I haven’t written in awhile – chalk it up to having too many other things to do, I guess. Things are still stirring in my head, however. There is a mission field among the Post-Christian, and I believe thechurchblog is still a great way to share ideas and strategies for communicating the glory of God and the truth of Jesus Christ to them.

I apologize to those who have kept up with this site for not posting more content lately. If you’ve noticed, take action! Submit an article today!

While I’m on the topic, let’s talk a little about “well-meaning churchfolk.” You all know what I mean — they are those who truly (I think) desire to help the kingdom of God, but somehow lack the vision, skill, maturity, or interpersonal skills to actually do a good job. In all fairness, I’ve been in that situation many times — we all have. BUT, there are times when the well-meaning churchfolk (WMC, for short) cause true harm to the Church. Examples abound, from the volunteer who over-commits to organizing the church pot-luck, all the way to the conservative political activist who unwittingly turns the opinion of more than half the country against the Church by their “campaigns.” These are folks who shouldn’t be doing the jobs they are doing.

Somehow, church life brings freedom for people to “experiment” with ideas and “callings” that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them in the secular world. This is both an amazing opportunity brought about by the body of Christ, and a horrible and doomed indulgence forged in the spirit of acceptance and sacrifice for others. By sacrifice, I mean the sacrifice of allowing something to happen that you don’t believe should just for the sake of allowing somebody else the opportunity to succeed (or fail). We sometimes don’t do a very good job in the Church of protecting people from themselves.

Recently, a federal court ruled against a Pennsylvania school board’s policy requiring that a statement on Intelligent Design be read before teaching the theory of evolution to ninth-grade biology students. The judge in the case made several “findings of fact.” Since the readers of thechurchblog are smart, here is a link to the judge’s ruling (thechurchblog.org) so you can read it for yourself.

As you read through the document, you’ll see testimony from several people, including Michael Behe (wikipedia.org), who is one of the principal Intelligent Design proponents — and an all around good guy. You’ll also read that several of the Pennsylvania school board members testified in court that they had little or no understanding of what Intelligent Design was. It appears that they did possess a certain zeal for our Lord (a good thing, I might add), but that zeal was ultimately used against them in a court of law because they didn’t do their homework on an issue they felt strongly about. Intelligent Design was subsequently discredited in a federal court. Moreover, as a result of the trial the federal record now shows that Intelligent Design is nothing more than Creation Science by another name, and as such violates the Lemon test of the Establishment Clause of our United States Constitution.

Those who truly know about Intelligent Design understand that it is NOT creation science. However, every opponent of Intelligent Design now has a full ammunition belt with which to fight the “oppression” of the “radical” Christian right in our public schools and other academic institutions.

All because of a few WMCs.

Instead, let us strive to be excellent in all we do as members of God’s family and heirs to our Heavenly Father through the grace of Jesus Christ. Please do your homework, and have a Merry Christmas (while you still can!).