{"id":620,"date":"2011-05-12T06:28:07","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T10:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/activistfaith\/?p=620"},"modified":"2011-05-12T09:48:44","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T13:48:44","slug":"have-we-become-christians-of-convenience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/activistfaith\/2011\/05\/have-we-become-christians-of-convenience.html","title":{"rendered":"Have We Become &#8220;Christians of Convenience&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/activistfaith\/files\/2011\/05\/images.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-621\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/209\/2011\/05\/images-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>&#8220;What amazes me, however, is how disposable Christianity and the Bible  are in this conversation. America, it seems, has become a nation of  Christians of convenience, who trot Jesus out when he suits their  politics and prejudices only to hide him away when he does not.&#8221; &#8211;<em><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/05\/11\/my-take-poll-on-bin-ladens-death-reveals-a-disposable-jesus\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Prothero<\/a>, a Boston University religion scholar <\/em><em>and regular CNN Belief Blog contributor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Prothero makes this comment on the heels of his article regarding surveys recently released on American views of Bin Laden&#8217;s death. His insight is probing, if not disturbing, in the uneasy manner in which people of faith pick and choose when it comes to difficult issues.<\/p>\n<p>In his case, the teaching by Jesus to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you is seen as inconsistent with Christians who celebrate the death of Bin Laden. One can argue both could be true in this case, that a Christian could diligently pray for Bin Laden yet be glad to see the end of a person&#8217;s reign that has caused the death of many. However, the accusation of being Christians of convenience is often more true than not.<\/p>\n<p>Some other recent cases:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Conservative&#8221; Christians who argue major budget cuts should be made to programs that serve the poorest of the poor and save numerous lives so the US economy can bump the unemployment rate down a couple of percentage points.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Conservative&#8221; religious groups in Georgia who argued against the recent state bill called SB200 that strengthens punishment against sex trafficking criminals, arguing instead that many teenage girls &#8220;choose&#8221; to live in prostitution.<\/li>\n<li>Religious leaders who want to increase military participation in Libya and move beyond protection of civilians (Who would Jesus bomb?).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In each of these cases and many others, key teachings of Jesus are neglected by those who claim to be his followers. Jesus gave much attention to efforts to stand for the poor, to protect the rights of women, and to encourage people to live as &#8220;peacemakers,&#8221; even calling such people &#8220;blessed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prothero points out something that has disturbed many of us who follow Jesus&#8211;that his teachings are used only when helpful to another&#8217;s cause.<\/p>\n<p>But those who follow Jesus do not get to pick and choose which parts of his teachings we follow.<\/p>\n<p>Only when we embrace wholehearted surrender to Christ and his ways will we become Christians of impact rather than Christians of convenience.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks, Dr. Prothero, for the reminder.<\/p>\n<p>+++<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dillonburroughs.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>DILLON BURROUGHS<\/strong><\/a> is an author, activist, and   co-founder of Activist Faith. Dillon        served in Haiti following the epic   2010 earthquake and has        investigated modern slavery in the US and   internationally. His books        include\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/search.barnesandnoble.com\/Undefending-Christianity\/Dillon-Burroughs\/e\/9780736937023\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Undefending Christianity<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/search.barnesandnoble.com\/Not-in-My-Town\/Dillon-Burroughs\/e\/9781596693012\/?itm=3\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Not in My Town<\/em><\/a> (with Charles J. Powell), and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Thirst-No-More-OneYear-Devotional\/dp\/1596693126\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1305121836&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Thirst No More<\/em> <\/a> (October). Discover more at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/activistfaith.org\/\">ActivistFaith.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;What amazes me, however, is how disposable Christianity and the Bible are in this conversation. America, it seems, has become a nation of Christians of convenience, who trot Jesus out when he suits their politics and prejudices only to hide him away when he does not.&#8221; &#8211;Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and regular&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,8,12],"tags":[124,123,121,14,122,120],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-social-justice","category-worldview","tag-activitst-faith","tag-christians-of-convenience","tag-cnn-religion-blog","tag-dillon-burroughs","tag-disposable-jesus","tag-stephen-prothero"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Have We Become &quot;Christians of Convenience&quot;? - Activist Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/activistfaith\/2011\/05\/have-we-become-christians-of-convenience.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Have We Become &quot;Christians of Convenience&quot;? - Activist Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;What amazes me, however, is how disposable Christianity and the Bible are in this conversation. America, it seems, has become a nation of Christians of convenience, who trot Jesus out when he suits their politics and prejudices only to hide him away when he does not.&#8221; &#8211;Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and regular&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/activistfaith\/2011\/05\/have-we-become-christians-of-convenience.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Activist Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-12T10:28:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-05-12T13:48:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/activistfaith\/files\/2011\/05\/images-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dillon Burroughs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Have We Become \"Christians of Convenience\"? - Activist Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/activistfaith\/2011\/05\/have-we-become-christians-of-convenience.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Have We Become \"Christians of Convenience\"? - Activist Faith","og_description":"&#8220;What amazes me, however, is how disposable Christianity and the Bible are in this conversation. 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