The message behind most of these handouts was frightening. Mostly because, though they were written by nominal 'Christians,' almost nothing that they said sounded like Jesus' commandments.
Where were the exhortations to love your enemy as yourself? What did they think Jesus was doing when he ate lunch with prostitutes and tax collectors - was he just waiting for them to hit the third strike so he could publicly humiliate them and then shun them for being imperfect? What kind of church growth did these people hope to accomplish? A church where no one is comfortable with the grace of God, where the members are too scared of doing something wrong to even think about what Jesus did perfectly right?
The most unsettling part about these tracts is that I can still see their effects on the Protestant church today. Churches can get so focused on being good people, and not getting around "the wrong people," not "getting brainwashed" by entertaining different mindsets. Nothing about this is Christlike - it's all much too human.
PS I commented on Kayleigh-Marie's post
You hit the nail on the head here. The Christian church should not be built upon fear of man, but fear of God, and fear of God looks nothing like the way they laid it out in this text.
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