The Babylonian Captivity of the American Church: A Wake Up Call From A Seasoned Pastor

“I am inviting you to join me in a new kind of hope, a hope that is not found in the policies of the left, the middle or the right. (Once again, I am not calling you to withdraw from society or public life, as some will suggest.) I am very happy to be a citizen of the United States and realize that I have a responsibility to my earthly home. But here is where we get easily confused. Our last and best hope is not the United States, for all the good that our land represents in its unique experiment in democracy. As followers of the Son of God, our hope must in the Lord Jesus Christ alone!”

John H. Armstrong of the Act3 Network

The Babylonian Captivity of the American Church (1)

John Armstrong is one of my mentors, in an informal sense, but also in an intentional sense. I agree with his assessments of our day. Not because I am some great scholar like him, nor because I am also a well-trained pastor, but because in all of my readings through the years, and my own experiences within the American Church, I have come to similar general conclusions. He validates what I have come to see, and does it in a very well thought out way.

John has been controversial at times. Not because he likes to be but because he is an honest questioner of the status quo. When you challenge the status quo, you usually run into opposition in places. The status quo needs to be called into question at times because when people settle into patterns of behavior, it often is formed by misguided views. The Church is lucky to have gifted iconoclasts in her midst, so icons do not become the norm and supplant the true image that only Jesus gives the Church.

I encourage you, no, I implore you to read his careful and heartfelt words so that you can be informed and awakened to the realities of our day. Then you can seek the Lord of the Church to see what he is commissioning you to be in bringing light to this dark world.

Questions: Do you feel the same darkness being cast over the American Church today? What do you think is contributing to it in your opinion? Do you agree with John Armstrong’s assessment? Why?

The Haman Complex: How To Betray Oneself (2)

” The light and careless way in which Ahasuerus handed away to Haman the lives of tens of thousands of his industrious and useful subjects is deservedly branded as ” perhaps the most shocking example of oriental despotism on record.” It ranks with the recent callous announcement of Nazi Hitler, that he was prepared to sacrifice the lives of a million Germans to invade England. Conscience and common sense alike protest the wrongness of such power being in the hands of any one man. A really sound and good man will refuse to bear such a responsibility singly. A bad man can only abuse it. Democracy may be beset with many complex difficulties, but it is immeasurably preferable to despotism or dictatorship.”

This is a quote from J. Sidlow  Baxter in reference to the book of Esther in Explore The Book, page 271.

Question: Have you ever face despotism in your life? What have you learned to avoid being controlled by it?