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Concerned About Theology  

I am concerned about the theology being taught in today's evangelical churches.
(If you are yawning, you may be part of the problem).

Notice I am not complaining about our poorly attended prayer meeting services.  I am not expressing concern about worship music that glorifies the musicians, or outreaches that never mention the gospel. I am not attacking our youth groups that are increasingly as much about pizza as they are biblical truth.  Nor am I bemoaning the death of the Sunday evening service.

No, I am concerned about the theology being taught in today's evangelical churches.

Exhibit One
A well respected church pastor in our community did a message series that went for several months....with almost no Scripture content, week after week.  I know, because I was there.

Exhibit Two
Another evangelical church (with a grand reputation for biblical foundations) allowed a worship leader to stand in the pulpit and disagree with the guest preacher's truly biblical sermon on sexuality.  Worse yet—the leadership of the church has refused to post the message on their website. 

Exhibit Three
A friend attended a spiritual retreat recently where the leader announced that though she didn't have a Bible verse to support her claim, she believes that after a person dies, God will still welcome him or her with open arms—and offer them one more chance to believe.  So much for Hebrews 9:27- “It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment.” 

Increasingly, 1 Peter 4:17 stands out as it reminds us judgement must indeed, “begin with the household of God.”

And we haven't even touched on Christian books.  Like a devotional I've seen that doesn't even mention God until more than 30 pages into the book.  Or a major publisher's biography of a Christian missionary that never ever mentions a thing about conversions. 

I have not gone out of my way to find these troubling experiences.  But they are here.  They are not good.  They are, I fear, the tip of the ice berg.

 

 
A Hero Remembered--Wally Volkman  

Their mission was over.   The plane, racing away after bombing oil refineries in Blech hammer, Germany, had just one final obstacle to clear—a lone flak gun in Hungary.

It was not to be.

When a piece of shrapnel severed a critical fuel line, Wally Volkman remembered hoping the plane could make it to the Yugoslavian border.  The captain finally gave the order to bail and Wally jolted out the door of the bomber at 20,000 feet. 

When his parachute failed to open Wally began to panic.  “Time goes slower than you’d think,” he told me.  “I remember pondering how I would soon be in heaven, that I would never get to marry my sweetheart, June.”   At about 1000 feet--at the very last possible moment--the chute finally opened, gently landing Wally between two trees.

The dramatic dive may have sacred him half to death, but it likely also prevented his death.   The Copilot who jumped out just after Wally was fatally shot out of the sky as his parachute—an easy target—floated downward.

Pondering his options, Wally hid himself in a mound of roadside brush until a friendly partisan discovered him that night, offering to secretly transport him in a wooden wagon piled high with hay.  He was reunited with his surviving crew members—after enduring a pitchfork search of the hay wagon by German soldiers. 

For six weeks, Wally and his crew worked their way through Yugoslavia, traveling 300 miles on foot—mostly at night. Finally, they met up with Allied forces at the Adriatic Sea.

Wally reflects, “I’m thankful to my mother who prayed for me all the time. The ironic thing was, at the same thing, my brother—a paratrooper—went missing at the Battle of the Bulge.  He, too, survived and went on to become a minister.”

In the years since I interviewed Wally, he has passed away.  But I'm convinced there's a lot more to his story.  And because this World War 2 vet loved Jesus even more than he loved his country, I'm looking forward to getting all the details when time shall be no more.

Until then, here is my salute to First Lieutenant Wally Volkman—an America Hero.

 
Dying--The Art of Reading  

People who read are a dying breed.  

Fact is, if you read much of anything, you are in a distinct minority in America....just because you read.
 
One in four Americans didn't read even one book last year.  More than 50% of today's teens never read for pleasure.
 
According to a 2012 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, the number of Americans reading fiction has fallen to 44%--down from 50% only four years ago. Just a decade ago, about a third of us were “light readers” (between one and five books a year).  That number shrank to 23% by 2012.  More disturbing yet, the Pew Research Center suggests nearly 25% of Americans didn't read any books last year (whether print, digital or audio), a number that has tripled since 1978.
 
The two largest circulating magazines in the United States are AARP--The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. The number three slot, formerly occupied by Better Homes and Gardens, now belongs to Game Informer—the fastest growing magazine in America.  Ironically, it is a magazine that encourages readers to stop reading and play video games!
 
What does all this mean to followers of Christ?
After all, we have a message we want to get out there.
 
First, there is no need to panic.
But there IS a need to change. Evolve.  Strategize.
 
In Isaiah 55:11, God promises, “My Word will not return to me void.”
 
Digital platforms...mobile delivery...YouTube...and yes—traditional paper and ink books--are ALL going to be needed. Because that's where people are going...and that's where God's Word needs to be.
 
Thankfully, the destiny-changing gospel message is equally true whether conveyed in a papyrus, paperback, pdf, podcast...or erson!

 
Praying to the Real God  

Have you met my crazy friend, Jack?  Rides in lots of taxis.  Has a passion for witnessing to Muslims.  He told me about his latest encounter.
 
Jack was in downtown Chicago last week and hopped into a cab driven by a Somalian named Ahmed.  At first the conversation was lighthearted.  Ahmed (not his real name) asked Jack if he had traveled to Africa, which Jack has done, and this seemed to impress Ahmed. 
 
The two of them talked about the current instability in Somalia and Ahmed offered his “hope” that someday Somalia would get turned around.  Naturally, Jack seconded that wish, picking up on Ahmed's use of the word, hope.  Jack smiled and said, “I know the God of hope.”
 
Ahmed was intrigued.  “Do you mean Nelson Mandela?  He was a man of hope.”
 
“No.  I mean Jesus Christ.”
 
“Oh, so you are a Christian.”
 
“I am a follower of Christ. Because of that I know for sure I am going to heaven.  Some people only hope they are.”
 
“I only hope,” admitted Ahmed. “I am Muslim.”
 
Yet Ahmed was quick to suggest to Jack that Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.”  Jack wasn't buying: “I don't think so.  My God has a Son, Jesus Christ, who claimed to be equal with God—claimed He was God.  That's why he was killed on the cross.”
 
“But we believe in the same God,” insisted Ahmed.  More dialogue as the cab wove its way down LaSalle Boulevard. 
 
All too soon the ride came to an end.  That's when Jack offered to pray for Ahmed, who had one last question: “Are you going to pray to the real God?”
 
Jack assured him that he would.  They prayed, with Jack ending his prayer (mostly a blessing on Ahmed's taxi business) asking that “Ahmed would come to know Isa (Jesus) as He revealed Himself in the Scriptures.”   With that, Jack tipped the driver generously and stepped out into the noise that is Chicago.

 

 
Taking Down Towers  

For the past week, I've held the equivalent of skybox tickets for a demolition project one block away.  Better than a Nik Wallenda tightrope walk, these high-act daredevils are disassembling a water tower said to be a century old.
 
 The tricky part is the water tower juts up into a dense residential neighborhood.  Trickier yet, the thing is more than one hundred feet tall, so you can't just stick an explosive at the base of the tower and let it crumble.

 
 The demolition crew is using two massive telescoping cranes, the largest of their type I've ever seen. One photo I snapped shows a red cloud of century old dust wafting into the wind as one of the wooden planks is yanked out   Another shot, from the ground looking up, shows the frightening height at which these workers are wielding hammers, welding torches and crowbars—with no apparent safety rope.
 
 Some observations about this feat of destructive daring.  First, removing the tower has taken courage.  At one point, the workers stood on ancient metal joists—no walls, no net.
 
 Second, removing the tower has taken time. They've been at it for more than a week.
 
 Third, removing the tower has taken skilled workers—otherwise they'd be dead.
 
 Watching this aerial act outside my office window, I’m reminded the water tower performed a vital function at one time.  We needed what it had to offer. But for decades, it's merely been occupying space—and over time, grown ugly.
 
 I suppose we've all got defunct water towers like that in our lives: old habits, old hobbies, old philosophies.  Maybe it's time they were taken down.  But don't underestimate the task.
 
 The same Jesus who counseled those who would build a tower to “first sit down and calculate the cost” would no doubt be realistic enough to remind us that taking down a tower has a price tag of its own.

 
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Jon GaugerJon Gauger

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