Greetings,

At the risk of sounding "elitist", I for one am personally very ashamed! I am ashamed of what I have allowed myself to not only become accustomed to but enjoy, purchase, cherish and recommend, all the while claiming that Christ is not only my SAVIOR but the LORD of my life, or at least becoming so.

How could I have spent the last 50 years as a believer in a righteous and holy GOD and sitting under the preaching of his WORD, allow our culture, the very culture that I disdain, have openly criticized and have no problem selectively walking away from, all the while failing to see the degrading effects on the sensibilities and affections of my own heart as well as the hearts of my own family and all those around me. It is a study in depravity. Were it not for the understanding gleaned from the pen of so many of the Scriptural writers, I would be left in a confused state indeed.

Though I am both ashamed and embarrassed by my lack of love, thoughtfulness and self discipline, I am thrilled that there are individuals such as the writer of this blog, Kevin Bauder, our pastor Todd Mitchell, those that are actively involved in the discussion here and elsewhere, along with the thinkers, writers, artists and composers of the past. All of these individuals are sharpening my thinking and peeling back the scales from my eyes. The net result for me is a hightened understanding
of not only who GOD is but how to properly respond to that knowledge in love and obedience.

As the husband to a wonderful wife, father to 10 children along with 4 spouses, and grandfather to 16 (so far),I feel a heavy burdan to properly understand,live and influence, that they might by my example learn how to properly understand, live and influence the next generation should the LORD tary.

I have been learning the hard way how not to do some of the influencing and it has proven costly. I am sensing a great need to give serious attention to the proccess lest I shortchange the message and lengthen the learning curve. For what it's worth, I am finding in my little corner of the world that I need to more strongly focus on the first fundemental and build outward from there. I have been guilty of getting the preverbial cart before the horse and mostly what I succeeded in doing was exciting the emotions and the everpresent defenses.

As a lifelong woodworker, my experience with the sharpening proccess has taught me that in order to produce a sharp edge I must not only use the right tools but I must utilize them properly. To fail in either regard not only results in a less than sharp edge but along the way removes uneccessary steel and produces excessive heat.

While I have no illusions about the future state of affairs in the bigger world of modern christian culture, I am very hopeful in what I am seeing the LORD do here. The young ones here are showing great promise and I for one am excited to see the fruit of that understanding ! I pray that the LORD will give me what it takes to evidence a proper understanding of and love for HIM and that I would be faithful to live out the expectations of Deut. 6. I echo the prayer of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:14-21.

I also pray that "the discussion" that is had here and elsewhere will indeed help to encourage those very results.

Dale Streblow

I love the Streblows.

We all should be very ashamed.

I look at what my religion has produced and I don’t know what I would tell a cultivated heathen.

“Honestly, our God really is infinitely good and beautiful, it’s just that we don’t care. Won't you join our daffy band?”

There's a perfect word for this: cretin.

Not to justify it, but do most people in this culture (Christian or non) evidence that they take much of anything seriously? Consider love of country as a parallel- do most citizens truly understand that being a patriotic American is much more than owning a red, white, and blue teddy bear, or chanting "USA" in front of the TV during the Olympics? Or male-female relationships- the utter disposability with which marriage is handled (if handled at all) is quite telling.

I'm not saying this excuses Christians- but the way Christianity is approached by most reflects the way most of life is approached, it seems to me.

Isn't part of the complaint that Fundagelicals have largely abandoned biblical Christianity in favor of a caricature compatible with American culture?

To both Greg and Dan:

Absolutely! And I wouldn’t limit it to American culture--though we do win pride of place in the pursuit of pleasure. I think it is human nature and our common Enemy, certainly; and those I know working on the mission field tell me the former eastern bloc countries now want our trashy religion.

This is why it is so ironic. Parts of the church which’ve been starved for a normal spiritual life now come to Americans for teaching and guidance, and look what we’ve got! It’s like we’re backing up the garbage truck with the big Ichthus on the side to Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine….

That’s why culture is so important: we cannot debase our “secular sensibilities” and retain a right attitude about God and worship; we poison the only well we’ve got. In a sense, your culture is your Grand Unified Theory About Everything.

If you debase your notions of romantic love or family or country, you will debase your notions of God; they all come from the same heart.

What if the West had retained a religion pure and undefiled? We could be telling these people how to live in the midst of freedom, corruption and mindless self-indulgence.

Dissidens,

"If you debase your notions of romantic love or family or country, you will debase your notions of God, they all come from the same heart."

I find myself nodding vigorously to that sucinct encapsulation of one of the main points of this discussion. I have found little fertile ground for that one in the minds of the adults we have tried to share the concept with.

How did "we" so well establish the notion that we dare not mix Biblical truth with "non Biblical" truth? The suggestion that our view of the Scriptures and hence GOD is influenced by extra-Biblical knowledge is a major hurdle. How are others handling this theologically or logically?

Dale Streblow

Dale:

Oh, I think it’s a product of many things, and the influence varies from person to person. I think a good deal of it had to do with one’s faith in institutions. If you don’t have a shared metaphysical dream, everyone pretty much constructs his own reality based on either the party line or what seems plausible to him.

In the last few months I have read one Christian or another refer to the work of Peter Berger, Neil Postman and Allan Bloom to “synthesize” biblical and non-biblical truth. In some cases this is helpful and excusable. In other cases it is just daffy. For instance I heard someone say that a predominance of melody is spiritual, a predominance of harmony is New Age and a predominance of rhythm is Rock-n-Roll. (I wonder how many chants are sung in his church.)

Compare that sentiment to that of J.S. Bach who often quoted Gerhardt Niedt, “The sole purpose of harmony is the glory of God”. At this point I’m not arguing that Bach is right and the fundy preacher is wrong; I’m pointing out the sort of disparity that simply cannot be resolved. It’s as though believers live in separate creations and no shuttle goes between them.

This is what explains some of the intransigence of the problem; why a solution is not likely. Many preachers quote Bloom to good effect, they think, when arguing against rock. I’m not sure they’ve understood Bloom very well.

But in answer to your basic question, I really think this goes back to Machen. “We”, by which I don’t mean me, decided a long time ago that native, naïve feelings of spirituality were a reliable path to the truth. If something felt good to an evangelical, he didn’t need reasons, all he needed was a prooftext. If it filled the church bus or the sports stadium, it was spiritual enough that it didn’t require thought; and academe was full of Liberalism anyway.