By Lee
Duigon
June 26, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
June 26, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
Overt, in-your-face paganism in
the Church—it’s not hard to find, these days. I’ve written about it before. (See
my blog, LeeDuigon.com, and
scroll back a couple of pages for a series of those articles.) But there’s also
a soft-core paganism in the Church, so hard to see, it’s practically invisible.
In this it resembles termites munching away at the timbers of a house. To see it
at all, we have to approach it indirectly.
A colleague of
mine who is involved in missionary work says there’s a new fashion in the
mission field. Missionaries now are telling potential converts that they can
become Christians and still live entirely within the bounds of their culture.
It’s a good deal: they get personal salvation, but they don’t have to change
their way of life. Missionaries in Muslim countries have found it’s much safer
to be a Christian if everybody thinks you’re still a Muslim. In some of those
places, it’s a capital offense to convert to Christianity.
So today’s
missionaries seek to create an “insider movement”—that is, the new Christians
remain “inside” their native culture, whatever it may be. If it were only a
matter of personal safety, who would blame them?
But Christ
commands us to teach His doctrine and make disciples everywhere (Matthew
28:19-20), to be salt and light to the pagan culture all around us (Matthew
5:13-14)—indeed, to change that culture into a Christian culture by being the
one lump of yeast that leavens the whole loaf (Matthew 13:33). Instead, the
missionaries teach the new Christians that they can just keep on keeping on: all
they have to do is pop into church now and then to get a dose of
Christianity.
They get
saved. But the culture that’s around them doesn’t.
That’s what
the new missionaries learn in seminary.
In other
words, the missionaries are handing out the same kind of shy, pietistic,
selfish, feeble, limp-wristed, slack-jawed “Christianity” as is being dispensed
by all too many of our churches here at home.
What does
Jesus say about it?
“Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that
day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast
out devils? and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then I will
profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.”
(Matthew 7:21-23)
And this: “And
why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke
6:36)
Well, see,
Lord, if we did those things, people would think we were trying to show them up.
They’d think we were peculiar. They’d make fun of us. They might even persecute
us. So we’ve found it best not to be conspicuous. We don’t make
waves.
It’s only
being smart, Lord; that’s all it is. That’s why we send our kids to the same
anti-Christian public schools that the unbelievers sent their kids to, and never
rock the boat when the teachers tell them that “gender is a spectrum” and the
Bible is wrong and full of “homophobia.” That’s why we go out on Election Day
and vote for the same ungodly rascals that the pagans vote for. That’s why we
watch the same reality TV shows, buy the same Lady Gaga music, go to the same
dirty movies, kow-tow to the same atheist scientists, and try to make the new
“Christian music” performed in our church sound just the same as the pagan music
outside the church.
Lord, you
can’t say we’re trying to be invisible—far from it! Don’t we go to church once a
week, whether we feel like it or not? And doesn’t our church stick up for
illegal aliens, partner with the local Che Guevara Club to run a soup kitchen,
and donate copies of The Purpose-Driven Life to our town’s seniors’ center? All
those good works have to count for something! What sense would it make for us to
call attention to ourselves by homeschooling our kids, insisting that the Bible
is the Word of God, or refusing to believe in Evolution? We’d stick out like
sore thumbs and not be “inside the culture” anymore.
Yes, Lord, we
know we’re supposed to change the culture. Some of us even know that it’s been
done before, at much greater risk than any that we face. It was Christians who
fought for, and won, the abolition of gladiatorial games and slavery—pleasures
which some very mean and powerful people were not eager to give up. But that was
all so long ago! You can’t really expect us to change our culture. And
besides—what’s wrong with it?
And so it
goes. The “insiders” in the Western world inhabit a culture that grows more
pagan and less Christian day by day, but it’s no big deal to them—certainly not
big enough to move them to stick their necks out. Who would want to change this
jolly, pluralistic, loosey-goosey, rock-and-roller culture, anyhow? That’s how
you wind up being called the “Christian Taliban” on MSNBC.
Such is the
version of Christianity which our churches export to the world. This is how
pagan idols wind up occupying niches in missionary churches in exotic
lands.
It might be
possible, someday, to eradicate the hard-core paganism from the churches—goddess
worship, Buddhist chants, Presbyterians dancing around in animal costumes, etc.
The churches that do those things are dying out.
But to get rid
of soft-core, get-along-with-the-culture paganism…
For that, we
might have to wait for missionaries from Africa or Asia.
© 2011 Lee Duigon - All Rights
Reserved
E-Mail: leeduigon@verizon.net
http://www.newswithviews.com/Duigon/lee105.htm
Feel free to email me at: creyner@yahoo.com
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