i thought you might be interested in seeing this: http://jaesonma.com/. jaeson is a pastor friend of mine, but he's doing something called "365 days of love" — each day he tweets / writes about an experience of loving someone that God has put in his path. it's been a tangible picture of the church being the church, following the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and loving people. this is the loudest kind of PR we can do — not the kind that is done in interviews, but is prefaced by tangible action.

2) I think the cultural understanding of Christians "acting justly, loving mercy, and living out a reflection of Christ" may have been a short-lived one…like maybe a couple years. Because if you were in Corinth, Christians also would have been known for being arrogant, divisive, judgmental…(and that's just the first 4 chapters!!)…sound familiar?

The extravagant grace of our Savior is so scandalous that the Pat Robertsons and Westboro Baptist preachers of this world are given the same title as me: "sinner", and offered the same gift: "Not guilty".

How insane is that, brother??!!! These videos hold up a mirror for me. They bring my own sin and judgment to the forefront of my mind. To be honest, I think Jesus could do with much better PR than I offer him…but he still calls me his ambassador. May He get glory even though I am just a jar of clay.

Great post. I share your anger (and I believe it to be righteous:) I don't know of something more damaging then when people's actions bring dis-honer to the gospel, to the glory of Christ and to the name Christian.

However, I would add something to the conversation…

There are many ways to dis-honer Christ, we have seen the despicable ways of the Baptist church in their hatred and lack of understanding the whole counsel of Scripture…namely a overemphasis on the wrath of God. Of course I agree that God is a God of justice and wrath BUT he also has provided a way for the wrath to be removed and he does so by sharing his love with us in the person and sacrifice of Jesus.

Pat Robertson has the potential to dis-honer God by making "stupid" statements that seem to revolve around all crisis situations…he is so politically minded that he might not do any "heavenly" or "Kingdom" good.

But Adam's post disturbed me a bit as well. I of course agree with his words on the world will know us by our love for one another. And I may be misunderstanding him (if I have please forgive me in advance Adam) or he may have worded it the way he did to put emphasis on the subject at hand. I guess the issue I take is that Jesus and Scripture does call Christians to a life of purity and it is tied into our love for God. Jesus was clear that if we love him we would keep his commands. Part of living a life of love is by being pure.

We all have tendencies to run to the opposite extreme when reacting to something. And I just want to pull back and add that James 1:27 says that True religion before God is both taking care of the oppressed and keeping ourselves unstained from the world. Its both a call to represent Christ by caring and loving for the needy and by living a life of holiness. C.H Spurgeon once said that "The two garments of Christianity is Charity and Purity."

Like Beth said, we must be speak our truth in love, and we must be like Jesus who was full of Truth and Grace.

An impure life can do just as much damage to the glory of Christ as an unloving life…the world will see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven, and our good works include both social justice matters as well as purity and holiness.

sam

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I can't even start to understand Pat Robertson at times, but I do have to say that I worked with Operation Blessing, which he is in charge of, for about two and a half months in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina and they did and are still doing some great work down there. They were one of the first organizations to respond immediately following the hurricane and their full-time staff exhibited the love of Christ to the residents and other volunteers in a way that I wish Pat Robertson would on a regular basis.