The Real Deal on the "Desert Fathers"

Sadly, many of our younger evangelicals and a few of our older ones too) do not have the slightest understanding of the truth that Ray Yungen is saying below. I hope we can get the word out before this "contemplative-spiritual formation" movement destroys the church completely. It's foolish to think God will respond to whatever coems to our minds. We need to think like God thinks and do what He is doing (Is.55:8)

The ancient-future and emergent conversation people think that because some early Christians went out into the desert into caves and meditated and fasted and prayed, that everything they heard and came up with was true. However, did they not take seriously Eph. 6:12 and other verses that talk about spiritual warfare and thoughts that might not be from God? Jesse Penn-Lewis, one of the leaders of the early 20th century great Welsh revival wrote about this "passive thinking" in her book, War on the Saints. She said that passive thinking allows all type of voices into our thoughts and being, many not necessarily from God. The Bible must alwyas be our center, not "our thoughts, or what we think "Jesus is saying to us" (although I certainly believe we can hear from God). The correct way to meditate is not really being presented today. It consists of active thinking about and praying the Bible - not passivley listening to "inner voices." It's interesting that both the late John Wimber was and the present Richard Foster is Quaker. Quakerism stresses the inner voice. While Quakerism had some things right, they really began to get off in the 18th century. Perhaps our Protestant churches need to make a distinction as to why they are not Quaker. I'm not trying to slam the Quaker beliefs totally, but we must examine things before wholly adopting them without question. It's interesting that as I am coming up on my 46th spiritual birthday this April 21, I am reminded of the influence of some Quaker girls in my dorm. But, this was a small group around the Whittier-La Habra-La Mirada area of Southern California that are very evangelical and almost Baptist-like in their churches. They are not the regular somewhat liberal (politically and theologically) Quakers of today.


Anyway, getting back to the "desert fathers," here is what Ray Yungen says about them and I think it is one of the best descriptions historically I've read.

The desert fathers believed as long as the desire for God was sincere–anything could be utilized to reach God. If a method worked for the Hindus to reach their gods, then Christian mantras could be used to reach Jesus.

____Ray Yungen, “A Time of Departing,” p. 43


Source: http://www.returningking.com/?p=79

This Has to be the Best Post I've Read All Year!

The Christian Carnival this week is at the Chasing the Wind blog. One of the posts there has to be the best I've read all year. Maybe there really is a place for us greying older folks to teach the younger generation. This post absolutely summarizes in the best way possible all that is wrong with the church today and what some of us older folks experienced a while back that we could share with the younger generation---IF the church (read that Youth Pastor) let us.

The link to this great post is here.

Win an ESV Study Bible at the Boomer in the Pew Blog

I've read that the new ESV Bible is one of the best translations out there. So, I've been wondering if I should get one when I get extra money (LOL....yeah right...extra money....har..har...har). But, there is a contest to win an ESV Study Bible at the Boomer in a Pew blog. If you wish to enter, the rules are here.

Synthesis and More Synthesis

The emergent-type folks just love to synthesize and synthesize. And since our young evangelicals grew up in Hegelian-ville, this really speaks to them. However, in Christianity, it isn't always the way to go. Here is something the late Robert Webber, the "ancient-future guy," wrote:

A goal for evangelicals in the postmodern world is to accept diversity as a historical reality, but to seek unity in the midst of it. This perspective will allow us to see Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches as various forms of the one true church...

You know what that is in ONE word?


SYNTHESIS!


If you read these people, you will see synthesis with Christian opposites (binaries) all over the place. Not a good thing to do at times, IMO. YOu have to be careful if and when you do that.

I'm also seeing soemething else in relation to this. I think the younger evangelicals are mixing up a diversity/equality of people with their belief systems. In other words, they are saying that we should treat people equally, not caring about their race, ethnicity, beliefs, appearance, social-economic-educational status and so forth. And that is correct IMO. However, they go farther without much analysis between people and their beliefs. They also tend to accept all belief systems as equal. Since this is really impossible with Christianity - in other words, trying to merge other belief systems with Christianity - they have to drop some things. And guess what they usually drop? Yes, the cross and the idea of substitutionary atonement.

This Has to be the Greatest Description of Postmodern "Christianity"

You've just got to read the link below. It's a satire on what would happen if a magazine like Christianity Today printed an article from Paul D. Apostle and it happened to be his letter to the Galatians.

This is one of the best articles I've seen accurately describing the problems of the core beliefs of both the emergents and seeker-sensitives.


The blog article is at a blog called the Sacred Sandwich and is entitled, If Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians was Published in Christianity Today.

Quote of the Week

"The Church is an organism that grows best in an alien society."


____C. Stacey Woods

Summary of What Older Adults as Contrasted to Younger Adults Follow

In the past few weeks I've discussed the differences between the older adult generations and the younger adult ones. And, I've focused on the difference in dialectics - the older folks following Aristotelian Logic (if something is true then it's opposite is not true [IF A, then not B]); and the younger ones following the Hegelian dialectic (let's synthesize opposites [mesh A and B together or find common ground between them discarding that which does not fit together]).

The result of the Aristotelian view for the older adults is the affinity for propositional truths and seeing consequences. And, in the younger adults, with the need for synthesis and tolerance (which is a by-product of synthesis) they tend to distrust propositional truths as they are way too black and white and often sound intolerant. So, to them Story (or, as they call it, narrative), especially those that show experiences, is much easier to swallow.

I was listening to a talk radio program the other day and the host related how some college students were very much for global warming. And since they didn't have all the propositional truths against it, they automatically were for it. But now, with the very cold and snowy weather where they are located, Al Gore has become a laughing stock with these students and they no longer believe in global warming. The difference to them was not hearing "facts." The difference to them was "experience." This is becoming more and more evident in our churches too. The younger adults seem to need experiences, often more than "truths." But how are we to do this while keeping faithful to the Scriptures and the Spirit. As I've written before, I believe 90% of the churches in America have a threadbare theology of the Holy Spirit, even most Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. If you cannot get it to work, then something is wrong with your doctrine of the Spirit, I don't care how Charismatic or Pentecostal you are. In addition, there may be something wrong with your doctrine of the cross too. If we can get a better theology of Spirit and then get it to work, I think the younger ones would come to our churches and even listen to our propostional truths if they can be connected as coming from God, Son and Spirit. And they certainly can as they are in the Scriptures which always are in unity with the Trinity,

Just the Facts Ma'am

In my generation and older, there was a TV program called Dragnet. It starred Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday of the Los angeles Police Department. He and his sidekick worked in the Robbery/Homicide division in downtown L.A.. When they would answer a call, they would go and interview the people who were witnesses or robbed. Many of these people would go into an involved story about what happened, putting in how they felt and other details that the detectives didn't feel were important to their investigation. So, each week, we would hear Sgt. Friday say to the "story-tellers, "Just the facts, ma'am (sir), just the facts please."

This is one of the main differences I see between those who are over 60 and those who are 35 or under (those in-between - mainly the younger/middle Baby Boomers and the Baby Busters always find themselves having to choose which generation to follow in any particular situation). Those who are older deal with facts, or propostiional truths as philosophy and theology calls them. For example, "Do this and don't do that, because that is why the Bible says. But the younger generation seems to need to deal with a more "story" or narrative form. "We do this because people find it helps them. Let me tell you the story of Ralph who didn't do this and what happened to him."

Of course, right-brained older people and left-brained younger people will not necessarily follow their generational methods. But overall, I feel that the above is true. Obviously this has BIG implications for how we do church and the huge challenge of how to do an intergenerational church.

Albert Mohler Article

Albert Mohler has written a very good article outlining why American Christians tend to follow their culture instead of the Bible at times. Here are some snippets from the article. The link is at the end so you can read the entire article. It isn't long.

The American way" involves, among other things, patriotism, a sense of fair play, equality, personal autonomy, and limitless opportunity. We expect each other to respect these assumptions and ideals.
But, is God accountable to the American way?


The same research report indicates that a majority of American Christians pick and choose doctrines, more or less on the basis of those they like as opposed to those they dislike. This certainly explains a great deal about the current shape of Christianity in American today. Specifically, it points to at least one fundamental reason that so many Christians - including a significant number who claim to be evangelical - no longer believe that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.


Christians should think carefully about what he is saying. The Holy One of Israel, the ruler of all and the sovereign of universe, is now to be judged by his own sinful creatures by the standard of fairness. Doctrines ruled to be "unfair" are cast aside and overridden by our cherished cultural assumptions. Evangelism will die the thousand deaths of cultural awkwardness.


Albert Mohler's article can be found here.

Truly Amazing! - Well, Almost

Well, this is truly amazing! As one who grew up in the liberal Protestant church where we did not and still do not hear the gospel (some churches within liberal denominations are exceptions of course) I am always interested in what the liberal Protestant denominations of Episcopalians (ECUSA), Presbyterians (PCUSA), Lutherans (ELCA), Methodists (UMC) and that Congregational-Church of Christ conglomeration is up to. So when I read this, I really rejoiced. Well, that is, until I came back to reality and realized that many, if not most Anglican/Episcopalian churches either won't do this, or do it in such a postmodern, vague sense that no one will "get it."

Here are excerpts from the article I read today with the link to the full article afterwards. Notice in the first sentence near the end, the words, "only saviour." That sounds good, but when translated into liberal Protestant/emergentese it can mean many things - saviour of the people in a social justice sense is the main meaning to many of these people. It's all in what meaning you proscribe to the words. So my rejoicing became a little muted.


The Church of England today reaffirmed its commitment to sharing with people of all faiths and none the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only saviour.

A motion passed by the General Synod commits bishops to drawing up new guidelines on the uniqueness of Christ in multi-faith Britain and to offering examples of good practice “in sharing the Gospel of salvation through Christ alone” with people of other faiths and of none....

We should not target anyone but no one is excluded either,” he said [The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali]........


Mr Dow told Synod that the Church needed to recover its confidence in Jesus as the only saviour. "We need to recover our nerve. We need to refute the lie that to be evangelistic is to be a religious bigot or fundamentalist fanatic."

He urged Anglicans to be more explicit about their desire to convert people to the faith. “The dreaded ‘C’ word, we’re terrified of it. But why? It only means turning and both Jesus and Paul used the word to describe the very DNA of their ministries.”


[New Testament Assembly minister the Rev Nezlin Sterling said],

“Why should we as Christians have to walk on egg shells to preserve community cohesion [and] accommodate everyone else, when the world around us is becoming more aggressive to Christianity and the mere mention of the word Jesus Christ is an offense to so many with whom we are seeking a working relationship?”

Rev Sterling urged the Church not to compromise on its mission to proclaim Christ for fear of being labelled politically incorrect.

She said: “Every person in my mind is a potential convert."

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, spoke of the responsibility of Christians to proclaim Christ but stressed sensitivity.

"Because Christ is unique we owe it to our nation that nobody in this land should not hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, should not be invited to share within it, but we do it with great respect."

Wow! That last statement is terrific. Now let's hope many in the Anglican (Episcopal Church here) will put feet on this and also put their money and action where their mouth is.,


Here is the link to the entire article (it's short).


http://www.christiantoday.com/article/anglicans.reaffirm.uniqueness.of.christ/22502.htm

IM's Very Good Post

At the end of last month the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer, wrote a very interesting three-part series called "The Coming Evangelical Collapse." He isn't saying there will be a complete collapse and no more evangelical church, but that it will drastically change. His analysis IMO is very good and I believe many of you will wish to read the three parts. So here they are:


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Synthesis in the Society

The evangelical church isn't the only one synthesizing. Everyone seems to be doing it today. If people talk about compromise they are essentially synthesizing. And at times compromise is good. But at other times it compromises morals and ethics. For example, President Obama wishes to have a compromise between the Republicans and Democrats in our U.S. Congress. But he isn't really compromising . He's saying the Republicans need to come over almost completely to the Democratic side on the Stimulus Bill. That isn't compromising. That is "forcing."

Then, yesterday, Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who Obama nominated to be Secretary of Commerce, decided he couldn't compromise his beliefs. Or putting it another way, he refused to synthesize. So, he withdrew from consideration.

So, summarizing, there are times we can synthesize and times we shouldn't. And there are other times someone asks for synthesis (compromise) but they really don't mean it. Many times these people will paint us in a bad light if we don't compromise so we can "all get along."

An Interesting View of the Prosperity Message from Dan

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum has posted his best posts of 2008. One of them caught my eye and I wish to say a few words about it and then I do hope you will read it at the link below. It's entitled, Who's to Blame for the Prosperity Gospel?

Dan points out that it's very easy for those who aren't wanting financially to criticize this gospel. I agree. It's sad that most critics are not seeing the good, the centrality of it, but instead only concentrate on the excesses. II Cor. 8 and 9 have really left a deep impact on me as I've studied it for the past few years. I realized that the prosperity teachers had a good point in teaching us to not only believe God for our own needs so we don't have debt and therefore are not controlled; but also taking care of ourselves so we don't need to depend on others. But in addition to that they teach us to believe on purpose for more money to help the poor and give to missionaries and ministries. Sadly, many of these same teachers let it get out of hand and started teaching that all Christians should be rich. II Cor. 8 and 9 don't teach that and neither does any other NT passages that I see. The prosperity teachers are making the mistake of taking things out of the OT and crediting to individuals what God was doing for extended families and the nation of Israel as a whole. Sadly, they do that often on many subjects.

OK, so do read Dan's Prosperity post here.

Magazine Review Affirms the Postmodern Generation's Tendency to Synthesize

Christian Carnival this week is at the Evangelical Ecologist.

Continuing with our study of synthesis in our young 20 and 30-something Evangelicals. I guess I'm not the only one who sees this. In the current issue of Modern Reformation magazine, professor Sean Lucas, at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO, has written a review of Robert Wurthnow's book, After the Baby Boomers. In his review professor Lucas says,

"...a young adult may both affirm that the Bible is without error and literally true, and tht other religions provide pathways of salvation; or he or she may affirm both the Biblical account of creation and scientific evolution, without worrying about how to harmonize the two accounts." [emphasis mine]


Did you get that? They don't worry how to harmonize two opposites. And as I said in the last two week's posts, I felt it might be some subconscious thing that has been "built" into that generation by the postmodernism eking into their world; a world of synthesis, where even committed 20 and 30-something Christians, while affirming consciously only A is true, not it's opposite B; perhaps subconsiously are synthesizing.

I'm wondering if our pastors and denominational leaders "get" this?

The Results of Synthesis-Part 1

What happens when synthesis keeps going on in process in the church? I had posted previously that I thought one could control synthesis at the first level or even the second but then it could very easily get away from them. Here is what I mean. To review, let's say A is a [propositional] truth and B is it's opposite. So, for example, "Christianity is the only way to God [through Christ]" we will call A.

B would be - another religion is a way or the way to God. A synthesis might be taking some elements of Christianity and some elements of the other religion and kind of meshing/melding them together. But in the Hegelian Dialectic, then that synthesis becomes the new truth, or A. That in turn has a new opposite and then together they will make a new synthesis. Then that synthesis will be the new Truth, or A and so forth. You can choose your A and B in the beginning and decide how to synthesise them, but can you have that much control down the line as they keep synthesizing?

And what happens when we keep synthesizing Christian truths in our churches?

In the next few posts I will show you some examples as to why I keep saying that in my 45 1/2 years of being a born-again Christian (yes, I'm not ashamed of using that word, "born again") I have never seen the evangelical church overall in such bad shape.

So here is the example for today,

Half of Americans who call themselves "Christian" don't believe Satan exists and fully one-third are confident that Jesus sinned while on Earth, according to a new Barna Group poll.

If that isn't astounding enough for you, try this from the same poll,

Barna noted the millions of people who describe themselves as Christian and believe Jesus sinned, or those who say they will experience eternal salvation because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior, "but also believe that a person can do enough good works to earn eternal salvation."

The above statement is Roman Catholicism by the way. But myriads of Protestants, not understanding their own doctrine or that of the New Testament, would say something like that. That is synthesis in action. "Let's combine Catholicism and Protestantism so we don't hurt anybody's feelings." And when that happens, people simply end up in confusion. Their relationship to God sufffers since they can't have a relationship with the true God based on this constant synthesis and confusion.

I call this the "Rodney King" school of theology - "Can't we all just get along?"

Well, that would be nice but not at just ANY cost IMO.

Note: If you are a young reader and don't know who Rodney King is, Google it. His situation and some policemen on trial were the cause of the Los Angeles Riots
in 1992.

Source of information about Barna poll: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=86312

Cartoon Time

More on Postmodernism and Binaries and the Influence on Christianity

I want to continue with the topic of postmodern (Hegelian) synthesis. I presented the binaries of postmodern structuralist philosphy in this post. You might wish to review that before you continue. Then just hit the back button to return here.

Binaries are mostly opposites. Postmodern philosophers challenge us to see in writing and speeches (in the western world) that one part of the binary is usually favored and the other part is often marginalized. For example, in the binary - male/female - males were usually the voice you heard as they were the writers and the speakers; the politicians; the artists and so forth. So, it would look like this:

Example #1:
male
female

The postmoderns ask us, what would texts look like if the voice looked like this?:

Example #2:
female
male

But a more equal way (and Derrida's ultimate goal which he felt was the most democratic situation) would look like this:

Ex. #3:
male/female

In this binary, both are co-equal and have an equal voice.

Sadly, the postmodern emergents, in their quest to give the other binary a voice, instead of equalizing them when needed, reverses them as in the above example #2.

Or, they equalize binaries when they shouldn't. For instance, instead of reversing

rich
poor


why not equalize their voices:

rich/poor



But equalization isn't always the right thing. One example of this is equalizing various religions. So instead of seeing Christianity as the only way God has set up, postmodern Christians tend to equalize it with every other religion. Or at the very least, they synthesize other beliefs into Christianity.

So instead of:

Christianity
Buddhism

we see:

Christianity/Buddhism

I believe the problem here is mixing up people with their cultures/beliefs. We should equalize peoples - yes, but not necessarily their cultures/belief systems. It will fall apart down the line, however, when it hurts people. So for example, when people realize that cannibals hurt people, they will begin to draw lines as to what cultures are "good" and which are "bad." But then they will become like the Cartesian Modernists they so criticize. Right? Think how this will play out in the postmodern church.

All You Need is Love

The problem with bringing postmodernism into the church is apparent by the example below. The content flies out of the window. This isn't about candles, dress, music or "other interpretations of Scripture." This is about no message about Christ and his mediatorial work at the cross. Someone asked a so-called Christian band, Family Force how to become a Christian. Here is the response from one of the band members named Chap Stique (no, I am not making that name up....LOL):

Thanks for the cool question! The answer is easy, yet difficult: Here’s the easy (and true) answer: LOVE!

The best way to experience the message of Christ is by loving those in need, caring for others, and being selfless!

Following the teachings of Jesus Christ is a beautiful and life-changing experience, and I hope it is something that interests you.

I’m not sure what your spiritual background is, or how you feel about Christianity, so I apologize if any of this is repetitive or old to you.

The truth is: there is no formula for spiritual enlightenment. There is no path, 5-step process, or secret. It’s like a relationship…you can’t teach
a person how to fall in love with another. It happens differently for everybody. However, in the end, it is worth it.

Some important elements you should keep in mind are: -ALWAYS question and seek growth. You will hear a lot of different messages = from Christians. Let your faith grow and change.

-Nobody will ever have all the answers. One of the most embarrassing things Christianity has done is that it often pretends to claim 100% knowledge of God and the universe. We are humans, and will never be all-knowing. That’s the beauty of God!

It is incredible if you can get involved in some type of church/community group/Bible study that challenges you and welcomes you.

If you’re interested, check out one or two of these books:
-Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
-anything by Marcus Borg (these are tough reads, but incredible ones)
-The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren
-The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne
-much more

Or, I like checking out the Mars Hill podcasts from Grand Rapids, MI. They’re free on itunes.

Take care, and I hope you continue to pursue the experience of Jesus. Just remember, although Christians have used the name of Christ to justify awful deeds in the past (and present), the heart of the message is love, liberation, peace, joy, justice, and equality!

Thanks,
Chap Stique

And you wonder why I write day after day with grief in my heart why I think evangelical Christianity is on the skids in this country. Sigh.......




Source: http://apprising.org/2009/01/christian-band-family-force-5-on-how-to-become-a-christian/

Changing Neighborhoods Around Churches

I've been waiting a while for someone to analyze and then diagnose various types of evangelical churches and what is wrong with them. Dan at Cerulean Sanctum has now done that in his post entitled, For One Brief Shining Moment.

He describes four types of churches and asks his readers what they think about them and how they would resolve each type's dilemmas.

Out where I live one of the most serious problems we're facing is the changing ethnic/racial demographic even in the suburbs. With all of the various languages spoken by these groups, many wish to go to a church in their language. And, many just wish to be with others with simlar backgrounds and cultural similarities. However, this is really taking its toll on the English-speaking churches.

Caught in the middle of this are the teens and young adults in these groups. Many wish to come to "American" churches (as they call them) but face a lot of pressure from their parents to attend their ethnic church. So, added to the already dwindling numbers of young adults of English-speaking parents, we now need to contend with the young adult children of ethnic groups not coming. I do not know any church that has stemmed this nor resolved it. However, there is one church I know that did something creative and was rewarded, not with adults from the mostly majority-ethnic neighborhood around the church, but their children. Their children's department grew from 4 to 20 in two years. And, most of the church is over 65. So how did they do this? They realized that in ten years almost most of them would be either dead, or in the rest home. It just broke their hearts to think of their long-time church, where they raised their children and had their closest friends would close. So, they went to the elementary school across the street and asked if they could set up a program in their church for latch-key kids to give them a place to stay, do homework and play until their parents could pick them up after work. The school gave a go-ahead and you should have seen this scene. Very old people were helping kids with their homework, coaching them in basketball and a few giving the children computer instructions with money the church raised to buy the computers. But the oldesters finally decided that their health just wasn't up to this, so they hired a part-time Armenian Fuller student. My town has the highest number of Armenians in the world outside of the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. 40% of my city of 210,000 is of Armenian descent, almost all having either been born here or coming here in the past 25 years. The disappointment to the peopel in this church is that the kids' parents never come to church except the two times a year they perform in a musical. But I don't think they should be disappointed, because the legacy of these elderly people will be those children that are learning about God and Jesus Christ. Oh, by the way, now there are 8 teens in the newly formed youth group at that church. And the Fuller student has now been hired full time to oversee the afterschool program as well as the church's children and teen groups on Sundays and during the week.

Now, that's a legacy.

A Very Good Pentecostal Post by Eric

It's seldom I see a really good Pentecostal blog. In fact, it's rare I see any kind of Pentecostal blog......

Anyway, here is a great post from Eric at the What We Have Here Is... blog. This is what Christianity should be in all of our churches.