“Dear Mr. Boh…” that is an appropriate salutation for my close buddy, thought Mr. Boh’s friend.
You see, Mr. Boh(emian) lives in Europe where he is just discovering the person of Jesus; so he is looking at the church, familiar to you and me, from a fresh perspective.
Mr. Boh’s friend has gone on journey to the land of ecclesiastic plenty where things are not necessarily wrong, but often quite different from that to which he is accustomed. Friend of Boh continues his post card…
“… one thing that has struck me is that believers here in the land of ecclesiastic plenty talk about grace as good news, but the people around them perceive them as being harsh, bellicose and choleric. Why is this?
So in order to understand some of these dynamics, I picked up a book called, They Like Jesus but Not the Church. The author, Dan Kimball, writes about common (mis)perceptions of the church, “The church is an organized religion with a political agenda” and “is judgmental and negative,” among other things.
I mean really Mr. Boh, did the church family that you are now part of tell you that you needed to adopt a particular political orientation in order to follow Christ?!
It will reassure you that I recently saw on the front board of an evangelical church “Pray for President Obama — 1 Timothy 2:1-4”
[I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.]
So I guess at least some evangelicals are asking God to give the president wisdom and attempting to be at peace with him, a democrat (that is the leftist party here in the land of ecclesiastic plenty).
In his book, Kimball points out that evangelicals are known for what they are against rather than what they stand for. Even if this is a stereotype that does not at all represent what you and I believe or do, “when part of us misrepresents Jesus, we are all misrepresented. If part of us is misunderstood, we all are misunderstood,” he explains.
It seems to me that Paul and the other writers of the New Testament were very concerned about ethics within the church, yet evangelicals quoted by the media seem to be attempting to impose Christian morality on unbelievers.
Mr. Boh, think about it, how can people who do not know Christ be expected to live according to Biblical standards when they lack the power of the Holy Spirit?
I think that there is the danger of attitudinal worldliness among some believers. I admit to having met believers who seem to have adopted both the convictions (that is okay) and acerbic attitudes (not okay) sometimes heard on national news networks.
Whatever one’s Christian conviction may be, should it not be accompanied by love and be gracious toward people who do not follow Christ, whatever their position or lifestyle may be currently? In this way they would have a living example of the message that we preach — purity, grace, love, reconciliation and peace.
After all, Paul instructed Timothy to: “Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25).
I guess what I am saying is that we believers want to present truth with an attitude… gentleness. An appropriate Christian approach is not presenting truth harshly or being graciously vapid, but sharing truth embodied in graciousness… "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
Well, Mr. Boh, I am out of room on this postcard. As I said before, there is much to think about in this strange land!
Your friend…"
