“As sin has gone out of vogue and evil has remained a legitimate category, though limited, religion has gone out of vogue while spirituality remains a valid pursuit.”
Zacharias, Ravi (2012-01-25). Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality . Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition.
I love Ravi Zacharias. I believe he is one of the strongest apologists for real Christianity we have today. He’s so smart that he is often difficult to follow. I have been trying to digest his “Why Jesus” for a few weeks. It’s not the kind of work you can ingest in one sitting, but it is full of truth. Here’s my take on the background:
I “came of age” in the sixties when “Jesus Freaks” were in. They were basically hippie types who were so anti-establishment that they couldn’t deal with the straight laced church of the 60s. Church people supported the war in Vietnam. They couldn’t go with that. The church people also rejected the “free love” mantra of the hippie culture. The Jesus Freaks knew that Jesus talked about love and they figured He would probably be cool if it were free. While most of us weren’t total freaks, we were greatly influenced by their thinking. Especially when the war was lost, and many of the Jesus freaks became just immoral freaks.
Most of us grew out of that philosophy, but as we grew up and started raising families our suspicion of the “Church” did not go away. The Charismatic movement of the days of my young marriage life, in part, tried to put life and more meaning into churches that seemed dry and uninspiring to the growing up children of the 60s.
When the main stream churches didn’t totally accept the Charismatics many “boldly” left. Today’s fasting growing churches in America are nondenominational or, at least, recognize the importance of the Holy Spirit in a spiritual life. But churches disconnected from long standing doctrines and spiritual oversight can drift into error and many have. Today the rebel churches of our younger days seem old establishment to our grand children.
We’ve past along these rebellious notions to our children and now their children. But these new generations are not so tied by guilt or history to church. Just as we believed we could separate Jesus from “the church.” They have gone a step farther and wonder if Jesus is really a necessary part of spirituality.
As we pulled away from organized denominational religion, it was a logical step to believe that we could determine for ourselves what is right and wrong. If that’s God’s job, we decided that maybe we could be job and maybe we were God.
Just as we thought that denominational religion was old fashioned and something for our parents; many of our kids and grand kids have decided that Jesus is old fashioned and something that was okay for us, but just one of several options for them.
To say “Jesus is THE way, THE truth” seems horribly out-of-date to twenty somethings.
What can we do to help those we love to rediscover the truth of Jesus? It’s not something that’s optional. If we can’t figure it out, we will leave the world we came into in a “post-Christian” state. It’s not enough to take solace in the fact that this great falling away is prophesied and just means Jesus’ return is near. We have to fight to make sure our loved ones are not swept up in the wave of “new spirituality” which means spirituality without Jesus.
We have a lot to pray about, think about and do.
Be blessed.
Nick
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