Overly offended Christians

More great Internet Monk:

"There is a virus of prissiness afoot in evangelicalism; a kind of prissiness that has a strange history indeed, but which being recently energized with the feminization of evangelicalism since the Victorian era, now threatens to transform the Christian faith from a hearty, incarnational faith into an airy, fragile, whining and shrill movement of pushing our “values” on an increasingly resistant mankind.

"evangelicals, distracted into issues of moral reform and away from the gospel, began admiring the virtues of prissiness. It is a particularly feminine interest. It is not the interest of men. Men, largely, are not offended in the same way women are, because they are not sensitive in the way women are. This is not always a good thing, I’ll grant you that quickly. My wife picks up on all sorts of offensive things I do that I never notice and largely don’t care about (”Michael, use utensils when you eat.”) Still, the other side of this difference in the genders is that men are not as inclined to be in a state of offendedness or manifest the need to correct others.

"While it’s good for Johnny to have a mom, and the world needs moms to do their job, the church isn’t called to be a mom to the culture.

"Evangelicals became an offended group when they adopted ideas of “holiness” and “worldliness” that were an effort to preserve a particular kind of culture.... Christians were then told by their leaders (and their mothers) that it was OK to get mad, to be offended, and to do whatever offended people have the right to do, which could be anything from turn around with your nose in the air to vote out the mayor or burn down the saloon.

"When evangelicals decided that the best way to be a good Christian was to abstain from the proper things, oppose the proper things and be offended by everything that didn’t appear in a list you can receive free from Jerry Falwell, they got in a real mess.

"I do not believe Christianity to be prissy, or constantly offended, or trying to save the world by temperance. I believe it is robust, earthy, heartily masculine (as Jesus was) and clear that a witness for Christ is about Christ, not about the current listing of cultural crisis [sic] posted at the American Family Association web site.

"Christianity isn’t about writing letters to the editor, though Christians might choose to do so. It’s not about being offended at the dance routine the dance group at your public school did at halftime, though I agree with you that it’s pretty awful. It’s not about writing books where no one can saying “gosh darn it” without an editor’s approval. It’s not about being more offended than the next guy. It is certainly not about shaking your head at what a poor witness Peggy Noonan turned out to be.

"His followers were the overturners of an empire. They died with their eyes open. They conquered Ireland and gave us the strength of Celtic Christianity.... The Reformers weren’t whiners. They were builders. A man wasn’t ashamed to be around the Puritans. These people didn’t need a men’s group at church to make them feel included in what was a women’s movement. It was their church. Their pastors and bishops weren’t chronically complaining about the shocking nudity down at the brothel. They were preaching the Gospel in the face and to the heart of that culture."