Has the word “Christian” lost its meaning?

Why is everybody out there in the Christian world fighting with each other? Aren’t we all on the same team?

You would think we were not if you read the Christian newsletters and listen to the people talk about church squabbles and association fights and divisions and read books on fighting for the truth, the truth wars, the worship wars and websites and radio shows about who’s on the inside and who is out…wow.

People sure have differences within the Christian faith!

The fact is some people play real loose with the word Christian, let alone the word church. Some so called Christians don’t believe the Bible is even inspired and some believe the KJ Bible is the only Bible that is inspired and won’t have anything to do with you if you don’t agree with them. Some believe Jesus wasn’t even God and others believe Jesus is all you get… no Father and no Holy Spirit. That’s a pretty wide swath for people who call themselves Christians isn’t it?

Some so called Christians believe stuff that’s not even in the Bible, and others don’t believe anything at all but they all call themselves Christians.

Some Christians live such strict lives they won’t even ride in a car, and others have no rules at all…they just do whatever they want to do and hey…no worries  it’s going to be ok…we’re Christians!

Believers were first called Christians in first century Antioch because the people of Antioch thought they were calling them a bad word…well folks it has finally become a bad word. No wonder the people of today don’t want to become Christians…nobody even knows what one is supposed to be!

From the inquisition to the reformation the word Christian has pretty much been dragged through the mud. The crusades didn’t help much either…who’s in charge of our publicity campaign anyway? We need to fire that guy.

If I’m going to be persecuted for being a Christian, I want it to be because I won’t back down from my honest authentic faith in Christ, not because they think I’m some hypocritical slob who hates gays and shoots abortionists!

I am not some self righteous homophobe who hates people and judges everyone that doesn’t agree with me… but there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians out there who are exactly that and they are messing up the image!

It’s not the media that’s giving us the bad name it’s other Christians!

When the Samaritans rejected Jesus, the disciples had a wonderful idea:

Luke 9:54-55

(54)  And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

(55)  But he turned and rebuked them.

I guess this is not a new problem.

Some people have begun to call themselves “red letter Christians” and I guess they only follow the words of Jesus because He was all about love and he never offended anyone? Have you ever read the words of Jesus? He offended them so much back there in Jerusalem that they put Him to death. And he wasn’t too easy on his followers either…He demanded some things of His believers.

So how do we share our faith in a world like this? Our image is shot!

People used to think that we were fanatics who believed in a God we could not see with a commitment that could not be measured.

Now they think we are part of a marketing subculture. Think about it, we have our own bookstores, our own music superstars, our own TV shows, our own schools, some think we have our own political party… we all want to make lots of money and we believe God is the tool we can use to get everything we want.

Can we change the perception? Maybe it’s too late. But we can be aware of the change and begin to view ourselves as a follower of Jesus…the term Christian has no meaning.