By Rick Hiebert. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
There’s an interesting cover story in the current Christianity Today.
“When Are We Going To Grow Up?” uses a historical approach to make the argument that the American church (and perhaps by extension the North American church) is increasingly catering to spritual immaturity.
If we give it a read, we can see that there are two sides to what is going on. One side sees declining standards and spiritual illiteracy while the other might be seeing that finally the church is responding to people’s real felt needs and it merely looks like immaturity.
I’m not sure where I fall on this–as I would like to think my own church is pretty mature–but it does provide something interesting to think about. So, that’s why I put the link up. Christianity Today being pretty conservative, I can understand why old-fashionedness is a virtue to them, right or wrong.
Juvenilization is the American Evangelical faith. I hope everyone agrees here.
America has diverse ethnicity with common elements that bring us together. We all like to wear blue jeans and a t-shirt with a pair of open toe shoes ( or at least most of us). Times change along with the growth of civilization and policies. You see this in the church too. I see youths in our country, as not so different than other youths anywhere else. They are young, alive, full of vigor and seeking out this great big world . They have plans and dreams. But after a while, we all need to mature at some point in life. Maybe that’s where responsible leadership helps. Still, it takes all kinds to make this world go round.
The “church” is no more than a business, each a franchise or independently owned. It/they have to compete in a world market for customers and consumers as any other business because in the end, it is the fiscal bottom line that trumps all. Ask any pastor of a congregation of 50 or more. The church that sells the ‘actual” gospel according to Jesus is not viable in terms of fiscal growth, so “the church” has revamped his message to make it appealing to pop culture. It cannot peddle goods that people don’t want to buy – that is, denying oneself the pleasures of this life in this world – it’s goods must cater to what the people want if it has any hope of maintaining its market share in the entertainment/lifestyle industry. So people can feel good that they are going to church in a clean atmosphere, confessing Jesus, bringing up their children to be “god-fearing” while at the same time sin and be forgiven time again, and indulge guilt-free in all the pleasures this life has to offer.
As a world traveler, I see first hand the detrimental effects of American Christianity around the world. The prosperity gospel and its demons have infiltrated the world. When I am in the States, I don’t go to church. Most are clubs full of cliques. Some are God fearing but most play games. Wish I wasn’t so cynical. However, Jesus is still Lord and there is a remnant everywhere who worship God in Spirit and truth. Most are hidden in His heart. Most are nameless and faceless.
It is really easy to know why many Christians are NOT spritually mature. It’s because many of the churches have grabbed onto a watered down faith so as to not offend anyone. Sometimes I need to be told by God that I have lots of areas to grow in. How can I know about these things if I never hear about them? As a pastor I first preach to myself when I come across a text. Then, and only then am I prepared to go into the pulpit and proclaim,”thus saith the Lord”.
I would add that American Christianity is Christianity. It may look different from 2nd century, but it has in it, the seed of its own destruction. Original Jewish faith was catered to a Roman and Greek world. That was how they survived. Never mind the little town peasant Jesus. He was too far off to the left, and his Apocalypse never was a great sell. But youth, vitality, sexual attractiveness, and wealth, that would be integrated into this peasant faith. That is why their god is their stomach. If that were the case, what is happening to American and Canadian evangelicalism, is actually true faith, evolved over time. This is why I think it is time to share this with everyone here: don’t worship god, let god worship you. Do right, and stay true, and god will worship you. Why go to church?
Maybe man’s definition of scripture, tends to try and motivate some common good. Yet not everyone will agree. Thus these are some boundaries that come across as vague. Maybe loopholes in scripture are searched out sometimes and our focus is taken off the Lord.
is Church one of jung’s archetypes?
Marina….
Your right! and this is only a fulfillment of the prophecy of Amos 8:11-14. As the now late, David Wilkerson says in his book ” Hungry For More of Jesus”. This is how God is creating the famine of His word in that passage. God is allowing the diluting of His Word and only those of us who are living on His Word, will keep seeking out the few sheppards who refuse to bow to that, and thus become the remnent that He is coming for.
I will take on the subject where Marina left.
She mentions the church, so I will talk about the bible, their business manual. It is written by men, and all the books do not all agree on the subjects of God, men, sin and salvation. If you study the original language, you will see that translators are afraid to translate it to offend modern women. So they treat it with tenderizer. The contents are despicable where it touches on slavery, women and homosexuals or cross dressers. Many do not read the entire bible like I do. I was once a fundamentalist, and I read and memorize and treasure these ‘words of god’ until it hit me like a ton of bricks. Bible is about hate, about inconsistency and it upholds whatever sexual mores of the time. I cannot condone biblical values of polygamy., or treat women like slaves and properties. It condones crimes against humanity, and massive genocides which is still ongoing in Israel. I was a Christian Zionist, now no more. The last book in the bible is filled with fantasy and blood. I cannot c0ndone that. I wish people that talk about the loving god in the bible would actually read it in its entirety and see if I am wrong.
After all, this is how religious whores used to control simple minded folks. So I will say again: do not worship god. Let god worship you. If you are doing the right thing, god already worshiped you. If you rape someone and cheated them of their money time and energy, God cannot take your worship in the churches. So, drop all appearance of godliness and this none sense, let god worship you! Live a life I can respect and stop whoring and cheating simpletons of their money.
I would like to differentiate this attack. A mockery of falsehood and deception, is not a mockery on God, who cannot be seen, heard or understood. Maybe he is not there.
But this religious Americanism, this evangelical faith, this madness, it is not that their god has failed. This faith is based on a god that is not there, that he is silent, that we have escaped proper reason. If this is true, then it makes sense that it is time to wake up and walk out of the churches. There are religious whores whose specialty is to take your time, and money and everything you own. Sometimes these religious whores pretend to be Jesus. They are nothing so there is no fear to mock them. Occasionally, I do get someone vouching for them as if they could be one, or married to a religious worker. I respect sex workers more, at least they have to endure the effects physically. Religious whores are apparitions, they will take money anytime, promise anything, say anything so that your soul is forever trapped in hell. There is no god, angels, or jesus. There is only you and this beautiful earth, why not be responsible and stop blaming it on the ‘wolves’ in the EV religion. These wolves are part of the religion, so there, I said it.
Do not worship god. Let god worship you.
Where the church organizations fail and those let down see an impossibility, I say there is still hope. For approximately a little over a year now, I’ve had the honor of know a young woman dying of cancer. Most people in or out of church would not notice her. That’s a fact. Her fight is not over yet. Whether or not you can see the people who give their hearts and lives to Jesus, in a church, I tell you there are those that go above and beyond where a church may fail. Those places are full of sorrow, pain and so much more. I know people who dare to go there, to help these people. You learn to love them and they will give love back.
Susan, what I do see, is not god. It is in those human beings that care. So in your case, your friend technically was not cured by god or a prayer. Matter of fact, prayer does nothing, other than some very vague feeling that god heard her pleas. What good would that do? The holy roller Benny Hinn cannot cure cancer either, nor Peter Popoff, or Robert Tilton. What we have left, is a community of good and honest human beings trying to help each other, and there is one more thing about death, it comes from Daoism, that teaches that it is natural to be with the universe, death is not to be feared. There is a better way to view the end of life as it it from the beginning of life. The two is one and the same and to be thankfully received since the author of life made it this way. As to your idea that church is still good and there is hope. I no longer think this statement is true. What is true for me, is that those who claimed to be in ‘ministry’ are whores, they are like sex workers, doing something that I cannot respect. I actually like hookers more, they have to put their bodies on the job, where as religious whores just take the money, molest the mind and sometimes the bodies of the parishioners, I cannot respect human trash like that. Maybe you can pray to your god, as I do mine. I pray to myself. Thanks. The Lord Ben Chung.
The irony is that it is the “little congregants” who “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” So what gets spread is the “little gospel.” A shrunken, distorted version of the truth.
In terms of TLBC’s admonition to “let god worship you,” it’s really not so shocking at all. The word wor-ship simply means the state of recognizing the “worth” of something or someone. We’ve twisted it into a religious mandate.
Personal responsibility (i.e., maturity) comes of listening to the Spirit within, as the Bible says, “The letter kills but the spirit gives life.”
The basic tenets of the Christian faith were determined at the Council of Nicea in 325 a.d., where the Nicene Creed was issued, spelling out Christian dogma in a single-page document. That council was called by the emperor Constantine to quiet the quibbling factions of Christians. The result, the Nicene Creed, came out of controversy, sectarianism, and politically motivated priorities.
The Vatican then took 57 years to decide the contents of the “Holy Bible.” In 382 a.d., Pope St. Damasus I issued the Decree of Damasus at the Council of Rome, citing 73 books the Vatican had identified (edited?) as the inspired word of God.
Over a millenium later Martin Luther excised 7 books, leaving the 66 that Protestants revere to this day.
This information is easily researchable. At the least, it behooves us, Christian or not, to grow up and take responsibility for all that we bring into this world.