Uncovering Lies and Slight Untruths!

A while back I had a series of blogs called "Great American Lies." It was a lot  of fun to write these and they got good feedback. Every now and then I uncover a new lie that is built into our culture. You see, if we repeat something in our culture enough, it becomes part of our fabric, even if it is untrue. Some of the previous lies discussed included "you must go to college to be successful," "you must 'do better' than your parents," "fair treatment is equal treatment," and "fathers aren't important if the mother is strong enough." These were great conversation starters.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to revive this idea of common lies. I will be looking specifically at lies that permeate the church and create an environment and culture within the church that is not healthy or inviting for others. Disclaimer: I don't necessarily believe that everything I will call a lie is a purposeful bending or omission of the truth. Some of these are just thoughts that have been twisted and misused for so long that they are "truths" within the church that need to be challenged or thrown out completely. Some of these are just a discussion of semantics BUT semantics are important. Words are the tools we use to communicate about our emotions and religion. Word choice is, therefor, supremely important.

Here are a few of the topics I plan to cover.

• Young people are the future of the church
• Hate the sin, love the sinner
• Christianity is about loving everyone
• You shouldn't care what other people think of you
• Judging others is wrong
• You don't have to attend church to be a good Christian (of course it is also a lie that just because you attend church you must be a good Christian)
• Christians must stand up for themselves in society

I give these to you ahead of time for a few reasons. 

1) I want you to start thinking about them as lies. See if you can figure out the angle I am going to take. 

2) I want you to challenge me when I write about them. 

3) I want you to hold me accountable to writing this series.