// January 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Church, Jesus Stuff, John Piper, Matt Chandler, grace, reformed, sermons, suffering
In light of the news that Matt Chandler had a brain tumor, John Piper came to preach at The Village Church in Texas. He did a great job speaking on suffering and the sovereignty of God out of Romans 8.
// October 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Church, Heresy, Jesus Stuff, Life, Matt Chandler, Sociology, Youtube, sin, theology
This past thursday, we had an interesting discussion in my Faith and Reason class concerning theology, doctrine, etc. and it’s actual place in religion. The text we were looking at essentially said that theology and doctrine isn’t needed and necessary, but that we need to live the moral lives as outlined in our religious texts. He argued that this was the heart of religion and that theology goes beyond our realm of true knowledge, so what’s the point? This is a problem…
In his book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Eyes of American Teenagers (silly WTSBooks doesn’t carry this book, but they should), sociologist Christian Smith examines the religious beliefs and practices of American Teenagers. Amongst his major findings is the fact that a majority of American teens are horrifically inarticulate concerning their faith. They have little to no working knowledge of theology and doctrine and lack legitimate passion. Smith writes, “To the extent that the teens we interviewed did manage to articulate what they understood and believed religiously, it became clear that most religious teenagers either do not really comprehend what their own religious traditions say they are supposed to believe, or they do understand it and simply do not care to believe it. Either way, it is apparent that most religiously affiliated U.S. teens are not particularly interested in espousing and upholding the beliefs of their faith traditions, or that their communities of faith are failing in attempts to educate their youth, or both.” Not only is this a major problem now, but this has major implications on what these teens will do with their beliefs once they come of age. Either they completely fall away, continue on in their mediocrity, or have a change of heart. It appears as though the generation following the baby boomers (Gen X, even though that term sucks) has already gone through this stage of lackluster belief and I believe the Christianity of the 80s-00s has reflected a majority of this.
This is where Moralistic Therapeutic Deism comes into the picture. After conducting his research Smith found that the religious beliefs of the typical American teen were: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” Not only does this seem to be true for our teens, but this has become the standard in American Christianity. It has been reduced from the Gospel to what Smith calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. By Smith’s standards MTD “is about inculcating a moralistic approach to life. It teaches that central to living a good and happy life is being a good, moral person. That means being nice, kind, pleasant, respectful, responsible, at work on self-improvement, taking care of one’s health, and doing one’s best to be successful… This is not a religion of repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of sovereign divinity, of steadfastly saying one’s prayers, of faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through suffering, of basking in God’s love and grace, of spending oneself in gratitude and love for the cause of social justice, et cetera. Rather, what appears to be the actual dominant religion among U.S. teenagers is centrally about feeling good, happy, secure, at peace. It is about attaining subjective well-being, being able to resolve problems, and getting along amiably with other people.” Doesn’t this sound like much of the preaching we hear and Christian books we see on the shelves at Barnes and Noble?
So what we have subscribed to as a society is nothing more than a Christless, Godless, Gospelless myth that makes us feels good because we can’t get over ourselves. We have transformed an almighty and all-powerful God into a nothing more than a disengaged deity that looks more like Santa Clause than the Omniscient, Sovereign, Savior of the world. You see what we did here? We have created a man centered theology (which isn’t even logically coherent) and traded the truth about God for myth in order to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator (Romans 1:25). The church as a whole has assumed that people understand God and the Gospel, so they work towards a morality that ends up being void of anything that looks like real Christianity. We live for ourselves in our own power and fail to be truly made in the image and likeness of Christ.
Matt Chandler has some really good things to say on this topic…
and here is some good Driscoll on the topic as well…
// August 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Jesus Stuff, Life, Matt Chandler, Quote of the Day
Jesus is far more interested in your joy and in your holiness than in your happiness. I really believe that the bulk of evangelicals think Jesus is Santa Claus and that we’ve been nice and that he’s kept track of that and so they’ll never be any coal for us; that what we get is candy and fire-trucks… everyday.
-Matt Chandler, Games People Play (part 1)
// June 8th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Church, Jesus Stuff, Matt Chandler, Quote of the Day, theology
You get men and women growing up in churches where the gospel is assumed and the nature and character of God is assumed, [and they] are taught morality–man I went to VBS growing up, I heard that God hates liars, we even sang a song about it. I knew that true love waits. That we shouldn’t drink beer, we shouldn’t cuss, and any movie that isn’t about the crucifixion of Christ and was R-rated, you should not watch. I grew up in that, a lot of people grew in that, we grew up in do this, don’t do this. Well, that’s moralistic deism at its best! It doesn’t transform! Now here is why we walk away from the church, when with our best white knuckled discipline we accomplish those feats of morality and you let something bad happen to us. You let our wife leave us, you let a girl break our hearts, you let us not get into the school that we wanted to get in to, you let our parents divorce and our mindset it, I was good! And this is how you repay me!? I behaved… I did this, I did this, I did this–You owe me! And that is how you get the dechurched. They were sold “here is how you put God into your debt.” But you don’t put God into your debt, I know this, because really faithful men in the scriptures have it go really bad for them. We’ve got to get back to being Theological… You get guys that say they’re not theological… here is the problem with that. If you are opening your mouth and talking about God, you’re being theological. The problem is, if it’s not rooted in biblical, historical, orthodoxy, you’re probably being a heretic.
-Matt Chandler, Advance 09 Conference Message
They all say “the ordinary reader does not want theology”…I have rejected their advice. I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means “the science of God”, and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available…If you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
// April 10th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Jesus Stuff, Life, Matt Chandler, Yelling, Youtube
My buddy Jimmy posted this and I thought it deserved a re-post over here. Enjoy.
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