Blog fodder
Submitted by Wayne on Sun, 2008-02-10 09:08.
Church
What purpose does the modern church fulfill, if not accountability? Its teachings are watered down at best, corrupt and perverted at worst. Its fellowship is largely superficial. Its programs are devoid of spiritual life. Blog fodder. That's what my wife calls church these days, blog fodder. So it is.
I doubt my pastor du jour will ever visit my site and see himself in my blog. First, those who probably most need it rarely visit TuscanyCircle--can't take the challenge, I expect. Second, his ego would likely prevent him from seeing himself accurately, as errant relative to the Bible--to say nothing of what it would take for him to be humble enough for doctrinal correction from the likes of me. Nevertheless, his sermons provide me an opportunity to make public comment on the state of the modern church, even the best this wayward church has to offer (our present congregation represents one of the best in my Bible-belt area, believe it or not). Perhaps good things may result this way after all.
On that note, let's see what's in store for me today...
Trackback URL for this post:
http://tuscanycircle.net/trackback/911
Christian growth?
My pastor has been preaching about Christian growth. He's been trying to teach the people how to hear the Lord, how to let the Lord mold and change them, and how to grow up spiritually. He's been fumbling around quite badly at it. He's initially left off important aspects like comparing a perceived word from God to His written Word and to a community of accountability. The next week, he weakly covered this. (I pray nobody visited that one week and came away with errant teaching.) He provided a checklist of do's and don'ts this week, something with which to theoretically gauge one's relationship with the Lord as mature or not. Naturally, he included a plug for his salary--his corrupt version of tithing, albeit popular--saying if you're not paying for his salary and expensive mortgage of the church, you're not spiritually mature or obedient. On the surface, his preaching appears to be challenging and good. Digging just beyond the superficial, though, he's really missing the mark badly.
If this is among the best the church today has to offer--and I believe it's close--I shudder to think how screwed up American Christendom really is. I wonder how many of these poor souls call out "Lord, Lord" but are not known to Him; I wonder how many of these are directly due to being misled by unbiblical, errant pastors and teachers.
I've mentioned this pattern before, that my pastor tends to skip over the plain, face-value interpretation of the Word of God in favor of allegories. I'm not suggesting allegorical interpretations are always wrong--some are right--but the first, most important, primary meaning of the Word is just as it was inspired to be written, taken in Scriptural and historical context. This plain meaning, readily understandable by almost anyone (thus, no need for pastoral intermediaries) is almost always avoided by my pastor. The reason is pretty evident: the plain meaning of Scripture is challenging to the modern church, as it's wandered away from much of the Word, but allegorical hermeneutics allows for varied, twisted, customized interpretations. It's a recipe for doctrinal disaster, though, with potentially eternal effects.