Making Christianity Look Good

Message / Question

Someone asked a question about Christian politicians, can people make Christianity "look bad", and should they care? Do we have a responsibility to make Christianity look good?

Response

The answer to your question depends on what you mean by making Christianity “look good”. I think Christianity looks very good if it is lived by individuals as true disciples of Jesus – with means not only receiving salvation by faith, but living out the moral standards etc that is part of true discipleship – and we do have a responsibility to do that. However, we have no mandate to compromise on the fundamentals of the faith in order to “attract” the world with its standards. The world’s standards in the area of morality for example, stand in contrast to those of the Bible – when Christians make a stand on this issue, then they look “bad” in the eyes of much of the world. But that’s OK, Jesus said that “in the world you WILL have trouble” and, when we live out a true Christian faith, we can expect that there will be times when we don’t look “good” to the world, but our mandate is to live according to God’s standards rather than those of the world. That applies to everyone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus – and yes, it even includes politicians!