From here:
“Many of the institutions in which Christendom has embodied its conceptions of God’s truth will crumble away. Many of the conceptions will have to be modified, neglected truths will grow, to the dislocation of much systematic theology, and the Word better understood will clear away many a portentous error with which the Church has darkened the Word. Be it so. Let us be glad when ‘the things which can be shaken are removed,’ like mean huts built against the wall of some cathedral, masking and marring the completeness of its beauty.â€
That’s Alexander McLaren. And it was written over 100 years ago. Still, sounds rather emergent doesn’t it? Almost like McManus’ statement about destroying Christianity as a world religion.
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Can anyone say today’s Christianity is an “improvement” over that of 100 years ago?
Sure. You’re looking at it through rose colored glasses. Jim Crow laws were justified via Christianity by a significant minority of Christians, and denominations were largely at war with each other rather over membership rather than concerned with the spread of the gospel (for example a friend of mine’s grandfather who lived through much of the 1900s and ministered for almost 1/2 of it relayed to us that most classes at his seminary were geared towards how to expose the wrongness of other denominations and the rightness of his).
And HJ that is what we need to teach people, “You are a follower of Jesus Christ not His church”. That is eternal, not captured within the time frame we are in or they were in.
Christianity in Luther’s time was almost dead and yet he looked to Christ. We need to pursue Christ alone. The church has set up dinner shows that present a replica of Christ that draws attention to the stage and the curtains and the lights, etc..
We all need an awakening and rebirth to personally fall in love with Christ, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Not Bell, not Wesley, not Spurgeon, not the emergent church, not the reformed church, not the mega church, nothing but Christ.
To a large extent we’ve lost that, we are too busy looking back, forward, or right now at the church.
Rick: “We need to pursue Christ alone.”
Amen to that brother!