I was reading several new articles recently that focused on religion in general and Christianity in specifics.  I wanted to share several quotes from the article.  The first one is one young adult’s view of religion.  It hurts to read it because I wonder if the church really puts out this message or is just that we have been poor about making sure people get what we are sharing.  Is it really the Good News if it is perceived like this:

Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do… And the man has a list of ten things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place of torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.

If that one is painful, the next one is excrutiating: 

God hates everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus.  If you don’t believe in Jesus, you are going to hell because God says so.  God hates gays and Muslims.  In many ways, God is like my dad who hates gays and Muslims too.  I wonder if God is an asshole like my Dad.

I am sure there will be people who are offended by the quotes and I say good.  I was offended by the quotes but I was caught by their raw honesty. As members of the Church, we need to do a better job of sharing the Good News and reaching people.  Jesus loved everyone who was not self-righteous.  Look at scripture – Jesus loved the sinners, the tax collectors, the low, the poor, the marginalized, and everyone who was weak.  He didn’t hate anyone and he even tried to reach out to the self-righteous. 

The quotes above tell me the church is failing to follow Jesus.  We have lost the message of the Good News if people see us as those two people do.