Straight-shooting Christianity :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Straight-shooting ChristianityThe March 11, 2003 edition of USA straighta expressive style reports on a new approach to religious faith in certain churches worship based in the values and mores of the the Statesn West. Straight-shooting fierceness on Christianity spurs a growing trend, reads the headline (Grossman D1). A church named, with no needed irony, Cross Trails is reported to baptize new believers in an 8-foot circular, unsanctified plastic horse trough (Grossman D1). This is a trail to belief that is stripped-down, back-to-basics, a religious attitude that reflects the lives of the ranchers and farmers it appeals to. Cathy Lynn Grossman writes This is cowboy church - straight-shooter, sinner-saved-by-grace theology throwing a get out to the lost, the lonely and those who long for an unvarnished faith. No fancy duds. No politicized preaching. No denominational hair-splitting. Its come as you ar in spirit, spurs and Stetsons. Its bucking bulls and plumbing Bibles in a d usty arena or dropping a hard-won dollar in a boot on the back table after a punchy sermon. (D1)The notion Grossman sculpts in her oblige is part Frederick Remington, part Sea of Galilee. Indeed, fundamentally, its an attitude, whether you ride a broncho or a computer keyboard (Grossman 1D). The cowboy church movement seems to adulterate in on a growing herd of believers in America who seem to think that the values of the church as it should be are undermined by the very urbanity, the very sophistication that has come to characterize groundbreaking life and popular culture. They seek their solace in The West, in a picture - however mythological it may be - of a simpler way of life. This is a phenomenon, after all, that exists simultaneously with ranchers who hang cell phones where their six-shooter utilize to be, who use multi-tools to mend fences and all-terrain vehicles to run down stray livestock. It is an attitude more than anything else. But that attitude is not without so me provenance. Grossman quotes pastor Perry Smith, the leader of subsisting for the Brand, a cowboy church next to the fairground arena in Athens, Texas The cowboy walk in life is parallel with the lifestyle of Jesus - doing right(a) and living by your word (D2). Likewise, cowboy churches themselves seem to be fulfilling the alike roles that Jesus did to his followers. The cowboy church movement, for instance, packages its message especially for its audience, much in the same way Jesus used parables because they seeing see not and hearing they know not, neither do they understand (Matt.