Not only should sociology not be the foundational lens we peer through, but when we do peer through it, we ought to exercise great care and caution. In a nutshell, we Christians to stay in our lane.
Yes! How is it we are writing & teaching about finding happiness in our devotion to Jesus? Why are we not looking for the numbers that show following Jesus and being community with our church family provides healthy and happy lives? we need to be questioning why we are looking there and why we are looking in the other lanes.
I very much dislike the implications of the quotes you have taken from Wilcox's and Breakpoint's articles (no surprise there, "preaching to the choir" and such). However, I find myself quite disturbed that the reason for the conflict is not so much about their portrayal of marriage (and of singleness as its absence), but because they seem to claim that living "as Christians in this cultural moment" is more about maximising one's personal happiness than actually seeking to live like Christ.
Thank you for this thoughtful and illuminating evaluation. The era of the application sermon and the customer-service model of discipleship has left many believers with shallow doctrines and a lack of an internalized understanding of Scripture, providing no solid biblical foundation to deal with life’s challenges. Even though I teach at a Christian college, I see many vestiges of a cultural Christianity that leads to a commodification & a compartmentalization of spiritual formation. I was reading through Ephesians 1 today, and I pray that the glorious reality of having “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” through Christ (v. 3) will fill us with joy, peace, and a deeper commitment to seek an eternal perspective in discerning God’s calling to edify one another in truth & love.
"we Christians are increasingly veering out of our lane (theology and its pastoral application) to find our groove in an adjacent lane (sociology and its cultural application)." I think this is symptomatic of a much bigger problem in evangelicalism: the people driving evangelical thought (at least from my perspective as an evangelical in the USA) aren't pastors in the first place. Many evangelical thought leaders fit into one or more of the following roles: writer, seminarian, or "teaching pastor" (i.e. "speaks to a large assembly each Sunday but does little or no true pastoral care"). Since evangelicalism has minimized the role of classical shepherding and care of souls in the pursuit of prominence, influence, and "scalability", acting as a cultural critic who reduces people to data points on a sociological study is a much more comfortable role than working through the complexities of applying the timeless truth of the Bible to unique individual situations.
Yes! How is it we are writing & teaching about finding happiness in our devotion to Jesus? Why are we not looking for the numbers that show following Jesus and being community with our church family provides healthy and happy lives? we need to be questioning why we are looking there and why we are looking in the other lanes.
I very much dislike the implications of the quotes you have taken from Wilcox's and Breakpoint's articles (no surprise there, "preaching to the choir" and such). However, I find myself quite disturbed that the reason for the conflict is not so much about their portrayal of marriage (and of singleness as its absence), but because they seem to claim that living "as Christians in this cultural moment" is more about maximising one's personal happiness than actually seeking to live like Christ.
Thank you for this thoughtful and illuminating evaluation. The era of the application sermon and the customer-service model of discipleship has left many believers with shallow doctrines and a lack of an internalized understanding of Scripture, providing no solid biblical foundation to deal with life’s challenges. Even though I teach at a Christian college, I see many vestiges of a cultural Christianity that leads to a commodification & a compartmentalization of spiritual formation. I was reading through Ephesians 1 today, and I pray that the glorious reality of having “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” through Christ (v. 3) will fill us with joy, peace, and a deeper commitment to seek an eternal perspective in discerning God’s calling to edify one another in truth & love.
"we Christians are increasingly veering out of our lane (theology and its pastoral application) to find our groove in an adjacent lane (sociology and its cultural application)." I think this is symptomatic of a much bigger problem in evangelicalism: the people driving evangelical thought (at least from my perspective as an evangelical in the USA) aren't pastors in the first place. Many evangelical thought leaders fit into one or more of the following roles: writer, seminarian, or "teaching pastor" (i.e. "speaks to a large assembly each Sunday but does little or no true pastoral care"). Since evangelicalism has minimized the role of classical shepherding and care of souls in the pursuit of prominence, influence, and "scalability", acting as a cultural critic who reduces people to data points on a sociological study is a much more comfortable role than working through the complexities of applying the timeless truth of the Bible to unique individual situations.
Insightful as ever Dani! Thanks for doing some important thinking in this area.