Cause of Atheism

This is the quote that I was trying to paraphrase during last Sunday's service:

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

This is spoken at the beginning of a DC Talk song, "What if I stumble", on their "Jesus Freak" CD.

I think what I said was, "The biggest cause of atheism today is believers who believe with their lips but not in the hearts and actions. As I went through my week, trying to remember the original statement, I came up with some other reasons.

Christians who:

• Leave the Holy Spirit at the Church.
  
• Act one way at Church and another way at home.
  
• Act one way at Home and another in public.
  
• Comment on others' behavior, telling them the right way rather than showing them through their own actions.
  
• Tell others what the Bible says rather than encouraging them to read and let God tell them.
  

Being a relatively new Christian, I can remember when I thought that I was not "good enough" to go to Church. Why? I felt like I needed to be perfect like those who went there. Imagine what I thought when I saw one of them arguing with a clerk at the store of some other bad behavior. "We" know that we cannot be perfect, we try to do the best, but it will never happen. Non-Christians may not know that we are all flawed, sinners. We need to remember that we are fighting an evil one who knows how to twist peoples' perception of us. Yes, we need to tell God's truth – we should not "sugar coat it". But, I think we would do better to learn all we could about what the non-believer might be thinking.