Though I am not a subscriber to First Things, there are occasional articles therein that really throw light on current trends. Today, while studying the ascension of Christ, I found Reno's linked article.
Here is some thinking that seems to deal a mortal blow to the "Revolutionaries" who think playing golf with another Christian or sipping lattes at Starbucks with the same is a good alternative to a particular church. Recently Kluck and DeYoung have written a masterful book on the church (Why We Love the Church) which speaks to this drift. But turns out, Dante wrote on this too -- as well as a number of medieval thinkers.
You see the sin behind all this abandoning of the church could just well be acedia -- indifference, apathy, also known as one of the "seven deadly sins," that being laziness. The ancient writers referred to it as the destruction that wastes at noonday (Psalm 91). The article recommended here opens this up with lots of implications to our "whatever" society.
For example, Reno explains:
According to another ancient writer in the Evagrian tradition (cataloguing of core sins), the noonday demon “stirs the monk also to long for different places in which he can find easily what is necessary for his life and can carry on a much less toilsome and more expedient profession. It is not on account of locality, the demon suggests, that one pleases God. He can be worshiped anywhere. (emphasis mine)
Let me paraphrase -- this sin shows up in words and thoughts like these:
- I can worship God on the golf course without having to deal with bylaws, poor music, crying babies, and inhospitable fellow saints.
- I can attend church and not get to know people.
- I can leave one church and head to another at any time.
- Who needs the local church?
- I can have an organic church.
- Or I can have a customized church with my kind of music and people.
But this sin shows up elsewhere. American Christians, who believe the Gospel, need to watch for this sin of indifference, this lack of passion, this spiritual dullness which seeks the easiest way through. We need to watch for making ourselves and our comfort the center - and for the weariness that comes when we begin to think it is not worth it, the weariness that makes us pull back.
No one I know in the USA is tempted to renounce the faith in order to avoid martyrdom -- but we are tempted to retreat, to play it safe, to make our entire lives a gated community of safe experiences and nice people.
Dorothy Sayers put it this way: laziness is “the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”
Certainly the Gospel calls us out of such flabbiness. Sin is deadly. Sacrifice was required and offered. Holiness matters. Hell is real. Lies damn. Our Savior is not one option among many, but the ultimate Lord and Judge, now seated at God's right hand. This is hardly a call for another pumpkin spice latte.
Jesus the ascended Lord shouts to us, "Its worth it to follow me, to renounce yourself for me." I need to do some repenting for my indifference.
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