A brand new resource from LICC, in which Mark Greene, outlines the greatest challenge to the Church today and what we can do about it. In this essay, Mark explores the stifling, pervasive, life-denying impact of the sacred-secular divide on Christian mission and living, and reveals how overcoming it can expand our vision, inspire our mission, release our churches, broaden our minds, enlarge our hearts, nourish our souls, thrill our spirits, free our imaginations for faithful following and fruitful living in all of life.
Read a short extract from The Great Divide.
To order copies from the online LICC bookshop click here or call 020 7399 9555.
2 comments:
If you compare Catholicism and Protestantism, which one’s more like a peach, and which one, an orange? Which one has a central kernel, and which one has thousands of segments?
In one, humanity is one (human, with the capacity for bridging the supernatural divide through the graces of theosis and filial adoption through the merits of Jesus Christ) and in the other, it’s split into at least two ‘segments’ before we even begin, as Mark Greene points out. But I can’t say what they believe because each segment has different beliefs, and it’s why they’re segmented. Your views are just ‘Greene-ist’ which adds to the pile of the confused din of voices clamouring for the Evangelical’s attention, with no one voice more authoritative than any other.
So, the virus you’ve got is that of an orange, it’s called RELATIVISM, not SSD, and it’s the very thing that has infected both sides of your spurious divide.
So, can an orange-like ecclesiology address orange-like problems? That is, what you call ‘church’ is merely personal preference and a mere ‘coterie of egos’, where one belongs to the segment that most affirms one’s own view of the world. It’s narcissism: a problem within, not without. “The Church/Worship has to meet my need”, is one of the commonest phrases I hear (and they jump ships to have their cravings met). There is no loyalty, just a quest for juicier segments.
‘Private’ revelation, interpretation, and theology has to be expunged, as you suggest, by a ‘whole-life’ view and ‘togetherness’ whatever that means. The sentiments are great, but too little, too late, and people who don’t want to listen, won’t, because they don’t have any obligation which binds them to any doctrine, except their own, although some might at least be loyal to their segment.
Michael Horton, Jim Packer, and Kevin deYoung, have all written some interesting books about this recently, too, but a read of the late Michael Spencer’s 3-part essay, “The Coming Evangelical Collapse”, makes chilling reading from your perspective…
I've read it, but it struck me that your 'church' seems more like an orange. By the time Martin Luther died there were more segments than the average orange. Now, there are tens of thousands, for example
It's as if your 'sacred' is calling the secular, an orange, like the pot calling the kettle, black.
Life is like an orange, but Church should be like a peach: a kernel of unchanging doctrines and a constant fatherly love and discipline at the core - just like the family so many don't have.
In your orange church, there's no kernel, just loads of pastor pips, which people spit out if they don't like them, particularly if they correct their sinful behaviour. So, they just find another segment that gives them what they want, or accepts their peccadillo.
That's why you can say only 'whole-life' rather than whole-church'.
I'm not gloating, but I do think those Evangelicals who frequently, and smugly, ask me, 'Why can't you just be Christian, like the rest of us', are clearly so insulated in their own, individualistic, bubble, that it certainly proves the accuracy of your diagnosis, Mark.
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