Evangelicals below is a statement worthy of the most serious reflection

A few months ago I stumbled upon www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com

The website hosts a document entitled: An Evangelical Manifesto, which is an open declaration of who Evangelicals are and what they stand for. It has been drafted and published by a representative group of Evangelical leaders who do not claim to speak for all Evangelicals, but who invite all other Evangelicals to stand with them and help clarify what Evangelical means in light of “confusions within and the consternation without” the movement. As the Manifesto states, the signers are not out to attack or exclude anyone, but to rally and to call for reform.

Below is a statement from the Manifesto that I believe is worthy of the most serious reflection:

"All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding world. "

AN EVANGELICAL MANIFESTO
A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment p.11

R.I.P.

To most it would seem ironic that I've opted to close down m35b on the day that I celebrate the start of my life.

I remember writing 5 years ago that this blog serves as:

my personal Book of Eccleciastes where I would start out with the pondering of the meaningless of it all and where I would end it with the exhortation to, "remember our Creator in the days of our youth." So as to voice out a positive statement to live our lives fully in light of God's grace and gift of salvation but also of encouragement to make something out of our lives while we still can because truly life is for us to live.

I believe it has served its purpose, in such a way that it has catalogued a good 5 years of my online life.

But as with all things good one has to move on to other things.

Thanks to every single one of you who have been gracious enough to read, re-post and comment on the things that I've published in this blog.

A wise man once said: “endings are mere beginnings that are looked at the opposite direction."

Here's to new beginnings ;)


x.s.
for those who're still interested with what I'm doing I will every now and then post some stuff on the following blogs/sites

• ad maiorem Dei gloriam
• The Greenpeace Southeast Asia Blog
• Fide Quarens Intellectum

some thoughts on apologetics

A few years ago I was so convinced that I would like to be an apologist like Ravi Zacharias, Josh McDowell etc.

It was during those times that I have misguidedly 'defended the faith' from people who are not attacking it, in effect turning-off more people, from God and Christianity more than effectively bearing witness to the gospel.

But as I grew older I came to refrain from associating with apologetics, and the statement below from the American theologian Frederick Buechner gives a very accurate description of the reason why I am now not so much into apologetics:

"C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect that no Christian doctrine ever looked so threadbare to him as when he had just finished successfully defending it. The reason is not hard to find.

In order to defend the faith successfully - which is the business of apologists - they need to reduce it to a defendable size. It is easier to hold a fortress against the enemy than to hold a landscape. They try to make each doctrine as it comes along sound as logical and plausible as they can. The trouble, of course, is that by and large apologists are apt to end up proclaiming a faith that may be quite persuasive on paper but is difficult to imagine either them or anyone else getting very excited about.

The other danger is that apologists put so much effort into what they do that they may end up not so much defending the faith because they believe it is true but believing the faith is true because they have worked so hard and long to defend it."

- Frederick Buechner
Whistling in the dark
An ABC Theologized

on judgement...

“What's the difference between 'seeing sin' in someone else's life and confronting it, and having a critical spirit?”

This is a very good question to pose in this day and age within churches. It seems that in all churches there exists some form of moral police that are always on the lookout for some brethren struggling with what they perceive as 'sin,' and then go on to start their diatribe about how they are 'holier than thou' and that if one doesn't repent according to their personal moral standards they will go on to tell that that perhaps they are not a Christian or perhaps that person is not 'saved' or that person is a 'backslider' and so on without looking at themselves and their lives.

Not only is this true for individual Christians this can also be true with whole congregational bodies assuming doctrinal superiorty over other churches. One does not need to go far to encounter a Baptist pastor claiming that only baptists are faithful to what the Bible says, or Congregational Fundamentalists who believe that Pentecostals are lower Christians, or Evangelicals who say that Mainline Protestant Churches are preaching 'another gospel' for advocating social justice instead of leading people to Christ.

It is with this thought in mind that I am deeply encouraged by an article that was written by Lisa Harper, in Christianity Today where she says:

“ We must remember the only One worthy of condemning us chose instead to pardon us. Then—in light of our own sinner-saved-by-grace stories—when the Holy Spirit impresses us to confront someone who's messed up, we'll do so with honesty, compassion, and humility. Our motive will be one of real restoration instead of self-righteousness. “

I believe the problem lies at the core of our hearts for as a people who have yet to reap the fullness of our salvation, - we are still struggling with the concept of grace, we find it hard to exhibit it precisely because we have yet to fathom the extent of God-given grace.

It is my prayer that as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons (and daughters), the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23).