Several years ago, I read the book, Unholy War: Terror in the name of Islam. It was a book about the history of Islamic Terrorism and we should respond to this threat. The author, John Esposito, makes this statement:
“The global resurgence of religion is driven by a desire of many well-educated believers of different faiths to rethink and reevaluate the relationship of religion to modernity.”(Page 124)
I would differ to a degree–more from a conclusion standpoint than necessarily a theoretic standpoint. I do believe that there is a resurgence of religion, but not driven by a desire to rethink the relationship of religion to modernity–that is not new. I think, the reason for the well-educated believers are rethinking religion is because what we are doing is not working.
I believe that this is especially true in the Christian life. God has not change Christ holds the answers to our questions and our needs–but our methods are tired and sloppy. It doesn’t work. I speak to people all of the time who used to be “in church” and for one reason or another are now not attending. Granted that it is ultimately up to the individual, but the church must take some of this responsibility as well. We are not meeting the needs of modernity.
We don’t have to change our message, but our approach. We need to be more intentional about do the work that we do. It is time that churches quit waking up on Sunday Morning before they give any thought to how the service is going to work. We must prepare for the worship service–the people are used to seeing something that is high quality every night in the television programs they watch. They should receive the same quality–not always costing and arm and a leg, nor for the purpose of showman ship–when they arrive on Sunday Morning. We as Christian leaders need to offer more than what we have been given–stale bread never tastes good.
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This post is essentially a repost of a entry titled Modernity and Religion from November 2007.
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