Everyday Christianity: A Faith Free From The Accidental Pharisaism of Missional, Radical, Crazy and Other Superlatives

Every day matters. This is the very simple message of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God and to live one’s life to the glory of God. You don’t need to be “missional.” You don’t even need to be “radical” (especially since radical commonly means “very different from the norm”). 

In fact, the Bible does not encourage superlative adjectives to describe following Christ at all. Adjectival superlatives tend to create new forms of legalism whereby the work and person of Christ is no longer sufficient to be in right relationship with God. The norm is not enough. Although those promoting various adjectives have no intention of doing harm, hearers often embrace the adjective as the basis of genuine faith instead of the language of Scripture.

Young Christian adults are torn in a sea of modern adjectives that tend to become shame-filled and often debilitating burdens. Larry Osborne warns about five tribal communities that may be accidentally doing harm: 

(1) “Radical” Christians, 

(2) “Crazy” Christians, 

(3) “Missional” Christians, 

(4) “Gospel-Centered” Christians and 

(5) Revolutionary and Organic Christians. According to Osborne, each of these tribes has inadvertently created accidental pharisaism because if one does not live out one’s Christian life according to the norms and codes of their respective tribe one will be looked down upon. Moreover, for those within each tribe, it leaves them vulnerable to the arrogant narcissism that believes “our” tribe gets Christianity “right” while the others are substandard.   Continue at Anthony Bradley

The New Legalism: Missional, Radical, Narcissistic, and Shamed

Anthony Bradley, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at The King’s College in New York City, has an excellent article today over at the Acton Institute’s Power blog. He starts with an observation he made recently on Facebook and Twitter:

Being a “radical,” “missional,” Christian is slowly becoming the “new legalism.” We need more ordinary God and people lovers (Matt 22:36-40).

He goes on to explain his comment:

I continue to amazed by the number of youth and youth adults who are stressed and burnt out from the regularly shaming and feelings of inadequacy if they happen to not being doing something unique and special. Today’s Millennial generation is being fed the message that if they don’t do something extraordinary in this life they are wasting their gifts and potential. The sad result is that many young adults feel ashamed if they “settle” into ordinary jobs, get married early and start families, live in small towns, or as 1 Thess 4:11 says, “aspire to live quietly, and to mind [their] affairs, and to work with [their] hands.” For too many Millennials their greatest fear in this life is being an ordinary person with a non-glamorous job, living in the suburbs, and having nothing spectacular to boast about.

Dr. Bradley goes on to explain two major factors in how this happened:   Continue at Rachel Miller

THE SOCIAL COSTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

Some Revealing Comments on Findings:

1. More people than ever before--children, adolescents, adults--are consuming pornography with powerful effects on them and on the entire society (p. 15).

2. Internet pornography elicits addictive behavior in some users, and this addiction can become compulsive despite its negative consequences on users' work and relationships. Such compulsive behavior regarding consumption of pornography was rare until the internet made instantaneous acquisition of pornographic images possible (p. 18). It has in fact affected the brain's neurology so that, as one scientist, N. Dodge, puts it, "men at their computers [addicted to] looking at porn are uncannily like the rats in the cages of NIH, pressing the bar to get a drop of dopamine or its equivalent" (p.19). Moreover, 80% of internet porn users are men, and these men, as Pamela Paul observes, "have trouble being turned on by 'real' women, and their sex lives... collapse...many admit they have trouble cutting down their use [of internet porn]...and find themselves seeking out harder and harder pornography" (p. 20). Most alarmingly is the evidence that many users admit moving from porn featuring adults to that featuring children (p. 21). Read it all HERE