Sunday, April 02, 2006
The End Of The Road
The foibles of my Presbyterian church are numerous. This post from A Classical Presbyterian looks at one of them.
The bottom line to this question lies in how one views the church - is the church a body of believers or is it some sort of evangelism device? What is most fascinating to me is that those that argue for the evangelism device model have two distinct models, one the one hand the mega-church like Saddleback which has recently announced its 20,000th baptism - or we get the PC(USA) which is withering on the vine.
As best as I can see, the difference lies in the fact that the PC(USA) stands for basically nothing and the mega-church stands for something defined more in terms of entertainment and politics than calling people to genuine faith.
I can't help but reflect that Christ says that "many are called and few are chosen" and also
God's plan is good enough for me.
Related Tags: mega church, PC(USA), apostasy, faith, Christianity
This progressive ideal of accommodation is a recipe that gives us precisely what we see in that congregation today: members leaving in droves, cultish behaviors, a siege mentality and Christ moved into the background. Rigby sounds downright embarrassed to be even in a church, much less a pastor. So he writes his 'defense' for a secular, leftist website and he minimizes any references to Jesus as anything more than a well-meaning guru.Frankly, I have been saying for a while now that I think the PC(USA) is going to sink into meaninglessness instead of schism as so many seem to say, and my friend here seems to share that outlook.
Accepting an atheist into membership is just the logical end-result of this philosophy. It's a natural product of this way of thinking about the job of a church. If we are to work for a secular, political agenda and nothing else, then what's the big deal about having atheist members, Buddhist members, Muslim members and Wiccan members....As long as they want the same political ends for our society?
Unitarian Universalists rejoice, many of the churches of the PC(USA) may be joining you soon!
The bottom line to this question lies in how one views the church - is the church a body of believers or is it some sort of evangelism device? What is most fascinating to me is that those that argue for the evangelism device model have two distinct models, one the one hand the mega-church like Saddleback which has recently announced its 20,000th baptism - or we get the PC(USA) which is withering on the vine.
As best as I can see, the difference lies in the fact that the PC(USA) stands for basically nothing and the mega-church stands for something defined more in terms of entertainment and politics than calling people to genuine faith.
I can't help but reflect that Christ says that "many are called and few are chosen" and also
Matt 7:13-14 - Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.I think that narrows the issue a bit, we are always going to be the few within the many. I find that comforting when all around me I watch things deteriorate so. It doesn't mean I give up the fight, but it does mean that I know that the fact that the whole thing isn't generally headed in the right direction is within God's plan somehow.
God's plan is good enough for me.
Related Tags: mega church, PC(USA), apostasy, faith, Christianity
