This doesn’t include the “Christian” Left, which don’t qualify as Christians because they don’t hold to the essentials of the faith and they actively try to undermine real Christianity. But it should be a wake-up call to the Clueless and Cowardly Christians.
I spent years in the United Methodist church with these two types before I left for more sound theology and practice. Via Three Kinds of Christians:
3. The Cowardly Christian. This is a rapidly increasing segment of the Christian community. He’s the guy who has always known abortion was wrong and that homosexuality was harmful – not just to the people engaged in it but also to the larger society. He knows the so-called gay rights movement is really a gay wrongs movement meant to strip people of basic civil liberties including the freedom to express their religious views.
The cowardly Christian is often a member of a politically corrupted denomination such as the United Methodist Church. He still goes to the church because that’s where he was raised and that’s where he raised his kids. But over the years cognitive dissonance has started to set in. He knows his church has wound up on the wrong side of eternity by trying to be on the “right side of history.” Yet he keeps that knowledge to himself.
More than anything, the cowardly Christian seeks to retain the good favor of his friends in the church rather than his Savior. He knows he needs to speak out about the wrong positions he sees his church taking. But he fears criticism and he fears disruption from his routine. It would be hard to take the criticism for speaking out. It would be hard to uproot his kids from the church they’ve come to know as a second home. His church experience is not a spiritual thing. It’s a social thing.
And forget about him speaking up at work. The man who fears criticism is simply a man of weak faith. He actually thinks that if he takes a stand for God during the week that God will punish him by letting him lose his livelihood.
As weak as he is, the cowardly Christian is still technically a Christian. The same cannot be said of the man who claims to be a Christian and actively works to subvert the truth in an effort to please his fellow man. You may have seen him on the television or at the university working for a major campus ministry
Read it all.
Eternity Matters 
As I get Townhall in my email every day, I’m familiar with Adams and enjoy his stuff. I can’t wait to see how he describes the fourth type of Christian.
As to the cowardly, it is difficult to see how one can still call such a person a Christian as his cowardice enables those against whom he should be standing. Kinda makes him complicit.
At the same time, giving the coward the benefit of the doubt, I think his biggest problem is being able to discern the best time to speak out against unChristian things. A man supporting a family, or even his own self alone, has much to risk in doing so. Changing church families, however, is not so much risky as merely inconvenient. And if convenience is the issue, cowardice is not the problem.
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This is both brilliant analysis and a terrible truth to face. This line about the cowardly Christian is particularly astute: The man who fears criticism is simply a man of weak faith. He actually thinks that if he takes a stand for God during the week that God will punish him by letting him lose his livelihood.
Sometimes though being a Christian will cause you trouble. But that’s very different than being punished by God. And does anyone else notice how wimpy so much of the church is? What happened to the analogy of Christians being soldiers? Christ did tell us to gird ourselves with armor and to carry a sword.
Looking forward to Mike Adams’ assessment of the 4th type of Christian…
Alec
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I met the same in a reformed church. They are everywhere. May God bless us to stand for His truth by His power for His glory.
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This is a very important statement:
“He knows his church has wound up on the wrong side of eternity by trying to be on the “right side of history.” Yet he keeps that knowledge to himself.”
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