Sunday, September 25, 2011

Is Evangelical Minimalistic Christianity a Failure?

Ben Witherington has posted a transcript of the address given by Dr. Timothy Tennent, President of Asbury Theological Seminary at their September Convocation. I found Dr. Tennent's analysis of the current state of American Evangelicalism to be spot-on. Below is an excerpt:
"Somewhere in America at some church meeting a decision was reached to change the name of the place they worshipped from the word “sanctuary” to “worship center” or “celebration center.”  Furthermore, they decided to build a space which could be used as a gymnasium during the week and a place of worship on Sunday.  Having a dedicated space only for worship seemed liked a shocking waste of money.  Indeed, they had at least 5 good reasons for doing this.  What concerns me is that they probably never stopped to reflect theologically that there just might be 6 reasons to not do it.  Of course, maybe there were only four and the “celebration center” in the gym would have carried the day.  The point is, that reflection never even happened."

You can read the whole thing here.

2 comments:

  1. Then again, I've always wondered if the present-day church shouldn't do like the early church and just rent a place to meet. Have you ever considered how much money is spent on paying for extravagant buildings that are only used six hours a week? Think of the hungry people that money would feed and the Bibles it would buy.

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  2. Very true...I think this is probably one of the reasons the house church movement is taking off.

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