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We\u2019re so bad, we think things are worse than they are. Were I to traipse on down to Quizilla and take the \u201cWho are you in the Hundred Acre Wood?\u201d quiz, I\u2019d surely come up Eyeore. Every single time. My \u201cspirit-animal\u201d is a marshwiggle. I\u2019m the guy who doesn\u2019t much care whether the glass is half full or half empty, because I\u2019m convinced whatever\u2019s in the glass is poison. Love may be like a warm blanket- I\u2019m more of a wet blanket.<\/p>\n
I, and those like me, can be especially skeptical, even cynical, about the evangelical church. We don\u2019t like it that in some of our churches pastors dress up in baseball uniforms while deacons, handing out orders of \u201cworship\u201d cry out, \u201cPrograms, get your programs here.\u201d We don\u2019t like it that increasingly the rock stars in our universe are young, restless and revoiced. Sometimes I can\u2019t help but wonder, though, if some of us are up in arms because we don\u2019t have a thousand members waiting anxiously to hear part 17 of our sermon series, Turretin and You- Toward an Elenctic Cosmogony, or because our learned articles on the 2nd Temple Rabbinic Tradition of Pre-exilic Rabbinic Traditions don\u2019t reach the audience we hoped. The world, we seem to think, must be going downhill, because our genius has too long gone unnoticed. Which is rather a foolish reason for pessimism.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t anybody remember when everyone attended mainline churches, when we were grateful for a pastor that believed in a real resurrection? Doesn\u2019t anybody remember when the most famous evangelical author was Mirabel Morgan? Doesn\u2019t anybody remember when dispensational churches were to Reformed churches what haystacks are to needles? Doesn\u2019t anybody remember when Gordon-Conwell and Fuller were considered hard-right seminaries? Doesn\u2019t anybody remember when most evangelicals, Reformed and otherwise, were embarrassed by Genesis 1 and 2? I remember these things. Which should be a goad to me to remember to be thankful, even though the Bride, just like me, has much about which we should be ashamed. <\/p>\n
While the problem with the rest of the evangelical church may be frog-in-the-fry-pan complacency, our problem may instead be even worse. We are ungrateful. As we put on our prophetic mantles, may we remember to give thanks for every knee that hasn\u2019t bowed to Baal, and honor the weeping prophet who told us, \u201cFor I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.\u201d And may we remember that we too are those of whom the rest of the evangelical family are rightly embarrassed over.<\/p>\n
The problem in the evangelical church isn\u2019t that everybody else fails to be as sound and godly as me. The problem in the evangelical church is that everybody else fails, just like unsound and ungodly me. The good news for me is that Jesus died for me, and the He is washing me. The good news for the evangelical church is exactly the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019re so bad, we think things are worse than they are. Were I to traipse on down to Quizilla and take the \u201cWho are you in the Hundred Acre Wood?\u201d quiz, I\u2019d surely come up Eyeore. Every single time. My … Continue reading