Today I read an exciting passage that reintroduced the theological basis for Christian intellectual honesty. Perhaps as the emergent church rediscovers orthodoxy in faith, art, and culture, we will find a new platform for thinking again.
If we keep in mind 1 Corinthians 4:9, where we are told that we are “on the stage” before men and angels, we must also note what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:4, which is not unrelated to this: “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”
In demonstration before whom? In the light of Paul’s remarks in chapter 4, it is surely not only a demonstration before the lost world, or before the church, but a demonstration before the angels, too.
This verse has been grossly misunderstood. Many would say that it teaches that there should only be a “simple” preaching of the gospel, and by the simple preaching of the gospel they may mean the simple refusal to consider the questions of our generation, and a simple refusal to wrestle with them. They contrast the simple preaching of the gospel with the attempt to give honest intellectual answers when honest questions are asked. But nothing could be further from the meaning of these words. That is “simply” not what these words are saying. What Paul is saying here is that the preaching of the gospel to simple or more “complicated” men fails in both cases if it does not include a demonstration of the Christian life, if it does not include the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not a matter of giving the simplest gospel message one can imagine, and making a complete dichotomy between faith and intellectual life. Paul is saying that no matter what kind of people you are preaching to, and no matter what terminology you need, and no matter how long the words you have to use, and whether you are speaking to the peasant or the philosopher, in every case there must be a demonstration of the power of the Spirit–of the resurrected, glorified Christ working through us.
—Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality
That’s quite an interesting thought. Do people really think the Gospel is all that simple? Yes, the “3 step plan” [confess sins, receive Christ, repent] in and of itself is a simple “plan” in theory- but I feel that far too often (myself included) we tend to kind of stop after step 2… that whole repentance thing is a bigger step than people realize, and not at all a simple one. It’s a forever ongoing lifelong process of growth.
As far as the bit about spirit led speaking of the Gospel, I agree wholeheartedly with that. I know that I once was used of God to lead a brother to Christ by telling him simply “God is real, no matter what you say about it”. I found out later that he put down his Tarrot cards, picked up a Gideon’s Bible from the Gideons on campus, and set out to disprove what I said… only to wind up realizing it’s absolute Truth.
Not that my simplicity spoke the whole complex anatomy of the scriptures, but it was Spirit led, and thus was effective for the Gospel in a genuine way.
Man, that Schaffer guy was pretty observant. I oughta read some of his stuff somtime. It’s been a long while since I even looked at a book. I mean heck, I do almost all of my Bible reading at Bible Gateway…
Re: The Title.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing all sorts of things about “keep the Christ in Christmas” in reaction to the usage of Xmas. Has that sort of thinking died down now? Is “Xianity” in general usage and considered just fine? I am not really trying to comment on the entry itself, as I find myself commentless. But that title reminded me of the old Xmas thing, and I got curious.
Ken, something weird happened with the entry after this one- the link on the front page is pointing to the wrong entry. I just used logic and trimmed the 000270.shtml back to 000269.shtml in the address bar to see this article. You may wanna look into that. I also tried to comment on 000269.shtml but I got an error… the post and preview form is looking for MTEntryID 270 (which is gone)…
Something weird is going on here – I say cut and paste the article to notepad, delete the entry, and re-enter it and rebuild…
…anyway
About your article (the one that I tried to comment on)… man you use bigger words than Pastor Spence. I didn’t grasp half of what you said because those words are too big. You’re like a vocabulary test, and I’m a vocabulary test failure.
But what I did understand was very interesting. Is this the kind of article you could submit to the Ooze? It seems like it to me.
I forget, or maybe I’m just nieve to the fact, that people don’t really read the scriptures, but kind of glance at them, make their opinion, and tehn believe it as doctrine. Maybe I’m just simple, but that’s crazy stuff. I mean, the deep supernatural breaths of the Bible are breathed by God! How can we skim it? I do it sometimes too… * Jai thinks to himself ponderingly what is wrong with me?*
“Church Polotics” suck. There is no other term for it. I’m not gonna sit here and say they “stink” when they are being Pulled by the Locomotive of the Suck Train(tm)… I think alot of the Churches, at least in the U.S., run like businesses because that’s what our culture understands. I don’t fault the leadership for thinking this way… but I would fault them for not changing their thinking eventually. That’s a sticky wickett that needs continual maturing to fix. That’s a hard issue, when often (I think) it is naively ignored. I honestly don’t think most “Church Leaders” even understand that there is a different way to do things than the “business administrative” way. Maybe churches should go through a hardcore study of Acts and Timothy with potential leaders before just electing a “Deacon Board” or something… *sigh*…
Sometimes I wish I had the courage to say something about it…
Sometimes I feel too young…
Sometimes I feel like I’m not sure that I am right and older people maybe know something that I don’t…
Sometimes I’m right…
Sometimes…
Hi Ryan. Sorry that I didn’t reply to this sooner. I was a bit indisposed with the site coming down and all.
Xianity was a bit of shorthand that my senior-year English teacher used on a paper I had written. At the time, I thought it was a bit offensive. I’m not really sure why, but I think it probably had to do with the whole evangelical secularization neurosis that kicked off the “Christ in Christmas” movement–if you could call it that much–that you mentioned. Of course, there was no really good reason for me to take offense, she was just using shorthand.
Anyway, some time after that, I really started to dig the usage though it’s not–to my knowledge–general usage of the word. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that “Xianity” has in it a lot of subtle contexts that can be teased out of it in a deconstructionist-type fashion.
Using the “X,” though displacing “Christ,” still symbolically includes the “cross,” which, if nothing else, is the “crux” of Christianity. X also brings to mind Generation X, a generation of which you and I are a part and which is–in the Christian community–rapidly adopting a new (“emergent”) mindset about the faith that breaks with traditional evangelicalism, a movement which is beginning to lose its luster in my eyes. The use of “Xianity” is also non-traditional, which kind of cements that concept as well.
Yikes, K. The phrase “rapidly adopting a new (“emergent”) mindset about the faith” is troublesome. It sounds cult-esque (which I know you aren’t implying). How about something more along the lines of “back to the true roots”. I fear that saying that, or even actually thinking that, a new mindset towards the faith is good is horribly dangerous. I understand that thinking separately from the “evangelical” way of thinking may very well be a good thing- but not thinking “newly” about the Gospel. It’s message has not changed, just the way it is presented has changed. It’s a tricky semantic issue that should be worded extremely carefully, lest you wind up being offensive when you didn’t mean to be or unclear when you are attempting to make a valid point.
Oh, and don’t think that this comment is like me saying “Nooooo Ken, please stop following the Emergent Cult”… quite the contrary. I am ecstatic that you and Sarah have found a place to grow and flourish in Christ in a true and exponential manner! I think it is a spectacular thing and so much so that it should be expressed with exuberance and joy and [most importantly] clarity. This way, your “light will shine before men”!
[oh, and about the X- I don't care either way, but I wouldn;t knock the people who say "Keep the Christ in Christmas", I believe their intentions are probably honorable... no matter how sketchy (sketchily?) they present it]