{"id":4371,"date":"2010-05-04T10:26:22","date_gmt":"2010-05-04T10:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/05\/what-bill-maher-doesnt-understand-about-christian-love.html"},"modified":"2010-05-04T10:26:22","modified_gmt":"2010-05-04T10:26:22","slug":"what-bill-maher-doesnt-understand-about-christian-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/05\/what-bill-maher-doesnt-understand-about-christian-love.html","title":{"rendered":"What Bill Maher doesn’t understand about Christian love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, there’s a lot he doesn’t get.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
And Tony Rossi points out a couple examples in this week’s National Catholic Register<\/a>, and concludes: <\/p>\n

\nOf course, it’s true that some who call themselves Christian do reprehensible things and express no remorse. As Jesus proclaimed, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father.”<\/p>\n

And all of us sin (see Romans 3:23). It should be clear, though, that while individual Christians often fall short of the ideal, the Christian faith has it exactly right. In Christianity, as in a court of law, intent matters. “I’m going to do something for you because I want something from you” doesn’t cut it.<\/p>\n

God can read our hearts. He is not, as someone put it, a vending machine in which we can put in a dollar and get a favor. He calls us to a sincere conversion and surrender to his will motivated by love, not eternal self-preservation.<\/p>\n

Why can’t the Bill Mahers of the world see that?<\/p>\n

In his book “No One Sees God,” Michael Novak recalls viewing an Italian fresco of an elephant represented as a heavy horse with floppy ears and a long nose. The painter had obviously never seen an elephant. He relied on someone else’s description of one.<\/p>\n

It seems the same can be said of Bill Maher. He promotes stereotypes of Christians because, evidently, he doesn’t much associate with real, flesh-and-blood Christians. Whatever his priorities, he can surely use our prayers that, one day, he will get to know some Christians of the caliber I encounter all the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest right here. <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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