They’re watching us, always watching. Christianity, regardless whether it’s Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical or Orthodox, it’s taking a beating lately especially during Covid and especially now with the ongoing findings of unmarked graves of indigenous children under former residentials schools that were run by a partnership between Christians and the government. During Covid, majority of the anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists were self-identified as evangelical Christians. Those who propagated that the vaccines have 5G chips in them or claim that vaccines were the mark of the beast were Christians. Even before Covid, we had anti-SOGI, Anti-LGBTQ, Anti-Abortion, majority of them were self-identified as Christian. I remember one Christian parent wearing a t-shirt that said “Anti-everything!”
So, I ask you, how’s our reputation lately? Would you dare to say that you’re a Christian in your workplace? School? Or even mention you’re a Christian during a job interview? Look, throughout history, the world already carried suspicions and stigma towards Christianity. From Paul’s day till now, the world can’t trust Christians. How can they especially when Christians’ loyalty is to their ultimate KING and LORD, JESUS. But what’s worse was how it’s not so much about our loyalty to Jesus that the world is suspicious, it’s our history of blemishes that preceded it. Some notables: Christians who supported the Nazi regime, Christians who supported the Korean and Vietnam wars, Christians who supported a questionable president for the past 4 years, Christians who stormed the White House ready to murder governing officials.
Oh, if only the world was suspicious of us just for the reason of being loyal to Jesus, that would be great. But that’s not the case now. Instead, they’re suspicious of us because of our blemishes, moral lapses, conflicts among ourselves, scandals, abuse of power, tax evasion, spreading conspiracies and false information and being judgemental to the point of violence towards our fellow human beings. Or even worse, just plain ignorant, complacent and uninvolved with the issues and needs in their communities but rather, just live with an attitude of “not in my backyard.” Evangelism is in trouble if this keeps going. That’s what Paul is addressing at the start of Chapter 12 and he continues with chapter 13 which we will explore today. But first, let’s start with my point today: Our reputation is our evangelism. So what is your reputation? Enjoy!
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