Continuing my review Matthew A. Jackson's book, subtitled "Five Issues Evangelicals Should Re-Think." Recapping the five issues: 1) Head and Heart; 2) Religion and Relationship; 3) The Misnomer of "Non-Denomination"; 4) Worship; 5) "Soon." Picking up where we left off...
3. THE MISNOMER OF "NON-DENOMINATION." Our money is denominated into many different units: $1, $5, $10, $20 and so forth. Different shapes and sizes, but all U.S. dollars. Matt's point in this chapter is that even a single, independent, autonomous, stand-alone church is a de facto denomination, in the same way that a penny is a denomination of the official United States currency—the real deal on a smaller scale.
Major brands like Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and protestant ones like Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist have been around a long time and occupy high-profile mind-share (not to mention real estate). Consequently, when unchurched folks think of church denominations, they're picturing these established names. Because of the sometimes negative reputation of the name-brand denominations, evangelical churches seeking to entice new members need a harmless way to set themselves apart—realizing that "N0n-Catholic" sounds too snarky. And it's imprecise, because they're also "Non-Lutheran" and "Non-Baptist". So it's handier to lump all the major players into a word that sounds bureaucratic and authoritarian, and define themselves as "Not That". Hence, "Non-Denominational".
This is understandable to the author, but he contends that it is inaccurate: if you're non-denominational, you're not the real deal. Unfortunately, Matt doesn't offer any marketing suggestions to upstart evangelical churches. He just wants them to avoid distancing themselves from Christ and giving the impression that they're judgmental or condemning of other churches.
4. WORSHIP. This is the longest, most detailed and substantial chapter in the book. There are extensive tables and lists of Hebrew and Greek words and over a hundred scripture verses quoted as well. Matt believes that the word "worship" has been used too broadly in evangelical circles, resulting in a near-total loss of the original meaning: to bow or prostrate oneself in obeisance, fealty or submission.
Evangelicals usually describe their weekend gatherings as "worship services," dub their music groups "worship teams" and even refer to congregational singing as "worship." This does two things: first, it dilutes the meaning of worship and second, it eviscerates the concept of praise. While worship should be understood as bowing in contemplation of and preoccupation with God, praise is a much more expansive concept. And here is where Matt really shines; detailing eight distinct actions described in scripture as "praise"...verbal declaration; thanksgiving; singing; shouting; lifting hands; dancing; playing an instrument; offerings. That could be a whole 'nother book!
A proper understanding of worship among evangelicals is much more than a semantic debate. Our comprehension of God and our approach to praising Him are foundational to the health of the church and individual believers, not to mention being critical in spreading the gospel.
5. SOON. Whoa—from the frying pan into the fire! Matt isn't content simply declaring that modern evangelical "worship" is defective, his final target is last-days prophecy. Well, bad pun notwithstanding: it's about time. After so many books like 88 Reasons The Rapture Will Be In 1988, subsequent volumes which predicted Jesus' return around Y2K or November 2007—and even current ones warning that 2012 is our planet's expiration date—it's refreshing to see a common-sense re-examination of the Futurist/Dispensationalist method that has generated most of these failed predictions. In contrast, Jesus' prediction about the Temple that "...not one stone shall be left here upon another" came to pass less than 40 years after He ascended to heaven. Matt believes that kind of timeline should guide us to what Jesus might have meant by the word "soon".
It's not surprising that much of the recent hullabaloo got started in the 70s, following the Six Days War in Israel and the 1970 publication of Hal Lindsey's seminal book The Late Great Planet Earth. It isn't hard to get lost in the weeds when hiking through Biblical prophecy, and Matt thankfully takes a giant step back to offer some perspective, laying out a case from Jesus' own parables spoken as a postscript to His Second Coming speech recorded in Matthew 24.
I lived thru a false alarm in Vancouver, BC in the late 1980s. There was a prediction in a prominent full-gospel church that a tidal wave would destroy the city on a particular Sunday in August. I knew about the prophecy but decided not to panic, keeping my young family at home. I won't say I didn't feel a slight pang of uncertainty—after all, Richmond BC is 6 feet below sea-level, kept dry by a system of dikes and pumps. Seeing many of my Christian friends leave town that weekend was an odd feeling, but it was nothing compared to their feelings the following week trying to explain that their sudden unplanned getaway had nothing to do with the prophecy.
Matt favors a "time-text" interpretation of Prophecy, commonly called Soft Preterism, which holds that much of Jesus' speech in Matthew 24 referred to the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70. He suggests we live our lives according to what Jesus in Matthew 24 and 25 explicitly told us we should do—be wise with our resources, ministering to those around us who are in need—and avoid what Jesus said we should not do: fret and run around based on somebody's certainty that the end is coming soon.
Matt concludes his book with these words: "...we owe it to the Lord to examine the way we present and articulate His gospel to the world." And I will conclude by saying that even for folks who haven't been a friend of Matt's for 30 years, chapters 4 and 5 alone are worth the price of this book.
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