Dr. McCracken Sermon, "Worldliness - Christian and Unchristian" 1965-05-30

the piece be i invite your attention to two texts the first drawing chapter three verse sixteen god so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life

the second first john chapter two verse is fifteen and sixteen do not do love the world or other things in the world and yet anyone who loves the word and love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world the last of the finish of the last of the eyes and the parade of life is not the father but also of those two dates appeared to be diametrically opposed they seemed to say totally different things and i accept them in juxtaposition because they provide an example author to radically

distinct and to simonton senses in which the words were is used in the bible on the positive side it denotes this universe and its inhabitants audit of creation and that sense of the word the bible teaches that god made the world and made it go that he delights in it and intense that we should go to the same there's nothing in scripture to justify the police maintained by some religions and philosophies that matter and the things belonging to out temporal existence it even though they can be abused the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the parade of life they can be abused and then they become even but they are not inherently they are

not intrinsically evil the scene also the old testament and the new is that god loves us and its inhabitants so our wealth creation crisis certainly did you had instant john seely sprays an end soon for humanity an here rejoiced in the art to the beauty the constancy of nature light of sitting sons and their own notions living hair and the good death when we come to chat sensing that in this is my father's well we are making an affirmation prominent scientists and prophets and apostles and to our audience sale and browning made it when he wrote this where those

snow brought for us it means intensity and means going to find its meaning is my meat and if tennessee williams could feel like that or better yet some of the right to sue on broadway writing about the meaninglessness of the word on the negative side however word world in the new testament did also the existing social art let me put it in this way and in one case the world stands but where the words weren't stands for a lot of his daughter's immediate and in the us or what man has made of the women indeed in the second instance the word of these human society organizing itself

independently of god setting up for itself purely secular ends chiefly sophie sharon's its dominant brands materialistic it's fundamental motivating force the struggle for aggrandizement and paul are in this sense the world this humanity blind to the presence of god has ranged from in hostile to israel in opposition to his book because this is no mom upstage this is this particular yeah but it was in the first century it is in the twentieth whenever an audit of society is organized apart from broader relying on its all self sufficiency when man in disregard of god daughter in defiance of him set

themselves up to run things in the normally and for their own eighties there is what the bible in that context means by the one and it is in this like that you want to understand the categorical imperative that the new testament friendship with the world is enmity with broad do not be calm fall to this one do not allow the world are the things of the way in the new testament christians speak of themselves as aliens and exiles as pilgrims of strangers as citizens of heaven not a mess as in but not all the world and they considered that they have the authority of the mosque that four story bounding

themselves he had said my kingdom is not of this one he had said to his followers of the world hates you remember us talking about the unpopularity of christians last sunday is the world hates you you know that you cheated me before i take it you see a few of the world the well loved it sewing but because you are not all the world but it shows you a lot of the world that's a little cake you and he had said the ability of our heart all the time aware of how a deal a comment by denying its standards by announcing its raucous by accepting its messages you and by transcending its ways yes but that categorical imperative is in the new testament

you have the sort of the herbs you like that oh the one click you tonight show ed forman the field is the world war ii until all the one so that when jesus said to his followers i chose you out of the one he didn't mean that he had absorbed them from duties and obligations in the world he certainly did not mean that they want to live in isolation from it and made no attempt to influence cities certainly did not mean that they had no responsibility for its condition and that they had to do nothing to lift the level of its life he called them out of that one today members of a new law that the kingdom of god and he sent them back into the world as the sentence of that you water thirsty enlisted and bring them as the seconds

and then he commissioned them and sent them out as apostles the bulk of that still still with jerusalem the base their headquarters and with all wide lead on the field of an operation they began the greatest machinery and the taking all time what an impact they made on their world what are transforming show that iraq on women these man was said about them after a upside down somebody said no turned it right side up and yet almost from the start and increasingly as years passed there were christians thought to their sell a nonbinding vote to isolate themselves from the world and the moms and then writes why the sport from towns and cities and deliberately elected to reside

in the most inaccessible parts of the acid that could discover what role some two days in caves and cons of the us john hanlin yeoman once preached a sermon entitled the well done in a muddy animate and that exactly explains how those monks and anchor rights felt about the world it was evil to live in it was to be contaminated by only by withdrawing from its sardine catch one live approaching christian like the one way to overcome the world was to abandon no single law of a man of the caliber of to tell you now the great mining with a skillful they think of a monopoly richard and the church fathers accountable have to

tell him not a long note and then cut it but committed to a region detachment from the world because of a sea of being compromised by capitulate into its think of him writing i owe no duty to foreign battlefield or senate house i stay away for now official employment i take possession of no platform it noticed have no counselors i have long being the voting booths i wear out you're magistrate spins i probably knew ports of justice i don't nobody i have seceded from the populace think of that and that is never been outside in the history of the church when there's not been this tendency to withdraw

from the world if you are thinking of monasteries and memories don't protestantism has not been fleeing from this tendency it has had sex for on the fast and greatest commandment as being come up from among them and be set and the second keeping yourselves and spotted from the world and keeping oneself and spotted from the world was taken to mean refusing to participate contracting out of responsibility for the direction of its light protestantism biden as he has lady leisure tourists on personal piety but nothing like the correspondents based on christian social jokey it has often do a load itself as

roman catholicism has not done you must think of those papal encyclicals it has often allowed itself to become not only individualistic and falsely although legally in many of its branches it has been taken out with dolphins and second life which the song and be seen from the corruption of the way but it has devoted less attention to showing how the person who saw it saved is to remake himself to the everyday life of a widowed to politics and economics the national and international affairs of protestantism is made a great deal of spiritual exercises but for the most part they have been confined to such practices as well as ship as seward devotional reading as threat they haven't involved christian activity

in the thick of the whale protestantism today it is not friday from their tendency to withdraw from the world there's a cleavage between what is going on in our sections and what is going on outside the our sunday worship services are often remote from the crises of the alma the hymns prayers sermons frequently seal the west should buzz off from crises around again about the volume of sermons preached in the suburban parish reviewer oh this sounds like something basic and vital in contemporary life there is never know all phrase which will

in any sense disturb the congregation breach in a world of suffering and hunger and wars and exploitation they're foolishly yes some like i'm literally charm one we all are really completely about it and the worshipers are often compared to have it so indeed they often preferred to have it so bad and batons why would usually get the sixties in the week they look for say surely when they come to church on sunday when i am in search i want to forget everything i am responsible for a member of an official board of a congregation say an anonymous aide when it was suggested to him that his religion should be applied to his

business i intend to keep them separate they don't belong together the commonest letter of complaint i receive this when i preach on christian social to take somebody by tuesday or wednesday showed two of protest and that religion and politics should be kept a papa creatures should stick they're their own business that they should get away from public issues on and concentrate on something for the preaching of the boss should concentrate on the saving of man's so and i say it more than any other this episode is responsible for the shot there's criticism leveled against the church today to criticism of crimes it isn't a criticism of christian belief it is criticism of the church's

failure to be loyal to price it is criticism of the church's failure to practice what it professes to believe it is criticism of the church is mainly passive role in the conflict about dying in in the shaping of formulating the carrying out of national foreign policy it is criticism of the church is silence about the new show will problems the moral issue in regard to nuclear weapons and nuclear was so seldom mentioned some of the critics have abandoned the chair they have abandoned it because they feel the church has abandoned the wiring know for those of us who are members of the church that may seem an absurd position but the defection is

so sizeable and the defectors as soma earlier owens that we do in the jet shot to listen to those who were outside of the church we ought to listen to what they have to say they say that the average chair is implanted taken up with its online too it's worship service it stereotype programs it's fast snow fast through ministry they say that the average jesuits not begun to cross the new challenges to christianity that have emerged in our generation ought to its strategy and its structures to the social political economic revolution taking place today they say about the church's oh you know the show church that teaches in

her because it is out of touch with the real human activity no they put a lot of emphasis on this and considering its potential the finest buildings in every community all kind of agents in every city town and village going from part of me like to influence the direction of national and international affairs and and apparently incapable of bringing about and a mop so so today and they say to that much of what the church teaches you're on the subjects all six modern family responsibility of citizens takes you know columnists and so radically altered attitudes to those subject they

say in shock that the norms of society are being set by secular forces and that the influence of the church on those secular forces is tangentially and they asked why many people many young people students in universities find the real challenges of life outside that set in for example the peace corps not in the church his missionary undertakings those are criticisms that must be brushed aside there's a mess to address ourselves to them those abusive intrusive got to address yourselves we are members of the church must remind ourselves over and all again that the jets doesn't exist

to shell of itself the church exists to serve the well that's why it's here that is still looked at the world taking influence human affairs and human institutions to influence the influences of society what the new testament calls the principality some colors i was it to be done it can be done it can only be done by the little peace in the world in the fall of its laity that is to say it's to be done by you it isn't a fan of the pledge this is something that has to be tackled by the rank and file of the church it can only be done

by christians worshipping god on sunday and on monday expressing their allegiance to god in secular affairs and in the social institutions in which they live labor unions chambers of commerce movements concerned with just relations between men neighborhood councils city councils state and federal legislators today the chance is almost wholly arguments foreign minister to individuals and just marlboro snus ministry must be an art to embrace the social forces at work in the community and the nation the forces that are creating the many activists feel in which we live the forces that and conditioning us and making us what we are as close as to be bridged between what goes on in the church and what goes

on in the world and may i say that one of the ways in which we at riverside are seeking to bridge the gulf is by operating seven days and seven nights in the week an fm radio station wypr does not and find yourself through spiritual exercises want to the breaching of the gospel it seeks to face many huge challenges to christianity that have they managed in our day it endeavors to be always the bombings social issues all our day and to bring christian insights to bear on your pr is endeavoring to influence the influences in

society and to lift the lives of social right now many of you have head and some of you must have read about the internet wormhole for who was put to death by the nazis are loyal church mom he became deeply concerned over the remoteness of the church and most christians from the pressing urgent issues confronting the world more and more he came to feel that it was the man of the world who were really alive and that it was only in daily contact with that the christian good live used to life writing from prison this is how he expressed his conviction

joining the last year or so i have come to appreciate there were limits of christianity as never before the christian is not a whole lot really dr seuss and religious a religious man but a man you are and simple fast as jesus what man compared with john the baptist and you know i don't mean the shadow this world to a mess of the busy the comfortable or lascivious it's something much more profound than that so utterly by living completely in the one but one lands to believe i mean my wilderness digging

in one's dry we are executing some problems that successes and failures its experiences and help cities in such a life but we throw ourselves out to leak into the arms of god and participate in his sufferings in the world and watched with christ and disseminate that has faith that is that annoy repentance and that is what makes a man and a christian think about that please think about that get the letters and papers of dietrich bonhoeffer written for interest on that particular letter and reading oh there's nothing really that i would want to and except this trivia to a man

who might one also felt that it was only in daily contact with the world that a christian could really come to life this is the judgment of politicians to thomas chalmers mark rosenberg writing about thomas towns here was a man bicycling striving organize speaking with the boston fire of the world on his clothes are carrying his shrine with hiv everywhere lettuce pray for those who are people live in our hearts that adventurous spirit

which makes man scarring the whales see if they saw that i will be done four so only all our show we'd be worthy of those courageous those who in every age have ventured all you know beaches to die cool and formed the trumpets have sounded on the other side all men if you would like a copy of dr mccracken sermon worldliness christian and i'm christian send your name and address on it