Dan at Cerulean Sanctum is holding three very interesting and comprehensive polls on church and individual finance. In the past Dan has demonstrated a real interest in how churches and individual Christians help less fortunate people, including other Christians. The pools will be up until next Wednesday and I encourage you to check them out and vote if you wish. Here are a few of the results so far:

*My church has taken the initiative to prepare a plan of action and to set aside funds to help its members should a severe economic downturn arise.

69% of the respondents said "False." In other words, their churches had NOT put aside funds to help it's members in a time of severe economic downturn.

*If economic conditions worsen and I lost my job for an extended period of time, the amount of savings I have set aside would last…

The majority, 49%, said 4 months. And, that was the lowest time choice offered.

*My church’s disclosure of its income and expenses can best be described as…

The majority, 51%, said completely open which I must admit surprised me, as I have been in few churches that disclosed anything about their finances. And I've been in a lot of different denominations.

These represent only a very few of the many fascinating questions Dan asks. Here is the link again. Cerulean Sanctum. Just keep scrolling down and voting and scrolling down and voting until you have finished all three posts in the "Banking on God" series.

Is Emergent "Receding?"

Here is a fascinating post at the blog, Kingdom People. It cites five (5) reasons that emergent churches are, in the blog's words, "receding."

Here are the five reasons listed at the blog:

1. The Emerging Church does little evangelism
2. Some Emerging leaders have embraced a disturbing lack of clarity on key doctrinal and social issues
3. Many who initially intrigued by the Emerging conversation are now distancing themselves from Emerging theology
4. Some aspects of the Emerging Church look faddish and fleeting
5. Evangelicalism is beginning to address the good questions raised by the Emerging movement


Below is the link to the post to read the reasons in detail.

Kingdom People.

I just do not know what to make of all the rush of pastors into Catholic-like belief. Perhaps most do not know what Catholics really believe. But with the Evangelicals and Catholics Together I and II conferences in the past years, as well as the emergent and other church groups embracing some of medieval Catholicism, I wonder about this trend. I don't know about you, but I would rather not go back to the Middle Ages. It wasn't a great time to be alive.

If you aren't sure why Protestants should probably not embrace Catholicism, Old Truth had a great post today on what Catholics really believe. You might not think that is important, but when you have BIG problems in your life and you wonder where God is, I think it would be of the utmost importance for you to know if you were justified and totally accepted by God in and through Christ; or, whether your justification was "in process" and God didn't have to do one thing for you since you weren't yet in covenant with Him.

N. T. Wrightism is flooding into our Christian colleges and seminaries as well as into some of our churches. His theology seems to be more of a "justification process" than the Reformational one of "you-receive-Christ-and-then-you-are-justfified-right-there-and-then. By the way, I'm not talking about Catholic peoples. I am talking about their religion. Yes, I said the "R" word, because that is what Catholicism is--a religion and a paganistic one at that.

The post at Old Truth is in the link below and is not too long to read.

http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.961

Our evangelical churches aren't doing well. I attribute it to a loss of good Bible preaching of the cross as well as a poor theology of the Holy Spirit. If you would have Word + Spirit + cross you might get a few more folks. This seemed to be the formula for most revivals.

Here are the recent stats. Read it and weep. Of course I think most of us would understand why the mainline mostly liberal churches are imploding, but it's sad to see this happening in historically Biblical conservative churches. Oh by the way emergent - this is also your future, so you might wish to see how it pans out.

Most of the 25 largest church bodies either lost members or experienced no growth over the course of 2007. The Episcopal Church, beset by conflict over the issue of homosexuality, saw the most dramatic decline with a 4 percent drop to fewer than 2.2 million members. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) saw a similar decline, suffering a 2.4 percent decrease.

The Roman Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, Assemblies of God and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church reported that membership held steady, with gains under 1 percent each.

The two fastest-growing church bodies in North America are the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). Jehovah’s Witnesses saw a 2.25 percent increase in membership over the past year, bringing their total membership to over 1.06 million and making them the 25th largest church body. The Mormon Church grew 1.56 percent and is listed now as the fourth largest church in the U.S.

Source: Ministry Report

Your Church's Youth Department?

Do you know what your church's youth department is doing? What they are learning? What curriculum materials they are using, if any?

I think many of us are lulled by the fact that youth pastors went to seminary or at least some type of Christian or Bible college. But, what are teaching in these places. I have to admit that I am in deep shock over what is happening at historically very Biblical and very conservative colelges like Wheaton College. Emergent is flooding in there like a huge tsunami. I see who teaches there and I am ready to fall off my chair. And many other Christian colleges and seminaries are no better. It's bad enough that historically conservative denominations are selling out, so I guess it comes as no surprise when their colleges sell out too. The only churches and seminaries left that are successfully (I hope) stemming the tide of liberal Protestant-type--er---sorry---progressive Christianity (emergent) are the Reformed folks with their Young Calvinists.

But there are things that worry me about them. One fact that concerns me is the increasing hostility they show toward women and "women's place in the church." Another problem is this obsession that some people might accept Christ who are not predestined and oh my, then what? But the BIG problem I see is a lack of good theology concerning the Holy Spirit. Yes, I know you are out there dear Sovereign Grace reader. And I keep asking you to show me WHY your churches are Charismatic. So far, I have received nothing pointing me to the fact that they are not just slightly over the Charismatic line in a sort of tepid way. In my visit to my nearest SG church, I think the Holy Spirit was either asleep or, pardon my irreverance, visiting others at Starbucks during the church service.

And you ask, why can't I find a church? Any fellow Pentecostal Presbyterians (evangelical-type PCUSA, not PCA) out there? Notice I didn't say "Charismatic" Presbyterians. Methinks too many of them are getting into Third Waveism and other mystical stuff too much. At least that is what I see from their mailings which I receive.

So all I can do is pray that there are some sane Christians out there in leadership who might show us our way back......and then forward.

Around the Blogosphere--Hot Stuff This Week!

There is some heavy stuff in the blogosphere that I wish to call to your attention. First, Steve Camp presents one of the finest articles on the emergents and dealing with them that I've read yet. You can read it here, but remember to use your back arrow when you're finished to read the rest of the hot blog posts from this week.

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum, has posted 7 questions that I also believe are necessary to ask. However, IMO we need better answers than are currently being given from the emergent churches. Dan quotes the first 6 questions from another blog and then adds a 7th which he thinks is very important too. Read his entire post here.

This post at Resurgence has some of the best analysis of churches in community ministry that I've seen. It's by JD GReer and is found here.


My favorite blog, Slice of Laodicea has some good ones this week and both are pretty shocking, but you need to know what is going on out there in evangelical land. In the first post Ingrid tells us about the proliferation of sextopics in evangelical churches. And these are designed to titillate. She discuss it here.

She also predicts that actual sex will be shown on church platforms. Why would she predict this? Find out here.

And in the last post I present to you today, are the New Christian Left leaders really Marxists? This is really revealing IMO. Read it here.

Follow Up to Persecution Post

Following up on my "persecution of Christians in America has already begun" theme (see the post here, in the Jan. 2008 inssue of Christianity Today magazine, there is an article by Mark Labberton. The magazine's editors introduce him and then write,

...Members of his church, First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California rub shoulders every day with a culture that often considers the Christian gospel to be not so much threatening as simply irrelevant.

Two years ago I would agree with that assessment, but not now. Evangelicals used to be made fun of, but now more and more we are termed "dangerous." In fact, the new term for us is fundamentalists. Even some inside the evangelical walls are using this term to describe what basically are evangelicals, not fundamentalists in the 20th century sense. And I have the sneaky feeling that those inside know exactly the difference. Oh by the way, the term fundamentalists when applied to Christians is usually coupled with the word extreme or terrorists. Like in "extreme Christian fundamentalists," or even "Chrisitian fundamentalists" are basically in the same mode as all "fundamentalist terrorists." It's bad enough our society in the past year is doing this, but for so-called evangelical leaders to do this is inconceivable. I hope you will look out for these things and report them back to me here. I want a list to persuade skeptical Christians that this really is happening. My email is on the left side bar.

The Persecution of Christians in America is Beginning Now

I am getting more and more concerned about how the "atmosphere" in America has changed quite suddenly to one of persecution of Evangelical Christians in America. In fact, it's quite similar to how the German government propagandized the German non-Jewish citizens against the Jews before World War II. The only difference is the German government was doing the persecution, while in America it's the media. There are several recent examples of this, but two appeared just this week. First, Susan Jacoby's new book, Age of American Unreason is out. Although I haven't read the book, as it just came out, the New York Times Book reviewer stated that Jacoby blames the evangelicals for "pseudoscience" and a leap backwards in thinking. Of course the real facts are that Christians are actually advancing in their college and grad level institutions. Also, there are more educated and middle to upper-middle class evangelicals. If you look at how the national TV news networks (especially PBS and Bill Moyers) portray us, we all live in places like South Carolina, have lost some teeth and dropped out of 8th grade. Therefore, we don't talk too good.

Also this week (Feb. 11-16), Charles Barkley, the basketball player, says conservatives make him sick and implicates evangelical Christians especially. Never before in my lifetime (I am almost 64) have I see this venom and absolute nonsense directed at evangelical Christians. I fear this is only the start. I don't worry about the atheistic books out right now by people like Richard Dawkins. But I do fear respected people who are bringing forth this other stuff. It will take Christian intellectuals IMO to counter this. So far, they seem to be rather silent. Although some have put out books, they have been largely confined to the evangelical community and mostly to the academic parts of that community. Perhaps they need to get on programs like Larry King and not look stupid.

And if it isn't bad enough that we are undergoing these type of assaults from without, we have our own within lobbying the same type of charges. These people have discovered that if they call evangelicals "fundamentalists," they get more play. Get it? Religious fundamentalists is the term used today by both unbelievers AND the anti-evangelical so-called "believers. The term not only covers Muslim extremists, but nowadays it also covers evangelicals. Do you see the problem here? The sad thing is most Christians don't even know what's happening.

The Jews went through all of this in Germany in the 1930's after Hitler rose to power. I've studied the Holocaust for decades now so I'm familiar with its history. In that instance it was the government attacking them and it was mostly personal and character attacks. For instance, they portrayed the average Jew as dirty and lecherous. That was silly of course as Jews as a group are probably the cleanest people in the world because of their religious rituals. Even non-religious Jews inherit this. And there was absolutely no creedance that Jewish men were more lecherous than any other racial or ethnic group in Germany at that time. Do you see the similarity? Satan does nothing new. Now, the evangelicals are portrayed as stupid and rigid and are a danger to the nation and the general population. They believe in silly myths like creation and worship some guy who died on a cross. This actually is happening NOW here in the Untied States. It doesn't help that some of our "own" (if they truly are) are lobbing the same darts at us. The emergents and others (like Rick Warren) are constantly disparaging the "fundamentalists." They aren't talking about the old fundamentalists, they're talking about us because we have the audacity to disagree with their theology (they either downplay or deny the cross and Jesus' mediatorial work there).

Anyone have any answers or ways to pray about this?

"Gospelists" vs "Epistlists"

I am a fan of balance. I follow Aristotle's principle of the Golden Mean. Take a finite line of let's say - 10 inches. Divide that in half and you get 5. Measure 5 inches from the left side of the line and you should reach the center. Now measure 5 inches from the right side in and you should reach the same point of center (unless maybe you are doing the "new" math....LOL). That is the Golden Mean. Paul talked about the same concept in Philippians 4:5 when he said "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand."
I have said before here that we need to achieve a balance between the gospels and the epistles. So-called Red Letter Christians, as many of the emergents are, are simply re-warmed liberal Protestants, because they do the same thing. And what is that? They are in the gospels more than the epistles so they can DO what Jesus said. But the foundational theology which is the foundation of WHAT they should do is missing. On the other hand, we have the Reformationalists who are in the epistles but seemed to be confused about what to do with the gospels.
I would like to offer three clues to help synthesize both gospels and epistles.

1) Understand that Jesus was talking at times to four groups of people. I've noticed during my long years of being a Christian that many pastors and teachers confuse these. Sometimes Jesus was talking to the Jewish people and what He said only applies to them. At other times He was talking to the Jewish leaders only. Remember, that both of these groups were still under Law. So when Jesus said to the Jewish leaders "You tithe and so you should...." he wasn't instituting a law for the church. He was simply observing a truth of the Law that they were still under.
At other times Jesus was talking to the future church, especially when He talked to his disciples alone. And at other times he was talking to or about the whole world - that is, everyone.

2) I've noticed that Red-letter Christians often ignore the miracles and healings Jesus did. Or,they "metaphor" them. For example, they might say that Jesus healed people to show He wants to heal the world of poverty and injustice through us Christians. On the other hand, outside the Pentecostal/Charismatic groups, most "epistle" churches don't acknowledge the miracles today at all. In other words, in their view, Jesus has changed, contrary to Hebrews 13:8 which says, "Jesus, yesterday, today and forever." They say most miracles ceased after the last Apostle died. But if one reads those who knew the Apostles or were discipled by those who did, in the second century, there are several references in their writings about healings and miracles occurring.

3) Those following N.T. Wright's teachings (emergents, etc.) don't seem to believe that the epistles are Jesus' teachings carried out AFTER His death. So, in order for their MIND to synthesize the epistles with the gospels, they have come up with what his called the New Perspective on Paul. Someday soon I will go into what this is, but it would be too long for today's post.

What triggered this post was a rather good post from the Internet Monk. You can read that post here. And, I recommend you do read it as it's not that long.

Spirits?

Last night I went to my monthly library book group. We read a novel about the Turks and the Armenians. One of the characters in the book was a psychic which I guess is very common in many countries. The psychic had two jins on each shoulder. I gather these are spirits. It was interesting that this non-Christian book group thought these represented her conscience. They didn't realize that they were REAL spirits. I tried to explain it but they just gave me a blank look. It reminded me of that verse in the Bible that talks about the believer being able to judge spiritual things while the unbeliever cannot. So, I finally gave up trying to explain. I felt I did a good job of explaining too. Oh well. But as Christians, we should know by now that this stuff is real. Hopefully, we have come out of the hyper-scientific belief system that denies spirit beings.

To illustrate this, I recently read an interesting article in the BBC (British) news about a Liberian man who accepted Christ after being one of the rebels against the government. But he was also a kind of witch doctor. He would eat sacrificed people's parts as well as going into battle completely naked. He was so fierce that his enemies were terrified of him. Now, he is ready to accept his punishment from the government for his misdeeds. And he will do it with a peace in his heart from Jesus Christ. He is now an evangelist. If you don't think evil spirits caused him to do this stuff, then I recommend reading Eph. 6:12 as well as some passages in Acts that deal with people with evil spirits bugging the Apostles.


Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7200101.stm

This month is Black History Month. And now we have the Obama phenomenon and Charisma magazine this month is devoted to the New Black Church. For years, I've wondered why inner city Black Churches, ESPECIALLY the Pentecostal/Charismatic ones, have put up with the gang/crime/drugs in their neighborhoods. I don't want to hear anymore about the poverty, racism and what the government won't do. It's a new day when every race and ethnic group here in America has a chance. Maybe not everyone in those groups, but a huge number now, than let's say 60 years ago. It's obvious that the mainly-white-man local/state/federal government isn't going to solve the problem. So, it will be up to the folks themselves. Some black churches ARE taking the challenge of the social crisis part. But what about spiritual warfare? Without this, the situation will really not improve. Below is one of the best quotes I've read about this:

We have a generation of young people who are drowning in their own blood. Young people are more fatalistic in 2008 than they were in 1908, and there is more violence in our cities now than there was during slavery. … The only way to reduce crime is for the faith community to step up and I’m not talking about one or two preachers showboating. You’ve all got to do it. You have to be the shepherd. You have to be the father figure. If you’ve got the Holy Ghost power, go out and put that power on the thugs. … God has given you an opportunity to resurrect faith and hope for a generation of youth.

__Eugene Rivers, pastor of Azusa Christian Community Church in Boston, speaking to a group of Jacksonville pastors about their role in reducing inner-city violence

Source: jaxdailyrecord.com, 2/4/08

From Jerusalem to ?

From time to time I like to inform you about interesting articles and blogs. Recently, I came across an article from Christianity Today magazine. For those of you who still believe you are living in a Christian nation (if you are an American) I have news for you. You aren't. We aren't. I don't think there are any real Christian nations anymore, if there ever were. In other words, we aren't living in "Jerusalem," as the article accurately points out. But on the other hand, it says we aren't living in "Babylonia" either." I disagree on that one. I think that is exactly where we are living in some respects. But in other respects, we are living in another place not mentioned in the article. More about that at the end of this post. Actually, according to the article, we are living in "Samaria."

Tim Stafford, who wrote the article, argues that in Babylonia the citizens don't know anything about the Jews' religion but in Samaria they do. 40 years ago, Stafford would have a good point n the anaology to our country and it's Christianity, but IMO, not today. Ask the average non-Christian what Christianity is all about and I doubt if they can tell you. That's because we've done a rotten job of telling them. At least where I live (in a blue state) people cannot tell you, although perhaps it might not be as true where you live, if you live in a so-called "red state" like the Midwest or South. But I bet most under 35 wouldn't be able to tell you much either. They think it's about the Christian Right "talk," but it isn't. It's about a historical event - the cross and what happened there. If we reach ur society, we had better articlate our faith better to outsiders. As it sounds today, it's too confusing to them because often, it's in such a confused state to us.

Actually, none of those three cities are where we should be heading. Let's get to Athens, because that is where I think we REALLY are. Athens.......from Jerusalem to Athens. We did a detour to Samaria and Babylonia but we need to get to Athens and Corinth and the other Greekified cities of the past, since our country more resembles that culture.

You can read the article here.

Response to Comments on my Wednesday Social Skills Post

In my post of last Wednesday, Lack of Social Skills in Churches Sinking Outreach? the commenters felt I wasn't specific enough and there seemed to be general confusion about what I wrote. I'm not sure where the confusion lies since I gave the example of greeting visitors. Evangelicals are and have been reticent and unknowledgable about how to talk to strangers. They seem ill at ease. I feel this is due to poor social skills because of their upbringing, lack of churches helping to build these social skills, and even more - low self-esteem on the part of so many Christians. I could also tell you about the myriad of Christian guys I dated who could hardly tie their shoes. I am glad to see today that the young men are more confident around women, probably because the church isn't protecting them so much against "sinful temprations." But the guys my age....well..I won't give you the gory details. And I am not alone. Ask almost any woman over 40 who is or was a single adult Christian at one time what their experiences with Christian guys were as contrasted with non-Christian guys. (And many of the women aren't much better either, as many older men can attest.)

Now, this could be just a matter of culture if it wasn't making things tough for visitors. Young people today aren't going to church, not even evangelicals. I've written here beore that Barna reports only 9% of evangelicals between ages 18 and 30 attend church. And overall, only 4% of that age group do.

I don't think we can afford sloppy social skills where people are feeling unwanted and uncomfortable when they visit churches. Pastors MUST get out of this ridiculousness that everybody comes with somebody else and that everyone is married. Most people in the United States today are single as every recent survey shows. There are singles that come to churches AND there are people who come alone - both those unmarried and those married coming withour their spouse. I hear from some married people that even they are feeling uncomfortable in visiting churches. Some of this problem is poor organizational structure on the part of churches. In other words, they have no structure for really getting to know their visitors. The canned, robotic greeting is lame. I finally resigned being one of these robots at my church, mostly because I am not good at robotics. I do enjoy being on the Information Desk once a month as I actually TALK with people rather than give the canned greeter greeting.

I guess I'm at a huge disadvantge as I grew up in an upper-middle class town where social skills were like breathing. I say I am at a disadvantage because I am like a fish out of water in evangelical land. The fact that I received comments that had no idea what I was talking about shows me that what I am talking about is pertinent.
I don't know if I want to devote my blog to teaching social skills.....but perhaps. Mother Diane will think about that possibility....LOL.

Quote of the Week

I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.

___Hudson Taylor (missionary)

Are Lack of Social Skills in Churches Sinking Outreach?

Today's post is going to be a rant, so I hope you will put up with me....:)
Ever since I first began to attend evangelical churches, I've had an experience which has really affected my church life. For those of us who grow up in well-do-to areas and have learned social skills and a fair amount of self-esteem, attending an evangelical church can be somewhat of a shock. At least where I live in sophisticated, educated (although laid back) Southern California. Why is it that whenever I visit almost any evangelical church, they are so socially backwards? They don't know how to greet visitors outside the usual "canned" greeters/pastors at the door routine. The self-esteem in these churches is tragic. And social skills? Uh....no. Very little.

My dilemma is always having to choose the more friendly and social liberal Protestant churches (which I don't choose because of the theology) and the more backwards evangelical churches. And, frankly, I'm sick of it. Why can't our churches help people? I visited two churches in the past two weeks. I went with friends to one two weeks ago and last Sunday I went alone to the other one. In the first one the pastor said we were all messes. Well, I'm not. After 45 years of being a Christian I am not a mess anymore. This pastor has been at his church for at least 8 years. So, in 8 years, the people are still messes? Last Sunday, the pastor said we were broken people. He didn't mean broken before the Lord. He meant psychologically broken. No, I'm not broken. I was had some mess and brokenness but not too much now. I sin and have my problems but I am not a mess and I'm not broken. That pastor has been in his church for 16 years. I would be embarrassed to be a pastor if after 16 years my people were "broken" and a "mess." I realize new people come and the old ones go....but come on.

Int he late 1970's I was privileged to go to a church where the people were a mess, but 10 years later they were the among the most together people I know. That is what we should be doing in our churches. Treating a visitor as we do is absolutely unacceptable. I'm a friendly person, and for my age fairly good looking, so I don't think it's me. But I do exude a confidence and sadly, that just throws most Christians into a frenzy. I attend secular classes that are free for seniors (old people) in our city. I don't scare these people. They are friendly. They don't seem to be "messes." Maybe because they are old? I don't know. I do know that from the Baby Boomers on down, the ones in those generations don't seem to understand social skills as a group. And this is transferring to the church and really affecting it.

I would be interested to your comments and reactions to what I wrote today.

To read a follow-up post to this and my answer to comments here, go here.

The Press Just Doesn't "Get It"

Last Sunday there was a really fantastic op/ed piece in the New York Times by columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. Kristof is quite liberal and so it was nice to see that he "gets it." Most of the so-called mainstream press, which actually means left of center, do not get it. And what does Kristof "get?" Here is an excerpt from his article. He begins by writing,

At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith. Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock..

It's rare to read this type of analysis in the press today. Later in the article he writes,

Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur....A recent CBS News poll found that the single issue that white evangelicals most believed they should be involved in was fighting poverty. The traditional issue of abortion was a distant second, and genocide was third....Moralizing blowhards showed more compassion for embryonic stem cells than for the poor or the sick, and as recently as the 1990s, evangelicals were mostly a constituency against foreign aid.
Yet that has turned almost 180 degrees. Today, many evangelicals are powerful internationalists and humanitarians — and liberals haven’t awakened to the transformation. The new face of evangelicals is somebody like the Rev. Rick Warren, the California pastor who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life.”...In parts of Africa where bandits and warlords shoot or rape anything that moves, you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians....We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.

Contrast Kristof's article with most of the rest of the press, especially PBS, who constantly mock Christian evangelicals. Even when Bill Moyers tries to give evangelicals a good word he fails. For example, on one of his programs, the theme was how some evangelicals are beginning to consider the environment. That was surprising to me as he is usually so negative about us. But, where did he go to meet these evangelicals? Long Island? Cambridge, MA? Southern California or the Bay Area? Nooooo. He went to Idaho and an Appalachian area in West Virginia. I rest my case. The press NEVER goes to the first mentioned areas because IMO they know evangelicals there might look good, and look educated. Or, perhaps, they really don't believe evangelicals really live in these places.

I attended the taping of PBS's Washington Week last week as the show came to my city to tape. During a lull in taping Gwen Ifill, the shows host, asked the audience who they were going to vote for. First, she asked how many are for Obama. A BIG applause in the audience. Then she asked how many were for Hillary and a lot of applause but not as much as for Obama. Then she asked how many for McCain and some applause. Then Romney, and not too much applause. And then she asked, "And how many are for Huckabee, that is if you are brave enough to answer?" Not one clap. Gee, I wonder why. Maybe because she already set up the poor chumps, so who would actually clap? Well, truthfully, so many of the West Side were there (the limousine liberals), that I doubt any Huckabee fans were present, but you never know. And we will never know since the question was set up that way. But then, that is PBS, and generally the mainstream press's attitude toward evangelicals. I was disappointed with Ifill as I found her a delightful personality and of course she is tops in what she does in interviewing her news guests.
The joke, however, will be on much of the press, as evangelicals are changing and becoming more educated. Their colleges and universities and seminaries are more and more getting into the cutting edge in science and philosophy as well as in some other disciplines. Surprise! Surprise! For example, as I've written here before, Jerry Falwell's university, Liberty, has one of the top debating teans in the country beating out teams from schools like the University of Pennyslvania. And BIOLA, out here in California, which stands for the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, has one of the top philosophy departments in the nation. Top schools like Harvard and Stanford regularly recruit there for their graduate philosophy programs. When the mainstream press finally realizes these things, I think their faces will be red. I'm not a big fan of the New Christian Left, but I think the press better wake up and find out what's going on with this movement. Or, maybe they should read Mr. Kristof's article.

Great Quote on Reverance

As I've said many times before here, much of HOW the emergents, or progressives as some call themselves, or postconservatives which is another term I am hearing today--or whatever they call themselves--do things, is not a problem to me. It's the lack of a cogent Christian message AND the "hang-loose-God-is-my-pal irreverance that are problematic to me. Here is a great quote by A.W. Tozer on the reverance part.

I am discovering that many Christians are not really comfortable with the holy attributes of God. In such cases, I am forced to wonder about the quality of their worship. The word "holy" is much more than an adjective saying that God is a holy God. It is an ecstatic ascription of glory to the triune God. Everything that appears to be good among men and women must be discounted, for we are humans. Abraham, David and Elijah, Moses, Peter and Paul-all were good men, but each had his human flaws and weaknesses as members of Adam's race. Each had to find his own place of humble repentance. Because God knows our hearts and our intentions, He is able to restore His believing children in the faith! So, we should be honest and confess that much of our problem in continuing fellowship with a holy God is that many Christians only repent for what they do, rather than for what they are!

Foundation of the Prosperity Teaching

Well, it's that time of year again. Time when I am seeing many posts in the Christian blogosphere on the prosperity teachers and their "false" teachings. And as usual, none of the posts I read really have a grasp of the teaching and what it's based on. Of course there are many problems with this teaching, especially the extremities of some of it. But it might be of interest what the foundation is.

There are two groups of Faith teachers today. The first group is the original (real) group of Hagin, Copeland, Price, Savelle, etc. Hagin never really taught the excess of it and in fact wrote an excellent book a few years before he died, The Midas Touch in which he refuted much of his disciples' extreme teachings on the subject. The second group is the newer group of basically self-esteem people like Joel Osteen and Paula White who really don't seem to have any foundation for their teaching.

Soo what IS the foundation? Like healing, the Copelanites, as I will call the first group, base the prosperity on the cross. In other words, similar to healing in the atonement, they also believe in prosperity in the atonement. They base this on the New Covenant containing as much if not more than the Old one (they like to cite Deuteronomy 28 a lot). They also go into II Cor. chapters 8 and 9 for their basis. They do a pretty good job in these chapters, except IMO, they tend to individualize it too much. Perhaps Paul was writing the church as a group when promising God would make them rich, rather than each member of the church? Oh, and if you think verse 9 of chapter 8 means spiritual wealth as is often preached, you might wish to look at the whole context of that chapter which talks about money. Also, the Greek word used here for the word rich is plutos. Plutos was the Greek god of material wealth and whenever the Greeks/Romans needed money, they would pray to him. He was the son of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. So, that whole god family was in the wealth "business." Since this letter was written to the Gentile Corinthians, they would understand this and wouldn't think it meant "spiritual" wealth, especially not as used in the chapter context.

So, I just thought you would like to know. Now you can figure out this whole prosperity thing for yourself. I think that is what each of us needs to do before taking one position or the other one. And in fact, you might find another viable position that no one has thought of yet after your study