Today I saw something that I thought was kind of disturbing. There was a tract that someone left on a table for a server along with a very small tip.I admit I didn't actually read it , I found it to be so offensive that I wouldn't have read it , ever.
This particular tract was printed to look like a wallet with a $100 bill sticking out of the top. I don't mean that it had a picture of a wallet , it was basically a photo, printed on a wallet shaped piece of paper,obviously meant to deceive someone.
I just looked at it and said,"Why?" . What are we trying to prove with that?
Are we showing how cleaver and conniving we can be? That we are just as cunning as the rest of the world? Why would anyone think they would get a positive response for this kind of tactic?
I often feel as if I am being judged by "good christians" who don't work on Sunday because, well you know it's church day.
I freely admit that I haven't been attending a church for a little while now. I am not making any excuses for that. I really would like to get back into a church and I have plans with my wife and kids to try out a few churches that are in the area. The smallest child had a fever this morning so we put off our plans to visit a local church today. I really think though, if any church is teaching members to leave tracts everywhere, be condescending and presumptuous about what spiritual state the people who are bringing them food are in , I don't think I can be a part of that.
Thanks to Sarah for getting me going on this .
I hope that we can move past this commercialization of the Gospel . People don't need to be tricked into saying some prayer that will likely do nothing as far as making their lives better. It seems to me that often times that we remove God, with our actions and our words .
Peace
2 comments:
I recieved one of these at work, once, in lieu of a tip.I was actually pretty hurt, and wanted to follow the person out and let them know that I attend church, sort of "justify" my existence to her, and I took it to be part of the"if you are right with God, you will have no financial problems(pour out a big financial blessing on me right now, the pastor said, often) and hence you must be waitressing because you don't know God.Why stop with wallets, why not drive through impoverished neighborhoods tossing out fake bags of crack with little tracts inside? They mean well, they are missing the point of love thy neighbor as thyself, I think.Were they tricked into picking up a bible? Berated with eternal damnation warnings? Do they stop to think about whether their actions are hurting someone, or insulting their intelligence, or driving them further away from religious people? The way you would carefully choose how you spoke about this topic to someone you love, someone who matters to you? Someone you consider your equal? Right on, man.
Why do people who do these things always assume nobody else around them has ever heard of Christianity? That's a puzzler for me. Living in the Bible Belt I see as many gospel tracts as anybody and most take the approach of starting from scratch as though everybody around here has reached adulthood with their heads stuck in a hole somewhere.
On another note of agreement,I also find the magic prayer objectionable.
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