Hypocrites of the Month!

I've decided to keep a monthly "award" for groups or people that I view as highly hypocritical. The award this month goes to "Christ Fellowship Church" of Monett, MO. If you ever go in downtown Kansas City you might see them on the street corner misquoting scripture and carrying signs indicating your impending trip to hell. The Church itself is located about 3 hours South of Kansas City, and has only a small collection of followers.

This church (I use the term loosely) makes the following claims:

"The remnant is careful to observe only the commands and traditions taught in scripture. They refuse to impose anything on their brethren that Christ or His Apostles did not impose. They see liberty of conscience in differences of lifestyles, providing that lifestyle is consistent with the word of God."

"Before I move on I should give a word of caution. Many people believe they are 100% right, when in reality they are 100% wrong. Being convicted of something apart from biblical backing is simply nothing and cannot be relied upon."

"Therefore, before we ever take a stand that is going to have fellowship, family relationship or interpersonal consequences we must be certain we can support our position withoutany biblical gymnastics."

Well, from a Christian perspective that sounds good on a certain level. But does this Cult, er excuse me, Church live up to their own words?

How about this? Notice the lack of any referenced New Testament scripture from this "New Testament Church" (yeah, I read your website guys)

A mark of distinction as set forth in Gods great plan to have both man and woman. Why would we remove something, God places back on our faces everyday? You might say, what about fingernails? Fingernails will as a result of daily activity be limited in size. Facial hair on the other hand has no such natural limitation to growth or size.

If I read the old testament I see that only certain groups where required to have beards. If I read the New Testament, I don't really see any mention of shaving or growing at all. I challange any ready of this blog and any member of that church to provide me with a SINGLE New Testament scripture about keeping the beard untrimmed and grown out. But wait there's more!

"The shadows found in Gods laws in the Old Testament, can be seen to find literal fulfillment in the New Testament. Such is the case with outerwear. God commanded His priests to dress distinctly in the Old Testament, in the New; He requires modesty, chasteness and holiness. This obviously excludes, bikini’s, tube tops, mini skirts, tank tops"

Pictures of their women are are all similar - poofy dresses and head coverings (think Amish). Hey guys, doesn't the vast majority of clothing from ... I dunno ... the past 30 years also qualify as modest? Here's a question, is requiring someone to dress like a reject from the turn of the century "modest"?

Let's look at the definition, I see there are 3 in Webster:

#1 - "having or showing a moderate or humble estimate of one's merits, importance, etc.; free from vanity, egotism, boastfulness, or great pretensions. " - I'd say making a point that you look like Oliver Twist wouldn't qualify as egotism, but then the boasts of how morally superiour they are from those claims would rule that out...

#2 - free from ostentation or showy extravagance - uh oh, big word there, for reference ostentation means to make a conspicious show of either wealth or importance, I guess they kindof blew that one when they started claiming the purpose of their dress was to "create friction with the heathens" and then went on about how important it is to create that...

#3 - limited or moderate in amount, extent, etc - Well, I guess they got this one, unless I consider the fact that there is far more fabric there than in mos....

Hey, I'm not claiming that there's anything wrong if you want to dress like that or make it part of your religion, but don't you find it just a tad contradictory with the other things you have to say? Maybe just a little? A smidge? No?

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Alright, let's cut to the chase. I could care less if you want to teach that you should dress like someone for 1890s, wear a beard down to your toes, and act like a general jerk to your non-Christian friends. But the second you start standing on the street corner accosting me with a sign indicating that I'm headed straight for hell, and chanting messages to me as I pass by, you open yourself up to my criticism.

Here, for all you people out there so easily offended by my criticism of a church let me put this in huge letters to make my message clear:

The second you condemn others and try to inforce your moral code on them, you loose ANY right you had before to not be called on your hypocrisy, bigotry, and ignorance.

The instant you enter into the realm of public debate, you have lost any claim to innocence and the criticism you receive can no longer be ducked by claiming freedom of religion.

YOUR FREEDOM OF RELIGION ENDS WHEN YOU TRY TO CHOOSE THE PATH OF MY FAITH.

I'd like to give a hand out to my hypocrite of the month. Thanks for making the job of thinking Christians convincing non-Christians that they are sane that much more difficult. Please continue your gross distortions of the book you call Holy and alienate the rest of the world from your un-Christian "Savior".

Thanks for the tract guys, it made relatively great toilette paper.