November 18, 2006
From Ron and Karen Schwartz
Our modern age is generally viewed as beginning
about two hundred years ago when the Western nations abandoned their religious
wars and began to embrace personal religious freedom. Along with this, Western nations began moving from an
agrarian to an industrial economy, and science began to provide answers to
long-asked questions.
Personal religious freedom brought about personal fulfillment, and the
industrial revolution brought the promise that utopia was finally within
reach. Combined with science,
these values created a belief that “truth” was finally understood and therefore
unquestioned.
But two world wars, empowered by the industrial
revolution, shattered our visions of utopia, and one man’s personal religious
views brought about the genocide of six million Jews. Instead of answering the questions that caused our
insecurity, science brought about the atomic and hydrogen bombs. The “truths” and standards that
promised security and utopia were perceived to be its undoing, and the modern
age failed to deliver.
Consequently, post-modernists point to unquestionable and broad-sweeping
truths as modernism’s weakness.
Throughout the modern age, religious truth was
rarely questioned. The Bible was
always used as the textbook in the classroom, and “separation of Church and
State” was never an issue.
Truths, whether scientific, economic, or religious, were esteemed and
valued. But all of that
changed when the modern age appeared
to fail. The perceived failure has
lent justification for some Christian leaders to embrace post-modern thinking.
It has been suggested that “post-modern” means “to
ask.” Because the values and
truths of the modern age failed, it has become our nature to be skeptical of
long-held beliefs, “to ask” questions (i.e., question everything). Therefore, the post-modern ideology
rejects all forms of “universal” truth or dogma because, at one time, truths
almost lead to our destruction.
Consequently, the post-modernist views biblical accounts (that are
frequently surrounded with generalities but nevertheless accepted by Christians
to contain absolute truth and certainties) with incredulity. Relativism (the idea that values don't exist except
in the mind of an individual or the culture that values them, and that ideas
such as “truth,” “right/wrong,” or “large/small” are merely opinions from the
observer’s point of view) is a byproduct of this post-modern age. Truth, if there is such a thing, is
situational and has largely been substituted for situational ethics. Therefore, the closest one can come to
truth is merely one’s own personal opinion.
Post-modernism did not begin as a result of
the perceived failure of
modernism. In fact, real truth has
nothing to do with modernism.
Post-modernism is just an illusion. It is not something new. It has always been with us. It has just used other disguises. The first occurrence of post-modern thinking is actually
found in the third chapter of Genesis.
This chapter begins with Eve adamantly defending the “truth (a broad
sweeping truth)” as she understood it.
Genesis 3:2-3 KJV
2 And the woman
said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree
which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it,
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Satan’s reply reflected what we find in
post-modern ideology. Satan
suggested that the truth was suspect.
Truth wasn’t truth at all, but a deception designed to hurt her and
deprive her of her real destiny.
We find this thinking in contemporary culture. Many people reject truth because they believe it will hurt
them somehow. Our culture
has been brain washed into thinking that truth equates to pain, intolerance,
and dogma.
4 And the serpent said unto
the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in
the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.
We are the children of the post-“modern” era. We have grown up in a culture that has
learned to mistrust everything.
Traditional values are held suspect. Religion, science, and economics are no longer the great
truths they once were. And nowhere
is this more true than in contemporary Christianity. The explosion of modern Bible translations and Christian
books point to the fact that people no longer trust the Bible. They search and search through
reference material, ever searching for that elusive truth. The success of the “Da Vinci
Code” movie is a testament to this fact.
Many Christians are willing to accept conspiracy theory as truth rather
than long-held biblical truth because even an unfounded conspiracy theory has
more legitimacy in today’s society than traditional values. Christians are suspicious of any truth
and therefore continually search until they come up with their own personal
truth. Post-modern ideology tells
us that truth must be what we have discovered, not that which is given or
passed down to us.
It is easy to see this ideology at work in our
culture. We find it at work
most obviously in our institutions of higher learning, but it is
everywhere. We find its influences
in newspapers article, advertisements, and more and more we find it in the work
of prominent contemporary Christian authors.
The Downfall of a Post-Modern
Leader
To understand how devastating post-modern
thinking is to our Christian leaders let’s examine a story concerning a
solitary biblical figure. It is
the story of Saul. This man, honored
as the first king of Israel, became one of the greatest disappointments to
God. In just twenty-three verses,
Saul goes from being a man called by the Lord to lead His people to a man
rejected by God. As you read this
account, consider the impact of relativism and rationalization (the children of
post-modern ideology) in your own life.
1 Samuel 15:2-4, 7-9, 13-15,
17-23 KJV
2 Thus saith the LORD of
hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in
the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,
camel and ass.
The direction of the Lord was clear. God commanded Saul to do battle and not
to spare anything. As God
saw it, nothing from this nation was of any value. And God didn’t want His people attached to it in any way.
4 And Saul gathered the people
together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten
thousand men of Judah.
7 And Saul smote the
Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.
8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly
destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
9 But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the
sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that
was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and
refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
Saul did obey God, didn’t he? After all, he did destroy the
Amalekites. But he took the
commandment of God a step further than what God wanted. Instead of accepting the truth of
God’s word, he questioned it. Why
did God want this nation destroyed?
Saul then rationalized: God wanted revenge (“I remember that which
Amalek did to Israel”). It is typical of
a post-modernist to see God as a mere person. Saul rationalized that to bring the Amalekite king
back in humiliation would simply add to God’s revenge. Therefore, his interpretation of
the truth would please God.
In this story, Saul set the example for the
people to follow. He showed how it
was right to question the God.
The people then followed his example. If King Agag had value, then so did the fattest sheep,
oxen, lambs, and other goodly incidentals. What was good and bad had become subjective.
Like Saul, most Christians don’t go out
intending to dismiss God’s word.
Most hold it in great reverence.
However, the infection of post-modern ideology has caused them to believe
that it is right, even expected, to question and reinterpret God’s Word. Post-modernism teaches that
universal truth has given way to personal interpretation and fulfillment. Therefore, truth is never black and
white but gray and obscure.
But there is more to this story. Since there is no universal truth, according
to post-modernism, self-fulfillment must take precedence. Saul saw more value in King
Agag than his merely being the target of God’s revenge. Agag was also a trophy. He represented the triumph of
Saul’s victory. It was a way for
him to return home and say, “See what great deeds I have done!” Saul could rationalize his
behavior because it was traditional for the conqueror to bring back the
conquered king in chains and humiliation. In absence of an absolute truth, even personal
trophies had priority.
We find this same behavior today. Lacking absolutes, many Christian
leaders use the leaders and celebrities of this world as their role
models. These role models
have caused many Christian leaders to go astray, misconstruing popularity for
godliness. The role models for
this world are well-educated, successful, charismatic, and articulate. They are businessmen first. Consequently, lacking absolutes, many
Christian leaders have learned to act as CEOs of corporations first rather than
as God’s leaders.
13 And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of
the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD.
14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in
mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
15 And Saul said, They have
brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the
sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest
we have utterly destroyed.
This is the greatest delusion facing Christian
leaders today: the idea that disobedience can be construed as service and
sacrifice to God. How so? Consider a few examples:
1)
Lacking absolutes many Christian leaders have chosen to adapt the
practice of capitalism believing it to be their personal service to God.
One pastor recently told me how that at a
recent conference a prominent Christian speaker said that all small churches
(those under 150 members) should shut their doors and send their people to the
large churches. What he was saying
was essentially that smaller churches cannot provide the spiritual benefits of
large churches. What this exposes
is the idea that church size and wealth equates to spirituality, or, as Paul
wrote, “gain is godliness.” This also demonstrates that many Christian leaders do
not believe that Jesus is enough for the people of God. Therefore, the idea that “where two or three are
gathered in my name” is no longer sufficient.
The invasion of this ideology has caused
Christian leaders to believe that it is all right to campaign against other
churches in the community if it will lead to an increase in their own
membership. They even go so far as
to describe their stolen increase as “God’s blessing.” Because truth is subjective, Christian
leaders can justify building artificial walls between their church and other
churches, and demonize those people who dare to leave their congregation. This type of Christian leader
sees nothing wrong with turning evangelism into a marketing campaign. Almost anything goes if it will
increase attendance. Be not
deceived. Employing marketing to
sell your church is just that: selling your church.
2)
Many Christian leaders have come to believe that building their
church is enlarging the kingdom of God.
It is hard to explain how that a $150,000
sound and multi-media system is enlarging God’s kingdom. Or that spending $10 million on a
church or $200,000 on a parking lot is done in the service of His kingdom. I spent time in Haiti, where I saw five
thousand Christians meet and worship God in a simply constructed but fully
functional building that costs only a thousandth of its US counterparts. But post-modern ideology allows Western
churches to believe it is God’s will to channel finances from our “fat”
economies into elaborate and plush buildings that appeal to all our senses and
satisfies our comforts. Like Saul
and King Agag, these leaders believe that the creation of their edifices is
somehow their “sacrifice unto the LORD.” Their unbiblical rationalized conclusion is that if it
gets them more members, then it must be the will of God.
The sad commentary for each of these monuments
to their ministries is that surrounding each church and its property, as well
as the Christians who come and go from that property, are the poor, needy, and
homeless of their communities.
3)
Pretense has replaced practice.
A few weeks ago I heard from a brother who
claims that in 3rd and 4th world nations as many as six
million people are coming to the overseas crusades of prominent Christian
apostles and prophets. I believe
such claims to be greatly exaggerated.
Why?
I have no doubt that God is moving in these
nations in a way that we have not seen in the West for close to a century. But for ministries to go to these
nations pretending to part of this movement and exploit these people is
unconscionable. Why do I say
“exploit?” Because they are
passing off this move of God’s Spirit as if it is happening because of
them. If these ministries
are really used of the Lord, then why are they ineffectual in their own
communities, cities, and nations where their headquarters are located? Why is it that they are only
effective when traveling to a nation that is already experiencing a move of the
Holy Spirit?
If great crusades are really taking place by
these prominent prophets, why spend the millions financing missionaries when a
few prophets can evangelize that whole nation in a single night? What is especially disgusting is that
their pretense only serves to cause people to believe that their money will go
further by financing these fat ministries, so they redirect their finances away
from true missionaries.
17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight,
wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee
king over Israel?
Many Christian leaders identify with their
work. They find their
significance in it. Is this
wrong? Yes. Just look at Saul’s
example. We must not allow the
values of this world to influence us.
We must find our value in our relationship with God, not in our work for
Him. Don’t measure yourself
by what you have accomplished or by the size of your ministry. Your church is not a trophy, and humility
is the only cure for this cultural infestation of the church.
18 And the LORD sent thee on a
journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight
against them until they be consumed.
19 Wherefore then didst
thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil,
and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
But Saul did destroy the “Amalekites.” Is it possible that in destroying this nation Saul did not
obey God? Yes!
Here we find another cleverly disguised
delusion. I continue to hear from
Christian leaders who say that they “know that there is a lot wrong with
Christian leaders, but they are doing a lot of good,” and that I “should focus
on the good they are doing instead of the bad.” This is similar to Saul’s opinion of what he had done. He did destroy the Amalekites, and
therefore he had technically obeyed God.
The good that he did should outweigh the bad, right? Why couldn’t God accept his
sacrifice? Simply because God will
not overlook sin. Not in the king
of Israel and not in His Christian leaders.
Here we find Samuel focusing on the bad Saul
had done. He didn’t say that he
understood that Saul had done a lot of good. Saul sinned, and God would not overlook it.
Christian writers must stop being
“enablers.” By this I mean that
they should stop acting like an abused wife who makes excuses for the actions
of her abusive husband, thereby “enabling” him to continue abusing her. There is far too much abuse of power
and privilege among the Christian leadership elite for people to remain
silent. And no amount of perceived
victories for the service of God will excuse it. There must be more people like Samuel who are willing to
risk being ostracized by their colleges to expose it.
The idea that Christian leaders are doing
mostly good is rationalization once again and points to the fact that they have
been infected by post-modernism.
It also allows them to continue in their pernicious ways and
consequently nothing will change.
20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea,
I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD
sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed
the Amalekites.
21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of
the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD
thy God in Gilgal.
Many Christian leaders are deceived by a form
of circular logic. They recognize
that people are contributing less and less to ministries, so they rationalize
that they need larger and larger pools of people to offset the lack of
contributions. To get more people,
they create buildings and programs that will draw people, but these buildings
and programs continue to cost more and more, creating the need for even greater
numbers. So it goes on and
on with Christian leaders ever building and needing more and more.
It is this need for more that has lead many
Christian leaders to look to post-modern thinking for help. Many of these leaders use fleshly tactics
to exploit the greed and fear of their audience. “If you give (to me),” they insist, “God will bless
you.” Here we find the win the lottery syndrome. If that doesn’t work, then they resort
to fear. “If you don’t give (to
me),” they warn, “God will be angry with you.” Greed and fear are used hand in hand to bribe/force God’s
people to give to them.
Why don’t these leaders consider the reasons why people aren’t
giving? People are far more
perceptive than these leaders think.
Christians today are highly educated and worldly wise. They see where their hard-earned money
is going, and they don’t like it.
They know that their money is being spent on superficial amenities and
on staff members who are often living better than they. Why should they contribute? Before you go accusing others of
“stealing from the Lord” if they don’t “bring their tithes” to your church,
perhaps you had better reconsider how you spend “His” money. Who is the real thief?
What if Christian leaders would tear down the
edifices of their ministries and focus on the true work of the Lord? What if their buildings simply met the
needs and everything else was used to help those in need? Cannot Christian leaders take a
lesson from Katrina and the Twin Towers?
When people saw that their contributions could actually account for
something, support poured in by the hundreds of millions of dollars. People want to give. They just don’t want their money to be
wasted. The fact that
contributions are way down should
be a wake-up call.
Like Saul, many Christian leaders blame the
people. “If I don’t give them what
they want, then no one would come.” This demonstrates what is really important
– their ministries (as opposed to God). This also represents the lack of absolutes and shows
how deeply given over to post-modernism they really are.
22 And Samuel said, Hath
the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying
the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken
than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the
sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee
from being king.
I find it interesting that Samuel referred to
Saul’s expression of service to God as rebellion, and he compared Saul’s
rationalization to witchcraft.
Samuel also called it idolatry when Saul was unwilling to accept the
truth or be corrected. Christian
leader, be not deceived: the ideology of this age that has led you into
rationalizing your behavior is witchcraft. It is NOT harmless. Each time you rationalize your behavior, you are
essentially spinning another spell and calling it the work of the Lord. And each time you ignore a warning like
this (by your stubbornness), you are essentially practicing idolatry – putting
yourself above God.
Revelation 2:1-5 KJV
1 Unto the angel of the church
of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his
right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
2 I know thy works, and thy
labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and
thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found
them liars:
3 And hast borne, and hast
patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
5 Remember therefore from
whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come
unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except
thou repent.
Once again, we do NOT find the Lord saying
that they are doing a lot of good things or that they are mostly good. Nor do we find Him going easy on them
because of all the good they were doing.
Quite the contrary. Here we
find the Lord exposing sin. The
Lord warns them that unless they repent they would be gone.
Here we find an interesting paradox. Consider these things: “and thy labour, and thy
patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried
them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and
for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.” Are they not important? How many of you know churches that can
even make this type of claim? Yet for all the good they were doing, they had
still missed the important part, the part that Mary found.
Luke 10:41-42 KJV
41 And Jesus answered and said
unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
42 But one thing is needful:
and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Christian leaders are taught to labor for the Lord rather
than doing the labor of
the Lord. In other words,
they decide what they want to do for the Lord and expect Him to go along with
it rather than seeing what the Lord is doing and working with Him. They arrive with the notion that in
order to be used of the Lord, they must start or take over a church, build
attendance, advance their theological education, perhaps write a book, go on
the radio, hold crusades, and then build bigger and bigger churches. And they believe that equates to
success. That was essentially what
the church at Ephesus was doing, but it is merely working for the Lord. It is not doing His work.
But once again, we find cultural
infestation. Our culture measures
worth and effectiveness by what someone produces. Too many Christians, including those who are leaders, have
bought into it and are focused on the work they are doing for the Lord rather
than doing the work they see the Lord doing.
Post-modernism
gets it credibility by claiming to be the result of the failure of modernism,
but that is just an illusion. In
actuality, it is just Satan’s distortion of truth by another name.
To escape the ideology of post-modernism, we
must stop rationalizing
our behavior. We must stop looking to the example of men
as the standard of the truth. We
must stop excusing
sin, thus enabling it to continue.
We must stop
exaggerating our effectiveness and trying to justify our actions
just because they are in line with what others are doing. We must stop working for the Lord and begin to
do the work of the Lord. I know
this will be difficult, but wouldn’t you like to see our Western nations
embrace the Lord once again? If
so, then it must start with us.
Amen.
kmsrjs@triton.net (use the same address for MSN Messenger)
·
You have my permission post this article, publish
and reprint it, and to forward it to others and to your groups.
·
More messages can be found at: http://members.triton.net/kmsrjs/thoughts.htm
·
To unsubscribe simply email me with the word
‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ in the subject.
·
To subscribe email me with the word ‘SUBSCRIBE’ in
the subject. You may also send me
your email list to add to my subscription.