Fr. Dale Matson
Church Of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians
Matt is truthful to the Gospel in his book. The Christian church in the West is now primarily involved in sweetening the time as we live out our earthly life. Since it has given up Jesus as God, the church can only major in minors. The social gospel is all the rage. The church is all too accommodating to culture. The church is no longer the church militant. It is the church that will go along to get along. I grew up in the 1950s in the U.S. In those days people were less likely to mistake evil for good. Stores were closed on Sunday. Profanity was rarely heard and tattoos were rarely seen. Matt's book describes the Christian religion as it could and should be. It is the one I understand and try and live by.
Luther once said we should love and fear God. I think the modern church no longer fears nor loves God. It all comes down to one question for me. "Who do you say that I am" (Matthew 16:15). The Nicene Creed is a summation of the Christian faith. It is an abbreviated Gospel, yet in the Episcopal Church I used to attend, most folks claimed they didn’t believe most of what was in the creed.
I found the first part of his book to be harsh but true. “Ask the average American Christian to tell you how his life would be different if he didn’t believe in Christ and he will struggle to provide a single example. And this fact will not trouble him. He is extremely confident in his own spiritual complacency. He laughs at the very idea that God might send him to Hell. He has no problem that some people are damned-a lot of people, even-but not him. He lives in a fog of cowardly and comfortable delusion and it grows thicker by the day.” (p.14)
“…the bad parts of ourselves should not be accepted by anyone, least of all by people who love us and who care about our spiritual well-being. This is why God will especially refuse to ‘accept us at our worst’ and why his church ought to follow suit. “…we are urged and besought and counseled to improve for our own sake, for the sake of growth, maturity and joy. This is the message the church should send. Come one come all, it ought to say, come in your sin and your weakness and brokenness. Come with all that is ugly and rotten about you. Come with all the darkness within you. Come and be healed.” “It is the message of Salvation.” (p.117)
This book is a welcome combination of faith and good works.
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