Neighbours of Christians

I had an interesting conversation the other day. I wouldn't have given it a second thought, if it wasn't for another conversation I had shortly after the first one concluded. And thus leading to this extremely long rant that you're about to read.

Christian vs non-Christian...
So a friend and I started discussing the concept of dating relationships between a Christian and a non-Christian. People who were around during certain CCF'ly events would know that I stand strongly against this concept. I've thought much about this, and has all the textbook answers. And so when this topic was brought up, I was ready to beat it down. But just before I was able to launch into my first argument, I was cut off. "But there are Christian guys that treat their girlfriends alot worse than non-Christian guys." I couldn't reply. It's true. I can't deny it. I do indeed have non-Christian friends that have stronger moral values then people that I know who claims to be Christian.

Marriage and Divorce rates
I've always wondered about the 50% divorce rate that is spewed at us. I've been told that Christian marriages' divorce rate is almost as high as the 50% non-Christian divorce rate. I took a quick spin on Google and came up with...

Religious Tolerance website: Protestants (25%), Baptists (29%), Non-denominational (34%). Not quite the 50%. Whew.

Another source, compiled from a series of surveys: Non-Christian (48%), All Christian (41%), "frequent" (people that attend church at least once a week) Christian (32%), "frequent" Protestants (32%). Okay.

So we're looking at values in the 30s percentile. 1 in 3 marriages ends in a divorce. Hmm. Still not cool...yes, we're lower than non-Christians, but shouldn't we? Considering we've got passages like...

"It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

- Matthew 5.31-32 (Sermon on the Mount)

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel...

- Malachi 2.16a

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

- Matthew 19.8-9

Back to that conversation...
I wasn't able to say much. I myself had issues against the Church during my High School years due to hypocracy issues. Still. Christian guys have to be good for something...right? Of course, a handful of Christian isn't representative of all of Christ (but...unless they see Him through our actions, how would they know? Faith without works is worth nothing...). I left the conversation, wondering what the Christians of our world are doing, and how it came to that topics like this is even worth discussing. We're held to higher standards...yet it would appear that some people doesn't care.

Annoyance amplified
Within an hour, just via random discussions, I found myself trying to convince someone else that not all marriages end in failure. I was astonished to hear her opinion...from things like TV drama and whatnot, she has the opinion that all men will want to leave their wife at some point. ALL men. That all marriages will end in divorce.

...what?

You know things are bad if someone believes something like this as a fundamental fact. At first, I thought it was just that she's making a bad sweeping generalization (dangerous in itself, but not too difficult to refute)...but as I talked to this person, it became apparently she truly believed this. All marriages. Including Christians. All these seems to have arisen from Chinese TV drama that portrays people in this type of situation. I was tempted to write this off as a random blip, that this person was just disillusioned, but with the principle of the self-fulfilling prophesy, I proceeded to attempt to alter this person's point of view. Surely...there is some hope, right?

Often, in CCF, I feel that we're encouraging the bubble mentality. We speak as if we're isolated from the world, because we're called to be apart from it. We don't discuss the impact of how we are and behave due to things like our Chinese upbringings and culture, or the impacts of the modern consumerism mentality, or the influence, as I've briefly mentioned here, of mass media. Benefitial or not, we're physically here, and thus are very much influenced by the world.

Eric's talk, the things we learn
A few weeks ago, Eric came and gave a talk to CCF. He talked about learning from his non-Christian neighbours. Of how he's understanding fear of God from Hindu people. Of how he's learning charity from Sihks. Of how we as Christians, wither we realize it or not, have a self-righteous attitude.

I've never really thought too much about this stuff, except that they form the extreme of my arguments on points like Sermon on the Mount. I've got non-Christian friends who's far more compassionate and friendly than I am. Who's more devote to their faith (Islam classmates) than I am to mine. Etc.

Okay, what's your point?
This post is so all over the place...I apologize for my incohernet ranting. I'll try to summerize.

My point is that we're here. That we need to test what we hear (the whole divorce rate thing). That we're observed as we live our daily lives (working against hypocrasy). That we're influenced by our surroundings (cosumerism and media). That really, just cuz we're Christians, doesn't mean we're all that great of people (learning from our neighbours). Yeah so what if we know what to do? The difficulty in our lives has always been the translation of theory to application. We're not great because we follow Christ. Christ is great, so we follow.