I Disagree with Christians

The Jesus in the City Parade was beautiful; it was beautiful to see so many children of God come together in a public square and have the freedom and right to worship and love their God. But there is something I want to talk about that’s not directly related to this event or this photo.

It seems whenever I hear a preacher–whether at church, on radio, or at an event—they all seem to complain about how prayers and scripture reading were taken from public school and how that’s the work of Satan. Well, I disagree with that: first, I don’t think it’s a spiritually bad thing; second, I don’t think it’s the work of Satan—I think it’s the work of God. Here is why I don’t see a problem with that.

First, it’s wrong to see Christianity as a state religion. Some preachers say that this country or that country used to be a “Christian nation”, but what is a “Christian nation?” Is it a nation that is composed of 100% born-again Christians? 99.9% born-again Christians? 99%? May be 85%? What is it? Is it a nation that its laws are based on the commandments of the Bible? How do you enforce the first 3 commandments? How are you going to force someone to love God with all his heart, all his mind, and all his might? How are you going to get rid of idols? Everything can become an idol! How are you going to force someone to love his neighbor? How are you going to force someone to love and pray for his enemies? How are you going to force someone to believe? God Himself gave man a choice—to choose Him or to choose sin—yet we are trying to force man when God hasn’t forced him!

I am not saying that God’s laws are not good. They are good and the Bible says those who live by God’s laws will be blessed. I love God’s laws, and as a Christian I strive to live by them. I mean, imagine a world where murder, rape, or theft is not a crime. I am not talking about letting evil roam free and not opposing it, because the Bible says to “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21) I am not talking about legalizing sin—such as abortion, or sexual immorality—I am talking about not forcing righteousness on people because it creates a facade of righteousness in their minds that prevents them from appreciating and coming to the true righteousness that is only attainable through Christ.

I Disagree with Christians by Fadi

You see, we are presenting people in schools, and other public events, with the Ten Commandments and we are telling them there is heaven and hell. And, of course, they are automatically becoming religious and concluding: the good by good works go to heaven, and the bad by bad works go to hell (which seems to only include Hitler and serial killers nowadays!). The Ten Commandments are not a religion by themselves–actually nothing in the Bible is separated from Christ–so presenting the Ten Commandments by themselves is incomplete—it is telling halve the truth. The Ten Commandments are the half that leads people to condemnation because the law was meant for people to obey and realize they can’t keep it, but we are not presenting them with the half about Jesus Christ that leads them to salvation. (Please read Romans 7:7-25)

We always say that Christianity is a personal relationship with God through His Son, yet we pray for it to be a state religion! If Christianity is a personal relationship then even terms like “Christian family” makes no sense. What is a Christian family? A family where the father and mother are born-again? What about the children? How do you know if the children will grow up to believe or not? What if all the children will become born-again except one child, then what? Are they still a “Christian family”? Do you see what I mean?

Second, and this my main reason why I don’t have a problem with seeing prayers and scripture reading taken out of public schools: I am against giving people just enough Christianity, just enough religion, just enough morality, just enough scripture memorization, just enough hymn singing, just enough knowledge about heaven (funny how many people believe in heaven but not in hell!), and just enough knowledge about God to send them straight to hell. If a person is not a Christian, I don’t want them to think they are Christians! If someone is going to hell, I don’t want them to think they are going to heaven! You know, at a recent state funeral of a Canadian politician who openly supported sin, a lady told me with tears in her eyes, “He is in heaven now. Just like he was a great leader here, he is ruling up there now.” Obviously this lady believed in the existence of heaven, but she knew nothing about it: she doesn’t know how to get into heaven, and she doesn’t know Who rules in heaven!

You know, I realized nobody who dies in North America ever goes to hell! I mean, all you have to do is listen to the minister or priest talking at their funeral, they make an angel sounds like the devil in comparison to the deceased! Then after the funeral, all you have to do is ask about the dead man’s family to know that everything the preacher or the priest said was a lie.

The hardest people to evangelize to are “Christians”. If you tell someone who did not come from a Christian family about God they know you are talking about them. But if you tell someone who came from a Christian family—and therefore thinks he is a Christian too–about God, he will think you are talking to them but not about them. I remember one day at work I was talking to a “Christian” co-worker who I asked, “When did you become a Christian?” She answered, “What do you mean? I’ve always been a Christian, since I was born!” There was a time when we were born, a time when we started to talk, a time when we started to walk, a time when we started going to school, a time when we graduated from university, a time when we got our driving license, a time when we got our first job, a time when we got married–a time for everything. Yet, somehow, some people can’t recall a time when they became Christians–they just kind of drifted into Christianity.

You know, thanks to the Roman Catholic church, there are hundreds of millions of lost people around the world that think they are Christians because they were baptized as children! And that’s exactly what we want to do here in North America, but instead of infant baptism we want to do it through scripture readings in public schools, singing hymns, and even Sunday schools!

I firmly believe that nothing can take the place of the home, and the role of the parents (especially the father) when it comes to grounding children in the Christian faith. It’s not the role of the school (it definitely won’t be the role of the college!), the Sunday school teacher, or even the church! It’s your responsibility as a parent to ground your children in the Christian faith so that in their hearts they set apart Christ as Lord, and always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks them to give the reason for the hope that they have, and they should be taught to do it with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)

For the above two reasons I don’t see the stoppage of scripture reading in schools a work of Satan. I actually see it as the work of God. I see it as God sifting the people to separate His people from those who don’t want be a part of Him (whether they claim to be Christians or not). And as this separation occurs it will be easier to evangelize to the lost, because hopefully now they can accept easily that they are lost even though they had considered themselves to be Christians all their lives. Did you know according to a survey 86% of Americans claimed to be Christians in 1990? Do you know what that means? That means 9 out of 10 people you meet in the U.S.—whether family members, friends, neighbours, co-workers, classmates, strangers you meet on the street—are born-again and therefore are followers of Jesus Christ! And we all know that is not true! What does the Bible say?

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

86% is the majority of people—definitely not few! So who is correct, the Bible or the survey? How are you going to evangelize to a lost nation with almost 90% of the people think they are saved? In 2009 the same survey found 75% of Americans call themselves Christians. Of course, this number is still ridiculously high and not even remotely close to the truth. The Bible also says in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” Yet we insist they stay by doing all we can to fool them into staying! And when they stay the church becomes weaker, and they become deceived into thinking they are Christians and therefore they must be saved! (Funny how nowadays everyone is saved but nobody is born again!)

I personally don’t care if Canada is titled a “Christian nation” or not when almost everyone is going to hell. I care that the number of those truly saved (born again) increases. The fact is: people won’t seek Christ or come to Him before they realize they don’t have Him. Yet, we pray for this curtain of spiritual blindness to stay there so we feel safe behind false statistics and meaningless phrases that tickle our ears, such as: God bless you, we are a Christian nation, and in God we trust. You know, for such a wicked nation like us the only thing we can trust is that God’s judgement will fall on us, and we should pray for mercy that He would discipline us instead of punishing us. We are so desperately trying to hold this curtain together from the bottom when, I believe, God is ripping it apart from the top.

You know, I only came to know Christ after I rebelled against the Roman Catholic church. Before that I didn’t asked, “What else is there in Christianity?”, because I thought I knew everything about it and had all that it can offer. Yet God in His grace brought me to Christ rather than let me wonder far away from Him looking for peace and meaning somewhere else. Who knows, may be my above point of view is wrong and unscriptural, and may be as I grow in my Christian faith I will start to understand the point of view of preachers who want and pray for this mass production of Christianity. But for now, it just doesn’t make a spiritual sense to me.