From Eugene Peterson's
'A Long Obedience in the Same Direction'
'It is not difficult... to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain that interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate...
There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient aquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.
Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset. Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure...
I don't know what it has been like for pastors in other cultures and previous centuries, but I am quite sure that for a pastor in Western culture... the aspect of the world that makes the work most difficult is what Gore Vidal has analysed as 'today's passion for the immediate and casual'. Everyone is in a hurry. The persons whom I lead in worship, among whom I counsel, pray, preach, and teach, want short cuts... They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. But a pastor is not a tour guide... The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment