Abtract Gospel According To Author of God In South Africa

Albert Nolan "Abtract Gospel" God in "Picture" out current problems shoved aside preach good Feel good do apartheid II - Part 2 In his book, God in South Africa The Challenge of the Gospel," Albert Nolan ends his work quoting passages from Isaiah that convict anyone who still has a conscience. See his words from Page 213, or the chapter before his Appendix: The role of the Church is to bring God into the picture [of life]. The trouble with an abstract gospel or liturgy is that it brings God in but leaves out the picture - the events and struggles pf our time. When a Church preaches and celebrates a gospel that does not challenge anyone to TRANSCEND the status quo with all its sinfulness, that Church has lost contact with the transcendent God ... is worshipping an idol III Isaiah Ch.1 The vision of Isaiah ... he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah 2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3 [an] ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider 4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward 5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint 6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city 9 Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah 10 Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah 11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices ["holocaust" in some translations] unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats