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The Forum > Article Comments > The Church and management techniques > Comments

The Church and management techniques : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 5/11/2007

The liberal Protestant God has been thoroughly domesticated, and faith has been turned into therapy for the sick and inept.

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Ho Hum,

[[[[The "religion" he proposes is just another self-consoling consumer product.]]]]
Given that the gospel teaches that Christians have no rights, and that they are to bear reproach and persecution without retaliation, your idea here is unlikely to be true.
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[[[[He asks us to take the Bible seriously. Which and whose version and/or translation? ......]]]]
Here you manifest 2 problems:
1. You have not realised that the various versions say the same thing in different words. Here is an example from Romans 10:9:
KJV: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
AMPLIFIED VERSION: "Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved"
LIVING BIBLE: "For if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe in your own heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved"
GREEK (LITERAL) INTERLINEAR: "Because if you confess with the mouth of you the Lord Jesus, and believe in the heart of you that God Him raised from (the) dead, you will be saved".

2. You did not notice that the author of the article stated that the bible bears witness to the Word of God, and therefore his implication that the bible itself is not the Word of God per say. That is, you make the usual ignorant statement that Christians follow the bible, when in fact they follow the Spirit, with the bible simply witnessing what the Spirit says to them.

So overall you don't know what you are talking about.
Posted by Liberty, Tuesday, 6 November 2007 1:55:28 PM
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Sells

If you are going to distinguish between liberalism and 'radical' orthodoxy then I dont really know many liberals.
Surely 'radical orthodoxy', though, is a tautology. Jesus was radical/revolutionary and if orthodoxy is the proven path to discipleship then it is also the path to revolution.
There is a popular notion that orthodoxy is some sort of mindless conformity to tradition. This is certainly a misunderstanding of the Church and its 'mission'.
My experience suggests that it is the liberals who truly understand orthodoxy. Evangelicals with their skewed emphasis on Biblical Authority and Pentecostals with their focus on 'inspiration' both fail the orthodoxy test and their perceived popularity is in no way evidence that their 'discipleship' is more effective than any one else's.
I am intrigued by your paradoxical assertion that liberalism is dying because it is 'trying to be popular'. It suggests that liberals are not a very bright bunch and havent noticed that their 'pandering' is so pointless. As a practising 'liberal' Ive certainly noticed that its not a popular position at all. Luckily, as my NT Teacher observed, I 'havent an evangelical bone in my body' so I dont suffer from any sort of disenchantment with my lot. If God wants everyone be to like me then that is Her problem not mine.
Neither do I share your somewhat romantic passion for the 'rightly ordered society'. In Christ's terms 'rightness' is a dynamical, ethical category, divinely arbitrated and occassional rather than fixed and absolute. It is not a particular, idealised ordering of society.
Having said that. . . I need to say that I am generally in sympathy with your views expressed in this article. Surprisingly I am also in sympathy with BOAZ who points out in his/her own peculiar way that the Bible is as good a mission statement as the Church needs and vastly superior in that function to the soporific sentiments of your average mission statement.
Posted by waterboy, Wednesday, 7 November 2007 8:03:28 PM
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