Sunday, June 27, 2021

Excerpt From 'Real Christianity' by William Wilberforce, c. 1797

WE SEE IN SUCH CASES that manners have been corrupted, morality has sunk into depravity, indulgence is out of control and, above all, faith has been discredited and unbelief has become fashionable.  When a culture reaches this point, it becomes so out of touch with truth that masses of people deny outright the existence of God.  God's will for the nation has been abandoned and man has been made God..

My hunch is that some who acknowledge the decline in religious belief in our nation will claim that I carry my logic to extremes. they will argue it could never happen here.  They will also undoubtedly argue that I am a fanatic and that my view of how culture should be influenced by faith is impractical.  They might argue that people who act as I have advocated would be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good.  They would say that too many were so occupied, the entire machine of civilized society would come to a screeching halt.

In response, I would suggest that such arguments are without merit. At worst, what I have argued that the Bible teaches would call for us to sacrifice a bit of worldly comfort and material affluence for the saske of eternal reward. It is not as if Jesus didn't teach the same thing....and do it with an attitude of cheerfulness.  To respond like this to the call of Christ requires us to hold all temporal possessions loosely.....

In light of the current discussions, it is interesting to note Paul encouraged believers to respond in this way while he also called them to the priority of the love of Christ, an eternal point of view, a healthy indifference to the things of the world and a zeal for growing in spiritual maturity that would lead to the performance of the essential qualities of authentic Christian  faith we have been discussing....

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