more thoughtful in how I preach the straight forward truth of the gospel. One person even gave me an analogy of the parable and the naked truth. The moral he said was that the naked truth was hard to look at so I may want to dress it up in a parable. While parables certainly have a time and a place sometimes it's best to speak plainly.

The problem as I see it is that too many "Christians" have gone the way of gentle and meek. Too many "Christians have toned it down, dressed it up, have preached love but not repentance, witnessed about Gods mercy and neglected his justice all in an effort to make the gospel less offensive. So, now we have people who think themselves "Christians" who don't even believe Jesus was divine, people who are no different then they were before they supposedly excepted Christ. The churches are filling with people but they come in with their sins and the leave in them. They come as a liar and a drug user and they leave one because no one's telling them the truth, that they have to repent and turn away from sin. The false Pastors are happy because the pews are full, money is coming in and the people are happy because they're being told that they're just fine and on their way to heaven but God is not pleased. Scripture says "And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean" There is value in what you are saying I recognize this but it's a dangerous road Christians go down when they start focusing on getting members and winning people over to a religion rather than telling them the truth they need to make a choice. I will travel it cautiously.