Thread by @PaulVanderKlay

In today's video I begin to touch on the crisis in the evangelical church. 1/11

A friend shared the recent @drmoore newsletter with me which I found deeply touching in terms of his pastoral and evangelistic heart 2/11 erlcemailcommunication.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/r/…

Saying "there is a crisis in the church of believing its own message" I think isn't the best way to articulate the crisis. I'd say the church isn't able to embody its own promises, realize the expectations it raises or compete with expectations of others. 3/11

In some previous videos I've been developing the idea that the church has largely been displaced as a platform for experienced transformation. 4/11

Mass media, social media, a consumer society now with powerful tools have displaced church as a vehicle for formation. I also think these tools are fundamentally deceptive, but people lose interest in one channel (vendor) and move to the inviting show of another. 5/11

This is true for conservative hardliners who are always outraged at some leader or church giving up some traditional position or therapeutic critics of those conservatives for not caring about a victimized group. Outrage is media success. 6/11

If there is an area where unrealized even legitimate expectations is salient it is in the area of sexuality in the church. The church says it has "the answer" but even its leaders don't find it satisfying enough to live within. 7/ 11

I follow people on Twitter and Youtube like @sacwriter who departed from the church's traditional positions on sexuality because I want to see if they can actually do the hard work of finding a new workable standard but I remain skeptical. 8/11

https://twitter.com/sacwriter/status/1382326611928752129

Many wish to adjust the old line (sex within marriage btwn a man and a woman) but fail to propose a new standard that I find compelling, Biblical and workable despite the challenges of the old. I do want to keep the conversation open though. 9/11

I think what we are going to see continue to develop in the church will be a new monasticism something akin go @roddreher 's Benedict Option or @PhilReinders application of a new rule of life. 10/ 11 habituscommunity.org

Based on the dynamics we've seen historically in the church, however, I think that will be a smaller path, a church within the church for many meaning that the larger issues around platform, expectations and sexuality still must be addressed. 11/ 11 paulvanderklay.me/2021/04/15/pro…