Posted on 10/13/2004 3:32:40 AM PDT by Radio Bible Guy
When Incrementalism Really Means Compromise
I was a mere high school student when I attended my first "contemporary" church service during the "Jesus Freak" movement of the early 1970's in Costa Mesa, California. Up to that point in my life, I was exposed to more formal type church services only. Nevertheless, this new kind of church service shocked me very little, because I was made aware (many times, until the point was driven home), of the "logic" behind this modern type worship.
The example I heard most promoting the positive aspects of this new movement was, "we are building bridges to reach out to those who would never consider entering a church." Bridge building? That sounded like a good reason to me. Anyway, was not my main purpose as a Christian to reach out to the lost world around me? It was a number of years later when I found my, "worship experiences" waning and I did not know which side of the bridge I was on. It was then that I learned that bridges go "both ways."
Incrementalism is another one of those bridges that can go both ways. I only wish that the majority of Christians during the past generation or two were more aware of this possibility. The negative aspect of anti-Christian incrementalism is the fruit of our nation's culture today. Decline of Christian culture may be said to be our inheritance from the type of denominational minimalism, which in so many cases has personalized religion to the point that the faith of Christ is commonly spiritualized away to nothing more than exercising one's buttocks in a pew once a week. This is most evident where the overwhelming concern of the Sunday churchgoer becomes a morbid introspection of the "self" and religion becomes an exercise in soul-centeredness.
To be realistic, we can agree that changes in any area of life do not happen over night. History does not reflect immediate change by the direct acts of civil government legislation. Only God determines the events we face and minimizing such events to incrementalism is a perversion of the Body of Christ and the Power of God. Such is the result of sincere Christians labeling many sections of the Bible as "irrelevant" or out of sheer embarrassment ignoring difficult portions of Scripture all together. Today's Christians can be so far removed from the life of the Bible that sometimes the obvious does not strike them at all.
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we... We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." Numbers 13:30-33.
Throughout the history of the people of God, incrementalism may be equated with the excuse of the coward and a coward's means of rejecting the power of God.
"And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones..." Numbers 14:6-10
Because Christians are called upon to take a stand for what is right, does that mean Christians are going to be erased from history. "Oh no, someone will do something bad to me if I am to faithful to God." Today is no different from yesterday in that as Christians we are called upon to take a stand for what is right in the eyes of our God.
"...And others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented. Of whom the world was not worthy..." Hebrews 11:36-38
Let's see, hum, we can simply look the other way as we drop a "pinch of incense" at the ecclesiastical and civil governmental altars that demand our approval for the cries of the blood of more than forty-million babies from the ground we walk on. "Oh well, if we are good Christians it will get better someday." When will Christians see that we are in a life and death struggle with the enemies of God? When will Christians begin to look to the power of God and not the power of the enemy?
Historically incrementalism can best be observed in the tenacity of Arian, Pelagian, Sabellian, and the never-ending rants of all the other "isms" that attempt to supplant the orthodox Christian faith with a subjective picking and choosing in an attempt to make man the ruler of all creation. Whereas despite the overwhelming difficulties someone has to step out in history and declare.
"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Romans 8:31-37
Where can incrementalism be found in the courage of obedience of those who always outnumber the culture of anti-Christ?
"And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword." Leviticus 26:8
Lest we forget, belief means action, our action upon the will of God in the day of God's choosing, not on the day we may judge best for confronting the suicidal grip of Humanistic religion on family, church and nation. Today is always the best day to ask God for the grace and courage to obey Him more.
"...But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." Hebrews 3:6-19
So, for what is this Christian commentator actually calling? Is it a revolution and a quick change within our cultural order? May it never be! As Christians, we are required to do what we can do and be who we are. Nevertheless, doing little to nothing, as we pray each week, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," is a stench in the nostrils of our Creator God. Our Christianity is not restricted to a state sanctioned 501(c) "church reservation," or "ghetto" that we have securely boxed ourselves into. In Christ we "live and move and have our being." Every area of life belongs to God's people and is where we are to establish a Christian Worldview. So, get ready to work and work hard.
The state administered "humanist parochial schools" whether they are at the university, high school or elementary level are no place for Christian children. Are we going to be faithful stewards with our votes? Than we need to reject all godless leadership at every level of our society that continues to promote its tyranny upon or family, church, businesses, and local civil government. However, most of all we as Christians must stop the horrendous sin of "picking and choosing" our level of obedience to God. We alone, as the covenant people of the Triune God, hold the preconditions of intelligibility. There can be no cowards found among those pressing forward the "Crown Rights of the Lord Jesus Christ." May we as the people of God soon fall in love with this truth, "All the Word of God is for all of life."
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