Sin and Sinner

The Pastor Hacks blog presents what IMO is the correct understanding of sin and sinner.

The word sinner is a theological designation. It is essential to insist on this. It is not a moralistic judgement. It is not a word that places humans somewhere along a continuum ranging from angel to ape, assessing them as relatively 'good' or 'bad.' It designates humans in relation to God and sees them as separated from God. Sinner means something is awry between humans and God. In that state people may be wicked, unhappy anxious, and poor. Or, they may be virtuous, happy and affluent. Those items are not part of the judgment. The theological fact is that humans are not close to God and are not serving God.

You can read the rest of his post a the link below.


Source:http://bobhyatt.typepad.com/pastorhacks/2008/10/seeing-people-as-sinners.html

Those Darn Old People

First off, this week's Christian Carnival is found here.

With all the talk of postmodern Christians caring for the poor, the down and out, and the lonely, I'm wondering how they feel about frail Old People. I keep hearing how they feel Old People are in the way of changing the evangelical church into a postmodern more liberal Protestantism. So I am wondering how they resolve that dichotomy.


I liked this so much I decided to post it.

They sit alone, dejected
Their days are all the same
Their bodies old and weakened
And their eyes are clouds of pain
Somewhere there are children
That once loved them, I'm sure
But they no longer have the time
To visit--it's a chore.
They cannot even spare the time
To visit once a week
They'll nver know what joy it is
To kiss a withered cheek.

Or how it feels to touch a wrinkled hand
And get a glow,
From somewhere deep inside their heart
By letting their love show.
I wonder how their hearts of stone
Can let them sleep at night
While their aged and lonely parents
Are slowly giving up the fight.

They slowly lose their will to live
When people cease to care
And no one comes to visit
With a bit of love to share,
May God in all His mercy
Look down on their lonely plight
And send them someone special
Who will love and holdl them tight,
I wish that I could take them all
And hold them to my breast,
And touch my lips to their silver heads
Give back their self-respect.

Someday soon, the mark of age
Will knock upon our door
And will our chldren tell us
We don't need you anymore?
You gave us all your best years
But we need to be alone,
So we found a lovely room for you
Down at the old folks home.


Did you get the last paragraph?.......

The Present Chaos and Wrong Assumptions of Man's Nature

David Brooks writes an interesting op/ed article in the New York Times today. He relates how Alan Greenspan seemed baffled as to what happened in the markets and the banks. Greenspan testified before Congresss that "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

Welcome Mr. Grenspan, to the world of sinful man.

And last week Margaret Atwood wrote an op/ed article in the New York Times where she said,

"We are social creatures who must interact for mutual benefit, and — the negative version — who harbor grudges when we feel we’ve been treated unfairly. Without a sense of fairness and also a level of trust, without a system of reciprocal altruism and tit-for-tat — one good turn deserves another, and so does one bad turn — no one would ever lend anything, as there would be no expectation of being paid back. And people would lie, cheat and steal with abandon, as there would be no punishments for such behavior."

And then she continues with this prediction,

"If fair regulations are established and credibility is restored, people will stop walking around in a daze, roll up their sleeves and start picking up the pieces. Things unconnected with money will be valued more — friends, family, a walk in the woods. “I” will be spoken less, “we” will return, as people recognize that there is such a thing as the common good.

On the other hand, if fair regulations are not established and rebuilding seems impossible, we could have social unrest on a scale we haven’t seen for years."

Again, welcome to the world of sinful man. Epicurean humanism sounds nuice, but it doesn't work well. Sadly, most of our country doesn't believe this, not even a large number of Christians. Yes, sinful man has to have some laws and regulations. This is what the children of the 60's didn't get, and some of them still don't get. In my next post I will examine how the '60's are coming back into our society again....oh goody (NOT!) and sadly, this time around, also into the evangelical church.

Challies Calls It Exactly

Tim Challies does a review today of Michael Horton's new book, Christless Christianity. I love Horton and will probably get the book as Tim makes it sound really great. In his review, Tim gets to the crux of the problem tht persists today in so many of our evangelical churches. While I'm not a hyper-Calvinist, I do agree with their assessment of only half the gospel being preached in so many churches and their continuing question as to IF that gospel can save anyone? Here is a snippet of Tim's review. You can read the whole thing on his blog - the link is at the end of this post.


From Tim Challies' blog today,

"Over the past couple of days I've found myself pondering the gospel message over and over again and asking myself why it is that this message is so unpopular even in Christian churches and among Christian authors. Why would an author or a pastor seek to soften the message?

I guess there is no great mystery here. Unbelievers hate the gospel message because it insists that things are true about them that they simply do not wish to believe. It insists things are true that they are unable to believe. The gospel message tells us that we are sinners. Many people are able to accept this information; only an incredibly dishonest and delusional person could pretend that he has done no wrong. The gospel message tells us that ultimately we have not sinned against others or against ourselves, but against God. This is more difficult to digest. Few of us care to think that we have sinned against the Creator of the world. The gospel goes on to tell us that our sin against God has offended him and filled him with wrath against us. Fewer people still are able to digest and accept this information. Few people are able to believe that God is justified in his wrath towards those who transgress his laws."

Source: http://www.challies.com/archives/christian-living/the-badder-the-bad.php

"You Are Not Needed Anymore"

I am becoming more and more concerned about a trend I've seen happening in churches for a while now.

A few years ago I was speaking to a very respected elderly lady in my church. I asked her why she was going to adult Sunday School since I knew she had taught in the children's Sunday School for decades. I think she taught 3rd or 4th grade, somewhere in that age group. I asked her if she had retired. Her reply really startled me. She said that she didn't want to retire. However, she felt compromised because she wanted to teach a Bible-centered curriculum and the elementary SS department was doing a values-centered curriculum. I asked her, "whose" values? She smiled and said, "Exactly. That's why I quit."

Another lady in our church had taught in the junior high department for decades and was much beloved by the students. I asked her why she wasn't teaching there anymore and she replied, "They told me they were going to go in another direction and I wasn't needed." I soon found out what this meant from my own observation. And it's the same wrong-headed thinking that is going on in so many of our youth groups. You see, the thinking goes like this - we need people under 30 (or in some cases under 35) to "reach" the youth. Frankly, I feel sorry for the youth today. They never get to know people older than 35 except for some of their parents, a few of their parents' friends and perhaps their grandparents. In the first century church, did they exclude older people from mentoring younger ones? Well, in my Bible I read that the older women should be teaching the younger ones. Although the average age for a woman in the Roman Empire was 36, today, 36 would not be considered old. Why not have a generational mixture? Why not have those under 35 AND those between 35 and 60 AND a few over 60 teaching the youth.

Now---that's a great idea! And IMO, a Biblical one.

Why Have Laws Anyway?

For many decades, I've predicted that the Christian Right was not the way to change American society as it was simply forcing the country to live "under law." When people are forced to live under laws they don't like, it doesn't work well. There is a dilemma in this however, as we need good laws. But how far do we need to go? Where are the boundaries? Living in California, I have been wrestling with a propostion on this November's ballot here, Proposition 8. This proposition seeks to add an ammendment to the state's contitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman, thereby overturning a recent court's decision allowing gay marriage. But will this law change people? Will it stop homosexuality? No. Then why vote for it?

In another example, the drug laws here are a joke. So should we abolish them as even some conservatives are beginning to think? If laws won't work, should we pass them? Or, should we pass some and not others? Should we pass laws pertaining to murder and theft but not to these more "Christian" moral items? I believe forcing laws on people who don't want them backfires and I think we've seen this here in the USA. Where the Christian Right missed it (and the New Christian Left will miss it too in the same way) was to force THEIR laws onto people WITHOUT equal stress on converting them to Christ. Converted people usually wish laws like these. Of course not everyone will convert, but the more that do will produce a larger number of citizens who want these laws. But it works both ways. It's not just the conservatives that want their laws. The liberals want their laws-values too. Just wait until the Christian Left gets into gear. If you thought the Christian Right was bad...well....uh...prepare yourself is all I can say.

Also, it isn't just the forcing of Christian values on a mostly a non-Christian nation (yes, this is not a majority born-again nation), but also the shamefulness of these Christian leaders telling us that the Constitutional Convention was made up of all or almost all Christians because they referred to God. The truth is very few were born-again Christians. Many were Deists or outright agnostics. Happily, Christian historians set them straight, but these so-called leaders are still talking about how the founders invoked God into ther politics. I would ask, which God? Don't get me wrong, I think what the founders did was magnificent, but I'm not historically naive. The true miracle was that God used these men at all to do what they did.

Well, back to my voting dilemma. The conclusion I've come to is to vote yes on Proposition 8. A Yes vote means I want it to be added to the constitution (marriage is defined as between a man and a woman). And, I also don't want the drug laws to be taken off the books. The reason for my decision concerning both of these laws is they are a model for our children. Children need to see what is morally of God and what isn't. And for some laws, such as the drug ones, they also act as a deterrent for some people, which is good for them indiviudally and also for society. Who needs another druggie holding up a bank, shooting someone or causing a traffic accident?

What Exactly is the "Gospel?"

There is a lot of talk in the evangelical church today about the "gospel." But what exactly is it? We are hearing very different definitions from very different segments of the church. Here is a pretty good definition IMO from the monergism site,

The gospel is not about any merit I have on my own, but is based upon Jesus' merit alone. It is not what we have done for Jesus, but what Jesus has done for us (Rom 5:19, 2 Cor 5:21, Phil 2:8). Where Adam failed, Jesus prevailed. It is God's promise to us, not our ability to keep our promise to Him.

And then later in the article, this quote from Tim Keller,

Dr. Tim Keller once said "...the gospel is news about what God has already been done for you, rather than instruction and advice about what you are to do for God. The primacy of his work, not our work, is part of the essence of faith. In other religions, God reveals to us how we can find or achieve salvation. In Christianity, God achieves salvation for us. The gospel brings news primarily, rather than instruction. " ...the gospel is all about historic events, and thus it has a public character. "It identifies Christian faith as news that has significance for all people, indeed for the whole world, not merely as esoteric understanding or insight." [Brownson, p. 46] ...if Jesus is not risen from the dead, Christianity does not "work". The gospel is that Jesus died and rose for us. If the historic events of his life did not happen, then Christianity does not "work" for the good news is that God has entered the human "now" (history) with the life of the world to come....the gospel is news about what God has done in history to save us, rather than advice about what we must do to reach God. The gospel is news that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection in history has achieved our salvation...Jesus does not just bring good news; he is the good news."


Growing up in the liberal Protestant church, I never heard this. Never! Since there were no evangelical churches in my community (that is very common in the middle and upper-middle class suburbs out here in California), no one heard the gospel in my community unless they grew up with it or attended a gospel-preaching church in another community. So since the message from my church was a dud, it's no surprise that I decided to become an atheist when I went to college. But before that I spent some time studying other religions to see if I would like to try one of them. They were all duds too. So when a college classmate and friend told me the gospel (it was the firt time i heard it--we didn't have a lot of Christian radio here and no Christian TV when I grew up) I remember thinking the same thing the above article said...."you mean I don't have to do anything? I don't have to keep rules, attain karma, nothing? Jesus did it all? That was really amazing to me. So after wrestling with this for about two-three weeks, I received Jesus as my Savior. That was 45 1/2 years ago and I have never had the need to look back or elsewhere because of the transformation inside myself. I was a very moral person so the change wasn't on the outside. I didn't "give up" anything since there was noting to give up. And this is why I grieve over liberal Protestantism flooding into our churches, especially in our youth groups in the form of emergent and other similar forms. Our young people deserve better. They deserve to hear about the mediatorial and substituionary work of Jesus Christ (without manipulation of course).


Source of quote: http://www.monergism.com/whatisgospel.html

Printing, Printing, Printing.....

Christian Carnival is up and running at Rodney Olsen's site here.


Now to today's post.
Here is a quote from a 1993 interview of Friedrich Kessler, a law professor at Harvard and University of California Berkeley, who experienced the Weimar Republic hyperinflation:


"It was horrible. Horrible! Like lightning it struck. No one was prepared. You cannot imagine the rapidity with which the whole thing happened. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty. You could buy nothing with your paper money."

The background of this was the wild printing of money by the German government to offset the Depression. Sound familiar?


Source: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/292

Are We Repeating Hitler's Third Reich Today?

First read this:

Lori Kalner is a holocaust survivor whose true story is told in one of their book series. If you think this election doesn't matter, read this and then think again.

(Click on to this link; I found it online; http://blip.tv/file/1309087 ) Copy and Paste this link in your browser so that you can listen and view the song children are singing about Obama!

Last night, I found that the original YouTube of the children singing for Obama has been made private, but I found it online... please read the following and ponder.....

HYMN TO HITLER
Posted by: Lori Kalner on Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Hymn to Hitler
by
Lori Kalner
In Germany, when Hitler came to power, it was a time of terrible financial depression. Money was worth nothing. In Germany people lost homes and jobs, just like in the American Depression in the 1930s, which we have read about in Thoene's Shiloh books.
In those days, in my homeland, Adolph Hitler was elected to power by promising "Change."
He blamed the "Zionists" around the world for all our problems. He told everyone it was greedy Zionist Bankers who had caused every problem we had. He promised when he was leader, the greedy Zionist bankers would be punished. The Zionists, he promised, would be wiped off the face of the earth.
So Hitler was elected to power by only 1/3 the popular vote. A coalition of other political parties in parliament made him supreme leader. Then, when he was leader, he disgraced and expelled everyone in parliament who did not go along with him.
Yes. Change came to my homeland as the new leader promised it would.
The teachers in German schools began to teach the children to sing songs in praise of Hitler. This was the beginning of the Hitler Youth movement. It began with praise of the Fuhrer's programs on the lips of innocent children. Hymns in praise of Hitler and his programs were being sung in the schoolrooms and in the play yard. Little girls and boys joined hands and sang these songs as they walked home from school.
My brother came home and told Papa what was happening at school. The political hymns of children proclaimed Change was coming to our homeland and the Fuhrer was a leader we could trust.
I will never forget my father's face. Grief and fear. He knew that the best propaganda of the Nazis was song on the lips of little children.
That evening before he said grace at the dinner table, he placed his hands upon the heads of my brothers and me and prayed the Living Word upon us from Jeremiah 1:4-5.

'Now the Word of the Lord came to me, saying,
"Before I formed you in the
womb I knew you,
and before you were born I
consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to
The nations."
Soon the children's songs praising the Fuhrer were heard everywhere on the streets and over the radio. "With our Fuhrer to lead us, we can do it! We can change the world!"
Soon after that Papa, a pastor, was turned away from visiting elderly parishioners in hospitals. The people he had come to bring comfort of God's Word, were "no longer there."
Where had they vanished to while under nationalized health care? It became an open secret. The elderly and sick began to disappear from hospitals feet first as "mercy killing" became the policy. Children with disabilities and those who had Down syndrome were euthanized.
People whispered, "Maybe it is better for them now. Put them out of misery. They are no longer suffering.And, of course, their death is better for the treasury of our nation. Our taxes no longer must be spent to care for such a burden."
And so murder was called mercy.

The government took over private business. Industry and health care were "nationalized." (NA-ZI means National Socialist Party) The businesses of all Jews were seized. (Perhaps you remember our story in Berlin on Krystalnacht in the book Munich Signature)

The world and God's word were turned upside down. Hitler promised the people economic Change?
Not change. It was, rather, Lucifer's very ancient Delusion leading to Destruction.
What began with the propaganda of children singing a catchy tune ended in the deaths of millions of children. The reality of what came upon us is so horrible that you in this present generation cannot imagine it.
Our suffering is too great to ever tell in a book or show in a black and white newsreel.
When I spoke to Bodie about some of these things, she wept and said she could not bear to write them. Perhaps one day she will, but I asked her, "who could bear to read our suffering?"
Yet with my last breaths I warn every Christian and Jew now in the name of the Lord,
Unless your course of the church in America is spiritually changed now, returning to the Lord, there are new horrors yet to come.
I trembled last night when I heard the voices of American children raised in song, praising the name of Obama, the charismatic fellow who claims he is the American Messiah.
Yet I have heard what this man Obama says about ******** and the "mercy killing" of tiny babies who are not wanted.

There are so few of us left to warn you.
I have heard that there are 69 million Catholics in America and 70 million Evangelical Christians.
Where are your voices? Where is your outrage? Where is passion and your vote?
Do you vote based on an abortionist's empty promises and economics? Or do you vote according to the Bible?
Thus says the Lord about every living child still in the womb.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you."

I have experienced the signs of the politics of Death in my youth.
I see them again now.
Christians! Unless you stand up now, you will lose your freedom of religion.
In America priests and preachers have already lost their freedom to speak openly from their pulpits of moral danger in political candidates. They cannot legally instruct you of which candidate holds fast to the precepts of scripture! American law forbids this freedom of speech to conservative pastors or they will lose their "tax exempt" status.
And yet I have heard the words of Obama's pastor Damning America! I have heard the words of Obama damning and mocking all of you in small towns because you "Cling to your religion."
But I am a woman whose name is unknown. My life is recorded as a work of fiction. I have no fear of reprisal when I speak truth to you from the pages of a book. (Though the Zion Covenant books are mocked and condemned by the Left in America.)
I am an old woman and will soon go to be with my Lord. I have no fear for myself, but for all of you and for your children, I tremble.
I tremble at the hymns to a political leaders which your children will sing at school. (Though even now a hymn or a prayer to God and our Lord Jesus is against the law in public school!)
Your vote must put a stop to what will come upon America if Barrack Obama is elected.
I pray you will personally heed this warning for the sake of your children and your grandchildren. Do not be deceived.
The Lord in Jeremiah 1:7-8 commands every believer to speak up!
"Do not say, 'I am only a youth,' for to all whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you, declares the Lord!"
I am in Prayer for you, and for the Church!
Spoken to you in the authority of Jesus the Christ,
the Name Above All Names,

Lori Kalner

******************************************************************************
I received the above in my email today. Here is what I wrote back to the group of my friends who sent it:

As someone who has studied Hitler and the Third Reich and the events leading up to it, I want to say that everything in this email is absolutely true. In the past few years, I too have been thinking about how much events in this country are beginning to mimic what was going on in Germany in the early 1930's just before Hitler was elected. The evangelical church here is going down the liberal Protestant path with seeker-sensitive/purpose driven "gospel lite" for those over 40 and emergent (liberal Protestant's twin) for those under 40. The sad thing is the individual church member doesn't seem aware of this. Some are in a "haze" due to not thinking true Biblical doctrine is important and trade that for security and happiness. But right doctrine IS the basis for security and happiness.

This exactly what happened in Germany Most of their Protestant churches (Lutheran) went into liberal Protestantism and from there into something called "positive Christianity." Today's young evangelical emergent churches are basically liberal Protestants in their theology and practice. Now they are calling themselves "Progressive Christians" and are joining what is called the New Christian left headed by Jim Wallis (who I believe has basically socialist ideas).

Part of "positive Christianity" in 1930's Germany was a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. Today, the liberal Protestants and emergents are NOT fans of Israel. There were a few churches in Germany at that time that kept the faith, called the Confessing Church Movement headed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who was killed because he was a part of the assassination plot of Hitler) and Martin Niemoller who was thrown into two concentration camps (Sachsenhausen and Dachau from 1938-1945) but did survive the war.


Addendum: I do see differences of course but if we go into hyperinflation as they did in Germany (it cost a wheelborrow of money to buy a dozen eggs), I will begin to get majorly worried. For years, I personally have thought this probably would be the trigger along with everything else we have seen recently.


It was Niemoller who said the following famous saying which we might wish to remember in these times:

(There seem to be various versions of this statement but this is the most common).


THEY CAME FIRST for the communists,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.


THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic

THEN THEY CAME for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

(In many versions, "THEN THEY CAME for the homosexual, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a homosexual." is included.)



Source for Niemoller's saying-Holocaust Survivors
and Remembrance Project (http://isurvived.org/home.html#Prologue)

Rosebrough on the Difference Between the Term "Christian" and "Christ-Follower"

Chris Rosebrough has an interesting review of a conference he attended at seeker-sensitive church, Willowcreek. Listen to what he reports happened at the Reveal Conference when John Ortberg spoke. And here I thought the term "Christ-follower" was only used by the emergents. Boy, was I wrong.

Here is the link:

The Huge Difference Between a Christian and a Christ-Follower

A Very Pertinent Question

From David Wilkerson,

"I hear godly people today asking,
'Have we sinned away the day of grace? Will our generation go out being known only for dysfunctional families and dead, dry churches? Will we wither away as Israel did in the Old Testament?'"

This has to be one of the best questions I've heard in a long time. The really sad thing is most Christians and churches don't even know the question should be asked.

What If We All Left

I had a kind of fantasy yesterday. Wonder if all the TRUE Christians just left for another country; whereever they lived, they went to another country. Let's imagine for a moment how the country they left would fare. Would the crime rate go up or down? Would there be empty job/government/education positions that would be difficult to fill? If they were filled, what kind of people would fill them? Ethical people? Unethical? Would that affect the business? Government? Education? Non-Profits (secular)? How would people treat each other (after the Christians left) in the country left behind? Kinder? Crueler? I am not talking about a rapture. I am talking about if we all left for another country and left no Christians in ours. Many unbelievers here in the USA want to get rid of us anyway. Wonder if they got their wish, what would happen. Would some left behind be sorry that we left? An interesting fantasy indeed.

A Good Article by Roger Oakland

Roger Oakland of www.discerning the times.org has written an excellent article on postmodernism coming into the church, especially in the forms of the emergent conversation, current spiritual formation-contemplation-meditation teachings and many Roman Catholic mystical teachings.

My rule, which has served me well throughout the years, is to always look at what things were taught and how churches were organized in the first and early second century churches. The reason for my rule with this time frame is because I feel it is important to take seriously WHAT the apostles taught and HOW they organized the church. When I see stuff that doesn't quite "fit" into that, I get suspicious and skeptical. In fact, as a skeptic, it's a miracle I became a Christian at all....
But I did through the power of the Holy Spirit, not through the "power" of social justice or goodism; or through self-esteem/psychobabble teaching. I had to hear the gospel of substitutionary atonement and repentence.

Here are some snippets from the Oakland article. I do hope you will read the entire thing - the link is at the end of this post.

Oakland says, among other good things,

One of the main indicators that something has changed can be seen in the way the future is perceived. Rather than urgently proclaiming the gospel according to the Scriptures and believing the time to do so is short, the emphasis has now shifted. No longer are “signs of the times” significant. The battle cry is very different. A major emphasis among evangelicals is the idea that the world can be radically improved through social programs.


As I've said here many times before, the last sentence above really rings with me as when I grew up as in the liberal Protestant church, this kind of "social do-goodism" without conversion is what I heard all day long.

"Help the poor through social programs. Conversion is either secondary or not necessary. Man is good and he will do the right thing if he is given the chance." This is called epicurean humanism and guess what? It hasn't worked very well, but these types of do-gooder Christians don't either get it. I would think they would be honest enought to see historically that this method and phiolosphy doesn't work very well. But they don't. First we had the Deists and the Unitarians in the 18th century, then the Liberal Protestants in the late 19th and all through the early-middle 20th century, and now we have the Emergents who say now they want to be called Progressives in the early 21st century. Their "theology" and practice all came from the same playbook.

Oakland continues,

this purpose-driven view of establishing global utopia may be a plan, but it is “driven” by humanistic reasoning and not led by the Holy Spirit. While it is of course good to do good unto others, all the goodness that we can do will not be good enough. Pastors and church leaders who get involved in such man-driven programs can usually be identified by certain characteristics.

Then he gives many characteristics. I will list a few here but I won't list them all since I want you to read his article.

*Sound biblical doctrine is dangerous and divisive, and the experiential (i.e.,mystical) is given a greater role than doctrine.

*Bible study is replaced by studying someone’s book and his methods

*God’s Word, especially concepts like hell, sin and repentance, is eventually downplayed so the unbeliever is not offended.


I really like that last one becasue it's so true. The last part of the article tells us what to look for when churches change into contemplative/emergent/seeker types.


Oakland's article is entitled, How to Know When the Emerging Church Shows Signs of Emerging in Your Church

That is the link. I do hope you will read it.

Sorry, Charles

Revival.....Here is one view,

A revival is the work of man, not God; it's simply the right use of means.

________Charles Finney


And here is another view,

Real revival comes only from God. He alone is the Fountainhead. A spiritual awakening cannot be scheduled, worked up or humanly engineered..

________Lewis Drummond


Sorry Charles, I think Lewis has won this one.

The New Christian Tolerance Police

Be sure to check out this week's great Christian Carnival at Tale of a Kansas Girlblog.


I tend to be a victim of the new Christian Tolerance Police. This is postmodernism gone amuck in the evangelical world. Here are some examples,

*If you talk about Jesus as Savior who saves individuals, you are told BY FELLOW EVANGELICALS that you are narrow minded and theologically challenged. Anyone knows that Jesus saves whole churches. I am wondering if that is all at once? Or do you have to wait until everyone is saved? I never really understood this aspect of their doctrine.

*If you say Jesus is the only Way, actually echoing what Jesus Himself said in
John 14:6, you are told you are narrow minded, rigid and intolerant, and some even say you are hateful.

*If you say the Bible is the Word of God you are told that other religions have holy books with good things to say too and we should not be too narrow minded nor rigid (do you notice I keep hearing these same words over and over?).

*If you use the word born again, the Christian Tolerance Police people get red in the face and look like they are ready to explode. "
No! We don't use that word anymore [although Jesus used it in John 3:3]. To use that word is too 'religious.' We need to use a softer word like...oh..let's see...um....how about Christ Follower, or Jesus Follower."

They then explain that being born again doesn't mean what we think it means. Then they tell me it really means something else....something to do with "community." I didn't get exactly how born again relates to "being in community only," but I do know that with the Tolerance Police everything has to do with "community." By community they don't mean a town. They essentially mean a local church or Christian group.

Well, I could go on forever, but you get my drift. For many in the New Christian Tolerance Police, legalism has been a BIG problem for them. Many of them have come out of legalism and now it's pay back time for them to stick it to us. Since I had nothing to do with legalism; never grew up in it or sought it in evangelical churches, I don't think it's fair they are picking on me. Why don't they go bug the Baptists?

Good/Evil? Or Evil/Good?

A few months ago I did a five part teaching on Postmodern philosophy. Part 5 is here and at the bottom of that post are links to the other four parts if you are interested. One aspect I presented is what is called binaries. These are usually opposites like good/evil; white/black; male/female; etc. Postmoderns tell us that in Western history and literature these binaries usually favor one of the pairs. For example, good overcomes evil; white males are the ones to tell the historic story as opposed to black males, white females or black females. Then the Postmodern philosophers pose the question, what would happen if these binaries were reversed? In other words, what would stories or histories or other disciplines be like if, for instance, a Latina woman told the story? Is evil always bad? Can that binary be turned around? So instead of,

good/evil

...it becomes....


evil/good


Is Evangelical Christanity always the only way to God? Can it be equalized with other religions? So, instead of,


Christianity/All other religions


....it becomes co-equal....


Christianity/Buddhism/Islam/Hinduism/Roman Catholciism/Eastern Orthodoxism/agnosticism/atheism/pantheism/others

This seems to be the position often taken by postmoderns in the evangelical church, such as the emergent conversation.

Some of this began in the 19th century. For example, in some literary writing and philosphy evil was beginning to be examined in a different light. What is the definition of evil? Who or what decides what evil is? The Bible? The Koran? The goddess? For example, in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and also Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, we fine what seem like an evil characters but with a heart. Are they really evil? What is evil anyway? Interesting times we live in....no absolutes. But someday (and I am hearing in the blogosphere that these days are here already for the 20-somethings) the young Postmoderns will get tired of all of this relativity and vagueness. I am betting on it. However, the postmoderns do ask some interesting questions and a few of them are very good, even for the church. So, let's not throw out the questions altogether because at times the postmoderns have a few good points with which to challenge us.

As the Economic World Turns

Who says history doesn't repeat itself. With that in mind, along with the economy today, here is something from almost 100 years ago,

With the hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul:
But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

_____From "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," by Rudyard Kipling in 1919


Source: Roger Cohen in the New York Times Op/Ed section, October 5, 2008

Quote of the Week

I thought this absolutely and perfectly described what the "conversation" of the emergents is leading us into.


A debate is a conflict which clarifies a position.
A dialogue is a conversation which compromises a position.

–John E. Ashbrook, The New Neutralism II, P. 7


Source: http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/?p=771

Works, Works and More Works

I've just finished reading John Piper's book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Although I've read two books by Wright, I never quite got what he was getting at since his theology is kind of like Protestant Orthodoxy but it kind of isn't. But this book by Piper really helped me to know what Wright believed as well as Piper's excellent response to it. Since Wright seems to be into the Works thing for Christianity, and the emergents seem to be following this, it got me to reminisce about works in the Christian life. I especially am talking about the wrong kind of works. In the Protestant Reformation tradition, works will naturally follow salvation because as our hearts are changed we naturally want to do good stuff and give up bad stuff. That is how it is supposed to work. However, it isn't always as easy as it sounds and that is when the "works" people show up. In the first half of the 20th century we had a real legalism in many evangelical churches, called fundamentalism. Not only did they have a set of foundational (or "fundamental" as they called it) beliefs, but they seemed to get into a set of fundamental rules to go along with the beliefs. Since I didn't grow up in this type of church nor did I elect to go to any after I became a Christian, I only know of it by hearsay. Sadly, much of the "junk" Christianity today is a reaction to this and a swing to the extreme other side away from this legalism. So then, that is one type of works - the "don't do's."

But today we are in another type of works programs - the do "do's." I see this especially in two movements - the Third Wave Charismatic "revival" and the emergent conversation (village). Instead of don't do this or else, we are hearing, you had better do this or else. Or else what? For the Third Wave Charismatics its - or else you won't get close to God and be blessed. For the emergents it's - well, it's fairly fuzzy what will happen if you don't do their "do's" but I don't think it will end up well for you in those churches. I have been writing this blog for 4 1/2 years now and my favorite post out of all of those posts has to be this one. In this post which I hope you will read, or review if you've already read it, asks the question, what if an emergent church member doesn't want to do the "do?" What would happento them? What would the emergent church elders say?

So then, where do works fit in? I think we have to go back to what I started out with and go from there instead of being immature and reacting to yesterday's legalism. Let me repeat my first thoughts,

In the Protestant Reformation tradition, works will naturally follow salvation because as our hearts are changed we naturally want to do good stuff and give up bad stuff. That is how it is supposed to work.

To continue that thought, works may not go smoothly year after year in a Christian's life because the sanctification process is an up and down process, similar to the stock market. But on the whole, we should be seeing an upward trend in the person's life. If we don't see this then the church needs to have the gifts ready to go in order to minister to the one in need of them so the trend will once again be an uptick.

Where is the Christian Carnival This Week?

Be sure to check out this week's Christian Carnival at The Limitless Blog.

The (Real) Prosperity Message

We need a New Kind of Faith Teacher. I've said this here before. Let me expand on that with the so-called Prosperity Teaching. The original Prosperity message wasn't exactly in the form that we hear it today. First of all, at least since
1971, I never heard Kenneth Hagin, Sr. teach it. This is borne out from Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, who says people he knows who were friends of Hagin said that Hagin was very unhappy with how his disciples were using the faith message to teach this extreme prosperity message. This certainly is borne out by his book, The Midas Touch written in 2000, a few years before the end of his life. Having read it after it first came out, I don't think anyone reading this post would disagree with almost anything in that book.

So then, let's examine what Copeland, Price and Savelle did with it. Is there anything in that "prosperity message" that is worthwhile? Yes, absolutely. There are some "gems" in their overall message. So, let's really pick it apart and find out where it comes from and what it's all about before we trash the whole thing. By the end of this post, my objective is to convince you there are some parts not only worth saving, but parts we absolutely need to save and bring into our churches. And, of course there are parts that we need to dump quickly and to speak out against....which I will also do here.

Well, where does this message come from anyway? Is it out of someone's brain? Or, did someone find this in the Bible? Actually, they found in the Bible what they felt was this message. In Deut. 28, 29 and 30, it talks about the covenant God has with Israel. Deut. 28 says that God will bless His people (at that time the Israelites) with prosperity of crops, health and healthy offspring both human and from their animals IF they obey HIm. These faith teachers discovered that Christians have a better covenant. So do we have those things too in our covenant? They found some interesting things in II Cor. 8 and 9. For example, in II Cor. 8:9 it says that "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." Here was a clear indication to them that we did have prosperity in the covenant through the cross (they also found Matt. 8:17 to cover healing in the covenant). Many think this passage is talking about spiritual wealth. As I was studying it, I remembered from my college mythology class that the Greek word used there, plutos, was the Greek-Roman god of wealth. To make sure fo this I went to the library and checked it. When the Romans needed money they prayed to that god. This was written, remember, to the gentile Christians in Corinth that came out of this system. They would have prayed to that god and would consider that god to be associated with money, not the heavens. In addition, chapters 8 and 9 of II Cor. are about money. So to say it is spiritual wealth is a stretch. Believe me, I was very skeptical of this but I had to allow the Bible to speak for itself and not bring my "this isn't about finances" agenda into it. But does that mean every Christian should be really, really rich? I've found that one problem with the Word of Faith teachers is they tend to take something written to a group of people and try to individualize it. Could this passage refer to the churches? Well, if you look in Acts 4: 32-35 you'll see how II Cor. 8 and 9 actually play out. It's the church that is given lands and wealth, not necessarily each individual Christian. And it's the churches that get this money to distribute to the poorer ones so that "it was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Acts 4:34-35). It doesn't say here that every Christian would be extremely rich. IMO this is where the faith teachers have erred.

Another way they've missed it is when you consider where God wants people. In other words, in which strata of society? Does God want people to live with the wealthy because they can relate to them? Then those people certainly can believe to live in those places if their purpose is pure as to why they wish to live there. On the other hand, there actually are people who feel they want to live with the poor. In fact, some of the poor like their neighborhood, if it was safer. Most evangelicals, frankly, really do not have much in common with the upper-middle or upper classes and many don't even like them. So then why would they want to live with them? They don't. Well then, why do they need to believe for the money to live in those places? They don't.

What of this prosperity message should we keep, if any? For some reason, some of the original teaching has gotten lost in the mad rush-for-riches shuffle. Here is the good part of it. Let me ask you a question. Let's say your neighbor owned a home and couldn't pay their mortgage. To make matters worse, they didn't have any place to go. Would you have the money to pay their mortgage (as a gift, not a loan) for at least 6 months or more? Or better yet, could you buy their house with full cash so they could live there for free? No? Why not? Why didn't you believe God for lots of money in case you needed to help people like this? Now you have one of the basics of Kenneth Copeland and Jerry Savelle's teaching. For people who want to take this faith challenge, it's interesting because there is nothing in it for you. You buy the house with full cash and the owners live rent free. You pay extra for property tax and insurance. That is my example, not Copeland's. Copeland, Savelle and Price go further however, to say you should also be living high off the hog. In other words, a financial windfall situation for both you and those you help. I disagree. But if you just believe for money to buy the house and keep your moderate living style (assuming it is moderate), you are living a very high form of faith and love. And that is the part of the prosperity gospel we should be hearing. But we don't do we? What church including Faith ones teach this? None. This is a hard gospel to hear because it takes a high faith for most of us to believe for that amount of money and also the discipline not to use it yourself for your pleasures. So, the good part of this message is to learn how to believe for extra money for the purpose of giving to the poor, people in sudden need and to worthy ministries.


Steps to Faith for Finances

The original faith teachers stressed that the first step in this message was to put your own financial house in order by getting out of debt and also stressed tithing and giving. I do not agree with the tithing laws the WOF teachers put people under as they are clearly not in the New Testament Law of the Spirit of Giving outlined in
II Cor. 8 and 9. In addition, there are three tithes in the OT. I never hear these teachers talk about two of them. Why not? If you are going to require the tithe, you need to teach it correctly. And in addition, poor people weren't required to tithe, only heads of families that owned land. So, perhaps the faith teachers need to rethink this tithing teaching. But the part about believing for your needs and getting out of debt AND how to have the faith to do so is excellent IMO. Why? Because they always base it on the cross. I like that. So, summarizing the first part, believe for the money to get out of debt, the money for giving, and enough money to live on.

The second part of the prosperity message is to how to believe for gobs of money for yourself to buy all sorts of huge houses and expensive cars and enough to give gobs to the poor and ministries. It's this second part that needs to go under a complete revision. I will call this part 2a. I would replace it with what I call part 2b. This should entail believing God for gobs of money to be saved to help people that need help at the right time while you are living a regular life, not an extravagant one, unless, as I said above, you have a burden for the upper middle class and you share their cultural interests.

But certainly, the first part (minus the tithing) would be excellent teaching to come into our churches, would it not? And if 2b was added, taught correctly and explained fully, would it not be an interesting challenge to some mature Christians to believe for this?

I hope you will rethink dumping this whole message in the trash can, because right now, our churches haven't saved money to help us. And, the government doesn't look too promising for help either, not with the massive debt they hold. This is why we need a New Type of Faith Teacher, to teach these things correctly and to put faith teaching back in the milieu where it belongs - in a balanced and Biblical way.

Note: I want to make a plea to comment only on what I've written, and not bring in all sorts of faith stuff that doesn't pertain to this like visualizing and Kenyon and Jesus in hell and so forth. IF you wish to email me and ask my opinion on htese things, that would be fine. If you don't agree with what I've written, what would you say is the alternative? More and more, I find that people against this message don't really understand it and its more valuable parts On the other hand, those of you who do understand it but you refute the first part and/or part 2b, please tell me why. That would be interesting to me. Thanks.

WoW!

Wow! Here's a shocker:

This is from the Robert Holmes newsletter. One of the readers sent this in telling about a ministry class he teaches. Here is what he told the class,

"I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise (in other words, a business)."

Now be sure to get this....one of his students, a young woman replied,

"A business? But isn't it supposed to be a body?" I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, "Yes." She continued, "But when a body becomes a business, isn't that a prostitute?"

Wow. Think American church. Maybe?