Friends, we have known that for some time now the anti-Christian bias of the United States has been oppressing those of us who are the true, discerning, followers of Christ. It has now come to our attention that part of this oppression has come internally in the form of Christian websites spreading any and all salacious gossip about Christians they can find. What’s worse is they are working hand in hand with secular sources to do their work.

You can go here for a sample.

Hear the hiss.

Edit:
For those that didn’t catch it, the tone of this post was parodying ODMs.

The Spawn of Piper* calls us to self-examination in 22 Words.

Fighting gay marriage like it’s killing civilization seems inconsistent amid cultural curses like adultery, groundless divorce, and pornography—all hetero and legal.

*Yes, that Piper.

Just a little reminder that, despite assurances to the contrary from amen choruses, we can all be wrong, sometimes on significant things.

Remember in scripture where it tells us that God will provide holy men to feed the lowly spiritual peons. And that when the spiritual peons are spiritually hungry, they are to go to the holy man, the one who can truly fill them up. But, if the spiritual peaons are not getting spiritually fed (whatever that means), then it is the fault of the holy man. mmm… that passage really spoke to me.

I find it really hard to believe that people still believe this stuff. I mean, that should have flown at the window when Luther presented the biblical idea of the priesthood of beleivers. When most people say that they are not getting fed, it usually doesn’t mean that their souls are suffering due to what is happening at church. It usually means that they just want more theology taught to them from a hired holy man, to hide the fact that they really don’t have an actual relationship with the living God. Really what we have created is a spiritual consumer culture. I come. I get fed. I leave. If my spiritual life isn’t vibrant, it must be because the man who has the seminary degree isn’t feeding me right.

I am absolutely disgusted with what we have created — an obese community of beleivers. We have so much knowledge of God, so many resources available to us, and so many freedoms to pursue our faith… but we still cry out “FEED ME!” to those who have studied the exegesis of Hebrew and Greek texts (and I graduate on Friday with one of those degrees, so I can say that). AS if they have some magic spiritual food that will make everyone full. What we need is pastors who don’t see it as their job to feed people. We need pastors who make a living out of making people HUNGRY enough for God, that they go on a relentless pursuit of Him.

And for the last time… where in scripture does it say that exegetical preaching is going to save the world?

by the way, if you haven’t checked out this blog, you absolutely MUST!

In a recent post by “the editor” was titled “Rick Warren’s Methods are causing Decline in SBC.”

I thought to myself, “wow, that is amazing! I would really enjoy reading the research to show that Rick Warren is single handedly taking down the Souther Baptist Convention. I mean, we know that the SBC (and every other denomination) is in decline right now, and we finally have the answer! Grab your pitch forks, torches and keyboards!”

Alas, I was disappointed. The article only held a quote from Paige Patterson that said this

Weak preaching and cultural adaptability are just two of many reasons Southern Baptists give to explain the decline of membership and baptisms.

Really? I mean, REALLY? This guy is the president of my convention!?! Every summer I make my way through East Texas, visiting family members that live in small towns in the beautiful backwoods of the lone-star-state. And, every Sunday I attend First Baptist in whatever city I happen to be in. Sadly, I have watched these churched decline dramatically in the past 20 years of my life. And it is the same all over the US. But guess what — these church have about as strong of biblical preaching as you can hear, and their pews are about as counter cultural as you can get. Yet they are all still in decline!

So, we can say that it’s the new preaching and the new seating that has us in decline –yeah, that’s it (committees mumble “here here” and “ho hum” in agreement). Or we can look that logical reasons. Maybe we could address the fact that we love our turn of the century cultural practices more than we love people. Maybe we could address the fact that being a Christian means that we live in a safe and sound bubble of Christian music, Christian radio, Christian coffee shops, and Christian diet programs, rather than engage the world. Maybe we could address the fact that “mission” is a word that only happens by a few in foreign lands. Or we could blame it one the preaching and pews (as if we didn’t have enough of it). Just a a thought for the morning.

Tags: church in decline

**Disclaimer:  I am doing an admittedly dangerous and possibly frustrating thing here.  I am defending Brian McLaren.  This should not be taken as blanket endorsement of McLaren’s thoughts.  I will admit, I like a lot of what he says, but there is some that I disagree with.

Well, it seems that Mr. Silva has gotten tired of talking about Rob Bell for a while, and has now set his sights on Brian McLaren.  This is not surprising since McLaren has become a de facto spokesman of sorts for the Emergent movement, but what it surprising, is how so easily facts get twisted in these attacks.

In this piece, we are told that Brian McLaren is “Speaking for Satan” – a pretty serious charge.  Ken gives this quote from D.A. Carson’s book, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, which says:

substitutionary atonement doesn’t address the question of why, if God wants to forgive us, he doesn’t just do it. How can punishing an innocent person make things better? “That just sounds like one more injustice in the cosmic equation. It sounds like divine child abuse. You know?”

Now it would be one thing if this quote were an accurate representation of McLaren’s work.  What Silva is doing is actually quoting someone who is pulling one line from McLaren’s book, The Story We Find Ourselves In.  For those that aren’t familiar with this book, it is the second in his New Kind of Christian trilogy.

These books are essentially semi-autobiographical novels.  They tell the story of middle-aged pastor, named Dan Poole, who has a crisis of faith, and ends up having a bunch of conversations about faith with Neo, a biology teacher who turns out to be somewhat of a mentor to Dan.  The passage that this quote is ripped out of is from the chapter entitled “More Than Even All the Windows Can Show”.  In this chapter Dan, Neo, Carol (Dan’s wife), and Kerry (Neo’s friend) are having a convseration about why Jesus had to die.  Below is an excerpt:

Carol was quiet for a minute, very thoughtful, first looking down at her feet, then over at the mountains that surrounded us, and then back to Kerry in front of her.  “Well, I believe that God sent Jesus into the world to absorb all the punishment for our sins.  That’s what the cross was all about.  It was Jesus absorbing the punishment that all of us deserve.  He became the substitute for all of us.  As he suffered and died, all our wrongs were paid for, so all of us can be forgiven.  OK?”

Kerry smiled. “I know that is supposed to mean something to me, and I suppose I can see it, but it raises so many questions.”

“Go ahead,” Carol said. “What questions?”

“For starters, if God wants to forgive us, why doesn’t he just do it?  How does punishing an innocent person make things better?  That just sounds like one more injustice in the cosmic equation.  It sounds like divine child abuse.  You know?”

Carol looked for help. ”I don’t think I’m doing very well.  Dan? Neo?”

I spoke up. “Kerry, what Carol just tried to explain is what theologians call a theory of atonement.  It’s a possible explanation for how Jesus’ life and death play a role in the salvation of the human race.”

Kerry responded, “Yes.  I can see that you would need such a theory.  It’s just that it…well, Christian dogma and doctrine don’t make complete sense to me.  No offense, but I grew up with this stuff, and it just stopped working for me as I grew older.”

“I understand,” I said. “Really, what Carol explained is just one of six theories.  It’s called the ’substitutionary atonement’ theory.  To me, it’s like…” – I gestured up toward the sky – it’s like trying to see the whole beautiful, majestic sky from one of your hospital windows.”

The chapter goes on to talk about the different theories of atonement, and it doesn’t deny any of them.  It just says that none of them capture the full meaning of the cross.  There will always be part of the beauty that is mysterious.  Brian McLaren never denies substitutionary atonement as a valid explanation in this book or in any of his other books.  If anything, he like other theologians, realize that it has the potential to be misunderstood.  This is a far cry from a denial.

So once again, it goes to show that if you do a little research, like actually reading the book for yourself, you can avoid making a fool out of yourself.

SO much digital ink seems to be spilled these days, sniffing about how the church is whoring itself out by ‘looking like the world’. While I agree with this sentiment on a number of levels, it seems that the targeted examples of ‘worldliness’ are merely personal preferences, while the actual examples of worldliness move on, virtually unchallenged.

Examples of supposed ‘worldliness’:

• Mars Hill Church (Seattle) holds a “Red Hot Bash” for New Years Eve, which serves a champagne toast at midnight.
• Saddleback Church holds a “Glitz and Glamor” night for singles in the church
• Christians hold a dance festival, one weekend in Michigan
• Pastors use examples in their sermons from current movies, like Spiderman
• Christians are involved in movies, popular music or other popular artistic ventures
• Christians attend movies or watch TV shows that other Christians disapprove of

While this isn’t to suggest that poor decisions may (or may not) have been involved with any of these examples, but all of these – and most usages of the word “worldly” by the fundamentalist and discernmentalist crowds – are not examples of “worldliness”, at least as it is defined by Jesus, who they claim to be their standard.

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From here:

So ya, I get a little pissy when people decide that the Church invisible is only made of of one small denomination or narrow tradition. It’s cutting parts out of the body of Christ… parts that you need, parts that need you. The proselytizing of your fellow saints makes no since what so ever! Sure, lets talk and argue Theology. That is good for us to keep striving to think correctly and better about God, salvation, and life. Chances are, I think your Theology is wrong somewhere. And there is an even better chance of my Theology being wrong in places. But, let’s remember even if my Theology changes to match yours or your’s changes to be more like mine, we’re still not any more a part of the one true Church than we were before.

I took the time to read the Evangelical Manifesto this morning. It is remarkably different from the one being read over at CRN and other self-proclaimed ODM sites. For example, here are two of the bedrock beliefs of the EM I read:

First, we believe that Jesus Chrsit is fully God become fully human, the unique, sure, and sufficient revelation of the very being, character, and purposes of God, beside whom there is no other god, and beside whom there is no other name by which we must be saved.

Second, we believe that the only ground for our acceptance by God is what Jesus Christ did on the cross and what he is now doing through his risen life, whereby he exxposed and reversed the course of human sin and violence, bor the penalty for our sins, credited us with his righteousness, redeemed us from the power of evil, reconciled us to God, and empowers us with his life — from above.

We therefore bring nothing to our salvation. Credited with the righteousness of Christ, we receive his redemption solely by grace through faith.

The other manifesto apparently claims that Biblical Christianity is NOT the only way and also argues for universal salvation. Would somebody please send me the url so I can read this one as well.

As defined by Webster’s Dictionary, it means to show false piety or righteousness, to be hypocritically religious or devout. Why does this adjective seem to be particularly apt in describing Ingrid’s response to Rick Warren’s invitation to attend Saddleback’s upcoming Purpose Driven Church conference?

To begin with, let’s assume that Ingrid was given permission to publish this invitation on the Internet. Let’s assume that she was not trying to gossip about this invitation and further her own claim as an online “discernment” force to be reckoned with.

Let’s also assume that her failure to at least thank Warren for the kind offer to pick up the tab for travel and conference expenses was . . . an oversight on her part and not indicative of a severe lack of good manners. Let’s even assume that she is right about being able to assess what Saddleback Church and Rick Warren are all about without having to actually go to Saddleback.

And finally, let’s assume that her assessment of Warren and his teaching as being “unbibilical” and having caused untold damage to churches nationwide is also correct. Although I do not agree with these assumptions, they are not the reason why I have concluded that Ingrid’s piety has to be called into question.

I call her piety into question because her refusal to accept this invitation for the reasons stated belies the fact that she is using the Word of God to model her behavior in this matter. As evidence of this, consider Jesus in Luke 7:36-50. Jesus did not turn down an opportunity to break bread with those he disagreed with, viz., the Pharisees. Their notion of legalistic perfection and outward appearances represented everthing that Jesus had come to denounce but that did not stop him from accepting a dinner invitation. We are not told why he accepted Simon’s invtation to dinner but maybe it was because he knew there would be an opportunity for conversation, an opportunity to teach another lesson about forgiveness, an opportunity to reach another heart.

Ingrid is apparently disinclined to follow Jesus’ example in this regard. She is too self-righteous, too holy, too pure to reach out to the ones she disagrees with, the ones who according to her, are promoting egregious error and in danger of eternal hell fire. Is she at all concerned about their eternal destiny? As a Christian, full of truth, why wouldn’t she jump at the opportunity to engage in a conversation that might produce repentance and a reversal of eternal fortunes?

Hence the charge of sanctimony. Her so called piety is nothing more than a sham for all to see. I challenge her to go to Saddleback, have a conversation, and if nothing else, share her light with the misinformed. Who knows, maybe one of the E’s in PEACE might come to stand for Evangelism. That wouldn’t be a big stretch Ingrid. After all, it is one of the 5 purposes of the PD paradigm.