The Church in the US needs a divorce...

WARNING THIS BLOG POST MAY BE EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE

Having given fair warning that you the reader may very well be offended by what you will read in this post I'm going to begin. The Church in the US needs a divorce and it needs this divorce now. I will probably get hate mail and if I were to say this in a "church" would probably be asked to never come back, but here it goes for better or worse this is going to be said.

The Church needs a divorce from Americanism and everything that comes with it. We do not need flashy new things, we do not need an United States flag in our buildings, and we certainly do not need patriotism. There it is people my dirty little secret it out. There is no place in the church for patriotism. To say otherwise is to subvert the gospel. Think about it. I mean really think about it and then tell me I'm wrong. Jesus said to respect authorities not to worship them and guess what that is what we are doing when we take a whole Sunday, or any day for that matter, and celebrate the country we live in. You turn that flag into an idol and worship it. The gospel as preached by Christ is counter-cultural and was subversive to Roman world. Early Christians would not call Ceaser their Lord and lost their lives for it. What makes us any better than them? Please tell me what I'm missing that makes it ok for us to worship America in church. Now at this point I have stepped on a lot of toes I'm sure. Heck I am perfectly ok with that because I will not worship this country.

Now, I could say a lot of things that would really get people fired up after reading this post. I would love to but I do not need to be stirring up trouble in the body. Now since I've done a great job at attacking the flag and patriotism so far let me move to the other thing in that list earlier. We do not need new flashy things. What do flashy things do? They make pretty light shows and allow us to be louder than we need to be during a "worship" service. News flash unless you have been reading some Bible that disagrees with the standard of what is considered the Bible we should know that what God wants is a contrite heart to worship him in truth and spirit. He doesn't ask us to have the newest, biggest, loudest, whatever you want to fill in the blank with. We again are making an idol of things and as such living in active rebellion to God.

So I've thrown a lot out in a short space. I know my readership is small. I know that I don't post very often but when I do its something important to me and it is important to me that we divorce the Church from stupid propagation of the "American Way". Jesus did not call you out of slavery to sin and death to live a comfortable life with 2.5 kids, a dog, a house, 2 cars, and a white picket fence. Jesus called you out of slavery to sin and death to live a life of sacrifice. When Jesus makes his call to follow he didn't say, "Go and have the most comfy life you can and put a little money in the offering plate on Sunday morning." Hell no. Jesus said "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me." So I beg. Deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. Divorce the Americanism which so rampantly rapes the Church and take a lesson from history. The Church does its best when it is marginalized and serving people. We cannot do that if we are sitting in our little pews singing songs to the greatness of the United States and worshiping its flag while we look on to the latest, greatest projector screen containing the lyrics to America the Beautiful.