What Would Jesus Really Do?

"Christ in you, the hope of glory"

___Colossians 1:27b


Christians are asking today, "What would Jesus do?"

And, they answer, "Help the Poor." "Love people."
And then they say Christians need to do these things.

OK...good enough....


But I never hear anyone say, "Heal the sick. Deliver people from the demonic."

Why not? Isn't the second list as important as the first list?

I guess not.

The Appearances of Christians

With Susan Boyle's England debut, there is a lot of talk about the natural person. Sadly, that conjures up the thought of "ugliness." We all have seen a proliferation of great looking, star-like folks on Christian TV programs as well as the congregations of TV megachurches. But is that really what most Christians look like? Well, actually, where I live, which is about 10 miles from Hollywood they do. has a big effect here. I have to say that most people in churches here do look I'v'e noticed in the past 15 or 20 years there are very few obese people around in my area, even in the inner cities here compared to what I see on the TV news in some other places in the USA. We do look good I think out here in Southern California. But what about the less-than-Hollywood-looking Christians elsewhere? In many parts of the world Christians are just trying to stay alive much less look good.

Along these lines, here is just the greatest blog post from the Internet Monk entitled, We Interupt This Religion to Recognize....All the Ugl....Unatra....Uh, "Ordinary" Christians.

New Age is Business as Usual in Business

Years ago I read a fascinating article in my Los Angeles Times newspaper about how business leaders were asking the top Business Schools like Stanford, Wharton, etc. to stop producing left-brained number cruncher MBA's and start producing more right-brained creative types. The end of the article told how New Age-type courses were beginning to be offered in these business schools. Yes, the New Agers found a niche to get into. And how is this affecting business now that these "creative types" have emerged? According to the Lighthouse Trails blog, New Age is business as usual in the business world today. Here is what they report,


What's fascinating to me is that when I met recently with some of the old-timers in the movement, I discovered that all of us had expanded from working in growth centers to working in American business. What the business community needs, wants, and appreciates at this time are insights from the human potential movement.... I'm finding executives who, twenty years ago, considered the human potential movement a kind of joke and who are now recruiting specialists into the most conservative industries.

____Interview with New Ager James Fadiman--1988



International Management magazine revealed that many of the major European corporations are also eagerly embracing New Age spirituality. Included in the list were the Bank of England and the UK's Ministry of Defense and Cabinet Office.


_______________"Disciples of the New Age," in International Management Magazine -1991




It's sad that the mostly left-brained analytical church squandered an opportunity to bring wholesome, but secular (of course--no religion allowed in most colleges), programs into these schools. I am hearing of Christians trying to do this now, but I'm wondering if it really is affecting business at large as much as the New Age has. Anyone know?


Source: http://lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/index.php?p=1446&more=1&c=1

At last--Another New Kind of Faith Teacher

I'm always on the lookout for what I've called here before "A New Kind of Faith Teacher." I think I've found my ideological, theological twin in Peter Smythe. If you want to understand what a new kind of faith teacher sounds like, then you must read his latest blog post, found right here.

How Others View Us

It's always interesting to find out how non-Christians view us (evangelicals). For many years, polls I've seen has shown that the public conception in America of evangelical Christians is very low, somewhere around prostitutes and used car salesmen. I'm not kidding - the polls have shown this consistently. We can thank the Christian Right for most of these negatives. It isn't Jesus they are rejecting as most non-Christians IMO don't understand the gospel. Why? Because we've done such a poor job of articulating it. We've been politicking instead.

David Kinnamon, President of the Barna Research Group, lists the six most common perceptions outsiders have of Christianity. They are,

1. We are hypocritical
2. We are too focused on getting converts
3. We are anti-homosexual
4. We are too sheltered
5. We are too political
6. We are too judgmental


I think this is rapidly changing within our churches, especially among younger evangelical adults. When they are polled the results are very different as to their values.

1. They hate hypocrisy and try to be authentic. Unfortuantely, what I've heard and read from them is no more authentic than their parents or grandparents were in their day. I hope they see this and REALLY becme authentic.

2. One good thing with the younger ones is their motivation for getting converts. I do think they are genuinely concerned for the whole lives of their non-Christian friends as opposed to the old days of CHristians getting a convert "scalp" for their belts.

3. The younger adults don't have that much of a problem with homosexuals, but what about homosexuality? I find their views confusing and hope in the future they will be able to nail this down a bit more, one way or the other.

4. The young adults today are definitely not sheltered.

5. The young Christian IMO will be more political with the rise of the New Christian Left. But now, I don't see a group-think on this. Some are, some aren't.

6. As for being judgmental, this is one thing that the younger Christian has a cat fit about with their elders. To counter this, The Christian Tolerance Police are all over the place in young adult churches.

And that is my take on the future of evangelicalism - a far different view than the polls show today.

For Easter - - A Testimony - - Mine

A week from this next Tuesday (April 21), I will be celebrating my 46th spiritual birthday. I grew up in a liberal Protestant PCUSA-type of church (liberal Presbyterian) and didn't hear the gospel there. You might hear bits and pieces of the gospel in liberal Protestant churches, but most people, espeically children, would be hard pressed to put the few pieces together and fill in all the cracks.
I wanted to do what God wanted, not to be saved or anything, but just thought it would be a good idea to please God and work with Him instead of against Him. Since I was getting practically nothing in my church I explored other religious faiths. I noticed one common characeristic with all of them - you had to do something (i.e. keep laws) or achieve something (i.e. karma). I decided that none of these religions offered much, so I decided to become an atheist in my freshman year of college. I'm not sure I got to the point where I really didn't believe in God, but I tried and was a good evangelistic atheist. In other words, I was a good debater opposing those who did beleive in God and wanted to argue their case. It was interesting that only Christians argued the case. In my sophomore year, I sat next to a Baptist girl in one of my classes and we became friends. I argued my atheism with her and she told me the gospel. I remember never hearing what she told me before and it really struck me because it wasn't like any of the other religions that I had studied. You didn't have to do ANYTHING?? You just accepted the sacrifice of Jesus for you? That was so novel to me I had really nothing to retort back to her. I had never heard this before and thought perhaps it was some type of Baptist doctrine. Where I grew up - in suburban, affluent Southern California - there were few Baptists. They seemed to live in mostly blue collar/working class towns. She told me that no, it wasn't Baptist doctrine; it was in the Bible. She showed me a few New Testament verses and I was astonished as I had never heard these Bible passages in my liberal Protestant church.

I didn't go to church with her or any of the other Christians in my dorm who were trying to proselyte me (the difference between them and my friend was they never told me the gospel). I wasn't manipulated as I don't allow myself to be manipulated. And since I tend to be a thinker, I just thought this out to a logical conclusion and in a funny sort of way, it seemed to be logical. So, at 11:15 PM in Whittier, California on April 21, 1963, I decided* to receive Christ as my Saviour. I've never had to search for any other religion, faith or belief system since then. I could. I just don't want to.

And that's my story.

*My apologies to Calvinist readers who are irked by the phrase, "I decided to receive Christ." To me it was as if I decided. Perhaps I really didn't and the Holy Spirit did the deciding. I don't know. I just expressed it the way I felt it at that time.

Great Quote of the Week

"It's the nature of politics to deceive and distort, because politics is all about the struggle for power. Carnal instincts bring out carnal methods - and therein lies the great danger of trying to accompish God's work through political means."


____Michael Babcock in UnChristian America, p. 28

Dr. Babcock is professor of humanities at Liberty University (the one begun by Jerry Fallwell)


Interesting that a professor at Jerry Falwell's university would write a book like this. But like it's "twin," The Myth of a Christian Nation by former professor at Bethel College (an evangelistic Baptist college) Greg Boyd. I applaud these type of books by credible evangelicals (well, some don't think Boyd with his Open View is credible, and although I disagree with his view on that subject, his book on the myth of America being a Christian nation was really excellent). We need to know the truth as it was, not as "Christian Rightists" twist and turn it. I wrote about this a long time ago here and at that time I said that God isn't going to shake and tremble at Truth. But lies will only hurt the Christian and get us on the wrong track.

Some Important Tidbits

I want to talk about two things around the blogosphere I've noticed lately. First up is from Jollyblogger's blog today. Here is part of what he writes,


Our response to the gospel is always that of repentance and faith, not action. We do not "do" something to apply the gospel, the gospel "does" something to us. Thus I have been very cautious in offering "to-do" lists from texts.......In other words, telling people what to do and not do has little or no value in getting them to do or not do what they should or shouldn't do. This doesn't mean there aren't things we should and shouldn't do, but do's and don'ts won't get it done.
So how do we resolve this conundrum? T. David Gordon in his book Why Johnny Can't Preach offers some "practical" thoughts:
I know that there are those who are terribly afraid that such Christ-centered preaching will lead to licentiousness; but I categoricaly deny it. I've witnessed with my own eyes the difference between believers who suffer through moralistic preaching and those who experience Christological preaching. The former are never as strong or vibrant in their Christian discipleship as the latter. In theory, we all say we believe, for instance, that good works are the "inevitable" fruit of saving faith. I not only say this; I believe it.

I think this is really great and is along the lines of something I've brought up lately - legalism isn't just a "don't doism," but can also be a "do-doism." I thought this description of do-doism went farther than I did by pointing out that there is no power there. I recommend the entire blog post to you to read.


On a very different note, there is a hullaboo about a recent Tim Challies blogpost. He writes against blogs that criticise ministries and ministry leaders/pastors as "entertainment" for their readers. The interesting thing about all of this, if I am recalling correctly, is Tim used to do this very same thing. That is actually where I first heard about emergent and what they were doing. But I've noticed recently that he's stopped the critiques. I think that's sad because his critiques were always "gentlemany," never nasty or mean-spirited. They also educated the reader about some apostasies in the evangelical wing of the church. And, that is the purpose of the "watchdoggy" sites, is it not? To educate people?

In this same vein, Frank Turk at the Pyromaniacs blog writes that we don't need the watchdoggies since elders in churches should be warning people about wrong teaching. Well, yes, but frankly, that is a very naive view since elders are NOT warning us since most of them don't know anything about Open View, Emergent, Third Wave Charismatic, etc., etc., etc.

Then to my amazement, Eric at the What We Have Here blog (which I love) says this concerning the Challies post,

I couldn't agree more - discernment belongs to Elders in the local church - not to these armchair 'discernment watchbloggers' who routinely report on what's going wrong with the church for the sake of hit counts and pious back patting.

Well, again, if the elders were doing this fine. But most are not. And he thinks bloggers are doing this for hits? The thing that really amazes me is that Eric is warning us on his blog of apostasies many times. I don't get it. Is it because he gets to do this becaus he's a pastor and the rest of us aren't? I am truly baffled. One thing that these people aren't doing is defining well what they are talking about. So, I will define specifically what I am talking about.

I believe we need the best of the watchdoggy sites - the ones that aren't sarcastic and nasty - to educate us as individuals since the majority of our churches sure aren't doing the job. So I would have to take the opposite side to Tim, Frank and Eric. I will continue to bring you information ABOUT what apostasies believe however, instead of nitpicking every little "thing" they might do. That, IMO, is the way for a watchdoggy site to go. When I first started this blog I began to see how sarcastic I was. I knew I had to drop that fast and I believe for the most part I have. A good site of this genre can really educate people and so I don't think they should all stop doing this. I'm not going to stop, but I am going to try to bring forth what should go in each apostasy's place instead of just concentrating on how awful the apostasy is. That is the challenge God brought to me last year.

The Awful Legacy of Legalism

Recently I've seen so many Christians getting so hung up about legalism in their former churches - mainly the ones they grew up in. Out where I live I certainly cannot find that type of church that everyone says is all over the place. I don't believe it. I think this is coming from people who have been hurt growing up in these places. But instead of going into the center where heaing and God are, they want to go to the other extreme. It's sad because what they don't get is the other extreme is as legalistic as what they grew up in. Here is what I mean:

the old legalism was a "don't doism." The new legalism is a "do doism." We especially see this in two current movements, the Third Wave Charismatic and the Emergent Conversation.

In the revivalist (3rd Wave) Charismatic movement, it's all about being "spiritual" by fasting and praying and prayer walking and really, really chasing after God.

In the Emergent Village (Conversation), it's all about social justice for the poor.

These are worthy goals but they must come as a result of the Holy Spirit's leading AFTER conversion, not out of the flesh because the pastor or prophet says we have to do this. Here is a great quote from from Michael Horton about a letter to Cardianl Sadoleto from John Calvin in the 16th century,

he [Calvin] argued that only by being freed of having to love our neighbor in the service of our own salvation are we able to really love them for their own sake.

I would like to take out the words, "in the service of our own salvation" for a moment. It would then read like this,

only by being freed of having to love our neighbor are we able to really love them for their own sake.

The reason I needed to take that one phrase out for a moment is because salvation doesn't seem to be very meaningful to the emergents, but I thought the quote itself without that phrase was apros pro to them.

I Could Have Said This

I could have said these exact words. In fact, I think I already have essentially said them during the past few years. But I really love the way James MacDonald words it from his blog,
Straight Up,


I do not view Brian [McLaren] as an ‘erring weaker brother,’ worthy of sympathy or olive branches, but rather as a dangerous false teacher who repackages mainline liberal theology. (Have the past 50 years not been adequate to see how liberal theology empties churches and damns souls?)

More dangerous still is that McLaren packages his false teaching and denials of Scripture as solutions to some of the excesses currently plaguing evangelicalism—the danger being his winning over of young people who have legitimate complaints about the current church, but who lack the discernment to see that his solutions are often unbiblical even when his critiques are fair.

Church and Government

This is something I have been yelling for 30 years now. Glad to see so many people are catching up with me....


This is from Robert Webber's book, The Younger Evangelicals, p. 233. I put the last phrase in italics to emphasize it,


"In recent history, the Moral Majority confused national and ecclesial spheres by trying to put the church into the service of the Republican party and its conservative policies, especially its support of life, and its concern to curb violence, pornography, and the breakup of the family. While these are all good values and are supported by the church, the church does not exist to support the political agendas of the government, no matter how righteous."


OK....now that the Christian Right seems to be dying and many Christians, especially the younger adults, understand the above statement, here is what I will be yelling about next---hopefully NOT for the next thirty years.


THE NEW CHRISTIAN LEFT WILL BEE DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING (ONLY THIS TIME THROUGH THE DEMOCRATS) AS THE OLD CHRISTIAN RIGHT DID!!

And, you can take that one to the bank.