The early church had the luxury of not having an ugly legacy to undo. People were able to hear what they had to say without suspicion based on what other Christians had done in the past. But we don’t have that luxury. We stand at the end of 2,000 years of a history in which Christians did some wonderful things, but those years have also been filled with wildly un-Christlike behavior done by people who called themselves Christians. So-called Christians have burned people at the stake, drowned people for wanting to be baptized by immersion, sent armies on crusades to liberate the “holy land,” killing women & children and even Christians who didn’t look like them. So-called Christians put millions of defenseless people in slavery and sold their children to strangers. They celebrated Easter by driving Jews out of their villages and cities. They annihilated six million of them in the holocaust. They deliberately forced a nation of people to become addicted to heroin so they could sell them drugs. They broke promise after promise to native people, and slaughtered them and seized land that they had sworn was theirs forever… etc. etc.

I mention some of these horrible things not to stir up collective guilt, but to put our task in perspective. No, most of those weren’t real Christians, but they were the fruit of Christian cultures. They often went to church… a lot, and “yes” those churches failed miserably to disciple them. But the problem is, the world doesn’t know the difference between a so-called Christian and a real one, and to be honest, neither do we at times. How often have we been shocked to discover someone was just playing a game?

So, here we are today, trying to proclaim New Testament Christianity to a world that has watched “Christians” closely for 2,000 years. And if all we have to offer them is more of the same, they will continue to look for help elsewhere. They must see people who shatter the stereotype, who live differently, who act differently, who treat them differently… for a long enough period of time to prove it’s not just one more marketing attempt. We, as a church, but also we as individuals, have to live in such a way that people will be able to discern the difference between nominal and genuine Christianity. Words will mean very little in this process. People don’t believe our words anymore. It’s time to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:16).