"We're tired of you blaming the culture"
On the surface this is an easy one to disagree with, simply because we live in a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christianity. A culture where we're told that "science" robs life of meaning, that tolerance rules unless you're conservative or Christian. Where abortion is virtually a sacrament and inviolable. A culture that denies the existence of Truth and absolutes.
Clearly the Church needs to address the role of Christians within a hostile culture. For example, 1 Peter is a great place to start.
But, in this case, the heading is misleading. What the author is asking for is that effort be put into being different from the culture, rather than simply talking about what's bad about culture.
I agree, that much like Peter in his letters, the Church needs to focus on hope, identity, and holiness in a hostile culture.
However, I have two points to throw out.
1. We are seeing more and more churches that are being submerged by the culture, who are actively trying to become more acceptable to the culture rather than trying to stand out as Peter suggested. If the author is correct that this is a broadly held belief of millennials, then there are at least as many churches that should be avoided because they've surrendered to the culture as those who "blame" the culture.
2. The author suggests a book by Craig Groeschel as a resource. That's an interesting choice given that Groeschel is the pastor of a megachurch which is presumably engaging in exactly what his book suggests. This, of course, undercuts the point of the entire piece that the church isn't doing anything to engage millennials.
"Perhaps it’s easier to focus on how terrible the world is out there than actually address the mess within."
I completely agree (as does 1 Peter) that the focus should be on holiness, hope, and our true identity rather than how bad things are out in the culture.
His solutions
- "Put the end times rhetoric to rest and focus on real solutions and real impact in our immediate community."
Maybe not totally, but clearly I agree that we should adapt the 1 Peter strategy and do this.
- "Explicitly teach us how our lives should differ from the culture. (If this teaching isn’t happening in your life, check out the book Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working by Craig Groeschel)"
Again I agree. The problem is that there is an increasingly large segment of the Church that doesn't want to hear how our lives should differ from culture. They'd rather pass out food to the homeless, flying they're rainbow flag high, participate in pride parades, and only mention Jesus when they have to. Of course, that means the Jesus must be censored (or interpreted through a new hermenutic) so that anything but the social justice/socialist "jesus" is hidden. If this is the type of church millennials seek, then I think that's a pretty good target.
The problem for the article as a whole is (like many of his other points), these churches do exist (or can be planted), and to claim otherwise is just to ignore reality.
2 comments:
Much of this section seems to indicate that the problem with this author is even more obvious: he never paid attention in the first place. The whole notion of being "in" the world, as opposed to "of" the world is not an obscure concept in Scripture. What passes for Christian behavior is less so. Thus, to pretend that there is a need to "explicitly teach how our lives should differ from the culture" suggests that someone needs to wake up. The more I read this article, the more it confirms and validates my initial response to it. Worse, I'm not sure this guy has a legitimate gripe at all, but writes about unjustified stereotypes imposed upon "the Church" by people who are more about criticizing the church ("I'm fighting the powers that be!! I'm so cool!!") than actually living a Christian life on God's terms. I'm certainly not seeing the humble graciousness that seems so important to some.
In a sense I agree with you, but there are so many out there whose lives and churches are indistinguishable from the culture that I can see his point. Much like Peter in writing to the persecuted 1st century church.
Personally, I see this as an understanding that Christians are called to a higher standard of behavior (holiness) and that the Bible is the source to determine what that is. In a sense, I think this is a reaction against the social gospel churches which focus on care of physical needs without regard for the spiritual. It's a sense that the social gospel as preached by the American religious left is horribly unbalanced toward the social to the exclusion or redefinition of the Godpel.
As with much of his piece, I believe that he's expressed himself poorly, but that the underlying questions and doubts are worthwhile.
I think that if you've come of age in a culture where both culture and a large segment of the church deny Truth and exist in a union of subjective indistinguishability it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for someone to articulate a path that is more objective.
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