Let's Lose The Cultural Debate

"It is said that the one who shapes a debate wins it.

At ______ Seminary,

we train Christian leaders to shape and win the cultural debate

as the Reformers did."

-Actual ad for a seminary, World Magazine,March 17,2007,p 43

--

I am sure it is a fine seminary, but huge problems with this ad.

For one example:

Where in the world do we get the idea that the point of seminaries is to train pastors and leaders "to win the cultural debate"?

Or any debate at all?

How far removed from our mission do you want to get?

Uh,it gets worse..

The ad (we need some adbustin' here) continues:

"Ignite a Reformation from pulpit, to pew,to public square."

They are accurate in discerning God is wanting to birth a new reformation...but since this one will likely not be a straight sequel or remake of the first blockbuster..as Wolfgang Simson has said so well:

In rediscovering the gospel of salvation by faith and grace alone, Luther
started to reform the Church through a reformation of theology. In the 18th
century through movements like the Moravians there was a recovery of a new
intimacy with God, which led to a reformation of spirituality, the Second
Reformation. Now God is touching the wineskins themselves, initiating a Third
Reformation, a reformation of structure. (source)

And as such, this coming-and-here "reformation of structure" is re-forming the very structures that would "ignite a Reformation from pulpit, to pew,to public square." What this Reformation is igniting is....well, the pulpit and the pew themselves, And as such, this coming-and-here "reformation of structure" is re-forming the very structures that would "ignite a Reformation from pulpit, to pew,to public square." What this Reformation is igniting is....well, the pulpit and the pew themselves!

Note also the implied order of ignition (ironically identical the the catholic ordo saludis the Reformation was rebelling against) the seminary promises:

starting at the "top"(pulpit) to "bottom" (laity) to the "dirty"world (public square).

Exactly opposite!

One author addresses this approach:

"This may be OK for politics and companies, but not the Church. God seems to
be in the business of delivering His Church from a Babylonian captivity of
religious bureaucrats and controlling spirits into the public domain, the hands
of ordinary people made extraordinary by God, who, like in the old days, may
still smell of fish, perfume and revolution."

Yes, that was Simson again. When his books are required reading in seminaries, the Reformation will be full blown. Even at Knox (oops) Seminary.