Quote:
Originally Posted by Newman
The House of God is special indeed. It is where God's people gather. "...that though mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth ( 1 Tim 3:12).
It isn't about 3 hours on Sunday but about our attitude towards others that are of the household of faith.
I read an article by a black jounalist in a major metro paper some time last fall. I could kick myself a dozen times for not responding. He wrote that he no longer attended the church of his youth because it wasn't relevant to today's generation.
He spoke of running the aisles and talking in tongues but said the church culture had set herself apart from the real people dying in the streets. He spoke of the women wearing fancy hats while life in the ghetto went on.
O foolish man that he was. He complained of the very church culture that had spared him a life of drug addiction; where statistically he was more likely to end up incarcerated than college educated; the father of half a dozen illegitimate kids instead of the dad to the two children being raised by he and his wife in his home.
I understand the need to reach out. But some traditions (such as dressing up on Sunday) might contribute to our well being in ways we haven't quite grasped.  |
I don't know -- some religious traditions could also contribute to unbelief, angst, anger, and a general falling away. I can name several people now who refuse to go to any church except the one they were raised in -- and they are disenfranchised with these that they were raised in, so they go no where and have no relationship with God. They cannot see that God is much bigger than a building, denomination, or religious ideology. They can not see God outside the denomination of the church of their upbringing.
Traditions are neither bad nor good -- they are tools that can be used to edify or destroy. Sometimes it is best to shed those tradition remembering that shedding those traditions will make way for new ones that can also be used to edify or destroy.
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