Thursday, February 5, 2009
21st Century Screwtape
I was maybe 13 and started to think and ask questions about the faith. So my dad's new vicar handed me a copy of C.S. Lewis'es "Screwtape Letters." What a book! The premise is a salty old demon writing letters of advice to his nephew on how to win souls for the devil. The book does make you think. Well, Leslie Sillars takes up this tradition in an article for Salvo Magazine. It is an absolutely must read. Apologetics (that department of Christian theology, devoted to defending the faith) at it's best. Very entertaining as he bats down one popular argument against Christianity after another. You will enjoy reading it, here.
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GLACIATION OF CHRISTIANITY
"And because wickedness increased, the love of many cooling. But he that endure to the end will be saved. "(Matthew 24,12-13)
Glaciation, is a term that refers to a geological period characterized by the cooling of the earth, during which the ice glaciers cover large tracts of land beyond the alpine and polar regions.
But the ice is not only in geological terms but also in spiritual terms, ie a form of spiritual Christianity globally suffering from one of the largest that has been cooling since the appearance of the church 2000 years ago.
This cooling is the low temperatures reached by the Christian faith to the point there is no difference between the believer and the unconverted. Both are frozen spiritually. Not only that, many places and nations that were considered bastions of Christianity and missionary active today are so icy that they are becoming major cemeteries to Christianity.
But this is not a new ice age. Christianity had already suffered other glaciations.
The first occurred when Vivian apostles themselves grappling with the permissiveness in their churches. (Revelation 3,15-16) .
The second occurred when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as its official religion, combining pagan with rioja rioja Christian.
The third occurred at the beginning of the Crusades and the corruption of Catholicism in the Middle Ages.
The fourth and last originate after the two world wars that marked the final decline of Christianity, something that until now and is continuing acceleration. The last glaciation is referred to the Lord Jesus in Matthew 24.12.
What is causing this cooling of the Christian faith? The Lord Jesus Christ provides the answer: the increase of wickedness.
This evil is the cause of all the Christian glaciations. An evil that is penetrating the churches and that cools the believers' faith, leading to the final cooling is apostasy.
It is necessary to combat this evil, to fuel our faith in the heat of the spirit and the Word of God and if possible make that faith in Christ is not the privilege of a few
Luis Delgado,
Not too sure what this has to do with the post I posted, but...
Listen Luis, you seem depressed at the state of the church. You seem surprised that the church is full of sinners. This is the temptation of the pharisee in all of us. We look around at all the sin in the lives of believers, and begin to think that the church is going to fall, fade out of existence that it will not stand.
The problem is the church will never be without sinner, or sin. All Christians are sinners, even you, your despair betrays it. Christians have no reason to despair. We have the promises of Christ, the promise of forgiveness in his blood, And the promise that his church will stand,and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The sinners will always be forgiven, and where sinners are forgiven the church will shine. It does not mean that we shouldn't preach against sin, or repent, or try to live better lives with the help of the Holy Spirit. But it does mean we cannot afford to have a judgmental and despairing heart.
The law will not warm us to Christ, only the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins.
Bror,
Very well put response to Luis.
AMEN!!
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