Stop Talkng About His Death, Start Doing What He Taught

In Saturday’s Washington Post column “On Faith”, Erick Neece hit the spiritual nail on the head with his Guest Voice column entitled “Save Jesus, Ignore Easter”.

In his writing, Neece talks about losing his faith in mainstream Christianity. His thesis?
Christians spend a lot of time "celebrating" Easter and Christmas and not nearly enough time celebrating and actively practicing the life and teachings of Jesus.

As a child and young man, I too was struck by this "He was born and He died" theology. Was that it?

Today Christians use His birth as an excuse for a month long party (can you say Saturnalia?) and His death as an excuse for Mardi Gras parties and then the feast of Easter Sunday.

What we need form our spiritual leaders is a little less focus on politics and the "you're a sinner and going to Hell" sermons and a great deal more teaching and preaching about how to live your life every day using the teachings of Jesus as a model for how to live your life.

Personally, I'm bored with mainstream Christianity. It preaches and condemns while posing as righteous. And like the money changes of Biblical times, it spends way too much time on fleecing the flock. Salvation is equated with church giving, the more you give, the closer you are to God – and presumably salvation.

The reality is that most don't even begin to practice their faith, relying on the "Jesus died for my sins" escape clause in the Bible to justify their unwillingness to practice their faith.

Just listed to the holier than thou politicians who profess their deep Christian faith while cutting funding for Medicare or food stamps or housing assistance or any of the other programs that actually help people.

If I hear one more sanctimonious politician saying the destitute, the infirm and the hungry need to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” I may puke.

And why is it churches like the Catholic Church and the Mormons, can amass millions of dollars in wealth and never have to use it or pay taxes on it? Why should any church not spend every dime it has on doing God’s work?

Didn’t Christ say something about helping those who can’t help themselves?

Which is more of a sin: that tax dollars go to help feed the poor and help the sick or that 25% of Oklahoma’s children go to bed hungry and have no health insurance (and with that, no health care)?

Jesus had it right: do good things, help the sick and the poor and the downtrodden; let God judge, you worry about helping your fellow man.

Here’s a challenge to mainstream Christian churches; stop spending so much time talking about how Christ was born and how he died and spend a little more time on how he lived.

After all, life is what this is all about.