Christians Can't Think For Themselves 1/11/23
One of the most humorous things I've heard people say is that Christians don't have the ability to think for themselves. It makes me laugh when I hear this.
In 2015 it was estimated that there were approximately 2.3 billion Christians living in the world. This meant that approximately 31.6% of the world's population identified as being Christian.
As of 2015, it was estimated that there were about 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, making up about 24% of the world's population, and that Islam was the fastest growing religion in the world. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/
Likewise, in 2015 it was estimated that there were about 16 million Jews in the world. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4673018,00.html
The world's total population in 2015 was 7,379,797,139. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say this statement about the followers of any other religion.
So according to this data, using sources from 2015 because I couldn't find any more recent information on Christianity, Christians make up almost 1/3rd of the world's population, with Islam being close behind. Yet the world tells us we can't think for ourselves.
Muslims currently kill people who are gay, but Christians don't. Yet I've never heard anyone decry Islam for being homophobic. I've never seen anyone protesting against mosques over it either. Many Muslim countries oppress women and treat them as second class citizens, without the right to vote, to attend higher education, drive, or many other things the rest of the world takes for granted. Women in Muslim countries must cover their bodies and their faces. And women in Muslim countries often are subjected to mutilation of their genitalia, which is demeaning and also painful. China (Buddhism), North Korea, India (Hinduism), along with Muslim countries in the Middle East and in Africa persecute and kill peoples of other faiths, yet Christians are apparently the only "intolerant" ones. Yet Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, to be kind to one another, to be merciful to those in need, to turn the other cheek, to treat others the way we want to be treated, to never take vengeance in our own hands, and to bless those who curse and persecute us. (I know that there have been and are many professing Christians who have adhered to Jesus' commands and teachings. I'm not ignorant of this fact.)
As Christians we are hated because the world hates Jesus. God gives very clear direction on what sin is and why we need to live according to His ways, and the world hates it. The world expects us to conform to and to condone its sin, and yet real Christians won't. So people hurl expletives at us and persecute us. They portray us as evil, and they condemn us.
We live by and stand on God's word because it is right, and because we love Him. He gave His Son, Jesus, to us so that through Him we may be saved. God tells us that there is nothing we can do to receive salvation except to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died on the cross for our sins, was buried, and resurrected on the third day, and to turn away from our sin and to ask to be forgiven. Oh but the world hates that. That means they have to change. It means they have to atone. The world wants to have its cake and eat it too. The world wants salvation without the Savior. I'm sorry world, but it doesn't work that way.
It's not that as Christians we can't think for ourselves. We ARE thinking for ourselves. We just are not conforming to the world. We are called to be set apart and holy, for God is holy. Those of us who are truly saved have tasted how good and sweet God's love and blessings are and we know that nothing in the world can fill us, complete us, and satisfy us the way that having a relationship with Jesus does, and we know we can't go back to conforming to the world. We are obedient to God's ways because we have been given freedom and we love Him.
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