Fla. Church Draws Fire with 'No More Christians' Series
"No More Christians," says one Florida church.
Mosaic Church in Crestview has drawn a storm of criticism for advertising that slogan around the community on signs and in television commercials.
Those three words have offended many believers who believe it's another attack on their Christian faith.
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But the intent of Mosaic's ad campaign was not to attack Christianity. It was simply to catch the attention of people "who are searching," Pastor James Ross told the News Bulletin.
The church ended up drawing more negative attention than anything.
"No More Christians" is a new teaching series that begins at Mosaic - a two-year old church currently holding worship services at an elementary school - on April 12, Easter Sunday. According to Ross, they began promoting the series on April 1.
While the church pastor expected to get some negative responses, he said the reaction so far has been "far more than imagined."
"We were contacted by the police department to remove our signs within two hours of putting up the first one. My inbox was flooded with emails," Ross wrote in his blog on Wednesday.
Even more dumbfounding to him, however, was the reaction from Christians who began to defend their faith in online forums and debates sparked by the slogan.
Ross explained that "the Christians just defended themselves and showed pity for themselves and as one of our church attenders (Angela Duckworth) stated could not see past thinking this was a sign of the end times or an attack on their religion."
"No one tried to communicate the message of Love through Jesus Christ. No one," he noted. "This is the problem."
In a message to Christians, Ross stressed, "God doesn't need us to defend Him. The world doesn't need us to argue with them. They need us to live out the radical faith that gives evidence to our Savior who gave his life as a ransom for many."
Ross launched the "No More Christians" after seeing media reports about Christianity declining. Seeing an "incredible" opportunity for dialogue, the pastor sought out to specifically target people who were "leaning away from Christianity," he told the News Bulletin.
As stated on the website (www.nomorechristians.com), the intention of the teaching series is not to denounce Christianity but "to examine why some people call themselves 'Christians' and live their life in contradiction to what they 'believe.'"
"Are you tired of the hypocrisy, the ignorance, the fakeness, and the delusions that come with the word 'Christian?'" the website states. "Well, so are we. In fact, we don't want any more 'Christians.'"
During the five-week teaching series, Ross will compare Christianity with other belief systems including atheism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism and Hinduism. Titles of the sermons include "Why you should be an atheist instead of a Christian," "Why you should be a Muslim instead of a Christian," and so forth.
