Throughout my years, I've encountered a lot of different people with a lot of different beliefs. While I could spend a lot of time focusing on the beliefs that are not Christian, I'd like to take a moment to focus on people who call themselves disciples of Jesus Christ, because within our faith is an urgent issue that must be addressed.
Within the Christian faith, there has been a growing movement towards what I like to call a more feminine approach to the faith. Now, I'm not trying to be sexist here or to imply that women are somehow wrong - in fact, I'm not really referring to women at all: I'm referring to a growing tendency within our faith and culture to "mother" each other - to treat each other as children and to approach our faith and our relationships from what seems to be a point of view that is solely based on emotion. We've become very careful about hammering the scripture home that says that we are to give offense to no man... Faith has become something that is developed around our emotional reaction to something. Being a Christian means "having a relationship" with Jesus. And not showing a gentle, sheep-like attitude towards everyone is proof that such a person must be silenced at all costs.
Perhaps I'm being blind to my own prejudices, but this reminds me of a mother I know who refused to let her son mow a lawn at the age of 14 because he might hurt himself. This whole image smacks of a mother clutching her 3-year-old child, protecting it from the world at all costs, and wanting nothing more than to keep this child permanently in a world of Ivory Snow-washed linens.
This is not what we are called to.
Two of the theses from A Call to Vision, the document that began Christian Metal Forums, state:
Thesis 25: We must restore our community to a thoughtful collection of Christians whose primary concern is not a person's feelings or sense of well-being, but whose primary concern is the communication of the Truth of the Gospel. (Mark 1:14-15, Romans 1:14-17)
Thesis 26: We must be willing to unashamedly identify heresy, apostasy, and evil for what it is, and must be willing to combat it. We are called to arms by our Commander in Chief in the battle against Satan, and we have a responsibility to respond to that call. To do any less is to compromise our responsibility to share the Gospel. (Galatians 5:7-12, Ephesians 6:10-18)
To this day, I believe that these two theses touch on the issues that are crippling the Christian Metal Community specifically and American Christianity as a whole. We have become a society and a religion that is so dependent on the sufficiency of good feelings, rather than the sufficiency of Christ, that when we are faced with something that is utter and rank heresy, we have gone from being the church founded on the Way, the Truth, and the Life to the social club that kinda agrees - if that's OK with everyone - that Jesus was a really neat guy that we can't really know because there were conspiracies to keep the real Jesus hidden, but we know that He just wants to have a relationship with you and be your friend, but it's OK if you don't fall into line with us - we appreciate you, anyway.
This is not what we are called to.
True, there are elements of truth in this belief. Jesus does want to have a relationship with you, and I'd be willing to wager that He was a really neat guy. But Christianity is more than this. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and when we are faced with the subtle, evil lies of Satan, we are required - compelled - to confront them. We are told to "resist the devil". We are told - repeatedly - in scripture how the early church faced down heresies and apostacies that threatened to destroy the infant church from within. We have story after story throughout history of Christians being persecuted, tortured, and murdered - and it wasn't because they believed in Buddy Jesus.
They believed that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and they were bold enough - and driven by the Spirit enough - to stand up to the authorities that be and to stand firm on the foundation the God had given them. They were bold enough to call the Gnostics "antichrist" - the only actual reference to antichrist in all of scripture, in fact, not because they got some kind of cheap thrill out of watching someone squirm, but because they had the Truth, and they knew that to allow any compromise to the Truth was a dangerous, damnable offense. They knew that there was a greater need for people to know the truth and the facts of the situation than there was for them to feel like they were getting spiritually filled at every church service.
Recently, I followed the conversation of a guy I've known on the web for a couple of years now. His beliefs have drifted from self-driven fundamentalism to universalism to agnosticism. Recently, he's found "it" in Gnosticism. What concerned me most, however, was not that this fellow had gone gnostic... it was that while there were some people who were more than willing to tell him the truth, there were other Christians who were driven more by a desire for acceptance than a desire for this man to come to Christ. They extolled the benefits of gnosticism and couldn't possibly see how anyone could be so mean as to tell this guy that his soul was in danger of Hell.
This is not what we are called to.
We MUST act. Those of us who are driven by the Gospel must know what awaits people who reject the Gospel, and that knowledge must drive us to tell the Truth. We must be willing to offend. We must be willing to stop coddling. We must be willing to knock people over and allow themselves to dust themselves off, not so that they can feel good about themselves, but so that they can come to the Cross. Their souls are much, much more important than their feelings.