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But this whole "easy way out" is a lot of what bothers me about modern Christianity. There's sort of a new Calvinism going on that has this notion that "God will sort it all out" and it implies an avoidance of personal reponsibility.
Yeah, I can agree with this (except the term "new Calvinism", since I don't believe Calvin supported abstaining responsibility, but that's off topic). In fact, this statement is bang on:
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Why would He have created this amazing place and then want us to ignore its beautiful details?
Science was created by God along with this world around us, and to abstain from studying it would be disrespectful at best.

Yet it is true that Christians take the easy road all too often, at least around here, refusing to really go deep, be it theology, science, or just how they look at the world around them. But after observing this for quite a few years personally, I don't believe this is an issue of modern Christianity per se. It seems that this is the condition of the average US citizen, and that as many non-Christians exhibit this behavior as do Christians.

It seems that we are increasingly embracing a "don't think about it, just do it" kind of mentality in faith, politics, work, and relationships. This is a problem for the church which has to deal with "cultural Christians" who attend because they always have (it's just what they do), but then fail to live out their faith in any practical way. Church attendese is a routine for many that doesn't go any deeper than being the familiar thing to do. But I see this ouside of the church too, like when people witness 9/11 or Katrina and have some earth shattering revealtion, only to return to the humdrum of their lives unaffected after a few weeks. In the end, it seem we don't really let these things get inside and affect us. Nobody really wants to go deeper than they have to and most just do what is comfortable and fits what they've seen before. And to question what is comfortable is unthinkable.

And yes, I see all of this in myself too. Point is, though, I think this is not a matter of Christian faith, but part of our culture that shows up in the church among other places.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.