Contemporizing the Message

"The average Christian, even the one who attends church regularly, lives in two different worlds. On Sunday morning, from eleven o'clock to noon, such a person lives in a world in which axheads float, rivers stop as if dammed, donkey's speak, people walk on water, dead persons come back to life, even days after death, and a child is born to a virgin mother. But during the rest of the week, the Christian functions in a very different atmosphere. Here technology, the application of modern scientific discovery, is the norm. The believer drives away from church in a modern automobile, with automatic transmission, power steering , power brakes, AM-FM stereo radio, air conditioning, and other gadgets, to a home with similar up to date features. In practice the two worlds clash. In the Christian's biblical world, when people are ill, prayer is uttered for divine healing, but in this secular world, however, they go to the doctor. For how long can this kind of schizophrenia be maintained?"

-Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, pp. 117-118