Holly makes a point, cranky or not

Read my fellow-blogger, Holly Dolezalek's post, And, some crankiness.  Holly is a self-described agnostic who blogs for Outreach magazine, keeping us real with her take on all this church stuff we talk about so much.  In her post, Holly responds to Lee Strobel's article, Short-changing the good news.

I don't need to defend Holly, as she does a pretty good job of taking on Lee's comments, which I thought were trite and insensitive.  Lee was obviously writing for an "inside" audience.  My take on this is that Lee has the same problem a lot of churches, small and large, have.  We position ourselves in an either-or posture.  Black-and-white.  Cut-and-dried.  Heaven-or-hell.  Lost-or-saved.  In-or-out.

I recently went through the Gospel of Mark just reading the words of Jesus.  You know, the red-letters.  Amazing stuff.  None of that "hell-bound" language we throw into our preaching and teaching like spiritual confetti.  None of that us-them language that we like to use, as in, "Christians like us, lost people like them."

What if we see all people as God's creation, made in His image?  What if we treat everyone with dignity as Jesus did the woman caught in adultery?  Would that change our preaching and teaching, and even our writing?  What if we loved people more, and judged them less?  What if we treated others as if the gospel really was good news for everyone, not just us?  Good post, Holly.  Keep us real.  -- Chuck