“He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to much else besides. He is committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny, found only in Christianity.”
The Christian View of God & the World — p. 4
“The Christian truth, with the certifying of which we have to do, is essentially one, compact in itself, vitally interconnected, — as such at the same time organic, — and it is therefore not possible one should possess and retain a portion of the same, while yet not possessing or rejecting, the other portions. On the contrary, the member or portion of truth, it had been thought to appropriate or maintain alone, would by this isolating cease to be that which it was or is in itself; it would become a empty form or husk, from which the life, the Christian reality has escaped.”
So many R2K like modern preachers want to insist that ministers should only talk about the Cross and salvation in the pulpit. If Orr’s view above is correct such an approach is a sure way to stunt the growth of God’s people in the pew. While the Cross may be the center of the Christian faith from which all subjects depart and in which all subjects return, talking about the Cross apart from setting it in Christian Weltanschauung is like talking about the ocean to man who has never had a drink of water.
The minister must communicate to the flock that which helps the Cross make sense. It therefore must speak of anthropology, epistemology, axiology, teleology, and ontology. He needs to speak to his flock of law, education, sociology, politics, philosophy, family life, history, and economics. Because the Cross saves man from wicked thinking as well as wicked behavior preaching must speak to what wicked non-Christian thinking looks like in every area of life and then must round of by saying …”And such were some of you, but you were saved, you were washed, you were sanctified by the work of Christ on the Cross.”
