Response to "This guy is a kook!"

I recently received a response to Matt Chandler's video which I posted here. Below is the comment I received and after that is my response:

Anonymous Comment:

This guy is a kook! the real reason is... some of us ask why, what, where, who, and prove it. then we get some x convict/ criminal/ gangster/ bad man/ (you fill in the blank) trying to give there version of what they feel the truth is to promote there chosen propaganda, then these self proclaimed "sinners" or "men of god" feel they have the authority to tell you how you should live your life even though you walk a straighter path than they do. They are good because A book told them to be, or because they fear something. Some of us dont need a book to tell us how to be a good human, and some of us dont fear the after life. You should not act in fear, you should act in a way that you know is good because it is the right thing to do and it makes you feel good.

In short, we are all in our own journey for the truth, some of us dont believe we can go somewhere to learn this truth ( like church) although this works for some. We dont choose when our journey begins or often know that it has, and some may never have a journey. and we never know where it may lead us. This is why i left the church, i asked allot of questions with no answers, and the folks that were feeding me the information were not credible in my eyes.

Most of all.... because we dont want to hang out with kooks like that guy!

My Response:

The first thing I want to say to the person who posted this comment is that I apologize on behalf of Christians for the lack of engagement and apparent lack of effort put into answering all of your questions about Christianity. Doubt and inquiry are an essential part of maturing faith so I commend you for asking questions. I sincerely hope you will forgive the people who did the wrong thing by not taking the time to talk through those issues with you. I would love to sit down and talk with you about any questions you may have. I can be sure I won’t have all the answers as I don’t know much but I can promise you I will work through questions with you. If you would like to do this you can email me at rlg024@gmail.com and we can set something up.

Secondly, this posting was not meant to say that this is the only reason that people become “de-churched”, but was intended to offer one explanation for how this happens. So when you say “the real reason (people become de-churched) is….” I would completely agree with you that yours is a valid reason for wanting to leave the church body.

Thirdly, you write a lot about the nature of people. Most of the time you are referring to yourself being “a good human” or “walking a straight path.” I would say that how you define a “good human” is completely subjective, as is everyone else’s opinion, mine included. That is why it is necessary to have an absolute standard of what “good” is. Scripture tells us that “No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18). So with God as our standard for good it is important to see that in comparison, none of us is good. Nobody walks a “straight path”, we are by nature rebellious people. Let me stress this: Christians are no better than non-Christians in terms of how “good” we are or how straight a path we walk. Many Christians act as if they are better or more holy than non-Christians which is unfortunate and a misrepresentation of the Gospel. One of the most basic truths of the Bible is that we are all bad people, Christians included, and it is only by Jesus that God does not look at our evil but instead counts Jesus’ perfect life and righteousness as ours.

Fourth, you write about leaders in the church “giving their version of what they feel the truth is to promote their chosen propaganda, then…they feel they have the authority to tell you how you should live your life…” If this is representative of what you have seen in church you have fallen under misguided, uninformed, and likely non-Christian leadership. A pastor, or any Christian for that matter, understands that there are no personal “versions of the truth”. There is one truth, which is communicated in the Bible. Leaders, also, should never “promote their chosen propaganda” but instead faithfully teach the entire message of the Gospel, not just the parts they like. Leaders also understand that in them there is absolutely no authority, but that absolute authority lies in the Bible itself. Man’s words carry no weight if they are contrary to the words of Scripture.

Fifth and possibly the most alarming statement that I read was that you believe that people should do things because “it makes you feel good.” This is called hedonism and is dangerous. As I stated earlier, we are by nature bad people prone to do rebellious things and enjoy doing them. You cannot tell the child molester that it is okay to rape a child because “it makes you feel good.” You cannot tell the Hutu that the murder of one million Tutsi in Rwanda is okay because it “made them feel good.”

Lastly I would like to present you with a very brief description of the Gospel presented in the Bible: Jesus, the son of God, lived the life we should live and died the death we should have died to give us the forgiveness we all need.