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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Very true, Zack. The church in general is in a pretty pathetic state right now. Even in a church where the teaching is reasonably sound, there is not a reasonable amount of difference between someone who goes to that church and someone who does not. This is obviously a problem. But there is no point to stating this problem unless you plan to come up with or seek a solution of some kind, which this blog post seems to be lacking.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have a solution now, don't we. Love, and preach the same, and fast so that the Church may grow.
ReplyDelete