GYC 2010: No Turning Back

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The Great Controversies: Relativism's Beauty and Fundamentalism's Beast

Justin Kim

On What Basis: The Beginning of Controversy

This message was presented at the GYC 2010 No Turning Back Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

For other resources like this, visit us online at GYCweb.org.

Lord, your church has been languishing for 2, 000 years.

We are encouraged though that through the prophetic record, we see that you are in control of the events of the church.

Father, if there be any young individuals who have been discouraged by the politics of the church, sway of ideas of whatnot, Lord, provide healing this weekend.

So Father, we ask that you revive our hearts, enlighten our minds, help us to clearly see Jesus and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.

If we have done anything wrong, if we have done anything to dishonor heaven, We ask for your forgiveness and we boldly claim the blood of Jesus.

And we expect and look forward to the blessings you will send from heaven.

Tomorrow after tomorrow mornings is called through what medium and then the last 1 is called for what end.

I just put them together because the program booklet needed 3 titles.

So They reflect nothing of what the content is going to be on.

The seminar is going to be about liberals and conservatives, relativism and fundamentalism, and some of the problems we have in the church that I believe GYC may be 1 of the answers, if not the answer to some of the things that we see.

If you have any questions, by all means, please raise your hands for a clarification question.

If you want to tell me your testimony, I won't listen to it now because we're recording.

The pendulum effect is something that we see throughout history.

How many of you are familiar with the pendulum?

I'm not in some of the intelligence, I'm just saying if you understand English.

The pendulum effect is something of a low center of gravity and it swings from 1 side and then when it comes back to the center, does it stop at the center?

It keeps on going, and it goes indefinitely.

We go to something super liberal, the next generation goes to something super what?

The next generation reacts to that and goes back to something liberal.

Now what happens is those who are in the middle get trapped because they're forced by the momentum to swing 1 way or the other.

Unless the momentum of the center is so strong it actually centers the weight spot-on The pendulum effect is can be defined as periods of 1 character are followed by periods of the opposing character Okay There are in economic terms.

There are seasons of plenty You all remember the 90s when times were good?

But the 2000s, 9-11 hits, and now we're in Iraq and the economic crash, and now we're in times of scarcity.

Liberality versus conservatism, activism versus apathy.

There is also in philosophy something called a Hegelian dialectic, from Hegel.

But you have a thesis, it's reacted by an antithesis, antithesis, and that forms a synthesis and that becomes a new thesis and this happens all throughout history.

Anyway, that's boring but that's what he said.

In American politics you see the same thing.

Again I'm not making any political statement.

It's just you see the sway of the pendulum effect.

In the 1960s, you have JFK and also LBJ, his vice president after assassination, known as to be liberals.

His reaction was in the 70s was Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon comes to power and because of his the scandal that he did and right after his vice president Gerald Ford pardoned him people were so sick of this the conservative side.

They wanted someone who was pure, a church guy, and Jimmy Carter was the epitome of innocence.

But because of his liberalness, the people were sick of that, and they reacted against in the 80s with Reaganism, a conservative.

Reaganomics and total conservative policy.

Bush senior was basically an extension of Reagan's policies.

In the 90s you have Bill Clinton's first term and he was a total liberal Democrat.

The reaction against him was in 1994 Newt Gingrich started something called the Contract with America, and Bob Dole was put up to be a contender against him.

With his sex scandal came about George Bush in the 2000s, and in 2000s it was dominated by George W.

Is there a reaction against Obama right now?

We call that the Tea Party, and we see in the recent elections that the Congress was just overturned.

Again, I'm not making any political statements, but Do you see how the pendulum effect works in this?

Now, this being said, young people, it is in the nature of young people to get discouraged when you see the sway.

I enjoy to see the conflict and it's like, ah, whoa, what is that next?

Yes, whoa, whoa, and try to calculate and strategize And there are problems with that too.

But many young people have left the church because they've seen these internal politics happen in the church, right?

And so what can we do to provide some kind of healing to this?

The reality is, and during Jesus' day, there were politics in his time, wasn't there?

And tomorrow morning we'll actually cover some of the details of that.

But let me go through North American theology, okay?

In Germany there was a guy, a theologian named Albert von Harnack.

He had something called the Social Gospel.

The Social Gospel basically said Jesus is not coming.

Why would he come to a world that has all these problems?

He will only come to this world when everything has been resolved, when poverty has been eliminated, when homelessness has been eliminated, when the society here is made better.

So let's stop focusing on evangelism and on doctrine and all these things.

In the United States there was a theologian named Walter Rauschenbusch who is the equivalent.

These guys got all their information from Frederick Schleiermacher, who is the father of liberal theology.

Schleiermacher was basically saying, and some of you are already glazing over, okay?

That's all right, I completely expected this.

These individual names, they're important because they explain the situation right now.

Where we are in history, why you're sitting here, and the weird freakish thing that you're spending your Christmas vacation here and giving us money while doing that.

That is a social, spiritual, organizational phenomenon why you are here.

And by you being here you are reacting to some of these ideas that have been going on for hundreds of years.

For What End: The Goal of Controversy

Father in heaven, we thank you for having been with us.

Father, if there have been any things that I have misspoken, we ask that you erase them from my mind and from everyone's mind and you rectify in your own way, Lord.

But Father, we just pray that in this point in history, in 2010, soon to be 2011 tomorrow, Lord, we want to go home And Lord, we know there are many everyday earth issues that young people and old people go through, especially inside your own church, inside your own house.

Father, help us to clarify and rectify some of these things through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We're going to look at not conservatives and liberals, but fundamentalists and relativists.

Kind of the 2 modern versions of these things in our society today.

The first presentation was a survey through church history.

The second presentation was a Bible study through what Jesus was going through.

And this 1 is a sociological study on some of the dynamics.

I just want to give this preface, and if you want to leave, by all means, you are welcome to.

This seminar is not for a beginner GYC or a beginner Seventh-day Adventist.

This is an in-house context for Seventh-day Adventists who have been here for a while.

There is a dissension within the church between liberals and conservatives, and we hope that my hope is through some open dialogue we can help heal some of the burned experiences that young people may have had.

Our desire is not to promote 1 agenda above the other, but allow Jesus to be clearly seen amidst a lot of the political issues and church issues that are going on.

If that's not your cup of tea, by all means, please you can leave.

There are a billion other seminars here that I think I would rather be going to than this 1, but I have to be here because I'm presenting.

But I bless your hearts for being here as well.

For 1, and the goal of controversy, In the age of globalization, we are forced to interact with each other in 2 ways.

I'm using sociological terms that I'm assuming that all of you understand.

I just got back from South Korea 2 days ago.

South Korea is living exactly like North America, if not the same.

Not exactly the same because they're Korean and they look Korean and they speak Korean.

But Thomas Friedman talks about the world becoming flat.

And now the world is essentially not different cultures, but it is America and multiple Americums.

So you have America in India, America in Korea, America in Europe, and America all over the world.

And essentially everyone is living like America now.

Okay, this upcoming generation is the first generation that will see death earlier than the previous generation, be less educated, it'll be unhealthier.

You know, America is on the down, and If you guys are pro-America, I'm sorry.

Do you know how many Chinese restaurants there are in the world?

Anyway, in the age of globalization, this means that the world is becoming 1.

And now that because there's more air travel, there's more access of ideas through the Internet, there's more homogenization going on, There's some problems that will occur because of all this.

Basically says, you believe what you want to believe.

How many of you are from a highly metropolitan urban area?

If there's streets in New York that has a Muslim carpenter on 1 side, and then next door there's a Puerto Rican grocery market, next to him is a Chinese restaurant, and next to him is a Korean Taekwondo center, and next to him is a yoga studio with Bangladeshi people, whatever.

Now before, you never had this problem, right?

A lot of them still just hang out with Koreans.

Or you just have, you know, the blacks are in the black corner, the whites are in the white corner, Hispanics are in their corner, the Argentine, I don't know why Argentina comes to my mind, but they're hanging by themselves.

But in an age of globalization, everyone is just what?

So we're forced to interact with people we've never interacted before.

And we have to ask ourselves, how are we going to interact with this person?

This person speaks Spanish, and he worships Mary.

Well, 1 way is you believe what you want to believe, I'll believe what I want to believe, and guess what?

We're both exactly the same, we're both right.

Next 1 is fundamentalism, That's the other extreme.

Basically saying, I am right, you are wrong, and you better believe what I believe before I punch you.

Fundamentalism takes it to an extreme degree, and it uses violence, anger, drastic methods, and it's about controlling the other person because there's this dissonance going on.

In Liberal secularization theory, this is a sociological term.

Basically this was a theory back in the 1800s and early 1900s that said, now that rationale and logic and modernity is being throughout the world in science, more and more religion will disappear.

We'll believe in data and in evidence and a lot of this supernatural stuff will be eradicated.

In the 1950s, a sociologist named Peter Berger says, this is completely proven wrong.

With more modernity coming, the human condition is, I don't want more of this modernity.

I'm striving and yearning for something more spiritual.

And the spiritual rates, the Pentecostal Church has grown more in modernity than ever.

The Catholic Church has grown more, the Islamic denomination is growing, the New Age movement is growing, the indigenous religions of the third world are growing.

Spirituality is all the more powerful now, after science, than before science.

There's more religious passion in the world.

Modernity has been proven not to secularize, but it does pluralize.

Through Which Medium: The Middle of Controversy

For other resources like this, visit us online at gycweb.org.

Alright everyone, we're going to get started here.

Good we're gonna get started with our second presentation here The second 1 is entitled through which medium the middle of the controversy and again as I said yesterday These titles that mean absolutely nothing.

They're just something that I submitted so the program could look at something.

Today we're going to do a Bible study on what Jesus has to say on liberals and conservatives, well, my understanding of it.

And it builds upon yesterday's presentation.

By raise of hands, what do you guys remember from yesterday's presentations?

If you don't remember anything at all, that's fine.

Oh, you're just raising your hand that you remembered something.

It's idealistic to draw from each idea a theological stance.

Okay, there are attributes of both sides that are good?

Okay, there's a plethora of interpretations.

And what's the root of the matter in the end?

So I'm a firm believer that there are not a multiple of interpretations of scripture found in scripture.

Those, the multiplicities come from the human being and we impose upon those texts.

Second Peter chapter 1 talks about there's no private interpretation.

He is the active component for that interpretation.

Before we start, let's have a word of prayer.

I want to ask you if you just 1 more time, if you have a cell phone, please turn them off.

And if you have a beeper, I don't know who has a beeper in this day and age, unless you're a drug dealer, just turn them off And we'll pray for you if you are a drug dealer.

Let's have a word of prayer before we start.

Gracious Lord, we thank you for another day of life.

And Father, it being the last day of 2010.

Father, we thank you for having been with us throughout the year, throughout the high points and the low points of this year.

And Father, we bow our heads, we ask for 1 more blessing for the rest of this day.

And what a wonderful place to be when the year does change.

Help our hearts, help our minds to be recalibrated to the image and the glory and the character of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus's day there were 7 classes of people.

Because of fire code you cannot be standing or sitting on the floor or.

There are zealots, tax collectors, the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Herodians, and there are regular normal people, okay?

Outside of these 3 people, the 7 types, there are probably others you can think of, but the primary classes are that much.

How many of you remember the song when you were little?

I just want, I don't want to be a Pharisee because it's not fair you see.

I don't want to be a Sadducee but it's so Sadducee.

I don't want to be hypocrite because it's not hip with it.

Anyway, these are the 7 classes that we're going to be talking about.

Zealots were the terrorists of their day.

How many of you guys know Masada in the Middle East, the fortress made out of rock?

And the Romans were encamped out there and laying siege upon this fortress.

And all of them wanted, said that rather than submitting to the Romans, they casted lots.

Or I forgot how the story goes, but they went around and killed everyone.

And of those 3 guys, they cast lots and 1 of them killed the other 2 and the last guy committed suicide.

They were terrorists of their day and 1 of them is a popular 1.

Okay, Simon Zelides was 1 of the zealots.

And you can just imagine the presuppositions that Simon had when Jesus said, hey we're going to change the world.

Well he was thinking, yeah we're going to change the world in a terroristic framework.

Just imagine the internal dialogues that the 12 disciples must have had.

Series

The Great Controversies: Relativism's Beauty and Fundamentalism's Beast

On What Basis: The Beginning of Controversy

Transcript

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