Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

19 September, 2005   comments: (0) Church History   No 'Desperate Housewives' Among The Puritans I've never seen the top-rated show in America, but I learned all that I needed to know in just a couple of minutes on Google. Watched by 20 million Americans weekly, Desperate Housewives even has secular reviewers using terminology like "trashy" and "demeaning to women". The Parents Television Council says: "episodes have included nudity and sexual situations between [a character] and her teenage gardener, as well as discussions of [anatomy] and sexual function". One plotline involved a woman who works from home as a prostitute without her husband's knowledge. You're probably not shocked that such a show exists, but you might be surprised to find out how many modern churches are using this specific TV show to help "market" their church. Here's a look at why they're doing it, as well as some contrasting thought from Christians in past centuries. America has come a long way since the time when Elvis had to be filmed from the waist-up on the Ed Sullivan show. According to a Time magazine poll, only 38 percent of Americans are "personally offended" by "explicit sexual content, such as nudity" on TV. It seems that our collective conscience towards these things gets more seared with every generation that goes by. While it's true that many Christians are appalled by it all, others actually believe they are doing something noble by riding on the coat tails of a sleazy show like "Desperate Housewives". It's all part of a marketing ploy being used to attract more people to church; it's even looked upon as an effective evangelism tactic. This approach usually involves a church doing a sermon-series with a similar sounding title, such as "Desperate Households". Often, the sermon-series has it's own print-advertisements and web ads, which contain graphics or phraseology that mimics the hit TV series. These things may be purchased in ready-made church sermon kits. You'll find over a hundred churches running the "Desperate" campaign in this Google listing, also on this page. One person said she had received a flyer for a church woman's group that was running the "Desperate" theme. The flyer contained a photo of the pastor's wife and other women in the church - imitating the same pose as the "Desperate Housewives" TV promo. In keeping with the theme of our website, lets compare this modern approach with the standards of Christians in previous centuries, this time - the Puritans. Of course the Puritans had nothing like sleazy TV shows to contend with, but I think we can get a good idea of what they would have thought about Desperate Housewives evangelism and church marketing. The words of 17th century Puritan John Flavel, make it clear that the Christians in his time would have distanced themselves from worldly things (and not use them as evangelism tools): "Whatever religion or doctrine condones or makes allowances for sin is not of Christ. The Doctrine of Christ everywhere teaches self-denial and mortification of worldliness and sin. The whole stream of the gospel runs against those things. Scripture emphasizes the 'holy' and the 'heavenly' (not the sinful and the worldly)." Loraine Boettner's book gives us a glimpse of the kind of lives that the Christians of this era lived. It's ridiculous to imagine even for a moment, that these saints would live a lifestyle that so strived to resist worldliness, and then resorted to worldliness as a "bait and switch" method for evangelism: [These historic Christians] were so very strict regarding purity of doctrine, purity of worship, and purity of daily life, that by their very enemies, who thus were their best witnesses, they were called "Puritans." . . . "Amongst all the people in the American colonies, they (the Puritans, Calvinists of New England) stood morally without peers. They were the men and the women of conscience, of sterling convictions. . . . They believed with all their soul in a just God, a heaven and a hell. They felt, in the innermost core of their hearts, that life was short and its responsibilities great. Hence their religion was their life. All their thoughts and relations were imbued with it. . . . Drunkenness, profanity and beggary were things little known to them. They needed neither lock nor burglarproof to secure their honestly-gotten possessions. The simple wooden bolt was enough to protect them and their wealth where honesty was the rule of life. As the result of such a life they were healthy and vigorous. They lived long and happily, reared large and devoted families, and descended to the grave 'like as a shock of corn cometh in his season,' in peace with God and their fellow-men, rejoicing in the hope of a blessed resurrection." It is further to be remembered as a diadem upon the brow of Calvinistic morality, that in all the history of the Puritans there is said to have been NOT ONE CASE OF DIVORCE. What a crying need there is for some such influence today! Lawlessness in general was scarcely, if ever, more unknown than among the Puritans. When considering the Puritans, it would seem that modern Christianity has lowered the bar on values and standards of holiness. But what about evangelism? Perhaps some modern pragmatists would feel that their contemporary efforts are more creative and effective in reaching the masses. It should be remembered that some of the greatest revivals and missionary movements in history have occurred during the generations of Puritan thought. But as Iain Murray discusses in his excellent book Revival and Revivalism, Christians in centuries-past viewed revival as a work that God does, rather than something that man plans and does through clever campaigns and man-centered methods. For more information on the Puritans: Visit A Puritan's Mind website. Read a sampling of Puritan sermons at PuritanSermons.com Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/.id.2.pid.51   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism