February 3, 2009
• By drifting into self-absorbed, post-modern subjectivity and relativism, the American Church is ignoring the liberating power of transcendent and objective truth, goodness and beauty for all of life and culture.
• By neglecting the historic doctrines of the faith to pursue “relevance” and the latest emergent fads of the day, the American Church is proclaiming a disjointed and shallow “gospel” that lacks answers to the great issues of our age.
• By promoting a narcissistic “me”-focused faith, the American Church is forgetting that God wants us to know him not merely as savior, but also as sovereign creator, lawgiver, judge and provider.
• By wanting grace without truth, the American Church is no longer serving as salt and light to our neighbors, cultures and nations.
• By falling prey to Gnostic dualism, the American Church is failing to equip believers to live out God’s precepts and authority in all spheres of human endeavor — including the “secular” and “material” world of our day-to-day existence — as it instead offers up Sunday sermon after Sunday sermon that focus, ad nauseum, on only so-called “spiritual” matters.
• By ignoring Biblical injunctions to renew our minds so we can be faithful stewards over all aspects of God’s creation, the American Church is trapped in intellectual lethargy.
• By embracing recent eschatologies of retreat, defeat and escape, the American Church is sitting on the sidelines as God’s triumph over evil continues its progressive march through history.
Even so heavenly Father, we honor your name. May your Kingdom continue to come through your will being done on earth, just as it is in heaven …
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Teacher, pilot, foe of tyrants, world traveler, passionate, attorney, entrepreneur, friend of the dispossessed, Christian, thinker, reluctant counselor, occasional mentor, brother in the Lord, adequate cook, pretty good host and so-so bass fisherman.
Grace without truth —
I don’t know if this is a product of postmodernism or political correctness…
Is there an incredibly fine line between speaking the truth in love and being judgmental?
Are we supposed to speak the truth in love only to those who know Jesus already? Or are we supposed to speak it to everyone? to our cultures and nations.
I think I am going to go through more of your blogs soon to see if you write more about renewing our minds and stewardship.
I think, maybe, I need to focus less on constantly worrying about how the “C”hurch relates, and focus more on how *I* relate to my brothers and sisters — both in the world and in the Lord.
Truth reveals, while grace empowers.
We can’t have one without the other.
All truth, we dry up. All grace, we blow up. But with both, we grow up.
I think this is the challenge of your generation — to find both grace and truth and learn how to proclaim them as part of the whole package. I believe and my experience tells me that the world is hungry for this. They want the relational renewal that comes through grace, but within the substantive framework of truth to help them navigate the issues of life.
Also, God calls us to exercise and exhibit discernment. That’s an attribute. Being judgmental, however, is an attitude.
We can have the attribute of discernment without the attitude of being judgmental. Don’t throw out discernment just because of the problem some Christians have with being judgmental.
I concur with much of your posting, Jim. I am concerned about much of what I observe in the “emerging Church” movement as a movement away from the cross and our great need for a Savior. There is more an emphasis on morals and ethics, how we live and our relationships with others. There is nothing wrong with doing good and noble things, but is this the message of the cross? Many in this movement see Christianity as something we do (i.e. following Jesus) It seems many in this movement want a relationship with Jesus, but not doctrines. But, which Jesus are they in relationship with? We really need to stop manipulating people into coming to Christ by preaching a Gospel without the cross. We need to preach Christ and Him crucified.
Lauren –
I agree. I’m seeing lots of men come to the Lord in the local jail as I, and others, preach a hard gospel that demands total surrender. In fact, I tell them not to come to the Lord unless they are serious and ready to truly make Jesus Lord, and not just savior, of their lives. The days of body-count evangelism, where we issue our newsletters proclaiming how many we led to the Lord by having people raise their hands in church (why is 99.99% of all “evangelism” today limited to church?) and say some simple “sinners” prayer, then come to the front so we can pat them on the back, slip some literature in their hands, and assure them of heaven, is – I pray – coming to an end! But at least some are doing that – emergents seldom even go that far and seem immobilized with fear that calling people to even salvation – let alone true repentance – might come across as judgmental!
“Easy believism” – whether by emergents or alter-call fundamentalists – is not conversion! Nor is conversion simply repeating some sinner’s prayer unless there is repentance (which in the Greek means to change the way you act by changing the way you think).
The problem with “emergents”, from what I’ve seen, is that they don’t want or even preach true repentance and then conversion – which must mean, among other things, that our faith is causing us to continually seek out and conform to the objective truths of Scripture. Rather, emergents want to conform “truth” – which to them is subjective and cultural rather than objective and transcendent (thus they describe themselves as post-modern) – to their own “emerging” sensitivities, which in turn are rooted in the pop-ideology of post-modernity. They are conforming to the world and the spirit of this age, therefore, rather than repenting and conforming to God’s objective and transforming truth.
I think what both sides of the “emergent” debate miss is that truth reveals, but grace enables. We all need both.
Even the commandment to “Love the Lord your God . . .” presumes a heart to obey one the most often quoted passage in scripture (both OT and NT), which is God’s command to “Be holy for I am holy.” Holiness is having a heart that seeks after and wants to conform to God’s attributes and character – which are not relative or purely personal (despite the pop-ideology of post-modernity). Yes, there is a personal dimension to God’s character as his grace transforms us from the inside, but it also has relevance on the outside to all arenas of human life and endeavor – including culture.
But neither is God’s nature harsh, because God in his love offers his grace to enable us to desire and act in ways consistent with his self-revelation of his holiness.
Frankly, I don’t see the “emergents” volunteering in our jails, or in our crisis pregnancy centers, or doing anything on the frontlines where their ideals have to confront the real world – and believe me, I’m there so I’d know if they were doing so (at least in our area).
I know they are talking about and starting “ministries” that are trying to reach out, but what they are doing will not work because it is driven by a false mercy that wants to embrace people and the world, but not change people and the world except to conform to their narcissistic ideals rather than the objective reality of Biblical truth. Their approach will attract an initial following of hurt people, but it won’t be sustainable because it will fail to transform them into mature Christians.
Emergents need to stop sipping their church-brewed lattes and engaging in narcissistic self-congratulations on how open and tolerant they are, and get into the messy realities of life where they will quickly learn that grace without truth never works.
Regardless, my blog on “Is There Not a Cause?” is not only directed at emergents. The Church in general is in a very sorry state, very self-absorbed and dysfunctional, whether emergent or not. In fact, I think the whole emergent movement is a reaction to the problems of what the Church has morphed into (I recommend reading “Pagan Christianity” for a good historical analysis and critique). I do respect their courage to challenge the Church, but I also think they are too concerned with being post-modern than being Biblical.
I agree. Where in Scripture do we reapeat a prayer to be saved? Where in Scripture is the phrase, “Do you have Jesus in your heart?” Did everyone who says these things truly become regenerated or did they merely have an experience. Grace without repentence; what does that mean? The way of the cross is the death to self will and conformity to the will of Christ.
I see so much busyness in the Church; a kind of hyperness to do do do. THe work was done for us. It is not by our strength that we minister, but by Christ who dwells in us. It is His grace that enables. There is a wonderful little book called “The Crucifxion of Ministry” by Andrew Purves. It deals with putting to death our ministries and continuing in the ministry of Jesus Christ through our union with Him. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is involved in ministry.