Author and counselor Sara Dormon believes it’s time for Christians to collectively take Jesus more seriously, arguing in an interview with “The Church Boys” podcast that she believes many faithful have simply become too complacent.
Dormon, who recently released a book titled, “If You’re a Christian and Everyone Likes You…Something’s Wrong,” also said she believes Christians are too willing to compromise their beliefs, and that they often allow themselves to be known more for what they oppose than for what they’re for.
“I would rather honor God and be loved by God than be loved by man, and I think that’s the mess we’ve fallen into as Christians,” Dormon said. “We’ve learned to compromise our faith, we’ve learned to not rock the boat…don’t step on toes.”
So, the author essentially advocates a balanced approach: embracing one’s truth and faith while simultaneously showing love for others. This is the very topic she covers in the book — a six-year project that started as mere journal entries after a personal crisis of faith.
“I was in a situation where I was surrounded pretty much by Christians of all backgrounds,” she said. “And I was watching and living with these people — and traveling even with these people — and realizing, while we all loved the Lord…that faith lived itself out in very different ways.”
Listen to Dormon explain these issues below:
Dormon said she started to really explore what it means to be a Christian, questioning what it looks like to be too narrow-minded or too legalistic. Eventually, she said she had to conclude that God essentially says what he means, leaving her to embark on a period of self-evaluation and reflection.
Now, she’s hoping to inspire others through “If You’re a Christian and Everyone Likes You…Something’s Wrong,” a book that aims to get Christians to think deeper about their faith and their relationships in today’s society — a culture in which she says “anything goes.”
“There’s a verse in the Old Testament in Samuel that says, ‘They’ve lost their ability to blush’ and I think we, as a culture have lost our ability to blush,” she said. “As Christians, we’re responsible for that to a great extent. We’ve allowed this to happen. The anti-Christian culture didnt become anti-Christian without our help.”
Many Christians, she said, have become known by the outside world as judgmental, while not showing the very love that should be the hallmark of the faith, though she said the resulting perception isn’t only the fault of believers.
“The media likes to portray Christians the way they want to, which are negative, race-baiting, homophobic, xenophobic people and we allow it,” she said. “We do nothing to counteract their message and we need to.”
Dormon continued, “Billy Graham used to be the voice of Christianity, the face of Christianity … there’s no one to take his place … there’s no voice for Christians.”
She added that Christians, too, are divided amongst themselves, questioning how believers can find agreement with the outside world when they are so splintered even within their own camp.
In the end, though, Dormon believes Christians can take a stand on important biblical issues while not letting differences come between them and ideological opponents whom they know and love. The book copes with these issues, taking readers through ten commandments that essentially help them act and respond as Jesus would want them to.
“I did 10 freestanding chapters on 10 very different chapters … I picked 10 that I thought were fundamental, starting with obedience,” Dormon said. “I just thought it was important to put the foundation of obedience (there).”
In the end, Dormon said she’s hoping Americans will also start to more deeply consider the state of religious freedom as well, warning that people have no idea how lucky they are to be able to “worship God in the way we do.”
“We’re spoiled. We don’t realize how blessed we are and how much we have,” she said.” I’m afraid we’re going to wake up one morning and find out a lot of what we had taken for granted is gone. We need to fight for it.”
Find out more about Dormon and her book here.
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