www.modernreformation.org has new articles on the 'new spirituality' that threatens the Church. Why should you take a look? Surely you've met folk that talk of communing with God while observing nature, listening to waterfalls, or simply driving a golf ball. What kind of communion...with what kind of god?
A few years ago I wrote a review of this article, in which Thomas clearly draws the connection from Gnosticism to Romanticism to our 'new spirituality'. What is Gnosticism, you may ask? Thomas' point is that you don't have to look at ancient writings to find it--it's alive and well today...too well. Basically it is the idea that knowledge of a secret truth [really private truth] is what we should look for in life. It teaches that the physical world is bad and that we should escape it to find our true selves at peace with the divine glob. My review expressed my frustration with his academic exercise that failed to alert the Church to the error lurking so close. The Church has dealt with this one many times. Today, though, they have big celebrities coming to their aid...cough...Oprah! Thomas went so far as to say that we should incorporate their thoughts into our discourse. That's where I jumped off the train.
So do you know people that claim to get in touch with the divine through private encounters with preferential [private] objects of worship? I sure do. These people generally disdain organized religion of any kind. Not only do they despise the Church & Christianity, but they abhor Catholic expressions like the Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Churches.
Our response should be to ramp up the confrontation only after we've endeared ourselves to them, showing them we are authentically committed to them. This will prevent us treating them as subhuman. They will make this hard for us to get across, pushing all our buttons & setting all our virtues on the grinding wheel. Their concerns about religion's abuses are understandable, but not insurmountable.
Our response should also be to embrace the Church all the more, committing ourselves to her life, well-being, and mission.
12 May 2008
09 May 2008
This is Jeopardy!
This week the opening line could be..."This is Jesus!"
I have watched Jeopardy since I was very young. My wife knows that it's a life goal of mine to appear on Jeopardy. This week is the 1st of two weeks of College Championships.
I'm just shocked how many questions come from religion, Christianity, the Church, and the Bible.
One category was Get Your B.A. [answers alliterated by B. A.] & one answer was, "In John chapter 3 Jesus says that unless a man be B. A. he cannot see the kingdom of God" to which the question was...silence. Hmmm, I wonder if it's "what is BORN AGAIN!?"
My guess is they wanted to stump the college students since no one studies religion seriously anymore. Their answers support my assumption, unfortunately.
Unless we educate our younger generation about the faith, our Church is in, well, you know...
J-E-O-P-A-R-D-Y
I have watched Jeopardy since I was very young. My wife knows that it's a life goal of mine to appear on Jeopardy. This week is the 1st of two weeks of College Championships.
I'm just shocked how many questions come from religion, Christianity, the Church, and the Bible.
One category was Get Your B.A. [answers alliterated by B. A.] & one answer was, "In John chapter 3 Jesus says that unless a man be B. A. he cannot see the kingdom of God" to which the question was...silence. Hmmm, I wonder if it's "what is BORN AGAIN!?"
My guess is they wanted to stump the college students since no one studies religion seriously anymore. Their answers support my assumption, unfortunately.
Unless we educate our younger generation about the faith, our Church is in, well, you know...
J-E-O-P-A-R-D-Y
08 May 2008
Manifesto
This is worth a perusal
http://www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com
http://www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com
"We confess that we Evangelicals have betrayed our beliefs by our behavior. All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding world.
...All too often we have prided ourselves on our orthodoxy, but grown our churches through methods and techniques as worldly as the worldliest of Christian adaptations to passing expressions of the spirit of the age.
...All too often we have traced our roots to powerful movements of spiritual revival and reformation, but we ourselves are often atheists unawares, secularists in practice who live in a world without windows to the supernatural, and often carry on our Christian lives in a manner that has little operational need for God.
...All too often we have been seduced by the shaping power of the modern world, exchanging a costly grace for convenience, switching from genuine community to an embrace of individualism, softening theological authority down to personal preference, and giving up a clear grasp of truth and an exclusive allegiance to Jesus for a mess of mix-and-match attitudes that are syncretism by another name.
...All too often we have abandoned our Lord’s concern for those in the shadows, the twilight, and the deep darkness of the world, and become cheerleaders for those in power and the naïve sycophants of the powerful and the rich.
...[earlier in the document] The liberal revisionist tendency was first seen in the eighteenth century and has become more pronounced today, reaching a climax in versions of the Christian faith that are characterized by such weaknesses as an exaggerated estimate of human capacities, a shallow view of evil, an inadequate view of truth, and a deficient view of God. In the end, they are sometimes no longer recognizably Christian. As this sorry capitulation occurs, such ―alternative gospels represent a series of severe losses that eventually seal their demise.
...In short, for all their purported sincerity and attempts to be relevant, extreme proponents of liberal revisionism run the risk of becoming what Søren Kierkegaard called ―kissing Judases-– Christians who betray Jesus with an interpretation.
...The fundamentalist tendency is more recent, and even closer to Evangelicalism, so much so that in the eyes of many, the two overlap. We celebrate those in the past for their worthy desire to be true to the fundamentals of faith, but Fundamentalism has become an overlay on the Christian faith and developed into an essentially modern reaction to the modern world. As a reaction to the modern world, it tends to romanticize the past, some now-lost moment in time, and to radicalize the present, with styles of reaction that are personally and publicly militant to the point where they are sub-Christian."
...All too often we have prided ourselves on our orthodoxy, but grown our churches through methods and techniques as worldly as the worldliest of Christian adaptations to passing expressions of the spirit of the age.
...All too often we have traced our roots to powerful movements of spiritual revival and reformation, but we ourselves are often atheists unawares, secularists in practice who live in a world without windows to the supernatural, and often carry on our Christian lives in a manner that has little operational need for God.
...All too often we have been seduced by the shaping power of the modern world, exchanging a costly grace for convenience, switching from genuine community to an embrace of individualism, softening theological authority down to personal preference, and giving up a clear grasp of truth and an exclusive allegiance to Jesus for a mess of mix-and-match attitudes that are syncretism by another name.
...All too often we have abandoned our Lord’s concern for those in the shadows, the twilight, and the deep darkness of the world, and become cheerleaders for those in power and the naïve sycophants of the powerful and the rich.
...[earlier in the document] The liberal revisionist tendency was first seen in the eighteenth century and has become more pronounced today, reaching a climax in versions of the Christian faith that are characterized by such weaknesses as an exaggerated estimate of human capacities, a shallow view of evil, an inadequate view of truth, and a deficient view of God. In the end, they are sometimes no longer recognizably Christian. As this sorry capitulation occurs, such ―alternative gospels represent a series of severe losses that eventually seal their demise.
...In short, for all their purported sincerity and attempts to be relevant, extreme proponents of liberal revisionism run the risk of becoming what Søren Kierkegaard called ―kissing Judases-– Christians who betray Jesus with an interpretation.
...The fundamentalist tendency is more recent, and even closer to Evangelicalism, so much so that in the eyes of many, the two overlap. We celebrate those in the past for their worthy desire to be true to the fundamentals of faith, but Fundamentalism has become an overlay on the Christian faith and developed into an essentially modern reaction to the modern world. As a reaction to the modern world, it tends to romanticize the past, some now-lost moment in time, and to radicalize the present, with styles of reaction that are personally and publicly militant to the point where they are sub-Christian."
06 May 2008
"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'"
The Vatican says that Anglicans must choose sides...protestant or Catholic. We usually call ourselves both!
"Does it [Anglican Church] belong more to the churches of the first millennium -Catholic and Orthodox - or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century?"
If Rome is willing to live by those qualifications [1st Millennium vs. 16th century dogma] then we have something to talk about. I'm not trying to push an ultra-protestant agenda, but I'm being hopeful that Rome is willing to unify around the first Millennium of our common Faith.
"He [Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity] said he hoped that the Lambeth conference, an event which brings the worldwide Anglican Communion together every 10 years, would be the deciding moment for Anglicanism."
Him don't know much about Lambeth, do he?
"Cardinal Kasper, who has been asked to speak at the Lambeth Conference by the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: "We hope that certain fundamental questions will be clarified at the conference so that dialog will be possible."
When said questions are not clarified, it is hoped that they will countenance the GAFCon structure. It will be a long, long summer.
"Does it [Anglican Church] belong more to the churches of the first millennium -Catholic and Orthodox - or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century?"
If Rome is willing to live by those qualifications [1st Millennium vs. 16th century dogma] then we have something to talk about. I'm not trying to push an ultra-protestant agenda, but I'm being hopeful that Rome is willing to unify around the first Millennium of our common Faith.
"He [Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity] said he hoped that the Lambeth conference, an event which brings the worldwide Anglican Communion together every 10 years, would be the deciding moment for Anglicanism."
Him don't know much about Lambeth, do he?
"Cardinal Kasper, who has been asked to speak at the Lambeth Conference by the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: "We hope that certain fundamental questions will be clarified at the conference so that dialog will be possible."
When said questions are not clarified, it is hoped that they will countenance the GAFCon structure. It will be a long, long summer.
Anglican Way Institute Conference
July 2008
http://anglicanwayinstitute.org
Finding Grace through the Sacraments
Traditional Anglican Conference for young men and women.
Common Cause Partners, Reformed Episcopal Church, United Anglican Church, Anglican Mission in America, Anglican Province of America, Convocation of Anglicans in North America, Episcopal Missionary Church, Orthodox Anglican Church, The Anglican Church in America, The Diocese of the Holy Cross, FiFNA, ACiC, ACN, AAC, ANiC--you name the jurisdiction...this conference will appeal.
http://anglicanwayinstitute.org
Finding Grace through the Sacraments
Traditional Anglican Conference for young men and women.
Common Cause Partners, Reformed Episcopal Church, United Anglican Church, Anglican Mission in America, Anglican Province of America, Convocation of Anglicans in North America, Episcopal Missionary Church, Orthodox Anglican Church, The Anglican Church in America, The Diocese of the Holy Cross, FiFNA, ACiC, ACN, AAC, ANiC--you name the jurisdiction...this conference will appeal.
03 May 2008
01 May 2008
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