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The San Damiano Retreat Center is located on the Ohio River about nine miles east of Golconda.
I was there over the weekend with my church for a Christian retreat. The beautiful scenery and isolated location makes concentration on God easy.
The above image was taken in a light-hearted manner as friends played spoons. The center is chock-full of similar statues and paintings. Most of them represent Jesus as a blue-eyed, blonde haired Westerner.
Apparently, we've all forgotten that he was not a product of the 1960s Haight-Ashbury district, the old hippie-laden area of San Francisco.
The statues, however, are symbolic of an even larger problem for Western Christianity than the misrepresentation of Jesus Christ. Too often, Christians who face no persecution or trials such as those living in most democratic, Western nations remain as sterile and lifeless as these statues.
Their relationship with God is a matter of attending Sunday service and then living their own lives the rest of the week. Their hearts are far from God.
The Pharisees were similar in this regard, and Jesus called them hypocrites. He wants a lifetime of whole-hearted devotion to Himself.
The church grows through leaps and bounds when faced with hardship as a result of its faith. An early Christian, Justin Martyr, said, "Though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession; but, the more such things happen, the more do others in larger numbers become faithful."
This type of persecution exists in the world today. Christians face real persecution in such places as Egypt, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Western Christians, however, are shielded from this.
Would there be as many people in the West claiming Christ if they knew their lives were at stake? Would they stand?
I pray I would.
