The Failure of our Christian Witness

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked the question “if the salt [of the world] has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?” (Matthew 5:13) I believe Jesus was saying that we as Christians can contaminate our witness to this world, our distinctiveness as ambassadors of Christ, by becoming polluted with sin and worldliness. I was reading an article about Christian media on MSN.com and I came across the following statement.

In the old days, efforts by Christian or secular companies to "cross over" into foreign turf were considered quixotic. But the popularity of the book The Shack and the music of Carrie Underwood, not to mention The Passion of the Christ and the selection of Kris Allen as America's newest Idol, demonstrate how defunct the conventional wisdom has become.

Do what? Carrie Underwood sang a song titled “I don’t even know my last name” about having gotten married after a wild night in Vegas to a complete stranger. The author of The Shack denies that Christ was punished for our sins. Folks, the world thinks that kind of garbage is compatible with Biblical Christianity. This is not a perception we should be proud of but rather we should humble ourselves before God and pray for Him to transform us and conform us to the image of Christ so that a lost world sees Christ in us.