Friday, July 08, 2005
Death of the Church
Sounds really negative, but actually isn't. It's the provocative title of an exceptional book that I just read by Mark Regele.
The subtitle of Death of the Church is: "The Church has a choice: to die as a result of its resistance to change or to die in order to live." Regele is not anti-Christian, but points out how the institutional church is dying in North America. He provides valuable historical, sociological and theological analysis to demonstrate this fact, and challenges the church to find a new role in society.
The analysis is brilliant and is a must read for church leaders. The only weaknesses in the book are that it is 10 years old, and is limited on mapping out new directions (although a basic framework is provided).
For the purposes of this blog, it is noteworthy that Regele does address the confusion of Gospel and Religion. He admits that "we shape the Gospel around our own culture. This is not necessarily wrong." The problem, however, is that this "becomes dangerous when two things occur. First, we forget that we have done it. And second, we believe that our rendition of the story, with all of the traditional and cultural trappings we have added, is the Gospel. When this happens, we have turned the Gospel into our own religion." (p. 209)
The subtitle of Death of the Church is: "The Church has a choice: to die as a result of its resistance to change or to die in order to live." Regele is not anti-Christian, but points out how the institutional church is dying in North America. He provides valuable historical, sociological and theological analysis to demonstrate this fact, and challenges the church to find a new role in society.
The analysis is brilliant and is a must read for church leaders. The only weaknesses in the book are that it is 10 years old, and is limited on mapping out new directions (although a basic framework is provided).
For the purposes of this blog, it is noteworthy that Regele does address the confusion of Gospel and Religion. He admits that "we shape the Gospel around our own culture. This is not necessarily wrong." The problem, however, is that this "becomes dangerous when two things occur. First, we forget that we have done it. And second, we believe that our rendition of the story, with all of the traditional and cultural trappings we have added, is the Gospel. When this happens, we have turned the Gospel into our own religion." (p. 209)
