Another gem from Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings. Regarding the story of 2 Kings 16, he writes:
The account of Ahaz raises another challenge to contemporary Christian practice. For a variety of reasons, Christian worship in many contemporary churches has adopted liturgical styles from the worlds of entertainment or advertising. When success depends on copying the latest methods, the church’ apparently staid traditionalism, its claim to be the object of God’s special favor, its claims to be the Eden of God, the holy mountain, the house of the living God, can look quaint if not downright proud.
Better to adjust our worship and our language to the dominant cultural power, it is thought, than to keep up the arrogant pretense that we enjoy a special status. In adapting itself to the world, the church is departing from the pattern or model that should govern its worship. Only when the church follows the [model] of heavenly worship does water flow from the temple to the world. If the church adopts the [model] of Damascus, then the nations are on their own, and no water will flow to renew the parched land. Soon such a church will cease to have any purpose of being; ultimately, it will no longer be (248).
