You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2009.
My Prediction:The Coming Evangelical Collapse part 1
The Coming Evangelical Collapse: What Will Be Left? part 2
The Coming Evangelical Collapse: Good or Bad? part 3
A lot to digest and think about.
One of the comments said the following,”…However, I would argue that to the extent that the decline reflects reality, the decline has already happened. You say you see a future of Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism, but that is exactly where the American church is now.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Yesterday my friend at WILLOHROOTS posted an article called Close the Church of Christian Criticism.
Basically, the post asks why must we be so negative and in attack mode so much?
Here is an excerpt:
In the past I could ignore those groups of people who say they are Christian, and may well be, yet practice something I find disturbing, like snake handling, or legalism. Now I am exposed to things I formerly was able to ignore. At the top of my personal Ignorance list was the existence of a cottage industry full of vehemence and bile, that group of people who say they are Christian and spend their lives criticizing everything that happens in a building with a cross on the roof. Don’t get me wrong, there are some loose wingnuts on the wheels of modern Christianity, and pointing out the insanity is healthy! I am not talking about those of us [me] who desire to point out wackos and frauds; I mean people who take on whole denominations, entire -faith-groups of mainstream believers, or really well known figureheads of the faith.
My first response, as is my nature, was to become defensive and justify my own vitriol that is often pointed at part of the Body of Christ.
In the comments section there was a statement by Jeofurry which led me to his site and from there to First Baptist Church of Langdon, ND and eventually to Mr. Musgrave’s sermon on Romans 14.
My take from that sermon is don’t sweat the small stuff and almost everything is small stuff. That’s kind of trivializing the sermon and it is certainly deeper and more compicated than that but you get the idea. Listen to the sermon.
I have< for example, on this site been very critical of Contemporary Christian Music. It’s not my taste but why should I attack this music that is enjoyed and edifying to millions of others? (In fact since that post one responder pointed me to some really good CCM, Waterdeep and Don Chaffer, excellent.)
I’m a big critic of the mega-churches. I will continue to be one but I needn’t be so harsh about it.
In other words my criticism and statements were not made in love but rather in anger and bitterness.
I would ask anyone whom I have offended to please forgive me.
I feel strongly about many aspects of the modern church and will continue to speak out about those things.
I will continue to point out the silly and absurd.
It is very easy to be hot under the collar when you have the anonymity of the internet. We (I) say things in a way that we would never do to someone’s face. It is cowardly and I am sorry.
But, with the help of friends like Willoh and Jeofurry I will with the grace of God endeavor to cut down on the negativity, anger and sarcasm (a form of angry comment).
Thank you Will and Jeff.
In spite of the nonsense that the radical abortionists are throwing down, science continues to prove that babies are indeed human and are so before the passage through the birth canal.
Something from Texguy.
I wanted to be on board with the new president but infanticide is more than I can stomach.
I thought about showing graphic baby murders but my sense of decency won out which is more than I can say for the murdering abortionists.
The kicker is that its not even ideological for them. It’s all about the money.
The Vatican reacts here.
Check this little band out.
Today I read an extremely intersting post from the very excellent www.internetmonk.com site entitled “Is This the “Better World” You Were Talking About?”.
The question is posed if in today’s media saturated world are we better off than say 50 years ago?
I responded on Mr. Monk’s site but would like to respond here as well with my story.
When I was a boy in the 50’s and 60’s we of course had television but it was in no way the center of our lives. Nor was radio.
What we had were neighbors, friends and relatives.
What we had was a true sense of community.
A typical Summer evening was spent with all of the adults gathered on the front porch and in the yard of my grandparent’s home. Nothing was organized people just showed up.
The adults would talk. They would talk sometimes about world or national events but mostly the conversations were about local subjects.
The high school football team, crop and livestock prices, local politics, church, people who had died were sick or were born.
The talk was of people and events that they knew and affected the daily life of each one.
Even thought there was a television set in the house it was never turned on during these times. The adults found it noisy and distracting and the children had better things to do.
Important things like catching fireflies, seeing the new calf, playing kick the can or thousand other things that kids can do when their imaginations are given free reign.
The adults gathered there all raised me and my brothers and my cousins and my friends. I had the accumulated wisdom of not just my parents and grandparents (a time machine back into the 1800’s when they were born) but the extended family and their friends. Mrs. Clinton was certainly right about a village but I think she did not mean what I mean.
This all seemed to have started in the early 60’s when President Kennedy was assasinated and we were glued to the tube for days at a time. Then the media circus of the Beatles. Vietnam was brought into our homes in living color.
However, the whole tenor seemed to change with Watergate. No longer did journalists seek to just get the facts and report the story it became more about the “gotcha” factor.
So is the world better?
No!
Today we hardly know our relatives much less our neighbors. I read an article in the newspaper this morning (there’s a shocker) about a man whose neighbors had lost their home in foreclosure and he never knew until they were packed up and gone. he didn’t really know these people at all but wished he could have at least given them someone to talk to.
Today we live in virtual isolation in these 3 bedroom prisons of our own doing. We sit in our homes and offices quaking in fear from the latest panic foisted on us by the media.
It’s not even the media’s fault. Oh, of course they are to blame for giving in to our worst inclinations (my how the world could use Edward R. Murrow) but we have asked, pleaded for the shallow blather that we get. And I’m not even discussing what passes for entertainment I’m talking about the “news”.
There are those lonely voices crying out such as Wendell Berry and Rod Dreher but their voices are lost in the clamour.
I don’t think we can go back. We can try but we are a nation and world of self imposed agoraphobics.
The loss cannot be measured. When we lost our community we lost part of what being human is. Perhaps we are on the cusp of a new humanity but it looks very much like the world of “THX1138” or “Brave New World” and I don’t really want to be a part of it. I guess it’s good that I’m on the downhill side of my 50’s.
First a disclaimer.
I am not a fan of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). I do not read very much Christian fiction. I have read “The Shack” that’s about it.
I am a curmudgeonly baby-boomer.
My tastes are not the final arbiter of what is good or not. Listen to or read whatever you like.
OK.
Newsweek reported last July that Christian entertainment (music, books, tv and movies) has become a billion dollar industry.
CCM alone accounted for $747 million in sales or 7% of the entire American music industry and it’s growing.
Since I don’t listen to this music or buy these books I suppose it’s possible that some good music and writing has crept in. Actually, I don’t listen to music on the radio at all because radio in 2009 radio is horrible with just a few exceptions of roots based music.
So what is my problem?
First, the music is just not very good. I realize that the level of writing and musicianship has improved but it is still generally sub-par. I think that most CCM artists really want to be mainstream bands or singers. This is a broad stroke of the brush but I think that the music and the record speaks for itself.
Second, I detest the “Jesus is my best freind/boyfriend” genre. Jesus is Lord of the Universe, the Great I AM, The Word, the Alpha/Omega. You get the point.
Third, the chanting reminds me of my hippie days when we would hang out with the Krishnas while they chanted the same phrase over and over until they were in some kind of mindless bliss. Is this what we want as believers?
Alright, I know that when Charles Wesley and others were writing that the music was probably viewed as too far out and hip for the day. I get that. but, at least these hymns had some theological weight to them.
Just look to something that you might consider lightweight like “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”.
Hark! the herald angels sing, -
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’ angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”Christ, by highest heav’n adored:
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the favored one.
Veil’d in flesh, the Godhead see;
Hail, th’incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”Hail! the heav’n-born Prince of peace!
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the sone of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
The Incarnation, The Trinity, Salvation. Wow!
The literature I will leave for another day.
If any of you think you can turn me on to somebody who not only has something to say but in a compelling piece of music then by all means please do so.
Chrisitan entertainment has become BIG business. Just like the churches that support it. I’m sure they would have loved it in Laodicea.
The Internetmonk is one of my favorite sites.
He often writes extremely insightful blogs about the state of the Church.
He is especially interesting to me when he takes on the vacuous state of many preachers, pastors, teachers etc.
Here is an example:
Salvation: Is It So What? or Whatever?
Take a look.
Please take a look at this very moving tribute to Fr. Neuhaus.
A Grief Observed: Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009 by Rev. Paul T. McCain
Also, just in case you don’t go there this statement from Fr. Neuhaus is especially meaningful:
“When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, knowing that the merits of Mary and the saints are all from him; and for their company, their example, and their prayers throughout my earthly life I will give everlasting thanks. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my won. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of “justification by faith alone,” although I will thank God that he led me to know ever more fully the great truth that much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced, whatever strength I have received from the company of the saints, whatever understanding I have attained of God and his ways – these and all other gifts received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will…look to Christ and Christ alone.”
-Richard John Neuhaus. Death on a Friday Afternoon. New York: Basic Books, 2000) p. 70.
“I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my won. “
We have a tendancy to claim faith only but we even turn that into a work. Fr. Neuhaus saw this clearly.
Another really good tribute from The Dallas Morning News.
