"Gen Y'ers don't have the same type of fear of God as earlier generations... and therein lies the problem for the church. The church has not succeeded in roping the Gen Y'ers in with obligation and guilt and fear to their thing," commenter "Heather G" wrote. "Gen Y'ers feel un-obligated to anything that doesn't fit their goals, their dreams for the world, etc. If church isn't contextually purposeful to them, they have no compulsion to show up....whereas earlier generations would keep going to churches even if they felt no connection to the church whatsoever, simply because they feared a God who they had been taught REQUIRED that they go to church - they felt they 'HAD TO.'"And here is my problem with the entire "church thing" There is too much fear and hate and hypocrisy in most Churches. If I want to be afraid of something there are plenty of things to be afraid of. Why should I be afraid of a God defined as "Love" God is Love (1 John 4:8 (King James Version) 8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.)
And if God isn't Love then He is not my God.
"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." - Peter Ustinov
I quit going to Church a long time ago. I could no longer feel comfortable doing so. I left before Facebook. I didn't look for another because there seems to be little love being shown by the institutions as a whole. Sure there are lots of loving people who go to church but "a God you have to fear?" If that is why people go to Church they are doing it for the wrong reason. (And a lot of the preachers (again not all of them) are also there for the wrong reason. But that is another rant and one I won't get into.)
1 comment:
I think it's a bad translation of the phrase- I think Fear of God is better translated as an over-arching respect for God and what God has done. God is a pretty mind-blowing concept, and I think it's okay to honor that.
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