Noah Lykins’s Reviews > Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal > Status Update

But there is a problem more serious than mere enculturation restraining fresh artistic expression in the church and its promotion toward visibility in society. This problem is the sterilization of art by ascetic moralism and oversimplified theology.

[one] alienated from Evangelicalism can very easily conclude that the movement is a stalking-horse for conservative politics and economic reaction… to assume that Evangelicalism is offering American society a cheap fix with the opiate of the masses… offering cut-rate religion with cheap grace and minimal repentance, an agenda which certainly fits the classic profile of the false prophet.

Our innate pride, however, especially the pride which can be an incidental effect of the possession of truth, makes it all too likely that we will turn every situation into a Galatians 1 affair and never get around to 2 Timothy 2.

Today the observer walking around the American Zion and considering her ramparts sees an extensive fortress originally built by evangelicals, whose descendants are either camping outside or huddled in a few central hiding places, while nontheological mechanics control most of the buildings and battlements.

During much of the twentieth century, ecumenists have soft-pedaled the doctrinal purity of the church in order to attain its unity. But the body's tolerance can be increased only so far before we run the risk of fatal infection, which can lead to disintegration just as rapidly as the reiection syndrome.

… if the self-consciously orthodox can abandon their usual posture of intellectual self-righteousness and strike a more humble stance, admitting that doctrine is an implement of spirituality but not its ultimate goal… lead to the unity and purity of the coming church.

“the apologetic value of being able to retreat like a cuttlefish into a cloud of philosophical subtlety when one's facts are menaced may appear less desirable than the relative clarity of a demythologized faith or a secular religion which has placed a moratorium on God-talk.”

The preacher who was content to rehearse and admire doctrines without applying them to the life and world of the congregation in such a way that believers sensed the guiding control of the Holy Spirit and heard the voice of God addressing them in concrete situations, was ot for the Puritans a physician of souls, but an aesthetician or tool-salesman, displaying the instruments of healing but refusing to employ them.

“it might not be far wrong to say that the characteristic flesh of America is compounded of covetousness, gluttony, egocentric libertarianism and pride, all of which have been selectively bred into our culture because of the types of sinful people we have attracted and the behavior which our political and economic system has stressed and rewarded.”

“…social groupings have their own patterns of characteristic flesh which are extremely resistant to detection and change. These patterns are so universal within a local culture that they are as undetectable as the air we breathe and just as powerful in their effects. They are also socially reinforced, and often defended and legitimated by local mores, mythology, politics and even religious rationales.“