Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991 TAG: 9103090309
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Information assaults the eyes and ears from so many directions that the most alert person cannot cope with it. As a garbled montage said in a snatch of song: "Too much information running through my brain . . . drives me insane."
Our culture spawns uncounted people wanting to be heard, but their insistent cries are usually heeded only by others with similar hurts.
Troublesome and violent cartoon character Bart Simpson represents "real life," with electronic creations seemingly having more power than flesh-and-blood characters.
God uses contemporary culture to speak to the world, Horton said. But a believer has to be smart enough to learn what is culture and what is the good news of God's unconditional love.
Horton is an ordained United Methodist minister as well as editor of the biweekly "Virginia Advocate" denominational news magazine. He addressed more than 100 adults in an innovative mission study, a variation of the annual winter program usually held at night.
The Rev. Walter Lockett, a planner of the event, said substituting Horton's hour-long message for Sunday school greatly increased attendance.
The editor called his class "Gospel, Culture and Media." It was a much abbreviated version of a workshop many found enlightening last summer at the Blackstone Conference Center.
Horton also can communicate the Gospel dramatically, as the Sunday worship congregation learned later. For the children's sermon he portrayed the New Testament evangelist and writer Paul. In this role he lurched down the aisle groaning under the weight of a board containing the Ten Commandments to show how he had been "chained to the Law." He broke the chains to show his freedom realized in Christ.
Again portraying Paul in a sermon for adults, Horton told of his problems with the people of Galatia and his need, as a frail old man, to write once again of their privilege of freedom in Christ. He clearly revealed the point of this New Testament book - that Christians do not need to follow the details of Jewish law to be acceptable to God.
In the seminar, Horton said that communications from God are not always as direct as the Bible stories suggest. He cited "the still, small voice" in which the almighty addressed the prophet Elijah.
Horton also pointed out that popular understanding of the Bible is often different from its literal words. People speak glibly of three kings visiting the infant Jesus and mentally lump them together with the shepherds at the manger of a barn.
More accurately, Scripture recounts that three gifts were presented by an unspecified number of magi, a kind of astrologer popular in the culture of the time, Horton noted. Christ was laid in the manger, but it might have been in a cave or some other shelter. And common sense indicates that the bearers of gifts from the east arrived some time after the birth, long after the shepherds had gone back to their flocks.
However interpreted by various religious groups, the values of Scripture stand distinct from those the prevailing culture favors. A major function of the organized church, Horton said, is to hold up standards that teach the individual to glorify God and to help others without expectation of reward.
The world's messages are that only the fittest and strongest survive, Horton noted. But the Gospel says often that the weak are strong, the suffering endure, the unlovable are worthy of a place in God's kingdom.
The church, with its comfortable buildings and well-planned programs, is sometimes as guilty as the rest of the world in shutting out the physically and mentally handicapped, crying babies and those considered too old to adjust to new ideas, Horton said.
The happiness set forth in Scripture is not limitless pleasure but the joy of sharing oneself with others, of giving rather than getting, he observed.
Contemporary culture also makes gods of such wonders as medical technology, work-saving devices and genetic engineering. Horton said God-given ingenuity is needed to limit technology according to the values that come from Scripture.
Against this accepted culture, the Gospel relates that God offers hope to all whom he creates, that the creator God wants to be in relationship with them, and that in the "weakness" of giving away, all are made stronger.
by CNB