Sunday, October 24, 2021

Baptized Heathens

Protestant Christianity is more prone to adapting to secular culture than providing an alternative to it. If Roman Catholicism can be said to be syncretic,  Protestantism can be said to be mimetic. It draws its authority from the culture, and through that finds its authority in Interpreting Christianity.

Which leads to a lot of baptized heathens.

I should go into this, but that’s largely a digression. Peter Wehner is concerned about the fate of Christianity, but again, we aren’t the center of the world, and mossback conservative evangelical Christianity is not world-wide Christianity. And what’s happening is largely a repeat of the ‘60’s when white churches (read Dr. King’s famous letter) thought simple matters of justice were “too political.” Politics is not the problem in the pews; self-interest is. “Give God what is God’s, and Caesar what is Caesar’s” is not the “Get out of jail free” card many in the pews think it is. It actually puts a burden on them, as most of his lessons do. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, but it’s still a yoke and it’s still a burden.

Baptized heathens don’t want either.

Maybe it’s because I don’t share Mr. Wehner’s soteriology, but I’m happy to let those people go. If the church has to be shriven to continue being the church, I’m fine with that. I don’t wish them out to the place of darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. I just think the church is better off without so many unchurched people in the pews.

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