Let's Be NICE

A couple of days ago, a facebook friend posted a link to blog post writen by a christian minister who wrote a very thoughtful piece concerning the matter in which christians minister in his town spoke about Joel Osteen when he was leading an evangelistic meeting in their town. The ministers refused to support the meeting, and were openly highly critical of Osteen. The writer simply pointed out that, regardless of what they thought about him, thousands of people have come to Christ through his ministry. The writer went on to point out that as Christians, we should love and support one another.

I realized that I have received criticism of Osteen, and passed it on, without really hearing what the man has said. I do know that the last years of my parents life, listening to Osteens sermons brought them great encouragement.

My point here really has little to do with Joel Osteen. I am wondering how much damage we Christians do when we publicly criticize each other. I agree that we need to be careful to protect the truth. What I object to is the way Christians attack other Christians, often viciously, mean spirited, with no grace or mercy. Just to check that, I "googled" a number of leading ministers, and found that on the first page of the results, most of them had an attack come up, every time, written by another christian minister. These were often vicious, using phrases like "false Gospel" "unchristian heretical fad", "unbiblical sloth" "occultic", "the devils religion". 

These are names I found under attack: Mark Batterson, Francis Chan, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Mark Driscoll, Erwin McManus, Joel Olsteen, Joyce Meyer, John Piper, Joseph Prince, Robert Morris, and Beth Moore. Few christian leaders are untouched by public criticism. 

I am just tired of hearing hateful, demeaning language coming from the mouth of Christians, used to attack other Christians. 

Can we be nice? I know that we don't all agree about some important teachings of the Bible. There are so many ways to interpret scripture, and we all believe we are right. Of course we do, we wouldn't believe something we thought was wrong! I have been a Christian for many years. Some of my most strongly held beliefs have changed. Of course, there are some things that I KNOW are true, but so many doctrines are open to debate and can be seen from different angles. 

Mostly, I just would like to see Christians write about, and speak to, other Christians with respect, considering that we are brothers who love the Lord, are trying to follow Him in truth to the best of our understanding.