“A group of middle age white Americans between the ages of
45 – 55 are the fastest dying age group in the US”.
I was in the
kitchen and my antennas went up when I heard the anchor for the television
evening news read this statement. I stopped what I was doing to look at the
television and there was being shown the nicest of caskets because the comment
was also made that a certain business sector was booming because of this. The figure
given out by the television news anchor was 80 deaths per 100,000 persons and
had been trending for the past fifteen or so years. The causes of death were drugs, alcohol and suicide.
80 deaths
per 100,000 of the population may appear small but when taken in equivalent
terms of 800 deaths per 1,000,000 or 24,000 deaths per year in the US resulting
from drugs, alcohol and suicide. This is also equivalent to 66 deaths per day
in the US resulting from these factors. The report emphasized that these were
preventable deaths.
An
interesting note in these findings was that these deaths were occurring among
men and women with less than a college degree.
In the
context of religion man is recognized as having both a physical and spiritual
component. Those who reject the idea of man having a spiritual component will
more readily accept that man does have a mental component which also needs to be
fed. Those who accept that man has a spiritual component will likely be
familiar with the words “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God.” The idea is that both the physical and the spiritual men need to
be fed and feeding the spiritual man is just as or even more important that feeding the spiritual man.
The question begs to be asked, if the
church is carrying out its mandate to reach the lost? Maybe the church its
doing its best but then again? The average church in the US boasts 75 members
and these churches will more than likely have problems supporting a pastor and paying the bills. There are
also the mega churches with their multimillionaire pastors and these are what the
world see as representing the church in the US.
The persons who does not have money are
destined to suffer because the pastors of these mega churches along with the
wealthy churches which can afford to pay for air time, encourages sending in
prayer requests along with a donation. If you listen carefully to these
television pastors then the message being sent out is that God will not act
without a seed being planted. While this is happening hopelessness and despair
drive many to ingest drugs, alcohol and commit suicide.
There is a story recorded in the Bible in
John 4 where Jesus had a conversation with a foreign woman. The trend of the
conversation led the woman to question Jesus about spiritual matters. The woman
recognized that worship at the temple on Mount Gerizim was not meeting her need
and she wondered if worship at the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah really
made a difference and provided the true answer. This woman had a spiritual void that needed filling and
because it was not being met at the temple on Mount Gerizim and she was barred
from going the temple at Jerusalem she tried filling the void with men but kept
changing men because they were not fulfilling her need.
There is a possibility that some of the
people who are dying from drugs, alcohol and suicide turn to these because the spiritual needs in their lives are not being met. The Protestant/Evangelical church is not meeting
this need because the focuses of the Protestant/Evangelical churches are money and programs. The environment of the
evangelical church is not one that encourages the attendance of seekers and those who need help. The
pastors within the evangelical churches have no need to exert any effort more
than to encourage members to give money. The messages that are being preached from the pulpit of evangelical churches will immediately turn off seekers.
The Salvation Army has been outstanding
in its work of helping the needy but the task appear to be too big for the Salvation Army alone.
This could be a ripe time for the Roman
Catholic priests to once again champion the cause of Jesus Christ their Lord. This is no
way implying that the Roman Catholic priests have not been doing their work.
One of the marked differences between the evangelical pastors and the Roman Catholic
priest s is that the Roman Catholic priests have taken a vow of poverty. Where the
evangelical pastor can aspire to become a multimillionaire living a luxurious
lifestyle the Roman Catholic priest has vowed to maintain the simplest of
lifestyles. The evangelical pastor must maintain a status as befitting the
membership of his church while the Roman Catholic priest as the representative
of Jesus Christ is obligated to meet the need of the outcast, rejected and
neglected.
There is a section of the population of
the US that need help and it is obvious that this section is not being reached by
the practitioners of religion. Religion has the food that can feed the
spiritual needs of these people because at the most religion should be offering an
alternative to drugs, alcohol and suicide. If the Bible is read carefully then
not all the church groups will have the answer to meeting the deep spiritual
need of these people. These people also will not feel comfortable among all the groups that
goes by the name of church and Christianity because Christians basically lacks empathy
and understanding.
This could be the right time for
evangelicals to take a look at what the Salvation Army and the Roman Catholics
have been doing and take a page out of their books.
