Are they unbelievable? Do you ever feel like you would have to lose touch with reality when trying to believe some of the miracles of the Bible? Are you afraid of being labeled a moron by your secular friends outside of the church you attend. I mean, you can tell your little child about the miracles and they pretty much accept what they hear because you are the adult. But what happens when you try and explain it to your older school-aged child in this age of science and intellect? Does what you believe matter? If you are a Christian, how can you possibly accept the unexplainable and help others understand that miracles that were commonplace throughout the Bible are not commonplace today...or is that true? What about the extreme sexual norms of today compared to then? Are you labeled a prude by contemporary standards today?
"Christianity needs to update and adapt its moral standards for the 21st century!"
I hear this all time and it echoes from voices 100 years ago. Back then, the calls for change had less to do with morality and more to do with miracles. But the motivation for change is similar, and the results are just as intrusive to many non-secular believers.
I remember the "God Is Dead" movement of the 50s. Of course that movement has echoed throughout history, but the 50s stand out to me because I lived in it as a child. Then came my teen years in the "free love generation of the 60s." What rocked the early 20th century was the call of many church leaders to adapt the Christian faith to the scientific age of discovery. One could not expect thinking men and women to accept at face value all the miracles in the Bible, the thinking went. The biblical testimony of the miraculous is embarrassing to an educated mindset. Now the 21st century is upon us and more "biblical truths" are being challenged.
The Shell Game Many Christian Churches Play
In order to rescue Christianity from superstitious irrelevance, many church leaders sought to distinguish the kernel of Christianity (the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man) from the shell of Christianity (miracle stories that came from another cultural vantage point).One could still maintain the moral center of Christianity while disregarding the events that required suspension of disbelief.
As this adaptation spread, belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus was reinterpreted and given a solely spiritual meaning (he is alive in the hearts of good people). Miracle stories such as Jesus’ feeding the 5,000 were given a moral twist (the true miracle is that suddenly everyone shared).
The Virgin Birth? Well that gets rejected altogether in modern "Christian" thinking. I mean come on, a virgin giving birth. What was Mary really hiding from Joseph? I mean she was human and maybe Joseph didn't understand her needs, or maybe he did but had to appear shocked in that culture. Let's face it, Mary's son was a man by what everyone witnessed, he bled, he wept, he died...uh...He walked on water according to 12 men, er....he healed the blind and affirm...uhhhhhh hmm! He was crucified and seen by over 500 people...this requires some deep thinking. Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, many other historians wrote about Him. Hey! Could it be Jesus is who He says He is?
Many Christians are calling for church leaders to rethink the “embarrassing” parts of Christianity, specifically, our distinctive sexual ethic. Meanwhile, churches outside the West were appalled to hear “Christians” reject the clear testimony of Scripture and what the church had always believed. In North America, the rise of the evangelical movement was due, in part, to a desire to reclaim the center of Christianity and refuse to allow contemporary sensibilities to alter the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.”
Presbyterian minister and theologian J. Gresham Machen made the case that this refashioning of Christianity was no longer Christianity at all, but a substitute religion with a Christian veneer. Of course many churches today are saying pretty much the same thing but where are the proofs of the miraculous, non-believers say.
Over time, the effort to save the kernel of Christianity and leave aside its shell had the opposite effect. The distinctiveness of Christian teaching disappeared, and the shell of church rituals was all that remained. This is why, even today in some denominations, bishops and pastors and parishioners openly reject the core tenets of the faith but continue to attend worship and go through certain rites. The denominations that followed this course have since entered a sharp and steady decline.
The Echo of The Past Is Now The Present
One hundred years later, the church is once again being rocked. This time, many Christians are calling for us to rethink the “embarrassing” parts of Christianity — specifically, our distinctive sexual ethic. After all, many of the moral guidelines we read in the New Testament were written from another cultural vantage point and are no longer authoritative or relevant today. The clarion call of secular Christianity says. "If Christianity is to survive and thrive in the next century, many of our ancient prohibitions (sex outside of marriage,
homosexual practice, the significance of gender, etc.) must be set aside. We can no longer call sin, sin according to what a bunch of converted Christianized Jews put in print. It is outdated thinking!"
Outside the West, this enthusiasm for rejecting Christian moral precepts that have been accepted by many American churches is mindboggling. Still many in Europe and Great Britain applaud this updated, secularized brand of Christianity.
Churches that accept society’s dogma on marriage and sexuality may think of themselves as “affirming,” but the "real church" sees them as “apostate.” Meanwhile, it seems the height of imperialistic narrowness for a rapidly shrinking subset of churches in the West to lecture the rest of the world — including those places where Christianity is exploding in growth or where Christians are being martyred — on why they are wrong and how everyone else in Christian history has misread Scripture regarding the meaning of marriage, sin, godly living, etc..
It’s commonplace to assume that contemporary society’s redefinition of marriage, gender, and the purpose for sexuality will eventually persuade the church to follow along. Nestled within our own times, it is easy to think the trajectory of history will lead to an inevitable change within the global Christian church, however history’s lesson is the opposite! A century ago, the modernists believed that the triumph of naturalism would lead to the total transformation of Christianity. Darwinism would change Christian thought forever. It didn't
really, only in a few small sections of the church at large. Some apostate theologians propagate this watered-down moral Christianity.
It must have seemed thrilling for these leaders to think they were at the vanguard of reformation, that they were the pivot point of Christianity’s inevitable future. But such was not the case. Traditional stalwarts like Machen and G.K. Chesterton (who were criticized as hopelessly “backward” back then) still have books in print. The names of most of their once-fashionable opponents are largely unrecognizable. The Bible is still on the bestseller list. Newly found Christians realize in Islamic lands that they come from they will probably be killed for their conversion. Still, they come, some die, some live to give testimony to the life-givng, life-affirming, saving faith of Jesus Christ.
It’s commonplace to assume that contemporary society’s redefinition of marriage, gender, and the purpose for sexuality will eventually persuade the church to follow along. Should Jesus not return immediately, what if we were able to jump into the 22nd century. I wonder what we would see. There is a time in scripture according to Daniel and Revelation where wrong doing will become more commonplace and accepted as right-politicians practice it now! There is a time when the name of Jesus will be abhored by the majority of the population, maybe we are close, but what would we see in a 22nd century bible-affirming church? What can we expect?
Most likely, we would see a world in which the explosive growth of Christians in South America, China and Africa has dwarfed the churches of North America and Europe. And the lesson we learn from a century ago will probably still be true: History's lesson is that the churches that thrived were those that offered their world something more than the echo of the times. They offered them the Jesus of the Bible and all of the embarrassing miracles including the one where He rose triumphant over death. The Jesus that says "come unto me all ye heavy laden and I will give you rest."
See you next blog,
Ted
"Christianity needs to update and adapt its moral standards for the 21st century!"
I hear this all time and it echoes from voices 100 years ago. Back then, the calls for change had less to do with morality and more to do with miracles. But the motivation for change is similar, and the results are just as intrusive to many non-secular believers.
I remember the "God Is Dead" movement of the 50s. Of course that movement has echoed throughout history, but the 50s stand out to me because I lived in it as a child. Then came my teen years in the "free love generation of the 60s." What rocked the early 20th century was the call of many church leaders to adapt the Christian faith to the scientific age of discovery. One could not expect thinking men and women to accept at face value all the miracles in the Bible, the thinking went. The biblical testimony of the miraculous is embarrassing to an educated mindset. Now the 21st century is upon us and more "biblical truths" are being challenged.
The Shell Game Many Christian Churches Play
In order to rescue Christianity from superstitious irrelevance, many church leaders sought to distinguish the kernel of Christianity (the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man) from the shell of Christianity (miracle stories that came from another cultural vantage point).One could still maintain the moral center of Christianity while disregarding the events that required suspension of disbelief.
As this adaptation spread, belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus was reinterpreted and given a solely spiritual meaning (he is alive in the hearts of good people). Miracle stories such as Jesus’ feeding the 5,000 were given a moral twist (the true miracle is that suddenly everyone shared).
The Virgin Birth? Well that gets rejected altogether in modern "Christian" thinking. I mean come on, a virgin giving birth. What was Mary really hiding from Joseph? I mean she was human and maybe Joseph didn't understand her needs, or maybe he did but had to appear shocked in that culture. Let's face it, Mary's son was a man by what everyone witnessed, he bled, he wept, he died...uh...He walked on water according to 12 men, er....he healed the blind and affirm...uhhhhhh hmm! He was crucified and seen by over 500 people...this requires some deep thinking. Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, many other historians wrote about Him. Hey! Could it be Jesus is who He says He is?
Many Christians are calling for church leaders to rethink the “embarrassing” parts of Christianity, specifically, our distinctive sexual ethic. Meanwhile, churches outside the West were appalled to hear “Christians” reject the clear testimony of Scripture and what the church had always believed. In North America, the rise of the evangelical movement was due, in part, to a desire to reclaim the center of Christianity and refuse to allow contemporary sensibilities to alter the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.”
Presbyterian minister and theologian J. Gresham Machen made the case that this refashioning of Christianity was no longer Christianity at all, but a substitute religion with a Christian veneer. Of course many churches today are saying pretty much the same thing but where are the proofs of the miraculous, non-believers say.
Over time, the effort to save the kernel of Christianity and leave aside its shell had the opposite effect. The distinctiveness of Christian teaching disappeared, and the shell of church rituals was all that remained. This is why, even today in some denominations, bishops and pastors and parishioners openly reject the core tenets of the faith but continue to attend worship and go through certain rites. The denominations that followed this course have since entered a sharp and steady decline.
The Echo of The Past Is Now The Present
One hundred years later, the church is once again being rocked. This time, many Christians are calling for us to rethink the “embarrassing” parts of Christianity — specifically, our distinctive sexual ethic. After all, many of the moral guidelines we read in the New Testament were written from another cultural vantage point and are no longer authoritative or relevant today. The clarion call of secular Christianity says. "If Christianity is to survive and thrive in the next century, many of our ancient prohibitions (sex outside of marriage,
homosexual practice, the significance of gender, etc.) must be set aside. We can no longer call sin, sin according to what a bunch of converted Christianized Jews put in print. It is outdated thinking!"
Outside the West, this enthusiasm for rejecting Christian moral precepts that have been accepted by many American churches is mindboggling. Still many in Europe and Great Britain applaud this updated, secularized brand of Christianity.
Churches that accept society’s dogma on marriage and sexuality may think of themselves as “affirming,” but the "real church" sees them as “apostate.” Meanwhile, it seems the height of imperialistic narrowness for a rapidly shrinking subset of churches in the West to lecture the rest of the world — including those places where Christianity is exploding in growth or where Christians are being martyred — on why they are wrong and how everyone else in Christian history has misread Scripture regarding the meaning of marriage, sin, godly living, etc..
It’s commonplace to assume that contemporary society’s redefinition of marriage, gender, and the purpose for sexuality will eventually persuade the church to follow along. Nestled within our own times, it is easy to think the trajectory of history will lead to an inevitable change within the global Christian church, however history’s lesson is the opposite! A century ago, the modernists believed that the triumph of naturalism would lead to the total transformation of Christianity. Darwinism would change Christian thought forever. It didn't
really, only in a few small sections of the church at large. Some apostate theologians propagate this watered-down moral Christianity.
It must have seemed thrilling for these leaders to think they were at the vanguard of reformation, that they were the pivot point of Christianity’s inevitable future. But such was not the case. Traditional stalwarts like Machen and G.K. Chesterton (who were criticized as hopelessly “backward” back then) still have books in print. The names of most of their once-fashionable opponents are largely unrecognizable. The Bible is still on the bestseller list. Newly found Christians realize in Islamic lands that they come from they will probably be killed for their conversion. Still, they come, some die, some live to give testimony to the life-givng, life-affirming, saving faith of Jesus Christ.
It’s commonplace to assume that contemporary society’s redefinition of marriage, gender, and the purpose for sexuality will eventually persuade the church to follow along. Should Jesus not return immediately, what if we were able to jump into the 22nd century. I wonder what we would see. There is a time in scripture according to Daniel and Revelation where wrong doing will become more commonplace and accepted as right-politicians practice it now! There is a time when the name of Jesus will be abhored by the majority of the population, maybe we are close, but what would we see in a 22nd century bible-affirming church? What can we expect?
Most likely, we would see a world in which the explosive growth of Christians in South America, China and Africa has dwarfed the churches of North America and Europe. And the lesson we learn from a century ago will probably still be true: History's lesson is that the churches that thrived were those that offered their world something more than the echo of the times. They offered them the Jesus of the Bible and all of the embarrassing miracles including the one where He rose triumphant over death. The Jesus that says "come unto me all ye heavy laden and I will give you rest."
See you next blog,
Ted
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