 |
“Pub Theology”
http://herescope.blogspot.com
|
|
“A growing number of Christian
groups from a variety of denominations are taking God to the
bars, launching religious-themed pub nights dubbed ‘martini
masses’ or ‘theology on tap’ in an effort to broaden their
reach.[1]
Mixing
theology with inebriation is rapidly becoming established as a
new way to do evangelism. The latest article on this new wave of
tipsy testimony comes from yesterday’s
Globe and Mail in Vancouver,
Canada:
“Go on, have a pint with the Lord.”
The article begins:“On Wednesday
nights at Ballygiblin’s pub in Ottawa, the most animated
conversations involve neither hockey nor politics. Instead, over
pints of their local microbrew, patrons are more likely to be
engrossed in debate over the significance of Jesus Christ in the
modern world.“Pastor Ahren Summach of the Ottawa Valley Vineyard church
realizes it may be an unorthodox place to hold his weekly
theological meetings.“But since they began earlier this year, his sessions regularly
draw more than a half-dozen men who gather to drink and examine
such questions as, ‘Is Jesus God?’ and ‘If God is good and all
powerful, then why is there suffering in the world?’“The appeal of holding the meetings in a pub, Mr. Summach said,
‘is trying to blur the lines between what’s a sacred space and
what’s a secular space. Without the religious setting, you get
more authentic discussion, more honest questions and a little
more honest sharing.According to the article, these
“new theology pub groups” are becoming widespread. They “have also
cropped up across Canada, in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.”The previous Herescope post by
Pastor Larry DeBruyn, “Emergent
Inebriates: Some thoughts on ‘Pub Theology’” reviewed this
phenomenon, which is also coming in like a flood in America as one
of the hottest new “tools” for reaching out to the lost.Some of us recall that in the days of the “Jesus Movement”
we did
street witnessing, and occasionally walked into bars. But it wasn’t
to drink. It was to offer lost souls the opportunity to get saved by
Jesus Christ and to be freed from their sins. Rather than staying
in bars, people were pulled
out of bars!The power of
true Holy Spirit revival, to which we were eyewitnesses, is now
being replaced by a tipsy technique of mixing carnal with spiritual,
where the purported soul-winners become indistinguishable from the
lost, and where the “mind of Christ” becomes dulled by inebriation.The
Truth:“[T]he devil never speaks any
truth but with an intention to deceive.”[2]“Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive
from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God.” (Romans 6:12-13)
Endnotes:
1. “Go on, have a pint with the Lord,” Wendy Leung,
Globe and Mail, October 12,
2009.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/go-on-have-a-pint-with-the-lord/article1321117/
2. Matthew Poole’s Commentary
on Acts 16:18.
© 2009 by Discernment Group
http://www.herescope.blogspot.com/
See its article
here.