With the shifting we all feel under our feet in the church in North America, we need to pursue honest self-reflection and candid communication. We have nothing to gain by tightly closing our eyes, plugging our ears, and pretending that Western culture isn’t changing or that everything is okay with the church. In the enduring words of Bob Dylan,
let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.
More than 20 years ago, Dallas Willard wrote in his landmark work
The Divine Conspiracy:
Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church. It is not the much-discussed moral failures, financial abuses, or the amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians. These are only effects of the underlying problem. –
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