So here we are, children of God. If you have read my summaries of Case for Faith then you might remember that whole deal about how hell is a great show of how God respects human choice. If you need a reminder, I’ll go into it now. If you do not, skip the rest of this paragraph. God treats humans with such great love and respect that he allows us the freedom of choice. God gave us free will and He abides by our decisions out of respect. Hell is an example of this. As hell is separation from God, then those who are in hell are those who have spent their entire lives trying to live independently from Him. Thus, despite how He may wish we were to all go to heaven, God allows our decisions to stand and have value by giving hell (separation from God) as another choice besides obedience to Him.

So, it is therefore safe to conclude that God values and respects human choice and free will. How is it then, that we Christians do not? I wish to address the issue of evangelism. I am not saying that we should not evangelize. I do not mean that at all. Evangelism is necessary to spread the glory that is Jesus. Rather, I have a criticism of how we evangelize and treat other religions. As most non-Christians tend to believe, Christians are in fact very irreverent when it comes to other faiths. In my school’s Circle of Friends (Christian club) meetings, they learn such things as how Mormon’s believe God lives on a star. We pass it off as nonsense and joke about its absurdity. But to a Mormon this is not absurd, it is truth. To the layman, a burning bush that talks and a guy who controls the storms sounds ridiculous. Many of us would be rather offended if such events were mocked by non-Christians. Hence, our poor treatment of people of other faiths affects their perception of Christians in general. To want to convert, someone must desire what Christians are or have. We do not show the proper conduct that would reflect the values and characteristics that we wish to display.

On a related and rather unrelated note, our conduct as Christians is being analyzed consciously or subconsciously by everyone around us. Christians are the worldly representation of the church and Jesus to non believers. We must act accordingly. Not to be mean, but I really hate to see people walk around claiming to be Christian while doing everything they can to disobey God’s authority. As a whole, we are seen as hypocritical, lacking knowledge in our own faith, and following the same set of rules as every other guy on the street. Obviously all these things are not meant to be true. We are to be in this world not of it. However, I see these accusations realized in most casual Christians. Before I start a completely new essay, back to respect.

We cannot hope to force our beliefs on anyone else. To do so obviously violates God’s respect for free will. Thus, things such as school prayer and government sponsored religious events should not exist. Non-Christians would either feel further alienated or they would join in simply to save face and would have a weak foundationless faith. Simply because Christians are a majority in America does not give us the right to set a state-wide religion. We complain about countries such as China that squelch Christian missionaries and religious movements. Yet somehow, we find it ok to do so as long as we are not the victims. We want the people of this country to embrace Christianity individually, not shove it down their throats en masse. Christian clubs and events not sponsored by the school are wonderful. As long as other groups are allowed to do the same, then we are exercising our right to free speech instead of ignoring others’. But yea, I kind of lost track of where I’m going with this. So let’s just say I’m done for now. Oh, and I apologize for the lame title. There’s probably a whole different aspect of this but I don’t know about it so enlighten me.