Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Deep Change
Milt Stanley links to a post on changes in American Evangelicalism over the last 50 years or so:
Something is deeply broken in the church, deeply. And only deep change can fix it. I pray for the patience to let God do that.
Evangelicalism change maturity
So what conclusions do I draw from all this change? Some of it may be for the better. We 1950s evangelicals had obsessions that were probably unhealthy. However, on the other hand, taking it all together, I suspect we American evangelicals have become “comfortable in Zion”—a phrase that we used about mainline Christians (who weren’t really Christians at all) to describe how their religion was non-threatening to themselves or anyone else. And by “threatening” I don’t mean we thought Christianity ought to be physically threatening, but we did think authentic Christianity should shake people’s comfort in this world and focus their attention on sacrifice and separation.I think this guy leans to the fundamental side of Evangelicalism, but I think his conclusion is right on. We work so hard to draw people in that we have conformed to them rather than challenge them. We have done away with the concept of sin altogether for the sake of accepting. We have confused love and acceptance to the point where there is only acceptance - and no real love. We have worried about our survival more than our mission.
Something is deeply broken in the church, deeply. And only deep change can fix it. I pray for the patience to let God do that.
Evangelicalism change maturity
