Posted on 12/21/2003 3:46:23 PM PST by nickcarraway
Forgive me for playing prophet, but I think this will be the last Christmas of the 20th century. Yes, I know that the 20th century actually ended a few years ago, but I'm thinking of it as an era. This Christmas a certain era will end.
Call it the era of Christianity lite. Much popular religion of the century descended into mere feel-goodism. Gone was all serious reference to sin, repentance, suffering, atonement, evil, anything unpleasant.
God was in heaven and all was rosy. Say your prayers, try not to hurt anybody, never be "judgmental," and everything will come out right. Business will go well. The kids will behave. You'll never get sick. You'll acquire lots of "stuff." The Father in heaven became a Grandfather in heaven.
Christmas was similarly sterilized. When we were given anything beyond Santa Claus, coloured lights and canned carols, we might actually see a baby, a manger or a star. But Herod's massacre of the children in Bethlehem was certainly never mentioned, nor the dire warning to Mary: "A sword will pierce your soul also" (Luke 2:35).
It was rarely acknowledged that all this unrelieved sweetness and light was much at odds with the Christianity of the New Testament or the actual experience of Christians through much of their history or what ordinarily happens to us ordinary people. Business did not always go well, kids did not always behave, people did in fact get sick (and died, too) and along with all the "stuff" came credit card bills that are now, we're told, astronomical. So 20th century people gradually slipped away from the churches on the sufficient grounds that what they were saying seemed utterly unreal. Such was the era of Christianity lite.
There is convincing evidence now, however, that the era is over, and that the 21st century will see some fundamental changes. I don't mean a massive return to the church, but rather a massive turn of the churches away from Christianity lite.
The after-effect of 9-11 has been a general decline in the credibility of what's called "post-modernism," the belief there are no such things as moral truths. You have your moral truths, I have mine and no version whatever can claim to be really true. This means that the people who deliberately murdered 3,000 innocent civilians had just as good a claim to be right as those who thought otherwise. Nobody, apart perhaps from professors of "ethics," can swallow that line any more, and this has thrown the whole post-modern phenomenon into doubt.
The continuing probability of terror, wrought in the name of an Islamic God, will spur more and more thought about who or what God actually is.
A "spiritual" awakening is going on. According to a recent cover story in Time, Canadians are flocking into prayer groups that meet outside of churches, though they're often sponsored by churches. Such a ferment has preceded every major religious revival. They begin as strictly non-institutional, but they rarely remain that way. Genuine "spirituality" makes people want to do things for God. So corporate action follows and some sort of institution becomes necessary. "Spirituality," in other words invariably turns into "religion."
This may sound extreme, but I think it will happen. Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion, will prove to be the most attended Hollywood movie ever made. (This excludes, of course, the Campus Crusade movie Jesus which is already and by far the most attended movie ever made, but it is not usually considered a Hollywood product.)
The Gibson production is emphatically not Christianity Lite. It portrays the crucifixion for what it was, "a bloody, dusty, sweaty and sordid business." That is, it follows the New Testament account. Never has a movie received so much advance attention - an 18-page review in the New Yorker, columns in every major American newspaper, sophisticated Washington crowds openly weeping. It will hit very hard.
So consider this the last Merry Christmas in the age of Christianity lite. The new century will see a new Christianity which in fact is the old one. And a very different Christmas. Less sugary, but far more real. And it's about time.
Bzzt. WRONG.
Matt 23:11
Luke 22:26
Luke 22:31-32
John 21:14-16
And, of course, Matt 16:18
If you can't even get such a simple thing as that right, why should I pay any attention to anything else you have to say? I've seen your performance on the NES thread, and it's no better.
Paul tells early Christians in Ephesus and Colossae to "speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph. 5:19, cf. Col 3:16). So whether Jesus or the apostles did (which is debatable), Christians do.
It's a long and re-hashed (and frankly boring) discussion
Then why bring it up? As for the rest of your post, I never said that other Christians couldn't sing 'contemporary' songs. I said that I see no reason to change the way churches "do" worship. I still prefer worshiping through hymnody.
No, that means there was a tactical decision in the early Church to send Peter to preach to the Jews.
We aren't bound by a first century tactical choice, and Peter has no "followers". Jesus has followers.
Was the first Pope perfect?
Nobody claims that the first Pope was perfect, or than any of the 263 subsequent Popes were perfect, either. Strawman.
Compare your opinion to the Scriptures, where Jesus says that the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, and must be obeyed.
And yet you accuse others of following philosophy over and against Scripture! You would see better the speck in my eye if you removed the plank from your own.
Because the legal system and the priesthood were one in the same. The law being fullfilled in Christ removed the legal aspect and left only the spiritual. Moses' seat is occupied by Christ. That isn't opinion, that is what Christ spent the latter part of his life telling those that would hear him - both himself and through the Apostles. You might try actually reading what scripture says instead of parroting your philosophers.
The passage says nothing about everyone being equal, or "no rule of one over another," as you put it. It does indeed set a different standard of behavior for those in authority, but that instantly and automatically implies that there are some in authority.
You're the one reading your own opinions back into the Scripture.
The Pharisees weren't priests, and came into existence long after the Decalogue. Nice try, though.
Moses' seat is occupied by Christ.
Why are you demoting Christ? What has he done to you to deserve such ill-treatment?
More empty human philosophy uninformed by the light of God's word. When will you repent?
Peter could minister to Gentiles during the course of his primary ministry; but, per Christ, the original apostles were sent forth to minister to the houses of the family of Israel - the 12 tribes. Paul was commissioned to Preach to the 13th tribe that was grafted on - the gentiles. That was God's plan and Jesus' direction to the apostles. And it is why Peter ministered in the region of Babylon rather than in Rome.
Why are you demoting Christ? What has he done to you to deserve such ill-treatment?
I did no such thing nor did I imply such a thing; but, I'm sure to you that rank somehow matters to God. It doesn't. Christ assumed athority to himself over matters of the law. Remember. Thus the direction given in i believe 1 thessalonians 5 to return not evil for evil.. ie not barbecuing people at the stake for things. Ring any bells?
More empty human philosophy uninformed by the light of God's word. When will you repent?
Uninformed by God's word? Or uninformed by your philosophies, because the latter seems to be the problem you have - that your philosophies are being called into question instead of being blindly accepted as truth. Do tell.. Don't, then, bother reading what the apostles had to say about philosophy and the wisdom of men, you'll be really offended.
So you charge. You are the one with the claim. I'm pointing out what scripture says, not offering a different system that I myself defined. I'm rather rebutting one that your philosophers offered up in error. Christ appointed no Chief among the apostles. And he states clearly 'the world has those who are great that rule over people - it shall not be so among you'. IE, there will not be one among you that will rule over the others. If you want to be great, then minister. If you think yourself chief, then serve. The whole group served and ministered. And none ruled but Christ. That was their example. Yours isn't the same, for some reason....
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