Thursday, March 12, 2009

Deep thoughts from me

I had this post all written and ready to go, but my wise husband gave me some advice that I am going to follow. Shocking, I know. We watched a movie last night that really got me thinking. This is a movie that I would recommend to some people, but not to others. I wouldn't recommend it to someone that is a new Christian or not a Christian at all. So all I'll say is that it was a movie about world religions. The first part of the movie was about Christians, and that is the part that bothered me the most, but not for the reasons I had thought prior to watching the movie. Are you confused yet? Well this is what's left of my original post:


I think that what bothered me the most was to realize how many different views we as "Christians" have. Some of us believe in the rapture, some of us believe in a literal 7 day creation, some of us believe the Bible and science just don't mix at all and that science has the answers, some of believe that carrying signs that say homosexuals will burn in hell is an effective "ministry", some of us believe that we are literally drinking Christ's blood during communion, some of us aren't sure what we believe.

I totally get it that we all hold on to our own doctrines and would have a hard time just switching over to another belief. For example, I am doing a Beth Moore study on Daniel right now. I have really enjoyed it, but Beth is a Baptist and we are now getting a lesson on dispensational premillennialism, which is the set of beliefs she has for "end-time" events. Now, I am reformed and have been brought up believing the Amillennial view and am struggling with the observations and interpretations I am now being "taught". So I do get it, but in the end is it going to matter who is right as long as we are followers of Christ?

Earlier this week I read an article that talked about how the number of people that profess to be Christians is slipping. Then yesterday I got a packet of information from Voice of the Martyrs, which included a map showing countries where being a Christian is prohibited. I guess it just made me wonder if we are losing our voice, losing our witness, because we are so focused on defending our own personal beliefs instead of preaching the Gospel message. People of different denominations are "going out into all of the world", but does it get confusing for the people of other nations when they are being told to do different things for the same God?