Someone clearly in touch with their roots.
The third point of the quadrilateral is “conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted,” and if there is one major emphasis in North-American Evanglelical Christianity, it’s evangelism. And evangelism is great, and needed, in our world. How can we reconcile our love for our neighbours (both commanded to us and dwelling within us through the fruits of the spirit) by not telling them about the Kingdom of God and all that entails?
But of course, that’s the problem: instead of an emphasis on conversion to the Christian faith, it’s the conversion to a particular denomination with the wonderful, ecumenical umbrella. Like our tradition-embracing friends pictured above, it seems Evangelicals will do as much as they can to make sure a) you know they are the ‘true vine’ and b)everyone else is at best, wrong, and at worst, apostate heretics. While this may sound like hyperbole, even a cursory view of the internet will present you with people in every denomination who thinks that everyone else are complete and utter idiots, not worth the time to blog about them (apparently they are).
Now, you may come out and say that this is no longer the case, but if you look at the comments on these blogs and websites, you’ll see overwhelming agreement, generally. With all this in-fighting, it’s a wonder anyone ever wants to be a part of Jesus’ KOG, unless you’re the kind of person who just loves finding who’s right and sticking to that. This is what the Pharisees were really about.
Ditch all the legalism stuff that people bring to the table, because that’s not the point behind the sin of the pharisees: it was their need to be right and their separation of the ‘in’s and ‘out’s in society. Evangelicals do this abundantly these days, in the form of proclaiming heresy or apostacy against Roman Catholics, Reformers, Baptists, the English, Charismatics, Wesleyans, etc. Did I miss someone? I’m sure a Christian somewhere thinks you are a heretic/apostate/fool too.
Solution: I know this one sounds strange, but don’t get rid of denominations. Denominations give structure and accountability against true heresy and apostacy, and their networks greatly help push the cause of Christ into the world. The solution is to open our minds and our hearts to all of our Christian family, and learn to accept our different faith traditions as outpourings of the same spirit. Evangelicals simply need to cease having to be right about everything. For more about being right, see what my friend Tim has to say.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on November 17, 2008 at 12:47 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bebbington, denominations, Evangelicalism, Pharisees. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
Just a note… actually, the sign is correct. Baptists are not protestants. Protestants are those who split from the Catholic church. The Lutheran church is the best example, as it is derived from Martin Luther. Another excellent example is the Presbyterian church as it is derived from John Calvin, who, while being trained for the priesthood as a Catholic, became enthralled with the reformation and left the church.
The Baptist tradition is very different. The oldest strand is the Anabaptist which, when Zwingli (a contemporary of Luther) was bringing about reformation in Switzerland, they went much further. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin all reformed specific doctrines. The anabaptists rejected the modality all together. Hence, the term, “Radical Reformation”. Hubmeir, Grebal, Manz, and Blaurock rejected the magisterial form of church, the liturgy, the infant baptism, etc. In doing so, they rejected the protestant road, which kept magisterial govt. There are still some of these anabaptists around. They are known today as the Amish, Mennonites (actually the former is a subgroup of the latter), Brethren and Hutterites for the most part. It should be stated, that the protestants persecuted the anabaptists as much as the catholics did.
The second strand which is of importance, is the birth of the baptist church which almost all American and English baptists are descended from. The Church of England was never part of the reformation and as such, is not a “protestant church.” Furthermore, the churches descendant from them also have nothing to do with protestantism. From the English church came the Puritans-many of whom became separatists. There was one out of this group named John Smythe. He went to Holland and came under the influence of the teachings of the Mennonites (which were quite similar to the separatists). He established the first baptist church in history. A few years later he split with Helwys, who came back to England and ended up imprisoned. It is assumed that the General Baptists descended from this group, though the history is murky. The Particular baptists are most likely descended from the JLJ church in England. However, where those in that church came from, is anyones guess. Most likely, they either took a similar path as Smythe and Helwys, or they were actually descendent from Helywys’s church.
Either way, the Baptist movement is not part of the reformation. The reformers rejected and killed many baptists (as did the Catholics and the Church of England). Thus, It is VERY correct, to state that Baptists, are not protestants. We did not protest workings within the Catholic church. We completely separated ourselves from them. That sign is absolutely correct, historically.
Of course, NOW I realize that you posted this 2 years ago (lol) and that the way you stated it, probably didn’t mean what I thought it did (doh!).
That’s what I get for originally coming across this blog from a Google search of “Funny Church Signs!”