Posted on 09/24/2015 1:11:33 PM PDT by metmom
THAT THERE IS SOMETHING gravely wrong with evangelical Christianity today is not likely to be denied by any serious minded person acquainted with the facts. Just what is wrong is not so easy to determine.
In examining the situation myself I find nature and reason in conflict within me, for I tend by temperament to want to settle everything with a sweep of the pen. But reason advises caution; nothing is that simple, and we must be careful to distinguish cause from effect. As every doctor knows there is a wide difference between the disease and the symptoms; and every Christian knows that there is a big difference between cause and effect in the sphere of religion.
At the root of our spiritual trouble lie a number of causes and these causes have effects, but which is cause and which effect is not always known. I suspect that many things currently under attack by our evangelists and pastors (and editors, for that matter) are not the causes of our troubles but the effects of causes that lie deeper. We treat the symptoms and wonder why the patient does not get well. Or, to change the figure, we lay down a heavy fire against nothing more substantial than the cloud of dust raised by marching enemy troops long gone by.
One mark of the low state of affairs among us is religious boredom. Whether this is a thing in itself or merely a symptom of the thing, I do not know for sure, though I suspect that it is the latter. And that it is found to some degree almost everywhere among Christians is too evident to be denied.
Boredom is, of course, a state of mind resulting from trying to maintain an interest in something that holds no trace of interest for us (the boss's jokes, say, or that lecture on the care and nurture of dahlias to which we went because we could not resist the enthusiastic urging of a friend). No one is bored by what he can in good conscience walk away from. Boredom comes when a man must try to hear with relish what for want of relish he hardly hears at all.
By this definition there is certainly much boredom in religion these days. The businessman on a Sunday morning whose mind is on golf can scarcely disguise his lack of interest in the sermon he is compelled to hear. The housewife who is unacquainted with the learned theological or philosophical jargon of the speaker; the young couple who feel a tingle of love for each other but who neither love nor know the One about whom the choir is singing-these cannot escape the low-grade mental pain we call boredom while they struggle to keep their attention focused upon the service. All these are too courteous to admit to others that they are bored and possibly too timid to admit it even to themselves, but I believe that a bit of candid confession would do us all good.
When Moses tarried in the mount, Israel became bored with the faith that sees the invisible and clamored for a god they could see and touch. And they displayed a great deal more enthusiasm for the golden calf than they did over the Lord God of Abraham. Later they tired of manna and complained against the monotony of their diet. On their petulant insistence they finally got flesh to eat, and that to their own undoing.
Those Christians who belong to the evangelical wing of the church (which I firmly believe is the only one that even approximates New Testament Christianity) have over the last half-century shown an increasing impatience with things invisible and eternal and have demanded and got a host of things visible and temporal to satisfy their fleshly appetites. Without Biblical authority, or any other right under the sun, carnal religious leaders have introduced a host of attractions that serve no purpose except to provide entertainment for the retarded saints.
It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God's professed children are bored with Him, for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments.
This has influenced the whole pattern of church life, and even brought into being a new type of church architecture, designed to house the golden calf.
So we have the strange anomaly of orthodoxy in creed and heterodoxy in practice. The striped-candy technique has been so fully integrated into our present religious thinking that it is simply taken for granted. Its victims never dream that it is not a part of the teachings of Christ and His apostles.
Any objection to the carryings on of our present golden-calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, "But we are winning them!" And winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To nobility of character? To a despising of the world's treasures? To hard self-discipline? To love for God? To total committal to Christ? Of course the answer to all these questions is no.
We are paying a frightful price for our religious boredom. And that at the moment of the world's mortal peril.
This is very like a conversation I was having earlier with my son. I observed that a lot of people hear the Gospel and just don't like it. It's not a set of simple steps to a life of ease: it's about being conformed to a Savior who lived in poverty and then suffered and died, all for the good of others.
Tozer ping
The flesh resists dying.
Small wonder people don’t like it.
So many people are afraid to boldly state (as the bible does) that God is love.
Love (of a pure, holy kind) drives whatever God does. What we are tempted to think are exceptions really are not.
This is the all-explaining factor of Christendom. Without it, all you get is a lot of egotistical propositions, and frankly not even Tozer manages to escape that conundrum.
Exactly.
If there is a good reason to cause it to, or let it die, we yet will. The problem is that Christendom pussyfoots all around that reason today. It slights the ego of Christendom.
It's not clear to me exactly what you mean by this. Can you give a specific example?
I say stop and pray and ponder on it.
I understand if you’re at work or something and don’t have time to expand on and illustrate your point. I personally have a teenager looming over me (she’s quite a lot taller) with a sewing project.
So what is the solution, what does God really want?
Revelation 2:4-5 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Probably get rid of the shallow superficial programs and activities that we engage in and to stop being so ingrown, and get back to the business of going and making disciples, like He told us to.
Revelation 2:4
But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
I just KNEW I shudda read ahead!
There’s a difference between a Christianity you can be proud of, and a Christianity that you’re madly in love with God through. Let me put it that way... and frankly I am familiar with some of Tozer and it looks like he’s biased towards the first.
Remember the reason God wants those disciples (learners is a better rendition of the original Greek word — disciples tends to sound like someone who is following men, not God). It is kin to the root of the word mathematics, which is a system of thought that makes SENSE. God is love, do the math... that’s Christian faith.
Evangelical churches (some), for a long time now, have been trying to keep people interested with entertainment gimmicks. Rock music, wealth magic, sin causes...they want to seem hip.
That is what is boring. God is not boring, they just are too busy with nonsense to know Him anymore. I hope they get a grip.
“So what is the solution, what does God really want?”
Evangelize, NEW SOULS!!!
Our people are lazy they come to services to get their Scripture reading. Our pews are full every Sunday, but when it comes to the foot game well it’s the same folks every time. While it does get discouraging at times that is not my mission. My mission is to spread the Good News, the Gospel, and the Truth and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting and saving. Holy Spirit I am your mouth I plant the seed of Christ Jesus, but I know that you will water, fertilize, and prune as needed, Praise the Living God.
A true Christian should be in the word reading every single day. Church should be for fellowship and planning our next lost soul’s campaign. If we don’t spread the Good News WHO will? Please don’t tell me you don’t have time five minutes can always be found, but in all reality it’s all about priority. If you prioritize Jesus Christ and fill in you calendar with his activities first I can promise the rest will fall in place.
Oh before you condemn me just know this I was guilty also. TV, news, email, and every excuse that Satan can find tries to pull us away. The Word is your sword and your shield use it!
Put your FAITH first and I promise you that he will fulfill you with more that you can ever imagine. You must put that first foot forward blind faith. Sorry for the rambling the Spirit was kicking hard.
I am never bored during Mass. So much is happening that it is amazing, not boring.
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