church and culture - David F. Wells
Ways of thinking and organizing in our society often become our ways of thinking about ourselves and organizing our lives. Thus, those who gaze at a computer screen by day and a television screen by night may well feel awkwardly obsolete in church if there is not another screen on which to gaze. The demands of efficiency, and the rational, impersonal workings of bureaucracy, are so much a part of who we have become that many of us also want our churches to have the feel of a smoothly run corporation. Our capitalism has been so virile and abundant, filling our lives with goods in quantities unknown in any previous age, that it seems only natural - at least in middle class, white churches - to expect the same range of choice in programs and services as we experience in the commercial world. The norms of the workplace so easily and so unknowingly become our own internalized norms. And this is true of most people. - David F. Wells
found in David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow'rs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 22-3.
Wells unfortunately points out that way too often, culture has transformed the church, but is that what is supposed to happen? No, as I stated a while back when I posted a short post called The kingdom of heaven, Christ calls us to transform culture, not for culture to transform us. So let me ask again: are we affecting the world around us?
1 comment:
A personal growing conviction of mine has been that of the reality of my need to be in harmony with the home where my "citizenship" is held in Christ. Kingdom growth - "on Earth as it is in Heaven" - is God's desire for His people. And when I say "His people" I mean all of His created beings.
I'm afraid that too many professing Christians today are not looking at the eternal realities because they are too enamored by this world/culture.
"Are we affecting the world around us" more than the world is affecting the church? No.
I was doing some research on the "church" and found your site. I very much appreciate the views I have seen so far here. I do believe that God's church is in trouble today, but as in Elijah's day, as in Christ's day though the church appears as about to fall God somehow reserves for Himself a remnant, 7,000 in spiritual Israel that will glorify Him. It may take trial and persecution to do so but God will save His church. He will have a pure bride when He returns for His people. Oh, let me be counted in that number!
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