The Christian Paradox

I ran across this article from the August issue of Harper's. The author is discussing the fact that America considers itself a 'Christian' nation, but acts on the contrary. We have a higher murder rate than any European country and a divorce rate over 50%. As the world's richest country, we give only 15 cents per capita daily to poverty causes. We remain the only western country with capital punishment; ironically performing this act in our most religious states. To top it all off, we are at war in the Middle East and on bad terms with most every Muslim country, North Korea, China, France, Venezuela, Cuba and every other country that can provoke a third world war.

It seems that our every action is contrary to our biblical beliefs. Given, only 33% of 'Christians' in the U.S. actually go to church and even less of those practice Christianity according to the Bible. Still, as the world's richest economy and most powerful government, we should be doing so much more in the area of giving, protecting, peacemaking and cease these nationwide acts of selfishness, greed, hate, murder, idolatry, adultery and every other sin under the sun.

With all of that said, it is so easy to blame our government for bad leadership and decisions, we can accuse the church of corruption and we can point at divisions among our society. However, I believe that these Christian actions have to begin with the individual. We should actively give more instead of waiting for the government to take it from us. We can support causes for AIDS, poverty, hunger with our own hands. And these problems don't exist solely overseas. Almost everyone in this country is within a 30 minute drive from an impoverished community where there is hunger, homelessness and disease. We must act as individuals, churches and communities. We can't wait for our country to do the work we expect. We must act ourselves or else it will never happen and these atrocious acts of this 'Christian' nation will continue to contradict the Love of God.