"I'm very spiritual," he says. "I speak to an energy force I call God, and I get answers," he says. "If you can get a spiritual connection without going to church, why go to church?"Hm ... good question. I've been reading a book about church history and am covering the period after the reformation. In the 1700s, as Europe began recovering from a century of religion-inspired turmoil, people tired of burning each other at the stake. The role of the church as a social institution waned, while movements such as the Puritans in England put more of an emphasis on personal religion. Instead of powerful churches headed by morally weak leaders (i.e. the popes of the 15th and 16th centuries), there were churches with less political power, but more "personal" power, if that makes sense.
I guess that trend is still ongoing today, with people leaving church institutions and trying to find God on their own. I'm not saying I agree with the college student in Dublin about God, or that church is bad, but that maybe churches ought to remember what "church" really means. (The Greek word commonly translated as church is actually eklessia, which means gathering, or the group of believers who were "called out.") What I'm saying is that church is not supposed to be some big edifice that people make a pilgrimage to, but rather should be about people--something like in Acts chapter two:
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.Amen.
4 comments:
Do the endtimes come when people turn away from any God, or just yours? Actual question, not sarcastic.
well, according to my own interpretation of the bible, it is when people turn away from the christian God. actually, the matthew 24 verse i quoted actually doesn't say people's love for God will grow cold, it just says their love will grow cold. i just assumed it was love for God. the "end times" are a pretty heady topic. would you like to hear more of my ramblings about the "end times?"
Sure.
ok, you asked for it. ;-)
there are lots of places in the bible where it talks about "end times," but i think a lot of people put the emphasis on weird stuff, like the antichrist, tribulation, and rapture--all of which are difficult to interpret. for example, i don't know if you've heard of the "left behind" series, but they were written by a couple of christian authors and were on the new york times' best seller list for years (maybe still are). those books didn't emphasize the main point of the "end times" in the bible, which is the return of Jesus to judge the earth.
my favorite passage about the "end times" is in 2 peter chapter 3, which you can read here:
http://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20peter%203&version=31
in that chapter, peter writes that the reason Jesus does not return to judge now is because God is patient and wants people to be saved through the gospel. he also writes that christians shouldn't focus only on the end of the world, but should focus on living rightly in the present.
so when i think of "end times," i don't think so much about whether a third temple is going to be built in jerusalem (a possible interpretation of several scriptures) as i try to focus on sharing the gospel and living rightly before God now.
thanks for asking!
ts
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