Getting it wrong?

I watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart the other day. His interview was with an atheist talking about moral values. According to this atheists, religion calls people to be moral for bad reasons. Science can call people to be moral for good reasons. His book is The Moral Landscape which deals with this subject.
In the interview, the author states how Catholicism is more interested in birth control than genocide. He also sees the God of Abraham as one who was immoral because he got the slavery issue wrong. Of course, I disagree with him on these points. He seems to be ready to condemn on some bad points but does not look at the good the Catholic Church has also done nor does he look at the year of Jubilee which seems to undo our understanding of slavery.
Despite his tunnel vision to discredit religion, he did raise an interesting point. His interpretation that the Church is focused on certain issues while neglecting other moral issues stopped me in my seat of judgment.
He is getting the message wrong--perhaps partially because he doesn't want to see life any other way than how he sees it. But how are we helping him get it wrong? Are we drumming the abortion issue, the homosexual issue, the sexual issue so much that we are drowning out the Grace of God?
I saw a t-shirt the other day---"God hates us." It seems we are not getting the Gospel out. How do we reclaim the Good News from ourselves?

Letter to Glenn and Sarah

Dear Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin:

This isn't about politics. This isn't about Mormonism. My issue with both of you is the Gospel you are preaching.
At your rally on Saturday, you called the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, the Temple of Freedom. You have called for a return back to (G)god then tell us to use part of the Constitution as our guide.
I understand to a point. You are calling people of many faiths to get back to God. These faiths do not have one holy book in common. So you have brought our attention to something common.
The problem I have? This is syncretism--the blending of religions. "Temple of Freedom"--what does one do at a temple? Worship, religious rituals.
In the Old Testament, after Solomon, the country of Israel is divided in two. The king of the northern territory creates places of worship for his people since Jerusalem and the Temple are in the southern kingdom. He builds these places of worship and he uses statues of calves, which are the symbol of the gods of Canaan. He then uses the religious language of Israel--"behold your God who has brought you out of Egypt." (I Kings 12:25-29). It is the sin of Jeroboam which brings the Northern kingdom's downfall.
Oh, your words are subtle. You use faith, hope and charity as values but you describe them in American terms. The faith, hope and charity Christ lived out and offers are so much bigger than what America has experienced. Just look at other American values versus the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Christ. In America, the American dream is a large house with a two car garage, flat screen HD or 3D television, iPhones and iPads. Jesus says blessed are the poor, the meek. In America when we are attacked, we call for bombs and military action to show our power. Jesus says love your enemies, bless those who persecute you. You talk about getting back to God but this god you are presenting looks American, sounds Republican. The Kingdom of God is bigger and greater.
Its not about politics. It is about the gospel you are preaching.

Relevance and the Church

It is the buzz word for the past 30 or so years in the American Church--Relevant. We want relevant worship, relevant preaching. What does relevance mean? Should the Church be relevant or make the Gospel relevant?
In one definition I found, relevant means: bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent: a relevant remark.
If relevance is simply connecting the Gospel to the World, making it easier to understand and applicable to every day life, then obviously we should strive to be relevant.
Yet the Gospel is in many ways a message from another world. Think about it. In our society, the first is the one who camps out overnight outside the store or ticket booth. In the Gospel, the first is the one who is last. In our society, we have rights and must fight to keep them. In the Gospel we are called to lay aside our rights and serve others. In our world, if you hit me, I have every right to hit you back or at least call the cops and have you arrested. In the Gospel, peacemaking and turning the other cheek is the call. It is a message outside myself, outside my nature. The Gospel is the message of a different life, we were created to live. But we have been living in a foreign land for so long we don't remember who we truly are. The Gospel awakens us to who we were created to be. So what does this do to relevance?
We want to connect the Gospel to the matter at hand. Yet is it a call to make it palatable to the world? Do we run the risk making the message relevant of watering down the message or of syncrenizing messages (the blending of the Gospel with the culture)?
How do we hold the message with integrity and make it relevant?