Saturday, March 11, 2006
buy a soul for $504
I was reading AngryAsianMan and I saw this interesting article. Basically, an Indian American grad student named Hemant Mehta (studying to be a teacher!) who's an atheist auctioned his soul off on eBay, promising that for every $10 of the winning bid, he'd spend an hour at a church service. It set off a frenzy of bidding, and when it was all said and done, the winning bidder was Jim Henderson, who runs OffTheMap.org, a progressive Christian website dedicated to reforming how many Christians currently "do evangelism" (ambushing non-Christians, full frontal Bible verse attack, guilt trip, etc.) Anyways, Henderson came up with an unusual proposal: instead of the 50 hours of church service his bid won, he wants Mehta to attend 10-15 different church services and write a critique of them from an atheist viewpoint on Henderson's website. An excerpt from the WallStreet Journal article:
... While I'm sure many Christians are uncomfortable or even offended by the idea of an "outsider" (an atheist, oh no!) critiquing the Church (I use the term to describe the universal institution), I think it's still an interesting premise. So much of the modern Christian Church, especially here in America, has lost track of its purpose and its calling to be a place where the less fortunate and rejected are cared for, a place where those who are hurting emotionally and spiritually are comforted, and most of all, a place where people can find a community based in hope and love. As my friend David is so fond of writing, the Christian Church in America has become an entity more concerned with "majoring on the minors" rather than the difficult tasks of contextualizing the Gospel message, fighting injustice, and ministering to those in need. Maybe having an atheist sharing his perspectives about the bizarre hypocrises and misplaced priorities exist in the Church is just the sort of "head(and heart)-check" the Church needs these days. |
Comments:
Post a Comment
|
in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
the facts.
|