Have you gotten the e-mail yet? The e-mail to which I am referring is the DON’T WATCH THE GOLDEN COMPASS e-mail. Today Dr. Mohler has addressed the formidable challenge this movie will give to Christians. I love Dr. Mohler’s advice that we should not run away from this challenge nor does he feel that boycotting is the answer. I agree with the sending of the e-mail and letting people know what this book is about. The books author is not subtle. He really is attempting to “kill God”. My response to that is a tongue in cheek, “good luck”. People have tried for centuries to take God off the throne and it’s not going to be happening now nor ever. And I am very grateful for that–I tend to love my “oppressive” King. This movie is giving us another opportunity to display the greatness of God compared to the paltry pleasures anything else has to offer. I encourage you to read Mohler’s article. He gives great advice and encouragement.
Also today the folks at Pyromaniacs have made an interesting distinction for evangelicals to use. The distinction to be made is between fire-in-the-belly evangelicals and fire-sale evangelicals. A fire-in-the-belly evangelical is defined as, “those gripped with the Biblical vision of God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness, humbled by their own depravity to the point where inerrancy is not an inconvenient doctrine but God’s indispensable lifeline, awed by the atonement of Christ to the extent that its doctrines are neither periphera nor adiaphora, but life itself.” The fire-sale evangelicals on the other hand are those that are “‘everything-must-go’ evangelicals, who will sell out on the cheap. Nothing is too precious to retain, everything is on the auction block, for a pittance.”
After reading this article I am forced to admit that in my orthodoxy I am a fire-in-the-belly evangelical. But I am sadly forced to admit that hypocritically in my orthopraxy I inch closer and closer to being a fire-sale evangelical. Jeremiah 23:29 is true whether I believe it or not. God’s word is like a fire and like a hammer. I lament that Jeremiah 20:9 is not more true. “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot”. As I sit here I can shake my head on everything but that last point. I feel the word burning inside me like a fire, and I feel the guilt and weariness of holding it in. My prayer today is that Jesus might so take hold of me and stoke the fire until it burns so hot that I cannot hold it in. May I become like Peter and John who could not help but speak of that which they had seen and heard? Therefore, I am always hoping that my orthodoxy might match my orthopraxy and that both might match the beauty of the gospel!
