Friday, March 23, 2012
Leaving Little church but Staying in Big CHURCH?
Professor and blogger Marc Cortez points us to a few online pieces addressing the issue of leaving church. Some of this frustrates me (and will frustrate you), but you need to know how people are thinking. One of the bloggers' sharp separation of the local church and universal Church reveals a typical false ecclesiology that comes nowhere near a biblically, historically, and theologically grounded view of the church universal (which is really made up of all of the local churches as a meta-community of communities). In any case, those of you familiar with my RetroClesiology know my concerns here, but you all need to see the effects of the typical unhealthy dualistic approach to the local and universal church relationship. See intros and links on Marc Cortez's site at http://marccortez.com/2012/03/22/15-reasons-i-leftstayed-in-the-church/#more-12385.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Rachel reminds me of my 32-year old nephew who no longer thinks he believes the Bible but sends me "culturally offensive" OT verses to affirm his position and also as a way to villify my strong stance for historic Christian orthodoxy. This new brand of Christianity (which isn't new) that deconstructs and discards Scripture seems to me to destroy the very foundation as they create their own personalized doctrine. Once you start liberalizing Christianity, is it really the same substance? How culturally relevant should we go with the Church? It all seems to boil down to self-customizing Christianity to tickle our ears. Then I wonder, "is it more about me feeling comfortable"? I guess His Word does offend.
Anon,
I see your point. As an historian, I see a remarkable parallel with the rise of liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth century. The original liberal theologians, pastors, and scholars saw themselves as the right and respectable form of Christianity, that aligning the faith with cultural expectations was saving it, and therefore they were faithful Christians.
white on deep red, this is hard to read!
I am a DTS grad and former pastor. I have left evangelicalism and have become Eastern Orthodox because of some of the very things mentioned in this blog. I don't think anyone can argue that from the very beginning the church was liturgical, hierarchical and sacramental. All three of these are rejected by modern evangelicalism. We have some post modern's dabbling in liturgy but it's not really part of the DNA.
Post a Comment