I have been putting this posting off for a while; mainly because I am a Christian myself and Because I was not sure where I wanted to go with it. But, I think this will suffice.
WorldNetDaily Laments in a article:
The commonly referenced “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats is disappearing.
Polls released before the 2008 election demonstrated America’s Christian voters are no longer synonymous with the political right: a George Barna survey showed born-again Christians evenly split between John McCain and Barack Obama, and a Public Religion Research study found that even among white Evangelicals, touchstone issues like abortion and same-sex marriage weren’t in their top five voting considerations.
If Christian voters share common morals and values, how is it that their voting patterns and priorities aren’t more unified?
According to a new study, the answer is that Christians don’t share a common worldview, their morals and values sprayed across the spectrum by differing views in a handful of key areas.
The 2009 Religious Activists Surveys – conducted by Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron in partnership
with Public Religion Research – focused on religious activists working on both “conservative” and “progressive” causes, and found that while the majority of both types called themselves Christian, they are driven apart by disagreements over social responsibility, biblical authority and the role of government.
The statistics reflect that Christians who differ in defining these key areas also differ in political and moral conviction.
One of the most troubling part of this article was this:
That last one is what bothers me and stands out as the reason why. 36% of Conservative activists do NOT consider the Bible to be the Literal word of God. I know why that is; it is because Pastor’s themselves do not believe that; because Christian Colleges are not teaching that the Bible is the LITERAL Word of God anymore. Not only this, Pastors are not being Pastors anymore and are not Preaching the Word of God; but rather are preaching a “User friendly” version of Jesus Christ and trying to make him in to one’s “Homie” and making him a type of a God that “Winks at” sin. Further more, Holiness and separation from the World are not Preached any either.
I also believe it has to do with Bible Versions. I am a King James Bible advocate. I believe that the Church’s departure from the King James Bible; along with many other compromises have caused this.
This is confirmed in this article from The Christian Post:
A minister who preaches on the authority and infallibility of Scripture is often accused of being arrogant, said one pastor. Such criticism, however, is withheld from someone who sits on a stool in a cardigan and chats with the congregation, telling personal stories.
Criticizing the latter form, Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, made the case for the preacher who declares “thus saith the Lord.”
“A minister should ascend into the pulpit in order to declare what would have been true had he never been born. He is there to preach what was written in the Word before all ages and is utterly disconnected from his personal dreams, hopes and aspirations,” Wilson said at the Desiring God Ministries’ national conference in Minneapolis on Saturday. “A minister is not up there to develop a relationship with everybody individually.”
Ministers are not supposed to be extemporaneous actors trying to figure out their lines from everything other than the Bible, he noted. They may maintain that their scripts are better, their plot lines are grittier or that their shows make more money, but a minister’s script is Scripture, Wilson stressed.
“He is there to declare something that is outside of his control. What God has revealed to us in the Bible is the message. That’s the script.”
Wilson, who describes himself as a biblical absolutist, gave a nearly 60-minute talk on Calvin, the Bible and the Western world during the three-day conference themed “With Calvin in the Theater of God.”
The Moscow pastor, who also helped to establish the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, sees ongoing battles today on the infallibility and inerrancy of the Word of God. But believers, he said, are neglecting the battle over the place of the Bible.
“Conservative evangelicals believe the Bible has no mistakes in it … but who today believes as Calvin did? Who treats the Bible as Calvin did?”
Now, I will give a bit of disclosure here; I totally disagree with this man’s Calvinist doctrine. But he does have a very valid point about Pastor’s today. Pastors have become more like motivational speakers; instead of preachers of the Word of God. They have become more like Priests, and not the kind of Pastors that you had in the 1940’s and 1950’s whop spoke out loudly against the sins of mankind. Instead they are interested in a “feel good” user friendly, type of Christianity; like that promoted by Rick Warren.
Now, I will admit; I have serious issues with the “Evangelical” and “Fundamentalist” Churches. I basically have been involved in both and I have seen the Good, Bad, and the Ugly of both. Hence the reason why I do not attend Church any longer. Do not misunderstand me; I believe the Gospel and I am a Christian, I have been for 26 years. But I feel that in this day of apostasy, that it is impossible to find a Church that is truly preaching the Word of God or to find a Pastor that does not insert himself into that preaching. Further more, I happen to know that most Pastors do not live what they preach. There are those that do. But the good majority do not.