Futility and Escape

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

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[theresearchpersona]

With the exception of Lutheranism (perhaps), Protestants ripped-out and tore-down all in their services that was supposed to be pretty, and whitewashed the walls, and made preaching of God's Word the center of their public worship; they disallowed any "worship" which was focused on music or the "worship leaders" (if we want to use modern terms), typically any song with musical instrumentation that put the focus on the instruments or "worship leaders", and decided that their music, singing, and worship, had to be (1) participatory and (2) undistracted, and focused on God, not idols, images, windows, stations, candles, etc..

The drama and performances etc. of what the Catholics and Orthodox call "protestant" shows that htey are anything but protestant; they're going against some of the very things protested by the "protestantes" in the Reformation.

[wastedyearsthere]

I grew up in the Chicago area.  I think it is amazing that a church in this area could grow from 50 people to be a mega church.  I know the Sunday service is aimed at unbelievers and not meant to be "meaty" but more a performance based.  Same with the music.  I've heard the other services during the week are for the committed believers.  

I love Willowcreek and love to visit there when we are in the area.  They have an amazing bookstore and campus.

[AgathaL'Orange]

Just like everything else in our culture... Willow Creek beckons to me, "Come... chill out... Religion is not the serious chore you make it!"

It does sound nice to NOT take everything so seriously sometimes... to NOT be so idealistic.  I'm not sure I'll ever get there.

Society beckons me to:

1.  Go ahead and use that credit card to buy this cute outfit and lovely toys for the kids.
2.  Go ahead and get a Nintendo DS, Wii, and Xbox for the kids... they should have what all the other kids have.
3.  Go ahead and ignore years of tradition and the early church fathers... they didn't know what modern society would bring.  Go to a church that has fun exercise classes, a huge play area for the kids, a coffee bar, a bookstore!
4.  Just get cable and let the kids have free access to whatever they want to watch... heck you know you love Lifetime Movie Network and USA!
5.  Send the kids to school and spend your days at the gym, in yoga, pursuing something fun and self actualizing.
6.  Forget tithing... they have tons of money.. you don't even have enough money to get contacts!  You need the money more than they do!
7.  Get a second car... that way you can go and do anything you want to.  You won't have to work out those trips to the store so much, and your husband won't "have" to ride his bike to work or take the bus!
8.  Don't wait until you are married... you KNOW that you're marrying that person anyway!
9.  Buy all that plastic and disposable stuff!  It saves time!
10.  What's so bad about McDonald's anyway???


Sometimes... that is what I think of when I think of FREEDOM.  But I can't seem to leave my idealistic self in the dust...  My idealism seems to rear it's (ugly?) head at every corner.  When does it become easy to follow your principles of simplicity, authenticity, historical integrity, moral integrity, and family?

So Willow Creek is the kind of church I've always seen in my future!!!  

You know... after I've quit trying to be principled and I've let all that go and I retire half the year in Arizona at a golf community with my convertible and my closet full of fun stuff... that's when I'll probably end up at a WillowCreek branch... when I've given up the idealism.

Gotta admit... it sounds fun.

[theresearchpersona]

Love the witty saracasm.

3.  Go ahead and ignore years of tradition and the early church fathers... they didn't know what modern society would bring.  Go to a church that has fun exercise classes, a huge play area for the kids, a coffee bar, a bookstore!

Just don't take them too seriously: one by one if you go through the guys we call fathers or patristics in detail they become uglier; this goes to show they're men, of course, but it also shows their backgrounds were very much foreign to scripture; it's one of the problems people have with orthodoxy: they take them waaay seriously vs. going to scripture: and the orthodox (officially not necessarily always in practice) even take tradition over scripture even with scripture: sure, we have Hebrew now...but we'll translate the translation (Septuagint). That's something that makes me sad.

The fathers also denied that the Apocrypha were inspired or deuterocannon, in agreement with the Jews, but here's where they had some very lucid thinking: because they had received the Apocrypha in the LXX, though they were explicit that these aren't scripture, they did regard them as "boundary stones" passed-down by their own fathers, and that thusly they decided they respected those books; now honestly, that thinking is a bit odd, as why regard texts that aren't scripture? They later declared that text that wasn't scripture would not be tolerated for reading in the churches. At any rate, here's one of the gems from one of those books, translation by John F. Hobbins:

"The one who builds his house
      with other people’s silver pieces
      gathers stones for his own burial mound."

(The reference is Ben Sira 21:8.)

6.  Forget tithing... they have tons of money.. you don't even have enough money to get contacts!  You need the money more than they do!

At the risk of saying something "unorthodox", at least regarding what is commonly held today, is it that we're supposed to tithe (10% as the OT), or give out of our generosity, as Paul was saying; in the NT it seems to say not "ten percent" but "something", whatever someone feels generous to give; it also says, however, the worker IS worthy of his hire, and that those who preach the gospel (and in these particular places that I'm referring to it's using "gospel" with synecdoche) may earn their living from it: a pastor should be engaged in the hard work in the word.

Speaking of tradition, one thing I'm glad about for Orthodoxy, though, is perhaps the number of manuscripts it has kept alive in various countries and through time: whether in a Church or in libraries. There was also a text-critical work commissioned by that church to collate and put into a critical apparatus either the Greek NT as their current manuscripts have it or the Greek OT (I forget which); the sad part was the guy who was responsible apparently left a lot to be desired among his profession's community, making some poor decisions even starting with the manuscript he used for the diplomatic edition ("diplomatic" means you have a base manuscript and then show the variants from it in the margins, where you also give the reasoning and evidence as to which variants are more likely truer). I personally can't give him too hard a time though.

[AgathaL'Orange]

That's funny!  I was being completely sincere... I am not kidding!  I wasn't trying to be sarcastic at all!  I really do envy people who can just "let go" of all the constricting idealism that seems to be my destiny!

I guess rereading my post it works better as sarcasm... as sincerity it probably just sounds weird.... but then I'm weird!!

A lot of times my posts sound sarcastic... mostly because I really am a naive simpleton!          :oops:  :oops:  :oops:

And I seem to LOVE exclamation points!!!

[AgathaL'Orange]

How did you come to study all that about Orthodoxy, TRP?

[theresearchpersona]

I thought you were being sarcastic about giving-up your idealism.

I don't know that I've really studied a ton about Orthodoxy itself as much as learning about early Church situations, and then paying attention to Orthodox teachings/positions on it: though like any group I'm sure a lot of it probably varies and that different people know/believe different things etc.; eventually I'd like to learn a lot more, however, since it is a large group, (which reminds me that I have an acquaintance that grew-up Eastern Orthodox).

Incidentally, something interesting: though most of the traditional Hebrew cannon (Massoretic Text) includes 150 Psalms (151 in some but indicating 151 as an extra; 149 in Leningradensis), and the major witnesses of the Roman Period (Sinaiticus, LXX) exclude 151 from them (they have it, but use a subscript to explicitly say it's 'outside the number'), there are 6 other psalms that are known in Manuscripts and which were considered well-enough edifying (or more?) at times that they were preserved, and even in some translations passed-down. I may dig-up one and post it some time: it's pretty interesting. : )

Sorry if I took your comments incorrectly!

[AgathaL'Orange]

Oh... no need to apologize!  I just think sometimes I am so naively sincere and kooky people think that I'm sarcastic.  No worries!

[theresearchpersona]

See the "Just for Fun" section.