Christendom Kneecaps

Good message from Joe Rigney, “Thou Shalt Not Do a Christendom.” His analogy about kneecaps does WORK.

He said kneecaps get deployed whenever it looks like someone is about to do a Christendom. Here are some of his examples:

• The therapeutic kneecap: “Whoa… exercising power isn’t the way of Jesus.”
• The pietistic kneecap: “Whoa… Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’”
• The heavenly-homeland kneecap: “Whoa… my citizenship is in heaven.”
• The academic kneecap: “Whoa… you can’t use the Christian tradition that way. We’re not going back.”
• The imbalanced kneecap: “Whoa… you’re emphasizing politics and culture too much.”
• The third-way kneecap: “Whoa… Jesus is neither left nor right. Not the donkey or the elephant, but the Lamb.”
• The nuance kneecap: “Whoa… we have to be nuanced. This is very complicated.”
• The contrast kneecap: “Whoa… we’re not called to win the culture; we’re called to love our neighbor.”
• The respectability kneecap: “Whoa… careful, the world is watching. We want a seat at the table.”
• The longhouse feminist kneecap: “Whoa… this sounds scary, and I’m very concerned.”
• The premillennial kneecap: “Whoa… we lose down here.”
• The postmillennial kneecap: “Whoa… Christendom only comes from the bottom up. Just sit back and ride the waves.”