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I have a beautiful wife, an infant son & a schnauzer. viva la tex-mex. Words that describe or excite: Missional, Glocal, Lead, Innovate, Initiate, Create, Risk, Community

Monday, January 29, 2007

Escape from the Christian Ghetto!

Please, wake up! Wake up right now! God outside and tell me if you see Christian trees and Christian birds and Christian sky. Is you neighbor across the street using a Christian lawnmower and trimming up his lawn with a Wheat and Tares Weed Whacker

Stop being apart of the ghetto-ization of Christianity. Be in the world but not of it. Instead of creating your own insilation from the world. Most Christians I know are not in or of. They are out of the world and of the ghetto. We must stop building the Christian subculture that allows us to be insulated from pre-Christians, inocculated from relationships with pre-Christians and indoctirnated with Neo-gnostic dualism.

Youtube knock-off:
Godtube.com

Myspace knock-offs:
yourchristianspace.com
shoutlife.com
xianz
hisholyspace

On the one hand I may understand a parents desire to have a "safe alternative" to some internet communities. But ultimately does this work. My guess is not really. It serves to either insulate believers from the culture or entice them away from Christianity altogether. When insulation occurs they may have complete fidelity to the gospel they have no way of communicating the gospel to a world they are utterly disconnected from. On the otherhand legalsim often serves to woek in reverse and entice people towards the "foribidden fruit." Either way we fail and potency of the Gospel is circumvented because Christians either can't relate to the gospel to the culture they are disconnected from or they become so enticed by the lure of the culture that they fail to learn discernment and how to think critically about the culture.

Create art and entertainment for the world, not just for shallow, sheltered consumer Christians.
The Gifted (a Christianization of American Idol)

John chapter 17 gives guidelines for being in the world but not of it. Christians are not "of the world" any more than Christ is. That does not mean that we stand in opposition to the people of the world or that we need God to protect us from the world as if the world itself is evil. Yes, creation itself is fallen but needs, in fact AWAITS, redemption/renewal through Christ. But John 17:15 says we need God to protect us from Satan himself. He has caused humanity and all that God created to fall into a corruptible state. That does not mean that everything is beyond redemption. Just as people are redeemable so is the culture. God created culture and though it is marred by the stain of sin entiring the world, all is not lost.

Seek redemption in all of life. Seek to reconcile all things back to God. He created us for His pleasure but I dare say He created everything for His pleasure rather than ours. Create art, create culture. Don't create a Christian subculture that allows others to compartmentalize God and push Christians into a ghetto of our own making where they can ignore you and dismiss you as irrelevant.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great thoughts. I agree completely, despite the fact that others might think I'm building a Christian ghetto as well.

In fact I wrote about it here

Peace,
joe

Anonymous said...

Wow are you serious that you believe that these sites should be destroyed with a "christian computer virus"?

I guess you could call that Christian terrorism?

Have you had any takers on your idea for the virus?

The Missional Position said...

Joe thanks for the comment. And I did know of mychurch.org before my post. And I did not consider it as apart of my blog because it IS different. Your sight is not to form a seperate community from the 'secular world' but rather a marketing and networking tool for churches that may not be able to afford a website and a developed web presence with such things as sermon posting and iformation dissemination.

The Missional Position said...

Mike,

Seriously, I guess sarcasm does not always come across well in type.

My point was merely hyperbolic! I don't ever wish physical, financial, emotional, or any other kind of harm on anyone.

The way I worded it in my blog was:
'christian' virus. Making the point ultimately Christian is a noun not an adjective. I do not believe in creating a false dichotomy between 'Christian' and 'secular' entities (i.e. music, websites, art).

Most of the time the 'Christian' version of something is subpar and comes after Christian(s) view something as beyond redemption and copy said 'object' -music, art, magazine, t-shirt- instead of following the biblical call to bring everything back into the redemptive umbrella of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said the Kindgom of God is at hand. As ambassadors of Christ we are to work to bring reconcilation to all of creation, to all of humanity, not sequester ourselves in cacoons.

I believe Christians that create these types of 'alternate' worlds do not believe in the suffenciency of Scripture. They claim scripture is authoratitive but they do not see God and His word as more powerful than Satan and his schemes.

They may say they do but they do not live like. I believe His power is greater than the forces of darkness.

However, it is spiritual warfare. Spiritual entities are our enemy not people, not culture. Satan may corrupt culture but God has the power to redeem it. For Christians to abandon it irresponsible, selfish, and ultimately costly in its effects of all of humanity.

Since our battle is not against flesh and blood but Satan, principalites of darkness, and demonic schemes I do not promote violence or 'christian' terrorism against anyone. It was merely sarcasm. Maybe ill advised sarcasm, but sarcasm none the less.

Anonymous said...

Legal action can be taken against you for opening suggest people HACK a website.

Just FYI....

Derrick Logan said...

Thank you for talking about this. I love the ghetto analogy. Maybe we could start a Christian School of Hacking... our motto might be... "Tearing down the walls we built" or "Yes, we're Christians. No, we're not morons." Just some late-night ideas.

A bit of advice (from someone you nothing about)... Don't oblige your critics with response. Friction and resistance is a positive thing.

I'm glad I found your blog. I look forward to more discussions.

Anonymous said...

It seems that the World Wide Web is a good place for even these "knockoffs" to be located.

I think your language of "ghetto" implies that christian culture is inferior to that of the world. Do you really believe that the culture of the world is superior to that of the kingdom? throughout christian history we have used the tools and technology of the world for Gospel advancement?

Perhaps these knockoffs provide an escape from the "ghetto" of the world?

I am glad that you removed your language regarding a christian virus to take down these sites.
(See my your response to my first post.)

Anonymous said...

Interesting discussion... check out this article that I read from Matlock in a recent Journal publication from YS:

http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/topics/culture/sanitize_or_avoid.pdf