“Religion today is not transforming people; rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to society’s own level, and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.” ~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

Unbiblical and untested notions are not the “new norm”, but rather something even the earliest Christians had to battle against (Gnosticism). The trends just go by different names each century or so. (-:

Kathy

Unrelated to these posts… what is anyone’s thoughts on Todd Bently and Lakewood Florida revival. I’ve heard both positives and negatives and was wondering what other people’s take on it was.

gotta run
brick

I would put the link in here, but i don’t know if that’s allowable or not. But on time.com in the middle of the page is a section of features. One of the features is titled ‘Christians: No one path to salvation’.

after reading the article, the sum of it is that everyone is becoming more tolerant of other people’s views. so much so, that in a survey last year that ‘57% of evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation’. This is in Time and they are saying that there seems to be a big shift!

That seems really really sad and troubling to me. what is going on nowadays?!

all i have to say is Wow and God help us!

We need to not emphasize the ‘ism’ or ‘ist’ but Jesus Christ and the cross.

For a season I was influenced by our church in Elmhurst in Dominionist theology, propagated by Rushdoony and made popular with David Chilton’s Paradise Restored. It is now mentioned as a cause for concern by atheists and agnostics when Christians get involved in politics. One atheist on a conservative forum I participate was able to link Discovery Institute to one person on the board with Dominionist theology and politics as he was associated with Rushdoony. I was surprised she even knew who Rushdoony was!

Brick, Dr. Paul and Sugar: I think each of your comments hits on something incredibly important: The idea that we can “change our methods” without having an affect on our message is definitely dodgy. “Method” and “message” are very closely related. Certainly, any “method” changes we make in the Church need to spring from the Message. But too many churches are “picking out” the part of the message. When evangelism becomes the sole driving force in a church, a whole lot of illegitimate methods can be justified.

Jen, very sweet reply here. Your focus on the meaning of the Gospel is, in my opinion, the clearest example of how ‘the center’ is shifting in the American Church. I’ll be writing an article on that in the next week!

I also appreciate your courage to touch on the impact of feminism on the church. Your words carry weight, coming from a woman. Anyone who has followed the theological debates surrounding that issue will know that the “evangelical feminists” are in the process of redefining core doctrines like the Trinity to accommodate their message.

Any time we add an “-ist” to a good idea, it becomes a controlling ideology. And, for Christians, Jesus is the center.

I’m going to leave the contest open till next week. Let a few more people submit. Besides, I just don’t relish the task of picking a winner out of all these posts!!! Each is insightful.

And also any sort of tolerance–ideas vs. people. or better, ideas=people, so reject idea, reject person with idea.

As a woman, I will boldly say that feminism in the church has tried to move the center…….if I had time and nothing else to do I would love to give examples, but I’m limited in both! Fun reading everyone’s thoughts, though!

One example I can think of the church moving the center iis the concept of Seeker Friendly churches. As Sugar Land Steve noted, the Center should be Jesus Christ and Him alone. But when a church’s main focus is to fill the pews and one way to do that is to make it seeker friendly, then something can be and is lost…

Anything we do, we should always be based on the Foundation, the one unmovable center, which is Jesus Christ our Lord. Anything else will be sinking sand, which changes with the shift in the winds.

so much of the time, one hears a success story of a church and a revival/renewing of sorts as the result of a topical study or focus. then word (notice little w) gets out of the success and then other churches decide to jump on the proverbial bandwagon. because if it worked at that church then it must work at our church as well. I don’t know, do all of the same people go to both churches?

The studies themselves may not be necessarily wrong, its more or less the reasoning behind ‘why’ they are being used. the real questioning should be “God, what do you want us as a church to do?” I think that question gets missed too much of the time.

steve-does that sum up or add to what you were thinking?

adam-does it make sense as to what i’ve said?