Oh yeah, something about plagues and general badness…

Occasionally at church we get these crazed fundamentalist pamplets, flyers and even handwritten notes proclaiming certain doom because of our denomination and/or the current state of America and/or San Diego and/or just because someone’s feeling a little apocalyptic today.  Ask Bruce Reyes-Chow — the crazies will conjure up any reason to launch their attacks.

Call it paranoia, but whenever we get these things I always feel like they’re going to be laced in anthrax (no, not them (and, seriously, Scott Ian: stop the Stryper-bashing!)).

Anyhoo… last week we received a particularly panicky looking pamphlet from some group, and on the back, in huge repentance-worthy blocky font is this message:

And ye shall know

the truth

and

the truth

shall make

you free

[from sin].

John 8:32

Wow.  I guess they felt like Jesus needed some clarification. Maybe a set of talking points would have kept Jesus on message.

I know, I know… when we read the verse in its context, Jesus does specifically address sin.  I think it’s just the overall shrill tone of the pamphlet, every page screaming out our need to “return our nation to its Christian roots” (I’m pretty sure Greg Boyd has something to say about that).

And our crazed flyer for this week came via fax (in this day & age of spam from the internets, it’s almost downright nostalgic to get fax spam!) with a big, bold-fonted question at the top:

Is your house of worship a mortuary?

The rest of the fax goes on to detail why churches who support the new President-Elect are basically houses of death.  I can’t imagine who is persuaded by these kinds of messages, but I do know that it pains me deeply that, for many people outside of the church, this is the image of Christian faith.

May we truly become people of the Word:

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely — Galatians 5:22-23, MSG