The Allure and Deception of Social Media to Our Younger Adults and Teens

My philosophy teacher in the senior adult class that the State of California provides for us old folks, told us about what happens during breaks in his junior college classes (where most students are somewhere in their late teens or early twenties). They don't talk to each other any more as we did when we were in school. No, they whip out their cell phones and check email, text and so forth. Our class of older adults found that rather sad.

In that vein Tim Challies writes at the Boundless blog about what would happen to university students if they didn't use any meida for 24 hours. No TV, Facbook, radio, Internet, etc. The students thought they probably could. A experiment was set up for 1,000 university students to do just that. So could they do what they thought they could do?

Challies reports what happened,
The students who participated in this study learned that in the midst of all of their e-mailing and Facebooking and text messaging they are actually sad and lonely. All this time they had thought they were forming deep and meaningful friendships. But as their phones and computers were taken away, as they unplugged, they quickly saw that most of their friendships, and even the friendships they thought most significant, were trite, ethereal. When media was taken away and the students had to spend a day outside the glare of their screens, they found that face-to-face interaction was difficult and unnatural. They longed to have their devices back in their hands so they could discuss this strange discovery.

I Am Also a Happy Pentecostal...:)

More and more I am realizing that I'm adhering to Pentecostal theology as I've sorted through what my doctrinal belief will be for the past three and half decades. I find that I don't have many fellow travelers, but one I've found is Peter Smythe. In his blog today he writes why he is a Happy Pentecostal, and after reading it, I have to say what he wrote is my testimony too. No Kidding.

You can read his thoughts on why he is calling himself a Happy Pentecostal here.

More Great Ideas from Machen

This book that Tim Challies is doing for his blog reading group, Christianity & Liberalism, is so good it;s unbelievable. Along with this book I'm reading the current issue of Modern Reformation magazine on why the "progressive evangelical's" definition of "missional" is is just another recycled version of the liberal Protestant social gospel, but taken overseas. The book and the magazine are both dovetailing together. It's great! Here's some more great passages from the chapter Challies is on this week--chapter 4 (entitled "The Bible"--in Machen's book.

Machen goes into the fact that Christianity is a historical religion as opposed to a mythical or jsut an experiential one. Here's a fantastic quote from the book in this chapter:

All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends not on a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event.

To the argument that Christianity should deal with experiences and not so much dusty truths and events of long ago, Machen states,

Salvtion does depend on what happend long ago, but the events of long ago have effects that continue until today.

I'm so glad Challies is doing this book as I had never read it, and it certainly is addressing the concerns I've had for the past six years about the encroachment of liberal Protestantism into evangelicalism through the emergent movement.

Quote of the Week

Here is such a good example of so much of the hypocrisy of the "do-gooder" Christians.

From Tim Challies' blog:

As someone once said, "Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help Mom with the dishes".

How Socialist Movements REALLY work

From Thomas Sowell, quoted by Berit Kjos,

"At the heart of the socialist vision is the notion that a compassionate society can create more humane living conditions for all through government 'planning' and control of the economy....

"The rule of law, on which freedom itself ultimately depends, is inherently incompatible with socialism. People who are free to do as they wish will not do as the economic planners wish....These differences must be ironed out by propaganda or power, if socialism is to be socialism. Indoctrination must be part of the program, not because socialists want to be brainwashers, but because socialism requires brainwashing.

"Idealist socialists create systems in which idealists are almost certain to lose and be superseded by those whose drive for power, and ruthlessness in achieving it, make them the 'fittest' to survive under a system where government power is the ultimate prize."[8]

That's what happened during the Russian revolution in 1917! Lenin, a communist organizer who tolerated no competition, soon crushed his idealistic co-revolutionaries who believed communism would bring peace and equality -- not slaughter and tyranny."


This reminds me of several points in history in both the 19th and 20th centuries with socialist-oriented people. Almost none of these were Chirstians and most were not even religious. Many were atheists. IFor example, in the anarchist movement of the late 19th century, the anarchists, mostly from Russia, were educated and looked down upon the very poor people they were supposed to be helping. When they tried to implement their goofy plans, the poor weren't interested. This was repeated in various socialists and communist movements in the 20th century. And almost everytime the response of the "enlightened socialit ones" was the same. They became angry at the very poor they vowed to help, and in some cases, tortured and killed some of them. So much for how socialism REALLY works. Today, we have our own problems in the emergent and Christian Left movement with the same muddled headed thinking in these movements being led by the very same types of people who led previous socialistic movements: educated liberal idealists. And the same thing will happen this time. The very ones they are trying to "help" will reject them. And then, the "loving liberal 'Christian' socialists" will do the very same their predecessors did--end up hurting the very people they said they were trying to help. This is why I keep saying here that these people and their goofy ideas will end up hurting the poor just as much as the previous liberal Protestant Christians and Marxist liberal Catholic theologians of the 1960s and '70s hurt them. Let the poor and their pastors, politicians, athletes, etc. help their own. Stop belittling them, feeling YOU are the answer to their dlemma. Frankly, I find that rather arrogant.

Another Report on Third Wave Charismatic Cultism

This blog was begun in the summer of 2004, 7 years ago, to basically teach people about the huge problems in the so-called Third Wave Charismatic Movement (i.e. Toronto, Brownsville AG, IHOP, The Call, The New Apostolic Reformation, and so forth). Since this blog started, from time to time, I've read reports of people heavily involved in these churches/groups, who finally have come to realize that they are actually like cults. Here is a report from a former IHOP (International House of Prayer--Mike Bickle, Kansas City Prophets)internee relating how she finally realized IHOP was a cult. It's an excellent blog post, specifying each point of a cult and how IHOP fit each of the points. By the way, wherever you find a cult, you will also find the spirit of occultism. I have said from the get-go that the Third Wavers, most of the time, are confusing the occultic spirit for the Holy Spirit.

This great post, at the Gospel Masquerade blog, is found here.

Good List to See If Your Church is Going PD

There is an excellent list of 24 things that happen if your church is going "purpose driven," at the Lighthouse Trails blog.

First Thoughts on Christianity & Liberalism

As I wrote before, I am participating in blogger Tim Challies' Reading the Classics Together weekly study of a great Christian book. The book this time is Christianity & Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen. The liberalism meant in the title is not political as much as Liberal Protestantism. We are on chapter one right now after having discussed the Introduction last week. Here are some great quotes from what I've read so far in the first two sections. This book could hae been written today about the emergents. It's unbelievable how doctrinal errors repeat themselves throughout history.

From the Introduction: "It may appear that what the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion that is so entirely different from Christianity as to belong to a distinct category."

From Chapter 1 - Doctrine - Machen points out something that I had never thought of. There were teachers at Rome that were criticizing Paul, and also the Judaziers criticizing him in Galatia. But Paul doesn't take umbrage with the Roman ones. However, he does with the Galatian ones. What was the difference? The ones in Rome, whom Paul actually was quite gracious with, were preaching the gospel, while the ones in Galatia were not. By this example Machen shows us that Paul thought doctrine was very, very important.

If you wish to join in with the fun at Challies' blog on Thursdays, reading this book, here is the link:

http://www.challies.com/reading-classics-together/reading-classics-together-a-reminder-1