We in mainline churches are uneasy, maybe even scared. Why are our voices not heard? After all, we are the reasonable Christians, the updated Christians, the respectable ones who have dominated the cultural landscape since colonial times. Preaching and Praying as Though God Matters presumes that trying to reverse the loss of our traditional status in society is both futile and beside the point. What's called for when we find ourselves in a state of crisis is to rediscover the big picture, the Christian hope projected on a large screen. This requires the courage to revisit the sources from which all Christian hope springs, rediscovering their life-giving power. That power rises from the counterintuitive affirmations of the gospel represented in Christ's incarnation; his healing the afflicted; his raising the dead; his vulnerability; his cross, resurrection, and 'universal restoration' (Acts 3:21). Preaching and worship that embodies and lifts up the hard parts, the life-giving parts, is neither fundamentalist nor an exercise in nostalgia. It is rather evidence of confidence in the triune God who makes the unknowable known. The Good Shepherd promised: 'My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me' (John 10:27). And when they do, they will.
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