McChurch and OPS - "Other People's Sins"

McChurch and OPS – “Other People’s Sins”

I am sick to death of this running argument as to whether or not homosexuality is a sin…Who cares? Isn't there enough sin to go around for everybody? It has become a favorite pastime of some to grade sins by the number of times they are mentioned in the Bible…In that case, I guess that self-righteousness ranks at the top…

The Church of Jesus Christ has lost its theology of sin...If McChurch were to preach the Gospel, there would be no issue with "sins," as we all are infected...The doctrine of OPS (other people's sins) comes to the forefront when we have glossed over our own...This is almost too elemental to mention...

Homosexuality and abortion, being closet "sins" among Evangelicals, become attractive targets because of the illusion that they are rampant only outside the church...Notice that divorce and TV addiction fly beneath the radar these days...That is because the church is infected with both to the same degree as is the rest of our culture but knows it...

If anyone wants to find homosexuality in the church, you need go no further than the Gospel music industry (an oxymoron of infinite proportions)..."Rife" would not be too strong a word...

While McChurch is in denial about its own sin, it focuses on the sins of those thought to be uniquely outside the church...This follows a pattern of church culture - from legalism, to self-righteousness, to liberalism...

You might be inclined to protest at this point by saying that the evangelical church is not liberal but that it has "merged" with the Republican Party...My response would be, "How much more liberal could the church become than to replace the Gospel with a fake political ideology?"

I speak from training and experience - an evangelical theologian and pastor who has been elected three times to public office, both as a Republican and a Democrat...

I have been around long enough to know that McChurch is a self-imposed ghetto culture that finds its security, not in the Christ of the Gospel, but in its own reinforcement, the latest of which is numbers of attendees...Tell someone that you are a pastor, and the first thing out of their mouths is, “How many people in your congregation?”

A little-discussed Christian principle is ignored: "If they are all going in that direction, it has to be wrong!" Remember that old message, "Broad is the way that leads to destruction/narrow is the way that leads to life?"

Get off the "God Bless America" kick and its idolatry of prosperity and worldly success and get onto the dynamic presence of the Kingdom of God in the life of the believer and the community of the faithful...

(Stan Moody, an evangelical Baptist minister and founder of the Christian Policy Institute http://www.christianpolicyinstitute.org/, has served in the Maine House of Representatives as both a Republican and a Democrat. Dr. Moody is the author of several provocative books, including Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship and McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry. Pastor of a rural country church in Central Maine, Moody has enjoyed a long and productive career in small business development and management.)