For the love of Christ?
Posted by Rev. K.H. Marple on December 4, 2009
Or, A Post Modern Movement of a certain disproportion.
Can you do ALL things in the name of Jesus? NO. And when is church not church?
In West Town, Mark Bergin, 29, who leads prayer meetings wearing a cap embroidered with the Guinness logo. The self-described “hot-dog-eating, baseball-loving, tool-owning missionary” is part of the church planting movement in the United States — an effort to start thousands of churches a year that reach people in more culturally relevant ways….When he moved from Seattle a few months ago to start a church on Chicago’s West Side, he met more than 50 potential churchgoers by visiting neighborhood coffee houses and bars, including the Chipp Inn across from his house. Read the article here.
A commenter said: “What a bunch of neo-hippie baloney! Grow up. Go to a real church, you know…the ONE founded by Jesus Christ Himself!” The Post Modern Church regards things like the arts and the earth and food and drink and sex as things enjoyed while justified in the name of Jesus without reading the entire Holy Text but with their typical conjecture:
We believe that most all human behavior can be understood as the pursuit of beauty. God has built this passion into people for the sake of our joy. Accordingly, we value the arts, aesthetics, nature, sex, food, and drink, all of which point to the ultimate beauty of the creator, who is to be enjoyed forever.
Romans 5:8 says “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” If we were not sinners, we would not need a Saviour; without a Saviour, we would be most miserable.
I think these people haven’t read about holiness and sanctification as it regards living for God. Human behaviour is the sin nature that we are all born with since the Fall of Man. We are to be living examples of what Christ can do to separate us from our old man – because of His Cross – and live for God with JOY. As Christians we are to be separate from the world, not wallowing in it.
2 Thessalonians 5:6 clearly says “Therefore, Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” If these Post Modern church planters had a lexicon, they would know that in the Greek the word sober is nepho and means three things:
- to drink no intoxicants
- to live righteously
- to watch.
Christians are to be Watchmen to mark those that preach another Gospel, another Jesus. The Post Modern Church seeks those that are unchurched so that they can indoctrinate them with a false Gospel, one that justifies sin as some hidden quirk that was god-given at birth instead of the truth – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).
Is Christianity so boring that we need this kind of distraction from the reality of what Jesus did and taught? Are we so arrogant?
We need a Redeemer, not a bartender.
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