Evangelical Cattle Drive: So entrenched in their pietistic mindset

We live in an individualistic culture enveloped in an autonomous age, fertile soil for the evangelical doctrines of “soul competency” and the priesthood of the believer (singular). The very idea of absolutes applicable to all believers is regularly discounted in light of the final accountability we owe to God individually. American evangelicals are comfortable with this autonomy; they are not comfortable with uncompromising biblical standards or with admonitions for failing to adhere to them. The evangelical concept of “just me and my Bible” has become so pervasive we rarely unite around creeds, confessions, or even common commitments. To have anyone (including ecclesiastical authority) call us to a biblical standard of Christian education . . . .Well, bless your heart, brother; we would rather not talk about it. From Bradley Heaths book "Millstones & Stumbling blocks"....

....There has been a steady movement towards social pragmatism and messianic ideals---so that the state is viewed as the sole originator of law, and its legislation aims to create a perfect social order...

...Since the rule of Christ and God's law has been restricted to individual commitment and (if anywhere) private conscience, man has seen himself as free to generate or reject, as his own ethical authority, moral ideals and obligation. Individualism and liberty become the only absolutes which govern interpersonal relations. To "be yourself" and do what is dictated by desire is the goal of life; thus responsibilities and standards of justice come to be seen as shackles. Such thinking has gained widespread endorsement, being promoted in secular schools and represented in popular culture...Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics Pg 8

Sunday, September 27, 2009

So entrenched in their pietistic mindset

I think these observations are dead on...

Righteousness and Justice Go Together

....Some of the criticism was not very informed, like the comments that I should go there and do it myself: I’ve been there, done that, and I keep doing it. Some of it raised an important objection: We should first preach to save souls, and then hopefully in the future the saved souls will change the culture.

While this objection sounds reasonable, it is unrealistic. In my many years of missionary work I have never seen a convert moving naturally from a personal, pietistic mindset to do culture-changing work. Where new Christians have been evangelized with the truncated gospel of “saving souls” they have never by themselves moved up to challenge the evil practices of their society and its institutions. I takes a new effort of presenting to them the comprehensive message of the Bible in order for them to start practicing it. And by that time they are already so entrenched in their pietistic mindset that it takes almost a new conversion experience to grasp the Biblical worldview....

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…Furthermore, the field of Christianity is the world. The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order to be made useful in advancing the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man… 1913 J Gresham Machen

ouch! This explains so much "...by the dawn of this century the Marxist realized that direct attacks on Christianity did not persuade so much as provoke. They had more success with the argument that religion is a purely private matter-of no concern to the Government or to society....by the turn of the century the new alternatives to Christianity had convinced universities and the intellectuals. The clergy vanished from the administration of colleges their churchs had founded, and were replaced by professional educators of carefully neutral agnosticism....though Christians had built the west and comprised the majority of its western citizens.

Around 1900, American scholars and writers began to expurgate Christianity from our litature. This was a remarkable step.... The Christian scholars of the United States, however, decided that the heirs of Christiandom in this land did not need to know the history of christianity. Nineteen hundred years of effort were culled from our history books, and only that which tended to place Christianity in a ridiculous or intolerant light was retained...."
Otto Scott , Journal of Chrisitan Reconstruction 1985 , From the good guys at Chalcedon.

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their mind...and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you may put on the new man which is created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness Eph4:17 , 4:23,24

A world view is a net work of presuppositions that are not testable by natural science, in terms of which, all experience is related and interpreted...our most basic convictions make up our world view and it is what we use to measure and test all we know and experience... Greg Bahnsen