Angela was searching through the onscreen menu of TV viewing options last night and concluded “there’s nothing on.”  Instead of turning it off, she punched the select button on an old episode of “ER.”  As the show droned on through one critical patient’s delimma after another, I became intrigued with the overall theme of that episode. 

Apparently, the head physician in charge of the ER, Dr. Kerry Weaver, discovered her long lost birth mother.  Her mom was a born-again Christian whose life had been turned around by her faith in the Lord Jesus.  She gave as clear a testimony as you could expect from a secular TV show.  The mom even sang in a choir in which we, the viewing audience, were privileged to hear a beautiful rehearsal of the old song, “Just As I Am.”

As the show unfolded, Dr. Weaver revealed her lesbianism to her mom and chided her for a faith that wasn’t freeing but restrictive and unaccepting of her “true self.”  I was shocked to see such a blatant attack on Christianity and even more amazed at the arrogance of such writing.  Dr. Weaver told her mother that she didn’t want her love if it didn’t come also with the acceptance of who she was, and that if God did love her, He would accept her just as she was.

As I was watching this ideology come to light via this show, my first thought was “no wonder we have so many people today who have bought into the so-called ‘gay agenda.’   It was being force-fed them through almost every mainline TV in America during that era.  The kids who grew up through this barrage of pro-homosexual propaganda would naturally see the religious person as a closed-minded and uncaring spiritual snob who refused to accept people unlike themselves. 

My second thought was even more penetrating.  How can we share the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ with a generation that has been brainwashed to believe we are the enemy of enlightenment?

Truth has taken a beating in this last generation – my generation.  We grew up in the sixties with the idea that conventional mores were nothing more than an oppressive Christian religion withholding the exciting from us because it knew it would lose us if we were ever freed from such restrictive tentacles. 

Unfortunately, there are so very few genuine Christian apologeticists who have the intelligence to stand toe to toe with the anti-religious crowd and present a compelling antithesis to their tripe.  We have been losing ground by default.  We lost in the election of the public mind not because we aren’t right but because we failed to run a viable candidate! 

Don’t get me wrong, here.  We have many who hold solidly to Biblical Christianity, yet they do so without a deep enough understanding of our faith so as to allow the deconstruction of it in an argument, and the ability to reconstruct it once again in perfect harmony, on the fly.  That’s what it will take to refute the so-called enlightened crowd, and to share the gospel with this emerging generation.

Today’s skeptic is not like previous versions.  They have been craftily indoctrinated with positions they hold dear and think true.  Yet, for all their claims of openness, they haven’t honestly studied all sides or carefully weighed all arguments.  They began with a skewed view of Christianity via their (our) addiction to New York’s TV producers biases and Hollywood’s insatiable “pushing-the-envelope” morality ringing in their ears.

All that being said, the real delimma of winning our world to the truth in Christ doesn’t reside within the minds of those apart from God, but within the minds and hearts of those who claim Him.  That “ER” rerun made me realize how much of that stuff we, the Church, have swallowed over the last few decades.  We’ve ingested so much of that brainwashing dribble that we’ve started shrinking away from sharing the gospel as if we don’t possess the truth; merely our beliefs.

Unless we come to our spiritual senses and realize every person apart from Christ has the right to hear about a God who loves them so profoundly that He sent His only Begotten Son to become a propitiation for their sin by giving His sinless life as payment, then it’s the Church that has been brainwashed the most.  Thus, we have decided for all those who don’t have faith in Christ that they aren’t going to be responsive to the eternal love of God.  We have stolen their hope by keeping it closed up within the four walls of our buildings and locked away from them within the confines of our thoughts.

The Church is supposed to be the “ER” for lost souls.  The Church was designed by God Himself to be the place of eternal healing.  We alone have been given the mystery of the gospel to share with a world desperately needing its life-changing message. 

If we have shrunk into timidity about sharing the gospel with those who need a physician (Matthew 9:12), then it is the Church, God’s own people, who are preventing the lost from being saved.  We’ve turned God’s “ER” into a convalescent home for aging saints.  We’ve given up on winning this world and have decided to sit out the remainder of our lives in the comfort and safety of our own salvation.

People are seeking healing today.  I’m convinced there is still a longing in every human heart that can only be satisfied by a saving relationship to God through Jesus.  Millions are secretly, maybe even subconsciously, searching for truth.  They are longing for fulfillment.  They are open to the gospel if it shared by someone that cares about them and personally demonstrates the life-change that is promised in Christ. 

We must begin searching for them; sharing our hearts, lives, homes, faith, and Savior with them in ways that are genuine and honest.  We must share with them that God does accept us just as we are, but He also loves us enough not to leave us in the same condition He finds us.  That’s the truth of the gospel!!

People are hurting and looking for a place of healing.  It’s too bad that because of our timidity, many will find the wrong “ER.”