Todays Church

[joffridus]

A friend of mine, in an email, wrote to me:

I want church to feel like church, not a half-ass attempt to be something else. Give me the authentic, not the bootleg. I don't want post modern crap. I don't even want modern crap. I just want authentic and sincere Christianity that is simply lived out day by day as Christ and the disciples lived it

Comments

[uncreatedlight]

I'd be recommending your friend the book The Orthodox Way. It's one thing to agree with them on what's wrong, it's another thing entirely to embrace what is right.

[joffridus]

Perhaps I will suggest this.

I've not read it myself either (only the Orthodox Church), so I need to get myself a copy, too.

[uncreatedlight]

Also what seraphimsigrist said. Expectations can be funny things sometimes. Funny as in odd. Sooner or later we have to be settled somewhere. If nothing else, the book should help your friend come to terms with why he's dissatisfied.

wrong user pic :)

[seraphimsigrist]

oops my captain carrot got in ,which
is only for special occasions... :)
lets try again

It is an excelent book which I also would
reccomend to anyone...it can be important.

I would also say to read the ware Orthodox
Church the first pages are very effective
in conveying a perspective to many...

[seraphimsigrist]

amen to this.

[joffridus]

I get the feeling that your friend would prefer to impose his singular spirituality upon the entire Body of Christ, which I simply do not agree with.

Actually, from knowing this friend personally, I would wager to say that this is actually *far* from his real attitude. He actually is quite willing to embrace a diversity of worship styles. I think, simply, that his evangelical experience has been largely of the self-help variety of spirituality.

[seraphimsigrist]

well alright but it sounds like the writer of this
is sort of limiting and defining what is wanted in
a way which will be comfortable to him or her and
kind of making his or her own religion thereby as
much as anyone else , if you see what I mean...

[joffridus]

Actually, although perhaps this paragraph alone might imply that, I think in the larger context of this friend's thought, this is probably not the case.

I think it is simply that the spirituality that has been "handed" to him is not the kind of thing that will be successfully "passed along" to others in his chosen/called ministry.

And I think he really does have a point about spirituality of the self-help/pop-psychology variety.

[seraphimsigrist]

Yes I am sure this is true...
and as I said to the other writer
as to introducing the Orthodox perspective
I would start with the orthodox church whose
first pages have said just what many seeking
something have wished to hear...

[kenotic]

Without the surrounding context to guide, I guess one thing I wonder about has to do with his saying "I just want authentic and sincere Christianity that is simply lived out day by day as Christ and the disciples lived it out" between what seem to be sentences talking about how corporate worship should look. Certainly there's a connection between following Christ daily and how we worship as a body, but I'd like to know more about what he thinks that connection means/should look like/etc.

[joffridus]

Yeah. Perhaps it would have been best that I not post this. It was, actually, one comment in an ongoing back-and-forth e-mail-session that we had been having.

If I am not mistaken (and I think I know him pretty well...he can always correct me if wrong), he is from an evangelical tradition, bordering on the charismatic, that has, all-too-often tended toward a gnostic spiritualism. This effects both worship (which has tended to be of the feel-good sort) and general Christian life -- which has tended to not include any sort of what might customarily be called "works of mercy": feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, caring for the fatherless, welcoming the stranger, etc.

I guess it, in a nutshell is the "suburbanized, spiritualized, self-help gospel" that he has been in for some time. It is this, I think, he is reacting against. (Again, I could be putting words in his mouth, though)

[piqibuhao]

"I guess it, in a nutshell is the "suburbanized, spiritualized, self-help gospel" that he has been in for some time. It is this, I think, he is reacting against."

You put the words in my mouth but they are correct. There is more I have to say but at the moment I do not have the time to collect my thoughts and state them in a clear and succinct manner. I will post in detail later on.