Here we have another excerpt from Grace Christian Assembly’s Q&A Section. In this excerpt Jim McClarty answers an interesting question: “How would you go about structuring a message titled: answering life’s toughest questions?“
I have a brief answer. Woody Allen said in one of his films (they all run together at some point) that humans spend their time creating trouble and dilemmas in their life so that they won’t have to face the really big issue, which is that we are all going to die. There’s a lot of truth in that. I would add that we create dilemmas that are actually within our power to control or solve in order to fool ourselves into believing that we are the masters of our destinies and that we actually will have some control over our ultimate fate.
But, the real issue remains – we are all going to die.
I’ve heard a whole rash of sermons on the radio lately (they seem to run in cycles. I think the radio guys all listen to each other and when somebody comes up with an idea or series that sounds intriguing the rest of them jump on the bandwagon so as not to lose their audience…but, I digress) that have to do with Life’s Tough Questions, and similar titles. And, of course, they all run through the litany of human troubles, especially those that are “big press” items, like abortion, race relations, marriage, crime, drinking, etc.
To be honest, those messages don’t do much for me. I listen to them to try and get the pulse of “the church as entertainment” movement. But, they are always little more than popular questions with semi-Biblical, or pseudo-Biblical, answers. Abortion? Hate the sin; love the sinner. Race relations? Love your brother as yourself. Marriage? Husbands, love you wives as Christ loved the church. Crime? Thou shalt not steal. Drinking? Be not drunk with wine.
You get the picture. Basic answers to complex questions. It’s sort of like Nancy Reagan’s answer to the drug problem – Just Say No. Well, if the drug problem in America were so simple it could be solved with a slogan, we’d have licked it a long time ago.
Nevertheless, these questions are hardly anything new. These are problems that are typical of the human condition in any age. Sinners do sinful things. The sinful things that sinner do will always be a problem for the church. Well, at least they used to be a problem, until the contemporary church decided to embrace them as opportunities to be more “seeker sensitive.”
My point?
