Speaker: Pastor Bill Rench, Pastor Ryan Rench’s father and retired former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church (not Pastor Ryan Rench)
Hello, church. Today I am discussing a booklet I put together about fourteen or fifteen years ago. I called it Classic Christianity, as we take a look at the comparison between what I would call classic Christianity and current popular contemporary Christianity. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” We live in remarkable times. The e-communications era has not only made it much easier to find things that were once time-consuming, but it has also provided a means for a cornucopia of variant, culture-driven religious upstarts to promote their own philosophies. To these people, the plainly dressed truths of classic Christianity are dated or stuffy, overly cautious, too preachy, judgmental, or boring. These proponents of neo-Christianity are unaware that they are made up of just the same crowd of people Paul encountered long ago in the city of Athens, who, the Scripture says, “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” That is Acts 17:21. The advertisement goes out for contemporary worship styles, and the Mars’ Hill people Paul spoke to two thousand years ago show up again now. They sit and stand and sway and hum as a pretty average worship team bangs their drums and picks some pretty average licks on their electric guitars. Then a young, urban, cool-looking fellow in the latest fashion brand of blue jeans and a fashion T-shirt strolls up, sits on a stool, and shares with us. Maybe a lot of what he says is not objectionable, but it is what is not said, what is never mentioned, and what is avoided that is causing the greater damage.
Contemporary Means Temporary
The word contemporary was carefully chosen. It suggests the desire of the promoters to keep up with the current trends and fashions of the present culture. The real-time effect and impact of contemporary Christianity is found in the root of its own descriptive word: it is temporary. Contemporary Christianity, in its fervor to keep step with the corresponding culture, has two unchanging problems. Number one, it is always a step behind. Number two, it is continually having to change to try to keep up. No wonder it is called contemporary. Classic Christianity, by contrast, does not attempt to mimic the surrounding culture. Classic Christianity frames its choices regarding direction, walk, conduct, associations, music, dress, amusements, and so forth by the application of biblical principles that are plainly defined. The “relevant religion” movements that come and go are by nature confined to the confusion engendered by their insistence that nothing is absolute. Contrary to the worldly religious philosophers of today, we can trust our souls to an absolutely perfect and wonderful Saviour and a perfectly preserved Bible. Some time ago, when I first wrote this booklet, I was confronted by a contemporary Christianity frontman who was promoting a religious rock-rap concert in our area. The poster he sent us promoted a dark-themed, dismal piece of work depicting several groups, and their demeanor, countenances, appearance, and dress gave no perceptible indication of any desire for godliness, hope, light, or good. There was really virtually no difference between the groups on this religious poster and any of the ungodly pagan groups advertised on billboards and in the media when they do their concerts at various nightclubs and other venues in the area. When I pointed this out to the promoter, he suddenly became quite angry and responded by suggesting that I was a cult leader who kept our congregation in bondage. So much for his supposed desire for unity.
Stark Contrasts
Setting classic Christianity alongside contemporary Christianity reveals some very stark contrasts. Consider some of these: Christ-oriented versus culture-oriented. Focused on the will of God for men versus focused on the perceived needs of people. Desirous of a distinct identity versus desiring relevance to current culture. Guided by the Word of God versus guided by what works, pragmatism. Experiencing God’s grace versus misappropriating God’s grace. Historical versus modern. Tethered versus loose. Committed to preserving the truth versus given to change. Convinced of absolutes versus suspicious of absolutes. Willing to sacrifice for righteousness versus willing to compromise for harmony. Willing to identify sin biblically versus wanting to define sin culturally. Giving, sacrifice, and surrender versus sharing your testimony and your commitments. That last contrast may be best illustrated in the differing approaches to missions work. In historical Christianity, churches send, and the missionary goes to the field to live. There he stays, living, working, and serving among the people God has called him to. Contemporary Christianity tends to do it another way. They raise funds for group trips of two or three weeks in some foreign field. They hold concerts and get-togethers and meetings, and then they return home. Mission trips end up being more about the group going for a few weeks than about the people on the field. In our classic Christianity model, missions work centers on the gospel: preaching the gospel and winning the lost, baptizing and discipling the saved, and establishing autonomous churches. Classic Christianity has a timelessness about it. It is not generational. It does not have target demographic groups. It is not constantly seeking the embrace of the world. Classic Christianity rejects the ungodly notion promoted by the Paul and Jan Crouches and the Joel Osteins of this world that life is about the acquisition of riches and wealth and “your best life now.” We look to the prospect the Scriptures describe: we look for a better city, a better country, a heavenly kingdom. We recognize that we are stewards of all we have and that God is the Owner, and we are learning to be content in whatever state He has us. As we learn how to abound and how to suffer need, we esteem the riches that are ours in Christ to be far greater than the pleasures of sin for a season. At Calvary Baptist Church, we have made the choice for classic Christianity.
The 1948 Plymouth
My car? You want me to tell you about my car, huh? Well, I bought my first ’48 Plymouth when I was fourteen years old in Tucson. I bought it for fifty dollars, and I drove it through high school and on into college at Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College, until I blew the motor out of it. I fell on hard times and had to sell it. All these years since Bible college, I have always longed for another one, but I never had the wherewithal or the opportunity to find one and pick it up. When we retired from the pastorate here at Calvary Baptist Church, the guys secretly got together and worked on finding a ’48 Plymouth coupe like the one I drove in high school and college. They purchased it from a guy clear over in Maine and had it shipped out here, and on our transition Sunday the church presented it to me, to my great shock. I assumed they had found one to rent and were going to let me use it for a week for fun or something like that, and they said, “No, it is yours to keep.” It blew me away that they were able to do that. One of my sons, Garret, actually found it online in Maine, and the church got together, got behind it, bought it for me, had it shipped out, and presented it to me. I have been enjoying it ever since, and they have been a real blessing in that regard. My favorite part, I think, is just its simplicity. There are no codes to look up, no electronics to go bad, nothing fancy on it, no electric windows or electric door locks or anything of that nature. You just get in, start it up, and drive it. I have always enjoyed that. It harks back to a simpler time, and it always reminds me of my high school days. When I get behind the wheel and look at the dash and everything, it brings back good memories of driving around the Arizona desert in my first one at the age of fourteen, before I even had my license. That is one of the reasons I thought the title Classic Christianity might be appropriate for our brochure, because the characteristics of a classic car are similar. It has stood the test of time through all the different generations and changes in cars, all the things that kept automobiles contemporary. Now we are at the point where they are talking about flying cars, but they have been talking about flying cars since I was a kid, so I do not know whether they will ever really come to pass. But something seventy-five or eighty years old and still on the road gives you a sense of connection with history, something further back that is not just going to come and go like some of the newer throwaway cars, but that is going to be there and last. So there is a parallel there. I think it is a classic.
