TIME AND FAITH
part 2: CHRIST OR CULTURE?

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TIME

• Is it sacred or secular?
• How do we order our time?
• How do we use it?

Holidays

1. Embrace them
2. Reject them
3. Selective:
   - By what standard?
   - Sacred or Secular Observance?
   - What is the cultural situation?

Cultural Calendar

"Christian Calendar"

SAINTS DAYS, SPECIAL FEASTS, FULL CALENDAR

Martin Luther

• Celebrate only on Lord’s Days and festivals of the Lord
• Abrogate Saints days
• Moved Feast of St. Nick to December 24

Church of Scotland

• 1560 Book of Discipline
• Made all holidays and festivals illegal
• John Knox

John Wesley

• Holy days had no valuable end
• Pragmatic
• Kept most major holidays and seasons

Civic Holidays

• What is the current, popular understanding of any of our holiday seasons?
• How do we engage that as disciples?
• Can we transform the holidays?

Christmas

• Christ came into this world
• Christ is in this world
• Christ is coming into this world again
• Advent = Latin adventus, coming

Chris Benjamin

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Evening Sermon, 13 December 2009

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