Speak

 

This is a few years old, but still very good.

“They cannot prosecute us all, and they cannot kill us all. Every one of us is isolated until he finds the neighbor across the street agrees with him . . . and we won’t know as long as they are trying to make us all fall silent and not talk about it.”

I was told recently that one in seven people worldwide, is a Christian.

I was shocked by this figure. If one in seven is Christian, why is the world so full of evil? Why do we not have more influence? Why is not more light in the world?

I went on the Internet and the figures I see are even more shocking. I see that about one in four is a professing Christian. The figures I see are 7.7 billion people in the world and 2.2 billion are Christians. That’s over 28%.

And . . . the USA? The figures here are even more shocking. In the US about 70% of the people profess to be Christians. Huh? So when I walk my dog I should expect that seven out of ten of the houses in my neighborhood have Christians inside? I should expect to see seven families in ten driving to church on Sunday morning? I should expect that two out of three people I see at the grocery store love Jesus? I should be able to say “God is so good. I’m so grateful that he hurled his wrath on Jesus and credited Christ’s righteousness to me,” while I’m standing in line at the bank and it would be reasonable for me to expect that the lady in front of me and the man behind me would smile and say, “Amen, sister.”

And yet, we are so sinful.

If seven out of ten are Christians how is it possible that there are many more books published that are full of filth than books that are full of light? Do Christians buy fewer books? Why is it that the YA books have grown increasingly pornographic? Who is reading these books?

Now I wonder. Sure, many professing Christians are not, in fact, Christians. But if they profess to be that means, at the very least, that they would like to think they are. They are not hating Christians, rather they are aligning themselves with Christians. So now I wonder. Have I been so immersed in fake news that I have not seen that most of the people in the country wouldn’t mind reading books with big G god in them? Have I been fooled into believing that all bend the knee to Baal because I’ve spent too much time with SCBWI conferences and the New York editors, who are very heavily weighted in an anti-Christian stance and who are vocal about their beliefs?

The person who started me thinking about all this–the one who told me one in seven in the world is Christian–was surprised that I was surprised. I said I was involved in publishing and maybe that was why I felt beleaguered. I told him about the editors who said she would not publish books with big G God in them. When he heard this he was visibly upset.

And so I wonder now . . . if I have been blind to the truth that in the US more than two out of three consider themselves to be Christians, have the Christians been blind to the fact that the books being published are indoctrinating our children to hate God–to believe he’s a fairy tale at best and an ogre at worst?

Well, the upshot is that I’m going to be more vocal. Just in case my neighbors do share my belief and are afraid to say anything. And if they don’t share my belief, that’s all the more reason to speak.