Missionaries to a Culture of New Paganism

The early church was born in a pagan society, and it took approximately 300 years for Christianity to establish a Judeo-Christian worldview, which shaped what was, until recently, Western culture. In The New Paganism  Nathaniel Lamansky points out that an essential characteristic of paganism is ascribing mysticism power to nature. In the past, it was lightning, wind, the sun, fertility, and other aspects of nature. Often, gods or goddesses were associated with those elements. Lamansky rightly points out that science has demystified this through science. But with Transgenderism, transhumanism, and other new innovations, we have a resurgence of a new sort of paganism:

“And human beings, ironically, have become the deities of their own paganism. What constitutes one’s human nature is now dependent upon one’s own whims. Of course, those in a more advanced stage of paganism still understand the relationship between gain and sacrifice. There is, perhaps, a sick correlation between the bloody sacrifices of the old paganism and the bloody surgeries of the new.

“This modern paganism is far worse than the one of old. The ancient pagans were required to be humble; to submit to a force larger than themselves. The modern pagans say in chorus with Lucifer: “I will not serve.” They will not serve God, men, the laws of nature, or the dictates of reason. Gender ideology especially is imbued with a mystical and amorphous character, such that rational attempts to combat its rhetoric quickly reach a dead end. Its advocates operate on the premise that they are sovereign gods over themselves; to what higher power, then, can we appeal to show them the truth? 

For the 21st-century church, the mission field is in your neighborhood, stores where you shop, the public schools, and the workplace as much, perhaps more than it is in other lands. Church leaders and Christian parents need to handle the church as an embassy and train the ambassadors in how to introduce the Lord they represent to the pagans with whom they are rubbing each day. 

https://mailchi.mp/8137a2e4e94a/tim-mackie-and-greg-boyd-the-god-who-is-not-who-he-is?e=169825fd77