Obedience, not Effectiveness
Anson, I read this during my trip on the plane. It echoes your thought on reform:
It would be so much better for the church and the world if Christians would be content to show a better way to organize community life among themselves. As Yoder never tried of saying, the crucial standard of Christian conduct is obedience and not effectiveness (The Politics of Jesus [Eerdmans, 1972, 1992]). Effectiveness in transforming culture may follow obedience, but that’s God’s business. not ours. Focusing on effectiveness (e.g., how many souls can be saved with a dollor invested in evangelism done a certain way) detracts from obedience in a sinful world. When obedience to God’s way revealed in Jesus Christ is subordinated to effectiveness, the latter always trumps the former, which then ends up failing at least partly by the way.
Roger Olsen, How to be Evangelical with being Conservative, p.126-127
Filed by edmund at 4.33 am under Culture,Faith |
One Comment
Anson
Thanks for the quote.
It seems like a book worthwhile to read!
I’ll check it out in the bookstore next time.
Well, just a quick thought, those who insist on performance, impact, and effectiveness might argue that to be obedient to God’s call is exactly to be effective in saving souls and resisting culture! Not having enough souls to 交貨 and unable to “defend” the faith “for” God in a secular society is simply being disobedient. 你話吹唔吹賬？
At the end of the day, I think a deeper understanding of the workings of our Triune God in this world will shed some light to the problem. We often have no clue what God has, is, and will be doing, and what we are supposed to do in cooperation. Sometimes Christians maybe theologically believers, but practically atheists, because they act as if God does not exist, or trying to do everything “for” God as if God is handicapped.
Oct 20th, 2008
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