I know a lot of faithful Christians, some I’ve known for several decades. I’ve noticed something over the past ten to fifteen years …

Many are increasingly vengeful.

Oh, they don’t package their revenge with admission — they believe they are “caring for humanity”.

They say things like, “The world has become godless. Back when I was growing up, we respected our elders, we went to church with our parents, we honored our leaders and our nation, we saluted our flag, we were taught about God at school. Nowadays, it’s ‘anything goes, there is no discipline, there is no respect. We worry we will soon become a nation without God. We won’t be Christian anymore, we won’t have traditional families anymore. Our country was founded on Christianity. And English. So God blessed us. We know in the Word, that when we don’t put God first, He will no longer bless our nation. We worry so much about the souls of all those people. Pray for them.”

They are worried about the poor souls. They care about the poor souls.

That’s what they say, but what they do is to exact punishment on those they “worry” about.

They see those people they “care about”, then go to battle to demand those people they “care about” mold to their image. If people don’t comply, they demand they be removed from “their constitution, their country, their church, their social system, their world”.

They do it on social media; they do it from pulpits and pews; they do it by activism; they do it in their conversations; they do it by their “ministries”; they do it by their votes.

If they are honest, their real concern is that the world has changed, and the social order of the mid-20th-century is lost. Their white-male-dominated-past was preferred, when punitive measures and theologies could achieve subjugation of less powerful people to their wills.

Could that be why a branch of Christianity is currently amping up legalism, proselytizing, and a theology of a punitive God? — To get their power back?

I know that’s a good thing in the eyes of those people, but is it a good thing in the eyes of God?

Religious affiliation does not equate to pleasing God. From the same Bible that people select scriptures to justify self-righteous theologies, is this, from Jesus:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!

Speaking of the Bible, when did the scripture, “God so love the world …” get changed to “God so loved the USA … “? When did we elevate patriotism to equal stature as God? Isn’t that the definition of idolatry?

Could it be that “outsiders” look at religious Christians, who claim to represent God, and their condemning, rejecting, and oppressive attitudes cause them to run the opposite direction? Aren’t they simply distancing themselves from all that is godless? 

Isn’t that ironic? – that judgmental Christians consider the unchurched or unbelievers to be godless, but those “godless” people have the discernment to know better what God should be like.

“And that ain’t it,” they know, and want no part of it. “That is cruel. That is wrong. That is darkness. That is godlessness.”

For those who might have shown interest in Christian Sunday worship, did they arrive to open doors, or did they arrive to literal and metaphorical bouncers, judging them as unfit? If they entered, despite the heaping judgment or false welcome, were they immediately taken on as a project by the insiders, to transform them to the culture of that church?

Did people take over God’s role to do the transforming and molding; to “cleanse and make each person whole”?

Is God allowed to free them from the myriad captivities that happen to all of us as a part of living on this Earth, or do veteran believers actually compete with God, and push him aside in order to keep people ensnared? Do they race God to get to be the “savior” of newcomers? — “Aw, fresh blood, a naive one. A trusting one. A person of childlike faith. A sheep to take (captive) into my fold.” 

Are the people who flee those kinds of churches and “servants of the Lord” able to separate God from the people who claim to represent him?

If not, who is to blame for their resultant aversion to anything and everything of God?

Far too often, and more and more frequently, the blame rests on the people inside. 

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