The Importance of Brotherhood in the Church

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Maitian's book written in 1923 is written in a climate that is highly charged and sensitized to realities, harsh realities of things like World War I. He began his argument in his chapter on the church by appealing to the biblical notion of brotherhood. Maitian saw politically correct mantras of fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man as a real deep and meaningful threat which would end up stabbing him in the back. The things that he stood for in many ways he suffered and bled for that this was not an incidental point of theology for Maitian.

The Church. Few institutions are more unpopular or controversial these days than the Christian church. And, let’s face it, a lot of the time, even Christians don’t appear to like it very much. Every week it seems there’s a new scandal or debate splitting congregations. It can be tempting to think that maybe the church is obsolete, maybe we’d be better off going our own way.

But there’s a tragic irony in that. Sometimes it’s lost on us that in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus says “upon this rock I will build my church” he’s not talking about flawless rich young ruler types, or even the pharisees. He’s talking about the disciples but especially Peter, the one who would later deny Christ, who needed to be confronted by the apostle Paul, and who often had to have things repeated three times before he understood it.

The point is, from the very beginning Jesus knew that his church would be filled with the messy, sinful men and women that he gave his life to save. And so he gave his apostles specific guidance on how the church should help Christians grow in faith, in repentance, doctrine and ethics through preaching, sacraments, and prayer.

The liberals of Machen’s day didn’t believe this was enough. They began to look for ways to accommodate Jesus’ vision to the culture at the expense of our core beliefs about Christ, the Bible, Salvation, God, and even our own identity. We find ourselves at a similar crossroads today, surrounded by a culture asking the question: does the church even matter?

Visit christianityandliberalism.com for more on the book, audiobook, and show.

Music: “Line in the Sand (C&L)” by Timothy Brindle Produced by Nobody Special Wrath and Grace Records Music Licensing Codes: G08J1KLITZPVAYHB RXVVJOBYPXUFAYET