There is a new couple that have recently started coming to our church. They didn't come because they saw the church name on a billboard, received a mailing, went to our slick website (we don't have one), saw an ad in the paper about our new seats with cup-holders (we don't have any), or saw the impressive architecture of the church building (it is impressive though). They came because someone in our church invited them.
Now, while the concept of individuals inviting other individuals to church is a relatively novel idea, that isn't what I'm blogging about today. I want to blog about what the husband told me after having been at church two or three Sundays.
He said that when he was younger his grandfather told him, without explanation that "Nazarenes are fanatics!" That had stuck with him throughout his life and now as his age, I would guess, approaches the late fifties he still remembered the words of his grandfather and remained a little suspicious about the "Nazarenes."
The individual from our church who invited him was persistent and he eventually came. What troubled me was that (my memory is a little hazy at this point) he either implied or said out-right that we were not fanatics so he would continue to come.
Fanaticism is valued in everything but our faith in Jesus Christ. You can be an environmental fanatic and live in a tree for three years and people will celebrate your bravery & convictions, but if you refuse to buy or sell on Sunday because of what God says in the ten commandments people think you are loony!
You can take your shirt off and paint yourself varying colors and scream like fire ants are in your pants and people talk about your 'spirit' and 'enthusiasm.' But if you refuse to slander and gossip about your co-worker or neighbor people will say you are self-righteous & judgemental.
You can immerse yourself in Hollywood and keep track of the 'stars,' read the tabloids, and watch every television show, movie, and/or documentary produced by the haven of sin called the entertainment industry. But if you decide your life might be more whole and holy by not having a satellite dish or cable running into your home you might just be treated like you have three eyes!
I am convinced that the devil doesn't care if you are religious as long as you aren't real. He doesn't care if you go to church as long as you don't take to heart what the preacher says. He doesn't care if you read your Bible as long as you don't live it out.
I believe Nazarenes need to get back to their fanaticism! I am a Nazarene that is a fanatic!
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6 comments:
I one of my silly postmodern books, I read about how in America we have this concept of freedom of religion, but it's not really freedom to obey Jesus. Religion in this concept is to be defined as an internal experience/feeling/belief that is not to be propagated or spread by any means. The second you begin to spread it, you have violated another person's "religion," and therefor, the great commission should be nullified in American "religion."
The author says that this abomination of Christ's teachings are found in the fundamental flaws of modernist thinking (science is "objective" and should be spread, faith is subjective and is up to the rugged, heroic individual).
I think it was in Rodney Clapp's Border Crossings. I liked it a lot.
Are you blogging from camp?
Faith and work; faith and works! We have intellectual cognitive assent to abstract theological principles down to a "T," but what God really wants is a holy people.
Randomness, but I thought you might be interested: In _Serve God Save the Planet_, the author makes an argument not to buy or sell on Sunday. He's an enviromentalist and a religious fanatic who argued that Sunday is the one day of the week when we can show the entire world that our lives do not consist in the in the things we have or what we can produce (i.e. work). Instead, he insists that we "stick it to the man" and refuse to participate in materialism, consumerism, and the American economy.
Brett:
You seem, of late, to have bad feelings toward the USA.
Certainly I have noticed that many "Christians" put their faith in the back seat of their Americanism, but that is true of a great deal of other things as well.
I am a Christian first and an American 17th. (There are some more important titles I hold before that, like father, husband, pastor, etc.)
The thing that brings that sour taste to my mouth by post-moderns is their audacity to imply that everyone else (especially from "modernity") is clueless about what it means to follow God.
I'm going to write a new "Christian rap" song that will be titled: "Save us O glorious post-modernity from the evils of the church."
Caleb:
I have found that everyone is an expert on "God," but very few know what it means to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
It is easier to talk about Him than to live for Him.
Another thing that sickens me about a lot of the emergent folks is the fact they "discover" the truth but come up with idiotic reasons for it.
For example: the atonement.
For example: your example about not buying & selling on the Sabbath. God says we are to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy because it is to be a day when we stop doing, doing, doing, and focus on Him for rest; it's got nothing to do with flexing our economic muscle or 'sticking it to the man.'
You guys, please don't get me started on emergents and post-moderns again. I'm trying to be a good boy and ignore their fad!
Jared,
My understanding of 'emergeants' is that they are a group of people who find new ways to interest the world in Christianity.
I understand your example of emergeants using the Sabbath Day as an excuse for environmentalism and vise verse. I also understand that it may bring people to church.
Billy Graham was an emergent before any talk of emergents was.
Billy Graham used the hook. The line that has caused people to misunderstand salvation. In fact, the misunderstanding has gotten so bad that "only six percent of all people who call themselves Christians truely understand the core message of the Bible" - American Family Association. The missunderstanding is so bad, that a Korean man, who came here to Study for a PHD said to me, "Instructors and Professors do not fully understand what it means to be saved", speaking in reference to Christian accademics.
I'm all for appealing to the world to get them into the church. Teen agers would much rather go to a movie on a Sunday morning matinee than attend church. The problem is with the Teachers and Pastors in the church. The emergents get the 'hook' out there and the Pastors and teachers don't know how to reel it in.
I believe in the emergents. I consider myself somewhat of an emergent. However, I'm not throwing out a line. I'm strait out challenging the Christian's understanding. I want to see that six percent go away! I want to see sixty percent. Because if more than half of the church understands salvation, then more than half of those who do not will come to understand until we are near 100 percent.
What about you Jared? Do you understand salvation to be the beginning of a relationship with God?
What I am completely tired of is Pastors and teachers speaking in terms of salvation as a ticket to Heaven. I was a victom of that teaching until one day I realized that just does not square with the Bible. Just because we accepted Jesus as the Christ does not entitle us to be in Heaven. What about Holiness.
I left the Nazarene Church here in Richmond because every Sunday morning in Sunday school class became a heated discussion as soon as someone said "I'm saved. I'm going to Heaven". The Church (Nazarenes of all churches) is allowing its members to believe that Holiness does not matter.
So, I left. My relationships became poisoned. The ministers did not want me to even have an opportunity to be involved in Ministry.
I now have completed my manuscript on Christian Education and have posted it on my blog. I search for Christians as my audience because Christians are the very people who need to get straightened out on the doctrines of Justification and Sanctification. I feel as if I can help make a difference. So, this is how I consider myself to be an emergent.
I just want to say Jared that I agree with you. I wont use the word fanatic but we, the church, need to be awaken from our slumber and live a life passionately devoted to God. Thats it, oh it was nice meeting you at camp.
Jared, the book I was referring to wasn't an "emergent" book. In fact, it was endorsed by Billy Graham and the former President of the American Evangelical Association and was written many years ago (long before there was such a thing as "emergent" or "postmodern" in the Christian pop-world. You have some pretty bad stereotypes of "Emergents," and I'd encourage you not to label people so quickly. That'd be like me labeling you as "emergent" because you have a blogsite.
Also, the author wasn't insinuating that we flex any economic muscles or try to overthrow any economic system . . . just that it's one way we show the entire world (i.e. testify) that our lives do not consist in the in the things we have or what we can produce (i.e. work) but God. Thus, "sticking it to the man" means refusing to be held captive by a system that demands that we work 7 days a week, is consumeristic and materialistic, etcetera. In other words, not working on Sunday flies in the face of the capitalistic, American market. Or, to say in a different way, Christianity effects the totality of one's life: social, political, economic, etcetera.
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