Praise and Worship and Today's Church

Holy Wars

Revolutionists in the Mainline

Tags: Church Growth, Church Growth Movement, Jesus Movement, Chuck Smith, Baby Boomer, Counterculture Church, Baby Boomers, hippie Denominational Church, Evangelical Church, theological liberalism, megachurch, Rousseau, Aldus Huxley, Timothy Leary, John Lennon

Revolutionists the Mainline

The main concern that initially lead to the Jesus Movement’s challenge of the traditions of the church was the manipulative and unbiblical political behavior that runs ramped in denominationalism. It was the “philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men” that this movement rightly turned against. Because of this, the Counterculture Church threw the baby out with the bath water to reject almost everything that was traditional. In so doing they created traditions of their own in the form of informalism drenched in a new style of contemporary worship music.

The popularity of the independent Christian Counterculture Movement abounded among the younger generation, and especially the Baby Boomers who came out of the’60s era. Many in the Denominational Church recognized that success and wanted in on it. To various degrees, depending upon the particular denomination, they had long ago departed from biblical principles with regard to the message from the pulpit and the operation of their churches even as theological liberalism had put a noose around their necks and emptied their churches. Even the Evangelical Church in its attempt to hold to biblical truth from the pulpit failed to escape liberalism’s persuasiveness as they struggled while allowing worldly influences, rather than God’s Holy Word, to dictate how their churches were organized and run. So with visions of megachurches dancing in their heads, many in the Denominational Church, now weakened in every corner by theological liberalism, likewise shed itself of many of its traditions to take on the look of bohemian charismatic informality.

Yet thanks in part to the rise of the Church Growth consultant, who explained that it was all about marketing, they missed the spiritual aspects of the phenomenon of the Counterculture Church. This is because the Denominational Church continued to hold very tightly to the very debauched political structure that the Jesus Movement had turned its back on. As Charismatic leaders such as Chuck Smith had discovered, it was denominationalism’s liberal turn from biblical principles that was at the bottom their growth problems. However since the Denominational Church has held firmly to an unbiblical manipulative political structure producing tactics that continue to stifle them and defile the Christian faith, they have built a “charismatic” façade that merely covers up a broken internal structure that remains corrupt and in disrepair.

And so, while reckoning that it was all about form rather than substance, the Denominational Church took on the shape of newness rather than the essence of the Jesus Movement’s return to biblical teachings to completely miss the mark. In the case of music they adopted modern praise songs while in many cases casting aside their hymn traditions in order to “look the part.” In the name of relating to society at all cost, they have rebelled against many of their own long held customs. Just like the ‘60s Counterculture Movement itself, many in the Denominational Church are now against more than they are for. As a result we are witnessing the tragic destruction of traditions that the church has held onto for thousands of years. And all of this is done for the sake of looking good on the outside.

The questions suddenly become: ”Why would the church turn its back on its own heritage that has produced such a celebrated nation as ours filled with free people? 2 Why would pastors forsake the very traditions that generated a society that allows all Christians to worship God freely and openly? Why would they discard all of this to adopt the social mores of those who advance a world view that is in direct opposition to the Christian faith? Why would they take on the ways of a new-world order that seeks to take the civil liberties of free worshipping Christians away? Why would they seek to throw the cultural richness that was given to us by Christ in order to embrace the society of Rousseau, Huxley, Leary and John (we’re more popular than Jesus) Lennon? Why would they seek to embrace the world rather than turn from it? Why are they content to conform to the world rather than influencing it?”

The answers lie in the love of intellectual liberalism, the disregard of biblical truth, the quest for convenience and the lust after instant success. But those who follow this path will ultimately deliver the church into the destruction of everything that it is. “’For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” (Matt 16:26 MKJV)

It’s is a sad day when the church has forfeited its liberty for the sake of pride and achievement. When it has sold its soul for the sake of 30 pieces of silver. (Matt 26:15) The church, her traditions and the biblical Christian message that she conveys stands as the one true hope for the world today. But if the church, for the sake of becoming like the pagan world that surrounds her, discards her traditions that define her faith and guide her heart to the Holy Scriptures, then the world is lost indeed. The Holy War is real and its outcome will be drenched in significance.

2. Those in the church who are following the “relate to society” course need to take a long hard look at church history. They should remember that it was when Pope Gregory decided to adopt the ways of the pagans in the church to relate to them that the doctrines of the church of the Middle Ages was seriously compromised. They ought to recall how the church in the Deep South before the Civil War related to its culture by using Scripture to protect and defend the sinful institution of slavery. They need to recollect how the German Church remained largely silent during the tyranny of Nazism. They could go back into American history to see how modernism with its agenda to deny the divine inspiration of Scripture and the existence of the supernatural was only the result of the church’s attempt to relate to their contemporary society that was so enamoured with evolution. They could consider the rise of the false teachings of Unitarianism that eventually lead to Christian Science which rose up as a response to the fact that modernism had stripped the denominational church of a belief in the supernatural. They could factor in the teachings of the Word of Faith movement’s pioneer E. W. Kenyon who responded to the rise of Christian Science by adopting their deceitful doctrine for himself to give us Kenneth Hagin’s errant Health and Wealth Gospel. Then they would understand what happens when the church takes on the shape of the world rather than shaping it. BACK

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