Where is Christianity headed? The view from 2019

The global distribution of Christians: Countries colored a darker shade have a
higher proportion of Christians. - Wikipedia | ANALYSIS (19 December 2011). "Table:
Religious Composition by Country, in Percentages". Pewforum.org. Retrieved 17 August2012. 

My world religion class last year pointed out 3 of every 4 immigrants coming into America are persecuted, asylum-seeking Christians. Moreover, the fastest growing churches in America are non-white as they spread Jesus to their cultural segments. Pentecostalism is here to stay - empowering and providing meaningful social transformation. The Nones, Dones and Millennials have declared any spirituality must be actualized, consistent with Jesus' love, and full of good earth care. That many non-growing church congregations are not reaching the youth, have become time-dated capsules of church culture and beliefs, or have Americanized the gospel or bible in someway.

When I started Revelancy22 ten years ago I had to work through all these trends, and as I did I began to realize that my dissatisfaction with Christianity began with many of the issues I was not seeing addressed within my brand of Christianity. At which point I started to re-write a more cohesive gospel narrative which embraced as many factors as required conscious thought and discussion. In essence, I wanted to provide helpful navigational aides to fellow Christians similarly burdened as I.

Though unpopular, ignored, or dismissed I see today the help my-and-other similarly engaged bloggers have provided many during recent troubling times - that Jesus is relevant, His gospel of love and salvation effective, His healing ministry meaningful, His obedient, discerning church socially relevant and engaged, and Spirit-driven hope may be real, inspiring toward ethical action, and overcoming to a secular society full of wind and Jesus-less words. The following survey shows the same as has every previous survey this past decade. Peace.

R.E. Slater

January 16, 2019

* * * * * * * * * *

For 400 years, Christianity has been molded by the largely European culture that came out of the
Enlightenment, but it is recentering its footprint and becoming a non-Western religion. Image
by Bernd Thaller/Creative Commons

Where is Christianity headed? The view from 2019

https://religionnews.com/2019/01/10/where-is-christianity-headed-the-view-from-2019/

by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

January 10, 2019

(RNS) — As 2019 begins, the world is becoming more religious, not less. Faith from diverse traditions grows as population expands throughout most of the Global South. Last year, nearly 50 million more Christians were added in Africa, making it the continent with the most adherents to Christianity in the world, 631 million.

In the U.S., a narrative of religious decline and growing secularism is now culturally popular. The percentage of “nones” — those claiming no religious affiliation — is growing, particularly among millennials. But what are the deeper trends and challenges, beneath the headlines, that are likely to shape the future of faith?

White U.S. congregations are withering. From 1991 to 2014, the number of white Protestants declined by a third, a trend that will continue as they age: Though 20 percent of Americans are 18 to 34 years of age, only 1 in 10 white Protestant congregations reflects that in their attendance. As a result, more than half of U.S. congregations now have fewer than 100 members. Hundreds will close this year.

Where there is growth in American Christian denominations, it is driven mostly by nonwhites, whether Catholic or Protestant, evangelical or mainline. Over the past half-century, 71 percent of growth in Catholicism, for instance, has come from its Hispanic community. In the Assemblies of God, one of the few U.S. denominations to show overall growth, white membership slightly declined while nonwhite membership increased by 43 percent over 10 years.

Multiracial congregations are also expanding to draw 1 in 5 churchgoing Americans, and surveys report a higher level of spiritual vitality among them compared with racially homogeneous congregations.

Globally, thanks to dramatic geographic and demographic changes, Christianity is recentering its footprint and becoming a non-Western religion. For 400 years, the faith has been molded by the largely European culture that came out of the Enlightenment. But today its vitality is coming from emerging expressions of Christianity in Africa as well as in Asia and Latin America.

These new influences are raising new questions about the relationship of the individual to the community, rational versus nonrational pathways to perceiving truth and the interplay of the spiritual and material realms.

As the yearning for authentic spiritual experience moves from the head to the heart in this new environment, spirit-filled communities are flourishing. Today, 1 of 4 Christians in the world identifies as Pentecostal or charismatic, with Pentecostalism growing at roughly four times the rate of the world’s population itself.

The popular image of Pentecostals as television preachers extolling a prosperity gospel and flitting around on private jets obscures the real causes for much of the movement’s explosive growth: small Pentecostal communities among the marginalized in the Global South that are providing empowerment and social transformation.

In wealthy Western countries, a strong spiritual driver is the visible impact of climate change. After centuries of a Western Christian cosmology that empties the material world of spiritual value, care of creation is becoming a foundation of Christian faith and practice, as Pope Francis proclaimed in his prophetic encyclical “Laudato Si’.” Saving the Earth has become a spiritual calling.

But the West, particularly the U.S., has to open its eyes to startling developments in the rest of the world. The “Trump Effect” has undermined the integrity of Christian witness in America in the eyes of the global church. Most non-American church leaders can’t believe the public support given to President Trump by some conservative U.S. church leaders and cannot understand the deafening silence of others.

Trump’s own statements have scandalized the non-Western church, in referring to African nations as “s—hole countries” and in proclaiming an “America first” policy that sounds in many places like a theological heresy that puts the Bible second. American Christianity across all traditions faces the imperative of de-Americanizing its witness if it is to have any global integrity. The world won’t give any credibility to versions of the gospel that baptize American power, wealth and global reach with notions of spiritual blessing, especially under the leadership of Trump.

It is also essential to confront culture wars in the church at home and abroad. The division in the church over ethical understandings of sexuality will persist for decades, since no action of a denominational general conference, synod, assembly or council will change the sexual orientation of its members. While the church in the Global South mostly holds to strong conservative views on this matter, diversity also exists there and will slowly grow.

The key question ahead is whether the core of the gospel is declared to be at stake in these differences over same-gender covenanted partnerships, and divide us, or whether they will be seen as ethical and pastoral challenges that should not undercut the unifying call to follow Christ’s mission in the world.

Meanwhile, “belonging before believing” is reshaping pathways of discipleship. The thirst for authentic community, evident in the appeal of Taize to young people and countless other small initiatives, demonstrates a need to rethink how we welcome others into our faith or tradition. The demand that outsiders first adhere to specific beliefs expressed in creeds or confessions is giving way to inviting them first to explore and share in worship, reflection and service. Eventually this will alter traditional ecclesiology and understandings of discipleship.

If there is a theme in what lies ahead for the church as we enter a new year, it is that the white Western Christian bubble that has powerfully shaped Christianity for the past four centuries is now beginning to burst. Future expressions of Christian faith will be shaped by its interactions with non-Western and nonwhite cultures. This will present challenges to the established church in the U.S. but may hold the keys to its revitalization.

- WGM

(Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, whose latest book is “Future Faith:Ten Challenges Reshaping Christianity in the 21st Century,” served for 17 years as general secretary of the Reformed Church in America.)

The Choice Before Nations to Love and Forgive

In bringing the subject of religious oppression to a wider audience, I didn't

want to kick the Catholic Church but to poke a finger in the throat of theocracy

and to let it be known that people shouldn't tolerate this anymore." - Peter Mullan

"Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life,

or else we shall never find him." - St. Josemaria Eseriva

I apologize for my inattention to this site. My wife and I have just returned from a very long two week vacation where we travelled and visited many states, their historical & cultural sites, cities, and community events throughout Virginia, Maryland, and the Atlantic coast. In our travels we visited Jefferson's Monticello and walked the length and breadth of Washington D.C.'s memorials  and institutions reminding ourselves once again what America's charter of responsible liberties must mean to our society and world. And when these are rejected to learn first-hand of the horrors of destruction and evil when personal liberties go unobserved as was found when visiting the Civil War cities of Richmond, Petersburg, Gettysburg, the grave sites at Arlington, and the Holocaust Museum.

However, we also discovered thriving ecosystems and communities dedicated to keeping their wildlife preserves and national refuges healthy, green, and flourishing. We swam in the clean waters of the ocean, crossed its many bays and rivers, and felt the commerce of communities trying to figure out the most responsible forms of government, industry, and society with one another. But we also saw the vast interiors of our country struggling with their own remnants of once-glorious days where industry and services were fewer and far between. Where industry once had been in the coal mining towns of the Alleganies and now closed forcing townships and local communities to recreate themselves. Perhaps through a renewed dedication to agriculture and clean water, to the land, to their history, to creating a bit of Eden hidden from the world at large. In our travels we observed much, talked to as many as we could, and learned from each their hopes and dreams and aspirations.

We are now back home and in the month ahead I will attempt to catch up where I had left off several weeks ago. In the meantime I would encourage readers to read through the many sidebars I've worked on over the years on hundreds of topics devoted to a progressive, humanitarian, postmodern outlook of the world, the church, its doctrines, and ourselves.

Persecution and Oppression by the Christian Church

The Next Chapter

For myself, as well as for other Christians and non-Christians alike, I am interested in pursuing a Christianity that is contemporary, post-modern, and progressive. It must be Jesus-centered as much as I am able to discern what that compass means - and not centered in our beliefs about the bible or our doctrines emphasizing God's glory and judgments over His love and reconciliation of mankind. Our understanding of God's grace, love, and forgiveness must fill all our churches and their personal creeds and confessions without threatening unbelievers with authoritarian promises of divine wrath, judgment, and hell. For myself, as for many others, God is a God of love. Not a God of wrath and judgment. A God who reconciles and redeems. Not a God who separates and divides wheat from tare, sheep from goat, righteous from unrighteous. Nay, sin and evil does this separating, even sinful man, not God.

And it is this observation that the gospels make and not the incorrect teachings that God does this. He has given the world the gift of free will by decree. He will not control our free will. It is a free will that is the exact copy of His own free will. Which means He cannot interfere with our choices should we chose the darker sides of our natures that are not freeing. Not recreating. But what God can do is actively guide us towards making better choices; who can aide us in directing us to the free will gifts of others willing to help, heal, counsel, and provide; who can open up opportunities of nurture and nourishment from earth's bounty; who leads us unto green pastures and still waters of His blessings and away from the wastelands of our baser wants and needs. God is a nourishing, enriching, empowering God of creation and re-creation. This picture of God is vastly different from the church's fractured picture of a God dedicated to wrath and judgment. Dedicated to hell and anger. And how do we know that God is a God of love and forgiveness? Because He came and died for our sins and empowerment of recreation. He did not come to divide and "cleanse." He is a God of example as much as the Almighty God of Life and Light. He has given us Himself by right of creation and is dedicated to redeeming a world fallen unto its own depravities. A world refusing His grace gifts of beauty and wonder. This is the God I know and wish to tell of.

A Fractured World

As an American citizen, our political season this year and last (2015-2016: Trump v. Clinton) has tested the church in the areas of who and what God is, wants, and does. The media is filled with the harsh, unloving, and divisive political speeches by some of our more popular candidates for election who have demonstrated in their speech how far astray our society has come from God's ways and means. A God who is driven by love and mercy not judgment and war, not discrimination and racism, not inequality and oppression. When the church is on the wrong side of these issues the people of God must cry out and say "NO!" We cannot go in these directions regardless the nominee, the party, or the platforms! And so, I've have been spending a lot of time politicizing the gospel in its humanitarian outreach to the world. Not here at Relevancy22 but on Facebook where friends and family must be tested in their beliefs and outlooks during these incorrigible times.

For it seems our postmodern world has a few hard choices to make. Yesteryear's establishment politics has been rejected in favor of moving either more to the left - from humanitarian liberalism to (forced societal) neo-liberalism. Or more to the right - from responsible fiscal conservatism to radical (oppressive) conservatism. Each extreme end is radical in its own way even as each forces choices of bondage and oppression through deceptive political policies and ideas which stray from the foundations of America's political charters. Charters which are being worked out by each generation as to their reach and meaning. Imperfect at first, but refining as they go, as American society learns to accept the blending of new races, languages, and cultures into its own images of itself.

The choices of neo-liberalism's socialism from the left, and radical conservatism's fascism on the right, are neither acceptable nor compatible with Amerca's constitutional charters.  A republic which is being tested once again in its liberal democracies dedicated to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights (and Magna Carta, in general), and its Jeffersonian principles, to name but a few. A democracy learning to re-envision what these basic charters of government must mean for today's postmodern world. And why these charters are important documents for today's citizens, immigrants, foreigners, and overseas relationships.

The Oppression of the Church upon the discriminated, the unempowered, the disenfranchised

Political Choices in the Face of Inhumanity

Does America move to a position of isolationism or to a position of responsible global leadership? And if the latter, than how does it withdraw from its past policies of use and abuse of other nations, their national resources, and their peoples, in its need for energy, food, clothing, and housing? Of an ever-guarded war-mindedness constantly making enemies of nations in their titanic struggles to be released from their own bondages, servitudes, holocausts, and inhumanities. We, as the world, have some very difficult choices to make and it is my opinion, along with many others - whether Christian or not - that Jesus' example of love and mercy must become front-and-center if we are to move forward as a world dedicated to the basic democratic principles of liberty, justice, and equality for all.

And so, I have spent this past year focusing on the political consequences of Jesus words to His church, and to mankind, in what it means for a holy God to reconcile the world to Himself using the principles of love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope. I think it means that we must do a far better job at listening to one another; respecting each other's beliefs and convictions; learning to cooperate with one another in healthy ways of personal and societal re-creation; and especially refusing to threaten each other with deceptive fears, lies, and misrepresentations.

If a "postmodern" world is to survive - one where we listen and cooperate with one another - than it must survive from its oppressive extremes, societal fears, cultural prejudices, callous uncaring lifestyles, and selfish preoccupations. This is what "post-postmodernism" means. One where fear and oppression lives and governs - whether from the radical left or the radical right. It is a people or society dedicated to a government where democracy has failed in its consitutional charters and political rights and is replaced by interpretive (or revised) policies of protectionism, isolationism, and global oppression, with the misuse-and-abuse of power that comes with these extreme political ends.

The Oppression of Religion not centered in Jesus' ethics and morals

Now is the Time to Choose For Humanity Not Against It

So I think that God has brought us to this time of national and societal reconciliation. Where we must learn how to behave ourselves towards one another across our continents and many political spectrums. Our choices are to continue i) the world's past 2000 years of nationalism and bondage in the "Christian era" or, ii) the past 4000 years of civilization's struggle to steal, kill, and discriminate between social classes in the "World History" era. Perhaps, these many millenias of sin and evil have led us to the choices today of whether to continue its inhuman oppressions or to begin healing a fractured world yearning for liberty and justice.

Since God has sacrificed Himself to make redemption possible than it is time in our lives to make choices towards living humanely with one another by observing the best of ourselves and not the worse of ourselves. If not, we re-live the pages of the book of Revelation over and over and over, again and again and again. Our inhuman apocalypse is the living Hell we read of, fear, endure, and experience through societal tragedies and inhumanities towards one another. But if Jesus is to come into our societies as promised by the Apostle John to make all things right than we must believe that He has already come and empowered humanity through Jesus' death on the cross. This was the beginning point. It is a point of hope as much as it is a point of reconciliation.

And that it is left to us, the (radical) church, and to those penitents outside the church, who must ride Jesus' white horse of judgment and healing into our Ages of destruction and evil. That we have a choice to grant freedom and justice to one another or to ignore these principles altogether while continuing in our oppressive wars with one another. Whether we continue in our unChrist-like doctrines and beliefs that God is a God of War and not a God or Love. Believing God is a God who divides and conquers as we have done as nations to one another for centuries. Thus making of God an Idol after our own craven image. Or whether God is a God who heals and binds up the wounds of neighbor and stranger. Who comes to provide justice to the oppress; freedom to those chained in bondage; liberty and life to the destitute, poor, homeless, and forgotten.

The Church of God is cautioned to forsake sin and oppression

The Choices We Must Make

My God is this latter and not the fractured God of the former. It is this God I, and others, testify of in the blog pages of our progressive and humanitarian writings of what it means to be a true Christian centered in love, mercy and forgiveness. A God who is rich in the graces of selfless servitude to the help of others desperately seeking love and mercy. Seeking housing, clothing, food, water, medicines, wholeness, and re-creation of ruined ecosystems. It is this God - and these people of God - whom we must be committed to however we think of God in our many beliefs and religions. In our many names of God or many observances of nature's highest principles of humanitarianism.

And finally, I think, we have come to this time in world history that as nations we must make the choice to work and live together with one another in responsible, societally-recreative ways. Where the watchwords are cooperation, tolerance, respect, and selfless service towards one another. If not, we will continue this dehumanizing and ungodly cycle of destruction resulting in the destruction not only of ourselves but of our ecosystem. And when these occur our end has come. Ingloriously. Pathetically. Inhumanely. Because we have rejected our humanity for its inhumanity. Rejected our Creator for something unlike His image. Rejected our future of peace and hope for war and ruin. Religion can do that to people. Especially religions based upon seeing only themselves, their ways, and their beliefs as more important than the life-and-breath of others. It is called oppression. Its called societal suicide. And any religion dedicated to oppression is a wicked thing. Not holy. But wicked.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

August 13, 2016

The Hyposcrispy of Using Luke 22:36 As a Proof-Text for Packing Heat

Credit: James Shepard, Flickr Creative Commons

"... No matter how wonderful we might think our exegesis is, if our interpretation does

not lead us towards love of God and neighbor, then our interpretation is wrong."

- Zach Hunt

Jesus Was A Hypocrite

http://zackhunt.net/2015/12/09/jesus-was-a-hypocrite/

by Zack Hunt

December 9, 2015

A little while back I wrote a post asking “Are Bible Verses The Worst Thing Ever?”

This past week or so as I’ve read Christian defenses of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s call to kill Muslims and heard Christian rallying cries for more guns in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting, I’ve wanted to answer that question once again with a resounding “yes.”

Sure, there are obviously things worse than the Bible being divided into chapters and verses – like nuclear war or genocide or cancer – but few things have the power to engender, condone, and sanctify evil like a biblical proof-text.

Case in point: Luke 22:36,

He said to them, “But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise

a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.

Taken in stripped down isolation, as I’ve seen done countless times in the past few weeks, it seems like the ultimate trump card for arguing that Christians should pack heat.

Of course, sequestered like that, Psalm 14:1b – “there is no God” – could be the ultimate trump card for atheism.

But the simple truth of the matter is there is nothing divine about the arrangement of the Bible into chapters and verses. In fact, they didn’t really even exist until the 13th century. But in trying to help the faithful more easily access and reference scripture, the inventors of the biblical chapters and verses unwittingly unleashed one of the most destructive forces in human history: the biblical proof-text; a weapon that needed only the effort to cite it to be effective and could be wielded at a moment’s notice to destroy any enemy and justify any action, no matter how heinous or unholy that action might be.

Sometimes though, and to the eternal consternation of the holy warrior, some of those proof-texts, when seen in their original context actually mean something quite different than we are led to believe.

As clear cut as it seems, the currently en vogue invocation of Luke 22:36 is a textbook example of a verse being used as a proof-text for something it can’t possibly mean.

Now, to be clear, Christians have been debunking this proof-text for quite a while. I am simply adding my voice to that choir because it doesn’t seem like anyone is listening. Perhaps, the louder the chorus becomes, the more likely it is that someone will eventually hear the truth.

So, here’s the thing about Luke 22:36.

If it’s true that counter to everything he said and did in his public ministry, in this private moment Jesus has declared that those closest to him should own swords (or in our case today, guns) for their own defense, then there is only one conclusion we can draw.

Jesus was a hypocrite.

And the rest of the gospel makes no sense.

If Jesus is truly pro-violence – in any form – in Luke 22:36, then the Sermon on the Mount is hypocritical nonsense. For in it, Jesus blesses the peacemaker, commands his followers to turn the other cheek, love their enemies, and pray for those who persecute them. He even goes so far as to equate hate alone with murder.

If Jesus is really telling his disciples to pick up their swords to defend themselves against their enemies, then his command to Peter (just a handful of verses later) to put down his sword is inexplicable. Yes, he was concerned with fulfilling prophecy, but even that concern (as we will see in a moment) only reinforces his commitment to non-violence. Moreover, even if we dismiss the specific command to Peter as something only relevant to that particular moment in time (which, curiously, is not something we do with anything else in the gospels – except, of course, Jesus’ call to sell everything and given to the poor), then we’re still left with Jesus’ unequivocal denunciation of violence and a life lived armed and ready for combat: “Whoever lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”

Once again, if Jesus is actually telling his followers to prepare for a fight, then on top of being a hypocrite, Jesus also becomes a liar. For, when he stands trial before Pilate he grounds his defense in the fact that his follower do not fight.

But that is just the tip of the exegetical iceburg of problems with using Luke 22:36 as a proof-text for packing heat.

If Jesus was literally calling his follower to carry the sword (rather than making a prophetic point), then we’re left trying to explain why there is no mention anywhere in the New Testament of anyone in the early Church carrying a weapon with them into any of the dangerous situations they found themselves in. In fact, if anything, the book of Acts alone is a testament to the early Church’s dedication to non-violence for records the deaths of the first Christian martyrs, including Stephen who was stoned to death without putting up a fight and James, brother of John, who was, perhaps ironically, killed by someone else’s sword as he conspicuously did not have one of his own with which to defend himself.

Moreover, if Jesus was indeed ordaining the use of violence in Luke 22:36, then we are left to explain why no one in the first three centuries of the Church’s history seemed to have received that memo. For the early Church was – in the name of the Lord – almost universally pacifist until its unholy union in the 4th century with Constantine and his violence dependent empire.

So, then, how are we to interpret Luke 22:36?

Well, first, we need to look at the entire pericope because, as I said before, we can’t just rip this passage out of its context and expect it understand what is really being said.

Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals,

did you lack anything?”

“Nothing,” they answered.

He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you

don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered

with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what

is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”

The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”

“That’s enough!” he replied.

Now, I know even with the immediate context, if we do no further digging, it still seems plausible to use this passage as a proof-text for God-ordained violence.

But let’s dig a little deeper.

Early Church Theologians Origen and Augustine

And let’s do that by turning our gaze towards two of the most important figures in the early Church: Origen and Augustine. Their rules for reading and interpreting scripture are tremendously helpful, particularly in light of those modern interpreters who rely on what they euphmastically refer to as a “hermeneutic of common sense” which, ironically, makes no sense given that 1) we live in an incredibly diverse world full of an almost unimaginable diversity of outloooks on life and 2) more importantly, Jesus’ sense of the world was anything but common.

Anyway, for Origen, there are stumbling blocks in scripture which the Holy Spirit allowed to be there in order to draw us deeper into the text, moving us beyond the literal sense of what was on the page and towards the spiritual sense where the true meaning can be found.

We see such a stumbling block at the end of Jesus’ exchange with his disciples when they hold up 2 swords and he says, “That’s enough!”

This alone should send up red flags about the literalness of Jesus’ call to arms. For, on simply a pragmatic level, 2 swords is neither “enough” to start a rebellion, nor even to fend off the authorities who were on their way to arrest Jesus.

Therefore, as many scholars argue, Jesus’ declaration of “That’s enough” is probably best understood not as him exclaiming “Sweet! You guys already have what we need!” but rather him crying out in exasperation as he had so many times before, “You guys still don’t get it.” Yes, Jesus was warning them about terrible times to come, but the battle to come is against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, not flesh and blood. Swords would be of no help. Therefore, they should be prepared for spiritual warfare, not physical violence.

Now, for Augustine (and really Jesus too if you think about it), our reading of scripture must be grounded in the Greatest Commandment. That is to say, no matter how wonderful we might think our exegesis is, if our interpretation does not lead us towards love of God and neighbor, then our interpretation is wrong.

We can’t be ready to love our enemies, when we’re already preparing ourselves to kill them.

Our reading of this passage from Luke, then, must keep us focused on the radical love and self-sacrifice Jesus lived out and called his followers to continue to embody in their own lives. To find that focus and, in fact, to find the key to understanding everything Jesus is saying here, we need to look at what he says in verse 37.

It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that

this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.

We hear Jesus say “it is written” a lot all throughout the gospels, usually without giving much thought to where it is written. In this case, the context of what Jesus is quoting is of critical importance (shocker, I know).

Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 53:12.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

It comes from a famous chapter of messianic prophecy which you probably don’t recognize from that passage, but I’m sure you’ll recognize based on some of the early verses.

Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

In between that famous prophecy and the passage Jesus quoted, we find a passage that really illuminates what it means for Jesus to be “numbered with the transgressors.”

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

The emphasis is mine, of course, but it’s a critical point that can’t be missed when understanding what Jesus is saying – and not saying – in Luke 22:33-38.

A radical commitment to non-violence was essential to Jesus’ identity as the Messiah.

If Jesus was indeed calling his follower to arms, to be prepared for violence, then as their leader, as the one issuing that command, he too was participating in that violence.

Which would violate the prophecy he was so concerned with fulfilling.

And if in private Jesus was indeed calling his followers to arms despite everything he said and did publicly before and after that moment, then the Sermon on the Mount, his words to Peter, and his testimony before Pilate were all examples of deceit issuing forth from his mouth.

Which, again, would violate the prophecy he was so concerned with fulfilling.

As followers of this Messiah, if we want to claim the name of Christ as the marker of our identity, then we must seek to live as he lived. That doesn’t mean we’ll do it perfectly, but it does mean we must walk the same path of peace he blazed for us and called us to follow him down no matter how afraid of doing so we might be.

Which is why, given this and given all the other evidence I have already cited, there is simply no way to read Luke 22:36 with any integrity and claim that it is a God ordained endorsement of violence.

It just doesn’t work.

The only way that can be done is to completely ignore the immediate context and utterly disregard everything both Jesus and the early Church said and did.

Now, that doesn’t mean I personally don’t think you should own a gun. Speaking personally, I have no issue with hunting or recreational target practice, though I know plenty of other Christians do.

But, if you’re in need of a divine proof-text for packing heat in self-defense, you’re gonna have to look somewhere other than Luke 22:36.

What Emergent Christianity Can Offer a Secularized World

A Postmodern Emergent Church Response

At Relevancy22 we have systematically responded to the secularity found in Evangelical modernism by proffering a postmodern version of Christianity known as Emergent Christianity which actively recognizes the syncretic effects that modernity has brought into the Evangelical church. And in response, have sought to identify those modernistic elements within the church by deconstructing them, often to the alarm and dismay, of many well-meaning evangelicals. And yet, in the aftermath, there has arisen an emergent Christian faith which lives more hopefully in these postmodern times, in the rediscovery of the God of the Bible in our everyday lives. Who is real, and is faithfully connected to, our turmoils and troubles, our witness and mission, our worship and fellowship, through Jesus.

 

Moreover, in the recovering of the supernatural presence of God in daily living and witness, there has resulted a continuing, sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit who empowers the Gospel of Jesus as presented in, and through, His church. So that when considering secularity, the answer is not to so simply return to those starry-eyed days of pre-modernistic Spirit-filled fellowships, but to incorporate what this would then mean to the church when placed within today's more discriminating postmodernistic times. For Emergent Christianity should not be thought as more charitable to those undiscerning protestations of miracles, the supernatural, spiritual warfare, angels and demons, but more critical of it in the defining sense of re-considering how those Christian positions oftentimes support an indiscriminate modernism found present within Evangelical Christianity. Thus withholding it from transitioning to a mandated postmodern re-definition of itself. Meaning that, we do not wish to trade one defeated "religious perspective" for another "less competent perspective" but to incorporate a more vigorous postmodern vision that gives life-and-breath back to the Word of God without relying on earlier superstitions, non-scientific assessments, religious folklore, traditions, fictions and fantasies. More simply said, an emergent Christian would not deny these biblical portrayals so much as re-express them in a postmodern sense of Christian enactment and divine presence.

 

Hence, we have been careful within this blogsite to question (and then restate) just what miracles are; what the nature, mission, and operation of spiritual gifting (tongues, healing, prophecy) under the ministry of the Holy Spirit is and can be; how to conduct a literary and not a literal reading of the Bible, of God, and of God's mission to the world through today's postmodern church; what the ministry of the church is to society; what sin's relationship to creation and humanity's free will is; how to read the Bible in a postmodern sense; how to minister and comport our lives within a postmodern setting; and generally, a revisioning of what it means to see the Holy One of Israel apart from the Evangelical blinders that we have too readily adopted uconsciously through the veneers of religiosity too comfortably adapted into our lives, our thoughts, our beliefs, tongues and dogmas.

Specifically, a postmodern assessment of secularization will not encourage those Third Wave Christians, nor spiritists amongst the church, backwards towards earlier beliefs and participations that once housed varying forms of mystical gnosticism. Nor towards an indiscriminate reading of either the bible, or modernity, or both; a reading which generally gives way to more naive forms of cloistered, pre-modernistic, Christian communities and worship fellowships. But then again, nor do we wish too discourage our brethren either for we have much in common with such mindful Christians wishing to apprehend God and live for Jesus in witness, work, and ministry. To such mindful groups we would challenge not a reversion away from modernism into pre-modernal living, but a progression forwards in renouncing modernal expressions of Evangelicalism. While coming to appreciate, if not adopt, a postmodernal, Spirit-filled Emergent expression and understanding of Christianity. For if this is not undertaken, than the church can not - and will not - have a contemporary global witness that is effective within this postmodern world of ours so long as we live and walk and breathe upon this Earth the dead-and-dying airs of yesteryear's secular modernity.

Moreover, Dr. Olson (below) has well pointed out the deficiencies of modernized Christianity. And though a postmodernist would wish to depart from such oversimplified characterizations of "secularity" knowing that such dualisms are a part of the classical modernal world being left behind, still Dr. Olson does point out (in modernal terminology) the deficiencies of modernity in using this type of categorical representation. However, in counterpoint, a postmodernist labors to remove as many of the dualities of the modern mindset as possible from the language of postmodernism, and from postmodern Christianity, so as to remove (reduce, or exclude) classical thinking and its paradigms from oversimplifying the person and work of God, His Word, His world, and mission through Jesus. While also seeking to remove modernal attitudes placed upon God, His Word, world, and mission, that are self-referential and self-reinforcing producing a prohibitive witness and exclusionary fellowships to God, His Word, world and mission to the world.

In its place a postmodernist seeks to integrate a wholism to life that incorporates a pluralistic perspective that places dualities along the fuller theological spectrum of quantum insights and definitions. It is a language that can only grow and occur as future generations develop it and the church absorbs it. Moreover, a critical component of postmodernal thinking is that it demands, as a mandatory basis for enjoining oneself to it, a self-criticism and introspection that would create a healthy respect for doubt, mystery, and a closer respect for those individuals and people groups who are different from ourselves. In this way it becomes a superimposing superstructure that can better give way to any future philosophic eras arising along the lines of demonstrated authenticity and global participation. How? By requiring a decentralization of our personal experiences to that of the expanding whole of humanity, as well as to that of creation ecologically. It has well been said that a journey of a 1000 miles cannot begin without first questioning the need for such a journey. For where there is no introspection or doubt, so too will there be found delusion and contempt (which is my humble attempt at speaking in terms of Peter "Rollinisms").

For those modernists amongst us, we will always feel less convinced and less willing to let go of our dualisms. But in the world of quantum physics, as in the world of quantum living, such classical descriptors cannot be helpful. Neither to a postmodern way of living and thinking, nor to our biblical studies and Christian worship. Emergent Christianity is a different type of Christianity than we are use to seeing. It is foreign to us, and startling new and refreshing. And as such, generally feared and dreaded, called names, and chastised as from the devil's own pit of hell, by the less informed, or less willingly to move forwards towards God's gracious calls of repentance and submission.

 

And though it is true that postmodern emergent Christianity has radically changed many of the goal posts of pre-modern, and modern, evangelical Christianity, it should also be known that God is still the same, only now we are gaining a richer, more fuller, understanding of His majesty and glory. As such, the wisdom of God's salvation through Jesus is itself radically removing all the goalposts of our Christian (and non-Christian) lives unto the furthering majesties and glories of God's renewing Kingdom. Not magically, nor mystically, but in a very real, definitive sense of spiritual undertaking by the Holy Spirit. Requiring the insights of today's younger, more nimble postmodern minds and spirits, which are more willing to rediscover the God of the Bible lost upon the foundering sands of religious secularisms and secularized lifestyles (I speak in modern day terms here, just as Paul did to his first century listeners!).

 

Underneath will be found a truer spirituality than can be found through the fantasizations and mysticisms many think must accompany a reforming Christianity. Certainly, there will be devils enough to fight; and, principalities and powers too! But don't be surprised to find those devils and powers housed quite comfortably within the halls and board rooms of the church. For inasmuch as there be heaven-sent angels let them be likewised clothed in flesh-and-blood hearts and souls through the postmodern day you of emergent Christianity. Who will globally speak Jesus' love and healing in as many tongues, and prophetic ministrations, of the redeemed to an unredeemed world lost in its hedonisms, atheism, pride and hate. It will require a greater power than our own human spirit of altruism and social justice. It will require the spiritual power of God's Holy Spirit testifying in-and-through us, to the power and resurrection found in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Who Himself will put down all principalities and powers, and even the sin found in me and you. For it is to this postmodern day power of liberation and freedom, healing and forgiveness, that we are called to speak in Jesus' uplifted name. Amen.

 

R.E. Slater

January 4, 2013

   

 

 

 

How Secularized Has American Evangelical Christianity Become?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/01/how-secularized-has-american-evangelical-christianity-become/

 

by Roger Olson

January 3, 2013

Comments

 

How Secularized Has American Evangelical Christianity Become?

 

In a recent post here I talked about what I see as the secularization of evangelical Christianity in America. I gave some examples of its symptoms—that is, symptoms of secularization in American evangelical church life. I simply took for granted that secularization had long ago gripped and changed so-called “mainstream” Protestantism in America. Traditionally, that has been one of the primary ways of distinguishing “evangelical” from “mainstream” or “mainline” Christianity in America.

 

Some commenters have wondered if secularity is necessarily bad. How, for example, can evangelical Christianity engage in mission to secular people without some degree of secularity? Of course, that raises many questions, too many to discuss here. All I want to do here and now is discuss what I mean by “secularity” (and “secularization” and “secular”) and explain why I think it is something evangelical Christians should avoid. (By “avoid” I don’t mean “separate from” physically. I’ll explain further on what I mean by it.)

 

The word “secular” has a long and rich history and many meanings. In one sense, not the one I mean, it is simply a description of priests and nuns who do not belong to any particular order. Its alternative is “religious.” A priest or a nun is “secular” who does not belong to, for example, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) or the Carmelite Order. A “religious” priest or nun is one who does belong to a particular order (which usually involves taking certain special vows and living a distinctive lifestyle). Just to be clear—this is not the meaning of “secular” here.

 

What I mean by “secular” (and its cognates) is belief that human life can be lived successfully without God or religion. “Secularity” is implicit belief in that; “secularism” is explicit and, usually, aggressive belief in that.

 

When I suggest that American evangelical Christianity is largely “secular,” I do not mean that it has bought into secularism. No evangelical I know espouses secularism. Evangelicals usually recoil with horror from it. It is “the enemy” (e.g., “secular humanism”).

 

No, what I do mean is that, to a very large extent, as I see it, American evangelical Christianity has bought into secularity—an ethos, an outlook, a way of living life “in the world and of it” that is often, usually, unintended and even denied.

 

Before proceeding, I want to confess that I am not immune to secularity. I think it is extremely difficult to be immune to it. It’s an ingredient, if not the main feature, of the modern, Western culture most of us live in on a day-to-day basis. It would be almost impossible to avoid being influenced by secularity without leaving culture behind in the way, for example, portrayed in the movie “The Village.” There are lesser degrees of that kind of separation in many intentional Christian communities, but it seems to me the only way to avoid being infected by secularity entirely would be to create something like the community portrayed in that movie.

 

Also, I confess that I think secularity, a product of modernity, has brought about some good things. I don’t believe in shunning everything secular. For example, methodological naturalism in scientific research is secular. There is a sense in which separation of church and state is secular. I happen to think it’s also biblical and practical in that it is good for both church and state. It’s good theology and good policy. So, “secular” is not always automatically bad.

 

What is bad, in my view, is when secularity invades the churches (or is invited in) and becomes the shaping ethos in Christian life. That usually happens without anyone noticing it or pointing it out. It is like the proverbial frog in the gradually heating water who fails to jump out and ends up boiled to death. (I have read about that and, apparently, it doesn’t really happen to frogs. Still, I think it’s a good illustration for what can happen to Christians who accommodate too much to culture whether it be secular or pagan.)

 

I think to avoid secularity becoming a controlling norm in Christian life, including church life, we have to be conscious of it and intentionally resist it. We American evangelicals are, by and large, very critical of Christians in other cultures who we think practice “syncretism,” that is, uncritical and unbiblical blending of non-Christian cultural and religious beliefs and practices with Christianity. We talk much about “contextualizing the gospel” while avoiding syncretism. For the most part, anyway, evangelical missionaries (and their teachers and supporters in America) have criticized such things as ancestor veneration among Christians in certain African and Asian societies. In some African countries, some Christians practice animal sacrifice in Christian worship. In Central America some Christians have combined shamanistic practices with Christianity. All these things we denounce and demand that our “converts” stop and shun.

 

However, when evangelical Christians from other, non-Westernized, cultures come to us they almost always see and point out (when coaxed) our own syncretisms—especially the ways in which we American Christians uncritically blend secularity with our Christianity. I don’t always agree with them. Sometimes they seem to want Western (European and North American) Christians to live pre-modern lives in a puritan manner (purified of modernity and all its products). For example, I once succeeded in getting a Christian student from Ethiopia to open up and reveal his thoughts about American Christianity. As the old saying goes, “Boy did we get an earful!” Among other things he said (very politely and respectfully) that in much of Africa (the parts he was familiar with) questioning authorities was considered unchristian and yet I encouraged my theology students to question anything. The difference in his case seemed to be that critical thinking itself revealed impermissible syncretism, accommodation to secular culture. I disagreed (about the “impermissible” part, anyway).

 

On the other hand, at the same college and seminary, Ugandan evangelical bishop Festo Kivengere (1919-1988), “the Billy Graham of Africa,” gave us an earful about our secularized ways (not so much in his public talks as in his answers to our questions during a private lunch with faculty and administrators). I had to agree with his examples.

 

For example, many even non-evangelical African Christians speak warmly and enthusiastically about miracles as part and parcel of authentic Christianity. A few years ago I invited a Nigerian Catholic priest to speak to one of my classes. He was supposed to talk about Catholic theology (he was then the priest in residence at the Catholic student center next to the campus where I taught). Instead, he talked about miracles in African churches and among African Christians—including Catholic churches and individuals. That was his main topic. Clearly, he was attempting to evangelize American evangelicals, not with messages about Mary or the pope but about the power of God to heal the sick and raise the dead (which he claimed to have seen with his own eyes).

 

[It is supposed here that the subject area of fighting spiritual "principalities and powers" such as demons and the devil would also come under this same topic for a 3rd World beleiver. - R.E. Slater]

 

I think this is one of the best ways for American evangelical Christians to discover and avoid secularity among us and in us—to invite evangelical Christians from non-Western countries (especially Asia and Africa) into our churches and Christian organizations and ask them to talk to us about our own tendencies toward syncretism with secular culture.

 

So where do I see secularization in American evangelical Christianity? You might expect me to talk first and perhaps foremost about our general neglect of miracles and the supernatural in general. However, I prefer to begin by pointing out the ways in which our churches and Christian organizations operate along secular business lines. And I don’t mean only with money.

 

Business language pervades our churches and organizations. Instead of talking about “calling” a pastor, we now talk about “hiring” one. A small thing? I think not. In many evangelical churches today, the pastor is treated as an “employee” and falls under the oversight of the “personnel committee” (whatever name that might have). Now don’t get me wrong, I have no objection to churches having personnel committees. My objection is to placing the pastor and pastoral staff under its supervision. Churches used to have “pulpit committees” or “pastoral relations” committees whose job it was to work with the pastor(s) as lay representatives of the congregation. We also now frequently refer to the worship space using terms such as “auditorium,” “platform,” and “lobby.” But at a deeper level, many evangelical churches in America now make budget decisions in the same way businesses make them. Appeals by congregants to “have faith” are routinely turned aside as impractical. When there’s a budget shortfall, one or more staff members get “laid off.” In many cases, funds donated to the church or organization are put into endowments instead of being used for immediate ministry needs. Often, if not usually, the endowment proceeds are used for building maintenance (or, in one case I know of, to pay non-church member choir members).

 

In today’s evangelical Christianity I hear very little talk about God speaking to people, guiding and leading them, healing or providing for them—or doing anything (except giving comfort). I know one evangelical man who claims he had a “conversation with God” that resulted in what he sees as a miracle of provision for someone else through him, but he’s afraid to tell about it because he thinks even other evangelicals will think he’s crazy or a fanatic. He wrote an article about it anonymously and tells only a select few friends that it happened to him. Some “good evangelicals” he’s told about it have expressed skepticism that God really speaks to people that way or provides in that manner.

 

This is one area where I agree with fellow evangelical Wayne Grudem (many of whose other opinions I disagree with very strongly). Wayne has written about the demise of prophecy in Christianity and how important it is to recover that gift. And by “prophecy” he doesn’t mean what most evangelicals mean by it—good preaching. Another more conservative evangelical (than I am) theologian who has advocated a renaissance of non-secular Christianity among evangelicals is J. P. Moreland, author of, among other books, Kingdom Triangle (Zondervan, 2007). I once served on a panel with him and Greg Boyd at a National Pastors Conference. They both reminded me just how secularized I have become, along with most other evangelicals. Moreland talked very openly and publicly about angels who attend him. Boyd, of course, talked about spiritual warfare. Many in the audience, made up mostly of pastors associated in some way with evangelical emergent churches, looked very skeptical. (I was sitting with Boyd and Moreland on the platform [this was not in a church!] and examined the facial expressions and body language of the audience members I could see.)

 

I’m not advocating seeing angels or practicing spiritual warfare or renewing prophecy so much as I am simply pointing out how far we American evangelicals have moved in terms of absorbing a secular outlook on life. Evidence, as I see it, is not so much that we don’t do those things as that we are skeptical about them in a kind of knee-jerk fashion. (I wrote in my previous post about the dwindling of church meetings for fellowship and worship and other symptoms of creeping secularization.)

 

So, after all that, let me confess my own guilt. I was shocked and somewhat put off when my Christian medical doctor asked to pray with me after an examination for a medical problem. Why? Not because he was doing anything less than the very best medical science has to offer. He wasn’t substituting prayer for medical care. I suspect many, if not most, American evangelical Christians would have the same reaction I had—wondering if that was appropriate professional practice even for a Christian medical doctor. (I concluded it is, but my initial reaction was revealing.) Later, I wasn’t surprised to find out that he attends a “Third Wave” church in town that believes in miracles. I would have been more surprised to learn that he attends a “normal” evangelical church! I could go on giving examples of my own secularization of mind and heart and behavior. But I’ll stop for now and just ask you, my dear readers, to examine your own Christian lives and churches and consider whether, and to what extent, they have been compromised by secularity.