Where have all the Christians gone?

     When I was growing up, going to Sunday school and Catechism classes, I learned certain phrases and ideas that I was told was the core of the belief in Christ and his Teachings. These Concepts were "Love the neighbor as thyself”, "Turn the other cheek”, and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". I learned that the cornerstone of Christianity was Compassion and the belief that people can change for the better, and although I am not a practicing Christian, I still believe these Philosophies make this a better world and I practice them as best I can.

     So we hear on the news that we are a Christian country and that our previous President is the great representative for the Christians of this land , and I don't see it ! We hear Talking Points and Statements that sound reasonable but if one believes in actions more than words then a different picture arises.

    It seems the actions of this country portray a nation of hypocrites, bigots, and the cold hearted. If you are not Christian and don't like America you are automatically a heathen at best and most likely a terrorist in Christian eyes and marked for extermination, I don't remember being taught in church persecute those not like you. We seem to believe that double standards are a gift from God. If someone does something bad to us , we all rally round and denounce them as evil and demand they be killed , in fact we only need to Suspect they did something. Now if we do something bad to someone else, even if we have no reason to do so, we justify it as our right to defend ourselves from the Evils of the world , real or perceived and tell those who speak out against these bad decisions as terrorists.

    Another example of double standards in the Christian community is the creationism v/s evolutionism dispute. Christians demand that Schools teach either creationism or Devine Direction, but What church would give a positive sermon on Darwin?? What Sunday school would teach evolution?? Christians demand stickers on science books saying its just unbased theories, but what about the bible. What proof is there?? Just because someone said its true doesn't make it so (my mother used to use that line all the time "Because I said so!" and that usually meant she had no real reasons). If school books must have religious stickers denouncing scientific truths, then shouldn't bibles have equivalent stickers saying that the bible contains just speculations and myths!! That church has always demanded that which they themselves refuse to do.

    Here is an interesting event that supports my views. WorldHelp a Christian fund raising organization was obtaining donations to ship 300 orphans from the tsunami disaster to an American Christian orphanage. On there web site they state: "Banda Aceh is closed to foreigners and closed to the gospel. But, because of this catastrophe, our partners there are earning the right to be heard and providing entrance for the gospel." The fundraising appeal went on to say that WorldHelp was working with Christian partners in Indonesia who want to "plant Christian principles as early as possible" in the 300 Muslim children. Also saying "These children are homeless, destitute, traumatized, and orphaned, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. If we can place them in a Christian children's home, their faith in Christ could become the foothold to reach the Aceh people," . Now when the Indonesian government said they did not want Muslim children converted to Christians Worldhelp dropped their funding plans. My question is , if they really wanted to help , why didn't they give money to the local facilities. It seems that once they couldn't get their conversions they didn't care anymore about these children. Shouldn't Helping be more important than Conversions???

    So it seems to me that Christians follow the beliefs of Christ , and Christ taught Peace , love thy neighbor and money and church don't mix, therefore if you believe in war then you are Not a Christian, if the church is demanding money , they are Not Christian. If you are a bigot (you hate Blacks, Asians, Muslims, democrats, gays etc) you are Not a Christian! If you erect a statue (graven image) of the 10 commandments, this is a blatant violation of these same commandments, and one would assume you are not a Christian.

     Now if i understand the news and protests and speeches and voting's correctly , the Christians of this country are pro war , hate gays , hate pro-choicers , hate Muslims , think the government should give the churches all the money they want, and Christians continue to judge others when their own houses are dirty.

Therefore I ask the question "where have all the Christians gone???”

                                                                                    Lonnie D. Jackson