Mike Donehey, former lead singer of the Christian rock band Tenth Avenue North, believes Christians should be more mindful about how they react when famous believers lose their faith.
Faithwire recently featured Donehey's views on many Christians' reactionary mentality. He claims that there had been many "unscriptural" responses that have been made to individuals who are questioning Christianity and the Bible.
Recently, he told the "Edifi With Billy Hallowell" podcast that "a lot of sort of celebrity-status-like Christians have very publicly ... denounced their faith and that [has] elicited really strong reactions from other people."
"The problem with taking a really strong, ardent response to people who are oscillating in their faith is that it's completely unscriptural," he pointed out.
Donehey then cited a passage in 2 Timothy 2 in which Paul exhorts Christians to treat those who oppose them with "gentleness."
"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful," says the passage in verse 24. "Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will."
Some Christians, according to Donehey, should reevaluate how these scriptures should be applied.
"Your job is to be gentle," he stressed. "God's job is to change."
Donehey also drew on Jesus' parable of the weeds and wheat found in Matthew 13 to make his point. Instead of removing the weeds to prevent them from interfering with the wheat's growth, the Lord of the Harvest instructed the workers to leave them alone for the time being.
"To me, someone who's oscillating, flickering, going back and forth, doesn't know what they believe - it seems that Jesus, by this parable, is saying, 'Here's what you need to do: you need to treat everyone like they're wheat until they believe it for themselves,'" he added. "'Because ... if you pull out the weeds you're going to pull out all the wheat as well.'"
Hallowell agreed on Donehey's take. As much as he acknowledges that the culture is a mess, he argues that this isn't all terrible.
"I mean, churches are doing pretty well-and feel free to push back-is that the church has done really well historically in moments when the church is not in the majority culture," he remarked.
Hallowell went on to explain that although the dominant culture has many flaws, the same can be said about cultural Christianity.
Donehey, on the other hand, acknowledged that it's difficult to internalize this lesson.
According to the artist, he has struggled with this in his own life since he is a born debater. But he insisted that winning arguments would not be the means by which the gospel might be spread to others.
"I just haven't met anyone that went, 'Oh, I was in the middle of this argument with somebody and they really just bashed me - I mean, they just crushed me and I saw the error of my doctrine and I came over [to Jesus],'" he said.
To learn more about Donehey's views on Christianity, listen to his latest album, "Flourish."
