TITLE: Sent to the Bench- The Marginalization of Christianity

TEXT: Matthew 16:18; Philippians 2

THEME: God uses believers to be ambassadors for his kingdom in our secular world.

Garry Wills

"Can a nation which believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in

evolution still be called an enlightened nation?”

Reginald Bibby

“To view religion across Canada these days is like viewing devastation after some tragedy has hit. It’s as if a secularization fire has devastated much of what through the early years was a flourishing forest…Around 1950s, national service attendance, led by Quebec and the Atlantic region, was actually higher than that of the United States…. Now, some 60 years later, that secularization has destroyed much of religions presence and influence.”

Lyle Schaller

“The mainlines have become the sidelines.”

Loren Mead

• The Apostolic Paradigm.

Loren Mead

• The Apostolic Paradigm. • The Christendom Paradigm.

Loren Mead

• The Apostolic Paradigm. • The Christendom Paradigm. • The Ambiguous Paradigm.

I. The Premise: We must eliminate, marginalize or modify Christianity for

mankind to advance.

I. The Premise: We must eliminate, marginalize or modify Christianity for

mankind to advance.

A. Religion, especially Christianity, has been the cause of great evil throughout history.

CS. Lewis

“We are like a beggar trying to tell another beggar where we found food.”

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“We are a bunch of messed up sinners who have found God’s free gift of grace and rely on it every day just to have any hope that God loves us. Only messed up people need apply.”

I. The Premise: We must eliminate, marginalize or modify Christianity for

mankind to advance.

A. Religion, especially Christianity, has been the cause of great evil throughout history.

B. Modern advancements have made Christianity and its values obsolete.

The Theory of Relativity

“The totality of physical phenomena is of such a character that it gives no basis for the introduction of the concept of absolute motion... there is no absolute motion.”

Paul Johnson, “Modern Times”

“At the beginning of the 1920’s the belief began to circulate that that this meant that there were no longer any absolutes of time and space, of good or evil, of knowledge, above all of value, Mistakenly but perhaps inevitably, relativity became confused with relativism. “

Albert Einstein, September 9, 1920

“Like the man in the fairy-tale who turned everything he touched into gold, so with me everything turns into a fuss in the newspapers.”

I. The Premise: We must eliminate, marginalize or modify Christianity for

mankind to advance.

A. Religion, especially Christianity, has been the cause of great evil throughout history.

B. Modern advancements have made Christianity and its values obsolete.

C. We cannot advance as a society unless Christianity is eliminated, marginalized or modified.

Sigmund Freud on religion

“the attempt to protect against suffering through a delusional remoulding of reality… The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind.” (The Future of an Illusion, pg. 28).

Lenin

“There can be nothing more abominable than religion.”

The purer the religion, the more dangerous.

“ A devoted cleric is far more influential than an egotistical and immoral one.”

Richard Dawkins

“Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the small pox virus but more difficult to eradicate… it seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”

Christopher Hitchens

“How can we ever know how many children have had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the inculcation of faith.”

Sam Harris

“I would be the first to admit that the prospects of eradicating religion in our time does not seem good. Still the same could have been said about the efforts to abolish slavery at the end of the nineteenth century.”

Berenstain Bears Nature Guide

“Nature is all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE.”

Johnathan Rauch

“the purpose of this indoctrination is to help reach a point that Christianity will not so much cease to exist as to cease to matter. I call it apatheism, “a disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about others people’s.”

II. The Problem:

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.–We have already seen that the rise of

evangelicalism was a surprise to the critics.

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.–We have already seen that the rise of

evangelicalism was a surprise to the critics.– Christianity is growing rapidly throughout the

world and shows no signs of slowing

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.–We have already seen that the rise of

evangelicalism was a surprise to the critics.– Christianity is growing rapidly throughout the

world and shows no signs of slowing– Even in the secular west Christianity is holding

its own.

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.

B. Secularism is a morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy.

Dean Kenyon

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.

B. Secularism is a morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy

C. Without Christianity we lose the moral foundations the best of secularism is built on.

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.

B. Secularism is a morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy

C. Without Christianity we lose the moral foundations the best of secularism is built on.

D. Secularism cannot deliver on its promises

II. The Problem:

A. Past predictions of the demise of Christianity have not happened.

B. Secularism is a morally and intellectually bankrupt philosophy

C. Without Christianity we lose the moral foundations the best of secularism is built on.

D. Secularism cannot deliver on its promises

E. Under the name of tolerance and open-mindedness secularism has become intolerant and closed minded.

W.A. Carson, “The Intolerance of Tolerance.”

“…this new contemporary intolerance is intrinsically intolerant. It is blind to its own short comings because it erroneously thinks it holds the moral high ground; it cannot be questioned because it has become part of the West’s plausibility structure. Worse, this new tolerance is socially dangerous and is certainly intellectually debilitating. (W.A. Carson, “The Intolerance of Tolerance” pg 2)

III. The Biblical Response: God uses believers to be ambassadors to advance

His purposes.

III. The Biblical Response: God uses believers to be ambassadors

to advance His purposes.

A. Jesus promises His church will prevail in the world. (Matt. 16:18)

Matthew 16:13-18

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 16:13-18

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

III. The Biblical Response: God uses believers to be ambassadors

to advance His purposes.

A. Jesus promises His church will prevail in the world. (Matt. 16:18)

B. Someday all will recognize Jesus as Lord: Philippians 2.

Philippians 2:5-11

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

Philippians 2:5-11

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

Philippians 2:5-11

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

When the door of heaven finally swings open for all to see; when eyes are

opened; when the last battle is won, and Christ has triumphed; when the church

has been brought to her Bridegroom, and the accounts have been settled;

then, from every corner of creation; from heaven’s courts and hell’s

dungeons; from 10,000 languages of men and angels; even from the creation itself which has groaned with waiting for his

appearing, will rise one unison declaration: Jesus Christ is Lord! And God the Father will shine and rejoice!

Garry Wills

"Can a nation which believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in

evolution still be called an enlightened nation?"

Garry Wills

"Can a nation which believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in

evolution still be called an enlightened nation?"

YES!

Remember our true citizenship is in heaven.