A church member read the New Testament and concluded, "Amazing things were going on back then. People converted not just their faith but their lives and values. They were healed, dropped prejudices, crossed ethnic boundaries, and ... and, people were beaten, tried, and killed for their faith." Then she looked at our modern American church and saw little similarity between the early Christian church and our current one. This experience indicates that perhaps it's safer for church members not to read the New Testament. It's not safe to read the New Testament and then to look at our contemporary church. It's disturbing to such a degree that the woman who read the New Testament said that our modern church looks like an extinct volcano.

She read the New Testament and realized that something mi…