???? Christian Nation ????

What is a "Christian Nation" ? Can there be such a thing? Are we one? At least those are question that I am confronted with.

Recently I have been learning and contemplating the genocides in Rowanda, and Darfur, and others. From my exposure to this subject (unknown to me until only recently) I have had some serious question about our Faith, God, and the Christian Religion that I have grown up with. So when I come back to this question of America I see it differently. I know that there is a great deal of tension with the issue of "America the Christian Nation", but for now lets just through this tension out the window and assume that it is. My question then is this, what then does that mean?

I ask myself how Jesus defines a Christian? Those who look after the orphans and the widows, who feed the hungry, who clothe the naked, who tend to the sick, who stand up for the oppressed! Not, those who believe certain doctrines, who adhere to various moral and religious codes, or who are associated with a religious institution.

Therefore if we are a "Christian Nation" then we would be primarily characterized a nation who cares for the orphans and widows, who stands up for the oppressed, who sacrifices it selves for the needy, and disenfranchised.

So here is the question: Are we a Christian Nation? What did WE do in Rowanda? What did WE do in Darfur? or What were WE doing during Darfur? What did WE do in Uganda????
Emphasis on the "WE". Its not "our nation", or "our government" Its WE (You, and myself included) ????????? What did WE do ?????????????

///////////Caught in the Middle////////////

So I was listening to some podcasts from Emergent Podcast the other day. These particular episodes were from a conference where two of the worlds top philosophers, Jack Caputo and Richard Kearney, were discussing some of the history of philosophy and more particularly the progression and the characteristics of modernism, and post-modernism. Both Jack and Richard should be thought of as "post-modern" philosophers.

There was about 5 hours of material, and on the whole I greatly benifited from their discussion. However at the end they talked about something that to be honest made me shiver for a moment, because I was so surprised by it. One of the most notebale qualities of post-modern thinking is a deep rooted suspicion and often abandonment of metanarratives of any kind, and I can understand why. Now these two men are deeply Christian, and are trying to find Christian truth mind you. But at the end they made this comment,

"I want to be absolutely clear, we are saying the Christianity is unique and there is nothing else like it, but it is not the only way to God, there are many other ways. .... If Jesus and Buddah met, Jesus wouldnt have told him to follow, but instead would have asked to follow Buddah to learn from him. It is arrogance to think that the Christian Faith is the only way!"

Wow....what do you do with that? I think that this illustrates something that I have noticed recently amoung those who have reacted to Modernism, and are pursueing something different.
It seem to be that many of us have idealized post-modernism, and have made it into a God-send. Now I'm all for reactions, and the emotions that go along with it. But It seems to me that many of the reactions that I have seen are simply swirving to the other side of the road. It seems that we define ourselves as anything that modernism is not, as long as we arent like that then we are good. As opposed to defineing ourselves by Christ and his teachings.

I dont know I guesss that Im just scared when I see my fellow followers reacting so strongly that they throw out everything modern with anything and any one that might have something to do with it.

Have we been controlled by reactionism? Do we really Think this new culture is a God-send? Have we jumped into bed with Post-modernism??

Am I the only one that sees the great danger that is coming with this new culture shift??????

Does anyone else feel caught in the middle, fighting a two-front war???? (its a lonely place to be)

BO

This past weekend I had the pleasure of traveling to Mentor Ohio with a few of my closest friends to another friends house. There we ate some of most amazing food, and lots of it. Also we engaged in some mutually beneficial conversation with the father of the house, Mark. (a pastor)

On Saturday, we traveled to Mark's church to do some work (raking leaves, building things ect.) Anyways while I was there I came into contact with a very interesting man named BO. First of all I want to make it clear that BO has a big heart, and I believe that he loves Jesus very much. However during my conversation with him, I found that I had been sucked into a trap. Before I knew it I was being "evangelized too", by this middle aged man, wearing his Christian T-shirt, with his Christian music blaring from his car, preaching to me about the Holy Spirit and sanctification, saying praise God, hallelujah every other sentence as if it were some new cuss word. I found this very interesting so I decided that I would be a morally relativistic, agnostic atheist, or something like that, whenever he would tell me something, I would smile and say "wow, I'm really glad that works for you". You can imagine the frustration on BO's face. :) Later he told mark that because of his "gift of discernment from the holy spirit", he could tell that I was not a Christian and that I needed to repent. But I was getting close LOL :)

Looking back I very much enjoyed taking on this role and stepping into the shoes of a "non-Christian". All that I can say is wow. Never once was there any interest in me as a person, or was there any interest in my story, the whole incident involved a dizzying barrage of Christian lingo. I know that if I myself would not have been a follower, then I wouldn't have understood anything that was said to me. I felt more like an Object that had been thrown into some strange culture. It was all so fake......

All I can say is that, if that is Christianity, then I want nothing to do with it. No wonder Christianity is viewed as a joke. And the sad truth is that Bo represents many Christians in America today.
There is something very wrong here.
Today I did not receive the gospel!!!