Heart & Soul
Marshall Shelley
July 1, 1996
Want a good, 46-word overview of church his-tory? Here's one from former
U.S. Senate chaplain Richard Halverson:
"The church began as a fellowship of men and women centered on Jesus Christ.
It went to Greece and became a philosophy. It went to Rome and became an
institution. It went to Europe and became a culture. It came to America and
became an enterprise."
When you derive your paycheck from Christian enterprise, as pastors and
Leadership editors do, are you "marketing Christ"? The late Dr.
Halverson's perspective helps bring clarity.
Every age makes its unique contribution—and wrestles with its prevailing
temptations. The church of the third and fourth centuries majored on
philosophical issues (the godhead is composed of exactly how many persons,
natures, and wills?), which resulted in doctrinal precision and creeds that
remain helpful today. But it also resulted in well-meaning Christians being
banished because they used imprecise terms to describe the mysteries of Christ's
divine and human aspects. I hope those at Nicea and Chalcedon were aware
of the dangers of "philosophizing Christ."
If philosophy filled the air Christians breathed then, today we're living
in a climate of enterprise. Anyone who provides Christian books, music, videos,
study Bibles, colleges, counseling services, and, yes, magazines for church
leaders, knows the atmospheric conditions. So does anyone who preaches this
week to people who may choose to go to another church (or to no church at
all) next week.
We monitor our "audience," keenly aware that we must win them, usually by
being winsome.
Some Christian thinkers bemoan this "market mentality" as a danger to the
gospel. But what are the alternatives?
History ...
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