When Church Gets In The Way
"You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a [place]where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was… well, a little blurry, and hard to see.
"I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.
"For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God’s second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…
I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.
Even though I was a believer.
Perhaps because I was a believer."
The above quote is from here. Like it or not, he is the voice of several generations. Mine included. Thoughts?
4 Comments:
I know what you mean.
Now that I'm a youth pastor, I look back and realize how much we didn't 'get it' when we were in youth group (remember Ed Haag? YAK?). I'm praying that it's helping me to see it in my students now and be more patient with them.
What do you remember most about being in youth group?
yeah, jimmy-jim-james,
Fat people going to Hell. No doubt. I think we need to be careful about jumping on the bandwagon simply because they are 'good things'--our mission has never changed: preach Christ to our generation. In his Rolling STone interview, Bono also said 'the best thing you can do for you generation is to betray it.'
I'm voting Bono for pres in '08...
Ummm Tom? There is that pesky Constitutional requirement that the president be a native (not even naturalized) US citizen ....
Yeah, I'm still looking for a way around that one...
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