The DeConstructed

Profession of faith is a scary thing. In some countries it could cost someone their life. In this country, it gives permission for people to say they believe in Christ and practice things that are the antithesis of what he did. They lead churches that look and behave more like corporate business meetings with a comfort ethic rather than gospel transformation.

Liberty to the captives, setting the poor and oppressed free, healing forgiving, going into the highways and byways inviting the destitute and the prostitute to a feast. These are not hallmarks of our churches.

What is becoming hallmarks of churches is upper middle class men in positions of power maintaining comfortable lives and exploiting and neglecting ministry to the afflicted. The American Church is become the Pharisees under Roman rule, the backslidden Israel in Babylon. It has become a place of so much lip service under the guise of polished empty song lyrics and speech that they neglect the actual matters of justice, mercy and righteousness.

Forget the indictment against wealth, the indictment is against lack of compassion and restitution in favor of white washed Christianity on sound bitten social media rather than a worship that moves and partners with Heaven.

The church rather than bearing suffering is getting quite good at causing it and not lifting a finger to relieve affliction. It’s breaking ties and furthering division rather than continuing to look inward at the damage left in its wake while being sound asleep to the reality that it has a place to rest its head and the place is immaculately comfortable. It is fortified with screens and all the trappings of a wonderful venue furnished with amenities like a hotel instead of a hospital.

The Christ is so lacking in the Christian because the “Christian” has more interest in vacation than veneration.

Romans 12:9-13 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Honoring one another above yourselves. Practice hospitality. Loving the stranger. Binding the wounds of the afflicted and being patient in the dregs of it. The church has burnt itself out on dead religious practice rather the true and pure religion before God the Father of caring for orphans and widows in their distress. It has cared for hardly anyone actually. It rarely weeps with the weeping because it is more valuable to secure the system.

If there is weeping and grief there is no time for the efficient production of the next graphic, the next series, the next song, the next set, the next service, the next sit down and let me tell what you did wrong and what you need to do right and hopefully that will resolve things, so I don’t have to sit down with you again and you fall in line and comply with the good thing we’ve got going here.

There is so little evidence of Christ in the Christian because they don’t have time for a suffering servant or a Philippains 2 Christianity involving humility because they cannot possibly bear to value others above themselves if it is making themselves uncomfortable. If it costs them too much of their own interest, it cannot possibly be what God is calling them to. Let alone the effort required to be of one Spirit and mind with the same love. It would occupy too much time. And that is certainly what we are all lacking. There isn’t time enough in a day to get done what we have to get done.

So we polish the outside of the cup and call it church. And those that run them will be judged.

We make a profession with a symbolic baptism so long as we don’t have to be confronted with justice and righteousness which are the foundations of his throne, but if we don’t like what someone does we certainly will not show mercy. And we too shall be judged.