A View about the Western Church.

I enjoy reading news and updates compiled in an electronic publication called "What in the World". You will find a link to this below in my favorite links box titled "News and Devotional-BJU".Take a few minutes to check out the latest edition along with archived editions available.

Here is a piece I found interesting:


The church in the Western world is in a
“Babylonian Captivity,” says Os Guinness in
his new release, The Last Christian on Earth.
“The church is exploding in the Global
South, while failing badly in Europe and
faltering in the U.S.,” says Guinness. “But the
church in the Global South is largely premodern,
and the major reason for the weakness
of the church in the West is captivity to
the spirit and systems of the modern world.
Put differently, much of the church in the
West is in a profound Babylonian captivity.
It has become deeply worldly, like the European
church before the Reformation.”
Guinness’ first example is an easy target:
“Anyone with their eyes open can see the
link between modern consumerism and the
horrors of the health and wealth gospels,” he
says. But Guinness doesn’t stop at easy targets:
“Fewer people have analyzed the links
between our modern views of time, ‘fast
life,’ the ‘culture of immediacy’ and the equal
errors of our recent Evangelical craze for
‘change,’ ‘relevance,’ ‘innovation’ and ‘thinking
outside the box.’”
Guinness says that the result of this culture’s
influence on the church is that “many
Evangelicals have become second only to
the extremes of the Protestant mainline
in the way they are energetically breeding
forms of worldliness.”
Guinness says that a doctrinally sound
Christian worldview must be paired with an
understanding of how modern culture has
distorted God’s good gifts to mankind.
But that doesn’t mean reading the culture
more carefully so much as “Evangelical
renewal.” Guinness says. “The issue is faithfulness
and discipleship, and how we are following
the call of Jesus in our extraordinary
modern times. I hope many people will finish
the book and drop to their knees.” He adds,
“I believe we are in dire need of revival and
reformation.” (Between Two Worlds, 3/4/10)