Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel resilience - by Mark Sayers
Disappearing Church
by Mark Sayers posits
an interesting thought: We live in a
culture riddled with "liberal Christian residue", our seemingly
secular culture is basically Christian liberalism without the label of
'Christian' and without being considered 'religious' . By trying to be relevant by trying to appeal
to the ever-changing culture around them liberal Christianity became so
relevant that it's basic tenets became a part of the culture and thus the church
'institution' was irrelevant as the culture had already been won. Sayers illustrates it in this way, "" Like a team of suicide bombers who obliterate
themselves yet irrevocably change the cultural atmosphere, liberal Christianity
has essentially destroyed itself as an ecclesiological, institutional
force, yet won the culture over to its
vision of a Christianity reshaped for contemporary tastes."
The author explains
that the modern 'church' has imbibed and taught a contemporary form of
Gnosticism (his chart comparing ancient and contemporary Gnosticism to the
Gospel is very interesting), "This new
religion could be detected in an increasing obsession with the self, with
personal development and the preference of spirituality over religion, and with
therapy over communion with a transcendent God." The discovery of self is the religion
of the day, even in many Christian churches the goal is self-satisfaction,
self-fulfillment, self-discovery, a follow your heart mentality…etc. Sayers
points out that it is no wonder people can leave church so easily without even
finding another one as they can get the same teachings from the world. The book
brings to light the idea of our day and age that personal spirituality is
better and more holy than organized 'religion'.
Though I thought
that Sayers insights into our modern culture were fascinating I do have some
misgivings about the book. Sayers says
some things that imply to me that he may consider Roman Catholicism a
legitimate/biblical type of Christianity, and thus the people who hold those
doctrines are Christians, that concerns me.
He uses movie illustrations that I think were rather unnecessary and I
didn't quite get what he meant by using the statement,
"withdraw/return"…it's probably just me.
Overall though it
was rather interesting, though I think it could have been better…it just seemed
as though there was something missing, though I'm not sure what at the
moment. But again, it is a very
interesting insight into the 'disappearing' institutional church of our day and
is quite thought provoking. I'll end, as
I usually do, with one of my favorite quotes from the book:
"As Rolheiser comments, 'Our age tends to divorce
spirituality from ecclesiology. We want
God, but we don't want church.' However,
the great flaw of our search for spirituality and faith minus church is 'the unconfronted life. Without church, we have more private fantasy
than real faith….Real conversion demands that eventually its recipient be involved
in both the muck and the grace of actual church life.' More than ever we need the limitations and
glorious messiness of church…The mere fact that God chooses it, in the same way
that He chooses us, humble vessels, is part of His grace that fools the wisdom
of the world."
Many thanks to MoodyPublishers for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not
have to be favorable)
A couple of the places (among others) where you may purchase this book is at Amazon.com and also at Christian Book Distributors
A couple of the places (among others) where you may purchase this book is at Amazon.com and also at Christian Book Distributors
I believe Al Mohler has referred to this lately on The Briefing... That the Church has become so relavent that the term "Christian" or "evangelical" doesn't mean anything anymore. The church has taken on worldly priorities, and the world is taking advantage of the acceptable "virtues" of Christianity apart from God. The mainstream church may be disappearing, but the true one isn't!
ReplyDelete