Christianity is not about being 'nice'

It is early yet, but I felt this post, by Robert Arvay, at the American Thinker deserved to be highlighted. You can find it at Christianity is not a 'nice' religion. Indeed, I have just finished reading Matthew chapter 5 and 6, which are entirely the words of Jesus. That was our daily reading for today. You should check them out yourself in the King James version. Jesus was not a pacifists, and many things He preached are hard in practice. Jesus could be insulting as well, calling people hypocrits and vipers. I wonder what kind of 'X' posts he would make today?

I heard a disturbing statistic today. Roughly one third of Christian pastors — clergy of various faiths, I assume — have a Christian worldview. Even one half would be shockingly low.

Listening to the sermons of many pastors, one walks away with the sense that one has heard a generic lecture, one that could just as easily have been given by a secular speaker, on the importance of being a “good” person. Christians should of course be nice whenever possible, but Christianity is not about becoming a nice person. Definitely not. Many churchgoers disagree with that.

In a retirement village I frequented, there were retired Catholic priests and nuns. I overheard an elderly nun, conversing with a priest, and she was respectfully reading him the riot act. She told him, not in these exact words, I’ve known you a long time, and I’ve never heard you say anything about God, Jesus, or the Bible. Do you even believe in those things? To my mind, she was the real Christian.

Christianity is about the painful, tortuous, death on a cross and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God. What that means is that He has opened up Heaven to us sinful mortals. But it requires us to believe and be baptized. Baptism puts Christ's seal on us. Being forgiven, you will naturally want to live as Christ has told us. But that requires reading the Old and New Testament to find out what He has said through Moses and the prophets.

Of course, in today's world Jesus would recognize the old tempter that is behind the efforts of Hamas to murder Israelis today and is behind the antisemitism being expressed today.  Jesus hated what his Father hated, and the Bible makes clear that God hates the devil.  Because God is merciful, he has placed the people who reject Him as far as they can be from the light that comes from His face.  The same lignt that warms those who love Him burns those that hate Him.  That is what hell is.

No, Christianity is not about being nice. Far from it.