ChosenRebel's Blog

Update: This was originally written as a Good Friday meditation in 2015.

This morning one of my subscribers reminded me of it. I think it is more relevant today than 6 years ago. Unfortunately, all the trends in the nation point in the direction that it and the book it points to will be even more relevant in the near future. I think I will pull it down off the shelf and reread it again. Join me. We need to help our neighbors and ourselves find our soul’s “true home” in Christ.

Good Friday Meditation

The Church in America has alzheimers. She and the culture she resides in have forgotten their heritage. And as a result, she doesn’t understand what is going on around her. The Church is confused and exists in a fog and can’t be trusted to make decisions that are in her and her Lord’s best interest. But unlike alzheimers of the brain, the church’s alzheimers of the soul has a cure.

And it just might come from Ireland and a Celtic perspective on how to overcome our loss of a Christian memory. 

“The Church, in the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly ‘secular’—people with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about. These populations are increasingly ‘urban’—and out of touch with God’s ‘natural revelation.’ These populations are increasingly ‘postmodern’; they have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more peer driven, feeling driven, and ‘right-brained’ than their forebear[er]s. These populations are increasingly ‘neo-barbarian’; they lack ‘refinement’ … and their lives are often out of control. These populations are increasingly receptive—exploring worldview options from Astrology to Zen—and are often looking ‘in all the wrong places’ to make sense of their lives and find their soul’s true home.”

So begins the Preface to George Hunter III’s, The Celtic Way of Evangelism. I was rereading this book for some talks I am preparing and reexamining some of the notes and highlights from my last read and found this first notation in the margin: “Completely on point.”

And because it is completely on point, we in the modern church have got to relearn how to take the gospel to our culture. Frustration will not do. Laziness will not do. Giving up will not do.

A great place to start is to read this book and learn from a previous generation that faced similar if not exact circumstances and overcame them for the glory of God. You can expect more from my re-reading of this book to appear here on the blog in April.

Why? Because we want to help our neighbors find their soul’s “true home” in Christ. And because we want a cure for spiritual alzheimers.