Contemporary Christianity

This is more of a thought rant post...but then again, what post isn't. So there's this adorable church in Athens that always has a fantastic pumpkin patch every year. Personally, I don't know anyone who attends that church (at least that I know of, but you never know being in a sorority with 130 Christian women), but I have nothing to base this off of other than the sign that's at the front of their church. For the longest time this summer and early fall it read "Contemporary Christianity in the Classic City" (for those of you that don't know, Athens is called the "Classic City"). So I'm sure what they meant by this had more to do with contemporary music, but it brought a thought to my mind every time I drove past it...

What exactly is "contemporary" Christianity? 

With Christmas just around the corner, we know that Christianity has been around for awhile, so what does it mean to be "contemporary"? I think of contemporary dance which is kind of like a cross between ballet, lyrical, and jazz. If the Bible is God's Holy Word, then how can we live according to the Bible and be contemporary? Then it kind of hit me: We live as contemporary Christians each and every time we justify our sins. 

We live in a fallen world. It's the truth. And our world screams of sin- just turn on the TV or radio or walk into a bookstore- the temptation of sin is everywhere. Because of this, it is so easy to justify the sins that we commit. "I can vote and die for my country at 18 so it's ok for me to drink even though it's illegal." "The Bible was written thousands of years ago- they just didn't know how hard it is to abstain from sex, so it's OK if I do it." "Everyone on TV tears each other down and they're famous and make a lot of money, so it's OK for me to do that, too." "My parents are just so old they have no idea what they're talking about, so I'll snap and be rude and that's OK." And the list goes on and on and on... 

Please hear me out- I have made many of these justifications for my behavior in my life and the sins I commit. It took falling into my deep pit of depression for me to realize just how much I justified my behavior, and I catch myself doing it every day. I think it's when we stop realizing how many justifications that we make that we fall into this trap of "contemporary."

To me, contemporary means current, or up-to-date. We, as Christians, were meant to live lives above reproach. In a world full of justifications, it's up to us to make sure we don't become contemporary. To say that people in the time the Bible was written didn't have temptations is ridiculous. I think it was just last year when I was sitting in an SAO Bible study when one of my sisters brought up the fact that Jesus was a young man- I'm sure he definitely struggled with living above reproach when women approached him. Jesus is the ideal because he resisted the temptations. He went to his Father, first and foremost. He wasn't immune to sin, he just refused to succumb to it. And if we're meant to be Christ-like in how we live our lives every day, we, too, should go to the Father when we are tempted. When we find ourselves justifying our actions (which we undoubtedly will), we ask for forgiveness. The glory? He forgives us tenfold, and then our sins are as far as the east is from the west. 

All I know is that I want to be anything but contemporary.

For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity. - Proverbs 24:16

Smile, God loves you!