tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569471912255632604.post4329827702000194808..comments2023-09-16T06:46:00.406-07:00Comments on Moral Decline: Christian Values Under AttackShattered Paradigmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15108535580841006211noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569471912255632604.post-13642811709480124632009-03-13T13:17:00.000-07:002009-03-13T13:17:00.000-07:00I suppose I should clarify what I mean by the chur...I suppose I should clarify what I mean by the church "asking the culture to come into it". I do not mean that we should not take part in our culture and be active in it. From what I've seen I don't know if you'll agree with me, but there is nothing inherently sinful about any kind of music or technology - the internet can be used for Christian blogs or it can be used for porn. Rock music can be a vehicle for cursing the name of God, or it can be used for singing his praises and changing culture. The problem is not with the types of music or technology we have, it's in taking those parts of our culture that are sinful - the effects of modernism, people-pleasing, denials of Scriptural truth, etc. - and then calling those orthodoxy and teaching them in our churches. Jesus himself came into our culture, adopted the language and customs of his time, and was involved in that culture and understood it well. Likewise, the reason we have four separate Gospels from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that they were writing to very different cultures, and so to impact the people in those cultures, they worked to understand and relate to those cultures in a way that they would understand, much like what Paul did and talked about - "I have become all things to all men." This doesn't mean that they adopted the sins of the culture; instead they took what was not at odds with what God commanded and used it to their advantage in the cultures they were embedded in.<BR/><BR/>Also, sorry about all my typos... I wasn't quite awake when I wrote that last comment. ;)John Nicelyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08868403558975438858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569471912255632604.post-33129286958084907112009-03-13T07:15:00.000-07:002009-03-13T07:15:00.000-07:00I agree with your overall point; however, your arg...I agree with your overall point; however, your argument makes no rational sense. The problem with it is that you are using an effect to argue for its cause, which only works if the effect can only possible be a result of the cause:<BR/><BR/>1. Excessive television watching in teens correlates with an increased chance of depression as adults.<BR/>2. Many adults today are depressed.<BR/>3. Therefore, adults today watched a lot of television when they were growing up.<BR/>4. Therefore they received most of their education about God from television.<BR/><BR/>...<BR/>5. But there are many other things that are correlated with a higher level of depression in adults.<BR/><BR/>Without discounting the effect of media and culture - I do think it has a significant effect on each and everyone of us that we cannot avoid - the bigger problem that excessive television watching points to is the near spiritual abandonment of children by their parents.<BR/><BR/>In large numbers, Christian parents have failed to give any significant biblical instruction to their children in any other way than dropping them off with someone else to let those people watch them and raise them (blatantly disobeying the command of Scripture in Deut 6:7 and Eph 4:6). Furthermore, Christian churches have neglected to each any solid doctrine or to do any corrective discipline with members, thus leaving the church open to attack on all fronts by wolves. I myself grew up in very warped churches, churches that I would not look to as an example of anything. Sure, they had a lot of people - and I'm not saying that a church with many members is a bad thing in and of itself - but they had neither of these two particular marks of the church.<BR/><BR/>However great the problem is, it was not a problem with culture infiltrating the church; rather, it was a matter of the church practically asking the culture to come into it. The fault and responsibility for picking up the pieces falls to every Christian church and every Christian parent; it is their responsibility to start doing what God requires.John Nicelyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08868403558975438858noreply@blogger.com