On Tuesday night CBS World News reported the findings of a survey on religion in America. They discovered, what many have suspected, that a large number of protestants don’t know a lot about their religion.
For years many theologians have commented that we are in a season of dumbing down the gospel of Jesus Christ. A large number of Christians are not familiar with the Bible nor the history of their particular branch of Christianity. The sad thing about it is that pastors are partially to blame. Too many pastors want to only feed their parishioners and television viewers part of the gospel. The desert, in other words, the touchy feely stuff. That’s fine, only it leaves people with a good feeling but no depth. Thus, Christians are not growing in knowledge and understanding. Pastors often feed people desert without fruits, vegetables, and meat because it’s easier and it’s what people want to hear. If you gave children a choice-what would they choose- cake and ice cream or chicken and green beans? While the dessert might be what they want the dinner is what they need.
This leads us to the other reason why Christians are uninformed about their faith. Christians only want to hear the good and easy stuff. Nobody, today, wants to hear about the challenges and responsibilities of a Christian. Therefore, people flock to congregations and preachers where they are not challenged to do anything uncomfortable or where they don’t have to read the Bible themselves. I can just listen to the preacher and I’m good.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to touch the heart and mind. When we only focus on the heart we are missing out on the full gospel that Jesus intended.
Dr. 3
