Church In The New Melenium Essay, Research Paper
Church in the New Millenium
Martin Luther King Jr. warned in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail that the church would “loose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century”. Never have Kings words rang more true than in the past few decades. No human that is not totally oblivious to his or her surroundings can dispute the fact that church has become overly lax in its practices and has lost much of its true meaning. In this essay I intend to examine a few of the fundamental shortcomings of the modern-day church and try to provide insight into why the church has fallen into a downward spiral.
I have no affiliation with any church, nor do I have an affiliation with mainstream religion. I feel that this lets me have an objective view, that few if any inside the church can achieve. I will start out with a few of my personal problems with the church and try to examine the fundamental flaws that have been the root of the downward spiral that the church is plagued with now.
The first instance that filled me with disgust was a July 4 wedding at a local church, which involved three ministers. This wedding was not only out of wedlock but both individuals had been married before and had children. Am I the only one that smells the fowl odor of hypocrisy? How can it be that a man and a woman who have shown utter disrespect for the laws set forth in the bible be joined in holy matramony in the presence of three pastors and in a holy place? The answer to this question is very simple and straightforward, money. The pastors did not care who the people were or what they had done, they only cared about the size of their wallets. Had this man and woman been dirt poor I venture to say that the church would have counsled them to seek a legal wedding performed by a magistrate. Does this not show Kings warnings being fulfilled?
The second instance that I would like to point out was when I attended a local church on Sunday morning a few weeks ago. The atmosphere was quite different that I had imagined it. Some of the congregation was dressed in blue jeans and flannel shirts others dressed slightly more apropiately in more traditional kaki pants and a dress shirt usually without a tie. But what struck me the most was a few girls in the congregation wearing skirts that probably wouldn’t have passed the dress code at PHS. Maybe I am living in the stone age, maybe I need to get up to speed with the new times but it seems to me that God deserves more respect than blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Many of the people that wear such attire to church will argue that you are not judged by what you wear to church but by your sincere feelings toward God and Jesus. I say hold on time for a reality check. When I go to a funeral or the viewing of a dead person I see some of the same people wearing their best clothes. They will claim that by wearing their best clothes they are showing respect to the dead person and his or her family. So by saying this they have spat in the face of God and basically told him that the dead person and his or her family is more important than the most powerful being in the universe. What is the cause of this utter disrespect for God? Well simply it is lack of dedication. The people that wear good clothes to a funeral are much more concerened with the earthy consequences of wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt to a friends funeral than they are pleasing God by showing him the respect that he deserves. This is because they have to see their friends every day and associate with them in the community, but they only have to see God on Sunday morning.
I feel that I have fallen into the genre of young people that King talks about when he says. “Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.” Maybe this is why I choose not to affilate my self with any church while keeping a distance from mainstream religion.