myopic pilgrim

On Valentine’s Day a group of Christians from out of town held a demonstration on the university campus. It’s reported by the UNR’s newspaper and others who were there that they were generally yelling out condemnation. A lot of people heard them that day; I don’t know how many actually listened.

I know what many of Christians (I mean, the ones who actually live here in town) are thinking. These “evangelists” have undone a lot of what we’ve accomplished on the campus in terms of connecting with those who don’t follow Jesus. We’re going to have to explain that’s not what trusting and following Jesus is all about. And in the explaining we may end up disowning the religious protesters/preachers, but the truth is, they are us.

Are they believers in Jesus Christ? Do they profess Jesus’ deity? Would we break bread with them? If the answer is yes, then they are a part of the Body of Christ. They are as much a part of our family as those who participated in things like the Crusades. It’s no use saying real Christians wouldn’t do or say such-and-such. We all know sincere followers of Christ who have done or continue to do horrible and decidely un-Christ-like things. God knows of the potential of wickedness in my heart.

When I read the New Testament I see lots of descriptions of what the Church (or churches) did, but not a lot of words about what the Church is supposed to be about. The either/or question of the purpose of the Church is: Is the Church for the building up of believers or the reaching out to unbelievers? I guess the short answer is yes. I think most folks would agree that the Church should do both. It should produce better Christians and more Christians, right?

So, is the purpose of the Church to evangelize so that people can place their trust in Christ for the salvation of their souls (more Christians) and in turn become part of the evangelism process themselves while learning to sin less and less?

Can someone help me out here?

I’m at home musing about the purpose of the Church and I get a phone call from Dawson at the Matisyahu concert. He didn’t actually say anything. I think he just held the phone out to the stage so I could hear what I was missing.

By the way, you can pre-order Matisyahu’s next Jewish hip-hop reggae album, Youth on iTunes. And here’s a link to Matisyahu’s discography on iTunes.

This is how all my bouts with forgiving someone and being forgiven should end up. Mandisa forgave Simon on American Idol, invoking the name of Jesus Christ. Simon had called her fat; Mandisa forgave him before he ever thought to apologize. Simon responded by saying, “I’m just so appalling, aren’t I? Pat put the whole thing nicely.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Hasidic Jews I think reggae. Matisyahu is a rapper with reggae flavors who became a practicing Hasidic Jew of the Lubavitch persuasion as a young man. He’s coming to town this month, a friend invited me to go see him. What surprised me was the number of people who seem to know this guy.

The big question is: Is he any good or is he just good for a Hasidic Jew? I think he can do it; he has skills. King Without a Crown is pretty good. His band, however, is what really makes his rhymes take flight.

Matisyahu’s official Sony Music site has samples of five songs off his album Youth and a couple of videos.