A LICENSE TO NOT SAVE THE WORLD

On my way home from dropping off my daughter at school this morning, I saw a bumper sticker that read: Jesus Came To Save The World, So We Don’t Have To!

I get the gist of that bumper sticker, from a popular, born-again, evangelical Christian point of view. It’s not a religious outlook I agree with, but I understand the theology it’s meant to propagate. Still, I find the message on that bumper sticker to be quite troubling, because it implicitly relieves mankind of the obligation to save the world.

Can one man or one woman save the world? No. Can a group of men or women collectively solve all of humanity’s problems? Certainly not, and yet I just can’t shirk the feeling that there’s something terribly wrong with not making an attempt. I know I can’t save the world all by myself, but it seems like a total waste of time and talent to accept failure without at least trying.

It’s hard for me to imagine that a guy like Jesus, who was such an ardent champion for the downtrodden and outcasts, would have wanted his name attached to a belief system that eliminated the need for believers to look out for their neighbors in need. I find it difficult to believe that a man, who would urge his followers to take up their crosses as the price of fellowship, meant that the rest of us could hop onto the train to Paradise without bearing a portion of the price of admission. It doesn’t make any sense.

On the other hand, I can appreciate why born-again, evangelical Christians are smiling. A belief system that provides all the riches eternity has to offer, in exchange for a simple “I believe,” has got to be the best deal in town. What’s not to like about “all gain, no pain?” An offer like that is pretty darn hard to pass up.

Maybe I’m missing something, but doesn’t all that sound like a divine form of welfare? Aren’t born-again Christians taking advantage of a system by sitting back, collecting all the rewards of so-called heaven without working or carrying their own weight? Aren’t Christians being a bit lazy by not trying to save the world, but instead waiting on a God to do it for them? It seems to me that such a Christian viewpoint includes all the evils that those same Christians use to describe our Nation’s welfare system. Is what’s good for the goose not good for the gander?