The bodily resurrection of Christ is pretty basic stuff. Not sure why any believer would struggle with it.
Well, watered-down Christianity is like watered-down liquor. It doesn’t get the job done and nobody who has experienced the real thing prefers it.
If this is the Joel Osteen Lakewood church, I'd have to quibble about the conservative Gospel part.
Worship and the Word. Whoda thunk it would attract people to God.
The Bible means exactly what it says (just like the Constitution does). God did not make any mistakes, and He would tell us if He wanted anything changed. Until God tells us otherwise, we should take the Bible as literal.
As for modern worship, that is also consistent with biblical worship. The original manuscripts of the New Testament were in conversational language, and the original point was to follow the spirit of God's Word rather than allowing outdated traditions to interfere. Then that meant getting away from the stilted pharisees who had forgotten the meaning of the words they recited and the point behind the strict rules they enforced, and today that means getting away from our own stilted traditionalists who have forgotten the meaning of the words they recite from memory and the point behind the strict rules they blindly endorse.
While the stately language of the King James Version sounds impressive, okay, I confess, I love KJV, but it can put a barrier of formality between us as Christians and God's Word. Similarly, to the extent that traditional methods of worship impose artificial barriers, they are not consistent with our original practices as Christians. [Note: In no way am I endorsing "modern" methods of worship that violate the literal word of the Bible or deny God/Jesus, just modern worship music and less formal/stilted/dated language/conversation when appropriate.]
Never really understood the whole waving hands in the air thing.
I don’t believe that the liberal churches are growing for even one minute.
“...and teach a literal interpretation of the Bible...”
Well, except for when they don’t:
“Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke, gave to his disciples and said: Take ye and eat: This is my body which is given for you,” according to St. Luke: “which shall be delivered for you,” according to St. Paul: “And taking the chalice he gave thanks and gave to them, saying: “Drink ye all of this: For this is my blood...”
.
Nonsensical article.
Has no substance.
“Modern Worship” is simply throwing the scriptures in the trash can.
Roll yer own!
.
What’s wrong with the old classic Protestant hymns? They are the best thing about the Protestants IMHO.
“Mainline” must mean something different in Canada. Name one in the US that has a “modern” worship service yet teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible.
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.
My church teaches literally but switched from traditional music to mostly contemporary.
We STILL lost the young folks who, left wanting 'more'.
True.
We can change the method of delivery of the Message; but not change the Message itself.
Luke 14:23
True.
We can change the method of delivery of the Message; but not change the Message itself.
Luke 14:23 & 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
“...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’
It took a while but we actually found one of those ‘50s-like traditional Baptist churches in our area. Thank God! (and I mean that prayerfully).