This past summer, a group of Antifa protestors took a break from anarchy to play soccer. When they grew tired of the frivolity of using a Bible as a ball, their shredded substitute was dropped into an available port-a-john.

It would be my suggestion that though Christians may take great offense at this mockery, these kinds of misguided actions represent a far greater danger to the participants than to Christianity.

It is from within, not without, that we who are believers face our deeper challenge.

Who’s leading the way —

The vulnerability of today’s Christians trace to a simple equation: There are two kinds of churches – those guided by personalities and those guided by values.

Defining the latter is easy. A value-led church operates with a consistent awareness of the importance of being sincere in word and deed to God’s stated word.

Churches that rely on the Bible for guidance above other competing considerations have a resilience, strength, and impact that can withstand the most relentless of attacks.

Churches defined by personalities die.

That death may come at the hand of controlling, malicious, selfish, angry, avoidant, passive, manipulative, and otherwise negative personalities.

It can just as surely come from exceptional, pleasant, talented, and super-dedicated personalities that fail to plan for their inevitable departure through death, natural transitions, or unanticipated fall from grace. Man is perishable and a church built on a man is too.

How to tell the difference —

A church of values worships God and perseveres by clinging to the word of God.

A church of personalities stumbles in worship and shrinks by clinging to the demands of its more powerful influencers.

A church of values can continually refresh itself with faith, hope, and love.

A church of personalities strangles itself with darkness, conflict, and selfishness.

Turn-a-round is possible —

Repair takes enough assertion by enough people to reaffirm that church’s dedication to embracing God’s will – not the will of individuals – in the day-to-day workings of the church.

Over time, that dedication will silence the downgrading sways of the misguided through the uplifting guidance of God.

It’s a mission of crucial importance.

Far too many of our community’s churches have become little more than accommodating Christian country clubs indulging the dominating personalities of membership, self-serving ministers, and corrupted leadership.

To the extent that churches create a bridge of hope, fellowship and direction to God, that’s not a good thing.

A dead give-a-way —

Don’t look now America, but we live in a country that was clearly founded on Judeo-Christian values.

Our interest in education for all children, our legal system, our Constitution, our belief in liberty and equal rights, and even most of our first names track back directly to those values.

The pretense that our Founding Fathers were not operating out of a Christian moral code is political mythology grounded in the agenda of dividing our nation versus bringing us together as the Founders intended.

If you need proof that we were designed on a Christian foundation, look no further than our commitment to freedom of religion. Christians – real ones – understand the difference in freedom of religion and freedom from religion, and are not threatened by other faiths. That’s why America’s doors have always been open to people who worship in differing fashion.

Any religious or man-made movement that seeks to extinguish its competition is operating out of agendas that have little to do with God’s summary commandment that we love our neighbor as ourself.

Isn’t it ironic that is precisely the mission of today’s religion of wokeness?

Hot or cold —

Far too many of today’s churches have the passion and sincerity of a bucket of spit. That mediocrity can be traced to the rewards of keeping church members ‘warm’ by avoiding scripture, commandments, and controversy that might create discomfort.

The result is a community of churches struggling to survive per their failure to stand for something that enlightens, inspires, and uplifts. Warm gets real boring real fast.

If one’s church is defined by in-fighting, stagnancy, entertainment, personality worship, and/or a selective application of the scripture, give thought to the repercussions.