(An opinion piece)
What’s going on with the church today? Watch the news or check out the social media page and you will find that there is a fight in our country for religious liberty. Why should there be a fight for religious liberty today? Doesn’t the United States Constitution afford the people in our nation to worship freely and prohibits the restriction of assembling together? How often are we seeing an atheist group rising up to fight against the use of the Bible being used in public school as a lesson tool? Let alone a class merely on the Bible as if there is an attempt to turn children into Christians through brainwashing.
I recall back in the mid-70’s as I was in the first grade when my teacher would line us young students up for lunch. Before we walked out the class door we would recite, “God is good, God is great and thank him for our food. By his hands we all are fed, give us Lord our daily bread. Amen!” Not even after a decade went by that all of this came to a stop. Where did the church go? Today we see less Bibles in school but more are in the prison systems. There is something backwards with that picture.
The church has not gone anywhere. The problem is what has not going on in the church and what has been substituted for Spirituality and Christian discipline. Bottom line, the church has become biblically illiterate. When I say biblically illiterate I include theology, biblical and church history, apologetics, hermeneutics, the biblical languages, and the true meaning and purpose of discipleship and evangelism. When I spend time with a Christian I can tell in a very short period of time that much of what they believe in is due to not what they have read in the Bible but what they have heard from the pulpit.
I grew up believing in many theological ideas, bottle fed this things. I did not know any other way to think or believe about the Bible. Not till I was in my late teens and early adult age did I seriously start sitting down and getting into the Bible. I also picked up different books on Spirituality and Christian thought. As I continued to search I began to change much of what I was taught growing up. As I started to attend Christian college I find out that there were many people who thought as I do and many of them go as far back as the second and third century. I also found out that many of the ideas and thoughts I had come with names and titles.
I wouldn’t consider myself to a very intellectual person. I am not a Ph.D. level thinker or writer but I cannot help to think, if a guy such as myself could come out of the traditional way of thinking as the church does then why are there not more people doing the same? I strongly believe people are too comfortable in their traditions and presuppositions to really care. And to object to their views will come with a strong criticism and insult. I have been called Pharisee and non-believer just to name a couple.
All I know is that during the time Jesus was doing ministry the popular majority highly objected to the views and teachings of Jesus. He was going against the grain of tradition and teaching. He went back to the basics and brought them to light as they should have been seen. The Scribes and Pharisees were more concerned about their position in society than they were about obeying what God commanded and they used their knowledge to trap the people. Jesus accused the Pharisees that anyone who followed them were twice as likely to end up in hell as they were.
I cannot help to wonder, has the church become very much the same as the Pharisees and Scribes of the first century? Church leaders have mandated that their theological views are more correct than others, placing their theology before the Scriptures to justify their teachings. Rather than teaching the church to be more Christlike and live in the world, the focus is to be more Calvin and fight against the Arminian heresy. The idea is to follow after the more popular teaching, especially when Hollywood can turn it into a movie. Congregants are less likely to go out to make disciples as they expect the senior pastor to do all the evangelism. Then turning discipleship into a simply 12 Sunday morning class that new believers must attend before they can be connected in the church. There is less focus on developing relationship and more time spent on developing programs. The youth view God and Jesus as an idea that favors their emotions rather than helping them grow into having a deeper meaningful relationship with Christ and how to share and defend their faith.
The root to these problems, biblical illiteracy and all that goes along with it.
What’s going on with the church today? Watch the news or check out the social media page and you will find that there is a fight in our country for religious liberty. Why should there be a fight for religious liberty today? Doesn’t the United States Constitution afford the people in our nation to worship freely and prohibits the restriction of assembling together? How often are we seeing an atheist group rising up to fight against the use of the Bible being used in public school as a lesson tool? Let alone a class merely on the Bible as if there is an attempt to turn children into Christians through brainwashing.
I recall back in the mid-70’s as I was in the first grade when my teacher would line us young students up for lunch. Before we walked out the class door we would recite, “God is good, God is great and thank him for our food. By his hands we all are fed, give us Lord our daily bread. Amen!” Not even after a decade went by that all of this came to a stop. Where did the church go? Today we see less Bibles in school but more are in the prison systems. There is something backwards with that picture.
The church has not gone anywhere. The problem is what has not going on in the church and what has been substituted for Spirituality and Christian discipline. Bottom line, the church has become biblically illiterate. When I say biblically illiterate I include theology, biblical and church history, apologetics, hermeneutics, the biblical languages, and the true meaning and purpose of discipleship and evangelism. When I spend time with a Christian I can tell in a very short period of time that much of what they believe in is due to not what they have read in the Bible but what they have heard from the pulpit.
I grew up believing in many theological ideas, bottle fed this things. I did not know any other way to think or believe about the Bible. Not till I was in my late teens and early adult age did I seriously start sitting down and getting into the Bible. I also picked up different books on Spirituality and Christian thought. As I continued to search I began to change much of what I was taught growing up. As I started to attend Christian college I find out that there were many people who thought as I do and many of them go as far back as the second and third century. I also found out that many of the ideas and thoughts I had come with names and titles.
I wouldn’t consider myself to a very intellectual person. I am not a Ph.D. level thinker or writer but I cannot help to think, if a guy such as myself could come out of the traditional way of thinking as the church does then why are there not more people doing the same? I strongly believe people are too comfortable in their traditions and presuppositions to really care. And to object to their views will come with a strong criticism and insult. I have been called Pharisee and non-believer just to name a couple.
All I know is that during the time Jesus was doing ministry the popular majority highly objected to the views and teachings of Jesus. He was going against the grain of tradition and teaching. He went back to the basics and brought them to light as they should have been seen. The Scribes and Pharisees were more concerned about their position in society than they were about obeying what God commanded and they used their knowledge to trap the people. Jesus accused the Pharisees that anyone who followed them were twice as likely to end up in hell as they were.
I cannot help to wonder, has the church become very much the same as the Pharisees and Scribes of the first century? Church leaders have mandated that their theological views are more correct than others, placing their theology before the Scriptures to justify their teachings. Rather than teaching the church to be more Christlike and live in the world, the focus is to be more Calvin and fight against the Arminian heresy. The idea is to follow after the more popular teaching, especially when Hollywood can turn it into a movie. Congregants are less likely to go out to make disciples as they expect the senior pastor to do all the evangelism. Then turning discipleship into a simply 12 Sunday morning class that new believers must attend before they can be connected in the church. There is less focus on developing relationship and more time spent on developing programs. The youth view God and Jesus as an idea that favors their emotions rather than helping them grow into having a deeper meaningful relationship with Christ and how to share and defend their faith.
The root to these problems, biblical illiteracy and all that goes along with it.
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