Sometimes, I Am Embarassed To Be An Evangelical...

(Forgive the mispelling of Embarrassed in the title but it cannot be changed since the url has already been shared. Sorry!)

True confession.

Today I saw a post on Facebook that is being passed around by some of my Evangelical friends. It's a picture that a 14 year old Evangelical student posted to Laura Ingahams twitter account of a "debate" this student had with his teacher on a history exam. There was a multiple choice question that listed multiple days to be selected as the answer. Two of the choices ended with the abbreviation "BCE" or "Before The Common Era". This is the common abbreviation that has replaced the old "BC" or "Before Christ" that was used until fairly recently to denote the change in eras. 

Apparently, someone had told this student that the change to "BCE" was an attack on our Christian faith or something, because he felt the need to blot out the "E" and write "Thank you society! -_- Christ was born in the first century on essentially 1/1/1!" To which the teacher responded: "BCE= Before Common Era. BCE Begins a year 0" Here is a picture of the exchange:

Now, I realize that this whole thing is so petty. I thought hard about whether it even deserved a post on the blog. I mean, this young kid is just zealous- in fact, I used to do the same things on my Biology exams in High School when they said things about Evolution that I didn't believe. My teacher always dealt graciously with me and my fundamentalist beliefs. (For the record, I think this teacher was incredibly gracious as well!) I think this young guy will mature over the years to come. He is not the problem.

The problem is that we as conservative evangelicals are lauding this little debacle as some kind of heroic effort to stand against our "anti-Jesus" culture who is trying to rid the world of Christ. And that's just stupid.

I am sorry for the strong language. But it's time to get over ourselves. Our country is not  hostile towards Christianity. We are not being persecuted. The change from BC to BCE is not some underhanded attempt to eliminate Jesus from the world- rather, its a change that more accurately represents the historic era shift beyond the Christian religion. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We as Evangelicals so often get caught up in senseless b/s that distracts us from the mission of spreading the Good News of the Kingdom through word and deed to everyone we meet. Instead of peacefully loving the world, we imagine ourselves at war with the world and create enemies where none exist. We are (apparently) teaching our kids to see the world as hostile and out to get us. We spend more time "defending" our "rights" than we do acting like Jesus. And none of this is what we're called to do. None of this is even rooted in reality.

And frankly, It's this kind of stuff that make me want to burry my head in the sand and hide. Because this is not only embarrassing- it's anti-Christ.

Just a thought.

Grace and Peace-

Brandan