For me it's simple. I don't believe in a white washed Jesus. There is a rather large group in Christendom that want the kingdom to be squeaky clean, nothing to bother or upset anyone. Nothing to make you think, nothing to challenge a comfortable, neat tidy faith. And they do all this in the name of our radical, challenging, strange, refuses to be boxed in, God!
These people have been with us for a very long time.
When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"
David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord , who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord 's people Israel-I will celebrate before the Lord . I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor." - 2 Samuel 6:20-22
In Jesus' time they were known as Pharisees a group of a very committed, legalistic, ultra religious Jews. Jesus, also a Jew, didn't have a lot good to say about them.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Matthew 23:23-27
And it of course it continues in our time as well. Mahatma Gandhi was ushered out of a church in England because wasn't white. I'm sure if he'd been allowed to stay it would have been offensive to some Christians.
A Christian nurse in Edmonton had been telling a friend and coworker about Jesus. Her friend decides to go to church on her own on Sunday morning. She picks a Baptist church in Edmonton. It was July, and hot. She went in and sat down, near the front because the place was packed. An usher came and asked her to leave be cause her shorts and halter top were not appropriate for church. So in front of the entire church she was escorted out. On monday her reaction was what it should have been. "If that's what Jesus is about, I want nothing to do with him". - Mark Davies, a Baptist preacher and profesor tells this story.
The common thread here is people only looking at the surface, not wanting to offend the cultural norm, and offending the Holy Spirit instead. In CT 1000's case they did have to go far to understand how Pray Naked Experience was using the word naked. CT1000 is right in thinking that the title Pray Naked Experience will offend some Christians. But will it offend God? No.
-Peace
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