What does this mean for Egypt. It means that clearly the people brought about the downfall of Mubarek, by an overall peaceful Revolution. Perhaps just over 10-15 years this could not have happened. Why? The reason is the Internet has made the world a smaller community, now at least, people can still get the truth out there as they see it, and not have it completely shut off to the world, by those who can subvert, and pervert the truth of what is going on in another country, though there are still many attempts by the powers to shut down the reality and keep us all living in their matrix of lies, of controlled media, the truth does come out. Regardless, how conservative Americans may think of Julian Assange, he is a great revolutionary, in that he dared to step out of the matrix of the controlled media, and controlled information that people are dished out normally into their lives everyday.
Truth be told, what revolutions may have incurred in our own country should all the truths have come out, that really go on behind closed doors in Washington, D.C.
Would those Revolutions brought about a better country then the economic oppression, and problems we are experiencing now because of the few elitist who hold power even now in our country? Probably not.
All governments, are fruit hanging off one tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Each man's rule, each man's change of rule, is because there are always those who think they can do good out of their natural selves. This is in clear contradiction to history, and to Scripture. Man is "a god" in truth in this world, in the temporal and carnal lives of men. We know this to be true, that each of us live in a relationship where there are those whether in our immediate world, family, community, or State, there are always those who will hold power over someone else. Even those who seemed to be limited in power, the poor and destitute, yet hold some power over the lives of others, because of their position, their lack of, they influence, others by that very life they live. They can power over the emotions of others, and the natural (carnal) nature of men to do good.
This is the incredible truth, thus Jesus was not being heartless, when He said the poor will always be among you.
The rich of course, may hold greater power over our lives, even to the point of life and death of our temporal selves. They may rule over the very resources to which God gave all men, be it food, water, clothing, and shelter, but as Jesus said, Don't be afraid of those who can only cast your body into the grave (hadys).
Mankind is forever seeking to be "a god", when it is clear in temporal things, he may make "god like" decisions by powering over others in one sense or another.
The fact be told though, there is no other God, in that all that transpires in history, whether it be your history, or the history of others, or nations or kingdoms, are NOT outside of the counsel, the purpose or the will of God.
Man's being "a god" is only illusion, a non-reality, that he creates for himself with a carnal mind. He fails to see outside of himself, the Spiritual, that the CREATOR is in every decision you and I will ever make, or ever do. This is hard for the carnal mind to grasp, simply because to believe so, removes the illusion of their being a "god."
Men holds onto the idea of human will, as his own god, thinking that all his actions, decisions, words and deeds, he has accomplished or performed are some right he believes he has innately to be absolutely independent of the Creator.
This is his the illusion that the serpent brought, "you shall be like god."
Thus man, was exposed to who he really is, but at the same time that knowing, closed his mind and heart to the reality of the God who is love.
From the very beginning to the story of Jesus and each man's story today, he fails to see, that which is the TRUTH. Jesus Christ. They fail to see the real story, they still are living in an illusion of the flesh. They have re-designed the Good News to Bad News, so that they themselves may yet divide themselves over other men, to maintain their "godhood.", to remain "a god", to set themselves apart from the race of humanity, that Paul makes very clear, is and was in the same boat, and that boat was sinking and sunk. that God in his power, among all the decisions men were making, thinking that he actually was exercising human will, God the Creator, was putting men in bondage to the self, the ego, the I am "a god." The illusion of Adam, that He from the very beginning the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth had a plan, and that His plan has never been subverted by His creature man, or devil.
We see this celebration of man's supposed will in revolution, we see this in the face of the protesters, we see this whenever men, think by their power, they have changed the course of their own history to what they believe is their own making. They celebrate in Egypt now, but that is only for the moment, they believed by exercising their god like status they have accomplished their freedom. History will prove that is not so.
History and the very facts of the United States prove that we are not truly free.
There will always be those that men will place their worship in, who are no greater then they are, but they will yet believe and trust that some "mortal" like themselves, will help them achieve their immortality. Israel did it time after time, and so hasn't every nation or power throughout history but where are these kingdoms now, where are their kings? Are not all these powers now lying in the dust of history past.
Egypt of the past, Israel of the past, Rome of the past, Greece of the past, all are washed away by the sands of time. Their attempts to obtain immortality ended up in mortality. They are non-existent, they no longer are among us, their vestige of memory may be there, their influence upon the thoughts and actions of men in the future may be there, but where is their reality, it is gone with the winds of time. America someday, will be the same. It is already becoming so, and has become so, the very foundations of what it was built upon, have already descended into the "grave", for we see, the ideals of the forefathers, the early history of this nation and it's purposes to establish a freedom to mankind never known by the world, is a mere illusion as well.
There are those who blindly hold onto the illusion, but they too will disappear into the dust blown in the wind.
Revolution, true revolution, is what Christ brought to us as men, Christ reveals the spiritual reality of man, He reveals the reality of reality, and exposes the vain imaginations, desires and lies of men. Yet, men has buried that in two thousand years of tradition and lies, and created only a new illusion that hides the TRUTH. One to know this truth, must go and sell all he has and give it to the poor, and come follow Him. But do you see the road following Him will lead to?
Do realize that before the resurrection their must be a death, to your ego, death to your human will, death to your very self. Take up your cross and follow me, Jesus says, but no man wants to take up his Cadillac and say I have arrived!
I am not trying here to draw up some false picture of it is more holy to be physically poor, no Jesus spoke of a poverty of spirit that brings blessing.
This poverty in order to gain, his riches, must come to rich man and poor man alike. It is an equalizer, it is a leveler, it brings us first to know all of our condition as man, ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Which means DEATH! but then the story of Jesus says, where sin abounded through the one man Adam, grace abounded more through Jesus Christ.
It is that in the one man Adam all died, and in Christ all shall live.
But how shall you ever arrive at the truth of that, unless YOU DIE!
Immediately many of you, will fail to even grasp the word DIE, your thoughts are turned to that of carnality rather then spirituality, you immediately think of a funeral, a dead man in a casket, your end. You immediately think like Martha did, "I know Lord he will be raised in the resurrection of the last day."
Let us be reminded of Jesus reply.
You immediately because of all the tradition your brain and ego self has been built upon like Thomas you have heard Jesus speak of life and death time after time, and like Thomas you say, let us go and die with him.
No, this death, that Jesus would reveal, was not just His going to the Cross, it was the life He lives, the words He breathed, the actions He took, it was all a realized, death to human will and He makes that clear in John 5:19
"Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner."
Do you actually believe you can do anything outside of His will, or receive anything outside of His will.
John understood where all that you have and are comes from:
John 3:27
John answered and said, " A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.
Are you really ready to incur spiritual poverty and lay down your mantel of desiring to be "a god" thinking you are "a god."
Are you ready to die to the illusive self, for the reality of God. Are you ready to die to the illusive traditions, and lies you have believed all your life about yourself and the Creator? Are you ready to see Jesus for He really is, who is the LAST ADAM.
Is your heart prepared to know the one true God, and His son whom He has sent?
Are you really ready for REVOLUTION?
Then I declare to you, it doesn't begin by overthrowing governments, it begins by overthrowing the government of your own heart and thoughts, and recieving the KINGDOM OF GOD which has been freely given to you. The Kingdom of God is within you, are you yet wasting time, looking for the kingdom out there, when He is present? Are you looking for that outside of yourself, that has been graciously placed within yourself?
I desire Revolution everyday in my life, and that revolution is, has and will continue to take place in my heart and thoughts as He brings down those kingdoms of the illusion of self, and just who I am as man, and I bow to His truth, the only truth, who said, I am the way, the truth and the life! Do you desire to know the way, do you desire to know the truth and do you desire to have life, here and now?
Then look to the Truth! He is standing right there in your face, you can find Him, if you will but let go of the illusion, and your heart cry out as loudly and in unison as the tulmutously as the throngs of voices who have so placed there trust in a false revolution.
I want REVOLUTION, give me REAL REVOLUTION, and perhaps you will find the Mubarek of your heart will step down from his throne, your ego, your old illusive Adamic self, and Jesus the Last Adam will take His rightful throne of glory in your life. If you will, there is righteousness, peace and joy, that for which we all seek to know, and that these Egyptians really desire, but they like most have sought it by the hands of their own and the hands of another man, will they recieve righteousness, joy and peace.
No, their personal worlds will remain in the same turmoil as always, and along with it will come despair.
But wait God has a better plan for the human race, it has been revealed, is being revealed and shall be alas revealed in the grand consummation of all things that are reconciled in Christ to the glory of the Father.
We will then see Him as He is. Redeemer of the human race.
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Showing posts with label Revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revolution. Show all posts
Friday, February 11, 2011
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Barna Speaks On the House Church
For my readers who aren't familiar with the Barna Group, this is a man that does marketing research and has turned his polls toward the Christian Church especially as it is in America. He has just recently written a new book called, "Revolution".
What Barna has stumbled on in his research, is what I believe God is doing. God is bringing His people out of conventional church that has largely not changed in 1900 years back to the root of Apostolic tradition and away from the traditions of men.
What Jesus established was rooted in the house church and did not change for almost 300 years. However, church history shows that as the Apostles passed away, the emerging institutions were beginning to form with writings for example by Origen and other self appointed people of importance with the movement of Christianity. The multiplicity of elders in the house church, and the priesthood of all believers, with Christ as the only true Shepard and Pastor of the "called out ones", soon developed into the aristocracy of the single Bishop rule. Origen being one of the leading fathers of the basis upon which all Catholicism put it's foundation in. The same roots that the Protestant church never let go of, accepting easily the traditions of men and teaching of men over that of Christ and the Apostles.
What is emerging is the "real move" of the Holy Spirit. God no longer wants babies, he wants us to grow up into the full maturity of our priesthood as believers and no longer be observers but participants. The House Church movement in America is a move of God to do just that. To return to what Jesus set forth rather than the aristocracy and hierarchy of men established institutions, disguising themselves as the church, when all this time the real Ekklesia has been in the process of slowly being taught by the Spirit the truth of worship, discipleship, relationship, testimony, daily life evangelism and Holy Spirit enacted gifts and administrations for the body to grow.
The House church will be the break through for a revivaland the last revival where beleivers will no be longer babies blown by every wind of doctrine, but will become the true church of Christ before He returns. In America it will be overseen by Christ and not the men with the most money or power.
It will be a revolution, the radical restoration I pray for everyday of all believers that love Jesus Christ, that they will for once in their lives discover the mystery hidden for all ages, Christ in you the hope of the glory.
I want to quote below directly from www.barna.org two articles I found there.
I would like to thank Brother Leon Wallace, the pastor of Faith Church of Athens, who though we may differ in our views, he is a friend and a brother in Christ. Brother Wallace is open to hearing me, though, he, I assurdely know, doesn't accept my viewpoints readily, as he is still locked into the institution it's practices and it's ways. He and I have found some common grounds in other viewpoints on varying things. He and his wife, Donna and their children are a lovely family and I pray for them daily, as I hope they do I.
I love them and I give him credit for his open mindness and heart to listen and to read my writings and "rantings" anyway on this blog.
Brother Wallace referred me to Barna in telephone conversation the other day. I went to Barna's web site and found two significant articles there, I wanted to reprint here for your reading.
So I quote the two articles he referred me to below.
House Church Involvement Is Growing
June 19, 2006
(Ventura, CA) - Americans are increasingly designing their lifestyles in ways that meet their needs more efficiently. This is true even in the spiritual realm, as evidenced by the rapid growth of participation in house churches across the nation. Whereas most people continue to think of "going to church" as attending a service at one of the many church buildings located throughout their community, a new study from The Barna Group shows that millions of adults are trying out new forms of spiritual community and worship, with many abandoning the traditional forms altogether.
Large Numbers Attend
The new study, based on interviews with more than five thousand randomly selected adults from across the nation, found that 9% of adults attend a house church during a typical week. That is remarkable growth in the past decade, shooting up from just 1% to near double-digit involvement. In total, one out of five adults attends a house church at least once a month.
Projecting these figures to the national population gives an estimate of more than 70 million adults who have at least experimented with house church participation. In a typical week roughly 20 million adults attend a house church gathering. Over the course of a typical month, that number doubles to about 43 million adults.
While many religious professionals say they are unaware of such activity, it might be because the house church is in its "ramp up" phase in the U.S. One consequence is that millions of Americans are intermittently engaged in a house church, alternating back and forth between house church and conventional church. (For clarity, the survey distinguished between involvement in a house church and participation in a small group that is associated with a conventional church.) The Barna survey revealed that of those who attend a house church, 27% attend on a weekly basis, 30% attend one to three times per month, and 43% attend less than once a month.
One Foot in Each Camp
The study also discovered that church attendance patterns are being reshaped. Among those who attend a church of some type, 74% attend only a conventional church while just 5% attend only a house church. Another one-fifth (19%) attend both a house church and a conventional church. (The other 2% attend a small group that was not considered to be a house church.)
The people most likely to attend only a conventional church were women, people 60 or older, residents of the Midwest, and evangelicals. In contrast, the people most likely to attend a house church but not a conventional church were men, home-school families, residents of the West, and non-whites.
The Impact of the House Church
The study was directed by George Barna, whose current best-selling book, entitled Revolution, estimates that this trend will continue over the next two decades, substantially reducing the share of adults who call a conventional church their primary spiritual community.
“The house church now appears to have reached ‘critical mass’ in the United States," commented Barna. "Analysts typically find that once a new tool or institution reaches 15% market penetration, and has evidenced a consistent or growing level of affirmation for at least six years, that entity shifts from fad to trend status. At that point, it becomes a permanent fixture in our society. Today, house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase. We anticipate house church attendance during any given week to double in the coming decade, and a growing proportion of house church attenders to adopt the house church as their primary faith community. That continued growth and public awareness will firmly establish the house church as a significant means of faith experience and expression among Americans."
To read more about alternative forms of spiritual experience and expression, such as the house church, see George Barna’s book, Revolution.
For more information click here
Barna noted that this change is already reorienting the nation’s faith dimension. "By necessity, the transition from a nation exclusively offering a conventional church experience to one that offers a choice between conventional church and other forms of spiritual experience is changing the rules and roles. New leaders are emerging to represent and guide house churches -people whose names are unfamiliar to the bulk of the country, but whose ministries will become more mainstream and well-known as time goes on. A new body of spiritual resources is being developed and utilized by the expanding house church community. House church adherents make greater use of Christian radio, Christian books and online faith experiences than do people engaged solely in a conventional church. In addition, new patterns of faith participation are being implemented. The traditional ways of thinking about and experiencing ‘church’ are rapidly being revolutionized by a form of ‘religious choice’ in which people are taking greater personal responsibility for their spiritual experience and development."
Research Details
The data in this report are based on interviews with 5013 adults from across the nation. The Barna Group conducted this study through the use of telephone surveys, implemented from January 2005 through May 2006, based upon a random sample of people 18 years of age and older living within the 48 continental states. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample of adults is ±1.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. In the research, the distribution of survey respondents corresponded to the geographic dispersion of the U.S. population. Multiple callbacks were used to increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of qualified individuals. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages. The number of adults in key subgroups, before statistical weighting, included 446 evangelicals, 2343 born again Christians, 663 blacks, 631 Hispanics, 1608 conservatives and 676 liberals.
“Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."
“Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical."
The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) is a privately held, for-profit corporation that conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website www.barna.org © The Barna Group, Ltd, 2006.
House Churches Are More Satisfying to Attenders Than Are Conventional Churches
January 8, 2007
(Ventura, CA) - With the growth of house churches across the country, a new study by The Barna Group sheds light on how these independent, non-denominational churches operate.
Levels of Satisfaction
Perhaps the most compelling insight from the national study was an evaluation of the levels of satisfaction of those who attend a house church compared with the views of adults who attend a conventional local church. Four aspects of people's church experience were gauged. Overall, people attending a house church were significantly more likely to be "completely satisfied" with their experience in each of the four dimensions examined.
Two-thirds of house church attenders (68%) were "completely satisfied" with the leadership of their church, compared to only half of those attending a conventional church (49%).
Two-thirds of the house church adherents (66%) were "completely satisfied" with the faith commitment of the people involved in their gathering. In contrast, only four out of ten people attending a conventional church (40%) were similarly satisfied with the faith commitment of the people in their congregation.
Three out of five house church adults (61%) were "completely satisfied" with the level of community and personal connectedness they experience, compared to only two out of five adults who are involved in a conventional church (41%).
A majority of those in a house (59%) said they were "completely satisfied" with the spiritual depth they experience in their house church setting. In contrast, a minority of the adults involved in a conventional church were "completely satisfied" (46%).
The Nature of the Gatherings
The nationwide research also provided a unique profile of what takes place in the typical house church, and who is involved.
Most house churches (80%) meet every week, while 11% meet on a monthly basis. The most common meeting days are Wednesday (27%) and Sunday (25%), while one out of every five (20%) varies the days of the week on which they meet.
The typical house church gathering lasts for about two hours. Only 7% meet for less than an hour, on average, while only 9% usually stay together for more than three hours at a time.
While most conventional churches follow the same format week after week, four of every ten house churches (38%) say that the format they follow varies from meeting to meeting. The proportion of home gatherings that typically engage in spiritual practices include:
93% have spoken prayer during their meetings
90% read from the Bible
89% spend time serving people outside of their group
87% devote time to sharing personal needs or experiences
85% spend time eating and talking before or after the meeting
83% discuss the teaching provided
76% have a formal teaching time
70% incorporate music or singing
58% have a prophecy or special word delivered
52% take an offering from participants that is given to ministries
51% share communion
41% watch a video presentation as part of the learning experience
Most house churches are family-oriented. Two out of every three house churches (64%) have children involved. Those churches are divided evenly between those who have the adults and children together throughout the meeting (41%) and those who keep them separated (38%). The remaining churches divide their time between having everyone together and having time when the children and adults are separated.
The Participants
The average size of a house church is 20 people; in the home churches that include children, there is an average of about seven children under the age of 18 involved. The rapid growth in house church activity is evident in the fact that half of the people (54%) currently engaged in an independent home fellowship have been participating for less than three months. In total, three out of every four house church participants (75%) have been active in their current gathering for a year or less. One out of every five adults has been in their house church for three years or more.
The research found that there are two types of people being attracted to house churches. The older participants, largely drawn from the Boomer population, are devout Christians who are seeking a deeper and more intense experience with God and other believers. The other substantial segment is young adults who are interested in faith and spirituality but have little interest in the traditional forms of church. Their quest is largely one of escaping outdated structures and institutions.
Still in Process
The survey also indicated that there is likely to be more change in the house church environment in the years to come. The ideas of worshipping in homes rather than church buildings, and being led by group members rather than religious professionals, are new to most Americans. The survey suggested that many people are just beginning to think about, and get comfortable with, the idea of homes being the dominant place for shared faith experiences.
Currently, just four out of every ten regular house church attenders (42%) rely exclusively upon a house church as their primary "church" experience. Many of the others - including a large proportion that has been involved for just a few months - are checking out the approach before they shift their allegiance from a conventional to a house church - if they make the shift at all.
Another indication of the nascent state of the house church movement in the U.S. is people’s perception regarding the biblical grounds for meeting in homes. Among adults who consider themselves to be Christian and who do not attend a house church, six out of ten (57%) believe that attending a house church instead of a conventional church satisfies the biblical command to be part of a spiritual community that follows Jesus Christ. Overall, just one out of five conventionally-churched adults (19%) dismissed the house church approach as unbiblical.
Changing the Church
George Barna, who directed the study, said that the results indicate that the biggest obstacle to the growth of the house church movement is not theological but cultural.
"Americans are emotionally open to belonging to a house church, and surprisingly few have any real objections to others joining such a community of faith," explained the author of three-dozen books on faith in America. "But the main deterrent to house church growth is that most people are spiritually complacent; they are not looking to upgrade their spiritual experience. Compared to conventional church attenders, house church adherents are much more likely to say that they have experienced faith-driven transformation, to prioritize their relationship with God, and to desire a more fulfilling community of faith.
"Those who attend a conventional church are generally content to show up and accept whatever their church has on the agenda; they place the responsibility for their spiritual growth on the shoulders of the church," according to Barna. "We found that most conventional church goers have no desire to help improve their congregation’s ministry, nor do they feel a need to increase their personal spiritual responsibility.
"On the other hand," he continued, "the intimacy and shared responsibility found in most house churches requires each participant to be more serious about their faith development. Clearly, the house church experience is not for everyone."
Research Details
The data in this report are from a pair of national surveys conducted by The Barna Group with a random sample of adults, age 18 and older, conducted in August and October 2006. In total, 2008 adults were interviewed. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample is ±2.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages in relation to demographic variables.
In these surveys, a house church was described as "a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own... (They are) sometimes known as a house church or simple church, (and are) not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church."
The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website www.barna.org
© The Barna Group, Ltd, 2007.
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I pray for all those who daring enough to step out in faith and in the tradition as laid down by Christ and the Apostles, to the move they have made to house churches, and that they may grow into the fullness and maturity of Christ and we will see and explosion of Christian testimony, outside of Western ideals and Western materialism that will shake this world and turn it upside down for Jesus!
Dr. J.
What Barna has stumbled on in his research, is what I believe God is doing. God is bringing His people out of conventional church that has largely not changed in 1900 years back to the root of Apostolic tradition and away from the traditions of men.
What Jesus established was rooted in the house church and did not change for almost 300 years. However, church history shows that as the Apostles passed away, the emerging institutions were beginning to form with writings for example by Origen and other self appointed people of importance with the movement of Christianity. The multiplicity of elders in the house church, and the priesthood of all believers, with Christ as the only true Shepard and Pastor of the "called out ones", soon developed into the aristocracy of the single Bishop rule. Origen being one of the leading fathers of the basis upon which all Catholicism put it's foundation in. The same roots that the Protestant church never let go of, accepting easily the traditions of men and teaching of men over that of Christ and the Apostles.
What is emerging is the "real move" of the Holy Spirit. God no longer wants babies, he wants us to grow up into the full maturity of our priesthood as believers and no longer be observers but participants. The House Church movement in America is a move of God to do just that. To return to what Jesus set forth rather than the aristocracy and hierarchy of men established institutions, disguising themselves as the church, when all this time the real Ekklesia has been in the process of slowly being taught by the Spirit the truth of worship, discipleship, relationship, testimony, daily life evangelism and Holy Spirit enacted gifts and administrations for the body to grow.
The House church will be the break through for a revivaland the last revival where beleivers will no be longer babies blown by every wind of doctrine, but will become the true church of Christ before He returns. In America it will be overseen by Christ and not the men with the most money or power.
It will be a revolution, the radical restoration I pray for everyday of all believers that love Jesus Christ, that they will for once in their lives discover the mystery hidden for all ages, Christ in you the hope of the glory.
I want to quote below directly from www.barna.org two articles I found there.
I would like to thank Brother Leon Wallace, the pastor of Faith Church of Athens, who though we may differ in our views, he is a friend and a brother in Christ. Brother Wallace is open to hearing me, though, he, I assurdely know, doesn't accept my viewpoints readily, as he is still locked into the institution it's practices and it's ways. He and I have found some common grounds in other viewpoints on varying things. He and his wife, Donna and their children are a lovely family and I pray for them daily, as I hope they do I.
I love them and I give him credit for his open mindness and heart to listen and to read my writings and "rantings" anyway on this blog.
Brother Wallace referred me to Barna in telephone conversation the other day. I went to Barna's web site and found two significant articles there, I wanted to reprint here for your reading.
So I quote the two articles he referred me to below.
House Church Involvement Is Growing
June 19, 2006
(Ventura, CA) - Americans are increasingly designing their lifestyles in ways that meet their needs more efficiently. This is true even in the spiritual realm, as evidenced by the rapid growth of participation in house churches across the nation. Whereas most people continue to think of "going to church" as attending a service at one of the many church buildings located throughout their community, a new study from The Barna Group shows that millions of adults are trying out new forms of spiritual community and worship, with many abandoning the traditional forms altogether.
Large Numbers Attend
The new study, based on interviews with more than five thousand randomly selected adults from across the nation, found that 9% of adults attend a house church during a typical week. That is remarkable growth in the past decade, shooting up from just 1% to near double-digit involvement. In total, one out of five adults attends a house church at least once a month.
Projecting these figures to the national population gives an estimate of more than 70 million adults who have at least experimented with house church participation. In a typical week roughly 20 million adults attend a house church gathering. Over the course of a typical month, that number doubles to about 43 million adults.
While many religious professionals say they are unaware of such activity, it might be because the house church is in its "ramp up" phase in the U.S. One consequence is that millions of Americans are intermittently engaged in a house church, alternating back and forth between house church and conventional church. (For clarity, the survey distinguished between involvement in a house church and participation in a small group that is associated with a conventional church.) The Barna survey revealed that of those who attend a house church, 27% attend on a weekly basis, 30% attend one to three times per month, and 43% attend less than once a month.
One Foot in Each Camp
The study also discovered that church attendance patterns are being reshaped. Among those who attend a church of some type, 74% attend only a conventional church while just 5% attend only a house church. Another one-fifth (19%) attend both a house church and a conventional church. (The other 2% attend a small group that was not considered to be a house church.)
The people most likely to attend only a conventional church were women, people 60 or older, residents of the Midwest, and evangelicals. In contrast, the people most likely to attend a house church but not a conventional church were men, home-school families, residents of the West, and non-whites.
The Impact of the House Church
The study was directed by George Barna, whose current best-selling book, entitled Revolution, estimates that this trend will continue over the next two decades, substantially reducing the share of adults who call a conventional church their primary spiritual community.
“The house church now appears to have reached ‘critical mass’ in the United States," commented Barna. "Analysts typically find that once a new tool or institution reaches 15% market penetration, and has evidenced a consistent or growing level of affirmation for at least six years, that entity shifts from fad to trend status. At that point, it becomes a permanent fixture in our society. Today, house churches are moving from the appraisal phase into the acceptance phase. We anticipate house church attendance during any given week to double in the coming decade, and a growing proportion of house church attenders to adopt the house church as their primary faith community. That continued growth and public awareness will firmly establish the house church as a significant means of faith experience and expression among Americans."
To read more about alternative forms of spiritual experience and expression, such as the house church, see George Barna’s book, Revolution.
For more information click here
Barna noted that this change is already reorienting the nation’s faith dimension. "By necessity, the transition from a nation exclusively offering a conventional church experience to one that offers a choice between conventional church and other forms of spiritual experience is changing the rules and roles. New leaders are emerging to represent and guide house churches -people whose names are unfamiliar to the bulk of the country, but whose ministries will become more mainstream and well-known as time goes on. A new body of spiritual resources is being developed and utilized by the expanding house church community. House church adherents make greater use of Christian radio, Christian books and online faith experiences than do people engaged solely in a conventional church. In addition, new patterns of faith participation are being implemented. The traditional ways of thinking about and experiencing ‘church’ are rapidly being revolutionized by a form of ‘religious choice’ in which people are taking greater personal responsibility for their spiritual experience and development."
Research Details
The data in this report are based on interviews with 5013 adults from across the nation. The Barna Group conducted this study through the use of telephone surveys, implemented from January 2005 through May 2006, based upon a random sample of people 18 years of age and older living within the 48 continental states. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample of adults is ±1.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. In the research, the distribution of survey respondents corresponded to the geographic dispersion of the U.S. population. Multiple callbacks were used to increase the probability of including a reliable distribution of qualified individuals. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages. The number of adults in key subgroups, before statistical weighting, included 446 evangelicals, 2343 born again Christians, 663 blacks, 631 Hispanics, 1608 conservatives and 676 liberals.
“Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."
“Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical."
The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) is a privately held, for-profit corporation that conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website www.barna.org © The Barna Group, Ltd, 2006.
House Churches Are More Satisfying to Attenders Than Are Conventional Churches
January 8, 2007
(Ventura, CA) - With the growth of house churches across the country, a new study by The Barna Group sheds light on how these independent, non-denominational churches operate.
Levels of Satisfaction
Perhaps the most compelling insight from the national study was an evaluation of the levels of satisfaction of those who attend a house church compared with the views of adults who attend a conventional local church. Four aspects of people's church experience were gauged. Overall, people attending a house church were significantly more likely to be "completely satisfied" with their experience in each of the four dimensions examined.
Two-thirds of house church attenders (68%) were "completely satisfied" with the leadership of their church, compared to only half of those attending a conventional church (49%).
Two-thirds of the house church adherents (66%) were "completely satisfied" with the faith commitment of the people involved in their gathering. In contrast, only four out of ten people attending a conventional church (40%) were similarly satisfied with the faith commitment of the people in their congregation.
Three out of five house church adults (61%) were "completely satisfied" with the level of community and personal connectedness they experience, compared to only two out of five adults who are involved in a conventional church (41%).
A majority of those in a house (59%) said they were "completely satisfied" with the spiritual depth they experience in their house church setting. In contrast, a minority of the adults involved in a conventional church were "completely satisfied" (46%).
The Nature of the Gatherings
The nationwide research also provided a unique profile of what takes place in the typical house church, and who is involved.
Most house churches (80%) meet every week, while 11% meet on a monthly basis. The most common meeting days are Wednesday (27%) and Sunday (25%), while one out of every five (20%) varies the days of the week on which they meet.
The typical house church gathering lasts for about two hours. Only 7% meet for less than an hour, on average, while only 9% usually stay together for more than three hours at a time.
While most conventional churches follow the same format week after week, four of every ten house churches (38%) say that the format they follow varies from meeting to meeting. The proportion of home gatherings that typically engage in spiritual practices include:
93% have spoken prayer during their meetings
90% read from the Bible
89% spend time serving people outside of their group
87% devote time to sharing personal needs or experiences
85% spend time eating and talking before or after the meeting
83% discuss the teaching provided
76% have a formal teaching time
70% incorporate music or singing
58% have a prophecy or special word delivered
52% take an offering from participants that is given to ministries
51% share communion
41% watch a video presentation as part of the learning experience
Most house churches are family-oriented. Two out of every three house churches (64%) have children involved. Those churches are divided evenly between those who have the adults and children together throughout the meeting (41%) and those who keep them separated (38%). The remaining churches divide their time between having everyone together and having time when the children and adults are separated.
The Participants
The average size of a house church is 20 people; in the home churches that include children, there is an average of about seven children under the age of 18 involved. The rapid growth in house church activity is evident in the fact that half of the people (54%) currently engaged in an independent home fellowship have been participating for less than three months. In total, three out of every four house church participants (75%) have been active in their current gathering for a year or less. One out of every five adults has been in their house church for three years or more.
The research found that there are two types of people being attracted to house churches. The older participants, largely drawn from the Boomer population, are devout Christians who are seeking a deeper and more intense experience with God and other believers. The other substantial segment is young adults who are interested in faith and spirituality but have little interest in the traditional forms of church. Their quest is largely one of escaping outdated structures and institutions.
Still in Process
The survey also indicated that there is likely to be more change in the house church environment in the years to come. The ideas of worshipping in homes rather than church buildings, and being led by group members rather than religious professionals, are new to most Americans. The survey suggested that many people are just beginning to think about, and get comfortable with, the idea of homes being the dominant place for shared faith experiences.
Currently, just four out of every ten regular house church attenders (42%) rely exclusively upon a house church as their primary "church" experience. Many of the others - including a large proportion that has been involved for just a few months - are checking out the approach before they shift their allegiance from a conventional to a house church - if they make the shift at all.
Another indication of the nascent state of the house church movement in the U.S. is people’s perception regarding the biblical grounds for meeting in homes. Among adults who consider themselves to be Christian and who do not attend a house church, six out of ten (57%) believe that attending a house church instead of a conventional church satisfies the biblical command to be part of a spiritual community that follows Jesus Christ. Overall, just one out of five conventionally-churched adults (19%) dismissed the house church approach as unbiblical.
Changing the Church
George Barna, who directed the study, said that the results indicate that the biggest obstacle to the growth of the house church movement is not theological but cultural.
"Americans are emotionally open to belonging to a house church, and surprisingly few have any real objections to others joining such a community of faith," explained the author of three-dozen books on faith in America. "But the main deterrent to house church growth is that most people are spiritually complacent; they are not looking to upgrade their spiritual experience. Compared to conventional church attenders, house church adherents are much more likely to say that they have experienced faith-driven transformation, to prioritize their relationship with God, and to desire a more fulfilling community of faith.
"Those who attend a conventional church are generally content to show up and accept whatever their church has on the agenda; they place the responsibility for their spiritual growth on the shoulders of the church," according to Barna. "We found that most conventional church goers have no desire to help improve their congregation’s ministry, nor do they feel a need to increase their personal spiritual responsibility.
"On the other hand," he continued, "the intimacy and shared responsibility found in most house churches requires each participant to be more serious about their faith development. Clearly, the house church experience is not for everyone."
Research Details
The data in this report are from a pair of national surveys conducted by The Barna Group with a random sample of adults, age 18 and older, conducted in August and October 2006. In total, 2008 adults were interviewed. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample is ±2.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Statistical weighting was used to calibrate the aggregate sample to known population percentages in relation to demographic variables.
In these surveys, a house church was described as "a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own... (They are) sometimes known as a house church or simple church, (and are) not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church."
The Barna Group, Ltd. (which includes its research division, The Barna Research Group) conducts primary research, produces media resources pertaining to spiritual development, and facilitates the healthy spiritual growth of leaders, children, families and Christian ministries. Located in Ventura, California, Barna has been conducting and analyzing primary research to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors since 1984. If you would like to receive free e-mail notification of the release of each new, bi-monthly update on the latest research findings from The Barna Group, you may subscribe to this free service at the Barna website www.barna.org
© The Barna Group, Ltd, 2007.
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I pray for all those who daring enough to step out in faith and in the tradition as laid down by Christ and the Apostles, to the move they have made to house churches, and that they may grow into the fullness and maturity of Christ and we will see and explosion of Christian testimony, outside of Western ideals and Western materialism that will shake this world and turn it upside down for Jesus!
Dr. J.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
How American Preachers Incited Revolution
I want to post an article here because I want people to realize the part that the organized church has always played in the politics of America. I want to talk about at a later date, the influence of ideas that still play the largest part to American foreign policy today and war. There will be many that will disagree, and that is the wonderful thing about being a Christian is if we have love for one another, we can disagree- agreeably. So, news for the next few weeks will probably encompass a lot of my interpretation of these events, where they originate from, and how a lie is continually propagated on the American Christian. The organized church has only since the 1800's began to believe these things, and it all started with men by the last name of Darby and Scofield. Let me tell you right now, I am not a premillenialist, nor do I believe in the physical restoration of the physical kingdom of Israel as a promise unfulfilled but fulfilled now as of their occupation of 1949. Israel recieved the promise land in the physical, many times but lost it because of their unbelief. I strongly believe that the Zionist are playing politics with a twist of the truth of what Jesus was trying to tell the Zionist even back when He walked this earth, and because of the concepts popularized by two men and in the 1800's and the most recent series of books written on the "Last Days" we are as a nation being led by the nose into the present circumstances we find ourselves. I won't say more, as there are pages that can be written by my how I came to these conclusions. I am not anti-semitic nor do I have a hatred for any race of people. I do believe truth needs to be told, now my truth may not be yours but perhaps you haven't really given thought to these things and because of the popularity of books like "The Rapture" and Armageddon, etc, by Bruce Larson and his co-writers, we have become even more enamored with these ideals of the physical and American Christians may be missing the whole point of Revelations and Christ's soon coming return. Anyway, for those that do want to say something about the churches influence in the forming of this country, this will give them ammunition, but in truth, the purpose of this story is to show how the church can influence political changes and propagate something it believes in. Perhaps the fault today, to the problems we have as Americans can be laid at the foot of Pre-Millenial, DISPENSATIONAL stories and teachings that continue to be propagated by the organized churches preachers.
You have every right to disagree, but don't let it change our love for one another.
This is a copied article from Christianity Today- Church History. It wasn't written by me. I think it will reveal the strong influence preaching had on the Revolution of 1776. I have a differing opinion as to whether it was Christian belief or not.
How Preachers Incited Revolution
Angry colonists were rallied to declare independence and take up arms because of what they heard from the pulpit.
By Harry S. Stout
No turning back.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) Americans suffered 441 casualties and the British 1,150. Though a strategic victory for the British, English nerve was shaken, the colonists were emboldened, and any hope for peaceful reconciliation was lost.
It's 1775. The year 1787, with its novel constitution and separation of church and state is a long 12 years away. At the moment, you and your friends are just a bunch of outlaws.
You've heard the debates in Parliament over taxation and representation; you've seen British troops enforce royal supremacy at the point of a bayonet. Your king, George III, and Parliament have issued a declaration asserting their sovereignty in "all cases whatsoever" in the colonies. You are, at least in New England, a people under siege with British troops quartered in Boston. You've dumped tea into Boston's harbor in a fit of rage and had your port closed.
Who will you turn to now for direction? There are no presidents or vice-presidents, no supreme court justices or public defenders to call on. There are a handful of young, radical lawyers, like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, but they're largely concentrated in cities, while you and most of your friends live in the country. In many colonies, including Massachusetts, there are not even elected governors or councilors—they have all been appointed by the British crown and are answerable to it.
Where you turn is where you have habitually turned for over a century: to the prophets of your society, your ministers.
The American Revolutionary era is known as the "Golden Age of Oratory." What school child has not heard or read Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Who has not seen reenactments or heard summaries of Ben Franklin's heroic appearance before a hostile British Parliament?
Yet often lost in this celebration of patriotic oratory is the key role preaching played in the Revolutionary movement.
TV, INTERNET AND MORE
A few broad statistics can help us appreciate more fully the unique power the sermon wielded in Revolutionary America.
Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening. This is the number of classroom hours it would take to receive ten separate undergraduate degrees in a modern university, without ever repeating the same course!
The pulpits were Congregational and Baptist in New England; Presbyterian, Lutheran, and German Reformed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and Anglican and Methodist in the South. But no matter the denomination, colonial congregations heard sermons more than any other form of oratory. The colonial sermon was prophet, newspaper, video, Internet, community college, and social therapist all wrapped in one. Such was the range of its influence on all aspects of life that even contemporary television and personal computers pale in comparison.
Eighteenth-century America was a deeply religious culture that lived self-consciously "under the cope of heaven." In Sunday worship, and weekday (or "occasional") sermons, ministers drew the populace into a rhetorical world that was more compelling and immediate than the physical settlements surrounding them. Sermons taught not only the way to personal salvation in Christ but also the way to temporal and national prosperity for God's chosen people.
Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point but from God's. The vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist, to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level: all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of God's providential design. The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors. Colonial congregations saw themselves as the "New Israel," endowed with a sacred mission that destined them as lead actors in the last triumphant chapter in redemption history.
Thus colonial audiences learned to perceive themselves not as a ragtag settlement of religious exiles and eccentrics but as God's special people, planted in the American wilderness to bring light to the Old World left behind. Europeans might ignore or revile them as "fanatics," but through the sermon, they knew better. Better to absorb the barbs of English ridicule than to forget their glorious commission.
For over a century, colonial congregations had turned to England for protection and culture. Despite religious differences separating many colonists from the Church of England, they shared a common identity as Englishmen, an identity that stood firm against all foes. But almost overnight, these loyalties were challenged by a series of British imperial laws. Beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765 and running through the "Boston Massacre" of 1770, the Tea Act of 1773, and finally, martial law in Massachusetts, patriotic Americans perceived a British plot to deprive them of their fundamental English rights and their God-ordained liberties.
In the twentieth-century, taxation and representation are political and constitutional issues, having nothing to do with religion. But to eighteenth-century ears, attuned to lifetimes of preaching, the issues were inevitably religious as well, so colonists naturally turned to their ministers to learn God's will about these troubling matters.
TYRANNY IS "IDOLATRY"
When understood in its own times, the American Revolution was first and foremost a religious event. This is especially true in New England, where the first blood was shed.
By 1775 the ranks of Harvard- and Yale-educated clergymen swelled to over600 ministers, distributed throughout every town and village in New England. Clergymen surveyed the events swirling around them; by 1775 liberals and evangelicals, Congregationalists and Presbyterians, men and women—all saw in British actions grounds for armed resistance.
In fact, not only was it right for colonists to resist British "tyranny," it would actually be sinful not to pick up guns.
How did they come to this conclusion? They fastened on two arguments.
First, they focused on Parliament's 1766 Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had sovereignty over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." For clergymen this phrase took on the air of blasphemy. These were fighting words not only because they violated principles of representative government but even more because they violated the logic of sola Scriptura ("Scripture alone") and God's exclusive claim to sovereignty "in all cases whatsoever."
From the first colonial settlements, Americans—especially New England Americans—were accustomed to constraining all power and granting absolute authority to no mere human being.
For Reformed colonists, these ideas were tied up with their historic, covenant theology. At stake was the preservation of their identity as a covenant people. Not only did Parliament's claims represent tyranny, they also represented idolatry. For colonists to honor those claims would be tantamount to forsaking God and abdicating their national covenant pledge to "have no other gods" before them.
In a classic sermon on the subject of resistance entitled A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission, Boston's Jonathan Mayhew, a liberal(he favored Unitarianism), took as his text Romans 13:1-6, in which Paul enjoins Christians to "be subject unto the higher powers." The day he picked for this sermon was portentous—it came on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, when Anglican ministers routinely abhorred the Puritan revolution, and Puritans routinely kept silent. Mayhew would not keep silent.
For centuries, rulers had used this text to discourage resistance and riot. But circumstances had changed, and in the chilling climate of impending Anglo-American conflict, Mayhew asked if there were any limits to this law? He concluded that the law is binding only insofar as government honors its "moral and religious" obligations. When government fails to honor that obligation, or contract, then the duty of submission is likewise nullified. Submission, in other words, is not unlimited.
Rulers, he said, "have no authority from God to do mischief. … It is blasphemy to call tyrants and oppressors God's ministers." Far from being sinful, resistance to corrupt ministers and tyrannical rulers is a divine imperative. The greater sin lies in passively sacrificing the covenant for tyranny, that is, in failing to resist.
Who determines whether government is "moral and religious"? In the Revolutionary era, the answer was simple: the individual. There were no established institutions that would support violent revolution. Ultimate justification resided in the will of a people acting self-consciously as united individuals joined in a common cause. Where a government was found to be deficient in moral and spiritual terms, the individual conscience was freed to resist.
AMERICA: A NEW HEAVEN
Clergy in the Revolutionary era reminded people not only what they were fighting against, namely tyranny and idolatry, but also what they were fighting for: a new heaven and a new earth.
Many early American settlers arrived believing they were part of the New Israel, that they would be instruments for Christ's triumphant return to earth. Interpretations varied on whether the last days would be marked by progressive revelations and triumphs (the "postmillennial" view), or whether they would be marked by sudden judgments and calamities (the "pre millennial" view), or some combination thereof. But all agreed the present was portentous, and American colonists were going to play a direct role in the great things looming.
Wars, first with France and later with England, accelerated these millennial speculations. In fighting against England and George III, people felt they were at once fighting against the Antichrist in a climactic battle between good and evil, tyranny and freedom.
Freedom and liberty (like individual) were both political and religious terms. They helped not only preserve fundamental human rights but also sustain loyalty to Christ and to sola Scriptura. So closely intertwined were the political and religious connotations, it was virtually impossible for colonists to separate them.
In his 1776 sermon on The Church's Flight into the Wilderness, Samuel Sherwood examined the prophecies in the Book of Revelation and concluded that American Christians were the "church in the wilderness," nurtured in a faraway hiding place and raised to battle and defeat Antichrist. He argued that the powers of Antichrist were "not confined to the boundaries of the Roman empire, nor strictly to the territory of the pope's usurped authority." Rather, they extended to all enemies of Christ's church and people. He concluded that England's monarchy "appears to have many of the features and much of the temper and character of the image of the beast."
In only slightly more secular terms, the greatest pamphlet of the Revolutionary era invoked this millennial imagery. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was the runaway bestseller of the American Revolution. In time Paine would be unveiled as a wild-eyed deist, and worse, an atheist. But you couldn't guess that from Common Sense. It read like a sermon. Paine knew his audience well, and he knew what biblical allusions would bring them to arms.
His sermonic pamphlet begins by berating George III as the "royal brute" of England, noting that monarchy, like aristocracy, had its origins among ruffians who enforced their "superiority" at the point of a sword. Then they masked this brute coercion with the trappings of refined culture and regal bearing. Nevertheless, "How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!" He then identifies the monarchy with tyranny, and tyranny with idolatry and blasphemy. Paine traces in elaborate detail Israel's "national delusion" in requesting a king as did other nations, and God's subsequent displeasure at a "form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven."
From scriptural precedent, Paine, the revivalist of revolt, concludes, "These portions of Scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the Scripture is false."
Paine then went on to echo ministerial visions of a new millennial age. With unmitigated confidence, Paine reiterated John Winthrop's 17th-century Puritan vision of America as a "city upon a hill." But unlike Winthrop, Paine's millennial city was modeled on republican principles (rather than hierarchical)and religious toleration (rather than state-enforced conformity). With words certain to thrill, he likened the colonists to a young tree on which small characters were carved, characters of liberty and freedom. In time this tree would grow huge, and with it, the characters boldly would proclaim the birth of a new adventure in freedom that would be seen throughout the world.
Many colonists were fearful that, if they failed, their leaders would be hung as traitors and the people enslaved in tyranny. But Paine exulted, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom. … How trifling, how ridiculous do the little paltry cavillings of a few weak or interested men appear when weighed against the business of a world."
With rhetoric like this, Paine fused the liberal Mayhew's defense of resistance with an evangelical-like appeal to passion. It is not surprising that liberals and evangelicals united in "the business of a world."
VOICE OF HOPE AND COURAGE
No minister studied the rapidly unfolding events against scriptural teachings more closely than did Concord's 32-year-old minister, William Emerson(grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson). For a long time, his world had been dominated by local concerns and salvation preaching. But all of this changed in March and April 1775, when all the members of his congregation were propelled into what he termed "the greatest events taking place in the present age."
By March, Emerson and other Concord patriots knew that British spies had infiltrated their town and informed General Thomas Gage of a hidden armory and munitions supplies stocked by the local "Sons of Liberty" (a secret society of radicals). Many believed Gage was planning a preemptive strike on these supplies, and they feared for their lives. At a muster of the Concord militia on March 13, Emerson preached a sermon on 2 Chronicles 13:12: "And behold, God himself is with us for our captain. … O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper" (KJV).
Never would he deliver a more momentous sermon. He had it within his means to promote or discourage an almost certainly violent call to arms. What was he to say? What was God's will for his American people?
With obvious agitation, Emerson began his sermon with the somber note that recent intelligence warned of "an approaching storm of war and bloodshed." Many in attendance would soon be called upon for "real service." Were they ready? Real readiness, Emerson explained, depended not only on martial skill and weaponry but also on moral and spiritual resolve. To be successful, soldiers must believe in what they were fighting for, and they must trust in God's power to uphold them. Otherwise they would scatter in fear before the superior British redcoats.
What were the men of Concord fighting for? In strident political terms that coupled the roles of prophet and statesman, Emerson argued for colonial resistance. For standing by their liberties and trusting only in God, the American people were "cruelly charged with rebellion and sedition." That charge, Emerson cried, was a lie put forward by plotters against American liberty. With all of the integrity of his sacred office behind him, Emerson took his stand before the Concord militia:
"For my own part, the more I reflect upon the movements of the British nation … the more satisfied I am that our military preparation here for our own defense is … justified in the eyes of the impartial world. Nay, for should we neglect to defend ourselves by military preparation, we never could answer it to God and to our own consciences of the rising [generations]."
The road ahead would be difficult, Emerson cautioned, but the outcome was one preordained from the beginning of time. Accordingly, the soldiers could go forth to war assured that "the Lord will cover your head in the day of battle and carry you on from victory to victory." In the end, he concluded, the whole world would know "that there is a God" in America.
On April 19, the mounting apprehensions became fact as 800 British troops marched on Lexington and Concord to destroy the patriot munitions. At Lexington, Gage's troops were met by a small "army of observation," who were fired upon and sustained 17 casualties. From there the British troops marched to Concord. Before their arrival, the alarm had been sounded by patriot silversmith Paul Revere, and militiamen rushed to the common. William Emerson arrived first, and he was soon joined by "minutemen" from nearby towns. Again a shot was fired—the famed "shot heard 'round the world"—and in the ensuing exchange, three Americans and twelve British soldiers were killed or wounded. America's colonial war for independence had begun.
Words like Emerson's continued to sound for the next eight years, goading, consoling, and impelling colonists forward in the cause of independence. The pulpit served as the single most powerful voice to inspire the colonists.
For most American ministers and many in their congregations, the religious dimension of the war was precisely the point of revolution. Revolution and a new republican government would enable Americans to continue to realize their destiny as a "redeemer nation." If time would prove that self-defined mission tragically arrogant, it was not apparent to the participants themselves. With backs against the wall, and precious little to take confidence in, words like those of Mayhew's, Emerson's, and Paine's were their only hope.
Harry Stout is Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University. He is author of The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (Oxford).
You have every right to disagree, but don't let it change our love for one another.
This is a copied article from Christianity Today- Church History. It wasn't written by me. I think it will reveal the strong influence preaching had on the Revolution of 1776. I have a differing opinion as to whether it was Christian belief or not.
How Preachers Incited Revolution
Angry colonists were rallied to declare independence and take up arms because of what they heard from the pulpit.
By Harry S. Stout
No turning back.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) Americans suffered 441 casualties and the British 1,150. Though a strategic victory for the British, English nerve was shaken, the colonists were emboldened, and any hope for peaceful reconciliation was lost.
It's 1775. The year 1787, with its novel constitution and separation of church and state is a long 12 years away. At the moment, you and your friends are just a bunch of outlaws.
You've heard the debates in Parliament over taxation and representation; you've seen British troops enforce royal supremacy at the point of a bayonet. Your king, George III, and Parliament have issued a declaration asserting their sovereignty in "all cases whatsoever" in the colonies. You are, at least in New England, a people under siege with British troops quartered in Boston. You've dumped tea into Boston's harbor in a fit of rage and had your port closed.
Who will you turn to now for direction? There are no presidents or vice-presidents, no supreme court justices or public defenders to call on. There are a handful of young, radical lawyers, like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel, but they're largely concentrated in cities, while you and most of your friends live in the country. In many colonies, including Massachusetts, there are not even elected governors or councilors—they have all been appointed by the British crown and are answerable to it.
Where you turn is where you have habitually turned for over a century: to the prophets of your society, your ministers.
The American Revolutionary era is known as the "Golden Age of Oratory." What school child has not heard or read Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Who has not seen reenactments or heard summaries of Ben Franklin's heroic appearance before a hostile British Parliament?
Yet often lost in this celebration of patriotic oratory is the key role preaching played in the Revolutionary movement.
TV, INTERNET AND MORE
A few broad statistics can help us appreciate more fully the unique power the sermon wielded in Revolutionary America.
Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening. This is the number of classroom hours it would take to receive ten separate undergraduate degrees in a modern university, without ever repeating the same course!
The pulpits were Congregational and Baptist in New England; Presbyterian, Lutheran, and German Reformed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and Anglican and Methodist in the South. But no matter the denomination, colonial congregations heard sermons more than any other form of oratory. The colonial sermon was prophet, newspaper, video, Internet, community college, and social therapist all wrapped in one. Such was the range of its influence on all aspects of life that even contemporary television and personal computers pale in comparison.
Eighteenth-century America was a deeply religious culture that lived self-consciously "under the cope of heaven." In Sunday worship, and weekday (or "occasional") sermons, ministers drew the populace into a rhetorical world that was more compelling and immediate than the physical settlements surrounding them. Sermons taught not only the way to personal salvation in Christ but also the way to temporal and national prosperity for God's chosen people.
Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point but from God's. The vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist, to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level: all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of God's providential design. The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors. Colonial congregations saw themselves as the "New Israel," endowed with a sacred mission that destined them as lead actors in the last triumphant chapter in redemption history.
Thus colonial audiences learned to perceive themselves not as a ragtag settlement of religious exiles and eccentrics but as God's special people, planted in the American wilderness to bring light to the Old World left behind. Europeans might ignore or revile them as "fanatics," but through the sermon, they knew better. Better to absorb the barbs of English ridicule than to forget their glorious commission.
For over a century, colonial congregations had turned to England for protection and culture. Despite religious differences separating many colonists from the Church of England, they shared a common identity as Englishmen, an identity that stood firm against all foes. But almost overnight, these loyalties were challenged by a series of British imperial laws. Beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765 and running through the "Boston Massacre" of 1770, the Tea Act of 1773, and finally, martial law in Massachusetts, patriotic Americans perceived a British plot to deprive them of their fundamental English rights and their God-ordained liberties.
In the twentieth-century, taxation and representation are political and constitutional issues, having nothing to do with religion. But to eighteenth-century ears, attuned to lifetimes of preaching, the issues were inevitably religious as well, so colonists naturally turned to their ministers to learn God's will about these troubling matters.
TYRANNY IS "IDOLATRY"
When understood in its own times, the American Revolution was first and foremost a religious event. This is especially true in New England, where the first blood was shed.
By 1775 the ranks of Harvard- and Yale-educated clergymen swelled to over600 ministers, distributed throughout every town and village in New England. Clergymen surveyed the events swirling around them; by 1775 liberals and evangelicals, Congregationalists and Presbyterians, men and women—all saw in British actions grounds for armed resistance.
In fact, not only was it right for colonists to resist British "tyranny," it would actually be sinful not to pick up guns.
How did they come to this conclusion? They fastened on two arguments.
First, they focused on Parliament's 1766 Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had sovereignty over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." For clergymen this phrase took on the air of blasphemy. These were fighting words not only because they violated principles of representative government but even more because they violated the logic of sola Scriptura ("Scripture alone") and God's exclusive claim to sovereignty "in all cases whatsoever."
From the first colonial settlements, Americans—especially New England Americans—were accustomed to constraining all power and granting absolute authority to no mere human being.
For Reformed colonists, these ideas were tied up with their historic, covenant theology. At stake was the preservation of their identity as a covenant people. Not only did Parliament's claims represent tyranny, they also represented idolatry. For colonists to honor those claims would be tantamount to forsaking God and abdicating their national covenant pledge to "have no other gods" before them.
In a classic sermon on the subject of resistance entitled A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission, Boston's Jonathan Mayhew, a liberal(he favored Unitarianism), took as his text Romans 13:1-6, in which Paul enjoins Christians to "be subject unto the higher powers." The day he picked for this sermon was portentous—it came on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, when Anglican ministers routinely abhorred the Puritan revolution, and Puritans routinely kept silent. Mayhew would not keep silent.
For centuries, rulers had used this text to discourage resistance and riot. But circumstances had changed, and in the chilling climate of impending Anglo-American conflict, Mayhew asked if there were any limits to this law? He concluded that the law is binding only insofar as government honors its "moral and religious" obligations. When government fails to honor that obligation, or contract, then the duty of submission is likewise nullified. Submission, in other words, is not unlimited.
Rulers, he said, "have no authority from God to do mischief. … It is blasphemy to call tyrants and oppressors God's ministers." Far from being sinful, resistance to corrupt ministers and tyrannical rulers is a divine imperative. The greater sin lies in passively sacrificing the covenant for tyranny, that is, in failing to resist.
Who determines whether government is "moral and religious"? In the Revolutionary era, the answer was simple: the individual. There were no established institutions that would support violent revolution. Ultimate justification resided in the will of a people acting self-consciously as united individuals joined in a common cause. Where a government was found to be deficient in moral and spiritual terms, the individual conscience was freed to resist.
AMERICA: A NEW HEAVEN
Clergy in the Revolutionary era reminded people not only what they were fighting against, namely tyranny and idolatry, but also what they were fighting for: a new heaven and a new earth.
Many early American settlers arrived believing they were part of the New Israel, that they would be instruments for Christ's triumphant return to earth. Interpretations varied on whether the last days would be marked by progressive revelations and triumphs (the "postmillennial" view), or whether they would be marked by sudden judgments and calamities (the "pre millennial" view), or some combination thereof. But all agreed the present was portentous, and American colonists were going to play a direct role in the great things looming.
Wars, first with France and later with England, accelerated these millennial speculations. In fighting against England and George III, people felt they were at once fighting against the Antichrist in a climactic battle between good and evil, tyranny and freedom.
Freedom and liberty (like individual) were both political and religious terms. They helped not only preserve fundamental human rights but also sustain loyalty to Christ and to sola Scriptura. So closely intertwined were the political and religious connotations, it was virtually impossible for colonists to separate them.
In his 1776 sermon on The Church's Flight into the Wilderness, Samuel Sherwood examined the prophecies in the Book of Revelation and concluded that American Christians were the "church in the wilderness," nurtured in a faraway hiding place and raised to battle and defeat Antichrist. He argued that the powers of Antichrist were "not confined to the boundaries of the Roman empire, nor strictly to the territory of the pope's usurped authority." Rather, they extended to all enemies of Christ's church and people. He concluded that England's monarchy "appears to have many of the features and much of the temper and character of the image of the beast."
In only slightly more secular terms, the greatest pamphlet of the Revolutionary era invoked this millennial imagery. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was the runaway bestseller of the American Revolution. In time Paine would be unveiled as a wild-eyed deist, and worse, an atheist. But you couldn't guess that from Common Sense. It read like a sermon. Paine knew his audience well, and he knew what biblical allusions would bring them to arms.
His sermonic pamphlet begins by berating George III as the "royal brute" of England, noting that monarchy, like aristocracy, had its origins among ruffians who enforced their "superiority" at the point of a sword. Then they masked this brute coercion with the trappings of refined culture and regal bearing. Nevertheless, "How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!" He then identifies the monarchy with tyranny, and tyranny with idolatry and blasphemy. Paine traces in elaborate detail Israel's "national delusion" in requesting a king as did other nations, and God's subsequent displeasure at a "form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven."
From scriptural precedent, Paine, the revivalist of revolt, concludes, "These portions of Scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the Scripture is false."
Paine then went on to echo ministerial visions of a new millennial age. With unmitigated confidence, Paine reiterated John Winthrop's 17th-century Puritan vision of America as a "city upon a hill." But unlike Winthrop, Paine's millennial city was modeled on republican principles (rather than hierarchical)and religious toleration (rather than state-enforced conformity). With words certain to thrill, he likened the colonists to a young tree on which small characters were carved, characters of liberty and freedom. In time this tree would grow huge, and with it, the characters boldly would proclaim the birth of a new adventure in freedom that would be seen throughout the world.
Many colonists were fearful that, if they failed, their leaders would be hung as traitors and the people enslaved in tyranny. But Paine exulted, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom. … How trifling, how ridiculous do the little paltry cavillings of a few weak or interested men appear when weighed against the business of a world."
With rhetoric like this, Paine fused the liberal Mayhew's defense of resistance with an evangelical-like appeal to passion. It is not surprising that liberals and evangelicals united in "the business of a world."
VOICE OF HOPE AND COURAGE
No minister studied the rapidly unfolding events against scriptural teachings more closely than did Concord's 32-year-old minister, William Emerson(grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson). For a long time, his world had been dominated by local concerns and salvation preaching. But all of this changed in March and April 1775, when all the members of his congregation were propelled into what he termed "the greatest events taking place in the present age."
By March, Emerson and other Concord patriots knew that British spies had infiltrated their town and informed General Thomas Gage of a hidden armory and munitions supplies stocked by the local "Sons of Liberty" (a secret society of radicals). Many believed Gage was planning a preemptive strike on these supplies, and they feared for their lives. At a muster of the Concord militia on March 13, Emerson preached a sermon on 2 Chronicles 13:12: "And behold, God himself is with us for our captain. … O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper" (KJV).
Never would he deliver a more momentous sermon. He had it within his means to promote or discourage an almost certainly violent call to arms. What was he to say? What was God's will for his American people?
With obvious agitation, Emerson began his sermon with the somber note that recent intelligence warned of "an approaching storm of war and bloodshed." Many in attendance would soon be called upon for "real service." Were they ready? Real readiness, Emerson explained, depended not only on martial skill and weaponry but also on moral and spiritual resolve. To be successful, soldiers must believe in what they were fighting for, and they must trust in God's power to uphold them. Otherwise they would scatter in fear before the superior British redcoats.
What were the men of Concord fighting for? In strident political terms that coupled the roles of prophet and statesman, Emerson argued for colonial resistance. For standing by their liberties and trusting only in God, the American people were "cruelly charged with rebellion and sedition." That charge, Emerson cried, was a lie put forward by plotters against American liberty. With all of the integrity of his sacred office behind him, Emerson took his stand before the Concord militia:
"For my own part, the more I reflect upon the movements of the British nation … the more satisfied I am that our military preparation here for our own defense is … justified in the eyes of the impartial world. Nay, for should we neglect to defend ourselves by military preparation, we never could answer it to God and to our own consciences of the rising [generations]."
The road ahead would be difficult, Emerson cautioned, but the outcome was one preordained from the beginning of time. Accordingly, the soldiers could go forth to war assured that "the Lord will cover your head in the day of battle and carry you on from victory to victory." In the end, he concluded, the whole world would know "that there is a God" in America.
On April 19, the mounting apprehensions became fact as 800 British troops marched on Lexington and Concord to destroy the patriot munitions. At Lexington, Gage's troops were met by a small "army of observation," who were fired upon and sustained 17 casualties. From there the British troops marched to Concord. Before their arrival, the alarm had been sounded by patriot silversmith Paul Revere, and militiamen rushed to the common. William Emerson arrived first, and he was soon joined by "minutemen" from nearby towns. Again a shot was fired—the famed "shot heard 'round the world"—and in the ensuing exchange, three Americans and twelve British soldiers were killed or wounded. America's colonial war for independence had begun.
Words like Emerson's continued to sound for the next eight years, goading, consoling, and impelling colonists forward in the cause of independence. The pulpit served as the single most powerful voice to inspire the colonists.
For most American ministers and many in their congregations, the religious dimension of the war was precisely the point of revolution. Revolution and a new republican government would enable Americans to continue to realize their destiny as a "redeemer nation." If time would prove that self-defined mission tragically arrogant, it was not apparent to the participants themselves. With backs against the wall, and precious little to take confidence in, words like those of Mayhew's, Emerson's, and Paine's were their only hope.
Harry Stout is Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University. He is author of The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (Oxford).
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