Okay, so maybe the "GCP" on the back of the church bulletin stands for "Great Commission Publications," but it sure seems to me that those people generally produce gooey crap. The bulletin backs, which I studiously avoid reading because I don't want my hands sticky with syrup while I'm sitting in church, are usually better ignored than read. Somehow I can never help noticing the titles, though, and I occasionally deign to read the articles if I'm particualarly curious to see what flavor Aunt Jemima is offering this week.
Today Auntie sported a piece on "National Greatness," presumably in preparation for the Independence Day weekend ahead. I couldn't help myself, so I read it. The remarks weren't quite as bad as I had anticipated. Not quite. But then I found this curiosity: "Righteousness is the hallmark of greatness. True greatness is to be subject to God, who made us for himself. Conformity to his will is the true measure of a great individual, and hence of a great nation." So far, so good. After a nod to George Washington, the article continues: "We don't necessarily need a formal statement of allegiance to Christianity..." Whyever not? Does this strike anyone else as a glaring non sequitur? Are we to understand that righteousness, understood as subjection to God (a poor definition, by the way), does not involve a formal profession of Christianity? Try that one on your local session.
In context, maybe the author was trying to communicate that we should work for reformation "from the bottom up." I don't have a problem with an emphasis on bottom-up reform, except that historically (both within and without the canon) reform usually happens in a top-down fashion. Okay, so bottom-up reformation it is. And our ultimate goal, while we're "preaching...the gospel...leading to transformed lives and...a transformed culture," is not to get that transformed culture to obey the First Commandment. I'm sticking with Gooey Crap Profusions.
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