Absolutely the best blogpost I've come across so far this year

Michael Spencer's Twenty-Five Sortof Random Things I Do and Don’t Believe. One of the remarkable things about Michael's list is that, well, I agree with pretty much all of it (with a little quibbling here and there). Here are a few of my favorites:

2. I don’t believe America is a Christian nation. I actually don’t believe there is such a thing, and if there were, America wouldn’t be one. Not on paper, not from the founders and not now. We’re a secular republic and I like it that way.

3. I believe that Christian publishing does a lot of good, but I also think it does a lot of harm. All in all, we’d have to say that for all the good done, we still have a monstrous collection of lame, dangerous and outright perverse results from the various money-making adventures of the people who publish gems like “The Prayer of Jabez.” Without Christian publishing making a lot of nut jobs legitimate, things in evangelicalism would be a lot less wacky.

12. I don’t believe there’s all that much good about institutional Christianity. It exists, has to exist and always will exist, but Jesus started a movement, not an institution. (And definitely not a business or a club.) Christianity is a cross-cultural, evangelistic, church planting movement. It’s all about taking the Gospel to individuals and cultures first, then practicing what it means to be Christians in whatever context we live. I can be pretty annoying about this.

17. I believe evangelicals have a fetish of wanting preachers to know everything and to tell them what to do. In fact, when the Washington Post said, years ago, that evangelicals were “…easily led,” they were more right than wrong. I’m not into the Roman Catholic view of church authority, but among what group of Christians are you more likely to be told during the sermon what to think about politics, economics, child-raising, science, psychology, literature, entertainment and education? Who’s more likely to have a series of 300 Life Principles that tell you everything including where to buy your vitamins? Yeah, that’s right. Everyone say “Baaa.”

23. I believe tithing was old covenant and really has no place in the teaching of Christian stewardship today.

24. The whole concept of revival seems like a confused mess to me. A bit of truth in there, but mostly it’s a lot of tradition and manipulation.

Michael's just questioning a lot of unquestioned assumptions here. The president of the university that I work for likes to say that institutions need to build in mechanisms for self-criticism. I agree, but there is much that works against this need; defensiveness is the standard posture of the flesh. The church is really, really, really bad at self-criticism. The spirit may seem willing (although it usually doesn't) but the flesh is certainly weak!

Anyway, thanks for the hard, cold truth, Michael!