Posted on 11/30/2016 2:41:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A Canadian study has found that Mainline Protestant churches that have both modern worship services and teach a literal interpretation of the Bible grow faster.
(Photo: Reuters/John Gress)A parishioner cries as he signs a song of worship in the 7,000-seat Willow Creek Community church during a Sunday service in South Barrington, Illinois, November 20, 2005. Institutions like Willow Creek and Houston's Lakewood Church, each drawing 20,000 or more on a weekend, offer not just a vast, shared attraction but a path that tries to link individuals on a faith-sustaining one-to-one level beyond the crowd, observers and worshipers say.
The Canadian researchers who authored the study, "Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy," surveyed 2,225 churchgoers in Ontario, Canada, and interviewed 29 clergy and 195 congregants. The study will be published in next month's issue of the Review of Religious Research.
"This study was important because it quantified empirically something that evangelical renewalists have been saying for decades — theology matters," said the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, vice president and general manager of Good News Magazine, a United Methodist publication, in an interview with The Christian Post.
Lambrecht, who served for 29 years as a United Methodist minister in Wisconsin, told CP that people who are interested in the things of God "want spiritual substance, not just a feel-good message or the opportunity to engage in community service." The Church, he said, has to to be distinct from and offer more than local civic associations and charities.
A solidly Orthodox Gospel that motivates churches to adapt their worship life and ministries to engage the next generation more effectively will be one where the message remains the same, but the means of delivery look different.
The study also showed that services at growing "churches featured contemporary worship with drums and guitars, while declining churches favoured traditional styles of worship with organ and choir."
"The use of contemporary Christian worship music is an example of that adaptation," Lambrecht said. "It has been around for over 40 years, yet some churches still resist making that adaptation." He added, however, that he's seen examples of churches that have more traditional styles of worship that are also yielding growth.
Pastor John Daffern who leads a Southern Baptist congregation in Columbus, Mississippi, calls himself "an apologist for the modern church."
(Photo: Chris Ellis Photograhpy)Josh Daffern, pastor of MTV Church in Columbus, Mississippi.
"I pastor a church that fits that mold," said Daffern, who leads MTV Church, in a recent interview with CP after he read some of the study's findings.
"We are theologically conservative, according to that study, and yet we are unashamedly modern and we are in a sustained period of growth in our church, and that is in direct contrast to many of the Mainline churches and even some evangelical churches.
"And I think the wisdom of that study is the two parts. There does need to be a modern sense of an expression of the faith while at the same time a conservative, Orthodox view of Christianity," he added.
Daffern said he believes that what church growth comes down to is how man-made controls are applied and both liberals and conservatives do that in their own way.
"For those who would say that we want to liberalize the tenets of Christianity and pick and choose which parts we are comfortable with and which parts we aren't, that's man exerting control over the theology," Daffern said.
"In the same way, a conservative theology yet a traditional approach is still trying to exert man-made control over religion, but it's not over the theology but over the cultural expression," which amounts to an approach which he describes as leaders saying, "Hey, we're going to stick to the Bible but we're going to pretend that it is the 1950s or the 1960s."
Those man-made controls rob the supernatural aspect out of Christian faith, he asserted.
Lead researcher of the study, David Haskell, said in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month that Christians who rely on a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible, "are profoundly convinced of [the] life-saving, life-altering benefits that only their faith can provide, [and] they are motivated by emotions of compassion and concern to recruit family, friends and acquaintances into their faith and into their church."
The study also found that only half of the clergy interviewed who are presiding over declining churches agreed that it was "very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians," whereas every member of the clergy in a growing church felt that way.
A whopping 93 percent of clergy and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches believed in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, compared to 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy from declining churches. One hundred percent of clergy and 90 percent of worshipers from growing churches believe God does miracles in response to prayer, whereas only 44 percent of clergy and 80 percent of worshipers from declining churches say so.
"One of the reasons that people are drawn to modern churches is because people don't want to be part of a monument." Daffern asserted. "They want to be part of a movement. One of the greatest beauties of Christianity is that it is living and active."
"In my world, as a Southern Baptist pastor, I tend to deal with churches that have a conservative view of the Bible yet a very traditional mindset, often times it is monument to a bygone era of what they imagine to be the golden age' of Christianity in America."
Such churches are perfectly poised to come back were the 1950s ever to return, he mused.
However, the problem with some more modern churches, he added, is that people sometimes make the modern expression itself an idol of sorts.
"But the key is to be modern enough while not being a mere imitation of everything else around in culture."
I see those folks getting their “holy” dose and feel very sorry for them. Going to Church every day, praying every day, reading the Good Book every day might do them more good that the once in a while ole fashioned revival meeting.
I'm not the most cosmopolitan person in the world, but I've been around the block a time or two. And it seems to me that the more highly ritualized and stylized a religion is, the less literally it takes its scriptures/teachings/whatever. The whole concept of ritual doesn't just imply a deeper meaning below the surface (since there is one, of course); it essentially turns all credal statements into "santa claus;" ie, "too profoundly true to be factual" (as Frank Sheed once noted, leaving events "all the truer for never having happened.")
The ritual churches tend to be so ethnic that they don't take theology seriously. In fact, the priests of these ancient over-ritualized systems could be each and every one an atheist, and there would be no way to know. Being an Armenian priest is, after all, a very pleasant way to make a living, and does not at all require actual belief.
Also the ancient ritualized ethnic churches absolutely refuse to get involved in the "culture wars." When they aren't being silent they're playing traditional liberal Democrat ethnic politics, kissing up to abominable pro-abortion pro-homosexual politicians in exchange for nice words about how much Greece/Ethiopia/India has given the world.
There is much about low church Protestant "worship" that is unsatisfactory. But they have no rituals or ceremonies to hide behind. All they have is 100% belief that what they say they believe is true. Ossified fossils with thousand year ancestries may look down on them, but I'll take the "rednecks" every single time, and I like to think G-d will to (although their errors remain a problem).
Interestingly, Judaism, the religion that outranks them all, in its current state without the Beit HaMiqdash has very little, if any, pageantry in its "liturgy" (consisting of men simply standing around reciting prayers). I don't know if this is why traditional Orthodox Judaism tends to be much more literal than any of the ancient churches. It would seem to me that even when the full Torah ritual is restored to its fulness (may this come to pass immediately!), the very fact that the source of this ceremonial is the Torah would mitigate against the reduction all beliefs to symbolism, as has happened in the ancient churches.
Again, just thinking aloud.
This is a non-sequitur. The fact that something (a mountain or canyon, for example) would require that it take ages to forum under the so-called "laws" of physics as we know them in a fully operational universe does not at all imply that they could not have all been created in situ in an instant. A uniformitarian may call that "lying," but the only thing lying is his assumptions.
Don't be seduced by a church that is s
ubstantially absent from Scripture and contrary to it .
Good to see you back.
In fact, it can’t be “as they like.” It must be as the Lord teaches or it has to be corrected.
Its obvious that they do not consider themselves bound to no add nor subtract from it.
Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. (Psalms 28:2)
Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. (Psalms 63:4)
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. (Psalms 134:2)
Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. (Psalms 141:2)
That said, i myself do no feel too comfortable doing so.
But again, the bible calls the mountains ancient. If formed in situ, they are not ancient in ANY time frame.
Like they don’t continue to do the other things while worshiping regularly?
Your condescension may be unjustified.
It could be a social embarrassment factor. Wanting to fit in to the crowd. This isn’t any kind of unforgivable sin, but it omits something that would make the worship more enveloping. It serves as a reminder that later, the right thing to do with those hands is to offer their service to the Lord in any circumstance.
Why not begin in the OT?
And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. (2 Samuel 23:16-17)
To be consistent with their plain-language hermeneutic Caths should also insist this was literal. As well as when God clearly states that the Canaanites were “bread:
• “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us” (Num. 14:9)
Other examples of the use of figurative language for eating and drinking include,
• The Promised Land was “a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.” (Num. 13:32)
• David said that his enemies came to “eat up my flesh.” (Ps. 27:2)
• And complained that workers of iniquity ”eat up my people as they eat bread , and call not upon the Lord.” (Psalms 14:4)
• And the Lord also said, “I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.” (Zephaniah 1:3)
• While even arrows can drink: “I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh ; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.' (Deuteronomy 32:42)
• But David says the word of God (the Law) was “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. (Psalms 19:10)
• Another psalmist also declared the word as “sweet:” “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalms 119:103)
• Jeremiah likewise proclaimed, “Your words were found. and I ate them. and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer. 15:16)
• Ezekiel was told to eat the words, “open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee...” “eat that thou findest; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” (Ezek. 2:8; 3:1)
• John is also commanded, “Take the scroll ... Take it and eat it.” (Rev. 10:8-9 )
And Scripture refers to Christ being spiritual food and drink which even OT believers consumed:
• And did all eat the same spiritual meat; "And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." (1 Corinthians 10:3-4)
• And Christ's word in Jn. 6, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst," (John 6:35) are correspondent to,
"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." (Isaiah 55:2-3)
• Moreover, like as bread is broken, Is. 53:10 states that "it pleased the Lord to bruise him," and the word for "bruise" (da^ka^') means to crumble, to break..., (Strong's). And like as wine is poured out, so Is. 53:12 also states of Christ, "he hath poured out his soul unto death," both of which are correspondent to the words of the Last Supper regarding bread and wine.
And which use of figurative language for Christ and spiritual things abounds in John, using the physical to refer to the spiritual:
• In John 1:29, Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” — but he does not have hoofs and literal physical wool.
• In John 2:19 Jesus is the temple of God: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” — but He is not made of literal stone.
• In John 3:14,15, Jesus is the likened to the serpent in the wilderness (Num. 21) who must “be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal” (vs. 14, 15) — but He is not made of literal bronze.
• In John 4:14, Jesus provides living water, that “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” — but which was not literally consumed by mouth.
• In John 7:37 Jesus is the One who promises “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — but believers were not water fountains, but He spoke ”of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.” (John 7:38)
• In Jn. 9:5 Jesus is “the Light of the world” — but who is not blocked by an umbrella.
•I n John 10, Jesus is “the door of the sheep,” and “the good shepherd [who] giveth his life for the sheep”, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” vs. 7, 10, 11) — but who again, is not literally an animal with cloven hoofs.
• In John 15, Jesus is the true vine — but who does not physically grow from the ground nor whose fruit is literally physically consumed.
Therefore the metaphorical use of language for eating and drinking is well established, and which the apostles would have been familiar with, and would have understood the Lord's words by, versus as a radical new requirement that contradicted Scripture, and required a metaphysical explanation to justify
Actually, Catholics have a great deal of liberty to interpret the Bible in order to support Rome.
And as seen daily here, while evangelicals are to ascertain the veracity of Truth claims by Scripture, which RCs censure them for so dong,. yet they do the same with the teaching o their church, except their supreme standard is historical teachings of their church.
Thus many engage in dissent, such as from parts of V2. Yet which is contrary to historical teachings such as state:
Epistola Tua: To the shepherds alone was given all power to teach, to judge, to direct; on the faithful was imposed the duty of following their teaching, of submitting with docility to their judgment , and of allowing themselves to be governed, corrected, and guided by them in the way of salvation.
Thus, it is an absolute necessity for the simple faithful to submit in mind and heart to their own pastors, and for the latter to submit with them to the Head and Supreme Pastor.... Similarly, it is to give proof of a submission which is far from sincere to set up some kind of opposition between one Pontiff and another. Those who, faced with two differing directives, reject the present one to hold to the past, are not giving proof of obedience to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them; and in some ways they resemble those who, on receiving a condemnation, would wish to appeal to a future council, or to a Pope who is better informed.
On this point what must be remembered is that in the government of the Church, except for the essential duties imposed on all Pontiffs by their apostolic office, each of them can adopt the attitude which he judges best according to times and circumstances. Of this he alone is the judge. It is true that for this he has not only special lights, but still more the knowledge of the needs and conditions of the whole of Christendom, for which, it is fitting, his apostolic care must provide. - Epistola Tua (1885), Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII; http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage_print.asp?number=403215&language=en
"It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors ." - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.
20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent... if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. - PIUS XII, HUMANI GENERI, August 1950; http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html
The authority (of papal encyclicals) is undoubtedly great". It is, in a sense, sovereign. It is the teaching of the supreme pastor and teacher of the Church. Hence the faithful have a strict obligation to receive this teaching with an infinite respect. A man must not be content simply not to contradict it openly and in a more or less scandalous fashion. An internal mental assent is demanded. It should be received as the teaching sovereignly authorized within the Church." - Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, esteemed Catholic theologian and professor of fundamental dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America, who served as a peritus for Cardinal Ottaviani at the Second Vatican Council. Extract from the American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. CXXI, August, 1949; http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/encyclicals/docauthority.htm
For it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty.
Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord. - CASTI CONNUBII, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI; https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html
...when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed ; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents ; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority ; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.
The Bishops form the most sacred part of the Church, that which instructs and governs men by divine right; and so he who resists them and stubbornly refuses to obey their word places himself outside the Church [cf. Matt. 18:18]. But obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces. - (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at http://www.christorchaos.com/?q=content/choosing-ignore-pope-leo-xiii-and-pope-saint-pius-x
to scrutinize the actions of a bishop, to criticize them, does not belong to individual Catholics, but concerns only those who, in the sacred hierarchy, have a superior power; above all, it concerns the Supreme Pontiff, for it is to him that Christ confided the care of feeding not only all the lambs, but even the sheep [cf. John 21:17]. - Est Sane Molestum (1888) Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII; http://www.novusordowatch.org/est-sane-molestum-leo-xiii.htm
In addition, as concerns social teaching, The "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church" (2005) states:
80. In the Church’s social doctrine the Magisterium is at work in all its various components and expressions. … Insofar as it is part of the Church’s moral teaching, the Church’s social doctrine has the same dignity and authority as her moral teaching. It is authentic Magisterium, which obligates the faithful to adhere to it . - http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html
And it is quite well evidenced that the popes last encyclical (http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html) is intended to teach what the Church's moral teaching demands as regards ecology and economy. (172 references in this encyclical cite church teaching and prelates for support).
Thus we either have Trad. RCs contradicting past papal teaching in asserting the modern papal and magisterial teaching contradicts the past, or Rome's interpretation of herself is to be trusted.
If the former is the case then evangelicals cannot be condemned for seeking to ascertain the veracity of RC teaching in the lighg of the most ancient and trustworthy historical church teaching, that of the NT, and in which Catholicism is substantially absent and contrary to , and which eliminates the second option.
It’s one of those “you pay your money, you take your choice” kind of things. Go with one, or go with the other, but they will lead to distinct things.
Anyhow, we don’t even need a Passover Haggadah in order to notice implausible things in the “wine is the literal blood and bread is the literal body” reading. But it certainly clears up the context very well. The extant Haggadah dates back to gospel times. That said, the act of ingesting the symbols is also expected to accompany an act of spiritual recognition and acceptance and appreciation of the symbolized things — unlike the items symbolized by the other elements of the Passover seder, the spiritual body and blood are right here, right now. If it doesn’t accompany such an act, God will chastise for abusing the purpose of the symbols.
One might even ask, in the vein of the Passover questions... how are these symbols different from all the other symbols.
They symbolize things that are present here and now. We could get them without the symbols, just like nobody had to be at a Passover dinner in order to have consumed the “bread of affliction.” But when we DO partake of the symbols, we are especially expected to get those things. There shouldn’t be any ignorance excuses here.
What actually happens here, I perceive (and I've read a lot of Catholic commentary on FR over the years) is a lively discussion about who the shepherds really are. They gotta exist, and the set of the right ones are the real RCC by cracky, and the rest are fakes. So we get people saying that no, Francis is not in the real RCC, and others saying that yes, Francis is in the real RCC.
The proposition that all (or most, or many, or some) could be Christians, but carrying out their ecclesiastical missions with various degrees of fidelity or infidelity, hardly seems to be taken up.
Reporting the facts is condescension? I see.
Distorting the facts certainly is. And because of that, you don’t see.
If that were really true they would all be the same. As they are NOT, then your observation is odd. If the Lord teaches ONE thing how can there be so many different Christian denominations? Why are there so many?
OR tell me what the difference is between a Baptist, an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian? What makes them different?
They would be Catholic if they had only ONE interpretation of the Bible. There is a world of difference between Catholics and other Christians. See Church history from 1 A.D. until now. There WAS no other Church until the defrocked, disgraced Father Martin Luther led the way for MORE "protesters."
LOOK UP the plethora of other Christian churches and try to figure out why ordinary men and women "started" their own churches/congregations. Why would they do that?
It isn't just the papacy, started by Jesus to St. Peter. It's also their idea of Mary, the sacraments, the AUTHORITY of the Church in all matters of morality and doctrine/dogma.
Oh well, it's time for me to fold up my tent. G'night.
NO, they wouldn’t all be the same, because they are not robots.
The RCC is expected to be the robots.
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