Ok, I'll bite...
Recently posted on the New York Times' website an article on evangelical churches in Brazil entitled Fight Nights and Reggae Pack Brazilian Churches starts off:
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The atmosphere was electric at Reborn in Christ Church on “Extreme Fight” night. Churchgoers dressed in jeans and sneakers, many with ball caps turned backward, lined a makeshift boxing ring to cheer on bare-chested jujitsu fighters...
With the crowd still buzzing, Pastor Mazola Maffei, dressed in army pants and a T-shirt, grabbed a microphone. Pastor Maffei, who is also Pastor Meira’s fight trainer, then held the crowd rapt with a sermon about the connection between sports and spirituality.
"You need to practice the sport of spirituality more,” he urged. “You need to fight for your life, for your dreams and ideals."
And so it continues...
But really, how far do we go? I know, I know - it's (supposedly) the principle of incarnation - Christ became one of us to redeem us.
What evangelicals don't seem to get is that Christ became a sinless human being not a pagan human being. In His humanity Jesus was different enough to make people really uncomfortable; and the difference was called holiness.
Yet the Church seems to think the principle of incarnation means we can become as much like the world in outward appearance if not in practice as we like - as long as we voice the caveat "but I believe in Jesus".
The early church seemed to understand the difference. They did not think they needed to install a Roman bath and a vomitorium in the "Fellowship Room" and then schedule a Bacchanalia "to win people to Jesus." Instead, "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly" Acts 4:31.
And to validate Fight Nights for Jesus by drawing some vague connection between that and our spiritual struggle not only cheapens the gospel but it leaves the door open for all manner of... shall we say ministry. Imagine the next headline:
Minneapolis, USA - Strip Clubs for Christ
The atmosphere was electric at 1st Aphrodite Baptist as hundreds of panting men jostled for proximity to the stage as a dozen or so young women, all of whom would have turned heads wearing a sleeping bag, took it ALL off. Laser lighting and techno pop provided the backdrop for these curvaceous Christian beauties to strut their stuff... Afterward Pastor Sleazo took the microphone and held the crowd rapt with a sermon about the connection between pulsating lust and our spiritual desire.
Why not? Can't you just hear the rhetoric? "In a sex crazed culture this is just "contextualization" - it's being "relevant" to a sex hyped society - hundreds of lusty men who would never step foot in a church are coming to these services..."
An on it goes...
