modern christianity

The world is moving at a fast pace. New inventions, new technologies and new lifestyles persistently outdate what was previously considered as traditional and, while they point to the future, they indirectly compel us to forsake our past. It seems as though there was never a yesterday, that traditions are no longer necessary in a hectic world and that all that matters is living according to the latest trend.In this fast moving world, values seem at stake. Morality is apparently subject to the fluctuating demands of the rat race. The dominant worldview is secular: Life is short, so work hard and play hard. In this scenario, religion unfortunately becomes just another type of commodity that can be bought and used whenever it pleases and when it is not demanding.Church attendance seems to be on the decline, although the Church building is still sought after as the ideal backdrop for ceremonial events such as weddings, baptisms and funerals. Despite the fact that many claim to believe in God, few seem to understand the need to incorporate this into their daily lives. As a consequence, issues of morality are veiled in confusion and subjectivity.Like many other lifestyles, so Christianity entails some rather unpleasant and difficult choices. Either conventional Christianity is authentic and is a faith that faithfully represents its New Testament roots, or else it is a pick and choose way of life, subject to the whims of its adherents and the shifting sands of cultural interpretation.It is hard to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ when we disagree or feel that our way is easier. As a result, some Christians honour Christ lip service, while they follow or teach other acquiescent doctrines. Christianity is being continually reshaped to suit the needs of modern life, and the truth of Christ's Gospel is being systematically masqueraded under new forms of belief, practice and worship.The Gospel should be the source of faith and inspiration for the daily life of Christians. Finding an acceptable method of understanding and applying the biblical message to our contemporary culture is, however, controversial.We need to avoid the extreme of interpreting the Gospel so literally that we make the New Testament cultures, rather than its timeless principles, the norm for our lives. We must recognise that various literary styles exist in the four Gospels as well as in the Bible as a whole, and each must be interpreted appropriately. The Bible was not given to us as an object to be worshipped, with our interpretation, but rather as a guide to proper spiritual behaviour.As we use the Bible to help us to come to the knowledge and understanding of God, we also need to continuously apply some of the normative and hermeneutics of the Bible in order to shed a better light on the understanding and better evaluation of our modern culture. The literal application of every biblical text without contextualisation is a pitfall we all need to avoid. However, we also need to avoid the opposite extreme of spiritualising the Bible away.All this requires wisdom and understanding. We have to learn to discern the word of God correctly. For instance, we cannot discount the Bible's reports of the miraculous and the supernatural as unpalatable. We cannot expect to understand the Bible without allowing the book to simmer into our daily life with the consequent demands on us not only as hearers of the word but also as doers. We are certainly not at liberty to alter the essential teachings and doctrines of the Bible in a misguided attempt to fit them to a morally decadent culture.For all the talk of a secular and materialistic culture, there is still room for the spiritual. This is because the real important questions that are the flesh and bone of religion still confront us: Is there a God? Is there an afterlife? Why do evil and suffering exist at all in the world?While traditional Christianity claims fewer and fewer adherents, Christian renewal communities at the personal and small-group levels are sprouting up remarkably. Perhaps in a world that has become too chaotic and identity-consuming, modern Christians feel the need to belong to some group where one can find oneself, and be oneself, and be felt in the other.An authentic Christian life in the modern world is a truly demanding daily struggle against self Christians should not be alarmed. At the strategic centre of Christianity stands the supreme paradox of the cross, of the crucified Christ, the theology of the cross, the raison d'etre of our following of Christ, the hope and guarantee of our final victory. We as Christians believe that Jesus displayed his greatest powers in order to save us and reconcile us to God and among ourselves... through a most humiliating and annihilating death. These, however, stand in firm contradiction to the culture around us, one which subtly tends to efface and avoid subjects such as God or spirituality - bent on deriding and eroding life of its real and true significance.With the Golgotha in vision, Christians need not be surprised, but rather fortified. There can be no real life without suffering and problems. Yet these seemingly adverse conditions do not rob life of its meaning as long as this is characterised by the paradox of the cross and the subsequent resurrection.Today's world alienates us with a comfortable life, while at the same time it fails to provide us with a meaning to life. Christianity does precisely this... He is come to give us life in its fullness.