Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Culture Wars

The Face of Christianity

by Jimmy Hopper

I have always (since I became a Christian) been jealous of the name of Christ and concerned when His Church is put , or puts itself, in a bad light before the world. I recently posted about this, particularly the use of the term “evangelical”, to describe Christianinty and the attempt to correct this with the recent Evangelical Manifesto (read the post here).

On Saturday, I opened the newspaper with my coffee, as usual, and got out the weekly religion page first, as usual. And, as usual, it was more of the same, but Saturday it was much, much more. The lead article headline was “Miracle Worker?” and described one Todd Bentley, a current “healer” phenom operating out of Lakeland, Florida. Her is in his third month of a tent “revival” and hundreds of thousands have attended. Mary Ann Johnson reports that he is quite the celebrity in churches in London. His act is so outrageous, even violent (he once kicked an elderly woman in the face to “heal” her) that even the Pentecostals are complaining. Two statements I noted that they spoke out against in the article were “miracles are poppin’ like popcorn tonight,” and “Someone’s getting a new spinal cord tonight.” The Pentecostal leaders stated that this “cheapened” the work of the Holy Spirit. That in itself is some statement when you consider the source. Of course, none of the “healings” could be verified through medical evidence by the Associated Press reporter doing the article. Yet Bentley continues, and is, to the outside world, a face of Chirstianity.

Directly below that piece was another episode of the agonizing and embarrassing Episcopal/Anglican soap opera. Bishops from around the world were in London for the church-wide Lambeth conference, an 18 day event. Bishops from around the world didn’t include the 200 conservative Anglican bishops who are boycotting the conference because of the consecration of Bishop Robinson, of New Hampshire, an openly gay man who lives with his lover and “leads” the church of Christ. Robinson has been barred from the conference by the Archbishop of Canterbury, “for the sake of unity,” but never fear; Bishop Katherine Schori of New York is there to stand up for him. In fact, Robinson himself is in London; he just doesn’t go to the meetings. Schori is introducing him to the other bishops after hours in a series of social events she has arranged. Schori believes that Robinson’s situation is covered by her belief that “committed same sex relationships are permitted under the Bible’s social justice teachings.” This is obviously a text I’ve never seen since the same situation with opposite sex relationships was dealt with by the phrase, “Go and sin no more.” This side-show also is the face of Christianity to the world.

There are others on those 6 pages of the religion section but these two are sufficient to the purpose. Christians will continue to be embarrassed by these degradations of the faith. The Riverwood Book Group has just finished reading D. G. Hart’s excellant study, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism ; a book that examines the roots of the pietist tradition of the protestant churches, beginning with the revivalist movement of “The Great Awakening” and continuing up until the present day with the Todd Bentleys of the Evangelical branch and the Robinsons and Schoris of the liberal branch of the pietist tradition. It’s a fascinating story and while it doesn’t cite a cure for the problem, it at least gives Confessional Christians some understanding of it and encouragement as they continue to hold to the faith and to worship the God of the scriptures.