"Always remember, when somebody comes up with something new,
it's usually wrong. We are to be plagiarists of the same information that
God gave the first Christians." -- Dr. Matthew McMahon, aPuritansMind.com

 

13 August, 2007   comments: (0) Today's Worship   Bad Ways To Determine Good Worship - Part 2    Quoting Hart & Muether . . . Another improper way to evaluate worship is by looking for sincerity or good motives. This is a sentimental standard that fails to recognize that people can be very sincerely committed to error. American slavery and Soviet communism each had its fervent disciples, but in neither case did devotion justify the cause. Consider, too, the recent growth of Islam and Mormonism. Their believers are sincere and have moving "experiences" in their worship. This does not make their beliefs true or their practices right. So experience is no guide to true worship. What is just as important to notice is that a focus on experience deflects discernment from reliable indicators of acceptable worship. As J. Gresham Machen insisted, "truth (is) the foundation of conduct and doctrine the foundation of life". To reverse this order and to make experience the foundation of theology is an error that repeats the mistake that was so characteristic liberalism. And looking to experience for theology puts truth up for grabs. As Machen said of liberalism's stress on religious experience "it denies not this truth or that but truth itself. It denies that there is any possibility of attaining a truth that will always be true. There is truth, it holds, for this generation and truth for that generation, but no truth for all generations; there is truth for this race and truth for that race, but not for all races." And so, if experience becomes the [standard] for worship, it is no wonder why so many services take forms that appeal to different generations and economic groups. True doctrine transcends these differences and may even unite diverse people in faithful worship. But experience will leave the young and old, suburban and rural, Asian and Anglo sequestered in worship services geared for each group's demographic niche. From:  With Reverence and Awe   Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.746   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism