Now we get to the part of Keely Emerine-Mix's post where she says something that is halfway sensible -- the church has too often tended to shun sinners as unworthy of our charitable attentions. There is definitely a real and present danger of that in churches, and it is heinous in part because it implies that if they are left outside the church because they are unworthy, we are inside the church because we were somehow found worthy. And of course that is both atrocious theology and a denial of God's abundant grace toward us.
(Since that is about the only decent point she makes in this post, maybe Mrs. Mix could have substituted a link to John Ford's Stagecoach, as that movie has just about the same perspective and points as her post, but in a much more entertaining format.)
There is a great irony, however, in Mrs. Mix's charge that the great sin of the post-World War II church has been the deliberate neglect and avoidance of sinners, because one of the chief causes -- if not the number one cause -- of all the problems that she rightly points out in the latter part of the second paragraph and in subsequent paragraphs is -- you guessed it: the rise of the government welfare State. That's right, the government welfare State that Mrs. Mix so loves and wishes to see grow ever larger and stronger and more involved in all areas of life, as the foremost agency of God in promoting the well-being of people on this earth, is the primary isolator of the "prim and proper people" (the "haves") from what Mrs. Mix likes to refer to as the comfortable middle-class white church's "great unwashed" (the "have-nots").
So at least as regards the final part of the post in question, I have to congratulate Mrs. Mix on pointing to a very serious problem. Unfortunately for her, she and her fellow pantywaist liberal Christians are largely responsible for causing this problem, and just about everything that she proposes as solutions will only make this problem worse. The more the Welfare State grows, the greater will become the chasm dividing people according to economic class and race in this country. The resentment across this divide is mutual: people on the receiving end of government hand-outs think they are entitled to them, and they resent the middle and upper class, and the middle class resents the poor people who are seen as leeches and as dragging down the overall level of the entire society. The only solution is a return to biblical blueprints for welfare, getting the government out of these activities and returning them to the family and the church.
Liberals love the Welfare State in part because it creates the illusion that everybody's needs are being adequately met WITHOUT any liberal actually having to go out and get his or her hands dirty. And of course that also applies to a lot of people who would not self-identify as liberals but for whom, nevertheless, the existence of the Welfare State is found to be mighty convenient.
Fortunately for the Gospel, however, such approaches are bound to FAIL and sooner or later (probably after the whole house of cards comes tumbling down) everyone is going to be forced to resume doing thing's God's way. Of course, by that time we will all be much poorer but from that point forward things will start to look up.
Showing posts with label what's wrong with the modern church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what's wrong with the modern church. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Missing the Missed Point, part 2
Putting behind us the disaster that was Keely Emerine-Mix's first paragraph in this post, let us hope for better things in the second. Here she informs us that the greatest error of the post-World War II church is "the idea that the object of, the greatest realization of, Christian faith is avoidance of sin. The idea that the essence of the believer's walk with Christ is to not sin has caused the Body of Christ to wither on its Vine."
Now this is an interesting assertion in several respects. First, to put it mildly, I think it is highly debatable whether the church in our lifetimes has been preoccupied with avoidance of sin. Second, the idea that dedicating one's self to avoidance of sin could cause the church to wither on its Vine is at least equally debatable.
What is sin, anyway? The Bible presents sin to us as any want of conformity unto, or transgression of God's Law-Word given as a rule to man.
Among other purposes, God's law was given to us for our blessing. The law is good for us because God knows what it takes for man, created in His image, to flourish under His good and gracious rule as King. God's law has been given to us so that we can more fully enjoy Him and His good gifts to us, and enjoy personal relationships with fellow bearers of God's image. In Psalm 19:7-11 David speaks for every mature Christian when he expresses great pleasure in the law of God. The flip side of the expression "avoidance of sin" is "conformity to God." How on earth can a desire to be in conformity with God be identified as the church's greatest error? Such a notion is totally bananas.
The Book of Job opens with a presentation of Job as a man deeply concerned with avoidance of sin: "Job sent and sanctified [his children], and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." And then just a few sentences later God gives us his personal estimation of Job: "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?"
Of course, Job was a type of Christ. Another type of Christ was Joseph, whose reward for preoccupation with avoiding sin was to be thrown into prison on account of the perjury of Potiphar's wife. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were blessed by God for refusing to sin by committing idolatry. The Bible is full of people who are praised for their preoccupation with avoidance of sin. And of course Jesus Himself said repeatedly that He came to do His Father's will and that He delighted in doing so. So there really is nothing at all to be critical of concerning a desire to avoid sin (or, to turn it around, a desire to live a life that is in conformity with God).
It can be seen as the very imitation of Christ.
However, the notion that the American church since the end of World War II has been preoccupied with avoidance of sin is really preposterous. O would that we had been preoccupied with avoidance of sin! The person who wishes to avoid sin must first of all find out what God's Law-Word says. Yet Christians as a rule do not know what God's Law-Word says and to the extent that we do know, we certainly have not wanted to take it as the authoritative rule for every area of our lives. Not only the post-World War II era but the past century (at least) have been an era of studious neglect of God's Law-Word for the church in America, as a whole.
If that had not been the case, how could we have allowed the murder of more than 50 million children to take place? How could we have allowed millions of tons of bombs to be dropped on far-off countries that never did anything to us and never posed any threat to us? Time and space would fail us if we were to attempt to fully recite the litany of evils that have been perpetrated by our supposedly Christian country since the end of World War II -- and NONE of that would have been allowed if we had indeed been deeply concerned with the avoidance of sin and all that such a stance implies.
And as to what causes the church to "wither on its Vine," I'll let Jesus have the last word for this post:
I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Now this is an interesting assertion in several respects. First, to put it mildly, I think it is highly debatable whether the church in our lifetimes has been preoccupied with avoidance of sin. Second, the idea that dedicating one's self to avoidance of sin could cause the church to wither on its Vine is at least equally debatable.
What is sin, anyway? The Bible presents sin to us as any want of conformity unto, or transgression of God's Law-Word given as a rule to man.
Among other purposes, God's law was given to us for our blessing. The law is good for us because God knows what it takes for man, created in His image, to flourish under His good and gracious rule as King. God's law has been given to us so that we can more fully enjoy Him and His good gifts to us, and enjoy personal relationships with fellow bearers of God's image. In Psalm 19:7-11 David speaks for every mature Christian when he expresses great pleasure in the law of God. The flip side of the expression "avoidance of sin" is "conformity to God." How on earth can a desire to be in conformity with God be identified as the church's greatest error? Such a notion is totally bananas.
The Book of Job opens with a presentation of Job as a man deeply concerned with avoidance of sin: "Job sent and sanctified [his children], and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually." And then just a few sentences later God gives us his personal estimation of Job: "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?"
Of course, Job was a type of Christ. Another type of Christ was Joseph, whose reward for preoccupation with avoiding sin was to be thrown into prison on account of the perjury of Potiphar's wife. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were blessed by God for refusing to sin by committing idolatry. The Bible is full of people who are praised for their preoccupation with avoidance of sin. And of course Jesus Himself said repeatedly that He came to do His Father's will and that He delighted in doing so. So there really is nothing at all to be critical of concerning a desire to avoid sin (or, to turn it around, a desire to live a life that is in conformity with God).
It can be seen as the very imitation of Christ.
However, the notion that the American church since the end of World War II has been preoccupied with avoidance of sin is really preposterous. O would that we had been preoccupied with avoidance of sin! The person who wishes to avoid sin must first of all find out what God's Law-Word says. Yet Christians as a rule do not know what God's Law-Word says and to the extent that we do know, we certainly have not wanted to take it as the authoritative rule for every area of our lives. Not only the post-World War II era but the past century (at least) have been an era of studious neglect of God's Law-Word for the church in America, as a whole.
If that had not been the case, how could we have allowed the murder of more than 50 million children to take place? How could we have allowed millions of tons of bombs to be dropped on far-off countries that never did anything to us and never posed any threat to us? Time and space would fail us if we were to attempt to fully recite the litany of evils that have been perpetrated by our supposedly Christian country since the end of World War II -- and NONE of that would have been allowed if we had indeed been deeply concerned with the avoidance of sin and all that such a stance implies.
And as to what causes the church to "wither on its Vine," I'll let Jesus have the last word for this post:
I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Missing the Missed Point, part 1
Keely Emerine-Mix makes some good points in What's the Point, Anyway? but she also offers too many huge targets for me to resist the urge to blast away at some of the more egregious problems, so here goes --
First, before moving on to point out what she considers to be the deepest problem of all, she gives examples of things that she feels represent some of the most serious errors of American Christianity in the past half century:
Okay, from my perspective that's a mixed bag of grievances but regarding that last one, pardon me? Since when has abortion been a "sin of the bedroom"? The sin of the bedroom was fornication. The phenomenon of abortion that we are looking at here is murder, plain and simple. And as a societal phenomenon it is mass murder, to the tune of more than 50 million dead (and counting). To call it a sin of the bedroom is to lie. The idea is that sins of the bedroom are between two consenting parties and as "victimless crimes" they really should be nobody's business, but nobody asked any of the babies if they wanted to be murdered. For a Christian to talk that way is particularly disgusting. Some champion of the poor, the weak, the downtrodden, and the disenfranchised! Talk about accommodation of the culture!
She describes the opposition to abortion as "horrific" and says it manifests a "lack of Christlike love" and results in "very real, very painful blows inflicted on society in Christ's name."
Wow.
Okay, I'm going to have to stop there for now and resume in the next post, but just think about that for a while. To my ears those sound like the words of a moral monster. I suppose I shouldn't be, but I can't help being amazed that she could think such things, let alone say them, but if people were incapable of thinking like that, we wouldn't have the blood of 50 million babies on our hands, would we? It just goes to show how much inhumanity to man we become able to tolerate once we deny the full humanity of any group of people. It's scary -- in a fallen world, this is the human condition.
First, before moving on to point out what she considers to be the deepest problem of all, she gives examples of things that she feels represent some of the most serious errors of American Christianity in the past half century:
- Slowness in getting on the Civil Rights bandwagon
- Giving too much influence to folks like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson
- Equating of Republican Party politics with God's politics
- Failure to address materialism, greed, bigotry, indifference to the poor, accommodation of the culture, and militarism
- Focus on fighting "sins of the bedroom" such as abortion and gay rights
Okay, from my perspective that's a mixed bag of grievances but regarding that last one, pardon me? Since when has abortion been a "sin of the bedroom"? The sin of the bedroom was fornication. The phenomenon of abortion that we are looking at here is murder, plain and simple. And as a societal phenomenon it is mass murder, to the tune of more than 50 million dead (and counting). To call it a sin of the bedroom is to lie. The idea is that sins of the bedroom are between two consenting parties and as "victimless crimes" they really should be nobody's business, but nobody asked any of the babies if they wanted to be murdered. For a Christian to talk that way is particularly disgusting. Some champion of the poor, the weak, the downtrodden, and the disenfranchised! Talk about accommodation of the culture!
She describes the opposition to abortion as "horrific" and says it manifests a "lack of Christlike love" and results in "very real, very painful blows inflicted on society in Christ's name."
Wow.
Okay, I'm going to have to stop there for now and resume in the next post, but just think about that for a while. To my ears those sound like the words of a moral monster. I suppose I shouldn't be, but I can't help being amazed that she could think such things, let alone say them, but if people were incapable of thinking like that, we wouldn't have the blood of 50 million babies on our hands, would we? It just goes to show how much inhumanity to man we become able to tolerate once we deny the full humanity of any group of people. It's scary -- in a fallen world, this is the human condition.
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