Thanks for the welcome. I would like to understand better the unspoken ecclesiology underlying this conversation.

You say, "The churches that exist for us today have not retained the essence of the Christian religion." Unless there's meaning hidden in the phrase "for us" (or unless this is hyperbole), this is a statement worthy of the prophet Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, and a statement out of synch with the prophet Jesus of Nazareth, founder of the Christian Church, who said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church. If His warranty extends only to a Gnostic "invisible" church (a church that nobody can attend, a church that has no officers who can administer sacraments and impose discipline, a church utterly without buildings, pews, kneelers, hymn books, or chalices), then it was a hollow promise indeed.

You speak of "cultural apostasy", and your discussion has featured "the meaning and importance of culture", which seems in context to mean mostly church music (but, by extension, also presumably church architecture, and church literature including liturgy (perhaps written and unwritten?)). The questions that, for me, are immediately prompted by your critique are:

1. Does this critique exaggerate the importance of the arts to "the essence of Christianity"?

2. Does this critique reflect an un-Christian preference for the worldly wise, the mighty, the noble, the educated, and an un-Christian disdain for the foolish, the weak, the base (1 Cor. 1)--in a word, those with the smell of the farm still on them? Or those with the smell of NASCAR on them?

3. Does this critique reflect an excessive loyalty to post-Renaissance European music, and an arbitrary disfavoring of other cultures?

4. Does this critique misunderstand the way in which time (through popular appreciation) judges and sifts out the good and enduring from the unworkable and unsatisfying, so that (a) the critique falsely imagines a golden age when all music was excellent, all preaching was good, and all the churches were above average, and (b) the critique unduly criticizes the present day for having what is in fact only its due share (i.e., a typically enormous share) of mediocrities?

5. To the extent it is critical of current (and recent) "pop" culture in its Christian manifestations (whether Amy Grant or Fanny Crosby), does this critique (a) fail to distinguish music good for the car radio from music appropriate for the Mass, and (b) fail to welcome the expression of the Gospel in every convert's own native modes and genres, however subjectively unpleasant or objectively inferior they may be to the critic?

6. Does this critique imagine a perfectionist God, Who is pleased only with perfection, and Who considers the imperfect to be abominable and offensive?

7. Does this critique have horizons so narrow that its view excludes many orthodox churches whose Christian culture it would actually deem acceptable, if it thought of them? How about that Moravian "Home Church" that was spoken of favorably here? My own horizons are pretty narrow, but I can't help feeling that my parish (a very fallible and imperfect conservative Episcopal parish on its slow way out of the ECUSA) has: a decent choir and an often decent orchestra that do a mixed bag of stuff (once a year, Haydn's "Creation", or the Faure Requiem, or whatever); the ECUSA hymnal, supplemented by the occasional additional Watts or Wesley hymn, and "blended" with some contemporary stuff; the ECUSA's 1979 Book of Common Prayer (which is usually (but not always) a step down from the 1928 version, which was a fair successor to Cranmer's original, which was an improvement on its Latin "Sarum" source). Jesus is worshiped there as God; the Creed is conscientiously professed; the Bible is proclaimed as God's Word; the Gospel is preached; the Eucharist is celebrated as the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood. Our adult Sunday School class has discussed readings from nearly all of the authors on your suggested list, and others you don't include (e.g., Eastern Orthodox Fathers). Of course no critic has visited nor can evaluate every parish, but is this a type of parish that, according to your critique, is nonetheless devoid of the essence of Christianity? If not, then please feel free to join us. (We can always use really good musicians.) But if even such a parish is devoid of the essence, then (I submit) this "essence" is hopelessly narrow, and the religion to which this critique aspires is insufferably claustrophobic.

I know my skepticism must be obvious in my questions, but they really are questions, and not conclusions. I confess, though, that I do believe that this essence is certainly present in many churches, even if imperfectly proclaimed or lived out, and even if accompanied by eccentricities and excrescences. Maybe your critique wouldn't actually dispute that, and I'd like to understand. You mention two examples about which I think I disagree:

You say, "The Church of Rome was corrupt and unreformable." But it HAS been reformed--not to be perfection, of course, but very substantially. Trent was an enormous improvement on the things that appalled Luther et al. Counter-Reformation saints (including Carmelites John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, both on your list of recommended readings?) helped clean up their Church. The Protestant Reformation has continued to have its effects on Rome (as in the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification", where Rome recently affirmed, "... justification is the work of the triune God. The Father sent his Son into the world to save sinners. The foundation and presupposition of justification is the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Justification thus means that Christ himself is our righteousness, in which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father. Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God ..."). Want to see a RC parish that reflects this spirit? There's one in none other than Greenville, SC:
http://www.stmarysgvl.org
(I'm no Roman Catholic, so that is not the Church for me, but there can be no doubt that people hear the Gospel there.)

You say, "[T]he Church of England was corrupt and unreformable." And yet today its hymnals include the hymns of John Bunyan, who must be one of those to whom you say this negative judgment "became clear". The C of E itself is admittedly a mess, but the Anglican Communion--predominantly a Third-World movement that resulted from C of E missionary work--is overwhelmingly a Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching, conservative, orthodox movement. (More Anglican Christians go to Church on a Sunday Morning in the single country of Nigeria than in all of the U.K. the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand combined. The Gospel has power and promotes growth; "liberalism" is a parasite and dies.)

In sum, I don't understand your despair.

--One of the "less coherent visitors"

You understand very little.

You also read badly. I do not despair: I anticipate total victory; I expect absolute vindication.

RIF - Reading Is Fundamental, DGus.

That's it? That's all you have to say? I see. It's more fun to lecture refugees from Bible colleges, eh?

Well, thanks again for the "welcome", for your expressed willingness to "clarify certain points for the newcomers", for your assurance that "Disagreement is welcome. Difference of opinion is a pleasant thing". Not everyone is like that, and you might be discouraged to learn that there are SOME blogs where you even get insulted if you disagree.

I'm glad you don't despair. Some would, if they, like you, thought that "This is a lost cause", that "we are damaged beyond repair", that "The churches that exist today for us to attend have not retained the essence of the Christian religion." It doesn't SOUND at first like "total victory" or "absolute vindication", but now you make it clear: Total and Absolute Pie, not in the sky, but in the Eschaton.

You are probably right that I understand very little, but I'm quite sure that I understand a bankrupt ecclesiology when I see it.

I take it then that I don't meet with your unqualified approval?

What's not to approve?

I'd rather hear answers to the questions than exchange banter.

Man, farmers are getting lumped in with NASCAR zombies now. That's low.

Dissidens,
I must say that DGus, whoever he or she is, has some valid questions that you need to address. Your snide comment about him not reading well was uncalled for. Ephesians 4:31, 32.

I have read this blog off and on for a while and have seen the same thing at times. You write a long post and when someone writes one in return, no answer. Just banter.

And from what I can remember, certain things bother me. From what people who know your identiy say, you are an older man. But in one of your posts you said some time back that you had recently visited a church which had certain undesirable characteristics. And it seemed that you said something to the effect that you visit churches regularly. Something about not being able to find a good one. I do remember that you have some association with a church where the pastor was a Detroit graduate. But my question is, at your age, should you not be settled in a church and be personally involved in the ministries of that church, teaching the younger generation, leading the church with you wisdom and mature godliness? Maybe you are and I just have missed it.

You are correct in noticing banter in some of my replies. This is how that happened: I made several posts in which one person in particular chose to interpret and insinuate in a way that was not helpful to the conversation.

Disagreement is welcome, I really don’t care who agrees with me and I don’t mind entertaining criticism. This is just a conversation here, I am no one’s pastor, and I needn’t answer to God as anyone’s shepherd.

But reinterpreting actions my father took decades ago (about which he knew nothing) or the significance of body language in a conversation (he never witnessed), or imputing despair to me are not differences of opinion that lead to understanding. If a person won’t take the conversation seriously, I feel no obligation to take his participation seriously.

It appears that we are beyond that, and I think since then I’ve answered in a way you might approve.

As for church attendance.

I always attend church regularly. I recently left the church I’d been attending for five years. It had a series in Sunday School (coordinated with the preaching services) which attempted to put forward the idea that the Young Earth view of creation did not commend itself to belief. We were taught in no vague way that Moses only thought the world was created in six days, that in fact the early chapters of Genesis were Moses’ redaction of ancient near eastern creation myths wherein he substituted Yahweh for the names of Egyptian and Canaanite gods.

I attended the duration of the series and then took the teacher out to lunch to understand his position. He insisted in that conversation that Gen. 2:4, when it says “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and heaven.” was a sufficient contradiction of the six-day creation account to justify doubt in modern scientific minds. This was an OT professor at DTS who knew I’d been to seminary. How this answer could be entertained as an honest one is still beyond me.

I asked how he felt about presentation of the various creation views and he conceded that the Young Earth view was not really given a fair shake. (In fact all the profs that were bought in took a disparaging view of it.)

All in all I concluded that not only was the church departing from revealed truth, it was not particularly concerned about the devious way it was doing it. We left the church and I don’t regret my reasons.

The churches visited were ones we encountered either on vacation or in search of a new home.

If I am not “leading the church with my wisdom and mature godliness” (such as it is) it is not as a result of truancy. If it is Sunday morning, my back pockets are in a pew.

Dear Dissidens,
I appreciate your straightforward reply. I do not impugn motives, but as a pastor, the church shopping mentality of the vast majority of evangelical "Christians" is so ingrained that even Seminary students, professors, former pastors, etc practice it, and these are the very people I would, in my simple minded way, expect to past that. I do appreciate your blog when I can take the time to read it. It is one of the very few things I read online that have any redeeming value.
Bob

Well, you have a point, but I fear that point is shrinking.

If churches position themselves as retailers of religious notions, you can’t blame people for acting like shoppers. You have major organizations like the Church of Christ and the Episcopal church embracing sodomy, evangelicals abandoning every traditional orthodox belief, down to things like creation and divine omnipotence, and fundamentalists content to huddle up with their parochial loyalties; a judicious mobility could be a sign of health.

"This was an OT professor at DTS who knew I’d been to seminary. How this answer could be entertained as an honest one is still beyond me.

I asked how he felt about presentation of the various creation views and he conceded that the Young Earth view was not really given a fair shake. (In fact all the profs that were bought in took a disparaging view of it.)"

Dissidens, care to expand on that? If you're saying what I think you're saying, that is surely disappointing. Was this a current OT prof at DBTS?

I don’t want to make a bigger deal of it than is warranted; clearly this is a day for doctrinal novelties and personal predilection in the church.

The basic teacher during the series was Gordon Johnston, but guest teachers included DTS guys like Robert Chisholm and Bob Pyne.

My point to BobM is that there might be more cause for flightiness in the modern church than we allow for.

You're confusing DTS and DBTS lilrabbi. Think Dallas, not Detroit.

Okay, thank you! Had me worried...figured it was a typo, because Dissidens speaks often about Detroit.

"My point to BobM is that there might be more cause for flightiness in the modern church than we allow for."

Dissidens,
I think I know the answer, but "flight to where?" I struggle in my own church to move things toward a God centered ministry. People cry out for more youth acticities and funner Sunday school and puppets and water balloons. And the adults can't understand why I don't use Dr. Dobson's magnificent book on rearing boys. (Man, if we just used Dr. Dobson's books, our boys would all be great men.) And in a churchof 80, they expect the volunteer music director to arrange music that sounds like it was recorded in a studio by professionals.

What I am saying is that I am working toward what I think is a God-centered ministry, and I think that is the answer, rather than flight.

I know that some of your readers would say I have capitulated to the culture because of our music. And they would say I am on the slippery slope. I disagree with most of them on music, but agree heartily on many other things. If I may leave music aside (which I understand is probably central to what you see as the problem), do you not think that the answer is to start in the seminaries?

I hear you; I just think you have the wrong question. I think things are bad enough that it’s become a question not of “flight to where”, but “flight from what”.

I have a rabbit in my back yard; my neighbor has a cat. I’ve seen enough to know that the rabbit has an excellent grasp of this distinction.

But No, I do not look to the seminaries. Seminaries are about as helpful as a fire on a submarine. The pastor needs a “skill set” he can get only at a seminary. I can’t blame people for going there. I went there. I learned stuff there. Important stuff.

If my car broke down I would go into a bar for the telephone.

Let me tell you a story.

I was studying in a seminary when Rod Bell blew through town; he was invited to speak in a Wednesday morning chapel, which he did. Wednesday evening he preached in a local church 30 miles away. Wednesday evening he blasted the school for not being separatist enough for him. Ecclesiastical separation required him to do this. Ecclesiastical separation did not forbid his preaching at the seminary, but it did require him to disparage it in the shadows.

Thursday morning I caught the president’s elbow, told him about my previous evening’s edification, and asked why we would open our pulpit to someone like Rod Bell, who, on his best day is a bad preacher and on any day will divide the brethren, but we will not have a consistent, conscientious shepherd of the flock and exemplary expository preacher like John MacArthur? The president told me, “It would confuse the kids.”

Which left me confused as to what my seminary was all about.

Rod Bell went on to disgrace himself and BigMac continues to shepherd the flock. He also, not so ironically, has quite a ministry among pastors tired of this nonsense.

Now I don’t say this to rehearse old animosities, forget the particulars and focus on what, exactly the state of affairs is here. What brought us to this point? What are people running from?

We say this is the Church of Laodicea, but we clearly don’t believe it. That’s just a stick we beat our people with.

I heard a friend, a long-time professor and some-time seminary academic dean, tell the story of Bill Hybels, along with a group of hirelings of equal rank, approaching a number of our seminaries with the threat, “Start preparing leaders for our kind of churches, or we will start our own.”

I do not look to seminaries. I know, there will be a few bleating protests from those who think they are exceptional. I expect that.

I just don’t believe it. I look at what they do, not what they say. I consider them among the gibbering philistines vandalizing the few remaining certitudes of life. Seminaries are not the fountainheads of culture. They never were. They never tried. I really do think these are days for us to consider essentials, first things, basics.

Again, by culture I do not mean harpsichord worship, I mean an environment that encourages a knowledge of and affection for what is good, true and acceptable to God. Jesus told the woman, “You worship you know not what.” That is frightening because she was created to worship rightly.

What is good? Can we have a good church if it doesn’t worship? Can we have a good church if there is no working pulpit? What have our seminaries been doing all this time if they thought these things were important?

Feel free to disagree with me, but since you ask, that is where I see the root of the problem.

Can you give an historical example of an instance in which this wholesome Christian culture did exist?--where? when? among whom?

Dissidens,
Your comments resound with me. Rod Bell is just a symptom. I was in a church in WV (in a campus ministry) where the pastor and Rod were close friends. He would come and butcher the text of scripture (he called it hard preaching) and I had to explain to the students, "Well, this is the best church in the city." And I was denying myself the whole time.

Now I am the pastor trying to reclaim some ground. And fear is a great factor. People listen to guys like him (I mean guys with big churches who are well known),and when I go contrary, they get skittish. SO we make some gains in the church and we face many obstacles. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are far from where we should be, but we are moving there. And I do believe that authentic worship happens regularly in our church. Unless I am totally hoodwinked.

Aside: What did you mean by "If my car broke down I would go into a bar for the telephone."

Of course, so would I. But then I think Jesus would spend quite some time with the people in the bar. I don't just because I have done it and have had very little success. And the women dress so provocatively that I struggle with it. But then sometimes they dress like that at the mall. That is why I hate the mall.

I am being careful in what I say, I am just like the next guy. Slowly, as time goes on, I gain more confidence in the Lord and have more rest in his sovereignty and he gives me grace to address the weaknesses I see.

But I need help. I need help navigating the waters and being confident that I am going in the right direction.

DGus:

Yes.

When Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf “led and reshaped the church, bringing the musical life of Germany into its worship. The Renewed Moravian Church experienced a rapid growth and began sending missionaries overseas,” some of which came to Bethlehem, PA, where they established religious communities and liturgies that moved me as a child, and in Salem, NC, where I was again refreshed by piety in the wasteland of fundamentalism.

Bob:

You are right in identifying these as symptoms. It is, dare I bore us all again? cultural.

I worked in a church for a while where, when I was scheduled to preach, there was one guy who would, more often than not, ask before the service started, “Ya gunna skin us ta-nite?”

I told him shepherds don’t skin sheep.

Why would a sheep go looking for a butcher?! What did this man think the pulpit was for?

It is not one preacher, it is not one fellowship of churches, it is an attitude about everything we do and what it means. An attitude we developed, cultivated, nurtured. For decades.

Sorry for the confusion; I meant by the bar comment that there are occasions where necessity may put me where I would not normally want to be. Seminary was my “bar”. And before someone leaps to a conclusion, let me volunteer: I am not condemning all my teachers. Some were worthless: a complete waste of time. Some were not. I do not speak here of good teachers, I speak of seminaries.

Chapel, on the other hand, was not a waste of time: chapel was an excellent place to nap. I figured if the administration was going to use the chapel pulpit as a public relations device for local pastoral support, then it could not have been very important to them either.

Seminaries. (Well, colleges in the case of chapel slumbers.)

You need help. We all need help.

It seems to me the only qualification for Christian service that remains is neediness.

The Moravians, then. The experience you describe sounds most excellent. Why not cast your lot smong the Moravians?

As my music club or as my church?

Why not as your church? They affirm the basics of Christian orthodoxy, right? They administer the sacraments. They worship the Triune God and, by your lights, have not gone culturally apostate. What do they lack?

Well, why don't I just join the Dallas Bach Society and quit going to church altogether?

Because as a Christian you must go to church--to worship (in particular to receive the Eucharist), and to do all the "one another" stuff that the Apostles instruct us to do.

From the sound of it, the Dallas Bach Society is not a church (no God no Word, no sacraments, no creed, etc.). Whereas the Moravian Church is (from the sound of it) a church. If the Moravian Church (about which I know little to nothing) has defects, they wouldn't be the same wholesale defects as the Bach society. So I'll repeat my question-- Why not go to a Moravian Church, if the Moravians seem to have resisted this cultural apostasy?

Ummm. This is not a mystery.

There is not a shared faith. The fact that they retained a form of worship I admire is insufficient. There is more to the Christian walk than they are able to provide.

Here are two simple deal-breakers taken directly from their website:

Social reforms have been a continuing concern for the denomination as it has championed the cause of oppressed peoples and has sought for other reforms along with many other religious groups. Care for the aging is evidenced by modern well-equipped homes, which have been established in each region of the church.

Ecumenical cooperation with other faiths is a strong practice of the church. The Moravian Church is a charter member of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA

If I choke on evangelicalism’s cultural apostasy, how can I swallow their doctrinal apostasy?

http://www.moravian.org/ministries/

I don't see the "doctrinal apostasy" that you see in these "deal breakers". I don't see explicit doctrinal problems at all, certainly not the sort that would earn the label "apostasy". For that, I'd expect a good old Christological heresy, or denial of grace in favor of "another Gospel", or teaching sexual immorality like the false teachers that the Apostles execrate. Your quotations show less:

The first paragraph looks like a sign of careless lefty-ness, but not anything anti-Christian. I assume the second paragraph implicates "separation", which may be your concern. Certainly I would encourage disaffiliation from the National Council of Churches That Nobody Goes to Anymore, which contains apostate and sub-Christian "churches". But the website you cite is that of a national Moravian HQ, whereas you would attend an actual local church. Is it really a deal-breaker that an otherwise good local church (which I'm assuming it is) happens to be in an association that is in an association in which there are apostate members?

I may have lost my perspective on these things by being in an Episcopal parish that is extricating itself, ever so slowly, from the sodomy-endorsing ECUSA. But the process of lobbying for this extrication has forced me to look carefully at what the NT says about fellowship, error, apostasy, false teachers, and schism; and I don't see any clear NT instruction that would bar membership in a good local church because of the problems you cite in the national HQ.

Or, if not Moravian, and if you're too sensible to consider taking on the stain of the ECUSA, why not try a "continuing Anglican" parish? See
http://anglicansonline.org/communion/nic.html
You're in Dallas? Well, here's one in Dallas:
http://www.holycommuniondallas.org/
Who knows?--it might be just the thing

Who knows?

I know.

Oh. Care to share?

Not really.

Well, that's disappointing. There must be more to your position than meets the eye. The reader sees your indictment that "The churches that exist for us today have not retained the essence of the Christian religion." But churches (Moravian) that seem to have avoided the "cultural apostasy" that you decry appear nonetheless to be doctrinally unsatisfactory because of deal-breakers like funding old-folks' homes. And other churches (Anglican) that, in my experience, retain doctrinal orthodoxy AND a reverent worship that I would have guessed you would favor are nonetheless disqualified for undisclosed reasons.

As I say, there must be more to this than meets the eye. I hope there is.

Wrong again.

I have disclosed my reasons. You just reject them without cause.

I tell you about my life experiences and you imagine alternative readings. I’m sorry, I would rewrite my personal history if I could. You know I would. That’s just the kinda guy I am.

I give you references to men like Aristotle, Augustine, Eliot, Pascal and Kaplan. You reject their judgments. I’m sorry, I would rewrite world history if I could. You know I would. That’s just the kinda guy I am.

I give you the doctrinal positions of churches: you reject the facts. I’m sorry, I would rewrite church history if I could. You know I would. That’s just the kinda guy I am.

Dissidens: You say, "I give you references to men like Aristotle, ... Pascal .... You reject their judgments".

I'd say it's you who reject Aristotle's "judgments". Aristotle thought it possible for the theater to be good; you take his definition of theater but reject his judgment. I'm genuinely interested in, and open to, your anti-theater position, but as someone who used to be moderately well acquainted with art, literature, and literary criticism, I immediately see objections to it that would have to be addressed before the position could be adopted. I have simply asked questions about Aristotle and Pascal (which you haven't answered). Questions like--

+ Do the ills of the theater extend to oratorios? concert performances of operas? one-man shows? story-telling?
+ What's wrong with art exciting and then satisfying passions (if that's what theater does)?
+ How can we tell that Pascal's opposition to theater was equivalent to your "Aristotelian" argument as opposed to the "Puritan" argument?
+ How can it be true that "catharsis" is unique to theater and not present in the experience of other art forms?

Perhaps you found my questions uninteresting, or beside the point, or wearisome, or all three; but in any case you haven't answered them. Maybe you have good answers that you are withholding. But I have to resist the suggestion that I'm "rejecting" your "reasons ... without cause". C'mon; be fair.

You say, "I give you the doctrinal positions of churches: you reject the facts."

Again, not so. I accept your (two-point) comment on Moravianism implicitly. But I implicitly asked--

+ What understanding of "separation" imputes the Moravian national HQ's taint to a good local congregation?
+ What's wrong with a conservative Anglican church?

No answers to these points, nor to my 7 broad questions in Comment 1 of this thread.

But hey!--enough squabbling. About that Dallas Bach Society you posited attending instead of church: I see they're doing their 2005-06 season at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod). I've found the LCMS to be orthodox, conservative, and traditional (and very Bach-friendly). There are a half dozen LCMS churches right there in Dallas. See
http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/locators/nchurches/church.asp

Aren't I helpful, and aren't you lucky! Happy communing with the Lutherans!