What Am I Thinking?!?!

I really don't know why I do this to myself. I finally get to the place where I'm starting to think that maybe all Evangelical Fundies aren't bad, that maybe some of them have a few redeeming qualities. Then I do something stupid like switch over to the Bott Radio Network for some "quality Christian programming. " One minute everything is fine and the next minute I'm screaming at D. James Kennedy and my blood pressure is off the charts. Not too long after that I'm ready to take the whole lot of them and chunk them out the window. Here's how it went down.

I'm on the way to Sonic to pick up a Coke for my wife (I'm a really great husband). There's nothing good on any of the local channels (classic rock, easy listening, grunge, NPR, even K-Love) so in my desperation I decide to switch over to 800 AM just to see what's going on. I get Dr. Kennedy talking about the holiness of God. So far I'm with him. Then he makes the comment, "The judgment of God starts with the House of God." At that point I'm really with him. He's challenging the people of God to holiness, reminding us that God wants to purify us in the first place. Then he launches into a discussion about sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like. Now...While I'm sure that some sub-set of the Church population is struggling greatly with these sins, I don't think we're being overrun by sexual fornicators in the church.

My immediate thought was, if you're talking about the judgment of God coming to the Church to bring about purity and holiness, don't you think you're going to hit a higher percentage of your upper-middle class congregation by talking about pride, complacency, materialism, gluttony, or divorce? I mean, how many of the Coral Ridge Fellowship are struggling with homosexuality or gross sexual sins? Clearly he's not really talking about Christians, even though he insinuates that he is. He's talking about "other people." He's ripping the founders of the sexual revolution and talking about those ignorant ones that listened to their enticing words and will now be judged and face hell. I guess what he really meant when he talked about judgment starting with the Church was that the judgment comes from people in the Church towards those outside the Church, as if they should no better and be holy.

Needless to say it's just more of the same. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in churches and listened to pastors rail against the same types of gross immorality, followed by hearty amens from people in the crowd. We love to hear preachers rail against sins that we don't happen to struggle with. What a joke. And what a disservice to the people of God, from whom God really does desire holiness and righteousness. I don't ever recall my pastor railing against gluttony or materialism. In fact, he's actually insinuated that those things are part of the "abundant life of Jesus Christ."

It got no better after Dr. Kennedy. Before I make it back to the safety of my home I get the weekly griping of conservatives about judges and how horrible they are. Apparently we should be removing them from the bench for cussing or being mean to witnesses, but that's a whole other story. I guess it's time for another round of the fundamentalist detox program.