My Visit With the Church Doctor
By all appearances, the congregation where I preach (Highland) has rarely been healthier. We’ve completed a ten year journey to a new location and new facility. … Read More »My Visit With the Church Doctor
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Right Turn: Turning Lives Around Through Community
Penn Jillette is one half of the magic team known as Penn and Teller. He is widely known for his hard to believe illusions. But Penn is also known for his disdain for Christianity. Penn writes and speaks often against religious belief. In an on-line video blog, Penn tells of meeting a Christian man after a magic show. The man tried to share his faith with Penn (in Penn’s words, the man tried to “proselytize” him.) Here’s what happened…Read More »Right Turn: Turning Lives Around Through Community
Irreligious: Forsaking Religion and Finding Jesus’ Authority (Mk. 11:27-33) Chris Altrock – July 18, 2010
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Annie Dillard is a popular U. S. author.[i] When Dillard was a teen she attended church services regularly. But one day she quit. She couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of some of the church members who came on Sunday mornings just to show off their clothes. So that morning, Dillard met with the assistant minister to officially quit church. Dillard recalls, “He heard me out and then said, ‘You’re right, honey, there is a lot of hypocrisy.’” Then he handed Dillard some books by C.S. Lewis, a respected author who wrote thoughtfully about Jesus and the Christian faith. The minister asked Dillard to read Lewis’ books, explaining, “This is rather early of you to be quitting the church. I suppose you’ll be back soon.” He was right. After Dillard plowed through four of the C. S. Lewis volumes, she returned. Her rebellion lasted just one month.
Irreligious: Forsaking Religion and Finding Jesus’ Sabbath (Mk. 3:1-6) Chris Altrock – June 13, 2010
During the first half of this year, newspapers and newscasts were filled with reports about potential abuse occurring within the Catholic Church. Allegations have poured in from half a dozen countries, including 300 accusations from Germany, the home of the current Pope. Many Catholics and non-Catholics are fed up with the Catholic Church.
Many more people are fed up with church in general. Dan Kimball has written a book entitled They Like Jesus But Not the Church.[i] In it, Kimball reports that many today find Jesus attractive but not the church. They feel that the church is too politically motivated.
And, in his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens writes about the ills of all institutional religion.[ii] He states that religion is “violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”
There’s a lot of hostility these days toward religion in general and toward the church in particular.
This is nothing new, of course. Even in Jesus’ day there was ill-will toward religion. Mark, one of the four biographers of Jesus’ life, focuses on this ill-will. His Gospel includes 10 occasions during which Jesus and religious leaders got into conflict. This summer, we’re using these 10 conflicts to reflect on the difference between being religious and following Jesus.