Wither the Church

A friend and I were talking, and it sparked this blog post: http://tmrichmond3.net/2014/01/16/wither-the-church/

Essentially, as I see the Church is headed for an iceberg. What do we do?

For years, lifeboats have separated themselves from the big ship. Some will survive getting sucked into the whirlpool. Many people have grabbed onto bits of flotsam and jetsam and have done pretty well staying afloat. Others put on their thermals and learned to swim.

So the Church is no longer the Church. Now it is churches, and kind of "every man for himself."

Which, to be honest, is that it feels like.

Seeing as this site is about books: the word you want is 'whither' ('to what place?'), rather than 'wither' ('to cause to shrivel'). A question mark at the end is also needed. At least the referenced website has the question mark, but still with the wrong spelling. In most Englishes (but certainly not all), the two words are pronounced the same. The spelling, however, distinguishes two rather different words. As for the content: moral panic among Christians — again? Ever? Give me a break!

>4 Garzo: I'd assumed that the thread's title was only a play on "whither", and going on to state (in the link) that the Church is in fact withering away. But given the iceberg metaphor, perhaps you're right.

>3 Arctic-Stranger: Different experiences, I suppose. As a Catholic I still feel part of a "Church" rather than lots of little "churches". At the same time we work ecumenically which makes the concept of "Church" as opposed to "churches" stronger (without denying the individuality and diversity of the churches).

>1 Arctic-Stranger: I'm not sure that I see an iceberg ahead. That there are challenges, opportunities and changes, yes. The Church of the future may not look the same as that of today. But an iceberg? Withering? What a pessimistic assessment.

The "Church", as an institution could hit the iceberg and collapse/sink, but would it affect the millions of people who call themselves "Christian"? Would it do anything to those who still desire a relationship with God?

The small local congregation will continue as long as people desire to know the Lord and make the effort to gather together in worship and fellowship.

Many may leave if it becomes too inconvenient to attend/find a church, but the desertion of Jesus Christ by His disciples is nothing new:

"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." John 6:63-69

Jesus said: " I am the way,and the truth and the life......"

See:

http://www.biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm

There is no other channel to God, but to believe His Son, Jesus Christ.

For several years of accommodating schedules of teenagers, we attended weekly mass at a number of parishes at various times of day in our home town. This church-hopper's impression was that some are remarkable for the ratio of gray-hairs to young'uns. The most kids seem to be at two large parishes near the university, one conservative and the other diverse.

At some point, I think the diverse church consciously acted to be inclusive. (Before then, Baby Jesus was always portrayed by a white child in living nativity, etc.) OTOH, that parish once had a cranky young priest (who was eventually encouraged to consider his choice of ministry), who would scold us about our kids' attire at mass, etc. (Priorities??)

One of my kids played basketball with a friend at a Church of the Nazarene, which was very proactive in inviting kids to participate in their league and attend their camps. I remember being impressed by role-model dads (coaches) briefly praying center-court with the kids, even if mine was the only one to cross himself. :-) In contrast, the RC church, which we attended at the time and where my son was confirmed, had converted the gym in its now-closed school to offices.

#6: Also Catholic, also do not see the "withering" but rather continual rebirth. The pessimism of the observation made here reminds me of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach and Yeat's eternally optimistic (?) (Realistic?) response:

From Arnold's poem, third stanza:

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Yeat's 19th c and After:

Though the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.

Still pebbles, still beach - and the sound remains the same to most ears.

As to the title, that's what happens when you radically re-edit AFTER writing the title. The Titanic image came in the second edit. And I did not put a question mark because I am tired of only having questions.

10

There is a comfort of a sort in the Matthews/Yeats exchange.

However I feel more like the person who came to his favorite childhood place, only to find a glitzy new hotel on the spot. Hearing someone say the tide still ebbs and flows is only a minor solace.

#12: Maybe it is a mistake to think of the church as an institution – we are the church, people who choose to follow Christ. As such there is the individual dynamic and continuous rebirth – constant ebb and flow, which suggests to me that the more accurate imagery is found in pebble/beach than in titanic monolith/iceberg.

Certainly it is more hopeful.

From, Wither the Church?
"The iceberg is coming. Can we turn fast enough to avoid disaster? And if we do turn, what is the new course (of action)?" Well, the only new course of action is to repent and follow the Lord Jesus Christ; while there is still time! And, that's my advised to everyone, who is willing to take advice! Blessings!

I have wrestled with that most of my life. On the one hand, it is an institution, and it is THE institution that is responsible for representing the work of God to the world. Maybe it should not be, but it is, and ignoring that is like ignoring the iceberg.

Also the biblical witness is replete with institutionalism. (It is the old liberal theological bias that presents the biblical story as one of the repeated cycle of reform, institutionalization, reform, and that bias has done a LOT of damage in the field of Pauline and OT studies.)

And I am not fond of libertarian religion, at least not libertarian Christianity.

On the other hand, we cannot afford to mistake the institution for the reality of what the Body of Christ really is. (Calvin is helpful here with his notion of the visible and invisible kingdom, although he clearly stole that from Augustine.)

And the institution is what is in trouble, which does not mean the Body of Christ is in trouble.

I say the institution houses the Body of Christ. To be faithful to the task, it must be pliable, for the Body of Christ is continually changing. The existence of a "pure" Body of Christ is impossible to maintain for us humans. The story of Christianity is the story of the Incarnation of the Gospel in human form--from language (Pentecost) to ekklesia. Often people who say they are spiritual but not religious are neither, because it is damned hard to have one without the other. (I am assuming religio, not as an institution, but as a form of cohering the disparate parts of our existence into Holy Whole. )

You are right that we should not THINK of the church as an institution, but on the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that it is. (When I ask people what church they go to, and hear they go to a NON-DENOMINATIONAL church, I usually reply, "Oh, yes, I am very familiar with that denomination.")

Still pebbles, still beach - and the sound remains the same to most ears.

I don't think you can look seriously at the situation of the church in the west without pessimism. The numbers are broad, long-term and down. Arnod's British "tide" has continued to recede. In the last 30 years, adherence to the Church of England has halved. 48% of Britons now class themselves as having no religion at all. Weekly attendance has also halved, and now stands between 5 and 6%, with those going heavily stacked toward the old.

Of course, that isn't the whole story. But it's the lede.

>16 timspalding: Ah yes. The west.

But it's not only about numbers, mass attendance, etc. Without going down Benedict XVI's route of a fortress elite, nevertheless the vibrancy of the Church is not measured only in statistics. The Church is authentic, viable, vibrant because of those who are in it, not because of those who have left.

#17: The Church is authentic, viable, vibrant because of those who are in it, not because of those who have left. - spot on.

Me? (one of billions of pebbles) feel pessimism for the Church (the beach)? Seems like a preposterous spatial inversion.

>17 John5918:

Well, we've gone over this ground before, but the west is not special. Where other regions, like Africa, have seen rises in income, education and other indices of development, they've followed the west's religious trajectory.

Missionaries tend to venture into the remote areas of the world to spread Christianity to the people in the villages. Nepal, Cambodia,Laos ,Vietnam are some of the examples of countries where missionary projects are going on. I believe poverty lead people to religion such as Christianity where there are hope and help from these churches involving in missionary projects. Some are receptive in receiving Christ, and I believe help are also being rendered to others(financially by the donors of the churches) to those who eventually did not embrace Christianity in their lives for some spiritual hopes and help in term of funds for the needy and the unfortunates. I might be wrong to say that the poor are more receptive to listen to God's Word.

Missionaries do promote education such as the basics - read,write and understand their native language or better still, to learn English changing the illiterates to grasp these rudiments of a language to be employed. Some skills in the backyard's trades and crafts were taught to the villagers to support themselves financially with the hope of these people becoming Christians.

" Poor Christians are special people to God. Discrimination against them is therefore an affront to God. ......Rich and poor are alike before Him....."

(quote from a sermon by Dennis Davidson)

Read On:

http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/gods-call-to-the-poor-dennis-sermon-on-affl...

The rich who are too busy with the wealth and making more wealth are tend to neglect God when religion is not relevant and do not need God in their lives.

Churches are not really hitting the "iceberg" like the oceanliner, Titanic. There is still hope for the unsaved and the back sliders, and maybe churches need revamping , by having different approaches to evangelism, the spreading of the God's Word to those who have not heard about Christ, and the contemporary not traditional in manner of worship in the churches that can be more receptive to the young.

>19 timspalding: Yes, Tim, we have had this conversation before. There is an automatic assumption in the global north that the global south is going to follow exactly the same path. Whether that assumption is true or not remains to be seen. Indeed given the environmental crisis in the world, climate change, shortage of non-renewable energy sources, etc, it's questionable whether it will even be possible for the global south to follow the global north.

>20 razzamajazz: Missionaries do promote education such as the basics

I must have made a mistake this morning when I spoke to the former vice chancellor of the Catholic University of South Sudan. As a matter of fact we were also speaking about the Catholic University of East Africa, which is in Kenya. I must tell him next time I see him that we should only teach the basics.

Oh yes, and I myself have been head of science at a Catholic secondary (high) school in Uganda and headmaster of one in South Sudan, teaching to the equivalent of British GCE O-level standard. And the part-time teaching I was doing at A-level in a big boys school in Uganda run by an order of teaching brothers and an eccentric Benedictine monk?

I'm sorry, but suggesting that missionaries only teach to basic level plus "some skills in the backyard's trades and crafts" is a ridiculous statement.

Just seen this in NCR: Changing church needs new models. I used to be part of a lay-led parish similar to the one they mention in Washington State 20 years ago.

>21 John5918:

With respect, I don't think it's an automatic assumption. Indeed, in the eyes of many Americans—mostly evangelicals—African has become a special sort of orthodox Shangri-La, keeping the gays down, preserving the true faith, and now coming to evangelize us back into it.

In my case, my well-considered opinion is that we have ample hard evidence that the "global south" is not specially protected by God, but subject to the same well-studied and relentless economic, demographic and intellectual religion-stressers as the rest of the world.

Thirty years ago, Protestantism in much of South America was a curiosity. Today it's a major force, and, judged by actual practice, not nominal adherence, already surpasses Catholicism in parts of the region. In Brazil alone, the Protestant ranks grow by 1.7m a year. In South Africa a mere six years has seen the percentage of the population who describe themselves as "religious" drop by 19 percent—rivaling Ireland (22%) and France (21%). These declines may seem remote in South Sudan, but it would be foolish to dismiss them.

As for your economic argument, I think you're quite mistaken. Africa is on the way up, and it's principle problems are not climate change or whatever, but instability, kleptocracy and a lack of rule of law. But I fear economic pessimism is harder to shake than any religious affiliation.

>23 timspalding: we have ample hard evidence

Mostly pre-climate change "hard evidence". Do you really think that a billion people in India (to mention one state alone) will be able to have the same inflated standard of living as most Europeans and north Americans have now?

>24 John5918:

India is very poor, and has structural problems other countries, like China, just don't have. And even at breakneck growth it will take many decades before it has a chance of catching up. But yes, I see no fundamental barriers.

Development pessimism is about the losingest idea in world history. From Malthus to Ehrlich*, it keeps coming up with limits and catastrophes that fail again and again to materialize. Only a few decades ago, non-economists were convinced Indian overpopulation would lead to mass famine die-offs. Today India's fertility rate is only slightly above the US—and other "population bombs," like Brazil, are well below the replacement rate. As for energy, while climate change is a real concern, running out of energy is not. Despite all the noise, we didn't hit "peak oil" in 2005, as predicted. Technology has continued to exploit new sources, some of them—like tar sands—capable of fueling us for centuries. If extraction gets more expensive—and we should be taxing it, to encourage non-carbon sources—the market adjusts with efficiency and substitution. But development pessimism can lose consistently for decades—centuries!—and it doesn't affect the conventional wisdom.

---

* A good recent story on the Ehrlich/Simon bet from the left-leaning NPR http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/12/31/258687278/a-bet-five-metals-and-the-fu...

In modern times, the missionaries and Catholic priests have gone further teaching the basics of education and maybe trained the "followers" of the Christian's faith to become skillful and employable to become tradesmen (technicians) in many trades and even become professionals
such as lawyers,teachers,social workers in their own countries. Yes, Catholic priests and other missionaries are formerly professionals in many fields parting their knowledge in schools and some
Christian's educational institutions. Times have been changing for the better world to eradicate the poverty's situation of the less developed countries.

Yes, religion do reward "happiness" and" hope" to the poorest of the poor.

>26 razzamajazz: Missionaries and Christian schools in general do not only teach Christians, they teach people. Many of our church schools in Sudan, for example, have a large number of Muslim students. Thirty years ago I was involved in a parish in west London where our Catholic schools probably had more Hindus and Sikhs than Catholics.

Why do you say "even become professionals"? That's a strange phrase. Would you use that phrase of the USA or Britain? "Schools in Britain and the USA even train people to become professionals." Why should schools in Africa, and schools run by missionaries and churches, be any different?

These missionaries nurtured and educating these students in the mission schools regardless of their religion as stated and experienced by you. These students, in turn improved themselves even to become professionals such as doctors,lawyers but these are some exceptional results of the missionaries' efforts in helping these poor people to improve when the countries are lacking professional's guidance and training in those fields of professions such as in government's administration and education.In those less developed countries , progress in these countries are happening with outside help such as US Peace Corps,missionaries,other nations of much developed nature giving helping hand in training the government's servants in running a country.

>25 timspalding: Well, Tim, this could be (and has been) the subject of many threads and you and I will not agree. I think you underestimate the effects of climate change and other environmental concerns. I think the world is reaching a tipping point which has never been the case before. I think free market capitalism on which much of the western analysis is based will also reach an unsustainable point. I think that while globalisation (which mainly means westernisation) is obviously a powerful force, there are increasing voices throughout the world who try to resist it and to maintain the best of their own culture rather than just being smothered by "the west" (while I don't deny that there are plenty of other voices which are happy to buy in to and collude with western globalisation). Mass communication is helping more people to understand and resist and/or influence the dynamics. For these and other reasons I'm not convinced that all the past analysis can automatically be extrapolated into the present and future.

I hear you on the discovery and exploitation of new non-renewable resources (and all the damage that it does to people and societies in the poorer nations of the world which happen to have the curse of oil), but if the current massive per-person use of energy in the USA and parts of Europe is extrapolated from a few hundred million people to seven billion (or indeed far more than seven billion in decades to comes) then eventually even those resources will be under strain. And I would give "while climate change is a real concern" more than a passing mention.

But I don't really want to get bogged down in an off-topic aside which will entail me digging back into notes and statistics and probably rereading some of my creation spirituality books, which I really don't have time and energy to do at this moment. From the point of view of this topic, my point is simply that the Church looks very different in many developing countries than it does in the "west".

Yeah, I don't think we're going to get anywhere on the economic question. I'm sorry I went into it so much. Perhaps we should just make a bet and see how it works out? ;)

For my part, I'm more interested in your thoughts on the other three paragraphs in message 23—the part we can surely reach more conclusions and which you're uniquely situated to discuss.

It's my hope that Christianity—and specifically Catholicism—will attain some sort of new synthesis of old and new, traditional and radical, western and global, and powered by fresh hope and commitment, once again become a vital force in the western countries where it's swooned so dramatically. I have the edge of a hope that Francis is the first step or catalyst of that—modernizing the outmoded structure, rethinking and regrounding (sub-doctrinal) teaching, re-expressing to a dismissive world the central Christian claims in a powerful and attractive way, and reenergizing us all to live and spread the gospel.

While the hard trends will remain for the second- and third-world as they develop, if that can happen, things will be rather better.

>30 timspalding: Five dollars, to be collected by our great-great-grandchildren? Actually I don't have children so in my case it will have to be great-great-nieces and nephews or something.

No disagreement with your main paragraph here.

Interesting, apropos the conversation and Tim's myopic hand-wringing:

Eastern Europe’s Christian Reawakening

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2014/01/eastern-europes-christian-reawake...

from it:

In Hungary, Croatia, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, a pro-family, pro-life revolution and a rediscovery of Christian roots is occurring. While few in the American media have noticed, this trend should challenge those who simply lament Europe’s moral malaise. Unnoticed in the shadow of a secularized west, religion’s public role has been growing in the east since the collapse of communism.

conclusion: Perhaps God is not quite dead in Europe.

This is my favorite sentence in the article: Orban began to reclaim his Calvinist roots, thanks to his Catholic wife.

Somewhere a Calvin is rolling over in his grave.

#33: ha! the old fire.

On Catholic wives: Probably, it is the NFP. We need something to do on the off nights. You can only play so much chess.

>32 enevada:. I'm happy you brought up the matter of Christianity in Eastern Europe. To the point of "wither" or "whither": can someone define the power of belief that resided with the Polish Catholics that not only kept their church very much alive during decades of tribulation under Communist rule, but produced an abundance of grace in the aftermath of such persecutions? I am unfamiliar with this story and am anxious to learn.

I think it is too late for the h.r.c.c.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/pope-benedict-defrock-priests_n_4618932...

This kind of bad PR will continue. And too many x-catholics badmouthing the child-molestation church. And rightfully god damn so.

Priests can be defrocked but the children can't be defucked. That's the sad part.

But go on wringing your hands, pious catholics. There isn't much more you can do than that. Everyone is on to your game now.

> 37

There is no escape from the truth. Sometimes it even rises from the dead and grabs you by the nuts.

Thanks to youtube even the dead will haunt the catholic church - from now to the end of time.

Pity that that time he muddled cassock and hassock, but not the first, or the last.

Too often in today's churches, people rely on a minister's message to feel spiritually "fed". In order for the church to fully revive, people need to begin to rely on the Holy Spirit within and fellowship with other believers to feed their spiritual hunger. The Bible says the church is the body of believers (not just the physical building) and the Holy Spirit is our teacher (not solely relying on other humans).

>40 Christine_Tate:: The Eucharist feeds my spiritual hunger.

>41 nathanielcampbell: Amen! The Eucharist is very definitely central for me.

Sermons are best short and to the point.

>40 Christine_Tate: in two weeks I am preaching on how the Spirit blows where it will, and how we do not control it. (John 3) I have seen well-meaning preachers try to roust up the Holy Spirit for worship, and while the spirit occasionally does appear, often it is just people's emotions, and not the Spirit, at work. (I learned this disturbingly while standing at the stage at a Bruce Springsteen concert, and realized the feelings I had there were VERY similar to what I had experienced in charismatic worship, which made me rethink worship.)

As to short sermons, sermonettes for Christianettes! :)

"Sermons are best short and to the point" (42

- - and understandable. This is recognized by the very word "sermo" from which "sermon" is derived. It meant "talk" (as opposed to "Speech", "oration"). In
Catholic doctrine at the time of the Latin mass, it is not
strictly speaking, "Part of" the mass; in the middle ages it
was the first worship-element to be in the vernacular and not in Latin.

I totally agree with understandable. Two compliments I often get are that my sermons are easy to hear (because of my voice and enunciation) and easy to understand (Leave your research on the desk, and preach what you got out of what you learned.)

>45 Arctic-Stranger:
Leave your research on the desk, and preach what you got out of what you learner.

Again, amen.

The best sermons are a union of head and heart.

Re the Holy Spirit, for years I prayed to be filled with the Spirit. After reading the Tao Te Ching, I pray to be emptied so I might be what my neighbor at that point needs. I pray to be an empty bowl, a vessel in God's service.

>46 pmackey: Kenosis, a longstanding element of the Christian tradition.

> 47

Kenosis = basically, the emptying out of ego.

Nirvana = basically the same thing.

All streams eventually flow down to the same ocean.

St Matthew 11:15 "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." This could well be the final warning; the coming of the Lord is not a Joke, but it's at hand! Repent all ye sinners and you shall be saved! Repent, repent, repent!!!!

> 49

That's the spirit, cl. Full speed ahead.

Illegitimi non carborundum

Hey - I'll help you get the word out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB1WQISLwwM

C.S. Lewis was right - we MUST choose. Agnosticism is NOT an option:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis's_trilemma

My wife and I once had the wonderful opportunity to start a United Methodist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. We started training small group leaders to create in-home groups at first. Once the groups grew so that we had a "critical mass" to begin a viable church (approx. 150 people) we could then look to take the church into a more traditional setting. The more involved we became with these people, the more we didn't want to take them into that traditional setting. The church still meets weekly in private homes and every other month in a large group meeting.

This is one way to avoid that iceberg. It's not easy, but it is very doable. I must say that we are no longer associated with the mainline Methodist Church.

Peter Bakich author, Jesus Told Me To Do What? Looking Beyond The Golden Rule

Homebased Church, or satelite Church is definitely a option, and a workable one for services that do not require a formal liturgy.

>51 peterbakich:, >52 Arctic-Stranger: Akin to the Basic Ecclesial Community model of South America or the Small Christian Community model which has spread to many parts of the world in my own (Catholic) Church?

I thought all of us might ponder this:

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince: and yet 'tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment; 'tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep: and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up; there is no other reason to be given why you han't gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship: yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you don't this very moment drop down into hell.
“O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: 'tis a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell; you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.” Jonathan Edwards, extracted from a sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God”, preached at Enfield , Connecticut 1741

I was reading a review the other day of a book by Allan H. Meltzer, the Carnegie-Mellon professor of Economics and History, entitled: Why Capitalism?. Meltzer is particularly interested in preserving the status of capitalism, one of which pillars is the idea of failure. The risk of failure is the yin-yang of the reward of profits that drives capitalism. He states: “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin.” This got me to wondering - does organized religion really believe in sin these days? Sin from the personal point of view, I mean. We are all very conscious of our failings with regard to social sins: racism, hunger, care for the elderly, homelessness, discriminations of all types, etc. (see Matt 25:31ff for Christ’s recitation of what I call social sins) and we work very hard to either correct them or alleviate the suffering caused by them. The sins I would classify as personal sins are the ones that we, individually, commit on a daily basis: anger, greed, failure to use our gifts to the fullest, our excessive love of self, our intense love for money, fame or power, our envy, our selfishness, the list could go on. Most of us are well aware of our failings. Today, though, we would take the attitude that we don’t need to be reminded of them. Further, only 34% of us believe in punishment for our behavior, or Hell, these days, according to Gallup.
Jonathan Edwards, a Calvinist and one of the most successful of the revivalist preachers of the First Great Awakening in America, was invited by the resident pastor to preach to an established church in what is now northern Connecticut that was dwindling in its numbers . His sermon, entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, excerpted above, was the resounding call to repentance that caused many in the congregation at the time to ask “What must I do to be saved?” This sermon has persevered through the centuries and is now used as an example in most seminaries as how NOT to preach to a congregation. We want to hear the message of Christ’s love for us, not God’s judgment. The odd thing about this sermon, though, is that it was used to great beneficial effect by Billy Graham as recently as 1949 in his Los Angeles revival. In the previous two weeks, he had come to near the end of a mostly disappointing “Crusade” and probably had run out of material. He did the highly improbable and began to give Edwards’ complete sermon verbatim interspersed with his, Graham’s, personal interpretations. The “Crusade” ran for another five weeks to packed “tents”, as Graham repeated the sermon night after night. People, estimated to be 160,000, asked again what the congregation in Enfield asked so many years ago, “What must I do to be saved?”

I wrote this to my congregation last year. I was surprised that many of the congregants came up to me to say that it was refreshing to hear the other side of the story. I said, "really??" Those statements really took me by surprise. I was thinking that I should have bought a ticket on a world-wide cruise to get the hell :-) out of Dodge, but no - here were members coming up to me to thank me. I don't really think that the vast majority of church members want to hear this message. I suppose it depends on the messenger as well, Perhaps Billy Graham could pull it off, but I don't think many others could. I am not even suggesting that the Church should take this tack, but perhaps it is something to ponder. The church at Enfield prospered after that address and still worships today.

Due diligence: I am not nor have I ever been a minister of the Word - just a former active member.

>54 WMGOATGRUFF: I do believe there is plenty of personal sin; sin for which I must repent. I also believe that sin is abhorrent to God and that it is only by God's grace that I'm forgiven. But... Edward's sermon is just too much. If we are so disgusting in his sight, why not just obliterate us and be done with it. Where's the love the Bible also tells us about?

Amos, had declared that he was neither a prophet nor even the son of a prophet, Just a shepherd he was, but it didn't stop God from using him. It's a real lovely piece of work you've done, WMGOATGRUFF! I have enjoyed reading it! You are not far from getting into the kingdom of God. Blessings!!!

Thank you, JGL53! Nonetheless, be mindful of this, there are somethings that you should neither watch nor listen to! Blessings!!!

>54 WMGOATGRUFF:
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Interesting that Sam Harris and Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), both reject free will. Edwards endorsed determinism, for the most part, out of concern for divine sovereignty. While Harris can find no ultimate cause; Edwards’ idea, is that, ultimately God's sovereignty requires that God himself be the only real cause of whatever happens. In the final analysis, God is the only agent, the only being capable of action, and the only cause of whatever events occur. It’s all God’s fault or it’s no body’s

>54 WMGOATGRUFF:
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Interesting that Sam Harris and Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), both reject free will. And Edwards endorsed determinism, for the most part, out of concern for divine sovereignty. While Harris can find no ultimate cause; Edwards’ idea, is that, ultimately God's sovereignty requires that God himself be the only real cause of whatever happens. In the final analysis, God is the only agent, the only being capable of action, and the only cause of whatever events occur. It’s all God’s fault or it’s no body’s

>54 WMGOATGRUFF: Interesting. I think we still have a sense of personal sin; we still have the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka confession) in my Church. But as Paul says in >55 pmackey:, I don't think sin makes us so disgusting; we are created in the image and likeness of God. I think we also perhaps have more faith in the loving mercy of God, and God's forgiveness; even if we sin, it doesn't necessarily mean that God hates us and is dangling us over the pit of hell.

> 58 "Interesting that Sam Harris and Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), both reject free will. Edwards endorsed determinism, for the most part, out of concern for divine sovereignty. While Harris can find no ultimate cause; Edwards’ idea, is that, ultimately God's sovereignty requires that God himself be the only real cause of whatever happens. In the final analysis, God is the only agent, the only being capable of action, and the only cause of whatever events occur. It’s all God’s fault or it’s no body’s"

Well, that seems to be the crux of the matter, does it not? Rejecting superstitious dualism as internally contradictory, then what conclusion (or choices) is/are left?

Omnipresence, Omnipotence and Omniscience would seem to logically require god to take 100 per cent responsibility (all the blame and/or credit) for EVERYTHING - in both the realm of time and the realm of timelessness (whatever the heck that could be).

Rather than determinism it would seem to be Omni-Free Will.

If no one is in charge (no Supreme Mind-type god) then Harris would be right - utter determinism at the ultimate level of all that is - or seems to be.

Here's the funny part for me. I don't see how faith (of any type, religious or not) comes into it - not really. Because it seems to me the two possibilities are existentially equivalent. Either humans are just part of the passing scene (i.e., utterly temporal re out "uniqueness") OR we are part of the (necessarily) pantheistic timeless infinite ultimate reality - i.e., there is no ultimate distinction or separation, on account of monism doesn't allow for such.

To my small and simple mind materialist monism violates Occam's Razor the lesser - so I therefore go with it - i.e., monistic idealism take a leap of faith of sorts. And I am not that athletic, critical-thinking-wise. I tend to conclude the obvious from the facts at hand. That seems to be the conservative approach and I am rather conservative by nature - even though I have voted for Obama twice.

lol.

>55 pmackey: The love you search for is the thin strand that God controls to keep us from the fiery depths. It is strengthened, broadened and entwined every day by our loving care for others and our contrite pleadings of guilt of personal sin, through Jesus Christ.
That sounds like a lot of trite theology, but I wish to give the view of failed humanity in contrast to a loving God who does keep us from the Pit. But it is such a thin strand to begin with. A successful life is the one that has this perspective. Here, I must say, I am diverging almost completely from the Calvinist predeterminism.
We spend millions of dollars on feel good drugs and alcohol, on toys that are not needed, on psychiatrists that pamper our feelings of unwellness (to coin a word), on trophy wives. What we really need is the sense of joy and relief that comes from recognizing our personal failures, that we are not the greatest thing since sliced bread, and repent, either privately or in "confession" with a priest. It's all a matter of perspective, and I don't think the Church has emphasized this enough, notwithstanding the Fireman's posting of the mechanics of "confession".
One of the reasons for Pope Francis' remarkable popularity, I think, is the perception that he is a common man - just like us - and he will lead us to reconciliation by following his acts of contrition and his emphasis on the care of the lowly.

All of the above has got to strike a good many of you as baloney, that it is the quickest way to lose our hegemony, that it is the quickest way to lose our good values, even our good sense. In defense, I would only recall to your memory the history of these United States, still the most God-fearing of most all of the nations, which rose to leadership by a very active foundation and practice of religious beliefs, beliefs that accepted the guiding principal stated in the fearsome God of Edwards' persuasion.

>62 WMGOATGRUFF: Calvinism may speak of predestination, but that is in no way determinism. To believe that God elects the saints is a very different thing from believing that God foreordains everything that happens to us.

As was noted in a different thread, 100 years of scientific psychotherapy, and we are no better off, if not worse off than before. On that front, science does not exactly lay a goose egg, but religion is in the lead by a long shot.

>63 Arctic-Stranger: Mea Maxima Culpa. I certainly used the wrong word. You are entirely right. I meant to say predestination or preelection, but that is a very lame excuse. Thanking you for correcting my egregious error

It is a very common mistake. I am not sure how much Calvin believed in free will, but it would be hard to pose the question in a way that was not anachronistic. What free will means today is probably a bit different from how the concept was understood in Calvin's day.