Sunday, October 02, 2011

Prophetic zeal. . .

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautifully said.

"If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority."

Scary how prophetic those words have been.

Anonymous said...

By following liberation theology,some churches have already become irrelevant socialist clubs!

Anonymous said...

I think many more churches have become irrelevant by teaching only the part of Christianity directed towards personal piety and salvation, and ignoring the innumerable directives to love justice and practice mercy and, in general, love your neighbor. They are increasingly hunkered down in their bunkers, not caring what's going on in the world ... and the world does not care what's going on in those churches.

Anonymous said...

And in an unrelated story, CitySquare Executive Director Larry James chided fundamentalists for believing end-times prophecies found in the Bible.

rcorum said...

Bottom line folks. We have not a clue and I mean not a clue as to when the Lord is going to come again. Take a deep breath and read Matthew 24:36. I Jesus doesn't know why should I think I have a clue. I also want to make it clear that not every conservative is a fundamentalist. TV preachers have made millions off of the fears of good hearted but ignorant people. I don't mean to be so negative, but what Larry said about the fundamentalist is spot on.