godtalketc

Conversations concerning public expressions and involvement of the evangelical community.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

No doubt my last blog was full of overstatements. I really do not intend a diatribe against the organized church; such has been much overdone. And I certainly do not intend to criticize the membership at large. Rather, my intentions are to uncover what I believe are the false premeses on which the evangelical movement seems to thrive. The last blog was an attempt to challenge the cozy familiarity with God which the evangelical leadership seems to promulgate. Although we should rejoice at God's nearness to us through Christ, his distance from us must not be compromised. "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" must always be balanced with "Holy, Holy, Holy." Revelation is always at the initiative of God and cannot be called forth by any act of our own. Salvation, in the words of Jesus, is always impossible. Our preaching should elicit the disciples' response: "Then who can be saved?" The answer Jesus gave to that question left no doubt that salvation was and is wholly in the hands of God: "With God all things are possible." And God is not at our beck and call, as much as we would like for him to be. We cannot dispense what we do not own.