Happy Fouth of July!

I was listening to Bishop David G Evans yesterday; I love his call-in radio program.  He was speaking about some evangelical groups who, with good intentions to "bring America back to its God-fearing roots," wind up getting involved in everything, but at the same time -- nothing.  For instance, the perceived sexuality of Sponge Bob.  Yes, that's right, the cartoon sea creature in the square pants.  Now, I like Sponge Bob and really don't care who he dates, besides, I could never get past the idea that a sponge is an animal; even in seventh grade science, they always seemed more like plants to me.  I sided with Bishop Evans on this one:  Do evangelicals really have nothing better to do?  Are there folks out there who really need a worldwide organization to weigh in on this issue, in order to guide their parenting?  If someone feels "convicted" about allowing a homosexual sponge into their living rooms at 7 PM every night, can't they simply take control of the remote?  Can a male sponge really desire another male sponge? (Well, Bishop Evans didn't really bring that one up, but it's worth consideration)  Wouldn't evangelicals best serve their fellow man by, oh, say -- evangelizing?

Call me crazy, but I'd rather drive seven miles to work every morning than walk or pedal.  Don't get me wrong, I like the planet -- it's water and oxygen, and all that cool stuff, but I don't care how long or loud you extol the benefits of "green" travel to me, the idea of arriving to work frostbitten or smelling like I've just spent the last two hours rustling cattle, is just too much for me to give up my lifetime membership to Fill More University.  Schwinn trembled at the first Model A, not the other way around.  So why are some Christians afraid of the "flavor of the month?'  Is our "product" so flawed that when Jehovah's Witness puts up another hall down the street, we seek to drive them out of town?  Isn't speaking of and demonstrating God's love enough to make them chose Christ on their own? wasn't it enough for each of us?  Or did we really have someone walk up to us, condemn us for being gay, or a liar, or a thief, and we crumbled in fear, begged for mercy and asked, "What must I do to have what you have?"  Besides, if we're busy critiquing the sexuality of a cartoon sponge, aren't we wasting precious time in which we should be out preaching the redemption and love of a life in Jesus Christ? drawing others to Christ, not ostracizing sinners with reproach, and pigeon-holing, and our self-aggrandizing derision of others? 

Consider Christ's ministry.  Maybe I'm way off base on this one, but didn't He "recruit" simply by demonstrating love to others?  He publicly befriended tax collectors and prostitutes, right?  Those two thieves that hung beside Him were treated no differently than if they'd cheated -- a little -- on their income taxes or flipped out at their child who accidentally spilled iced tea on a carpet.  He spoke politics: "render under Caesar that which is Caesar's," but belonged, first and foremost, to His Father.  And the "brood of vipers" known as the Pharisees? Jesus did publicly vilify them, but for their heinous treatment of others in God's name.  These were those who heard the truth and sought mercilessly to prohibit others from hearing it, not those who were handed an inferior product by a flawed society and took the bait.  Not to say that those who ignore or reject God's laws are victims; they will face judgment, but God's judgment, not ours.  Our job is to be His hands and feet, to do the things He chooses to use us to do -- love, evangelize, pray.  We can return America to its God-fearing roots, but it needs to start with each one of us -- studying the Word of God and knowing what we have, being secure in what God has wrought, getting out there and sowing the Seed, praying and trusting Him to work the soil in which we sow.