DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

Group Questions1. One author said, “instead of critically

challenging the emerging culture of modernity, populist evangelicals were reshaping Christianity to fit the categories of modern experience.” Do you think this is still happening today? Examples?

2. D.L. Moody once said, “It makes no difference how you get a man to God, provided you get him there.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

Common Themes1.Focus on Emotional Response

2.Celebrity-Style Leader

3.Engineered Publicity

4.Individual Detached from Local Congregation

PearcyWhat was emerging was a new theology of

conversion: the older view that believers are nurtured within the corporate church as whole persons, including the mind (through study & catechesis), was giving way to a new view that

individuals undergo a one-time emotional decision that takes place outside the church.

Lorenzo Dow

Elias Smith

Charles MalikThe greatest danger besetting American

Evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism.

Dwight L. Moody

It makes no difference how you get a man to God, provided you get

him there.

PearcyThe local rootedness of the traditional clergy had

provided at least some measure of genuine accountability: Their character was known and

tested in ongoing, long-term contact with a regular congregation. By contrast, the evangelist addressed

mass audiences made up of strangers, who could not possibly judge his character by personal

knowledge. He could dazzle them with sheer image-making and marketing hype.

Charles Finney

One critic…They measure the progress of religion by the numbers who flock to their standard; not by

prevalence of faith, and piety, justice and charity

PearcyThe more Christians sought to prop up their

faith with mere emotional intensity, the more it appeared to be an irrational belief that

belonged in the upper story of private experience.