Quotationmania #6

It's frustrating to converse with emergent followers. Why? Mike Ratliff really gives a good description of what happens when you try to point out serious and massive problems with the emergent village leaders' doctrine,

"Debating these folks is quite an experience. They demand that we stop exposing their doctrinal errors. They call those who won’t stop doing this“hypocrites” by taking Jesus’ command to Judge Not out of context. I saw an article on a friends blog today in which someone blasted him for warning his readers about a false teacher. What was the argument the commenter used? She said, “You are a hypocrite, after all you are not perfect so how can you judge this person?” Well none of us are perfect, but we must judge because our Lord tells us too. We are not to judge hypocritically, but it is commanded that we discern what is true and what is false. We are to shun those who preach what is false and we are to warn our brethren as well. The Word of God gives us the standards of what is true and what is false and all genuine believers have the Holy Spirit."

___Mike Ratliff

Source: http://mikeratliff.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/unbelief-and-the-hard-heart

Quotationmania #5

Before we turn to our quote today, I jsut want to remind you that the Christian Carnivla is up at The Evangelical Ecologist.

Our quote today is from Samuel Chadwick. I have no clue as to who he was (is), but the quotes I've read from him recently are right on IMO. Here is one that I especially liked,


"We give ourselves to prayer. We preach a Gospel that saves to
the uttermost, and witness to its power. We do not argue about
worldliness; we witness. We do not discuss philosophy; we
preach the Gospel. We do not speculate about the destiny of
sinners; we pluck them as brands from the burning. We ask no
man's patronage. We beg no man's money. We fear no man's
frown…Let no man join us who is afraid, and we want none but
those who are saved, sanctified and aflame with the fire of the
Holy Ghost."

– Samuel Chadwick

Source: http://www.revivalschool.com

"But I Don't Want to Help the Poor Anymore?"

I think this post is one I will keep up for about three days as I do want people to think about this and hopefully comment on it.

Wonder if you are a "Jesus follower," attend an emergent church, and then decide you really don't wish to help the poor anymore? Or really have more pressing problems in your life that need more attention than the environment? What would emergent pastors say? What would they do? Would they scold you? Throw you out of the church? Be patient and wait until you come back to your senses? Lecture you? I would love to see/hear this scenario.

My point is that emergents are no less legalistic than any other "hafta-do-or-don't do this and this-to-be-holy" group. But they think they are. I hope someday that many of their followers will say, "I need to tend to my life because I have been so concerned with the poor that I don't know if I am coming or going spiritually." And since I have no atonment foundation for acceptance by God, I need to stop and find out what's REALLY going on here. Maybe they will finally question their emergent masters and ask them why important Biblical things were withheld from them? And maybe they will ask why a works program was put IN PLACE OF a justification by Christ's work program. That should be interesting. And, wonder if they find out that the poor are still poor after all of their efforts?

I will sit back and watch and be available to these sad young adults who will be searching for people and churches who will put the horse before the cart. In other words,

Justification........and then Sanctification......and THEN....the Social Gospel. And hopefully the gifts and miracles will not be left out either. Pentecostals and Charismatics! Wake up! This is a golden opportunity for you to introduce the young adult to God's REAL mystery and experience. But first, you C/P's have to get your own house in order and get back to your historic faith statement beliefs.

Lakeland, FL: It's not the WHAT - It's the WHO

I'm really getting tired of Christian leaders raising strawmen. Strawmen are when people say a certain group believes or does something that isn't true. The emergents do it all the time and so do the third wave Charismatics. The emergents try to convince us that every evangelical that isn't in their theological camp are extreme Calvinists, and the third wave Charismatics do it by saying that everyone who doesn't believe in healing THEIR way are cessationists.

It is the latter to which I refer to in this post. I am saddened that both Lee Grady and Stephen Strang, editor and publisher respectively of Charisma magazine has come out and said/intimated that if we don't agree with what is happening in Lakeland, Florida right now, we are against healing. At their own forum I cannot count the many, many people who make it VERY clear they are not against healing but are seriously questioning WHO is healing there. When a healer "sees" angels with names like Emma and reports really way-out-there experiences and revelations, we have to ask what kind of healing is going on? But in Grady's and Strang's world, that qualifies us to be "against healing.". This is just plain dishonest by both of them. The people on the forum have stated for weeks now the massive problems with WHO is holding these healing so-called revival meetings in Lakeland, Florida. And yet, Grady never responds directly to these concerns. And that was bad enough but now Strang comes out with the same. Charisma magazine is no longer a minor league Christian magazine and it needs to be more responsible than this and frankly, more comprehensive. From the beginning of this "river" revival, Grady and Strang have been enamored of it. Most Charismtics and Pentecostals I've read and talked with have serious questions about the Third Wave Charismaticism. And they also have serious questions and reservations about what is happening in Florida. Charisma really needs to do better than this. They should be presenting the classic Pentecostal position of Healing in the Atonement more instead of constantly pushing the occultic new age teaching of impartation by the "river" people in our faces. Although Bently finally started to teach healing in the atonement last year, I haven't heard him teach it this year and he doesn't seem to practice it. To teach healing in the atonemnt you don't have to drag the controversial Faith teachers into it. You can go back to Mason and MacPherson who both taught it. In fact, all three Pentecostal denominations that came out of those two people - COGIC, Assembly of God and Foursquare - believe this. For some strange reason the Foursquare statment of faith doesn't clarify this but MacPherson taught it. But then I don't know what is happening in Foursquareland lately but I plan to write about it in another post. On the other hand, the Assemby of God has it in their statement of faith (http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/index.cfm) and so does COGIC (http://www.cogic.org/believe.htm). People who believe in healing through the atonement of Christ, and not in impartation by "special people" (this smacks of Manifest Sons of God teaching, by the way) should not be pillolried as "people who are against healing." It's just plain dishonest. Let's get rid of those strawmen, shall we?

In conclusion, here is what Andrew Strom (a more true prophet and a Charismatic) said today in his email letter. I am quoting the last half of it:

A Spirit-filled pastor that I know from the UK who has been following
Todd Bentley's ministry closely for some years wrote to me about
what he himself has observed since the year 2000:

"My difficulty with Todd Bentley's ministry is not whether he has
recently covered himself with tattoos or pierced himself silly, but
the SOURCE of his power. He keeps changing his position on this.
Sometimes he says it's the Holy Spirit and a lot of the time it's his angels…

"Many have said that they believe that Florida is a 'mixture'.
Personally, I do not believe 'mixture' is involved. I believe these
deceiving spirits have hi-jacked Todd's ministry… Either the healings
are of God or they are not. Which is it?

"People can be healed in spiritualist churches. I have witnessed,
close-up, first hand, people being instantly healed by mediums
and faith healers. I have also seen people healed by the power of
the Holy Spirit. To begin with there is no discernible difference.
However the counterfeit healings soon begin to either go wrong or
something far worse comes upon the person.

"When God heals someone - He adds 'no sorrow.'

"I know Todd started off OK - I was there in his early meetings…
In September 2000 I stood in front of Todd and gave him the
warning that God gave me for him. "Beware, the leaven of the
Pharisees, lest an angelic leaven enters your ministry."

"One month later, according to Todd's own account, at a meeting
in Grants Pass Oregon, Cal Pierce walked in with Branham's
'Healing Revival' angel in tow, Todd saw and accepted this spirit
without reservation. His 'angels' have been with him ever since.

"I have written to Todd on numerous occasions and reminded him
of God's warning, alas to no avail.

"When Todd Bentley conducted a healing meeting in a large
charismatic church here in England in 2005, he laid hands on
many people who were apparently healed. I know of at least one
instance where a pastor's wife with cancer was prayed for by Todd.
Soon afterwards she heard voices in her head telling her to 'drown
herself just like her father did'. The poor woman ended up in a
mental hospital, I believe she still has the cancer.

"No-one is following up or keeping records of what happens to
people who have hands laid on them by Todd or others like him.

"I have kept records as far as I can, concerning this particular
church. Over a relatively short period, there has been a dramatic
increase in premature deaths, cancers, marriage break-ups,
sickness and disease amongst the congregation where the
leadership have allowed this type of ministry into their church.
Many people left the church in fear.

"These are the consequences of following this type of 'ministry'
which no-one is either aware of, or wants to address. I know, I have
visited the people in hospital and attended one of the funerals…"
[END QUOTE]

Meanwhile we find a number of prominent leaders beginning to
declare that this will be one of the greatest revival movements in
history. Some even see it as the beginning of a "new awakening".

Bob Jones declared that "This move will be a global move, traveling
with signs and wonders all over the world! The third wave is here!"

As this 'anointing' spreads worldwide, I believe there are some
serious questions that we need to ask ourselves:

Isn't it possible, with all the dubious 'anointings' and angels and
manifestations associated with Bentley's ministry, that what we
are really seeing is a giant 'counterfeit' revival? Isn't it possible
that if it continues to grow at the present rate, that it may literally
become one of the great "delusions" of the Last Days - a great
deception that has the power to actually deceive, if possible, the
very elect?

These are very serious questions - but I believe they must be
asked - because this 'anointing' is already beginning to circle the globe.

The Evangelical Manifesto

We will take a break from Quotationmania and come back to it in about a week. I have about 4 more fantastic quotes.

Today I want to introduce you to a document called the Evangelical Manifesto. In fact, it came out just today. The signers were prominent evangelical leaders and basically it's directed to two audiences-

-Evangelicals
-non-Evangelicals, especially non-Christians

Here is the Introduction to the Manifesto in its own words:

An Evangelical Manifesto is an open declaration of who Evangelicals are and what they stand for. It has been drafted and published by a representative group of Evangelical leaders who do not claim to speak for all Evangelicals, but who invite all other Evangelicals to stand with them and help clarify what Evangelical means in light of “confusions within and the consternation without” the movement. As the Manifesto states, the signers are not out to attack or exclude anyone, but to rally and to call for reform.

As an open declaration, An Evangelical Manifesto addresses not only Evangelicals and other Christians but other American citizens and people of all other faiths in America, including those who say they have no faith. It therefore stands as an example of how different faith communities may address each other in public life, without any compromise of their own faith but with a clear commitment to the common good of the societies in which we all live together.

For those who are Evangelicals, the deepest purpose of the Manifesto is a serious call to reform—an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

I have to admit that before I read the entire Manifesto I was afraid it would be a combo of the New Christian Left + emergenty theology + some seeker sensitive thrown in somewhere, But to my delight I found it doesn't mince words about what evangelicals believe. One of the best sections IMO was where the crafters of the Manifesto told the world that fairness isn't being observed when only evangelicals cannot speak in the public square. They ask for everybody to have a chance to speak in the public square. As I was thinking about this, I realized that for the past decades, while evangelicals have been criticized and blanked out and laughed at in the public square, liberal Protestants have been given free reign without any problem or derision at all. Interesting, huh.

To read the Evangelical Manifesto (it's a PDF file), go here.

Quotationmania #4

It is through the self that seekers imagine themselves to be peering into, and experiencing, the eternal and by doing so hoping to findsome meaning. And though its language was a little different, this was really the way earlier Protestantism traveled until it sank [emphasis mine] beneath the human debris of war in Europe and the Depression of the 1930's in America, incapable [emphasis mine] of addressing evil and suffering. It had no place to stand outside the culture. It could offer no judgement on human depravity. It had to assume the innocence of its own means of access to the divine, and that assumprion simply blew apart.

Source: David Wells in the book, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, p. 46.

Quotationmania #3

I usually don't do politics here unless it interfaces with evangelical Christianity but I couldn't resist this one.

“They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything.”

___Hillary Clinton


Source: New York Times Op/Ed section of May 2, 20008--David Brooks' column


This is a take-off on what the co-leader of the WWII evangelical Lutheran Confessing Movement, Martin Niemoller, said about what the Nazis did. His quote was:

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

I am not exactly a Hillary fan but I thought this was very clever and frankly, IMO, she's right. And who are the they" she is talking about. Well, acutally it's a "they." Globalization, new technologies eliminating domestic jobs, and outsourcing.