Religion in America Pt 2 (Luke 16:19-31)
Gary McManus, 03/26/2023Part of the Life With Jesus is Better series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
Religion in America, Part 2
We began last time looking at Religion in America.
See The Fetzer Study of Spirituality in the United States, 2020
[https://spiritualitystudy.fetzer.org/blog/spirituality-america-today]
The Fetzer study show
--claiming to be spiritual or simply religious does
not automatically mean that you participate more
in spiritual or religious activities.
--when we are left to ourselves on deciding, we participate LESS in spiritual or religious practices!
Maybe it’s like dieting? We want to claim to, but we don’t diet.
Even those who claim a denomination, we, on average attend worship services less than earlier generations of Americans.
Pastor apologizes. He misspoke last week.
There is a group that believes in religious/Bible violence: the Christian Identity movement. Christian Identity provides religious justification for violence and domestic terrorism.
Along with the people who claim to be spiritual or religious or even Biblical. . .mixed with hatred and violence, we add some other groups you have heard about.
--David Koresh, the head of the Branch Davidians,
Seventh Day Adventists, Waco, Texas, 1993.
When fire broke out 79 people died.
--Rev. Jim Jones, founder and leader of the People’s
Temple (Indianapolis, a Christian Church)
The church moved to California and then to Guyana,
South America. On November 18, 1978, Jones ordered a mass suicide, 918 people died, including 276 children. There were as many as 80 people who escaped.
Some chose to live. Jesus told the disciples, John 10:10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
--Marshal Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate group, San Diego,
California, 1997. On March 27, 1997, Applewhite organized the largest mass suicide in the U.S., 39 suicides in all. Some of Applewhite’s final words in a video message: ”We do in all honesty hate this world.”
Jesus came to this world out of love for you and me.
Jesus came out of love for his Father’s world to redeem it. [See Isaiah 48:17, Titus 2:14]. . .to redeem it. . .not forsake it.
We can know this through God’s Word, the Bible.
Jesus said that others would come claiming authority. Jesus was concerned that his own followers might be led astray. (See Mark 13:22-23). The choice is ours.
--Cornell University, not Duke University?
Americans make many choices every day.
We have looked at people who chose to hate and murder. One man wanted to become a Buddhist monk—he didn’t get there, apparently.
We have the freedom to choose, but we aren’t good at making best decisions for ourselves.
In the Christian Church tradition, unity is only desired in essentials with regard to faith. In liberty and charity, we decide. Someone does not decide for us, but Jesus.
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty;
in all things, charity,” . .
You and they have God’s Word, let them hear them. Amen
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