Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet's Get Ready to Ramble

Okay, I have written what I felt about the presidential candidates, and I have already been confronted about what I wrote by someone who rebuked me for the possibility that I may not end up voting for John McCain. I believe voting one's conscience is probably as important as the outcome.

I haven't written too much about the candidates and the elections over the last year because, as my brother said a while back, the campaigns are so far out now that the people are just going to be worn out and sick of it all come election day. I'm sure he's right, because I am very interested in the outcome, and I am already sick of the maneuvering and all of the playing around with words and the truth that has gone on. This election is seems different though. For the most part, this country seems very focused on this election for now. The U.S. press certainly is, but it also seems like the press in the rest of the world is too.

Senators Clinton and Obama both talk about the transforming "change" that the nation is ready for. That's nothing new. Except for their opinions on the war and national health care, they haven't really talked specifically about what those changes will be. That is nothing new either. Politicians often campaign with broad, sweeping statements about the positive changes they will make once they get into office, only to say later that the opposing party limited their ability to bring those changes about.

The sweeping changes either of those two candidates would bring about, especially if they are backed up by a liberal house and senate, have been on their way for many years. Despite the fact that Senator Clinton says she is a praying person, and that Senator Obama even says that he prays nightly that he would be an instrument of God's will, both of these people support a humanist agenda.

This wave of humanism was started when the bedrock shifted in the garden, and the tsunami of immorality that has been swelling ever since is washing away the foundation upon which the U.S. Constitution was written, namely, Judeo-Christian Biblical principles. The humanist movement made great inroads into American society over the last half-century through the likes of judges who abused their powers with their right to enforce them. The legislative and executive branches of our government and their ability to shape this nation culturally have been severely crippled because their ability to act as a check and balance for the judicial branch has been chipped away by such judicial fiat.

Roe vs. Wade, resulting in nearly fifty million abortions, and the Bible and prayer being shoved out of schools, are both a couple of subjects that a healthy percentage of people in this nation have become desensitized to. Public schools are really different in that regard than they were when I attended grade school, beginning forty-four years ago. We were allowed to have Christmas plays with Scripture quotations. That is a real no-no now, in the school I attended. Unthinkable. The humanist influences that have been shaping our society for these last several decades have prepared the way for the transformation that has been taking place in the life of the church as well.

Like it or not, the larger a church gets, the easier it gets for the world to creep in. In my own church, my pastor has said that he knows we will see worldly people come in, not necessarily because they are convicted by the Holy Spirit, but because they see church as a great place to socialize or ply their trades. He does his best there to drive that inclination from them with bluntness from the Word, and we do our best to show people love, without being stupid about it, but it will happen.

There are lots of churches large enough to have this problem, who don't pay much attention to it. Just last November, I listened to a very well-known pastor of a very large seeker-sensitive church speak at a conference, going over the results of a multi-year study on whether or not the programs and philosophy behind their ministry actually produced fruit. He called the results "ground breaking, earth shaking and mind blowing." I listened to him as he joked around about it and brought the audience to laughter as he kidded about killing the messengers who brought him the report, because apparently, the way they have been trying to win the lost has been a huge blow-out. Tragic. This whole seeker-sensitive movement, in my view, was a slow, desperate misguided reaction to the fall-off in the church over the last several decades because of humanist influence in this country, and I don't think they have learned their lesson.

The Emergent church movement is another example of a culminating reaction to the spiritual times. It is a sort of super-sensitive to the seeker movement. I'm not kidding. It is often as not the kind of movement wherein the leaders will dance around answering a question so as not to hurt someone's sensibilities, to the point that the question never gets answered.

The Word is very blunt. It contains truth. Truth is often very hard on the ears of the unrepentant. The Emergent movement, generally speaking, grew out of a general dissatisfaction with "the way church is done". Because of that, they were looking for a way to change "the way church is done". The speech of the Emergent movement seems to be very soft. Squishy, even, and that seems to permeate much of mainstream Christianity today.

I am not advocating spiritually clubbing people over the head and dragging them into church and telling them what to believe. I have never believed in that sort of extremism. The Word, even lovingly given, can be blunt enough to the heart. Even the most softly spoken words, most kindly meant, may be used by the Holy Spirit to bring people to their knees before Him. Conviction is an ugly, unyielding word to many. The Holy Spirit convicts people's hearts. He wouldn't do that if they didn't need convicting. It is our job simply to give the gospel to people.

But this is a strange time to me. While what the Constitution actually says is that there must not be a state-run church, for years now, we have been told by activists that church must be separated in all ways from the state. Those are two completely different things. The unfair and intolerant thing is, though Christianity is supposed to be kept separate at all costs from the state, the state keeps pushing the church to allow humanism to come in. It is bad enough that the state is consistently pushing laws that would classify certain Scripture as "hate speech" , it is worse that many churches are adopting humanistic practices to win people to the pews, instead of winning souls to God in Jesus Christ.

If a lot of the mega-church movement has largely prioritized its outreach toward entertainment with watered-down teaching, the Emergent church has moved its outreach efforts toward a social gospel through political activism. The more, (for lack of a better description) serious movers and shakers in the Emergent movement push a gospel of social justice, with efforts to eradicate poverty, and problems like AIDS. That's great. I believe in social change. I think we desperately need it. The Bible says that; "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27)

I just don't think that we ought to waste too much time going out and concentrating on making the world a better place for people to go to hell from.

It is great to show the love and compassion of Christ to people. It is imperative to show the love and compassion of Christ to people. It is also imperative to give them the gospel. The problem is, I don't know if I am convinced that the Emergent church believes that along with His love, God has any wrath. He does, against sin, and people need to be warned in love. I have never said, "Turn or burn," to anyone in my life, but I think it.

When was the last time that anyone walked up to you and said, "Please tell me about the wrath that is to come." When was the last time that someone walked up to you and asked, "You just have something about you. Could you please tell me about the hope that lies within you?" Things like that have happened to me maybe a couple of times in my entire life, but people do not come to Jesus through osmosis from our necessary proximity.

The whole WWJD? fad that came and that has apparently passed was not a bad thing. It's just an abbreviated reminder to have the mind of Christ when confronted with choices. We should really be asking though, "What did Jesus say and what did He do?" and say do the same. Be Doers of the Word. There are plenty of direction He gave us in the writings of the apostles too, and we should follow that too. "2Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;" 2 Timothy 4:2-3

I do think that the Emergent church has identified some things within evangelicalism that need to be gone in the worst way. If Brian McLaren's multi-layered on-going "conversation", includes being "missional", and "incarnational", these things must include the whole counsel of God. I guess the danger there is in adding or taking away those aspects of doing God's word that make them man-centered, and not God-centered.

Okay, end of ramble.