Christian Culture that does not foster righteousness

[barnhart]

...That said, one wonders how men are memorizing Bible, teaching and leading individuals and families, and finding what they later put in scare quotes as "success" as a man of God, if they have not truly repented. Or, in other words, what kind of Christian culture values these things so highly that they can be put on as "success," when the first lesson of the precious New Testament of the Son of God has not been learned? And how can we build Christian cultures that value that first lesson?

I found this very insightful and full of good questions. What values have you seen creep in to Anabaptist churches that might fall into this category, or what do you think could be done to prevent this.

[cmbl]

...That said, one wonders how men are memorizing Bible, teaching and leading individuals and families, and finding what they later put in scare quotes as "success" as a man of God, if they have not truly repented. Or, in other words, what kind of Christian culture values these things so highly that they can be put on as "success," when the first lesson of the precious New Testament of the Son of God has not been learned? And how can we build Christian cultures that value that first lesson?

I found this very insightful and full of good questions. What values have you seen creep in to Anabaptist churches that might fall into this category, or what do you think could be done to prevent this.

About ten years ago, when I was a sophomore in college, a friend and I started a Bible study among our friends at college. We were both part of a Christian student group, but started this Bible study basically on our own. The following year, we and the Christian student group mutually agreed to bring our Bible study under the auspices of the group. One day my friend and I met with a staff leader to discuss the Bible study, get some advice, etc. When the three of us were finished, I left and my friend and the staff leader stayed. Later my friend told me that this was when he confessed to the staff leader his involvement with porn. He reasoned (rightly), that this is wrong, and that now that I am going to be a leader in this Bible study, I need to be open about this and deal with it. (I don't mean by that sentence that he thought or that I think that this is only wrong for leaders.) Later my friend came to me and confessed his involvement with porn. He was doing better than I was at this point. It took me another few weeks (or was it months? I think it was weeks) for me to decide that since my friend was being this honest with me, I owed it to him to be honest with him that I was living the same way. I'm not sure how God could have reached me any other way.

So far, so good. (Better for my friend than me; he came to me first.)

[cmbl]

Going from not confessing to confessing is an important step. It is perhaps understandable that I naively assumed that that would make my problems go away. Of course, it did not. Anyhow, my friend and I were "accountability partners." We kept on leading the Bible study. Another important step that I took was putting my computer out of my room so that I was less likely to wake up in the night and use it to look at porn. (For me, this was part of obeying Jesus' teaching to cut off the arm that causes you to stumble.) By my junior year, I noticed progress on the particular front of porn, but I was still living in other sexual sin.

At that time, the staff leader was trying to recruit me to take part in the next level of student leadership. I was hemming and hawing, one reason being that I was becoming Anabaptist in theology and this group wasn't. Another reason, of course, was my ongoing sin. On a Wednesday night, he and I were talking about this next level of leadership, and I mentioned that latter reason to him. He said, "[cmbl], I can't make sexual sin a test for leadership. Ninety percent of the guys are looking at porn. If I made sexual sin a test for leadership, we would have no leaders*. I don't think God wants us to have no leaders."

Not good. How did we get here?

*(In context, I think he himself actually wasn't living in sin, but was referring to student leaders. At one point, he had told me, "I literally just assume that guys are looking at porn.")

[cmbl]

On the Sunday night after the Wednesday night, the student leaders were together for a Bible study. We were in 1 Samuel 12, and somehow got from "For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people" to "You will never lose your salvation."

[Unconditional] eternal security is a false doctrine. That being said, it's possible to get distracted by that. Even if we took that teaching away, would we not still have had this problem?

Maybe God did want us to have no leaders.

[cmbl]

...That said, one wonders how men are memorizing Bible, teaching and leading individuals and families, and finding what they later put in scare quotes as "success" as a man of God, if they have not truly repented. Or, in other words, what kind of Christian culture values these things so highly that they can be put on as "success," when the first lesson of the precious New Testament of the Son of God has not been learned? And how can we build Christian cultures that value that first lesson?

I found this very insightful and full of good questions. What values have you seen creep in to Anabaptist churches that might fall into this category, or what do you think could be done to prevent this.

After the Jeriah Mast scandal broke, I was talking with a brother whom I greatly respect. He commented that a major negative outcome of the scandal would be that people would no longer donate to CAM, and that would only hurt the people that CAM helps.

To me that sounds akin to "I don't think God wants us to have no leaders."

[temporal1]

The OP quote was from another topic, “Pure Life Ministries in KY?” .. which included this from JoyE:

From my former student's letter:

I am 64 years old and for the majority of my past 60 years I thought myself in the Kingdom of God; I read the Bible, memorized, taught (or led) many individuals and families, had an amazing Proverbs 31 wife with 6 children whose reputation spoke well “of me and my training.” After 20 years that was gone as if a breath, but I girded up my earthy loins and began again, with great alacrity I pushed forward to justify myself and my own direction; believing that “success” would vindicate me as genuine man of God AND silence my critics. I failed again and after 15 years of insolence, rebellion, and an indomitable inclination to sin, I found myself saying “Woe is me, I am undone…”

....By God’s Spirit and Truth, I knew I had never repented. Repentance is a turning AWAY from my current active path along a broad and easy way. In doing so I turn to the narrow hard way that leads to life…expounded: I MUST “un-cleave” or “un-cling” from all sin, all vanity, all temporal beauty and desire and CLING TO HIM.

[Ernie]

...That said, one wonders how men are memorizing Bible, teaching and leading individuals and families, and finding what they later put in scare quotes as "success" as a man of God, if they have not truly repented. Or, in other words, what kind of Christian culture values these things so highly that they can be put on as "success," when the first lesson of the precious New Testament of the Son of God has not been learned? And how can we build Christian cultures that value that first lesson?

I found this very insightful and full of good questions. What values have you seen creep in to Anabaptist churches that might fall into this category, or what do you think could be done to prevent this.

After the Jeriah Mast scandal broke, I was talking with a brother whom I greatly respect. He commented that a major negative outcome of the scandal would be that people would no longer donate to CAM, and that would only hurt the people that CAM helps.

To me that sounds akin to "I don't think God wants us to have no leaders."

Thanks for all of this cmbl!

I have run into this sort of thing frequently that last ten years.
Here is thinking I have seen for how churches get to this place.

1. God wants new churches to be started so let's start one.
2. God isn't looking for perfection. He is looking for people after God's own heart.
3. God wants our new church to exist because we want it to exist.
4. Churches need leaders.
5. Leaders should come from the local body like we read about in the NT.
6. Therefore we should appoint/ordain leaders even if they do not fully meet the NT qualifications for leaders.
7. If we don't, the church might cease to exist and that will be really bad for a number of reasons.
8. God has often used people with major faults to accomplish great things in the world.
9. Rinse and repeat.

In the last five years, many "leaders" I know have revealed that they have been enslaved to porn addiction and other immoral habits. These are folks who have made grand, emphatic statements about what the church should be like and not be like... and what it means to be spiritual or not be spiritual, etc.

[JohnH]

...That said, one wonders how men are memorizing Bible, teaching and leading individuals and families, and finding what they later put in scare quotes as "success" as a man of God, if they have not truly repented. Or, in other words, what kind of Christian culture values these things so highly that they can be put on as "success," when the first lesson of the precious New Testament of the Son of God has not been learned? And how can we build Christian cultures that value that first lesson?

I found this very insightful and full of good questions. What values have you seen creep in to Anabaptist churches that might fall into this category, or what do you think could be done to prevent this.

Praising themselves for not paying into Social Security/Medicare and then saying "we don't take government money", failing to see that paying 100% less tax than non-Anabaptist people similar situated (such as a family with 4 kids making $50,000 a year) do is not actually that virtuous.