The whole thing is worth reading but here’s a large excerpt of the Internet Monk on a subject that’s all too relevant to this blog.

How do we take hold of the grace of God for ourselves but then deal with people who aren’t God and can’t be God? People who are going to hold us to the law for their own protection, and who won’t risk further dealings with me until guarantees of repayment and promises of no future sin are on the table?

Protestants are often faulted for having a view of “cheap grace.” Is this what “cheap grace” looks like? The forgiveness of the prodigal’s father on the one hand, and the real-world demands for repayment and improved behavior on the other?

Roman Catholics often refer to the Protestant Gospel as a “legal fiction.” Is this what they mean? A sinner enjoys forgiveness, but cannot adequately make amends, repayment or restoration for his sins against those he loves?

My sins have returned. God may have forgotten them. Other persons have not.

What do I do?

Wait till you read this! Christians are actually loving sinners, serving them, and developing relationships with GAYS! And not just Christians… MEGA CHURCH CHRISTIANS! Who do they think they are–Jesus?

I’ve come to the conclusion that this post crosses some sort of frontier of illogical thought, even when it comes to the ODMs.  I’ve read the article that it links to, and I have a hard time seeing how someone can find fault with it.  Apparently, repentance is only for those outside the Church, not in it.

From my reading of the article, it seems the pastor of First Baptist Church of Sugar Hill, hit the proverbial ball out of the park.  It is refreshing to see a pastor approach his community and congregation in humility.  Here’s a few of the things he said:

“Today we in Sugar Hill, and America at large, live in a post-Christian society. But if we acted more like Jesus in our words and the way we live, the world would be far different. It’s time we begin to think, act, and live like He did.”

“I am 37 years old and I believe the Bible is 100 percent truth without error. But the Bible tells us we are to judge our own lives and not the lives of those outside the faith.

“In John 4:18 we read that ‘perfect love drives out fear.’ I apologize for driving you out of the church and making the church a place that you fear. While the Bible teaches that we should all have a reverential fear of God, we should not fear those who sit in the pews. I make this apology and genuinely ask you to forgive me.”

I think some Christians confuse justification and salvation with being correct.  Apparantly the ODMs believe it when Ali McGraw** says in Love Story, “love means never having to say you’re sorry”.  I think being a Christian means continually being able to say “I’m sorry”, and even humbling ourselves to those we consider our enemies.

Apparently though, this is a bad sign for the SBC.  I guess it depends on whether we see the church in a primarily defensive posture or in a posture that is advancing the Kingdom into the darkness.  I think this pastor has seen the fruit of our defensive walls, and it seems he was brave enough to make some some changes.  I pray that more pastors and Christians as a whole follow in this pastor’s steps.

**Oops,  I knew I wrote that too early in the morning.  Thanks for the correction, Keith.

In honor of Oprah taking the google hits from Rob Bell at CRN. Honest, this was today’s “Get Fuzzy.”

But seriously, why Oprah? Isn’t Star Wars or Shirley MacLain just as dangerous? Oh yeah, it’s about the google hits.

The current theme in discernmentalism seems to be Guilt-By-Association (GBA), whether they’re rummaging through your CD collection or just repeating GBA lies, (or simply attention whoring) it seems that no leaps in illogic or six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon smearing are too low to go.

I just got caught up on last week’s ODM ThoughtCrime^TM target: Your bookshelf.

In her article last Friday, Ingrid and Lighthouse Trails “Research” demonstrate how to (attempt to) discredit anyone via GBA fallacy through their bookshelf. To wit:

1) Erwin McManus put together a conference, Awaken 2008, run last week.

2) One of the 23 speakers at the conference was Mark Batterson, who had a 10-minute slot in which to speak about his experience with non-traditional churches. From the conference website:

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church (www.theaterchurch.com ) in Washington, DC. NCC was recognized as one of the 25 Most Innovative Churches in America by Outreach Magazine in 2007. Focused on reaching emerging generations, 73% of NCCers are single twenty-somethings and 70% come from an unchurched or dechurched background. The vision of NCC is to meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the metro DC area. NCC also owns and operates the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. In 2007, Ebenezers was recognized as the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area by AOL CityGuide. Mark has two Masters Degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. And he is a daily blogger @ www.markbatterson.com. Mark is married to Lora and they live on Capitol Hill with their three children: Parker, Summer, and Josiah.

3) Batterson maintains a blog. On he, he wrote about his 10-minute presentation:

I decided to speak on one of the greatest dangers we face as leaders. Neurological studies have shown that over the course of time, there is a cognitive shift from right-brain to left-brain. And if we don’t find a way to stop the shift, memory overtakes imagination. We stop creating the future and start repeating the past. We stop innovating and start imitating. We stop doing ministry out of imagination and start doing ministry out of memory.

A few years ago I read something R.T Kendall wrote that impacted me: “The greatest opposition to what God is doing today comes from those who were on the cutting edge of what God was doing yesterday.”

I don’t want that to be me! [Emphasis his]

4) On his blog, Batterson has a reading list, with 8 primary categories, including one on Spirituality and one on Philosophy & Psychology.

5) Of the 128 books on his list, Batterson has a book by Eckhart Tolle (Practicing the Power of Now) in his section on Philosophy & Psychology (not Spirituality, mind you).

6) Therefore, Erwin McManus is promoting Eckhart Tolle – Tada!

While we’re at it, perhaps we should use Batterson’s library to further paint McManus as promoting Judiasm (The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell), Mormonism (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey), New-Agey Self-Help (Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins), biased media (The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw), Calvinism (Desiring God by John Piper), Emergent (A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren), A Capella worship (Just Like Jesus by Max Lucado), Catholocism (The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence), Capitalism (How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie), Athiesm/Naturalism (The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking)…

It is really sad when Christians find ways to stoop lower than a warring politician flinging mud. GBA Logic this tissue-thin wouldn’t even pass the Clinton red-face test… Whatever happened to not delighting evil, but rejoicing with the truth? But then again, truth doesn’t sell well in talk radio, or bring in more sponsorship revenue for online ‘research’…

This is a special edition of our podcast. I interview the author of Cedarville: Liver who is known only as Bannerman. He has spent his time blogging about the ongoing situation and now summarizes it for us as well as offers a different perspective on the situation than the vocal critics.

Download it here or listen to it below.

If you’d like to contact us about the podcast you can email me.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in Itunes.

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 Justice and Mercy #32 - Cedarville: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: cedarville, owosso church of christ, Podcast, tim reed

As the saying goes; “repeat something enough and it will become truth”. Well holding out hope that the adage will hold true; Ingrid once again has attempted to paint Rick Warren with the “heretic” brush. 

In her latest post entitled “Here a Christ, There a Christ” she rightly connects Leonard Sweet with Rick Warren for the upcoming event “Wired” at Saddleback Church. Only problem is that she formulates an ad hominem attack with an ad nauseam argument and presents an ad hoc solution. Confused? Let me explain.

Ad Hominem- Rick Warren is a heretic because he associates with______________or he uses ______________ in his church.

In this case the fact that Leonard Sweet is speaking at the “Wired” Conference.

Ad Nauseam- How does she formulate her argument? Per the ODM handbook; she links to a Lighthouse Trails Research article about Leonard Sweet. Which is littered with *gasp*  proof-texts, assumptions, and lies misinformation.

Just because you have a whole bunch of 6 people agreeing with you and you have links to their website does not make it truth.

Ad Hoc – Posting an article from a pastor (which was a great article BTW) that doesn’t mention Rick Warren, Leonard Sweet, or Saddleback does nothing to illustrate, strengthen, or offer solution to your argument.

The article does mention Eckhart Tolle and Oprah. It also mentions “christ-consciousness” which is the only connection that I can find to Leonard Sweet. He did after all say that exact phrase 8 times in his 285 page, 1991 book “Quantum Spirituality“.

Thus taking the “guilt by association” game to the championship round.

His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,”

‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’

Jesus as Rabbi:
Part 1: What is a Rabbi?
Part 2: Was Jesus a Rabbi?
Part 3: Jesus’ Miracles
Part 4: Jesus and other Rabbis
Part 5: Jesus and the Pharisees
Part 6: Bringing up Disciples
Part 7: Jesus’ Yoke

I took a hiatus from this series for Holy Week along with an uptick in my personal calendar, but I am trying to pick up where I left off.

Rabbinic Teaching Methods

In second-temple rabbinical thought, there existed two primary modes of teaching – hagadah (knowing/devotion/meditation on scripture) and halakah (doing the Word, walking in the Way). We in the Christian tradition would probably classify hagadah as “knowing the Word” (orthodoxy) and halakah as “doing the Word” (orthopraxy). R. Abraham Heschel, considered by many to be the most respected Jewish rabbi of the 20th century, says of these two:

Halakah without hagadah is fanatacism,
Hagadah without halakah is irrelevant

In other words, to do the Word without faith or proper understanding of it is to be a blind follower, and to have faith and understanding in the Word without fully living it out is irrelevant.

Additionally, halakah has subset which stands apart, called parable – a concept with which we are very familiar.

It was also taught in rabbinic literature that the best teaching of talmidim is done in equal parts of hagadah, halakah and parable. Interestingly, if one takes Jesus’ teachings from the gospel and divide them up, you will find that the ratio of hagadah:halakah:parable is almost exactly 1:1:1!

Read the rest of this entry »

Is it proper to make a comparative apology? If so, then I must repent of any accusations of hyper-fundie-ness, bitterness, or anger that I have made about Ken or Ingrid. I’ve found someone who makes them look like Joel Osteen on uppers.

A few days ago, a commenter on my last post noted that the discerners “are now equating rudeness, mean-spiritedness, and nastiness with … godliness!” I sent him a note to ask where specifically the text (that he quoted as proof) came from. Hang on to this link if you ever need to induce vomiting.

I popped over there and asked a quick question. I got a response from the blog author. I say “response” purposefully, because it wasn’t anywhere close to an answer. But that’s OK.

The statement that “inspired” this post, though, was buried in that response (emphasis mine):

If a person is a student of the Bible he will readily find that the Bible is for the most part a negative book, of wrath, judgment, and condemnation.

What a sad existence. If that’s Christianity, include me out.

What am I saying? He probably already has.