Matt 24&25: Q3

[Pastor Michelle]

What developments in your community have taken your church by surprise?

[csobell]

I think many mainstream protestant churches are surprised by the number of people that profess to believe in God but have abandoned hope of growing closer to him at traditional denominational churches. Are we doing things that help people build a life relationship with Jesus and draw closer to Him and His Truth or are we acting the same as the Pharisees.

[Pastor Michelle]

very profound! I would definitely agree. So many churches are surprised that people don't just walk in the door or that they don't experience God in the same way, with the same music, etc... it seems that sometimes we are like the pharisees when it comes to traditions.

[kingdomseeker]

Cultures are always in flux. What is avant-garde today becomes tradition tomorrow. As our postmodern/politically correct society continues to cast out traditional values as outmoded, old fashioned or just plan out of touch with the times we have found that we have nothing of lasting significance to replace them with. As such Christianity is viewed as outdated and of no consequence in our continued quest for the latest greatest experience. There was a time in the near past when traditional values were held in high esteem, we as a nation knew who we were. This is not so anymore as the foundational truths on which our nation was founded has been slowly eroded away by our inattentiveness to this cultural shift. Postmodernism says out with traditions, out with the metanarratives as it attempts to replace these timeless truths with subjective experience. The “now” becomes the important factor in existence. Past traditions are scoffed at and ridiculed.

Yet when we look out on our society we have to ask, “What has this jettison of tradition brought us?” Unfortunately when we jettison traditions we often jettison the Truths that accompanied them. No longer is Jesus the only way. Instead He is one of many. No longer are the Scriptures the final Word. They are (if considered at all) just another tome of religious writings. No longer are Ethics considered absolute. They become the plaything of the elite. No longer can freedom be taken for granted. It must be fought for. No longer do we look to God for absolute authority. We become the arbitrary final authority and on and on. While existentialism brought us to the brink of the precipice postmodernism has pushed us in.

We cannot live in a vacuum. Something must take the place of the traditional church as its foundations are being eroded away by the postmodern mind set and secular humanism to name a few. At bottom I believe it boils down to this. It is not that something is “traditional” or “postmodern” or “modern” etc. What we as God’s children should be concerned with is if it is True Truth. This True Truth is found exclusively in God’s Word.

In conclusion it seems to me that while tradition can lead some to a pharisaical blindness, if we cast out all tradition as unnecessary we will do it to our own peril. A fairly popular quote from Ravi Zacharias goes:

A text without a context leads to a pretext.

The postmodern mindset has indeed largely succeeded in removing the context. We are now waiting to see what will fill the void.

[Pastor Michelle]

I would venture to say that some traditions are not founded in scripture and some new ideas are not founded in scripture. when it comes down to it, what we need to do it get back to what is rooted in scripture, whether it's tradition or not!