A while ago I went to Portarlington for the Celtic festival. My dad lives in PA, which is great, and as it's over the weekend I make sure I go to church on Sunday. There are two churches in PA, an Anglican, and a Uniting church.
The Uniting one always has a special Celtic service, which I can get my Dad to go to, so that's the one I go to. And every time I got to that church, I'm always mildly (or more) horrified.
You see, their services aren't about God. They're all about us. The hymns were about us, about how awesome we were, and how we were going to do great things for God (who was a bit with the hippy love).
The sermon then started talking about Celtic Christianity. Now, there are lots of good things about Celtic Christianity. I mean, those guys went on international mission trips before it was popular. But the thing that the preacher wanted to focus on was how they loved nature (borderline worship of nature, and he went on and on about how we should too) and humans were basically good, especially when they had become Christian (which barely got a mention, but at least it got one).
He then started talking about Pelagus, and how he was a model of Celtic Christianity. I was there thinking, "wait a second, wasn't he a heretic?" Same guy, and the preacher even mentioned this and held him up for praise for it.
Pelagus and Pelagism are DANGEROUS, because they don't hold to the fallen nature of Man. They believe that if we just try hard enough we can be perfect. AND WE CAN'T. Jesus is relegated to the supreme example, and not the saviour.
What's more, it's all about US. We are the all important ones, and God is just there to help us. We can do great things. Some of them may even be for God.
This is NOT true Christianity. Christianity is about glorifying God. It is about how we were so polluted with sin that we were completely seperated from Him, but that because He (and He alone) is good, He loved us, and died for us in order that we might be reconciled with Him.
That's true Christianity.
No comments:
Post a Comment