A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Roma E. Bryant is a member of St. Paul’s Church, Ottawa.
The Body by Charles Colson. Word Publishing, 1992.
Charles Colson is challenging the church – not a denomination, not an individual congregation, but the church as “The Body” of Christ – to be more cohesive, to set aside petty differences, in order to stand against the secular, relativistic trends of our world today. Our Western world consists mainly of our two countries, the United States and Canada.
As Christians we all know we are not talking about a building; we recognize the church as representative of the body of Christ and each member a part of that body.
Why is the church selling out to the secular world? Colson spoke strongly against relativism in Against the Night. Why is it still being allowed to creep into many aspects of the church? We celebrate our oneness even in our diversity of cultures, but there continues to be petty divisions – the inability to get along – squabbles and differences that ought to be resolved in the love of Jesus Christ so that we can present a united body to the secular world.
The world that is watching us, scoffing at us, feels that we present a poor example of what it is we stand for. With all our freedoms and countless blessings, we often present a watered-down version of the standards that Christ died for.
Colson and Ellen Santilli Vaughn have travelled the world to prepare for this insightful book which should challenge each and every Christian today. Many are the examples presented: the horrors of Auschwitz, the oppressions of peoples under communist domination, and their thankfulness at having been released.
Bit by bit the “world” creeps into our minds. Read chapter 14, “Lost in the Cosmos” – only one example of our abdication of our stand.
I choose to quote from page 192: “The huge gulf between the Christian and the secular view of man is sometimes underestimated because there are so many people with a Christian veneer. Many of our neighbors and co-workers don’t seem so different – on the surface. But their world view is utterly in conflict with Christian values and their relativism is dominating a culture that was, until recently, at least nominally Christian.
“The scandal is that we in the church have allowed this to happen. We have failed to stand for truth, failed to articulate, defend and advance an intelligent and coherent Christian world view.”
This is a book not simply for reflection – this is a book to be dealt with in-depth and a determination to turn this trend around.
Our object as Christians is not to make people able to live with themselves – it is to make them able to live with God.
Blunt? Hard hitting? Yes! Let’s take it seriously.