Irrelevant Christians and the Real Relationship

Atheist Michael Martin tries to convince people to reject Christianity by asking, “Who wants to be like them?” (Christians). To him, following Christ means being “punitive, unforgiving, violent, mean-spirited, hypocritical and inconsistent; and... we would tacitly approve of slavery, forsake reason, and have no opinions on the central issues of the day”.
Even Christians can agree with some of those claims. One Christian leader pointed out, “Christians are largely irrelevant… if there’s a life-changing message to present, we’ll make it boring and put it in a context you’re not involved in.”

Okay, hang on a minute. What’s going on? Jesus claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so how is it that those people who are supposed to be following his example are presenting a boring, irrelevant, hypocritical message? Has the Bread of Life gone stale?
If you look back a few hundred years, Christianity had it all. We were leaders of the scientific world, the art world, the music world, the theological world… And now we are seen as ‘largely irrelevant’ even by our own admission! What happened?

Leonard Sweet, in his book Out of the Question… Into the Mystery (also the source of the above quotes) claims the problem is that we have lost Jesus as the centre of our lives, and our religion. He argues: “Sometimes it seems as if the Buddha has more authority for Buddhists than Jesus has for Christians… The first Christians didn’t proclaim a creed or a statement of faith; they proclaimed the Resurrection... They proclaimed Jesus. Faith is not vested in creeds, or invested in institutions, but vetted in relationships.”

That means that the mark or a true Christian isn’t the amount of preaching they do, its not the number of church related events they attend during the week, and its not how good a life they lead - it’s how much time they spend on their relationship with God. Sure, all those other things are good, but doing things for God is not the same as spending time with God.

Any human relationship is the same. If a man feels like he is neglecting his wife, and wants to spend time with her, he can do everything for her if he chooses - he can mow the lawns, make the dinner, work hard so he can save money and buy her the best presents in the world - but if he doesn’t actually sit down and spend time with her, talk with her, listen to her, then all the rest is in vain, and won’t help the relationship at all! In fact, during the time he is working so hard to do everything for her, he would be drifting further and further from her, actually hurting their relationship by working so hard for her.

It’s the same with us and God. We can work all day, every day for Him, and yet end up not in as good a relationship with Him as if we had just sat and spent some time listening to Him, or reading His Word.
And, if we did spend more time around Him, He would have more room to work in our lives. Again, human relationships reflect this. If you hang around with a bunch of drug-smoking hippie-wannabes all day, every day, then you are going to start taking on a few of their more charming personalities traits: you’ll start looking like them, talking like them, perhaps even smelling like them, and probably acting like them!

So, if you want to be a good reflection of God, if you want to look like Him, talk like Him, smell like Him and act like Him, then spend time with Him, and He will be reflected in your life! If we were all reflecting God, then there would be a change in the way people see us. Simple arguments such as “Who wants to be like them?” would no longer have the same effect. Instead, like in the 1st century church, we would live in such a way that “those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.” (Titus 2:8)

If Christians are seen as hypocrites, the answer isn’t by trying to do good, we can never manage to consistently do good on our own. The answer is spending time with God. If you do, he can shine through you.