I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5 KJV
As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord
There are many reasons why people may reject Christianity and look on Christians with a negative light. I have compiled a list of what I call "The Deadly 6", what I believe are the six most common reasons people reject Jesus and all he stands for
For some reason, when you tell someone "I am a Christian" there is an almost automatic stigma placed on all the things that you do. To some degree, most people are familiar with Christianity and what it teaches. And for some reason that eludes me at this time, people expect "Christians" to be perfect. They expect us to never mess up, always do the right thing, and never ever do anything that goes against our Bible!
The problem is that Christians are just as human as the next guy. We do not undergo some kind of instant transformation that immediately stops us from doing things we shouldn't. Because we are human, we are bound to mess up just as anyone else does....BUT instead of overlooking it like they would a non-christian, we are labeled "hypocrites" because we are not following what we "claim" to believe. We are not given the same graces as someone else would get and therefore some do not want a part of our "hypocrisy" and reject the truth of Jesus.
Very similar to the above attitude it seems that if your a Christian, then you somehow automatically know everything that is written in the Bible, from cover to cover. I don't know, maybe people think that all Christians do at home is read the Bible and sleep. People will bring up what little they do know about the Bible and try to say that we are "picking and choosing what we want to believe" while violating the rest. They leave no room for the fact that not every church teaches the same things, not all churches are complete in their teachings, and some do leave things out. We are encouraged to read our Bibles at home and do our own study but even some of the most devoted Christians fail to make time for that and therefore the only real teaching they get is whatever they get on Sunday morning.
As a child growing up, my family was always in church. If the doors were open we were there! Yet it wasn't till AFTER I was married that I even came across the verse in the Bible that speaks against tatoos. I knew that my parents were against it but I always thought that was their personal choice and none of the MANY churches that we had been to ever talked about it. I had no idea it was even in there, so would I be "picking and choosing" what I want to believe had I gotten a tatoo as a teenager?...NO I would not have. Yet non-christians would have jumped at the chance to say that I was "picking and choosing" because I had gone against the Bible, regardless of the fact that I didn't know that verse was in there.
To some people, Christians are just a bunch of people with a list of do's and don'ts. All we ever do is run around telling everyone else how bad they are and they are going to hell. To some people, it looks like we are just trying to stick our noses in their personal business so we can point out what they are doing that we think is wrong and then tell them how "bad" they are.
I think one of the BIGGEST misunderstandings about Christians is the fact that we are messangers from God. We are trying to deliver His word to a fallen world. But in this instance people want to "shoot the messanger" so to speak. We are just trying to relay what God has said about the things we do and instead of taking that as an act of caring and compassion for them it is taken as an attack on them and their decisions. We are looked on as judgemental because when we try to point out the things God says not to do, all that is heard is "your bad, your going to hell, repent now or be condemned to forever burn". People "know" what we are about but they don't "understand" what we are about. True Christians are not in the business of judging everyone and everything around them. All they want is to help guide you in the right direction and help you live a long and fulfilling life with true happiness that comes from following Gods word as opposed to the temporary and ultimately destructive form of "fake" happiness gained through violating Gods word.
To some Christianity is boring with a capital B! Why would they want to sit around twiddling there thumbs while all their friends are out having a hay day partying it up?! With everything that the Bible says "not" to do, whats left? Why should they bother with a religion that just breeds a bunch of uptight do-gooders.
On the surface it may in fact look like we have this long list of don'ts that just sucks the life and fun out of everything. After all, to some people....take away the beer, parties, violent movies, promiscuous sex and whats left? Well I will tell you whats left...a clean healthy life with less stress and the benefits of Gods protection and provisions. What does partying all night contribute to the world...drunk drivers. What does sex with anyone anytime contribute to the world....multiple sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies (some leading to murdering of innocent babies), and the lie that sex equals love. Everything that God tells us not to do ultimately leads to destruction in some form. God is not trying to control us and keep us from fun. Quite the contrary, he is trying to enrich our lives and help us to have fun that not only feels good to us but glorifies him and contributes to our well being and those around us.
Alot like the judgemental stigmatism, Christians are also viewed as condemning. All they see when they look at us is a bunch of people that want to tell everyone how they are going to hell. "Repent now or go to Hell" is all they hear. They do not understand that our motives are not to push them into hell but rather to save them from it. Some Christians do come off as condemning, I have heard stories of some people that have been confronted by well meaning christians that got in their face and told them point blank "YOUR GOING TO HELL"....no explanations, no apologies, no nothing!
What the world needs to understand is we CARE about them. We want them to enjoy the same fulfilling life that we have and we do NOT want anyone going to an eternity of torment in the lake of fire. There are Christians that will go about it the wrong way and get in your face but the vast majority are not like that.
I am sure there have probably been people in my life at one point or another that thought "Crystal thinks she's better then me/us, just look at her sitting over there on her moral high horse". Most people around me know what I stand for, most people around me also know what I "don't do", and as a result I am sure that someone at some point thought I had myself on a moral high horse of sorts. They probably speculated that I wanted nothing to do with them because they did things that I don't and would just "look down on them" because of it. That couldn't be further from the truth! I know thats their choice, I don't think any less of them for it and I certianly don't think any "more" of myself for not doing it.
Thats alot like how the world is though, if you say "I don't do this" or "I don't do that" then somehow that comes out as " I think I am better then you because I don't and you do". When Christians speak out against certain acts and abstain from them then we are looked on as "goody two shoes" that thinks we are better then everyone because we don't dare do those things, we are "too good" to do them!
What people need to understand is, we don't abstain from these things because we think we are "too good", we abstain from these things because we either know how destructive they can be or we are following Gods word and believing in faith that by avoiding these things we are avoiding trouble.