Often in reaction against the perceived narcissism of consumer-oriented faith and practice, a lot of younger Christians are talking about discipleship these days. On the one hand, this is very hopeful. Basically, we're seeing the children telling their Baby Boomer parents, "Enough about you and how you can have your best life now." Many of these younger believers endured lonely lives, letting themselves into the house after school, watching their parents' self-indulgence and unraveling marriages. Now they share their generation's more general concern to look beyond their own immediate gratification to care about God's creation, to seek justice and charity for their neighbors, and to witness to Christ's transforming hope by actively exhibiting a life of love and service to others. In short, they don't just want to know Jesus Christ as a theory or even as an experience; they want to follow him. Not bad, all things considered!
Click here to join and read more of this article.
If you have a current on-line account please log-in here to read the rest of this article.
1 [ Back ] Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 206.
2 [ Back ] McLaren, 260.
3 [ Back ] McLaren, 264.
4 [ Back ] Mark Oestreicher, quoted in Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for a New Generation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 35.
5 [ Back ] Kimball, 79-81.
Michael Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California), host of the White Horse Inn, national radio broadcast, and editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine. He is author of many books, including The Gospel-Driven Life, Christless Christianity, People and Place, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology, and Too Good to be True: Finding Hope in a World of Hype.
Issue: "Discipleship: Wisdom for Pilgrims' Progress" Sept./Oct. Vol. 18 No. 5 2009 Pages 14-18
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. We do not allow reposting an article in its entirety on the Internet. We request that you link to this article from your website. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Modern Reformation (webmaster@modernreformation.org).
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: This article originally appeared in the [insert current issue date] edition of Modern Reformation and is reprinted with permission. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.