The Charlotte Observer interviewed local evangelical author Warren Cole Smith about his critique of his own evangelical church and Smith wasn’t shy about what he thinks is wrong in the evangelical world.

“For the sake of money and power and status and celebrity … we’ve made ‘church’ easy,” complains Smith, editor of The Charlotte World and the Evangelical Press News Service. “We’ve made being a card-carrying member of the evangelical movement easy. But being a disciple of Jesus in the early 21st century is hard and, for the most part, the evangelical church doesn’t teach us how to do that.”

The author of the new book, “A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church,” also criticizes contemporary Christian music’s “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs and “the triumph of sentimentality” that he thinks is exemplified by Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen.

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