ABC had to fulfill its obligation to its viewers today by doing a religion segment. They chose a young evangelical and his hip approach to church. The fact that he was a former staffer with Falwell was mentioned in contrast to his non-negative approach to the gospel. The core of the expose' was the fact that such a personal, store front, non-political church is the new trend away from the Mega Church which takes a societal stand. "We preach for something and not against something..." That sounds good on its face but is Politically Correct pablum and, in essence' anti-Christ. Christ preached against a lot of things. So did the forerunner, John the Baptist, for which he lost his head. The Apostles died martyr's deaths as have millions of Christians since then because they said a few things to which others took great exception. "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything", comes to mind. Doesn't the very discovery of truth require discarding falsehoods? The Ten Commandments were not suggestions and Christ said He didn't come to abolish the Law and the Prophets.God bless the young man and his endeavor to "win the lost", but to what is he winning them? It is a Trendy Faith, not the faith of our Fathers. The "new" Evangelical is not new at all, but in a long line of those who have discarded the Apostolic Traditions as passe'. Holiness, altars, reverence, clear doctrine, and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, have been replaced by relativism, t-shirts, big screens and poor grammar. (The young pastor actually said "People could have went to church...") The Great Liturgies such as Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Gregory have been replaced with psychobabble, feel-good lectures, laced with ""whassup", "how's everybody doing today", "we're gonna have an exciting time today", while accompanied by a live band, big screen TV, and audio headsets.
This is the extreme evolution of Sola Fide' and Sola Scriptura. Much of Westernized Christianity has evolved to the extent that it has become foreign matter. As Orthodox Christians we do not judge the ultimate salvation of an individual or a Christian community, but we still look for a family resemblance to find our relatives. To the New Evangelical, if it's old- it's bad. To the Orthodox if it's new- it's is a good sign we aren't related.
Thomas Aquinas opined that people choose the dimly lit over the brightly illumined.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as an evangelical who is at a Baptist seminary, I can say that ABC is playing really old news. Many, many evangelicals moved away from Falwell in the early 1990's. The latest movement in the evangelical tradition is actually one that embraces the old, incorporates ancient liturgy, creeds, etc., and actually turns away from the popular Protestant understanding of 'sola scriptura', seeking to establish a place for the authority of tradition as well--yes, even Baptists! You should read the book Towards Baptist Catholicity by Steven R. Harmon. At very least, it could give you some more fodder for your Baptist-blasting blog cannon :) Haha, I miss you man! Now I'm off to read the Epistle of Barnabas...
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