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In 1989, Don Henley, a member of the band The Eagles, recorded his third solo album with the lead song called \u201cThe End of the Innocence.\u201d The opening stanza and chorus are as follows:<\/p>\n
Remember when the days were long<\/em> But I know a place where we can go<\/em> While Henley was writing about the tumultuous events swirling around America in the late 80\u2019s, I think that these words can very appropriately be applied to the age of grace the church is experiencing. For most of us coming into an understanding of the fullness found in grace, our religious innocence disappears, sometimes wistfully, while at other times as a violent clap of thunder followed by a deluge of tears. The longing for the days when tried and true Bible stories (the fairy tales spoken of in the song) seems to many just one of a number of relics to a thought about how God functions in the world.<\/p>\n Grace, as it is being offered today in most congregations, is the post-modern result to religious indoctrination, leaving in its path a flock of nihilistic believers longing for a place where they can experience the love of God just as they did in the beginning of their faith. Allow me to explain this a bit further if I may.<\/p>\n The standard religious teaching the church has been promoting hasn\u2019t changed much over its 2,000-year history. The age of Enlightenment came upon civilization and suddenly those teachings came into a stark contrast to the discoveries of science. Questions about the stories in the bible, its dependability as a resource for the newest understandings of the cosmos and the place of mankind in it began to chip away at the institution that society had been built upon. Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher of this era, gave this critique to the results the Enlightenment produced:<\/p>\n God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?<\/em><\/p>\n Post-modernity came on the Enlightenments heels sometime after the second world war and everything got called into question. Morals, values, gender, relationships, marriage, church, the state, there wasn\u2019t one thing that hasn\u2019t receive the glaring gaze of scrutiny in this age. Everything has fallen to deconstruction and hence became relative, it only applies to me when I care for it too. Nihilism is the norm. People feel empty without any compass to guide them and consequently just do whatever feels good in the moment.<\/p>\n Throughout all these events, the church continued with its message trying to keep the lid on a social pressure cooker. Morals, values, gender, relationships, marriage, church, and the state had already been spelled out in the bible and there wasn\u2019t one thing that needed to change to fit a society the church saw as corrupt and living under the sway of the enemy. It is \u201cOur way or the highway,\u201d and shrinking attendance across all age groups has begun to demonstrate the importance of being relevant.<\/p>\n In one instance just consider how prior to knowing about grace lost souls were the focus of all your activities. People who weren\u2019t a part of your belief structure were targets for conversion no matter how far away they were from you. If you couldn\u2019t get to them, there was a ministry planted into the heart of the enemy\u2019s territory who you could sow your seed of evangelism into. This, along with various prayer events and conferences were the life of every believer looking to win the souls of the lost.<\/p>\n Grace hits and you suddenly see the foolishness of such activities merely as an attempt to pass on a \u201cget into heaven free\u201d card. There are no lost souls; grace dealt with everyone, equally. The sinner\u2019s prayer became a totem to the innocence lost. Evangelism, according to the past methods, we treated as an exit strategy, not a plan for living with heaven on earth. Heaven, that place untouched by man, became the chorus of our innocence, all we strove for. We faced the realization that all are not as lost as those who think others are.<\/p>\n If grace did all the things we were led to believe were our responsibility, what is the point of it all then? Why get involved with anything or anyone for that matter? Hell, why even go to church, particularly if all they\u2019re going to do is preach that old-time religion? I\u2019m free in grace, the law doesn\u2019t bind me anymore. I\u2019ll just marinate in my bliss.<\/p>\n Enlightenment did kill the god we thought we were supposed to be in the world. Grace put the trinity back in the divinity business. But most teachings forsook the \u201cnow what\u201d reality of life and kept the Trinity in a box on a shelf just out of reach. No one seems to have considered the implications of, \u201chow do you live heaven on earth?\u201d particularly if this has always been the intention of the Trinity. After all, what would have the story been like if the man and woman hadn\u2019t eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Would there have been an end of the innocence we seem so eager to return to?<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s time to evaluate our doctrines of the finished work of the cross not from the vantage point of just being on the cusp of a new move of God but from being deep in the thick of one which has been ongoing since the creation event. How would knowing that Christ has been living in all the world throughout its entire history change your perceptions about living in the grace of the Father? Could it change how you see all people and their lives? Is it possible that grace truly is the end of our innocence in a make-believe world and the stepping stone into maturity where sons of the Father live the reality of being in two dimensions simultaneously?<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s time to ask yourself the questions which have been brewing in your heart about the reality of heaven on earth and you being a part of it. Realize, however, it will be the end of your innocence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1989, Don Henley, a member of the band The Eagles, recorded his third solo album with the lead song called \u201cThe End of the Innocence.\u201d The opening stanza and chorus are as follows: Remember when the days were long … Continue reading
\n And rolled beneath a deep blue sky<\/em>
\n Didn’t have a care in the world<\/em>
\n With mommy and daddy standin’ by<\/em>
\n But “happily ever after” fails<\/em>
\n And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales<\/em>
\n The lawyers dwell on small details<\/em>
\n Since daddy had to fly<\/em><\/p>\n
\n That’s still untouched by men<\/em>
\n We’ll sit and watch the clouds roll by<\/em>
\n And the tall grass wave in the wind<\/em>
\n You can lay your head back on the ground<\/em>
\n And let your hair fall all around me<\/em>
\n Offer up your best defense<\/em>
\n But this is the end<\/em>
\n This is the end of the innocence<\/em><\/p>\n