From Fox News:

Christians in India’s northeast are outraged after a picture showing Jesus Christ holding a beer can and a cigarette was discovered in primary school textbooks. The image appeared in a handwriting book for children in church-run schools in the Christian-majority state of Meghalaya, where it was used to illustrate the letter “I” for the word “Idol”. “We are deeply shocked and hurt at the objectionable portrayal of Jesus Christ in the school book. We condemn the total lack of respect for religions by the publisher,” Shillong diocese Archbishop Dominic Jala told AFP.

Read it all.

This is where some Christians get confused. On the one hand we are told to be humble and meek, and have charity toward others. True enough. But nowhere are we told to be doormats. The appropriate Christian response to abuses like this should be outrage, but always tempered with charity and a lack of malice toward the perpetrators. The enemies of the cross are to be pitied because they have cut themselves off from the Source and Author of all life and this is a truly grievous thing.

Christian charity does not demand that we allow ourselves to be abused, however. Our Lord Jesus certainly can fend for himself but we need to make it clear to others that it is not OK to offend us—in whatever form that may occur—anymore than it is OK for us to offend others.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

—1 Corinthians 1:17-19 (TNIV)

If you focus on the not being sent to baptize but preach part you miss the point of this passage. Do you see the cross as God’s wisdom or as foolishness? Sadly there are a lot of folks, theologians, clergy, and laymen in the mainlines today that see it as foolishness. They recoil at the thought of atonement or even for the need of the cross. In doing so, they are putting themselves above God’s word and robbing themselves and others of God’s grace and power to live their lives in humble submission to him. That truly is a shame because in the cross is our God’s plan of salvation for us.

This Lent, reflect on the cross so that you may better understand why it is God’s wisdom and why there is Good News in it.

Paul speaks of an abundance of grace to show that what we have received is not just a medicine sufficient to heal the wound of sin, but also health and beauty and honor, and glory and dignity far transcending our natural state.

—Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 10

If we are to live unto God at any time or in any place, we are to live unto him at all times and in all places. If we are to use anything as a gift of God, we are to place everything as his gift. They, therefore, who confine religion to times and places, and who think that it is being too strict and rigid to make religion give laws to all their actions and ways  of living—they who think thus mistake the whole nature of religion. They may well be said to mistake the whole nature of wisdom who not not think it desirable to be always wise. He has not learned the nature of piety who thinks it too much to be pious in all his actions.

—William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

Translation: Dude, real religion is about giving your whole life and being to God in a dynamic and growing relationship. It ain’t about doing your own thing or just going to church once a week. It’s like, 24/7/365.

The congregation at five filled the House almost as well as it was filled in the evening. Finding a remarkable deadness, I inquired what were the reasons of it; and found, 1. There had been, for several months, a deep misunderstanding between the Preachers and the chief of the society. Hence on the one hand, the Preachers had little life or spirit to preach; and, on the other, the congregation dwindled away. 2. Many had left off meeting their bands [small groups], and many others seldom met their classes [another kind of small group]. 3. Prayer-meetings were entirely given up. What wonder if all the people were grown dead as stones?

—John Wesley, Journal, 4.375

Here in Wesley’s account we some some of the essential elements of a vibrant Christian faith: good biblical preaching that submits to God’s word rather than try to put ourselves above it, prayer, and mutual Christian accountability in the form of small group fellowship. This demonstrates again that we are expected to put our faith in action. It is no good for us to profess to have faith and then sit by idly and wait for the Spirit to work in us. It does not work that way.

This Lenten season as you struggle with the disciplines that will help you abandon those things that prevent you from forming or growing in your relationship with Christ, consider practicing your Lenten disciplines in the context of a small group. After all, the Lord has promised that where two or three gather together in his name, there he will be among them (Matthew 18:20).