Is the Church an Instrument?

Aug 22, 2019 by

Is the Church an Instrument?

By Trevin Wax, The Gospel Coalition: In several articles (see the most recent here), I’ve been interacting with Mark Galli’s series “The Elusive Presence,” which makes the point that in our zeal for doing good things for God, our love and passion for God Himself has been eclipsed. I resonate with this diagnosis of the malaise within evangelicalism. At our best, evangelicals constitute a renewal movement within our denominations and churches. Losing “the love we had at first”—the problem for...

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Building the fortifications

Aug 17, 2019 by

By Rod Dreher, The American Conservative: David French, who is Evangelical, has a theory about why some of these big-name pop-culture Evangelicals are losing their faith. Excerpt: As our culture changes, secularizes, and grows less tolerant of Christian orthodoxy, I’m noticing a pattern in many of the people who fall away (again, only Sampson knows his heart): They’re retreating from faith not because they’re ignorant of its key tenets and lack the necessary intellectual, theological depth but...

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Cathedral gimmicks illustrate spiritually blind Britain and mute Church

Aug 13, 2019 by

Cathedral gimmicks illustrate spiritually blind Britain and mute Church

By Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream. No doubt buoyed by the old cliche that there is no such thing as bad publicity, the Church of England continues to include in its own Daily Media Digest several reports and opinion pieces in a number of media outlets about the installation of a golf course and helter skelter in Rochester and Norwich cathedrals. While some have defended the gimmicks as harmless ways of raising money and attracting to an experience of the sacred those who would never...

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Minigolf and carnival rides: The profane conquers the sacred

Aug 12, 2019 by

Minigolf and carnival rides: The profane conquers the sacred

by Joshua Gregor, Acton Institute: […]  For at least the last 60 years there has been a vocal wing trying to make the church cater to secular fads under the pretense that this will attract people. So many churches put on ill-fitting trappings or accept every progressive trend that comes along, since we have to be “loving” and “tolerant.” It has often become very hard, impossible really, to distinguish between a church and a doctrine-free, feel-good NGO.  Of course we care called to show...

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Why Fading Civil Religion Is Good News for Church Renewal

Aug 9, 2019 by

Why Fading Civil Religion Is Good News for Church Renewal

By Jen Pollock Michel, The Gospel Coalition: “Are we following God?” […] My husband’s question surfaced our fear that despite our commitment to seeing our city transformed by the gospel, Toronto is having its subtle way with us, conforming us to its desires (cf. 1 John 2:16). As we continued to talk, we were both sensing a need for the kind of renewal Mark Sayers writes about in his new book, Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal in the Rise of Our Post-Christian Culture. Sayers, an...

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The Triumph of MTD

Aug 8, 2019 by

The Triumph of MTD

by Rod Dreher, The American Conservative: Let’s remind ourselves of the tenets of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which Notre Dame sociologist of religion Christian Smith says is the de facto religion of American youth. He said that in 2005, but I think now we can say (and probably could have said back then) that it is the de facto religion of the American people: + A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. + God wants people to be good, nice, and fair...

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