Marginal Christianity

The American Church was birthed on dualisms which allowed it to morph into a noxious hybrid. This strange creature drained the gospel out of the church’s message and whittled its ministry down to production of good Americans. That gig is over now. The church has been fired as chaplain and Jesus has been demoted to background cheerleader. These dualisms trade on some version of the division between the “spiritual” and the physical, material, or worldly. The church has valorized the former and downplayed or even denigrate the latter. Western culture opted to prioritize the physical, material, and worldly, often in reaction to an effete and powerless church tied to the “spiritual” stuff. We are familiar with them: sacred or secular, church or world, evangelism or justice, Jesus - human or divine, heaven or earth. This dualism ironically made possible the conditions for the church in this country to become that hybrid, the Christendom church, the chaplain of the Good Ship America...

Top of Form John C. Nugent 08/05/16 Kudos to believers who strive to vote like Christians. Some do so by electing candidates who best represent the Christian values they cherish most. Others do so by electing candidates whose overall approach to government they believe best serves the good of all. By voting in these ways, believers attempt to love and seek the peace of their neighbors. Unfortunately, many people who are attempting to vote Christianly are actually voting Christendomly . By “Christendomly,” I mean striving to retain or recover the collaborative relationship that Christians have long enjoyed with Western governments. (See this recent Wayne Grudem column as an example.) Such collaboration began in the fourth century, when the Roman Empire went from ignoring and persecuting Christians to tolerating and eventually embracing Christianity as the state religion. Since then, believers have grown accustomed to promoting Christian values through civil mechan...

           Carl Trueman and Rod Dreher “both believe that the culture war is over and that ‘our side’ has lost. We both believe that it is pointless simply to shout Bible verses louder, or to base arguments on the private religious convictions of the Founding Fathers, or to huff and puff that we must be taken seriously because Christianity was important way back when. And we both believe that the language of exile is appropriate for the imminent condition of Christians in the USA. ( https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/06/eating-locusts-will-be-benedict-optional )           Whoa! What’s going on here? Culture warriors waving the white flag? Admitting defeat? Astonishing! Unbelievable! Now we’re getting somewhere! Finally! This is a benchmark moment in the history of the church in this country. Another irrevocable step in the demise of Christendom. You know, Chris...