{"id":331,"date":"2015-08-13T12:24:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T18:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/?p=331"},"modified":"2015-09-17T08:32:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T14:32:16","slug":"where-in-the-world-is-the-church-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/13\/where-in-the-world-is-the-church-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Where in the World is the Church? A short review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where in the World is the Church? A Christian View of Culture and Your Role in It,\u00a0<\/em>Michael S. Horton<\/p>\n

This thought-provoking introduction to a Reformed understanding of culture is a helpful cure to the typical Evangelical fare. \u00a0Bringing the issues home to the average Christian, the author begins a brief history of the rise of the arts, science and culture through the power of the Reformation.\u00a0 Then he explains sphere sovereignty and the Lord\u2019s control over all of life as the foundation of any culture.\u00a0 The remainder of the book explains the relationship of the Christian\u2014individually and corporately\u2014to intellectual endeavors, the arts, the sciences and even leisure time.<\/p>\n

By removing the misunderstandings that permeate modern conservative Christendom (either escapism or absorption of culture), Horton walks the tight rope of \u201cin the world but not of it.\u201d\u00a0 He gives encouragement to believers to work hard at their job and not to worry about scalping unbelievers for the latest \u201cministerial\u201d work of mass conversions. He also challenges the \u201cChristian ghetto\u201d mentality (separate music, art, clothes, movies, etc) of many Evangelicals. Although the author tends to quote many secular sources (which can be very interesting)\u2014and some may not agree with all that is written\u2014this is still a recommended book to challenge those who do not realize they have<\/p>\n

\u201cbecome worldly when \u2018Phil Donahue\u2019 pep talks replace sermons, worship is transformed for market-driven consumerism and therapeutic or political categories begin to replace the solid emphasis in our churches\u201d (p.179).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where in the World is the Church? A Christian View<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}