Mr. Duh, your article is ready.
Posted by Nathan on Dec 21st, 2007
2007
Dec 21
The only thought I had when reading this article was “DUH!” And yet, the ODMs still see no need for churches that focus on preaching a biblical message through a method that speaks to a generation that sees little worth in the church. You do the math.
On a completely unrelated note, I found it funny how Silva is trying so hard to pin Bell over a message he has yet to hear. He feels this new assignement from God himself is so important that he needed to post this article twice.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:26 am
And my question is this: Who stands more wanting before Christ?
Is it those who are departing from sound doctrine?
Is it those who remain doctrinally faithful and yet have little impact in this dark world?
Both are wanting, but each looks to the other to repent. We will continue to be in repentance gridlock.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:45 am
These kids are a product of the culture around them, not the Church’s wrong methodology. Perhaps the Church’s hypocrisy isn’t helping though.
Our culture has taken to attacking the very foundations of Christianity and it’s credibility in the eyes of the people around it. This is the fruit of that. This is the fruit of a ravaging secular humanist religion being pushed on students from their formative years. It’s many other things too, but I just don’t have the energy to speak about this. It’s just very sad to me.
The church has to be proactive about this, but what to do?
Joe
December 21st, 2007 at 9:47 am
OK - I completely miss the point of that CRN post… Ken, Ingrid… can you help me out?
I understand it’s probably true, from a sociological/anthropological point of view - but what’s the point they (CRN) are trying to make?
Neil
December 21st, 2007 at 9:51 am
Joe C,
You are right that they are not necessarily the product of the church’s failed methodology - I’m not even sure that the issue is “failed” methodologies. The methods of the past worked fine - then. The “failure” is not the method(s)… the failure is to codify certain method(s).
December 21st, 2007 at 9:55 am
I would strongly disagree Joe. The church has lived through times, places and eras when the culture was dramatically against the church. I have often heard it said taking out prayer from schools was the root cause of the moral decline in America…. the fact is that we just stopped praying.
Also, it is amazing how the 2000 census revealed that only 1-3% of the population in America is Gay. Yet, they are going to be the ones to influence laws, culture and the history of acceptable relationships in our nation. A force of 1-3% is doing this!
So, how on earth can the bride of Christ have such a teeny-tiny dent on our culture in affecting the hearts and minds of our young people? At some point we became ineffective, tired, rundown and (i hate to say it) irrelevant. We institutionalized, and preserving church culture became more important than reaching the next generation. I have met so many selfish old Chrsitians who would rather be comfortable and saved, than change and see their grandchildren saved.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:56 am
You are right that the culture has taken to attacking the foundations of Christianity - but I think this rise in spirituality is not the fruit of secular humanism… it’s in direct opposition to it.
The secular humanism that was so prominent in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s should have produced generation that were purely naturalistic - like the characters on the first Star Trek. But it has not… it has failed as well.
The fact that there is an upswing in spirituality just goes to show that humans, being created in the image of God, have a natural bent to the spiritual.
Or as that French guy said: “We all have a God-shaped vacuum in our souls.” (Though he probably said it in French…)
December 21st, 2007 at 9:58 am
Neil,
I think that they are stating the statistics shows the church is failing, but to do anything about it other than point fingers and shout “repent!” to other churches you disagree with… is a sin.
At least that is what my “opinion” is with a ton of research… (I have and am reading a Barna book I doubt that Ken and Ingrid have read anything like that.)
iggy
Disclaimer: Opinions are like armpits; everyone has at least one or two and they usually stink.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:59 am
Joe,
Well, I would say to some extent it is a product of the church’s methodology to some extent. Why is it in my denomination alone, we have over 300 kids come here for college, yet 75-80% of them will leave the church? I have to believe that their spiritual upbringing has something to do with that.
As far as secular humanism, I’ve come to believe this is more of bogey-man than anything. Did you know that less than 10% of college professors claim to be atheists, and that of those only a small percentage are what I’d call “activists”. Of course these people get the press.
I’ve asked my students how many have had their faith accosted by professors, and it’s a small percentage that say they ever hear any of them say anything about it. Actually, some of them have been surprised that some of their professors have actually said positive things about it.
There are a lot of factors that influence kids leaving the Church, and I think the Church itself deseves at least part of the blame.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:02 am
Maybe I should write my own post on this… but I’ve entertained a theory for some years that the secularization of our culture is not a bad thing - in total, that is.
Think of the 40’s and 50’s for example. There was a cultural pressure to go to church - everyone did it. Today, if a 20 or 30something goes to church they do it in opposition to the greater culture.
Which scenario produces the best fruit - so to speak?
December 21st, 2007 at 10:04 am
Iggy,
You may be right, I just thought it odd that they posted the results of a sociological study w/o comment.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:06 am
Phil,
OK - the photo of the squirrels with the light-sabers is fantastic!
Neil
December 21st, 2007 at 10:14 am
Nathan,
One of the funniest things in the linked review was that apparently the guy who wrote it never read God’s first conversation with Abraham (which Bell quoted and this guy took umbrage to):
This was counter to the religious systems of that time, where the gods did not bless people of their own accord, but rather the people had to sacrifice to them in order to receive a blessing. God, however, blessed Abraham before Abraham did anything in return. This is a fundamental understanding of our own role in God’s plan, and the reviewer just…didn’t…get it.
December 21st, 2007 at 10:59 am
Phil and Nathan,
I see what you’re saying, but in terms of secular humanism, maybe you never grew up in New England like I did? I’ll leave that at that. I see it not as a ‘boogey’ man but something that has impact in movies, media, the classroom, and the news, all the time, despite it only coming from a small percentage of people in the country. It’s not really the hardcore rabid atheism of secular humanism I’m talking about as much as the result of that being the dogma of anything ‘educated’ and what that produces in a spiritual culture like America. It produces whacked out spirituality.
I retract my statement about methodologies, and agree with yours Nathan.
The Church has had culture always against it, I agree, I’m just seeing more of a concerted effort now a days. Perhaps that’s just because I live in ‘these days’.
Neil,
You said that because there is an upturn in Spirituality that it shows something about Human Beings and God. I agree, we’re Spiritual beings, however, this kind of “spirituality” we’re seeing in these students, is NOT a Christian spirit, and so…we have to do something about it. We have to reach these kids, and yeah, I suppose that means being relevant to them. I think the spirituality that the article says these kids are in to is vain philosophy and a deception from the Deceiver himself. That’s gotta change. The Church does get some blame, for compromising, and for being stuck and mired in traditions. The Church has always moved to intercept the culture, so why not now?
Joe
December 21st, 2007 at 11:23 am
Joe,
Agreed. My point was not to say that the upturn in spirituality is a good thing, or that their spirituality they are pursuing is good/true. You are right, it is not.
Neil
December 21st, 2007 at 12:47 pm
We now reject the methodology of constant and elongated prayer, private and in church. Fasting is no longer an option. And a sacrificial lifestyle that inconveniently thrusts us into the fields with passion and the anointing of God’s Spirit is seemingly out of vogue.
We continue to take the class as to how to polish, clean, tighten, and offset the light bulb so as to effect the greatest projected glow. But the plug has fallen out and all our methodology is based upon the power of its own creativity and not the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
RE: upturn of spirituality.
But instead of cursing the deficiencies/mistakeness of this spirituality we ought celebrate that a kind of openness is here and make ourselves available to inject a witness of the Gospel.
Instead, I see people acting like if I don’t wring my hands over the mistaken parts of this upturn and rebuke it then somehow we’re compromised “emergents”…
The cup is half full? or half empty?
Some of us see it as half full…and then we’re bashed for it.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pm
nc,
exactly!
Neil
December 21st, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Hey quick question about “the gods..”
Does he use the Frudiean thought that the reson men made so many gods is because they had a fear of the unexplained and because of this fear to gain some sense of control the named the storms, seas ect… so they could appease and have some sense of control over these natrual things?
Is that his point in his new teaching?
December 21st, 2007 at 2:05 pm
He does not pull in this concept of “naming” things for controlling them, but rather goes into the reasons for the sacrificial system in which people believed they had to appease the gods by giving them more and more in sacrifice - whether things get better or worse.
It’s not a “new teaching” - it is just an explanation of the origins of sacrifice pre-Abraham…
December 21st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I waas just saying that the reason there wher some mane gods in old cultures was that we feared nature and stuff we could not explain. So humans started worship creation and placing names on it to gain some sort of control over it. Frued said in the modern age we do not have do to this because natrual science can expail everything. I was just wondering if Bell drew some of his “new teaching”, that is the way he describes it, from this train of thought. I do not fell that Freud is totally wrong with that view either. Also Bell’s new teaching is not bad it is just a new thing he is doing rather than stuff he did 3 years ago.
How does he explain the origins of sacrifice????
Just a side note on Freud little theory. When you apply it to the God of the bible it breaks down. Humans try to appease their fears by creating gods they can appease but the God of the bible can not be appeased by humans and He is a God to be feared. So in christian worship a God totally different from the gods of the ancients that can be controlled and manipulated.
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Kyle,
I believe that Bell addressed “naming” in a sermon from this summer (though it could have been a different speaker at Mars Hill), when he noted that in the Bible, people and places are given names which describe them and their purpose (like Yeshua = “God’s Salvation”), but that God did not allow Himself to be named, and that His given name, YHWH, is just “I am”.
His explanation of the origins of sacrifice were that people observed that the things they needed to live (plants, animals, water, etc.) were out of their control, and came up with a belief that “the gods” controlled these things. As a result, in order to thank the gods, you needed to burn a portion of it in order to give it back to them. If you did not give them enough or if you did not give them enough of your choicest things, they would withhold their favor in the next season(s). This brought up a problem:
1) If things were bad, the answer was that you needed to sacrifice more or more preciously (by cutting yourself, cutting off your sexual organs (mentioning the Cybele cult in Sardis), or by sacrificing your own children). If you didn’t give enough or enough of your most precious things, times would stay bad.
2) If things were good, you needed to sacrifice more or more preciously, lest you displease the gods.
So, either way you had to keep sacrificing more and more extravagantly, because you never knew where you stood with “the gods”.
When God went to Abraham, though, He said that he would bless Abraham so that everyone would be blessed through him. Then, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son to Him, God instead provided the sacrifice, Himself. This was a radical change in thought.
Next, when the Levitical sacrifices were set up, their primary “revolutionary” aspect was that they placed an upper limit on what needed to be sacrificed and promised that you would be at peace with God after doing so. Once again, knowing where you stood with God and that you were at peace with Him was revolutionary when compared to the pagan practices of sacrifice.
Finally, when the Levitical system had become corrupt, God provided the ultimate sacrifice to make peace between Him and man so that no other such sacrifices would need to be made (though this requires accepting Jesus’ sacrifice, he pointed out, though the critical reviews seem to miss this point).
There was a lot more than just this, though these are “Cliff’s notes”…