ken wilson online

Robert Putnam is the most careful purveyor of survey data alive.  He understands religion in America as few others do, and with great appreciation for its benefits.  So when he speaks, we’re smart to listen.  And this is what he’s telling us: evangelicalism in America grew robustly in th 1970’s and 1980’s (when my church community, Vineyard, was founded.) But by 1990 it hit a wall, and since then has been in numerical decline.
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I wonder if we’ve had the emphasis on the wrong syllable on the pressing issue of authority.  Speaking big picture, long time frame here.  The church at it’s inception had one creed: Jesus is Lord.  Simple.  All authority in heaven and on earth given to him, Jesus. What rolls off our tongue like a tired chorus, was, on their lips, incendiary. Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, and Apollos is not and Astarte is not and the moon and the sun and the stars are not….and the powers and principalities that hold sway in this world are not.  Every knee shall bow before the One not the many, not the several, not the few.
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