tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22980286.post824289002797869441..comments2024-03-28T10:26:20.408-04:00Comments on Ponderings on a Faith Journey: Searching for God -- SightingsRobert Cornwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04581876323110725024noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22980286.post-17098320694749826572009-12-29T17:34:15.172-05:002009-12-29T17:34:15.172-05:00Dan,
One of the best things about the internet is...Dan,<br /><br />One of the best things about the internet is learning there are many thinking and caring people like you in the world. Thanks for the reflection and have a blessed 2010. David McAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22980286.post-5814221330671217692009-12-23T13:36:46.920-05:002009-12-23T13:36:46.920-05:00As a good Christian I of course believe that Jesus...As a good Christian I of course believe that Jesus is the only way to God, and as a good denominationalist of course also believe that my current denomination is the best way to practice that only way. <br /><br />I grew up Church of Christ / Disciples of Christ, was ordained Disciples, spent about twelve years in a Foursquare church (not as a staff person) and for the last twelve years in the Church of the Nazarene, so I know something about church jumping.<br /><br />As a good Christian I also know that when people leave their denomination or the tradition of their youth for another it is generally because of a lack of loyalty on their part; that when people stop attending on Sunday mornings it is simply a matter of backsliding; and that those who have left Christianity altogether for either atheism or secularism or one of the other pagan religious practices of our day have abandoned the faith. <br /><br />As a bad Christian however I have to ask, if Jesus came back today would he even recognize the church as it is traditionally practiced as anything close to what he intended when he entrusted it to his disciples? <br /><br />When I read Jesus telling his disciples that "the gates of hell can not prevail against the church and I see the relatively insignificant impact the church seems to be having on the world today I can come to only two conclusions: either Jesus is lying to us, or there is something very wrong with the way the church is going about being the church; and I don't think Jesus is lying to us.<br /><br />There is growing unrest within the church today with our traditional forms and our values as they conform more to the values of our American culture than they do to the Bible. There are ways and forms of being church which are emerging today which are disrupting the status-quo. As I find in the account of the visit of the Magai and the killing of the childern: whenever the Kingdom of God incarnates itself in the world it always disrupts the status-quo, especially the religious status-quo.<br /><br />Maybe the reason people are abandoning the church and Christianity today is not because the problem is with them but with us. Risking a gross over-generalization, perhaps the church today has become the temple system of Jesus' day, and as the people look to the church to find God and his community what they are finding is only a weak and distorted characture of what God intended for them to find and so they are looking elsewhere.<br /><br />As a pastor and a theologian the most critical question I constantly have to ask myself is: do I have more faith in my theology about God than I do in the God who my theology is about? And analogously, is the abandonment of traditional Christian theology and its forms and structures necessarily an abandonment of faith in God or perhaps in reality the manifestation a greater faith?<br /><br />Perhaps in times such as these the words of Gamaliel to the Council need to resurrect themselves as an eternal caution to religious traditionalists of our day. If [any] plan or action should be of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of <br />God, you will not be able to overthrow [it]; or else you may even be found fighting against God.<br /><br />A book which I am currently reading and would highly recomend, which I believe has much to say toward the condition of the church today is REIMAGING CHURCH Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity by Frank Viola.Dan Bayerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00822998747556629587noreply@blogger.com