Interesting Comment on Christians in Society

5 March 2010

Came across this article in The Times by Frank Skinner last night, which I thought might interest you. Whether or not you appreciate his comedy (he can be rather crude at times) or whatever the more Protestant/Evangelical of you think of his faith (Skinner is a Roman Catholic), reading between the lines he makes some rather thoughtful comments and I was quite surprised by his at times appropriate use of Bible verses.The fact is, we have to take care that in exploiting today's pluralist marketplace of ideas to communicate our worldview and ideas as Christians, we do not embrace that other more negative pluralist value - standing up for and defending "our rights" and engaging in direct action - in such a way that we lose sight of Christ's teaching to "turn the other cheek". We will always be persecuted for our views (unless, of course, we become the state religion, and we've seen the disaster establishmentism has represented throughout the Church's history), and the sooner we come to accept that persecution is an inevitable price for following Christ, the less stressed we will be. And I say this as an idealist who frequently gets angry at how Christianity is sidelined and Christians have all manner of issues they disagree with on conscience grounds foisted upon them. "Turning the other cheek" is what has enabled me (admittedly not always successfully) to keep that anger in check.

By Calvin L. Smith at 17:43

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1 comments:

Gabi said...
5 March 2010 22:24:00 GMT  

I loved this article. I really didn't think that I would since it seems the ultimate goal to be able to change society (which has become so blind that I can't understand it). But if you get so eaten up with anger that things won't change it can destroy you.

That article really re-introduced the 'turn the other cheek' verse for me. It is good to try and make a difference since we are lights of the world however we must face facts that there are many things where we must deal with persecution and Frank Skinner illustrates this with the greatest example of all "Surely the central image of Christianity is someone who can shoot fireballs out of his fingertips allowing himself to be nailed to a wooden cross"

Thanks for this, it has given me a lot to think about.

 

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