Thursday, August 28, 2008
There Ya Go!
Over at the BHT someone quoted a post that someone else linked (I cannot find the link to the original post so I apologize profusely to the author) - the pull quote is simply too good to resist:
The church clearly has to call people to more than just a "believe or go away" thing. But those of us that are intellectually bent need to remember that the vast majority of people are not. Most people don't want to think that hard.
Secondly, when people throw up such objections, they are not the REAL objections. Good evangelism would try to reach beyond them into the soul of the person. And in that we are genuinely miserable failures.
But to me, the most interesting part of that pullquote is the crack about being an "18th century institution." I have berated institutionalization enough on this blog, but I should point out some significance to the 18th century part. That is about Evangelicalism, not protestantism, which dates to the 16th century.
It raises a fascinating question in my mind - "How does one reform Evangelicalism?" There is no central institution to reform , or to break away form for that matter. Evangelicalism is essentially defined in part by schism - can one break away from that which breaks away all the time?
I have no answers here, only questions.
Comments?
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This occupied a day of my life. It took an entire day away from my family. I feel empty. There was no point to this. We are an 18th century revival movement that has become institutionalized. We are a bureaucracy that seeks first to protect its existence. There are large questions of eternal life, Biblical truth, how the fallenness of creation and the atonement of Christ impact our daily lives. I would love to discuss these things. Unfortunately there are maybe only a half dozen people in that room that are interested in engaging these topics and engaging them with the congregations. It has been my experience that people are truly interested in exploring the larger questions of God working in the world. I am wondering if the modern Protestant church has lost the ability to discuss that.I agree with all of that but the last premise that "people are truly interested..." They aren't or the church would be doing it. People in the church may bring those things up more, but they bring them up as objections, not questions. They are reasons not to go to church. Does that mean the church is wrong? Sort of.
The church clearly has to call people to more than just a "believe or go away" thing. But those of us that are intellectually bent need to remember that the vast majority of people are not. Most people don't want to think that hard.
Secondly, when people throw up such objections, they are not the REAL objections. Good evangelism would try to reach beyond them into the soul of the person. And in that we are genuinely miserable failures.
But to me, the most interesting part of that pullquote is the crack about being an "18th century institution." I have berated institutionalization enough on this blog, but I should point out some significance to the 18th century part. That is about Evangelicalism, not protestantism, which dates to the 16th century.
It raises a fascinating question in my mind - "How does one reform Evangelicalism?" There is no central institution to reform , or to break away form for that matter. Evangelicalism is essentially defined in part by schism - can one break away from that which breaks away all the time?
I have no answers here, only questions.
Comments?
Technorati Tags:evangelicalism, reform
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