At my small group this week we watched a DVD from the Nooma series called Bullhorn. It discusses the sort of evangelism that happens when someone stands on a street corner somewhere with a bullhorn and preaches at people passing by. In the discussion afterwards one of the things that we talked about was how the perception of Christianity in the wider community is affected by this sort of preaching and what it means to us as we seek to be Christ’s ambassadors to those around us. One of the points that was made is that society’s perception of Christianity is formed by only a very small percentage of Christians and not necessarily those that best communicate Jesus love and freely available salvation. The challenge to us was to represent Christ better to those around us so that Jesus love is communicated more effectively. In particular if the world will know us as Christians by our love, as it says in John 13:34-35 then we need to be able to show love for those around us just as we love God, as we are commanded in Matthew 22:36-40.
During the discussion we also talked about different wrong perceptions of Christianity and one of the things that came up was nominalism, sometimes also called religion, where people go through the motions of Christianity but don’t have a relationship with Jesus. To my way of thinking this is akin to the church being just another interest group or service club with many more complex rules and requirements than say Apex or Rotary. Many people come into contact with Christianity this way, as a set of rules and behaviors to be followed to be a good [insert denomination membership here]. The question is though, is this better than nothing? Is the fact that the rules and procedures were at one point based on a real relationship with Jesus a step towards having that relationship or a dangerous compromise? More importantly should we as Christians be critical of nominalism in other churches and what effect will this criticism have on the perception of Christianity by others? (more…)
