With all the debate going on these days about "emerging church" and traditional churches etc, sometimes those outside our circles can be left a little confused with us Christ followers. Well being an Aussie, I’m somewhat taken back by the "official" Easter message focus delivered by some in the so called "organised religious institutions" of my country..
Splattered all over my TV over Easter were news articles on "modern Easter messages" delivered by the "nations religious leaders." Instead of using the one time most people go to church and nailing (excuse the pun) the message of the cross to a largely unbelieving crowd, these guys completely miss the boat and talked about interest rates, the drought and Aboriginal reconciliation.
To those outside the best nation in the world, our newly elected Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, officially apoligised to the "stolen generations" of aboriginal children taken by force by well meaning white people from pathetic life styles in Aboriginal communities. But they did this in questionable ways - hence the need for an apology.
We are also experiencing a massive rise of interest rates due to an over heated economy as we pump our commodities into China. This is putting massive inflationary pressure on our economy and, when combined with increased petrol prices and the effects of the drought, the Reserve Bank needs to increase rates to help stop spending.
Sure these issues are important and people are hurting in our country. But to focus on these messages instead of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus over the Easter period make Brian Mclaren’s attempt of being relevant to society a piss poor effort.
I don’t for a minute put down the need for our culture to address these issues. But this is Easter for crying out loud. Put aside the pagan nature of the way Easter is celebrated, and you have a platform where people would go to church more then any other time. To waste this opportunity on other issues is disappointing.
Instead of connecting to people in their hurt and presenting the hope of Jesus, these leaders decide to dwell in the hurt and offer no hope. To this lay guy, that’s just dumb.
To take dumbness further, consider the views of The Reverend John Evans, the Uniting Church Minister at the Church of All Nations in my home town of Melbourne. This guy wants to substitute the Good Friday Holiday with a national "reconciliation" holiday to celebrate our recent advances in reversing our travesty with the Aboriginal people.
"We have done a great thing with the national apology but when you look at our public holidays there are no public holidays that recognise the role and place of Aborigines as the first people of this land."
In the newspaper that this quote was taken from, the following response was left by a reader:
Well John Evans is leading with his big mouth in showing why people are turning away from the church in droves. It is increasingly irrelevant in society at all, and when a cleric can call for one of the most holy days on the Christian calendar to be replaced by something that still divides Australian society today, it simply proves just how out of touch the church has become. Perhaps its time the government took a different view of the workings of our churches, such as removing their tax-free status etc. The church has become a blight on modern day Australia, and we could do much better without them.
Sobering thoughts of what our culture thinks of us when we replace what we are called to do with trying to appease man.
What you have said