This quote I think almost says it all…

“elevating personal experience over the sovereignty of God–not only in the affairs of nations but also over the eternal lives of individual men.”

Ties into another discussion I was having about the definition of conservatism and Kirk’s leaning heavily on the classical liberalism / classical humanist principle of respect for history, tradition, and our forefathers and the lessons learned – which all go out the window in todays progressive liberal movement based on “personal” morality and change for change sake.

I’m all over the place here – but if one darn politician embraced both the soverignty of God over personal experience and embraced a reverence for those who went before as discussed here by Mike and by Kirk – they would be able to shut down the Dem talking point of Republicans being “The Party of No.” As it stands we have a hard time even defending the Constitution. Its genius and the freedom and prosperity it has generated for over 200 years fail to impress becuase it suffers that fatal flaw of being old and even worse, not being new.

And even if I am wrong and there is no God, then I have lost nothing by doing those things.

Most contemporary reformed scholarship, by which I mean Protestants still personally holding to the common elements developed in the major confessions of the 16th-17th centuries–Augsburg, 39 Articles, Dordt, Westminster, Savoy, London Baptist–likes to look quite a bit further back than today’s non-Calvinist American evangelicals are wont to. I picture it like 2 race car drivers, 1 constantly looking ahead and behind, the other gazing only out the side window to see how many people are waving at him. This wholesale rejection of the concept of learning from the past is one element of what has crippled the church over the last few generations, and of course its cultural/political ramifications cannot be ignored.

I don’t have a lot of time–need to be working–something I picked up from an old guy from 500 years ago–but… The “historically illiterate” Christian today will almost invariably identify the genesis of the corruption of the church and the culture with the secular revolution of the 1960s. While it is clear that massive changes occurred in that decade, it passes irony that an evangelical could simultaneously believe that the gates of hell would not prevail against Christ’s church yet somehow a relative handful of flag-and-bra-burning kids WOULD so prevail!

More helpful to consider a different category, namely that the church itself, over a much longer time frame, was weakened progressively through the whole American experiment but the etiolation of Biblical preaching of the whole counsel of God, elevating personal experience over the sovereignty of God–not only in the affairs of nations but also over the eternal lives of individual men.

There were many downward turns in this process; major ones would include the largescale embrace of Arminianism as early as 1700, the failure of the Arminians to mount a serious apologetic against the Deists and Rationalists in the Revolutionary generation, the wholesale rejection of Biblical/pastoral scholarship espoused during the Second Awakening, the infernal rejection of all things creedal by the worst of them all–one Charles G. Finney–with his concomitant, heretical subsitution of “evangelistic methods” for the divine monergism of the Holy Spirt in regeneration, and the subsequent morphing of the gospel message from an announcement of a cessation of hostililties on God’s part against believing, repentant sinners into campaigns for moral improvement and ultilmately, mere promises of personal peace and prosperity.

The ramifications are many. Only time for one: how likely is it that a contemporary evangelical would rather crusade for cultural/political transformation–hope and change, anyone–in place of a return to sanity and theological soundness within his church?

Jerry38, btw, I too grew up in the UCC! Still a Congregationalist, but in the theologically conservative remnant dating to the formation of the UCC in the 50s. Believe me, the horrors now rampant in that group–I will not call it a church in toto although its polity does allow faithful churches to still subsist within, and I know there are some–did not magically appear in the last generation. The hatred of Calvinistic/Reformed theology is traceable back to the late 1700s. For fun, look at some of good patriot/poor Christian John Adam’s bitter letters to his Calvinist son JQ!

Also look for anything by: Os Guiness, David Wells (not the Yankee pitcher!), Michael Horton, and here’s another great White Horse Inn discussion: Losing Our Religion.

My faith rest in the fact that mankind and nature are totally messed up (look at our governments, look at our youth, look at our homes, look at our prisons), and that a great and good God could not have created it that way. There are many things about modern Christianity that I loath; the greatest of which is legalism (Galatians has much to say about this).

This is very true indeed “we are born here, die here, and if we are to make our time here pleasant, rewarding, and perhaps remembered, it is up to us to live the sort of life that would allow that” (Ephesians has much to say about this).

I am reminded of Abraham who looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. Abraham wasn’t a Jew, Christian, Catholic, Protestant, etc; he was just an individual seeking Truth. He made mistakes, he learned from those mistakes, and his faith grew as a result. One could say that he was born, he died, he made his time here pleasant, rewarding, memorable, and that it was his faith that allowed him to live that sort of life.

Thanks for the response!

http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Church-Built-Western-Civilization/dp/0895260387/ref=pd_sim_b_2/187-9977202-3883036

I believe that we are born here, die here, and if we are to make our time here pleasant, rewarding, and perhaps remembered, it is up to us to live the sort of life that would allow that. I share much and have no quarrel with people of Faith, but I don’t share that Faith.