TheDeSocios.com

After about a month of not finishing this article I finally took some time to sit down and complete my thoughts on this issue.

The percentage of “churched” Americans has continued to rise over the last 100 years. Yet at the same time there is a sense that especially since the 1960′s there has been a dramatic change in the cultural influence the church has in American society. How are we to take these two seemingly contradictory notions.

Here is what I think might be happening in the last 50 or more years.
the evangelical church in general came into existence of of the fighting over modernism vs fundamentalism. The American Evangelical church can be seen as a fighting church, it fought to maintain the infallibility of Scripture, what some would call the battle for the Bible. Christians no matter what their denomination, theology, or church practices, were in agreement when it came to defending the authority of the Scripture. In reality, American Evangelicals, had won the biggest fight in their time, they had defended the reliability of the Bible. Once that battle had been fought, the church maintain a mentality of fighting. I think it is fair to say that the church lost its focus. This proper ecumenicism among different branches of the vine began to fade.

Many churches turned their focus from defending the core of their faith, to lamenting the changing face of American Spirituality. Rather than prophetically speaking into a culture that was rejecting even the notion of a knowable God, many churches decided circled the wagons and began to attack certain cultural trends that bothered their established membership. So the church lamented–over Longer hair and beards, guitars in worship, the lost of Hymns for choruses, the use of technology, and many other issues that should not have taken up their focus. Churches that forbid their members from dancing, were more faithful than those who didn’t. Churches that introduced guitars were more obedient to the great commission than those who still used the piano. The churches that I grew up observing were divided along style choices, that claimed to be based on major doctrinal significance. We have splintered, we have spent our energy fighting each other and fighting against every minor cultural taste.

The church has spent much of its resources on peripheral issues. We now find ourselves running on the cultural fumes of yester-year. Put another way, we have been yelling about secondary issues for so long, that we are finding it difficult to speak to more crucial issues because our prophetic voice has become hoarse.

Christians need to reorient their ways of thinking. We must repent of any, and all cultural corruptions, either from the modern or post-modern, the right or the left, the red or the blue. We must shake off all the cultural baggage that has hindered our fulfillment of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Most Christians have accepted that their flavor of Christianity is the one true faithful flavor left, and we must call on the Spirit to remove out pride.

We must use the resources that the Lord has entrusted to us with, to Love the Lord Our God with all our heart soul mind and strength, to Love our neighbor as ourselves, and to help every other brother and sister do the same. All with confidence that Grace will extend to more and more people, with the result being more thanksgiving all to the Glory God.

I must repent, I have a defective view of who Jesus is. My defect is not that I put too much into my view of Jesus, but too little. I know in my head that he is my propitiation, but his propitiation is too weak. I know the doctrinal truths of the historic creeds, but nothing of the passions which necessitated them.

Maybe I am not the only one guilty, but I am guilty. I am supremely guilt of seeking to be like the Apostolic Church in some respects but not others. I with, all my heart, pray that I will find “favor with all the people”, yet my prayers reveal that I do not care enough about speaking “the word of God with boldness” I have foolishly pitted God’s word against itself.

I have placed favor with the people over and against speaking the word of God boldly.

I am not interested in people, because I do not think that I can really bring these people anything that is really powerful. I think that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is weak, and therefore it is not important enough to mess up the status quo, of my life. I doubt what the Ghost can really do.

How does this fall out in my life, I sit in the coffee shop I smile and am polite to people, but I am afraid of messing up the status quo, I have friendly conversations, but I have no confidence in what Jesus can do.
When I have no confidence in what he can do, I, in effect, have no confidence in who he really is.

Jesus is the king yet I think of him as middle management. He is the Truth yet I think he is just a good idea.

Please help me, pray that Jesus would forgive my ignorance about him, and that I might have confidence in who Christ is and what he can do.

In March I will be leading a discussion about wealth and perceptions of wealth in America. The discussion is put together by City Reformed Church, and is part of their Spring Discussion Series: “rethink:Gender, Money, and Power”.
To prepare for the talk I have picked up a few books on the topic of wealth, money and ownership. I have picked up two “secular” books on the topic, one called The Unknown City, and the other, a NT Times Bestseller, called Richistan. I then picked up two books by Christians authors, the first is Rich Christians In An Age of Poverty, and the other Neither Poverty nor Riches:A Biblical Theology of Possessions.

I’m not sure if I will write full reviews of these books, but I do think that I will be posting quotes, and ideas presented in these books.