It was with great sadness that I read the recent letter titled “Great apostasy?” I was saddened because I have found this view prevalent among many SBC churches. Yet it may hold an answer to the plateau we are experiencing in baptisms, for should we not get out among the “sinners,” how will they get saved? It is time to dump the “bunker mentality” to church life and find again the church long forgotten – the one which was established through the life of Jesus.
Christ, being perfect, had more reason than us to watch who he spent time with, yet we find him with a Samaritan woman at the well – a woman no self-respecting rabbi would be seen with. How can we forget his dining with Simon the Pharisee and friends in Luke 7, who mocked him for allowing a sinful woman to anoint his feet? Why would our Savior seek out and stay with a man such as Zacchaeus, or choose Saul to become his evangelist to the Gentiles? Because he loved them! I have to wonder why any lost person would risk sitting in the pew next to those with such an attitude as expressed by Mr. Knupp. Surely the community at large knows who these people are and where they spend their Sunday mornings.
Personally, I welcome the efforts of Rick Warren to reach out across the globe to the AIDS community. While most are suffering with this disease because of lifestyle choices, how many babies are born each day with it and didn’t make such a choice? How many suffer today because of receiving bad blood during a transfusion? Is trying to find a cure or method to ease their suffering, no matter who is involved, against the teachings of Christ the Healer? Shouldn’t our very concern be that they all live, no matter how it was derived, so that they possibly get one more chance at knowing the Sacrificial Lamb? I pray it is so.
Funny, but I see Richard Land on Larry King far more than I see Rick Warren on anything. I frequently read Al Mohler, who has probably never even seen The Message, on the “On Faith” discussion forum. Here he shares space with atheists, agnostics, idolaters, and, worse, Catholics. To them, I would only say thank you for taking the Gospel to the lost. May we be so bold ourselves?