VOL Windbag Watch: GREENSBORO, NC: Evangelism Professor Presses Anglicans to Fight Complacency

GREENSBORO, NC: Evangelism Professor Presses Anglicans to Fight Complacency and Preach "Old Paths"

"We are in a spiritual war in America and we are losing battles in too many areas"

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."Jer. 6:16

By David W. Virtue in Greensboro
www.virtueonline.org
February 12, 2011

A Beeson Divinity School professor and Anglican church planter says there is a dreadful war for souls in America with more young people being converted to Islam and other Eastern religions. Christians are losing the war to "complacency in the face of pagan opposition."

The Rev. Dr. Lyle W. Dorsett told 1200 Anglicans attending the annual winter conference of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA) that there is a malaise across the church today. "We don't believe the old paths are very effective. We are in a spiritual war in America and in Western nations in general and we are losing battles in too many areas.

"Trends show that Christianity is no longer the fastest growing religion in Nth. America, it is now Islam partly due to immigration and this is one cause in an unprecedented change in the country. Numerous North Americans are converting to the Muslim faith. Young men and teenagers are converting to the Muslim religion because they are crying out for direction and help. Hispanics are converting to the Muslim faith as are many cultural Catholics. Many young people in this country are becoming Buddhists and Hindus and are fascinated by Eastern religions as well as a galloping secularism. We can't just blame the media we are also to blame. The churches have forsaken the old paths. We are too busy entertaining people. We should be inviting people to worship and to be expectant about what God wants to do. We need to be an expectant people. What are people finding in other religions? Our own children are being proselytized in a variety of ways. We are too complacent. Our children must be taught to evangelize, the clergy isn't supposed to do it all."

Dorsett, a C.S. Lewis scholar and former head of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, IL (Lewis's papers are maintained there), is now the Billy Graham Professor of Evangelism at Beeson Divinity School. He asserted that church leaders need to return to serious prayer, preaching, exercise spiritual power and be prepared to be persecuted for their faith. "Jeremiah was burdened by the unfaithfulness to God of the religious leaders of his time and he saw the complacency of the Israelites in the face of pagan opposition. We are seeing the same thing today.

"God is calling us to wake up and see the (spiritual) war. He is calling us to total mobilization in this conflict. We want to see the entire church family, children youth and adults free to get everyone mobilized for this conflict. We are losing battles because we are asleep."

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A good article from America's premier Anglican windbag, providing cover for charismatics, non-confessional Anglicans and Anglo-Romewardizers. Having rightly impugned the windbag, this article has commendable comments. A hat tip to Virtue to which we rightly yield.