Wednesday, January 25, 2006
On Repentance
Jollyblogger is engaging in reruns here lately and yesterday featured a doozy. Springing off of a commentary he write on Warren's Purpose Driven Life and some comments/question he received, David draws some distinctions between repentance for a believer and non-believer, concluding his post this way
Two general comments I want to make. Firstly, this is where I think the culture wars matter. There was a time when to convince people of their sinful nature, one merely had to tap an already existing sense of "something not quite right" that most people had about themselves. Today, we inculcate and educate that sense out of people as rapidly as possible. Convincing a person of sin these days is not a small nor trivial task, it may be the single most difficult task in sharing the whole gospel with someone. They just don't want to hear it. Our current culture has not merely done away with God or religion, it has done away with the apparent NEED for same.
Secondly, I think the church does itself no favors when it consistently lowers its own internal standards. A pastor that commits sexual sin and is allowed to sail away "below the radar" for the sake of the church (for example) never really stays below the radar - it becomes gossip and does enormous damage. Far more damage than could be casued by handling it up front and publicly.
Repentance is absolutely integral to the gospel.
Related Tags: gospel, repentance, church, Christianity, faith, sin
In that respect I would argue that, at any point the book claims to present the gospel, if the gospel presentation lacks a clear presentation of the nature of sin and corresponding need for repentance, then yes it has failed in that regard.Warren's book, while leading is, I think, more reflective of the times than establishng of them. The minimization, if not disappearance, of discussion of sin/gospel/faith/repentance is a church trend of the last 30 years at least.
If the book claims to be a manual for Christian growth and leaves out any reference to the ongoing war with indwelling sin and corresponding victory through gospel-faith-repentance, then yes, it falls short.
If it were merely a manual on evangelism, or worship, or fellowship, or some very narrow aspect of the Christian faith, I would have no problem with the fact that it didn't cover repentance. After all, any systematic theology doesn't cover repentance on every page. But I do have some concerns that, if the book bills itself as a broad-ranging manual for discipleship, and leaves out repentance, then it has short changed the reader.
Two general comments I want to make. Firstly, this is where I think the culture wars matter. There was a time when to convince people of their sinful nature, one merely had to tap an already existing sense of "something not quite right" that most people had about themselves. Today, we inculcate and educate that sense out of people as rapidly as possible. Convincing a person of sin these days is not a small nor trivial task, it may be the single most difficult task in sharing the whole gospel with someone. They just don't want to hear it. Our current culture has not merely done away with God or religion, it has done away with the apparent NEED for same.
Secondly, I think the church does itself no favors when it consistently lowers its own internal standards. A pastor that commits sexual sin and is allowed to sail away "below the radar" for the sake of the church (for example) never really stays below the radar - it becomes gossip and does enormous damage. Far more damage than could be casued by handling it up front and publicly.
Repentance is absolutely integral to the gospel.
Related Tags: gospel, repentance, church, Christianity, faith, sin
