There are any number of ways the subject might crop up, but crop up it will: ‘Religion causes all wars… ’; ‘Christians are hypocrites… ’; What about the Crusades / the Inquisition / conquistadors… ?’; ‘Those Christians really hurt me… ’.
These are different kinds of statements and, as we’ll see, they should be addressed differently – especially that last one. But there’s one thing they all accomplish: they tempt the Christian to dissociate from church.
In reply to these statements we reach instinctively for the quick response we discussed last month: ‘Forget the church, look to Jesus.’ That kind of response might give us short-term respite, but long-term this cannot be our strategy. Head and body will not be so easily divorced. Given the way Jesus has united Himself to the church – and united His mission to the church – we ought not to be offering people a ‘disembodied Jesus’.
