Effect of Various Types of Schooling

As a former educator I found the article I mention below fascinating. I've been saying for years that sending kids to Christian schools or homeschooling them has been what has destroyed the public schools. I don't believe the schools have gone down because prayer was taken out. The states that had prayer were mostly in the South. Five Southern states had and still have the worst performing in America. On the other hand, out here in Southern California I've found nobody I know who ever heard of prayer or Bible reading in the public schools--not my mother who went to school here in the nineteen teens and twenties; not two friends who attended public schools in Los Angeles in the 1940's and 50's, and not me who attended in the 1950s and early '60s. Yet we always had the best schools in the nation. Sadly, since the 1970s the schools here have gone down because of two reasons IMO. What happened here in the 1960s with the undisciplined, hang loose nature of the culture change affecting and infecting the schools; and, added to that, all the immigration and non-English speaking students pulling academics down (I'm not blaming them for not speaking English when they enter schools, I am simply making an observation).

In the September issue of Christianity Today magazine is a look at students who go to four types of schools and how they turn out as adults.

One type is the Catholic school student--They are most likely to earn a high income and to make political contributions. They are least likely to accept church leadership authority. Now that is strange isn't, when considering the strong Catholic priest leadership model.

Another type is the Christian Evangelicallal Protestant (the magazine calls it Conservative Protestant)--They are most likely to want a job that helps others, have a large family and read the Bible more. They are least likely to have a job that pays well, feel helpless dealing with problems of life, or engage in political boycotts or contributing to political causes.

The third type attended Nonreligious Private schools--They are most likely to spend time volunteering, also be involved in political campaigns and marry later in life. They are least likely to stay put in one community, have a large family or know people in positions of power like politicians or CEO's.

The fourth type is the one the survey calls Religious Homeschooled-They are most likely to get a job that pays well, feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life, lack clear goals or direction, accept church leadership authority or feel prepared for a vibrant religious life. I find this fascinating since homeschool for Christians has been so touted.

The last type is the Public School grad--They are more likely to want a job that benefits society, spend time volunteering, express an interest in politics and know a community leader. They are least likely to be prepared for relationships of have a vibrant religious life.

You can see the entire survey in Christianity Today magazine online here.

Evangelicals Selling Out

I found another great interview speaking about the theme of how evangelicals are getting confused with the culture. This interview is with Os Guinness, also from the September/October 2011 issue of Modern Reformation magazine.

He talks about the two extremes of meeting the culture. He says Legalism was the former response, but today we see the other extreme. Guinness says,

The other extreme is what Berger calls "cognitive and cultural accomodation," which you can see with the liberals [he's talking about liberal Protestants, not necessarily political liberalism] beginning with Schleiermacher. They take on assumptions in the world and then adapt to those assumptions and eventually sell out to them. You can see liberal theology is the tail, and the dog is always current philosophy ahead of them. The tragedy , if you look at it like this, is that in the last generation many evangelicals have become the new liberals.

I hope you got that last sentence!

Time for Pruning for America?--or Worse?

From Andrew Strom:

For a long time now, God has been watching this mighty tree that
He planted turn slowly "poisonous" in its spiritual influence on
the earth. The "poison" has spread far and wide. He has decided
on a massive 'pruning' operation - to prune the tree right back and
hope it comes right. If this does not work, He will cut the tree
down. A tree that He loved and nurtured from a tiny seedling. A
tree that used to spread so much good in the earth. If this great
"pruning" does not work He will tear it down because it is bearing
such "poisonous" fruit which now outweighs the good.

The "tree" he is talking about he says is America. Before he made the above statement he was describing how American immorality, especially pornography and the wicked youth culture, was infecting the whole world because America is still the "Leader." I agree with everything he said.

More on the Social Gospel--Interview with Kevin deYoung

Kevin deYoung, in an interview* with Michael Horton, weighed in on this matter of churches putting the social gospel (the Great Commandment) ahead of the basic gospel of what Jesus did at the cross (the Great Commission). He said some great things but this part really struck me because I've been saying this for a year now. It seems we both have the same prognistication. He talks about what churches putting the social gospel above the gospel of the cross will do to the members (especially the younger members who are usually the ones who are into this),

They will say, I'm burned out. I'm thirty-five. I can't change the world like I thought I would, and the church is failing in every possible way.

This quote expresses what I've felt for some time. Horton and deYoung also talk about another thing I've brought up here, and that is, the new legalism. Instead of the old "don'ts"--don't smoke, don't drink," we have the new legalism of "do's-you must help the poor."


This interview was in the September/October issue of Modern Reformation magazine, page 47. The interview was based on a new book by Kevin deYoung and Greg Gilbert entitled, What is the mission of the Church?. You betcha I'm going to read that book.

More on the Church and The Social Gospel

I'm really happy with the Sept./Oct. 2011 issue of Modern Reformation magazine as the theme is about all of this current social justice obsession in evangelical churches. A particular interesting article is by pastor Ken Jones, a black reformationist. I think he is the only one I've ever read (except perhaps for Fred Price) who isn't advocating the black church as an institution getting involved with black social problems. Like all of the other articles in this issue of the magazine, Jones advocates for churches to build up individuals through the sacraments and preaching of the Word so they then will be able to be equipped to go out and do the social justice thing. Once again, it's an example of evangelicals getting the cart before the horse instead of vice-versa. Jones and others are getting the horse in the right place--in front of the cart which is what is supposed to be happening. Doctrine is the horse and practice (praxis) is the cart. What happens when the cart is before the horse? The horse may become confused and try to go another way. The cart, meanwhile, may veer off the path into a ditch, carrying the poor horse with it and the horse breaking a leg. I think this is a good analogy of what's happening in many, if not most, of our churches today. But someday, church members, especially younger ones, will wake up and see that the church did very little to alleviate poverty and homelessness. And then they'll become discouraged, depressed and probably angry that the church stopped being the church and became something else; something just like every other secular "do-gooder" group. Here is a great quote from the article by Jones,

First of all, the idea of a church seeing one community or ethnic group as it's constituency is antithetical to the biblical concept of church.

I believe that this also applies to age and marital segregation (singles vs. marrieds). The church should oppose every type of segregation, and while there has been a lot of talk about racial segregation in churches, especially those with younger adult members, I rarely if ever hear about ethnic or age segregation from these very same people. Why is that I wonder?

What is the Church's Job and What is the Individual Christian's Job?

As I said in my last post, I'm reading an excellent book by David van Drunen. I felt I had to get on tip of this Two Kingdom thing to really understand what the emergents and others (NAR too?) are thinking and doing with their "we will bring God's Kingdom on earth through infiltrating the culture" doctrine. In my current issue of Modern Reformation magazine (September/October issue), guess who wrote one of the articles? Yes, van Drunen. Here are some great quotes from this article, entitled "The Vocations of Christians and the Ministry of the Church." He writes,

Churches [devoted to Reformational Christianity] know that they must, for example, , call worship services and proclaim the gospel. But how much more should they do? It is good for Christians to stay in shape, so should the church sponsor aerobics classes?

Before this he writes,

Christians seem to know instinctively that it's rather silly to claim that weeding one's backyard is the work fo the church, but it is not at all easy to explain exactly where the church's work ends and the individual believer's work --simply as an individual believer--begins.

His point, made quite well in the article, is this, Individuals are free to start aerobics classes, begin foundations for social justice causes, participate in political causes and so forth. But when it comes to the church, there are simply no Scriptural mandates for that institution to do this. Yes, pastors and teachers certainly can teach from the Bible where it talks about your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and helping the poor. But it's individual Christians who are to carry this out in the culture, not for the church to do it. I think from this article and what I've read in his book so far, he is going toward the idea of Christians changing society by just being in it and doing their vocations and avocations. This is in contrast to the church doing these things, which he says, historically the church has been very mediocre at most of these things because church leaders just do not have the expertise in all of these areas either to do it themselves or to know if their members are doing them correctly.

It seems to me that this is the BIG question that will be asked in the coming years as the younger evangelical seems to think the church should be changing the culture. This is really funny in a way as they seem to really not like the Christian Right and how they tried to change the culture of [liberal] politics. But they don't seem to see that they are doing exactly the very same things.

Which One Would You Choose?

I found an excellent statement in a book I'm reading, Living in God's Two Kingdoms by David vanDrunen. This has to do with all the social gospel/justice, and ecology/creation theology the younger evangelicals are into today. What I've done is to reword the statement as two questions. I would love to see churches decide which of the two questions is the correct Biblical view and why, IF they had to choose one or the other. IMO they are diametrically opposed although I can see some evangelicals trying to do a Hegelian dialectic on me by attempting to fuse the two.

Here then are the two questions:

Question #1-Is Redemption about regaining the original creation by influencing the culture?

OR

Question #2-Is Redemption about gaining the new creation by the work of Christ alone?
If so, how would this work? What would it look like? Is this new or is it the same old thing we've done for the past 100 years?

Which one do you believe is the correct question to ask?

The NAR Controversy

The Talk to Action blog has an interesting post on Peter Wagner's defense of the Third Wave Charismatic movement's definition and practice of spiritual warfare. As a Pentecostal, I see a need for balance here. This is my main problem with the whole Charismatic movement generally, including the start of it in the 1960s. There is too much "leeway" outside the Bible. I can prove that Wagner is a Charismatic, not a Pentecostal, because I heard him say so in a class he taught in Pasadena in the 1990s. I was in that class for about 5 months until one Sunday he looked straigt at me and strongly said this class was Charismatic, not Pentecostal. Since he didn't know me, it was a bit eerie to say the least. But I find these people to be a bit eerie. Christians shouldn't be eerie, even ones who practice Pentecostal/Charismatic beliefs. I do agree with the principle of spiritual warfare but I believe the NAR people are taking it a bit far. You could argue that the Bible doesn't have any precedent in it for the kind of practice they do. Individuals break spirits over people, not places. However, according to Eph. 6:12, there are higher level spirits and perhaps they are over places, so you could argue that too. But something in the NAR practice disturbs me. I imagine it's because they never affect anything with all of this praying. I have tracked for the past 12 years where these people go to pray over places, and instead of these places improving, they seem to get worse. First they were in the Middle East before 9/11 and then we had 9/11. After that were the two wars as well as so many muslim threats against us and bombings of hotels, embassies and so forth. Then they went to Eastern Europe. Many countries in Eastern Europe were doing quite well economically but after the NAR people got finished, even the best ones (i.e. Czech Republic, Slovenia, Lativa, Lithuania, Estonia) started to go down the drain. The next stop on their praying tour was New England. After they finished there, suddenly....there was all of these homosexual marriage laws being debated in some of those states. Next stop....Arizona. After that they had more and more violence from across the border and finally the shooting of Gabriella Giffords. Now all of this could be a coincidence, but I wonder. Are we waking sleeping spirit giants which should be left alone. Or, mabye the NAR folks just aren't praying correctly. Or, maybe they just do not have all of this power they say they have? Or....? Or....? What do you think?

Quote of the Week

This really says it all as to why the evangelical movement, as Spurgeon would say, is on the downgrade,

We will not be ready for the challenge of this hour until there is
genuine repentance and conversion in our churches... Christians
tend to divorce doctrine and practice. Some put all the emphasis
on orthodoxy, with very little day-by-day living to match. Others
major in experience, with little basis in Biblical teaching. One is
body without spirit, and the other is spirit without body. Christianity
is neither a corpse nor a ghost.

- Vance Havner

New Again

Well, here I am again, in a new church. It's been a year and one month since I left the Presbyterian one and now I journey to still another one. I really don't want to be a church vagabond but today with so little good Bible teaching and practically no foundational doctrines being taught, what does a Christian do? So what was wrong with my last church? Well, I don't think I nitpick. I really don't need to have everything perfect, although of course I would like everything to be perfect. But when in your small group the guy sitting next to you yells and screams and swears violently, continually pounds his fist on the table and this is going on for forty minutes....and when the group leader at the next meeting minimizes this behavior by saying, "Well, we all need to vent sometimes;" when the people, who are friendly, never seem to connect much.....when you never hear the gospel of salvation being preached....when the level of pulpit teaching is vague.....and the coup d'grace being, when the pastor says (as he did a few months ago) "God didn't send Jesus to the cross because that would be child abuse"---well, it's time for me to leave.

Since I am a Pentecostal in my beliefs anyway, I have been trying to find a Pentecostal church, mainly a Foursquare church, in my area. There are four English speaking ones within 20 minutes of me. In my city of 191,000 there are two non-English speaking Foursquare churches but no English speaking one although the majority of people here speak English. Go figure. I visited three of the four churches in the past three years. In one, most were under 40 and more emergent than I would ever wish. Another one is mostly Baby Boomers and are in Warrensville teachings (as in Rick Warren). The third one probably has maybe 20 people and the pastor is crazy.
So that left the one I am attending now. It's another one with mostly people under 40, I think, and the worship music is so loud in the small building that I will need to probably wear ear plugs. But the people are friendly. Whether they will connect with an old person like me I have no idea. The pastor is very young but a good teacher and actually is a committed Christian. He is the rare young pastor who can bring in postmodern techniques without changing the gospel. I mean this morning we heard all about "missional." Thankfully he couched it in the true gospel instead of the liberal Protestantism hidden in emergent that so many of these younger pastors are into. This morning was my fourth time attending and they served communion which I hadn't had there yet. A young something girl got up and gave a terrific 7 minute mini-communion sermon. I hadn't heard about atonement like this in the last 10 years. I wanted to compliment her after church but she left midway. The one problem I see here and this is a problem I think with many younger churches today, is the levity and joking around in the service by the leaders. I'm not trying to be a killjoy here but I do think the times we are in call for a more sober approach. It's not that we cannot have fun together in more relaxed out of church meetings. But the service needs to be much more serious than this one. Well, God told me to pray for the things I think need to be corrected here, so we shall see what happens. I am not to open my mouth to anyone about my concerns--just pray. Stay tuned for my interesting experiment.

I Am Perplexed

I am perplexed about something. Shouldn't people against Christ be punished/disciplined, and Christ-followers not? Here is the situation. The weather has been mainly battering the red states--the Bible Belt states. While where I live in Southern California the weather has been fantastic this past year. We have gotten lots of rain but not up to flooding proportions. We have had no earthquakes except one this past week which was a small one and hardly felt. We've had the coolest summer here in decades, and the crime rate is low. Also, it seems that everyone I know is working and people are coming out here from other places to find a job. Meanwhile, in Bible Belt land, whole towns are becoming almost ghost towns with foreclosures and business and factory closings. Here the real estate market is booming, although the prices are down considerably. I live in an old condo built in 1947 originally as apartments. It turned into one of the first condos in my city in 1972. Most of the units are two-bedroom with only one bathroom and one parking space in the back. The city has approved so many condos on my street that there is hardly any parking for those of our residents who have two cars. We have to go to the laundry room in back to do our washing and drying and there is no central heat or air as our condos cannot be configured for that. So we have really old rattling furnaces and those small air conditioners in our windows. We still have the wood-paneled windows and the wooden screen doors. In the past three years, every condo here if it was priced right sold within two months. I am the secretary of the Association and I have people all the time come to see me to see if they can buy in here. I mean we keep our place up nicely and have a nice courtyard with a garden but it's nothing like the newer complexes in our area. My point is, we are wicked out here in this blue state. I live on the eastern tip of the (in)famous San Fernando Valley, the pornography movie capital of the world. This is where probably most of the American porn is made. No one tells anyone they are an evangelical Christian because they will think you are either a terrorist or a cult group member. And I am not exaggerating. The evangelical churches in my large area, with some exceptions, don't even preach the gospel anymore and so I have not a clue how someone becomes a Christian here. So why do we get off and you guys in the Bible Belt are going through hell? Anyone want to tackle that one?