Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Fearful Church
Jollyblogger links to iMonk who in response to an atheiest says:
Would you believe sin? Perhaps our fear is the current cultural reflection of the gnawing inside of us that is sin. We fear because something is telling us things are just not right.
What is most maddening about this is that the culture war is real, but as long as we delude ourselves thinking we are fighting it instead of addressing the fear, we will never win. As long as we are focused on our fear instead of on the actual war, the enemy has the advantage. An effective soldier learns to overcomes their fear, or at least fight in disregard of it.
And yet the beauty of the gospel is that we have nothing to fear. We don't have to overcome fear, we can just eliminate it.
Related Tags: fear, sin, victory, faith, culture war, atheist, Internet Monk, Jollyblogger
I can hear the blah blah blah now, so if you plan to comment on how dumb it is to expect an atheist to get the Gospel, save it. This guy heard exactly what evangelicals are selling these days: the Culture War. Be afraid, fear for your culture, save your kids, take control of the country, stop Hillary, etc. Manipulation. Fear mongering. Not the Gospel, unless you’ve already traded in the Gospel for something else.Fear sells, little doubt about that. We have one whole political party based on it, and based on this, a powerful branch of the other one. We have a virtual new religion of global warming born of fear. We see new products advertised everyday to solve problems we did not even know we had. Why, oh why, in the midst of all our plenty do we have such fear?
Would you believe sin? Perhaps our fear is the current cultural reflection of the gnawing inside of us that is sin. We fear because something is telling us things are just not right.
What is most maddening about this is that the culture war is real, but as long as we delude ourselves thinking we are fighting it instead of addressing the fear, we will never win. As long as we are focused on our fear instead of on the actual war, the enemy has the advantage. An effective soldier learns to overcomes their fear, or at least fight in disregard of it.
And yet the beauty of the gospel is that we have nothing to fear. We don't have to overcome fear, we can just eliminate it.
Rom 8:35-39 - Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, "For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.The victory is won, ours to claim. I think it is high time we got about doing it.
Related Tags: fear, sin, victory, faith, culture war, atheist, Internet Monk, Jollyblogger
