Can You Really Blame Christians...!

It is a fact that those Christians who associate with the everlasting Gospel of salvation have possibly never felt so excluded from the church as they now do with the current ecclesiastical processes that have been initiated by church leaders.  Their feeling of estrangement and alienation from the entire church process is palpable.  They feel excluded from the very ministries that were established to help them recover, make spiritual progress, to claim back their lives again, and to give them a better future.  Many see no point in getting actively in their local church, for, to them, it is nothing but a battlefield where in-fighting is the order of the day.  And sadly, this growing apathy will create further detachment from and disenchantment with church life in Northern Ireland. Apathy does not serve the purposes of Christian service and evangelism; on the contrary...

Why cannot the church authorities see this?  Why is there no one with spiritual maturity who can recognise what is really going on within church life today? Have church leaders, on the basis of the Peter Principle (a principle known within management circles), been "promoted to the level of their incompetence"?  The situation is becoming increasingly worse by the day.  When you see godly ministers being hounded to within an inch of their lives by church members and elders, with the majority of people being best categorised as 'on-lookers' and 'bystanders,' people who simply could not care less about what is going on so long as it doesn't happen them or in their church, then genuine support for such godly pastors is not a given.  

This is exactly the situation in Bosnia today.  The majority of the people feel desperately cut-off from mainline society, a situation that creates feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness and alienation.  This is not just in the former Yugoslavia and among the Bosnian people - this is happening to Christian ministers and pastors in our country!  In Bosnia, you could generally well who your enemy is; but in Northern ireland, the enemy operates from the shadows, skulks around corners, uses others for cover, and generally wrecks havoc in the church of Christ.  A godly minister cannot always or readily tell who the enemy is!  

Further, what disillusions God's people there is the fact that in some cases, leadership positions within the churches are held by unscrupulous people.  In Bosnia, what hurts the people very deeply is that war-lords now hold very senior position within the government, men who are well known for their human rights violations, and who are war criminals.  Sadly, a growing number of Christian people view their leaders in a similar way - they just do not trust them to do the right thing, namely, to defend and promote the Gospel witness of the church.  


In light of all this, can you really blame Christians for not wanting to get involved in their churches?  What can you say to real Christians who adopt this position?  What biblical counsel can you give them?