Disclaimer: this post comes on the heels of me finding out that NBC has cancelled its show "The Book of Daniel," which I thouroghly enjoyed watching and will be submiting a letter to the American Family Association for its petitioning of the show "mocking Christianity." Maybe "Daniel" was what the church so desperately needed. A chance for the world to see that Christians are not perfect yet we strive to live by faith and to seek and follow Christ always. The cancellation only goes to show how much we (or better said the AFA and Christian Right) are willing to hide our own hypocrisy... our own sin.
So in light of all of this, it is time to have a State of the Church Address and I can think of no one better than Thomas Merton who said it best in 1956:
“The great tragedy of our age, dare I say it, is the fact that there are so many godless Christians, whose religion is a matter of pure conformity and expediency. Their faith is little more than a permanent evasion of reality... We have had far too much priesthood and almost no room for prophets. It creates a very imbalanced religion. We do not give up control to God easily. That is the story and testimony of every saint, mystic, and spiritual reformer. But the church, strange as it seems, has always been a bit uncomfortable with saints and mystics; it is content just to have people in the pews. If our culture has become soft and superficial, it is because religion did first.”
[From Merton's book "The Living Bread"]
