Church of Christ Pride

This is what I mean by “Church of Christ Pride.”

We may no longer think we are the only ones going to heaven, but there is still an air about us that says we think we are the ones most likely to go to heaven. We’ve made our reservations. Everyone else is flying standby.

I find a residue of this kind of thinking in even our most “progressive” of congregations. We congratulate ourselves for being more open to those outside our tribe, and yet there still seems to be an attitude of superiority seeping through the cracks of our inclusive rhetoric. We are humble enough to admit that we haven’t always been right about everything, but in our heart of hearts we still believe that pound for pound, verse for verse, we’re more right about most things than all the other churches out there. We still think we are “The Lord’s Church” because we’ve figured out some things that other groups haven’t. And maybe we have. It’s ok to be right about important things. It’s not ok to be arrogant about it.

Church of Christ pride is not going to play well in a post-Christian Peoria.

you have just read an excerpt from a writing of wade hodges. have you ever been guilty of this, like me? you can read wade's comments and thoughts in full here. i read the part about the "progressive" churches, and i think i came from a pretty progressive church, or what some would call liberal, before moving to l.a. now here in l.a., i want the church to 'feel' and 'worship' the same way i did in texas. is that being selfish? kinda, i think, because park row was not like it was when i left say ... 5 years ago. its a slow process. anyway i'm starting to stray from the main point, but i'm guessing you know what i mean.

i have changed the way i used to think about other churches, and if we really mean that we are not "the only christians", but we are "just christians" what are we really saying? i'd like to hear from ya'!

just some stuff to think about. what are your thoughts?