discussion = heresy

Evangelical Christians are utterly fascinated with the “Great Commission”, a statement made by Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations. They drool over one sentence, completely ignoring the fact that Jesus spent a bulk of his time healing and caring for the untouchables of his society and smearing the false doctrines of the religious elite. Why would he act one way and then have people throw billions of dollars into facilities and programs to convince people of Jesus’ truth. Was it not his action that made people attracted to him? There is something very difficult to swallow when you begin to make the argument that Jesus’ first priority for humanity was so much more a person's belief, over ending the suffering of his children.

But no one wants to debate that argument, its dangerous and becomes heresy quickly rebuked by Christian leaders. It’s a dangerous question to ask because it implies mutual exclusivity. The principle of economic scarcity proves we can only do so much based on limited resources so often people must choose between the two. Jesus seemed to spend more time asking very dangerous questions to highfalutin religious leaders so why shouldn’t those dialogues happen in American Christianity? Why can't people ask the question, "why are you spending __, or hiring ___ people just to make a sweet institution?"

There is an intense group of Christians dominating conversations across the media and churches of America who often stand on the pedestal of sola scriptura, which is Latin for “scripture alone.” Whenever someone starts to talk about suffering and social justice, especially calling into question the incalculable resources put towards evangelical programming, there is the same response no matter whose asking. If someone outside the Church asks why a multi-million dollar facility is necessary when people even in the wealthiest country in the world are suffering and starving, it is chalked up to a different set of values not informed by the Bible. And if its Christians, then "they must not be reading the Bible."

The oddity is the religious leaders are so often creating their own ideologies and somehow people are expected to subconsciously believe it derives from the Bible. Whenever somebody starts talking about justice and love over professional Christianity and widespread conversion, they are labeled as pluralists and immediately categorized as people who reject the facts of souls needing saving.

There is a well-known evangelical pastor in the United States who once said to an auditorium of pastors, “McDonald’s has accomplished its great commission” as a way of arguing for churches marketing and trying to impress culture through media and programming. There are quite a few problems with saying something like this, but none of his evangelical buddies are jumping on it. First, what does the fact that there are a lot McDonald’s have to do with the Bible? Its pretty dangerous to start mocking movements of love or justice because they are not rooted in the Bible, but make a claim like that. Second, when did Jesus ever make an argument for massive, single culture domination?

More importantly, so many churches are asking the question, “how can we market to culture through media and programming so we can compete and grow?” Well the sad eventual tragedy which will lead to the bankruptcy of the movement is if

I. You claim God made the world
II. The world is aware of the crumbling of itself through starvation and injustice
III. You choose to try to impress people with lights and songs and neat sermons

then people are going to be furious at God for ever making the world and letting people be foolish enough to blow infinite resources on simply convincing people “church is fun and you should attend”…compared to hunger, child prostitution, war profiteering, and homelessness. There’s only two conclusions remaining for the onlooker,

I. There is no God.

Or

II. God is loveless and so are his people.