Notice the non-existence of God in the modern church compared to the Five Solas of the Protestant Reformation:
1. Sola Cultura - let culture define church life
2. Sola Successa - let numerical success legitimize activities
3. Sola Entertaina - let entertainment be the guiding principle
4. Sola Edificia - let the edifice be the center of church life
5. Sola Programma - let programs dominate the peoples time
6. Sola Thralldoma – let the people be enslaved by whatever thrills them
7. Sola Processa – let the church be managed by business philosophies and processes
HT: Scott Brown via Slice of Laodicea.
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Tags: Church, Protestant, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura, Soli Deo Gloria, Solus Christus
5 Comments
When we have lost the sight that our God is Almighty and Unchangeable……..and that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts,
we start think like the world that Christ’s Gospel and His ways are “outdated”. We start to feed LORD’s sheep with a twisted message: Go be worldly because unless you are worldly, you can’t reach them. Go back to your vomit and go wallow in the mud, you have to change and be like the world in order to win them. The modern church’s strategic outlook is that the end justify the means, even if the means are clearly ungodly and worldly. To the “modern church”: it is ok to water down the Bible to fit the culture, after all winning converts is everything. Should we then be surprise that the church goers and the world look the same. The following sermon came from a “modern church” pulpit, from an undershepherd to the LORD’s sheep:
“Among the unchurched, Christianity is often thought of as an irrelevant, antiquated, religious belief system that dates back 2,000 years ago. And when we the Church keep presenting the gospel in an archaic and outdated way, who could blame them? But the tragedy of it all is that when we insist on doing that, the world won’t just think that we are outmoded, unexciting and boring, they conclude that God is outmoded, unexciting and boring! (Which is an insult to Him because He certainly is not!)
We must change how we think and communicate the reality of Christ to the world. The gospel needs to be re-presented, not just represented. The onus is therefore on us to re-present Him anew in the 21st Century.
But how could we live in the world, and not be of the world? How are we to dominate the world, and not be dominated by the world? How are we to function in the world, have a relationship with it, and all the while not be influenced by it?
The easy, Pharisaical route is to sever our members from the world. Keep them within the four walls of the local church! Carve out a Christian ghetto for them to live and function in! The easy, Pharisaical route is through legalism—creating manmade rules that mandate our members to see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. Such legalistic attempts may keep our members unexposed and innocent, but in that process, they also make them naive and gullible in regards to the real world.
It is no wonder then that so many Christians are afraid to engage society, its culture and marketplace. The problem is this: You can never lead those you fear! Isn’t it true that when a pastor is afraid of his eldership board, he can’t lead them? The same is true for the entire church: if a church is afraid of the world, its members can never become leaders in society. You just can’t lead those you fear.Becoming a contemporary Christian to engage the prevalent culture of the day is not the same as getting the approval of that culture. If you are looking for cultural approval, you will end up compromising. And by doing that, you are allowing the world to define you, and to lead you. The power to define is the power to validate. As long as you are the head and not the tail, you will excel and lead in the world. And when you become a leader in the industry God has planted you in, you become the one who validates others, not the other way around.
As such, the whole challenge of engaging culture is not for the fainthearted. It is really a contest of influence—who is influencing whom. And because we have a value system that is diametrically opposed to the world, the world won’t like us. However, our job is not to make the gospel acceptable; our job is simply to make the gospel available.We do have an important job here on earth. In the Bible, Jesus prayed to God the Father not to take us out of the world (John 17:15).
As long as we live out the life of Christ daily, we become the light to this present social order of family, religion, business, education, government, arts and media. We shine as we excel, prosper, succeed, and become the leaders in those arenas.
When you understand the mandate of kristos kai kosmos—Christ and culture—you understand the many conscious efforts the heroes of faith took to make themselves relevant to their contemporary society. To them, the message was sacred, but their method to communicate it was not. They used different means and ways, sometimes even appearing somewhat “worldly,” to earn the right to speak into the lives of their intended audience.”
Lets repent and turn back to His ways and His thoughts and His Gospel and rely on His Holy Spirit to guide us !
Apology this lenghty one.
God blessings !
@Thy Word is Truth -
No worries.
Hm… that tone and the choice of words… very familiar; or perhaps I’ve been checking out too many WoF prosperity preachers and we know they all do sound alike!
I am afraid I know too many churches that fit this description and when the people stop being entertained they move on to something else. There is no true Salvation.
@Berean Wife -
I believe some brothers have coined the term “circus church” to describe such churches, and I think it totally apt.
I am afraid it is so true but our one true God is on the throne and He knows His own.
Godbless you Brother.