St. Mark’s Lutheran

This post is slightly different. 1) It is not narrowly local (i.e. the pastoral letter) and 2) It is not narrowly biblical (i.e. sermons and meditations). Seeing that this post is under the St. Mark heading the need for discretion is high. At the same time, that discretion should not inhibit commenting upon the culture or what might be called relevancy. It is a difficult balancing act. With those thoughts occasionally something will pop into the American Culture that is theological or calls for theological thinking.

This blog post comments on “The American Heresy.” Within the lectionary, we have just been through the parable discourse in Matthew 13. Most of these parables are about the kingdom or the reign of Heaven. The American Heresy, whether it is found in politically right or politically left churches, is a reduction of the kingdom to this world. The right would seek to establish the kingdom through political action or buying into the prosperity gospel because the hope is this world centered. The left also looks to bring in the kingdom through political action and instead of prosperity would use the social gospel. Again the hope is centered on this world. When we look at the kingdom parables, the hope is always at the end of the age - when the weeds and the wheat are separated or the the fish in the net are separated. When the true hope, our bodily resurrection following the first fruits Jesus, is abandoned, what comes in its place is not atheism, but various false hopes in this world alone.

This is not to say that good works are not good. God has planned them in advance (Eph 2:10). What is says is that good works are a response and not the hope. Don’t sell that hope, your inheritance, for a bowl of prosperity or social gospel soup (Gen 25:27-34).

Tags: Culture //