There are many young cynics, angry about the current social environment despite their love for the country and their courage to battle against the evil power in society. Some Christians affected by their attitude become Christian cynics at the church because of their incomplete understanding of its teachings, extremist thinking, self-righteousness, malicious judging and radical action even if they are godly, brave to fight against heresy and honest in pointing out church's problems.
Incomplete understanding
Many believers passionate about the discussion in faith fail to understand theology completely due to their lack of theological training and education. Some believe blindly that Calvinism means double predestination without considering Biblical teachings. Others judge recklessly, not knowing what they are judging. Incomplete understanding leads to extremist thinking.
Extremist thinking
Many stubborn believers arrogantly insist that their own theology is the truth and any different opinions are heretical. Often times, their truths are not fundamental in theology. The typical ones are those who call themselves reformed believers though few of them have read Calvin's writings. The extremist thinking breaks the unity of the church, hurting believers. Such thinking creates self-righteous believers.
Self-righteousness
The angry group of the church tends to fall into the greatest sin, pride. They believe that they are always right and any other opinions are wrong. This group of people can be divided into two sub-groups. One group is arrogant in their understanding of the Bible. Having read many expositories and commentaries on the Bible or heard some famous pastors' sermons, they believe their ideas are absolutely right. Another group is arrogant because they believe they have received the revelation from the Lord in their prayers. They call others opposing them the enemies of the Holy Spirit. These self-righteous believers often judge sisters and brothers maliciously in the name of the Lord.
Malicious judging
While judging people hurts people badly, some Christians tend to judge those holding different views in the name of the Lord and the church, and battle against heresy. They use words such as lacking love, sons of Satan, Judah in their judging of others. As a result, a significant number of believers left the church in pain.
Radical action
Some angry people also take radical action. When a church becomes heretical in their eyes, they not only leave the church in anger immediately, but also threaten their relatives and friends to leave the church too. If they do not, they will scold them in public places and treat them as if they were heretics.
Though these angry believers have passion in faith and strong belief, their attitude does great harm to the growth of the church and their own growth so the church should be guard against it.
Translated by Alvin Zhou
