Earlier this evening, there was a knock at my door.  When I opened it, I was greeted by two 30-something adults in dress shirts and ties.  No, they weren't Mormons.  They were members of a local fundamentalist congregation who were out "seeing if they could get some people saved."   This they explained to me while declaring, "It's a great day to get saved."

I think they were a little taken back by the line of questioning that followed.  I began asking them about the relationships they had with their co-workers, neighbors, and family members.  My daughter thought that I might have been just a little too confrontive, but hey! They were standing on MY front porch, weren't they?

Okay, okay.  I admit it.  I don't have much respect for those still doing door-to-door evangelism -- not in today's culture.  But I'd like to be "open to reason", SO... if you believe that this is still a viable and effective method for sharing the gospel with people, I'd love to hear from you.  AND... if you think otherwise, I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts as well.

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Photo credit: Julie Monroe

Partly in response to the suggestion Fr. Matt recently posted:

Perhaps Chris should start a new post asking, "What is orthodoxy in the context of a post-protestant and post-denominational world?"

And partly in response to a couple of books I'm re-reading:

• Thomas C. Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity
• S.T. Kimbrough, Jr, ed., Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality

I'd like to open up a discussion as to what "Orthodoxy" looks like/will look like in today's post-modern, post-protestant, post-denominational world. Why are Evangelicals and other Protestants embracing Orthodoxy? And where will all of this lead?

In his opening chapter of The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, Thomas Oden writes of young fogeys.

"Young fogeys" is the term that I affectionately give to young people who have been through the dark night of disillusionment of modern thought-forms and have joyously returned to classic Christianity.  Young fogies are those who hold fast to "mere Christianity"...  determined to reshape institutions that have been bent out of shape, [they] must constantly deflect mistaken epithets such as "reactionary" and "fundamentalist" thrown by those virtually ignorant of classic Christianity...But they take heart in knowing that Polycarp, Athanasius, and Jerome must have felt similarly misperceived. (p. 10)

A recent study of Ephesians, chapter 1 got me thinking: "Have we evangelicals so emphasized asking Jesus into our hearts, that we've under-emphasized the importance of being 'in Christ'?"

It's a distinction with important ramifications.

Here are some thoughts from Dr. Klyne Snodgrass (North Park Theological Seminary):

"The idea of being 'in Christ' presents one of the most difficult bridging tasks in Ephesians.  How could early Christians think they were 'in' a person who had been alive with them only a few years earlier and whose brothers they knew?  They did not speak of being in James, nor do we speak of being in John Wesley or Martin Luther.  The difficulty in our comprehending the idea of being in Christ is compounded by typical evangelical language about conversion.  Christians today usually speak of inviting Christ into their hearts in order to be able to go to heaven, but language about 'Christ being in us' and a concern over our going to heaven are relatively rare in the Bible, especially in Paul." (in Ephesians, TNIVAC, p. 56)

Apart from biblical references like Colossians 1:27 ("...this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory"), and the obvious nuances of free will and choice associated with inviting Christ into our hearts -- it seems that we evangelicals have failed in sufficiently recognizing how modernism and individualism have likely influenced why we place such emphasis on Christ living within us rather than the other way around.  We evangelicals are fairly notorious for giving altar calls and urging people to "invite Jesus into their lives" rather than urging people to begin living "in" Christ.

And this we do, even though English is replete with idioms and colloquialisms that speak of our being "in" a variety of things, such as:

During the month of June, feel free to comment and/or discuss any of the "blog-within-a-blog" topics that have been posted (right-hand column).