For many years I had the mentality that most religions, and Christianity in particular, were absurd in the extreme. They squabbled, they bickered and despite the fact that they all read from the same book, every church had a different view of the "truth" and was convinced they were right and all others were wrong. I have since come to realize that there is a true Church, though not all will agree with me, and that the perfection of the Bible has to exist in a world of imperfect people who cannot often understand what is written there. However, even after being converted and acquiring the zeal of a "baby Christian" I still cannot help but think that many Christians are doing so good a job tearing down their own religion, the Devil is left with little to do all day.
It is essential that Christians unite to end the ignorant feud between denominations. Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic Christianity are all the same religion, and all based on the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; in my view, that should be enough to work together on and put aside our other differences. Even if some groups cannot work together, we should at least agree not to do each other harm. Many Protestant churches honestly pain me in this area, at least that I have seen, going on about such things that the Pope is the anti-Christ and Catholics are idol worshipers. Who is such slander helping? Only the Devil, who is using the age-old tactic: divide and conquer. There are good people of almost every variety and even though I may not agree with them entirely on theological matters, I still admire many people and historical figures with different beliefs than myself.
It is an unfortunate truth that Church attendance has been steadily dropping in recent years. This is true in the Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Church and the Protestant Churches in America. Catholics are the most numerous Christian group in the world. Do you know who is second largest? Non-practising Catholics. All this while membership in Islam has been growing and the New Age movement becomes stronger each year. It is clear that the people are in need of something to believe in, something that will inspire. They have a need for Christianity and if we do not come forward they will look elsewhere for imitations. This is our problem as a religion and no one else is going to fix it for us.
First of all, those who do attend Mass, or Sunday or Sabbath school, must make up their minds to be Christians the other 6 days of the week as well. We have to learn to let Christ be a guide in every part of our lives, not just in where we go to church or how we view the afterlife. We also all have to take a bigger role in the effort to convert sinners to the Church. It is unfortunate that when I went looking for God, though not knowing it at the time, no one was there to help me. I count it only as a miracle that I came to the truth on my own, but how many others are not as fortunate. One major cause of this is the fact that our modern society has made many people ashamed to even admit their a Christian, much less try to convert others. We have to stand up for Christ, the least we could do considering what He did for us. Christians must unite to put a stop to the continual degrading of the position of the family, end abortion, stem-cell and clone research and try to save more couples from the pain of divorce. I know many people do not view that as bad, but it certainly is not good to have so many broken families. Teenage pregnancy and AIDS are also things the Christian community can do more to stop.
A vast majority of people in the United States and Europe claim to be Christians. Therefore, when such immoral laws are passed and wicked trends stay on the rise, we must take it upon ourselves to effect change and reaffirm that we are committed to the faith that we profess. Jesus said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in Heaven." We must take action if things are to change, and that means rooting out corruption from amongst us, not allowing others to trample our faith and disillusion the young and doing everything we can to combat untruths with facts, for "the truth shall set you free". |
