Vanishing Grace
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Jeff Lampl
Jeff Lampl
Amazon
has this synopsis.
Yancey explores what may have contributed to hostility toward Evangelicals, especially in their mixing of faith and politics instead of embracing more grace-filled ways of presenting the gospel. He offers illuminating stories of how faith can be expressed in ways that disarm even the most cynical critics. Then he explores what is Good News and what is worth preserving in a culture that thinks it has rejected Christian faith.
Yancey explores what may have contributed to hostility toward Evangelicals, especially in their mixing of faith and politics instead of embracing more grace-filled ways of presenting the gospel. He offers illuminating stories of how faith can be expressed in ways that disarm even the most cynical critics. Then he explores what is Good News and what is worth preserving in a culture that thinks it has rejected Christian faith.
The
approach non-Christians take to Christian faith comes in a number of different
flavors – two of the more common can be referred to a pre-Christian or
post-Christian, an insight Yancey picked up from Daniel Hill:
“Pre-Christians”
seemed open and receptive when the topic of religion came up. They had no real
hostility and could imagine themselves connected with a church some day. In
contrast, “post-Christians” harbored bad feelings. Some carried memories of
past wounds . . . . Others had simply absorbed the media’s negative stereotype
of rabid fundamentalists and scandal-prone television evangelists. (p. 18)
Many
post Christians grew up in the church and had bad experiences, some just drifted
away, but many have simply absorbed the messages floating around them. A
not insignificant number have had bad interactions with Christians unrelated to
the church directly, or to their upbringing. Here is the real issue, and the one
we must wrestle with. The negative stereotype portrayed by the media
doesn’t tell the whole story, but it contains enough truth to be credible.
Should we fault people for believing it?
At
times Christians behaving badly seems the rule of the day. Yancey reflects on an
experience following a post on his Facebook page of quote from the late Andy
Rooney . . . . the quote raised the ire of many and a firestorm of comments
ensued, complete with flame-throwers. Some found it necessary to attack Rooney,
dismissing him as a lightweight thinker, others attacked Yancey himself for
posting the quote. Yancey writes:
Would
I want to eat dinner with the flame-throwers who posted comments on my site? I
replied – and here is a recurring theme of this book – that the issue is not
whether I agree with someone but rather how I treat someone with whom I
profoundly disagree. We Christians are called to use the “weapons of grace,”
which means treating even our opponents with love and respect. (p. 26)
Everyone
is human, and everyone has a story. We would be far better off listening to
their stories and treating them with respect. This can include vigorous debate
and disagreement – but should never lose sight of the fact that the other is
human as well. Yancey suggests a prayer, derived from Henri Nouwen,
“Let
me see them as thirsty people, and teach me how best to present the Living
Water.“
***Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/10/09/vanishing-grace-rjs/#ixzz3FxsIrFIW which is the post from which the above is excerpted.
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