The church in America has been weakened. That much ought to be clear. We preach extremes, and we have all the relentlessness of the Pharisees or all of the ignorance of the masses. We preach too much, or nothing at all. The former is Religious Legalism, and the latter is fluff. Both are unacceptable- We must be a part of the world more than the Religious Right, and less than the Religious Left. We are a nation of agnostics and heretics. We know what we should about theology, but not a thing about love and justice.
The God of the Bible is both loving and just, but one aspect is weakened by everyone. We either pity and do nothing else, or we call judgement worthlessly. We have become lonely because we don't understand how this God can be. So, this is really a call to understand and preach a true, mighty God, but not a God without mercy. We ought to fear our Creator, but also to love our neighbor. To do anything less is heretical.
The Church has become a part of society in a negative way- people come not for God, but solely for appearence's sake: "It's what we've always done."
To change this, the Church must challenge herself to daily grow more Christlike, and not pander to the world or cast grave justice on the world. "Love the Lord your God, AND Love you neighbor." One without the other is useless.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Ecclesia
A call to abandon the church in order to find the Church-
What if I said that the spirit is dead in the modern church? Would that claim be believed? I am not saying that God is not in any believers, but rather that he is not in the community as a whole. How are we to establish this community? It cannot be done simply sitting and listening to someone with a theology degree speak. It must be engaged in spiritually, and not simply emotionally as worship leaders would have us believe. The modern church has two problems, three traits which cripple it: It is selfish, it is focused on emotion (and when taken together, focused on individual emotion) and it is religious (that is, legalistic). Let the church in America cry out against this, for we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
What if I said that the spirit is dead in the modern church? Would that claim be believed? I am not saying that God is not in any believers, but rather that he is not in the community as a whole. How are we to establish this community? It cannot be done simply sitting and listening to someone with a theology degree speak. It must be engaged in spiritually, and not simply emotionally as worship leaders would have us believe. The modern church has two problems, three traits which cripple it: It is selfish, it is focused on emotion (and when taken together, focused on individual emotion) and it is religious (that is, legalistic). Let the church in America cry out against this, for we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
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