Posted on 05/17/2004 7:06:39 AM PDT by qam1
VIEW MEGACHURCHES AS SLICK, IMPERSONAL
For evidence of generational upheaval these days, you might skip over the usual suspects -- sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll -- and consider instead Christianity.
Two decades after baby boomers invented the suburban megachurch, which removed crosses or stained-glass images of Jesus in favor of neutral environments, their children are now wearing "Jesus Is My Homeboy" T-shirts.
As mainline churches scramble to retain young people, these worshippers have gained attention by-creating alternative churches in coffee bars and warehouses and publishing new magazines and Bibles that come on as anything but church.
But does a T-shirt really serve the faith? And if religion is our link to the timeless, what does it mean that young Christians replace their parents' practices?
The movement "has a noble side," said Michael Novak, the conservative theologian at the American Enterprise Institute. He remembers how much he enjoyed the Christian comic books of his youth. He compared the alt-evangelicals to missionaries, who "feel they've learned something valuable from their faith and want to share it" using the native language.
For many in this generation, the worship style of their parents feels impersonal: not bigger than their daily, media-intensified lives, but smaller. Their search is for unfiltered religious ex-perience.
"My generation is discontented with dead religion," said Cameron Strang, 28, founder of Relevant Media, which produces Christian books, a Web site and Relevant magazine, a stylish 70,000-circulation bimonthly that addresses topics like body piercing, celibacy, extreme prayer, punk rock and God.
Strang, a graduate of Oral Roberts University, is in some ways a model alt-evangelical, with two earrings, a shaved head and beard. He left a megachurch, he said, because he felt no community at the slick services. Now he attends an alternative church in a school gym, with intimate groups and basketball after services.
This stylistic shift is critical, said Lee Rabe, pastor at Threads, an alternative, or "emerging," church in Kalamazoo, Mich. Where megachurches reached out to baby boomers turned off by church, the younger generation often has no experience with religion. They need to be beguiled, not assuaged, Rabe said.
"The deity-free 'church lite' of the megachurches, that's the last thing these people want," he said. "They want to talk about God. It's hard-core, not in a fire and brimstone way, but it has to be raw, real."
The changes are often more stylistic than doctrinal. Many alt-evangelicals espouse conservative theology, but reject the censure of some churches. Strang sees this as a blueprint for an evangelical left.
"We're all sinners," he said. "Your sin isn't any worse than my sin. We don't say, 'Stop the horrible gays.' You want to reach them, you don't want to protest them. If we looked like goody-two-shoes, clean cut, we couldn't have a conversation with our lesbian friend at the coffee shop, because she couldn't relate."
Increasingly, this conversation borrows from pop culture, in the same way that hip secular culture borrows the cabala and the cross.
Critics say this engagement comes at a price. Timothy Williams, 48, a pastor at Sound Doctrine Ministries, a non-denominational church in Enumclaw, Wash., sees flirtation with pop culture as a capitulation to sin. "More and more, the church is seeking to be like the world around it," said Williams, who has written a pamphlet denouncing Christian rock. "But the Bible says that anyone who becomes a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. If we're going to be relevant or on the world's level to draw people, we might as well give free beer in the parking lot."
But evangelicals have long used pop culture and new technology to spread their gospel, said Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University.
Christian tracts handed out in the 19th century were one of the first mass media. In the 1930s, the evangelist Charles Fuller used the new medium of radio to broadcast his sermons. Four decades later, the Jesus movement of the 1970s adopted the vibe of the 1960s counterculture.
The actor Stephen Baldwin, a born-again Christian, has just directed a DVD called Livin' It, pairing extreme sports with faith testimony, from which he hopes to spin skate Bibles, clothing, CDs and Bible-study guides, all tied to a non-profit youth ministry.
"This could be the first get-down rock 'n' roll, cool Christian brand," he said.
The underlying romance is familiar from any Nirvana video: the Christian as rebel or outsider, misunderstood, struggling against a world of conformity, commercialism and manufactured pleasures.
"It's a countercultural thing," said Tim Lucas, 33, pastor of an emerging ministry called Liquid in Basking Ridge, N.J. On a recent Sunday, Lucas wore a Hawaiian shirt and used images from The Lord of the Rings movies and a clip from Amadeus in a sermon about the book of First Samuel.
"They identify with being an underground movement, which is what Christianity was in the beginning," Lucas said of his congregation. "Living out a life with Christ at the center draws a lot of flak. Not a lot of people will celebrate that."
The movement away from middle-of-the-road theology and worship mirrors a trend on college campuses, where growing numbers of students claim either no religion or strong religious affiliation, with the middle ground shrinking, said Alexander Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, which last year completed a national study of students' beliefs.
In the survey, more than 70 percent of students said they prayed, discussed religion or spirituality with friends, found religion personally helpful and gained spiritual strength by trusting in a higher power.
"I stopped attending mass when the tambourines and the rock band arrived. It didn't mesh too well."
I don't think my voice teacher would approve of those instruments either. I also do not approve of them. The mood for worship is NOT set by loud instruments.
If you deny that God is immutable and omniscient you make Him a God that is willing to break a covenant agreement ( as is the example in the text KJ used) ..fickle
Yes, I know that we share a dislike for the leftward drift.
I will listen when I have an opportunity. Thanks
I think the longer mom posts, the more accurate my original description of the hardened calvinists becomes. Even to the point, that if you don't completely disavow any and all of the biblical text that teaches freewill, and then believe in predestination to the degree that she does... you worship a different God than her.
I did not say that (as I do not believe that ) , I said it could be argued . And I think it could. If we define God by His nature or Characteristics or nature then you deny immutability (as taught in the Bible) and omniscience (knowing all things past present and future ) as taught in the Bible then we can argue we have different gods
That's where these discussions always go. And the next phase is that we aren't really saved because we don't accept the calvinist doctrine in the manner that they believe.
That is a lie from the pit of hell KJ, show me where I have ever said another Christian was unsaved. You owe me an apology
I have never said it was necessary to be a Calvinist to be saved .. That is another lie.
It seems your best arguments against the immutability of God is to slander Calvinists and me in particular
And yes that is the last refuge of Arminians when they are shown the truth with Scripture. If you do not like the message attack the messenger . The fact you failed to ping me is proof that you knew you were lying .
I made that statement early in this thread and it torqued them that I would even think such. But when it's all said and done, my statement was accurate.
Your statement , unless you can back them up are slanderous lies. I expect that you will produce those posts or apologize publicly
Sorry here is your reply
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1137027/posts?page=362#362
Again, I love both of your posts. There is a lot of truth in all of them. I just don't like it when it becomes personal or hurtful. It is probably unintentional, but that's the way it reads to me.
If God is mutable , and He can and DOES change his mind , would you say you can trust His promises?
If you punch in on google The attributes of God , it is my guess that most will list Immutable and omniscient . Those are Characteristics of God that have been taught for generations by the church .
It is not a matter of heaven or hell unless God really can and will change his mind in the future right :>) It goes to our ability to have faith and to know that God is always faithful to His word.
As Christians we hold probably 95% of our soteriology in common . The difference in the 5% can be summed up in this discussion in some ways .
My Church does not demand that members be Calvinists , however it does demand that we all hold that 95% in common. Those are the areas questioned when you meet with the elders.
If God had truly intended to destroy Israel , if we look at it from a non Calvinist perspective , He would have foreseen the rebellion of Israel and He would never had purposed to have the line of the Savior come through David . Moses held God accountable for His promises .
I've heard this debate many times and it is usually all done with passion and respect. I do not see the free will side as defining God down or something. It is truly a more minor difference in interpretation than that.
I think it is a paradox and that both are true at the same time.
I take this to mean that you see man as the actor and God as the responder? What if that response means that God must change his mind and thus become mutable ?
The fact that He created us and knows what we will ask before we ask it changes the definition of everything only from HIS perspective. We are still freely choosing. From a human perspective -- as God designed that perspective to be -- we are in fact changing His mind.
I agree that from our human perspective we are making a choice that is absolutely free. But that choice is a part of the eternal plan of God .
My human example
A smart parent knows how to handle the growing independence of a child when they want to select their own clothes, so they do not walk around all "mismatched "
The parent selects a few "outfits" and presents them to the child to select from . The child believes she has selected her clothes, but in fact that selection was from a predetermined set of choices.
He hears the prayers of the righteous and answers them
I can trust the prayers of the righteous always reflect their desire to do as God wills. They will also see that the answer yes is not always Gods plan or will
In my opinion you do twist scripture to make it fit the calvinist doctrine. But you know I think that. John 3:16 is a classic example. You and your buddies read that to say that "whosoever" means whosoever god has called to believe in him. You know, the scripture doesn't say that... but that's what you read into it to make the doctrine fit.
Same as your take on the sermon on the mount. The fact that the bible says the crowd was amazed at how he taught them with such authority, and not like the scribes means little to you. You would continue to state that Jesus was teaching only the elect there..... even though there were no saved believers in the crowd (including his disciples).
It's about reading the text with a presupposed meaning. And maybe I shouldn't use the word twisted... but to me that's what it is.
My original statement was that there are two seemingly opposing doctrines that co-exist, hand in hand, both fully functional and valid. I think that to deny either of those is twisting the scripture to make it fit in a nice little package so that we simple minded humans can believe that we fully understand it.
That's just my opinion.
Yet the bible also says God is "trustworthy". And He is. And I trust him completely. Yet I don't limit him. I know fellow believers who believe, and it is commonly taught in churches today that "God cannot do anything against his nature. Therefore God CAN'T sin, can't lie, can't you .... do things that aren't perfect".
See I don't believe that. I think the bible teaches that God spoke the universe into existence. He decided what was good and bad. He set up every rule and everything that is. I think God can do anything he please. I think he doesn't sin, or do those bad things because he chooses not to. I believe that he won't, not that he can't.
I believe that Jesus was fully God, and fully man. I think he had every opportunity to sin, and was tempted in ways that none of us have been tempted. And he didn't sin because he chose not to.
I'm trusting God. I'm believing in his promise. My hope is in his salvation. But you know, he doesn't owe me anything. It's his uinverse. I'm just blessed that he wants me.
http://www.recordingproject.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=5497
Just hit play when you get there. Have a great day guys!
Here's another new song that I just finished tracking the instruments on this morning. Still has the "working vocal" on it. But even that vocal isn't bad.
http://www.recordingproject.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=5497
Just hit play when you get there. Have a great day guys!
Well, I played in a rock band for a decade so I approve of them if - and only if - they are used appropriately.
In this instance (eesh) they are not being used appropriately. If they were used to help people stay on key and/or help set a base tempo, that would be fine.
It really sucks when you wind up sitting next a crash cymbal...its very hard to do anything after you've been rendered stone deaf.
I see man as responder, actor, responder, actor, responder! I see God as Actor, responder, acctor, responder, actor!!! It is highly significant that God is the first actor and the final actor. I do not disagree with your points about predestination for the most part. But that doesn't change, in my view, the fact that man is responding and that the action of man's response causes God to respond with action of His own. Thereby making both theologies true at the same time.
Ummm pretty angry there KJ , I am not the one that misrepresented your words.
We say the Mormons are not Christians because their god has different attributes.. The JW's are not Christians because they define god with different attributes.
I did not say that we worship different Gods , I said it could be argued , and it could.
God is the sum total of all His attributes.
I LOVE it. I see there were some criticisms of the "mix' (I think that is what it is called)
But some of us are guitar nuts and really like to hear them (I have not played in years)
She is a talented writer ...
Will this be out soon?
Hey K I might add that is a fine Calvinist song ( and it is:>))))
Romans 8:15,16 says, For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
I have been a Christian for 27 years . On the day of my salvation. I asked over and over "why me Lord , why me ?" . I had to give a testimony at church today , I told them that I was not going to give a salvation testimony , because it still brings me to tears .There is no reason for the love and grace He has given me , I am the most worthless of his creation...yet He calls me His...
With tears I still say Thank you to my God!
I run it by those guys at recordingproject.com because they have valued opinions. I would say this... Angela heard it last night and said it was a little more "electric guitarey" than she had expected. I like it that way... but who knows how we'll end up with it in the final mix. If she can sing it with a little bit more of an edge so that the vocal better fits the music, then we'll leave it as is I think.
Glad you liked it... and have a great Sunday evening!
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