You are largely right, Snowguy, and that's unfortunate. We have become too 'comfortable' in our relatively persecution-free American lifestyle. This comfort gives us the tendency to relax and let our guard down and relax our morals. I heard a sermon about a year ago from my cousin that America's blessings have become our cursings. We are so blessed in this nation to be able to worship the way you choose without the government cracking down on raiding your homes or places of worship that we have relaxed our morals and are rejecting large parts of the Word of God and allowing heresy and immorality to infiltrate the church. The church should change the world, but we in America have allowed the world to change the church. It is utterly shameful. We, as American Christians, need to realize that there could very easily come a point that we will no longer be allowed to worship as freely as we once were. In fact, it's already started by some groups saying that if you preach against homosexuality from the pulpit, they want you charged with a hate crime. It is sad, really, really sad.
That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that we've allowed society to influence the church, when we, as the church, should be influencing society. We've watered down the Gospel so much that it has little or none effect. We preach what people want to hear, not what they need to hear. We have let our blessings as a nation make us complacent and comfortable. Freedom of religion is a great thing, don't get me wrong, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about all of our other blessings this country enjoys, mainly the lack of real persecution. Other countries like China where they are still trying to stamp out Christianity brag about how they were beaten for their faith. We water everything down here in the Bible Belt. We choose where we worship based on the style of music or the style of preaching or the ethnicity and social makeup of the congregation, whether the church lets out on time for lunch or not. We take complete chunks out of the Bible to make it fit what we want to believe, not forcing our beliefs to fit the Bible. It's not that way in all of America. For example, 8 years ago I went on a mission trip to Vermont and the churches up there, of course are few and far between, but they are strong, committed, genuine and authentic Christians. They're not watered down like the Bible Belt is. Down here, we have a church pretty much on every corner. Up there, they don't. Wicca is a huge part of the culture in Vermont and Massachusetts. Christians are really a minority in New England, as well as in the Pacific Northwest. At the time, I believe only 10% of Vermont residents even claimed Christianity. In Oklahoma, it's probably 10% of our residents don't claim Christianity. The difference is Christianity is much more authentic and genuine in Vermont than it is in Oklahoma or Texas. As much as it pains me to put my state second in a race.
