The religion that was intended to be all about love, acceptance, grace, and mercy has, of late, become associated with everything but those characteristics.
Over the last few decades, the Christian Church in American has seen two main trends. First, a slow- but increasing decline in membership and second, a marriage with politics and cultural movements that seem more interested in being 'right' than in being messengers of the gospel. Claims of "culture wars" and a conspiracies to marginalize Christianity are more frequently found on the lips of believers than the gospel, and an open antagonism toward groups that disagree with Christian principles has led to a palpable tension between friends and even families. Even those who say that Jesus had important things to say are turned off by a religion that is more about self-preservation and individual rights than the eternal hope they claim to possess.
The American Church has become TOXIC.
Not just to those outside of its walls, but to those inside as well. And we shouldn't be surprised, the history of Christianity is fraught with instances of the Church going off the rails. And always in the past, there has come a reform, a change, a decontamination as it were, that course corrects. In that, we may find hope. That perhaps that moment of change is at hand.
Author Chad Lehrmann lays out a historical, psychological, sociological, and theological argument that while the Church has become TOXIC, the Savior at the heart of the Church is still just as loving and gracious and true as ever. That the answer to de-toxifying the church is no further away than a simple turn toward the very thing that Christ offered in His message and His ministry: Grace.
Grace from God, and grace for each other.