Distorted Christianity

A distorted Christianity is clear when our longing for God on Sunday morning doesn’t match up with our lifestyle on Monday. Religion, in the best sense, is about relationships – our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. A distorted Christianity is evident when it is void of relationships. Distorted Christianity ignores the cry of the other.

We pick up our newspaper and read about a three-year-old boy who is whipped with a belt for three hours because he wet his pants. We read about his cries and pleadings as his little body squirms under the foot of his stepfather. We read about this beating, which is his last in a year long series of frequent beatings; his last because he died in his bed a half hour later. We read about how the boy’s body is found months later, buried in a creek, with a tiny cross clutched in his hands. We read about this brutal murder of a defenseless child, and we feel sick. Then we turn to the financial section and read about how the economy is improving. We turn to the sports section and read about last night’s game. Soon the sickness leaves us. We forget about the little boy.

Isaiah would say to us, “Your hands are full of blood.” We gather in church to worship while we continue to allow injustice to exist in the world. We sing and pray all the while our hands are full of blood. Are we better people for all the time we spend in church? Imagine God coming to you today, stripping you of all your religious piety and all that is left is the person you see in the mirror, what would God find?