es-o-ter-ic, adj. 1. Intended for or understood only by a particular group. 2. a. Known by a restricted number. b. Confined to a small group.
Years ago, the senior pastor of the church I was leading worship for would periodically have me remove certain songs from our list, citing they were too esoteric.
To this day, I still struggle with this. I understand the limitations and hazards of so-called Christianeese and how it alienates people, and yet I've also seen the dangers of overly secularizing our worship experience, where we end up losing a sense of the holy, the numinous, the mysterious, the supernatural.
And so I put it to you: if something is considered esoteric, should it be rejected? Or should such things be simply explained and then cherished, or neither, or both, and why?
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Just found this thread ...very interesting.
I agree with DLE that we are in a real battle. What so many of us Christians need to remember is that the enemy of our soul IS playing for keeps with the world... if he is getting aggressive in his war for the souls of men, how much more so should we militantly defend against him?
What about Ephesians 6 where it lists the the Christian armor? You can't get around the fact that the sword of the spirit (the word of God) is an offensive weapon. We are to use this weapon to defeat the Enemy! Not, obviously, in an earthly or physical sense, but in the unseen battles which are being waged at this moment.
Oh, and btw...I don't believe we beat our swords into plowshares until the millenium. :P
Posted by: JE | May 30, 2007 at 07:39 PM