22 May 2024
Someone has recommended a look at AW Tozer, particularly his big book, Reclaiming Christianity: A Call to Authentic Faith. It's a posthumous collection of several shorter works. He was a self-taught theologian and preacher who breached denominational lines with ease, ministering up through the 1960s.
I read far enough into it to discern that Tozer remained a solid evangelical. He is by far among the cream of the crop when it comes to sincere faith and trust in the Lord, but he very strongly states that Jesus died to take us to Heaven. Our teaching is that Jesus died to open the covenant living in this world; going to Heaven is a matter of Election. It's not that Heaven is out of the picture, but that it remains something generally ineffable.
Some other complaints I have is that he was too big on westernized notions of what it meant to be sober-minded and to take worship seriously. He held to plain old straight-laced Victorian middle-class values. I'm not at all in favor of that. Along with this is a rather strong literalness in reading Scripture. I am under the impression he was a big fan of the KJV.
Aside from that kind of warning, feel free to read the book. It's not a waste of time. You can find it online, and if you know how to search, there are free downloads out there. I won't link to them because they'll disappear. You can find a collection of other books he wrote, and a much larger collection of posthumous anthologies.
He was a man of his times in one way, but also a strong advocate of basic Lordship of Christ teaching. That's the part that really matters. I share his unease with the increasing reduction of Christian religion to a mere compartment of life, instead of the overwhelming dominance of faith.
Still, I'm just a little disappointed that what he calls for is not radical enough. He still believes church can keep it's current manifestation. It just needs a little correction.
As long as "church" looks like it does here in America, and "biblical" looks like whatever they are already doing, we should not expect to see God's covering protection on believers. Divine promises become quite random, and miracles will be few. The only hope is that God will crush the American culture and force the survivors to start over again.
Comments
Dan D.
To quote you from 3/20/24: "...westerners tend to think of the church as just a club they join. That’s because churches are run like clubs, not like families. All the rhetoric about brothers and sisters is just noise."
There is a reason I saved this.
Robust1
He was pretty prescient, saw were things were heading. 60 years after his going to be with the Lord and all the same garbage plus even more is going on evangelicalism. He was trying to patch a sinking ship.
This document is public domain; spread the message.