Walking the walk

While Time Magazine lionizes a group of Christian evangelical leaders, Christianity Today asks what I think is a more pertinent question: to what extent are such leaders — and their followers — ‘walking the walk’ of Christianity with any integrity? The polls that CT points to include some by Gallop and some by Barna, both of whom are held in great respect:

To say there is a crisis of disobedience in the evangelical world today is to dangerously understate the problem. Born-again Christians divorce at about the same rate as everyone else. Self-centered materialism is seducing evangelicals and rapidly destroying our earlier, slightly more generous giving. Only 6 percent of born-again Christians tithe. Born-again Christians justify and engage in sexual promiscuity (both premarital sex and adultery) at astonishing rates. Racism and perhaps physical abuse of wives seems to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere. This is scandalous behavior for people who claim to be born-again by the Holy Spirit and to enjoy the very presence of the Risen Lord in their lives.

It is not only evangelicals who ought to be asking this question. All of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ need to be searching our actions to see if we are indeed living what we believe.