Franklin wrote:I don't want my original point to get lost. Modern Americans are evil. One cannot love masses of evil at close range without risking a "crisis of faith". So Mennonites have a simple choice - either stop loving these people or move away from them. You may ask how this serves God. The answer is that modern western culture is doomed, like Sodom and Gomorrah, so the best way to serve God is to build up an alternative for the future.
There is an alternative - it is called the Kingdom of God. One must be born again to see it and enter. We are to be in this world but not of it.
Loving people doesn't have to mean we accept their sin or their culture that is yes - doomed.
Loving them means we see things from a more eternal perspective and pray for the well-being of their souls while still disliking worldly culture.
It is because of our love from God that we should have compassion like He has for all of us who have sinned and therefore extend that mercy so those who are disconnected from God to come to Him and dislike any culture outside of that.
Franklin wrote:I don't want my original point to get lost. Modern Americans are evil. One cannot love masses of evil at close range without risking a "crisis of faith". So Mennonites have a simple choice - either stop loving these people or move away from them. You may ask how this serves God. The answer is that modern western culture is doomed, like Sodom and Gomorrah, so the best way to serve God is to build up an alternative for the future.
Like Wade mentioned, the Kingdom of Heaven can be seen only by those re-born into it, but the closest analogue I can present to you might be Noah and his sons working and preaching righteousness and repentance for 120 years to culture so corrupt God had determined to annihilate it. There is also the example of the prophet Jeremiah who prophesied not to avoid captivity by fleeing to Egypt since God had determined to carry his people away, yet when they fled, he was with them and he died there a righteous man.
Tightly knit communities in which members look to one another for identity, and to establish meaning and value, are disabled and often dangerous, however polished their veneer.
What do you think of this statement?
1. I think it is awesome you read Marilynne Robinson.
2. The church fails to be a church of Jesus when it starts to look anywhere for identity that is not Jesus. Yes, this is dangerous like any other cult.
That cult like dynamic is what I referred to as the tribe in my original post. I personally would rather use the word tribe as it is more descriptive of an ethnic people group as opposed to a cult which describes a fringe or heretic religious group.
The majority of present day Anabaptists are a diverse group of descendants of diverse European ethnic group with a shared spiritual history. Our diversity today partially stems back to tribal diversities in Europe.
The crisis of faith I referred in my original post are exposed in this thread.
1. Faith that equates the worship of the Living God with raising corn and chickens. No Jesus did have a farm, he borrowed fish and bread and corn when he was hungry.
2. Faith that is percieved to be so fragile it needs to be cloistered and protected from a much more powerful evil world. Yes Jesus ate with thieves and talked with prostitutes and did not have immoral relations with them, he delivered them from evil. He overcame the evil world by offering good.
3. Probably in this order.
I had the priviledge of having a meeting with an old order amishman. He explained his vision for outreach to drug addicts. He said he sees his role is to be an amish man standing next to and supporting a tatooed recovering drug addict or gang member. He is fully committed to his amish disciplines, and refuses to be closed minded, self serving, and isolated.
I think this guy has a picture of Gods plan for the church. Born again believers interacting with struggling sinners for their redemption. Ignoring ethnic and religious boundaries for the purpose of Christ. Showing hurting sinners how to live for God in a fallen and broken world. Yes its hard. Yes its our calling. Yes anything short of that is failure and unfaithfulness to our heavenly father. Yes we miss the mark and our Heavenly Father helps us get up and try again.
You might not live next to a gang member or drug addict. It might be the young person in church that needs a word of encouragement from you. That might prevent the failed marriage, the alcoholic, the broken life.
I had the priviledge of talking to a young couple this evening. 20 years old, unmarried, living together, expecting first child, homeless, unemployed, nearly penniless, marginalized people group, wanting to get started on their own in life.
What is does true evangelical faith do?
In my mind, the better we answer the question, the less we have a crisis of faith.
Tightly knit communities in which members look to one another for identity, and to establish meaning and value, are disabled and often dangerous, however polished their veneer. -Marilynne Robinson
What do you think of this statement?
I think I have seen this first hand in many Anabaptist communities.
Here is a question I have had for a long time...
What about a group of Jesus followers that comes together from many different backgrounds?
If they only three things they major on is salvation from Jesus, scriptural inspiration, and tithing, they can keep a church going for quite a long time.
But if they start adding other doctrines, expecting certain Christian practices, etc., there is often not enough agreement to establish a Christian community or continue having church together.
I haven't read all of the comments in this thread, but from the first I saw the topic title, I thought that personally, I would describe what I have seen as a crisis of identity, not so much of faith.
Maybe I shouldn't even make this comment, because I do not have time to really flesh this out for you. But briefly, I fear there is too much focus on being different from the world and not enough focus on being like Christ. The former can easily shift into externals, while the latter is much more centered on the internal (unless we all start thinking that we need to wear our hair long, and wear cloaks & sandals - don't see too much of that trend among 'plain people').
flyingnorm wrote:That cult like dynamic is what I referred to as the tribe in my original post. I personally would rather use the word tribe as it is more descriptive of an ethnic people group as opposed to a cult which describes a fringe or heretic religious group.
The majority of present day Anabaptists are a diverse group of descendants of diverse European ethnic group with a shared spiritual history. Our diversity today partially stems back to tribal diversities in Europe.
The majority of present day Anabaptists are not of European ethnic origin.
Tightly knit communities in which members look to one another for identity, and to establish meaning and value, are disabled and often dangerous, however polished their veneer. -Marilynne Robinson
What do you think of this statement?
I think I have seen this first hand in many Anabaptist communities.
Here is a question I have had for a long time...
What about a group of Jesus followers that comes together from many different backgrounds?
If they only three things they major on is salvation from Jesus, scriptural inspiration, and tithing, they can keep a church going for quite a long time.
But if they start adding other doctrines, expecting certain Christian practices, etc., there is often not enough agreement to establish a Christian community or continue having church together.
You just describe the evangelical vision.
However, the New Testament doesn’t describe a church community as consisting solely of salvation from Jesus, tithing, and scriptural inspiration. That was Luther’s vision with the 5 solas and the end result didn’t work very well.
Other things have to bind a community together. The most obvious is that they need to share a common language. Early Christianity tried to get around this with liturgical languages, which eventually results in a Catholic type of church holding masses in Latin.
I'm not sure if this fits here but it jumped out at me and I thought I might pass it along. It's an excerpt from a post by Rod Dreher attempting his explanation of the way he sees the world. He is an Orthodox Christian and thus takes no fundamental issue voting, politics or violence but nevertheless he says this:
We live in Babylon, and the greatest struggle we Christians have among ourselves today is to keep Babylon from living in us. I have said here before (first of all, on the day that I saw it) that the recent Terrence Malick film A Hidden Life is the best evocation of The Benedict Option that I’ve ever seen (though to be clear, I have no reason at all to think that Malick knows anything about my book). Franz Jägerstätter lives in a Catholic village in the Austrian Alps. When the Nazis show up and demand that he swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler, an Antichrist, Franz refuses. Nobody in his village understands why he won’t just go along. But Franz knows. He pays for it with his life. (It’s a true story.)
The point of the Benedict Option is not to find a place to go hide where the evils of modernity cannot find you. They will always find you. The point is to live in such a way that when the Nazis show up asking you to swear allegiance to Hitler, you will have both the clarity of mind and the strength of heart to say no, no matter what it costs.
So many of us Christians today say yes to Babylon, even as we convince ourselves that because we hold anti-Babylon convictions, and vote for politicians we believe are Babylon’s enemies (Ruse’s next book is called The Catholic Case For Trump), and because maybe we even give money to activist groups that fight Babylon’s agents in the arenas of power, that we are the Good Guys. Then we can’t figure out why we keep losing. And we are losing. All the political victories in the world matter not at all if we cannot pass the faith intact along to our children. In Europe, this has already happened. In America, we are living through this nightmare. The numbers are all in The Benedict Option, and they don’t lie.
Tightly knit communities in which members look to one another for identity, and to establish meaning and value, are disabled and often dangerous, however polished their veneer. -Marilynne Robinson
What do you think of this statement?
I think I have seen this first hand in many Anabaptist communities.
Here is a question I have had for a long time...
What about a group of Jesus followers that comes together from many different backgrounds?
If they only three things they major on is salvation from Jesus, scriptural inspiration, and tithing, they can keep a church going for quite a long time.
But if they start adding other doctrines, expecting certain Christian practices, etc., there is often not enough agreement to establish a Christian community or continue having church together.
I think missing the kingdom of God in your three things will cause it to always fall apart eventually.
I shared a few of John D. Martins sermons and David Bercots message on the Kingdom of God over the course of the last year and a half with a man who I've been home churching with who has been a Protestant Christian for over 35 years. Yesterday he sent an incredible message that tore down Protestantism promoting the kingdom of God but with amazing humility and it was forwarded to many of his close friends that probably were a bit shocked. I wasn't sure what stopping home church would do but this man seems more alive in Christ than ever.
He longs for community because he sees how relating to the kingdom of God changes everything for him but his devotion to God doesn't stop him from making himself vulnerable in sharing truth, willing to be ostracised. This is part of the message of Christ in forsaking all and then you will have. Lose your life and you will save it.
When one of the major identifying factors of Mennonites is non-resistance then maybe this is an area where some Mennonites struggle? I think it is bound to fall apart if the understanding of salvation includes His kingdom isn't fully grasped. Otherwise it does just become a doctrinal list and check boxes, instead of willing excitement in loving faithfulness to live whole-heartedly as part of His kingdom. I think then people are excited to do as the scripture says, especially reaching out as Christ did and give their all.