Entries Tagged 'The "church"' ↓

A lot of folks went into Cambridge to hear him speak, sadly I could not go. Anyway, here he is speaking at Google’s HQ - Enjoy!

Craig Uffman writes in Covenant a wonderful little sketch covering the story of Perpetua, Felicitas, and a group of early martyrs. Peace be on you as you read their story.

You can find an old translation of the full text here on Google Books.

A video montage to get you thinking about what it really is to cherish Jesus:

From Videos About Money via Desiring God Blog

Al Mohler (of the Southern Baptists) takes an unrepentant Ann Coulter to task in this post

Here John Piper and Mark Dever talk about redemption, and you can listen in

Looking back, this is a little Baptist heavy, but I’m not a Baptist - just happens these Baptists are talking about interesting things!

The National Council of Churches has released their Yearbook for 2007, listing the membership and change in membership of the largest churches in the US. It is an interesting read and has some notable takeaways:

1. Most of the Churches you’ll see in my region are decreasing (Methodist, ELCA, PCUSA, Episcopal Church, UCC)
2. The largest year-to-year increase was by the Orthodox Church in America, with a whopping 6.4% increase
3. Most churches don’t report their membership yearly, and their numbers are estimated (and therefore suspect, in my opinion.)

Enjoy the press-release here

The polling numbers say that 40 percent of Americans attend church regularly, but those numbers lie. Digging a little deeper helps to reveal a more troubling aspect of the American psyche; like pealing away the layers of an onion, the reality of American church attendance reflects on our own perceptions of what we believe we should be doing.
I’m not discouraged by these numbers, I believe that the Church should realize it isn’t the place where people really want to be on Sundays. We can’t just expect a sign with a pithy quote or, as I fear most congregations believe, the mere presence of our buildings to be our main appeal to new visitors.
Check out the details thanks to between two worlds.

Like some sick and twisted death-match on late night Spike TV, both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Episcopal Church are struggling to define the role of homosexuals within both the congregational life and in pastoral life - with liberals and conservatives occupying trenches equally deep and well planned. I’m not here to comment on that sad affair that is literally killing the churches mission (can you imagine how much these denominations could accomplish if they would talk
about something else at their annual meetings?), but rather I want to point out something obvious that vexes me about these institutions. These are both national churches, attempting to define the agendas for a whole country’s worth of believers - something I believe is antithetical to the entire purpose of the church from creation.

The church, at the most basic level is the group of people within which God has chosen to send his Spirit. This church is a highly personal group of interrelated individuals who seek to become more as God would have them be, and less like the world (and their own sinful ways) would have them be. They are a community at odds with the structure of power and authority, a quiet, but revolutionary counter-culture (in the purest sense.) These national churches, distracted (like the character Hyacinth
Bucket in the BBC’s Keeping Up Appearances) with presenting a facade to the press and the hypothetical alienated non-attender (insert likely, white, upper-middle class, college-educated) have missed the whole point in being the church and in the process done nothing to staunch the loss of their present members.

While this mess certainly sells newspapers it certainly is also illuminating the fundamental problem with large bureaucratic denominations: Christ-imitation doesn’t work when the faces you deal with are no longer people and God’s word is no longer the defining measure of this world. Power, consolidated in these national bodies, has done a similar corollary to the Church under Constantine… corrupted the mission of Christ. Luther tried to break the choke-hold of an authoritarian central church nearly
five hundred years ago because he saw the mission of Christ go undone, today I see petty centralized power missing the mission of Christ. I believe the collapse of these national churches will occur in my lifetime, and that gives me great hope. These denominations have a rich theological tradition that doesn’t need a national body to acknowledge or continue them, but rather need a people engaged in creating a community of God-lovers and Christ-seekers to continue what Christ and the martyrs have already
done.

Bucket and Jefferts-Schori - Same wardrobe department?

More reading: On Anglican Struggles, On ELCA Struggles 

Full disclosure: Baptized Episcopalian, and a member of an ELCA congregation

Catch the recap here. Although it is a conference for pastors the speakers present a well-honed cases for their topics that are universal, and refreshingly no-holds barred.

#6

The pope himself cannot remit guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by God; or, at most, he can remit it in cases reserved to his discretion. Except for these cases, the guilt remains untouched.

The first part of this thesis is pretty clear, but the middle (what almost seems as a partial redaction) is confusing. What does Luther mean here? What are these cases that allow the pope to remit guilt? I’m not quite sure, Luther is clearly not talking about sin, but guilt, literally (contemptis culpa) “the disdain for the crime.”

I partly think that this has to do with the Christian world-view dominant at the time. In the 1500’s there were deeds that were good and deeds that were bad; if people did bad things there was an understanding as to what type of actions they had done. To put it in other words, the codified morals of the Bible allowed the people to have a common moral reference with which to both be judged and to judge themselves. If they realized their transgression they were also taught the proper response was to react to it with contempt. The false placation of this disdain prevents true repentance, a dangerous tool of deception.

#5
The pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties beyond those imposed either at his own discretion or by canon law.

Simply put, Luther is cutting to bone many practices of the catholic church. This is not simply the practice of selling indulgences but the whole usurpation of Christ’s role as mediator (1 Tim 2:5) and judge (2 Tim 4:1) and it’s replacement with the Pope.

Luther grants the pope his purview, but that purview does not include things explicitly granted in the Bible to Christ. While this is the beginning of his objections to many of the Pope’s practices, Luther is still loyal to the structure. Luther later on would drift further from this initial support of the Catholic church, but this is a gradual development from this initial thesis.

Peace.

More reading:
Johann Tetzel
Indulgences
Pope Leo X