Can a Christian do that?
How can we be in the world but not of the world? It seems perplexing at times that we, as Christians, seem to have embraced such strange kinds of liberalism and legalism in Postmodern America. It appears we prefer to attach ourselves to the more comfortable polar positions, rather than deal with the very central and transcendent nature of a holy God. I just want to challenge you today to begin to ask yourself where the line is drawn between being legalistic in our practice of a form of christological snobbery and genuine Christianity? What is the difference between cultural relevance and pagan ritualism? Is the God of the Bible not transcendent and piercingly relevant in every culture and within every scripturally neutral cultural practice, music, and language?
Billy Graham has said that he would be exceedingly happy if at the end of his life 5% of the people that came forward in his great evangelistic crusades were actually saved as a result. As I watch people function within the church today, I believe that his comments, which match up with the Barna research, are very accurate. It seems a very high probability to me that there are very low percentages indeed that sit in our churches that actually have a relationship with Jesus Christ. The fruit, the power and the patience found in most of those lives just is not reflective of the Christ which supposedly lives within.
Look at the humorous first video (at the beginning of this article) and then the not so funny second video (posted at the end of this rant). When you finish; ask yourself: "Where is the line between holier than thou churchianity and the real deal? What is the difference between a faith that lives, breaths and has found a reality in Christ transcending the walls human nature; and that which has purposed to built walls around their more customized religious practices? Lastly, do our religious practices have more to do with culture and preference than the worship of the transcendent God of the Bible?
It is mind boggling that a person that would argue “irreducible complexity” with regard to creation could find such comfort in a god that is so culturally reducible and culturally narrow. I should be clear here that I am not arguing that anything goes… or that all roads lead to an eternal life with God in heaven. To the contrary, I am quite simply saying that where God is not excluded by practices He has specifically forbidden, He can be enjoyed and even worshiped. It is our cultural and preferential walls that cause us to reject this worship and to be so determined by those walls as to eliminate our efforts to reach certain people for God. Strangely enough it is those same people that we seek to convert first to our preferences and cultural practices before we will accept them enough to offer our personal god. Further I am arguing that we do have a God that is personal, but when we personalize that god, he ceases to be God.
Enough from me…. Please take the time to watch the videos, think for yourself these issues through. If you are a student of the Bible, consider the God that took in the gentiles (dogs that we were) and then ask yourself what cultural or even bloodline barriers you are building that precludes some from finding this transcendent God.
Interesting; is it not?
Now ask yourself; if we are not careful in this cause for godly relevance which penetrates every cultural and preferential barrier, how long will it be till the slippery slope takes us to the kinds of reason we find in this next video? Neither an "easy believism" nor a cultural phariseeism is reflective of the Christ of the Bible. Where do you stand?
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posted by Community Fellowship Church | 2:49 PM
