Where did the idea originate that Christianity is all about being “nice”? It is an irrational progression from Jesus, whose very arrival on Earth threatened to overturn everything: the Roman Empire, the Jewish religious powers, and most significantly, the lives of every human on earth.
Essayist Annie Dillard noted the dissonance between “American Christianity” and that of its Founder, describing contemporary Christians as “cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute.” She said. “Does anybody have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just about comforting the afflicted; it is also about afflicting the comfortable. Being Christian is not just about being nice.
(Commentary:) Jesus was a revolutionary, who didn’t come to bring “niceness” and peace (Matthew 10:34–36), but rebirth and revolution—and He made available the full power of God so that His disciples could do the same!
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” [Matthew 10:34-36]
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