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89 pages

English

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Does the church use words that have lost their meaning? Are there Christian words and phrases that have lost their power to convict the human spirit and bring transformation to the world? One of the twentieth century's most renowned prophetic thinkers, A.W. Tozer, saw a dangerous trend gaining momentum even before his death--a trend that has become commonplace now in the twenty-first century. In this never-before-published book, Tozer sounds his alarm for the modern church: We must stop parroting words carelessly and instead allow the meaning that these words convey to empower, shape, and direct the work of the church. Yet Reclaiming Christianity is not just a warning; it is a spiritual guidebook for reconnecting to the deepest meaning of Christianity's sacred messages.

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Philosophie et théologie

Christian theology

Christianity

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 mai 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441267504
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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R ECLAIMING C HRISTIANITY

2009 James L. Snyder
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Bethany House Publishers edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-6750-4
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version . Authorized King James Version.
C ONTENTS

Introduction: A Prophet Looks at the Church
1. Christ Is Lord Over His Church
2. The Relevant Authority of the Word of God
3. This Thing Called Christendom
4. The Ominous Ecumenical Movement
5. The Daunting Spirit of the Pharisees
6. Beware of the Religious Word Game
7. The Nature of God’s Kingdom: Not in Words Only
8. The Characteristics of a Carnal Christian
9. The Remnant: An Alarming Doctrine
10. The Sacred Obligation of Judging
11. The Haunting Memory of Dead Words
12. Some Live Words for Today’s Church
13. God’s Way in His Church
14. The Ministry of the Night
15. How to Know When a Thing Is from God
I NTRODUCTION
A P ROPHET L OOKS AT THE C HURCH
The Church of Jesus Christ has had no greater lover or fiercer critic than Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963). During his lifetime, many regarded him as a prophet and listened to what he said or read what he wrote with a certain degree of anticipation. Some did not agree with him on everything, but they recognized that his voice was an authentic one, and that somewhere in his voice was the voice of God. When Tozer spoke, they knew that they would hear from someone who had heard from God. The hallmark of his ministry was his emphasis on what he felt was the decline of Christianity.
The Decline of Christianity
The heartbeat of Dr. Tozer’s ministry was to call the Church back to her roots. It was his belief that the Christian Church was losing ground in the world and that somebody needed to call people to return to authentic faith in Jesus Christ. Comparing contemporary Christianity with the Christianity of the Bible, he saw a clear departure from the authentic spirituality seen in Scripture.
Tozer’s criticism of the Church flowed from a heart that above all else loved the Head of the Church—Jesus Christ. You cannot listen to Tozer’s words or read any of his books without being impressed by his intense love and appreciation for the second person of the Trinity. Anything that in any way challenged the person or authority of Christ brought him to his feet. He measured everything in the Church by this one criterion: Does it exalt Jesus Christ?
As well, you cannot help but notice in Dr. Tozer’s sermons and writing that he had a tremendous love for the Body of Christ. He loved Christians of all shades and degrees of intensity. He loved Christians who were well read in theology as well as those who were simple believers in what they called “The Book.” He even admired those Christians he disagreed with on a number of issues. He never made doctrine a litmus test for fellowship but enjoyed a wide variety of fellowship among many denominations. In the course of a week, he might preach in a Lutheran church, a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, a Mennonite church or even a Pentecostal church. The name on the building did not mean very much to him as long as he found in it people that he called “The Fellowship of the Burning Heart.” And out of that great love for the Church came his criticism of it.
One time, he was scheduled to preach at what was termed a “holiness church.” It was some sort of a celebration or anniversary for the church, and prior to Dr. Tozer preaching, they had all kinds of frivolous activities, such as cutting each other’s ties and impromptu comedy bits. Tozer patiently sat waiting for his turn “at-bat,” as he later reflected. When he finally got to the pulpit, his first words were, “What has happened to you holiness people?” Scrapping his prepared sermon, he took that congregation to the “spiritual woodshed” like they had never been before.
Tozer believed that when believers gathered, they should cultivate the presence of Christ and honor the One who bore the shame and indignity of the cross for our sins. The Church was not a place to be silly or act crazy. These things were symptoms of the spiritual decline of the Church, and it concerned him greatly.
At times, Tozer’s criticism could be rather sharp. For example, he once criticized a modern Bible translation by saying, “Reading that translation gave me the same feeling as I would get by shaving with a banana.” When the translator heard the comment, he never quite forgave Tozer. Tozer was also extreme in his criticism of the religious movie and of churches that majored in “counting noses,” but his criticism never came out of a heart of malice or a desire to make a name for himself. His primary concern was exalting Christ and reverencing His presence among the assembled believers. Consequently, there were those occasions when some were offended by his sharp criticisms.
During the last decade of his ministry, Tozer felt a particular burden for radical reformation within the evangelical Church. He sometimes referred to the evangelical Church as being in “Babylonian Captivity,” and on many occasions he said he felt that the Church was giving in to the morals and values of the world around her. “We’re in desperate need of a restoration,” he often said.
Perhaps what concerned him the most was that the Church as he saw it was not the high, holy, Spirit-filled, fire-baptized, God-conscious, humble, gracious and loving fellowship that the Church fathers had known in previous generations. “Until we have a Reformation,” Tozer opined, “all of our books and our schools and our magazines are only the working of bacteria in the decaying Church.”
To be fair, it was not Christianity that was changing but Christian leaders within Christianity. They were too much in the ways of the world, he believed. They often adopted the patterns of the business world of Madison Avenue for ministry and held the example of those holy ones who had gone on before in disdain. Pop-psychology had become more important than the plain teaching of the Bible. Tradition had become a bad word, and woe be to the minister who was referred to as “traditional.” To Tozer, it seemed that Christianity was in the hands of those who wanted to be more like the world than like Christ.
On one occasion, Tozer had an opportunity to speak to a Youth for Christ leadership meeting, which also was being aired over the Moody radio network. He decided to take this opportunity to speak to the evangelical Church at large and, in his words, “nail his 13 thesis on the door of the evangelical Church.” In the sermon, he bared his heart concerning the Reformation that he believed needed to happen within the evangelical Church.
Among the things he said in that sermon was that the way of the cross was hard. This was an important consideration on his part, because he felt that many people were trying to make the Christian life out to be an easy thing when the Scriptures showed how difficult it was to follow Jesus Christ. A Christian without the cross was unthinkable in his mind, and he believed that too many leaders were offering a brand of Christianity that was cheap and easy and did not lay the heavy burden of cross bearing on the people. This certainly was not the Christianity of the Church fathers, the reformers or the revivalists that had come before.
Tozer also emphasized the biblical truth that there can be no Savior without Lordship. His comments flew in the face of the idea that a person could accept Jesus Christ as Savior without accepting Him as the Lord of his or her life. That idea, according to Tozer, was a great fallacy within the evangelical Church. He emphasized as much as possible the fact that Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord. There cannot be a divided Christ. To proclaim a divided Christ is to destroy the foundation of the Church.
Tozer criticized those churches that adopted the methods of the world in order to accomplish the agenda and goals of God. He pointed out three things that he believed were diametrically opposed to the work of the Holy Spirit in the local church: (1) the methods of big business, (2) the methods of show business, and (3) the methods of Madison Avenue advertisers. Along with this, he charged that the spirit of modern evangelism seemed to be foreign to that of the New Testament. By all costs, he believed that the Church must return to New Testament principles.
He also underscored that when Christ saves a person, He does so to make him or her both a worshiper and a worker. Tozer once said, “Unless we are worshipers we are simply religious Japanese dancing mice moving around in a circle getting nowhere.”
A Call to Authentic Faith
Tozer’s message was always consistent. He saw Christianity in turmoil and decline, and wherever he went he issued a clarion call for Christians to forsake the world and once again take up their crosses and follow Christ. What occupied much of his preaching and writing was the fact that he believed the Church needed to be restored to the New Testament pattern. He often said, “We have sold out to carnal methods, carnal philosophies, carnal viewpoints, carnal gadgets and have lost the glory of God in our midst. We’re a starved generation that’s never seen the glory of God.”
When he spoke about this “Babylonian captivity” of