You write about “considerable humility” on your friend “Ed’s” part, when it comes to matters of faith. I think that I understand what you mean here.

However, you write that because of this humility, he “feels no need to evangelize.” Is this really humility on Ed’s part? It seems more like arrogant disobedience to Biblical admonitions in the *guise* of humility.

The same would seem to be true of his choice to leave all local, structured church for worship with his family (not even house church, but just worship with his family– not that family worship is unimportant). In light what I wrote above about Paul’s admonitions to the church at Galatia (to *not* leave the church but to return to the Gospel, *as* a church) , Ed’s choice to leave *all* structured church also seems more like arrogance than humility.

I’m speaking in terms of Biblical admonitions here, on both counts (believers evangelizing, and gathering as the church, in local bodies), not simply in terms of personal opinion. Your thoughts?

There is.

When asked if I am a Christian by someone or what denomination I am part of I answer the question by telling them what specifically I believe. Partially because many people will put you the category of a particular stereotype or caricature of a Christian and then just take you less seriously based on their experiences with other people claiming to be Christians.

I’d rather turn people off through my own failures.

I think the bigger problem many people like Ed are having is one of epistemology.

Most outspoken Christians I know have no idea of the difference between knowing something and believing something.

Ed and the rest of us are often being asked to pretend that we know something that we know that we don’t know. We may believe it and be willing to invest our lives in it, but are not certain enough to say we know.

You would get the impression from many Christians that they have had a meet and greet with the resurrected Christ (which some people may have genuinely had), when in fact if the would hold their own experiences and understanding to the same scrutiny that the hold those “obviously” wrong other worldviews, they would have a much looser hold on what really just amounts to hope mixed with arrogance.

In the Catholic world we don’t vote as a block and there are many different focuses and subcultures under the Catholic umbrella. And yet, in my observation we face these issues as well, many who do not attend a church yet stay loosely affiliated, at least in name. My own view is that as a community, as imperfect a community we are, there is that association that keeps us on track, keeps us from falling into error, from losing ground spiritually, from feeling like an island, or a rock.

Maybe there is more pressure to be a specific type of individual in the Evangelical World; a pressure I am not aware of because I am so encapsulated in my own faith tradition. I just hope it is not a trend growing so rapidly that in a generation the communal model of Church will be extinct as we know it.

Bottom line….God is God. The only Truth is His Truth. The only way is His way. Those who are not for Him ARE AGAINST HIM for the enemy of God (Satan). The ‘Book’ was intended to be written as one way He communicates with man. He is the perfect Creator. His plan is perfect. The victory is His…and no other. The point is simple. How do we become one with Him? NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

THERE IS AN ETERNITY OF “LIFE” FOR THOSE WHO FIND HIS TRUTH. THERE IS AN ETERNITY OF “DEATH” FOR THOSE WHO REJECT HIS TRUTH.

Maybe this is part of the problem for evangelicals and the evangelical dissatisfation. We want it OUR own way. Perhaps there has been so much emphasis on “Jesus and me” that many (most?) evangelicals no longer see the Christian life as “Jesus and us.”

This rampant individualism promoted by an individualistic gospel makes the church unnecessary and more of an appendix – I’ll get to it if I have time and it fits with what I’M doing. Perhaps this is part of the problem.

I would still stand by the majority of what I said with respect to the church and the topic of “Christian committment itself;” but that difference certainly changes things with respect to “Ed” himself. Sorry, Ed.

I don’t think my perscription would change much, though.