Filed under: Weekly Columns
24 May 2006; Volume 8, Issue 17
PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/rootless5-24-6.pdf
Dumb! No, Double Dumb!
So goes all the Christian hype concerning the opening of the movie version of “The Da Vinci Code.” Too long, boring, tedious, no chemistry, are some of the superlatives thrown at a movie destined to “ban itself” after the initial hype and the curious want to see what all the Christian hubbub was all about. One of the questions I have to ask is how much of this early crowd are Christians going to see the movie, on the recommendation of their pastors, so that they can witness to their non Christian friends? Overall grades for the movie are typically B- to C-, not something which is going to change the life of anyone.
Who are these people? Not the persons who wander in to see the movie, but the people who get so upset about the potential impact of one movie, thinking it is going to change the lives of millions. I’m talking about Christian leadership. I understand their negative Da Vinci shows and the books are still in their distribution pipeline, but don’t they have a real life?
I suppose when your ministry is built upon manipulating an emotional experience, anything that might threaten that livelihood must be met with a hyper emotional attack. Hence, the greatest negative impact on Christendom will come not from the “Da Vinci Code” movie or the book, but from Christians themselves.
Having settled that question, who is the God these people claim to serve? He sure is not the God of the real Bible, or the God of creation. The god these people are defending is a god who can not defend himself, is not all knowing and all powerful, he must be a God that the Da Vinci Code says is true, a god, that the acts of men made up for political gain. Therefore, the greatest worldwide witness that religion is just a political and sociological requirement for weak minded, illiterate, buffoons comes from Christians, and sorry to say mostly they just don’t get the link.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 3:16-4:5)
Contrary to the whims of modern evangelicalism the words of Paul were not written to warn Timothy about the evils of worldly detractors from the truth, but from those within the church itself. Wolves that ravage the sheep for monetary gain and for personal justification and rewards is the emphasis of much of Paul’s epistles.
Now if one were to do a hypothetical visit to all the Protestant churches in America on a Sunday morning, there is no chance that you will be greeted by a smiling person who opens the door for you and says, “We’re so glad you chose to worship with us the Sunday morning. While you are waiting for our service to begin, here is a little card that contains Biblical doctrines that were emphasized by the Apostle Paul and we promote to secure you in the faith of Jesus Christ.”
It just isn’t going to happen. Instead, you will be told how warm and friendly the congregation is, and that there are many ministry programs in the church that can minister to you and your family. If you are remotely interested in the true doctrines of the church you surely won’t find it in the “What we believe” portion of the over stuffed bulletin you will be handed. If you truly want to know what the specific church truly believes through its actions, you are going to have to hang around for years. But then you will never really know for sure, because in the pastor’s desire to reach the lost with a plan, well that plan is changing also, so they have never had the time to write down anything. After all, this church (as differentiated from all others) just loves Jesus and follows the Holy Spirit.
“Those ancient Christian creeds and doctrines aren’t for us, no sir, we don’t want to be rooted to the past, we want to soar with the eagles!”
The true and living God does continually visit each and everyone of the congregations that call themselves His. While not supposing to speak for God, one could presume with what Jesus had to say about the temple and synagogue leaders of His day, the words would not be very flattering to our contemporary congregations. Funny, of all the worship choruses and songs played by the praise band every Sunday morning, I have not once heard their true gospel song proclaimed in most of these congregations, “Go Your Own Way,” by Fleetwood Mac.
Going our own way is the gospel of all humanity, including the church unless it is arrested by the true doctrine that the gospel begins and ends with God and His work. That doctrine is never popular, and is never ever heard in a church that only teaches the grace of God without the power of the law to convict the person of self and his sin.
As I was flipping through the channels one evening last week, on one of the public service channels I ran across this man presenting the fact that what the world really needs was a second Reformation. This on a public sponsored channel. As I began to listen, the intriguing fact was that he was talking about a reformation in the global corporate structure. His thesis was, just like the pre-reformation Roman Catholic Church had lost it’s roots and desire to serve others, so too had modern capitalistic corporations lost the model that they were formed to provide for the public good. Corporations have lost their roots in the real world.
We shall ask the question, has the evangelical church also lost its roots to provide for the public good? When churches and ministries build monuments to their leadership, and pay them commensurate with that lack of public concern, then too they are no better than the uprooted businesses that now globally exploit humanity.
What does doctrine do? Sound doctrine is really an information source, similar to DNA, that allows for a root structure to develop in man’s institutions, so that it can sustain itself and reproduce, as continuing storms bring concepts of change for so called evolutionary sake.
Skewed doctrine, such as we now hear from the oil industry, says that their record profits are the result of sound business practices required to grow the company and to provide a return to stockholders. In reality, it is a monopoly game to see who can get the biggest bonuses and control the most market share at the expense of society. Global business has become rootless and ruthless in a world in which they desire to control everything. However, it’s no longer politically correct to call it greed.
In like manner the church has become rootless because of her lack of sound doctrine. Also much of it has become a nonprofit monopoly game of numbers and facilities at the expense of the members, or attenders, and society as a whole. As a result the Transcendent God has left them rootless and remorseless to the god’s of their own desire, just as in the corporate world.
As with all knowledge, doctrine is made up of words. Sound Christian doctrine uses such words as propitiation, justification, sanctification, reproof, correction, and instruction. None of those seem to fit within modern evangelicalism because honestly evangelicals are so rootless, so clueless, that they don’t believe they did, or can do anything wrong. They truly are a modern day type of the Jewish people, just before the Diaspora.
In creation, you know, that nature out beyond the freeway exit, if something happens to a plant’s root system it soon dies. Death, that, only happens out beyond the freeway exits also. With good roots however, even in very trying physical environments, trees can grow for thousands of years. Shrubs and grasses with good roots, sometimes though it looks like they were completely devastated by a fire, can begin to show new growth within weeks after the fire passes.
As the Bible illustrates at Babel, man’s urban culture by design is without roots to nature. As a result, eventually the roots to the Bible will be eroded or become too diseased to function.
I was discussing the Nature Deficit Divide with friends a while back, the topic came up how know it all city kids became silent and much more aware of the world around them in direct correlation with the distance from the parking lot and the way back to the security of the urban home. I also find it amazing to those who have discovered and can live in the pace of the wilderness, the distance covered and your speed is not as important as the quality of the journey.
Just as in a land of the blind, where the one eyed man is king, so too in a world without roots to the land and to the Bible, there can be no secure future. In the land of the rooted however, being a king just does not have the importance that it does in the land of the rootless.
In my iTunes library there is a song by Don Edwards. Don Edwards is not well known outside the genre of traditional music of the American West, but the introductory lines of one of his songs seems very appropriate to this rooted and rootless discussion. “I wanted to die in the desert, I planned it for twenty years. Alone with my God and my conscience, and not a sky pilot near.”
Are the leaders of contemporary evangelicalism really pastors and teachers, or are they just sky pilots? One thing I have learned about pilots, they desire to have no roots to the ground and really don’t care if anyone accompanies them on the flight at all. They just are wannabe solitary eagles soaring above all the troubles on the updrafts of this world, however with little thought that the purpose of the soaring is to go fishing.
This whole Da Vinci Code thing tends to prove these flight cases quite well. It does also prove that modern rootless Christianity doesn’t work outside the ghetto of evangelicalism. There is much emphasis in evangelicalism about relationship (with Jesus). One must conclude however, if this Jesus is not also the God and creator of the desert, then the sky pilot is serving a different Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible. It either has to be the Jesus of his own creation, or the devil himself.
Modern evangelicalism will die a rapid death in the city, with only a sky pilot near. True Christianity will again grow, in both the country and the city, with a Reformation based upon the truth of Biblical doctrines from Genesis to Revelation, and in harmony with God’s grandeur that speaks through the natural law and common grace of creation. It won’t evolve according to the ways of man, but only the sovereignty of God’s grace alone.
Our latest Chronicles:
The Nature Deficit Divide; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/naturedeficit3-8-6.pdf
Birds & Snakes; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/birdsnsnakes3-15-6.pdf
Given Gifts; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/givengifts4-12-6.pdf
Our rights and our dusty responsibility; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/rightrespon4-19-6.pdf
Solomon's folly today; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/solomontoday4-26-6.pdf
America Amok; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/aamok5-3-6.pdf
Creation Speaks; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/creationspeaks5-10-6.pdf
It’s all about time; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/abouttime5-17-6.pdf
