"What the Hell Happened to Christianity?"

The title of this post comes straight from a commentary on CNN.com. It is a provacative title and I agree with their basic premise that those Christians with the loudest voices, the theological right, spend too much time screaming about deamons and damnation and not nearly enough (any?) time focusing on the message of love that was the basis for Jesus Christ's life on earth.

The commentary is on the website as a tool to promote Anderson Cooper's look tonight at "What is a Christian?" It also is a tool to promote a documentary series focusing on the authors and their Punk church that is currently airing on the Sundance channel.

The CNN show and the Sundance show interest me on a number of levels.

1. What is a Christian? I have to tell you, when I was a member at Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church I never felt like a Christian. I felt like an outsider. No matter what we did to get involved in church activities, I always felt like that church was its' own special little Christian clicque that I just didn't measure up to. I wasn't Christian enough. Then we joined Hope Presbyterian Church and I felt much more comfortable with the people but that church lacked energy. (By the way, Fred Morgan, the pastor at that church knows what he's talking about theologically.) Now we've moved to Denver and it is hard to get excited about joining a church when the last two experiences haven't been that great.

2. Does anyone pay attention to the New Testament anymore? I feel like Christianity is stuck in this Old Testament rut.

I recently saw a post on another blog where someone told the story of the bible in 50 words. What was interesting to me is that 65% of the 50 words came from the Old Testament. Since when did the life of Christ get so uninteresting to Christians? Shouldn't most of our focus be on the New Testament? Think about it. The old testament is full of interesting and entertaining stories about God causing strange things to happen to (strange?) people. The New Testament is the authorized biography of Jesus Christ who just happens to be the namesake of one of history's most dominant religions. If we are going to give priority to one of the two Testaments shouldn't it be the New instead of the Old?

3. Will Joel Osteen's theology get you to heaven? In other words, is love enough? For those of you that don't know, Joel Osteen is the minister at a church that meets inside an NBA arena. It's a huge church and they fill the seats every week. Osteen, like the authors of the CNN comentary, doesn't focus on sin and the prospect of possibly going to hell. He focuses almost exclusively on the power of love. A minsiter down in Sugarland, Texas, told me that he thought Osteen served a useful purpose but was pretty theologically light. He said you can't have Christianity without some discussion and focus on the fact that Christians believe there is a hell and you may go there.

OK, enough religion for today. I know there are a handful of people with strong relgious beliefs that read this blog. I'd love to hear your take on this if you can tear yourself away from your seminary studies long enough to type something.