Rod Dreher on Why American Christians Need to Stop Whining


Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News is visiting Turkey and in a recent blog post he notes why this visit has reinforced his belief that American Christians should stop whining:

had lunch today with a three Christians, one from Europe, one from the Middle East, one from Southeast Asia. Here is a summary of our conversation:

The Middle Easterner: We are being terribly persecuted. Our people are being killed and deprived of their rights in every way. Many of us are emigrating to escape. The government does not protect us. Everyday life is martyrdom. Our biggest challenge, aside from survival, is how to love those who kill and persecute us. We don't understand why Christians in the West, and the Western media, doesn't tell our story.

The Southeast Asian: Christianity is formally permitted, but our people and our clergy face constant persecution, and we are so relatively small in number that there's very little we can do except endure.

The European: Our churches are virtually empty. We are tolerated because we are irrelevant. Christianity is seen as a hobby, but that's it. We look around at all our magnificent churches, and see that the faith survived all kinds of immense hardships and challenges over the centuries, but Christians made it. Now, in our time, Christians are completely free to worship as they like, and everyone has all their material needs taken care of, but there is a real question of whether we are going to make it. Wealth and freedom is doing to Christianity in Europe what centuries of suffering and privation and persecution did not.

And there's me, the American, feeling rather ashamed of myself. Perhaps I should have told these people about the war on Christmas in my country. [That's sarcasm, please note.]

Comments

Janet leslie Blumberg said…
Just read a blog review of Irresistible Christianity which makes the same point you are making about the American church. Have you read this book? Sounds quite interesting and humbling.
June 7, 2007 at 2:02 PM
Chuck Blanchard said…
Janet:

Thanks for the tip on the book. I have not read it.
June 7, 2007 at 2:15 PM
Janet leslie Blumberg said…
Oops, it's Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborne.
June 9, 2007 at 2:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giles Fraser on Gay Marriage

Image
The Rev. Gileas Fraser offers thoughtful piece on gay marriage on BBC Radio this morning: Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the Book of Common Prayer was being put together, marriage was said to be for three purposes: First, It was ordained for the procreation of children … Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication .. Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. How do these three concerns relate to the prospect of gay marriage? The third priority insists that marriage is designed to bring human beings into loving and supportive relationships. Surely no one can deny that homosexual men and women are in as much need of loving and supportive relationships as anybody else. And equally deserving of them too. This one seems pretty clear. The second priority relates to the encouragement of monogamy. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rig...
Read more

Religious Map of United States

Image
This map shows which of eight major Christian denominations has a plurality in the United States, county by county. the map obviously does not capture the full story given the rich diversity of Christian denominations in the United States, but it does show much of the regionalization of the major denominations. The map and analysis can be found here . Hat Tip to my friend Jim .
Read more

New Climate Change Study

What a coincidence. Yesterday, I blogged about the James Dobson et al "We Get It" effort to deny climate change. Yesterday, NASA scientists issued a new report showing a strong causal link between human activity and climate change. Here is the Science Daily report: A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scal...
Read more