It's time to make actual Christians feel welcomed in the church again

The church is very focused on "welcoming" and "including" the secular, the worldly, the unrepentant, and all kinds of other people who aren't actually interested in Christianity. Of course, we should try to include these people, but the problem is that the church often tries to do it by watering down its doctrine and imitating the world. "They like our godless culture," many churches say to themselves, "so I suppose we should give them a godless form of pseudo-Christianity."

I've written my columns and recorded many podcasts addressing this and explaining why it's incredibly misguided. But there's one aspect of it that I haven't focused on. That is this: while these churches try so hard (and so ineffectually) to "welcome" the un-Christian, they often succeed in alienating the actual Christians. In other words, many actual, real, believing, devout Christians go to church on Sunday and find a service that doesn't appear designed for them at all. It doesn't speak to them. It doesn't try to reach them or encourage them or revitalize and strengthen them. In fact, often it may do the opposite. In some churches, believing Christians are chastised, scolded, and labeled as bigots.

This is a problem for many reasons, but here's the biggest one: believing Christians are the church. The minority of people in this culture who actually strive for righteousness and try with great sacrifice to live according to the doctrines of the faith are not merely "a part" of the church, but they are the church. The church should always feel at home in any church. This, to me, seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but apparently it must be explained.

To see more from Matt Walsh, visit his channel on TheBlaze.