Should you apologize for all that Christians have done?

I was invited to a concert, for free, this past week which featured an artist named Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.  They are independent artist who seem to have no restraint in the language that they used. Everything I was hearing had a clear goal of acceptance, free will, and no hating.  Everyone around me clearly enjoyed it.

What got my attention was Macklemore saying: “No government, state, or religion should tell you how you can love.”  I didn’t have a problem with this statement, but then they sang a song called “Same Love”.  This song is about a gay lesbian relationship and some struggles with identity.  I could talk about this for a while but that’s not the point of this post.  The point was Macklemore showing images of kids going into churches and talking about the hatred that comes from these places.

All my life I would have gotten angry at what I felt was a direct attack on ‘the church’; but, this is not what happened.  Instead, as I looked at the thousands of hands raised in praise to this, I was overwhelmed by the hatred and hypocrisy that has come from so many ‘church people’.  People have seen this hatred and hypocrisy and are now saying they will not take it anymore.

If you are reading this and get what I am saying,  I want to say this:  To all the people that have felt cast out of the church based on how they live, I want to apologize for the church.  I pray that God’s Will happens in your life. If you need a church that will welcome you and love you for who you are, please email this site at admin@doyoureallybelieve.com . We hope that we can help you find a church that will be a shinning light in your life.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.   For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.     1 Corinthians 13 (NIV)

Are you mad at a church?  Are you a hypocrite?  Have you treated people without love?  Are you willing to care for people that do not believe the same thing you do?  Are you willing to allow God to be God?  Are you always trying to take control?  Do you live like you are forgiven?  Do you live like you have never sinned?  Do you need to apologize for something that someone has done?