The Jesus Way
When I began writing and publishing on this blog five years ago, there was generally a small audience of people who were reading each other’s blogs as a source of encouragement and hope. Many of us had just begun rethinking what it means to be the church, Christian leadership, and what it means to follow Jesus in our culture. Over the years following, some of the questions we asked produced what seemed to some to be an overly critical spirit towards the status quo church in America. After all, different strokes for different folks, right? At least that seems to be the argument when criticism - or I think it could be more accurately described as “critique” - of the church is the topic of conversation. We have our way of doing things, other churches do it differently. “Why can’t we all just get along?” Or so the argument goes.
And then I pick up Eugene Peterson’s new book, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way
. Peterson is, quite simply, a dude that commands respect from a pretty wide spectrum of the church. Of course, there are biblio-fundamentalists who do not care for The Message all that much, but most at least give him credit for the sheer magnitude of the work he has done. Personally, I think he’s one of the most important voices leaders in the North American church should be listening to and allowing to influence their thinking. The Jesus Way is the third book in his Magnum Opus, a five-book “spiritual theology”. The introduction alone, in my opinion, is worth the price of the book.
What is so striking about Peterson is that he can get away with writing words that he knows, and we know, we need to hear:
“The local congregation is the primary place for dealing with the particulars and people we live with. As created and sustained by the Holy Spirit, it is insistently local and personal. Unfortunately, the more popular American church strategies in respect to congregation are not friendly to the local and personal. The American way with its penchant for catchy slogans and stirring visions denigrates the local, and its programmatic ways of dealing with people erode the person, replacing intimacies with functions.” – pg. 5
Later on in the same section, he completes the thought…
“The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise…It didn’t take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them…This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world’s champion consumers, so why shouldn’t we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?
Give the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus’ salvation…The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, “deny yourself” congregation. A consumer church is an antichrist church.” – pg.6
Did he just say what I thought he said? I can hear the counter-arguments being formed. ”But Eugene, what about all the people that just will never go to church unless it is entertaining?” “But Eugene, how will we ever reach the teenagers if we don’t have Dance Dance Revolution in the youth building and post our sermons on YouTube?” “But Eugene, what about the Baby Boomers? They don’t give their money unless the church looks like it’s doing something meaningful.”
A consumer church is an antichrist church.
Man, that’s uncomfortable. Not going to sell that many books if you keep saying things like that Eugene.
And then I pick up Eugene Peterson’s new book, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way
. Peterson is, quite simply, a dude that commands respect from a pretty wide spectrum of the church. Of course, there are biblio-fundamentalists who do not care for The Message all that much, but most at least give him credit for the sheer magnitude of the work he has done. Personally, I think he’s one of the most important voices leaders in the North American church should be listening to and allowing to influence their thinking. The Jesus Way is the third book in his Magnum Opus, a five-book “spiritual theology”. The introduction alone, in my opinion, is worth the price of the book. What is so striking about Peterson is that he can get away with writing words that he knows, and we know, we need to hear:
“The local congregation is the primary place for dealing with the particulars and people we live with. As created and sustained by the Holy Spirit, it is insistently local and personal. Unfortunately, the more popular American church strategies in respect to congregation are not friendly to the local and personal. The American way with its penchant for catchy slogans and stirring visions denigrates the local, and its programmatic ways of dealing with people erode the person, replacing intimacies with functions.” – pg. 5
Later on in the same section, he completes the thought…
“The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise…It didn’t take long for some of our Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our congregations is to identify what they want and offer it to them…This is the language we Americans grow up on, the language we understand. We are the world’s champion consumers, so why shouldn’t we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?
Give the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way that has ever been devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way in which God brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and sets us on the way of Jesus’ salvation…The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, “deny yourself” congregation. A consumer church is an antichrist church.” – pg.6
Did he just say what I thought he said? I can hear the counter-arguments being formed. ”But Eugene, what about all the people that just will never go to church unless it is entertaining?” “But Eugene, how will we ever reach the teenagers if we don’t have Dance Dance Revolution in the youth building and post our sermons on YouTube?” “But Eugene, what about the Baby Boomers? They don’t give their money unless the church looks like it’s doing something meaningful.”
A consumer church is an antichrist church.
Man, that’s uncomfortable. Not going to sell that many books if you keep saying things like that Eugene.
posted by Mike Bishop at 8:43 PM
1 Comments:
Yep, and it resonates! Antichrist is that which gets as close to God as it possibly can and then steal as much of the things of God as it can and subordinate it to the lower nature: essentially "self". Self and self-focused spirituality is the new idolatry (not really new, but in contrast to old world idolatry). Jesus will tell some who cast out devils and healed the sick in his name, "depart from me" because they even appropriated his very power that served the god of this age: self. Peterson is right on.
Post a Comment
<< Home