“The 20th century gave rise to one of the greatest and most distressing paradoxes of human history: that the greatest intolerance and violence of that century were practiced by those who believed that religion caused intolerance and violence.”
~Alister McGrath in The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World p. 230.
I just opened a book that’s been around for about a year and a half. It’s written by a pastor who pastors a large congregation in New York City. Before reading this, I’ve been reading / hearing / watching a lot of material that speaks of the decline of Christianity. It’s been depressing. However, the introduction to this text was downright encouraging to me.
As soon as I arrived in New York I realized that the faith and doubt situation was not what the experts thought it was. Older white people who ran the cultural business of the city definitely were quite secular. But among the increasingly multiethnic younger professionals and the working-class immigrants there was a lush, category-defying variety of strong religious beliefs. And Christianity, in particular, was growing rapidly among them.
I think these younger Christians are the vanguard of some major new religious, social, and political arrangements that could make the older form of culture wars obsolete. After they wrestle with doubts and objections to Christianity many come out on the other side with an orthodox faith that doesn’t fit the current categories of liberal Democrat or conservative Republican. Many see both sides in the “culture war” making individual freedom and personal happiness the ultimate value rather than God and the common good. Liberals’ individualism comes out in their views of abortion, sex, and marriage. Conservatives’ individualism comes out in their deep distrust of the public sector and in their understanding of poverty as simply a failure of personal responsibility. The new, fast-spreading multiethnic orthodox Christianity in the cities is much more concerned about the poor and social justice that Republicans have been, and at the same time much more concerned about upholding classic Christians moral and sexual ethics than Democrats have been.
~Tim Keller in The Reason for God, pp. xix-xx.
Encouraging.
Purpose-driven, long before Rick Warren’s fine book was written:
To proclaim this Good News of the all-sufficient Christ — this is our message.
To proclaim it throughout the world — this is our mission.
To do so empowered and led by the Holy Spirit — this is our method.
Let our churches exist for this; let our ministers preach for this; let our seminaries and colleges be on fire with this one theme; let our laborers toil for this; let our consecrated men and women sacrifice for this; let our homes and our wardrobes be purchased with reference to this; and let a whole army of true hearts prove to the world around and the heavens above that they understand the meaning of the cross of Calvary, the cry of dying souls and the glory of the coming King. ~ Dr. A.B. Simpson (1843-1919)
I like it. ~Steve