“The search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where [God] wants him to be a pupil.”
- C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters, ch.16, p.73)
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23 Comments(+Add)
Charles Spurgeon
Spurgeon regularly criticized certain churches, and regularly criticized the body of Christ as being carnal. You can be an honest seeker without being a puffed up critic.
C.H. Spurgeon
#3…Prophesy fulfilled in our day.
Evidence:
Rick Warren
Rob Bell
Tony Jones
Doug Pagitt
Tony Campolo
Outlaw Preachers
Shane Hipps
Greg Boyd
N.T. Wright
Jay Bakker
Steven Furtick
Perry Noble
Ed Young Jr.
Joel Osteen
This is not the church; these are religious people who talk a good game and entertain, but they have removed or reinterpreted the Word of God to fit culture and to not offend and to bring the kingdom of god to earth. They create that old holy ghost feel with candles and mantras and repetitive prayers. They invite rabbis and imans and yoga masters into their pulpits. It is not the church. It is a mockery of what Christ meant for the church. It is a whore.
The true Church is the bride of Christ; and they are without spot or wrinkle, cleansed by the washing of water through the Word.
And you’ve just pissed all over her…
The most powerful and potent part of deception is that the deceived usually will not only be blind to their deception, but they will not even entertain the idea that they are deceived.
Well, that’s true. But from Scripture, the picture that you get is the people who are the ones most sure they are right about everything are usually the ones who are deceived.
#7 So true, so true.
#5 No, I may have ‘pissed’ over a bunch of charletans, or your ’sacred cows’ but not the Church, which I love and Jesus died for.
That would most likely include all of us. But many times the deceived do not even see much deception at all. There are two major deceptions:
1. An over exclusivity.
2. An under exclusivity.
#8 – No – you pissed on parts of the church you have no authority to deem “unfit” until you’ve removed the plank from your own eyes…
Also, just to serve notice to you: I’ve now gotten enough complaints over time, and agreed with them, that your constant injection of slander of your favorite whipping-boys (see #4 for a partial list) in posts and threads that have nothing explicitly to do with them (apart from the constant connection in your diseased mind) needs to come to an abrupt end. I can’t count the number of times you’ve ignored this request from others.
SO:
The next time you inject anyone from #4 into a comment thread where:
a) the OP has nothing explicitly to do with them; and
b) they have not been explicitly brought in the comment thread;
You will be put into moderation, and any off-topic content will be redacted from your comments.
IF the OP or the comment thread explicitly mentions one of your slander targets from #4, you may ONLY comment on the germane issue regarding them at hand. Their mere mention is not an excuse for you to launch into previously dead-horse-whipped nonsense like Rob-Bell-denies-the-virgin-birth or Rick-Warren-prayed-to-the-muslim-Jesus-at-0bama’s-inauguration or NT-Wright-is-a-heretic-because-he-doesn’t-kowtow-to-the-reformed-view-of-justification, ad nauseum. If you choose to ignore this and spin wildly off into your fantasies of watchdog hatred, you will be put into moderation and the off-topic material redacted.
This includes Open Threads, with the exception cases being:
a) one of your whipping boys is explicitly mentioned earlier in the thread;
b) one of your whipping boys has currently done/said something which has not been discussed here.
And in these cases, the same addendum applies to remaining on-topic to the discussion at hand and not wandering back into your dead-horse-beating territory.
I’m a fairly libertarian guy who likes folks to have the freedom to discuss and debate and (sometimes) make an ass of themselves. But in a free society, folks like you and Fred Phelps (whose only substantive difference from you is in his degree of shamelessness) seem to insist on your right to defecate in public, wherever you darn well choose. And you have that right, which is why you’ve got your own blog in which to post your slanderous fantasies.
You may defecate here no longer.
You are welcome to discuss and debate and make an ass of yourself in the course of that debate without subjecting us all to the redundant fantasies as you’ve done in #3, #4, #8, etc. above.
Please consider this your last warning…
And, FYI, this thread is no longer a place in which to discuss your whipping boys, since you were the only one to bring them up.
What is interesting to me about these redundant “who’s in, who’s out” conversations is that things that I was convinced of years ago that kept people out have faded into the love and grace and patience and forgiveness of God.
He has not changed. But He’s teaching me to remain teachable. I have not arrived. In a few years, I will probably look back at this time in my life and wonder why I was so adamant about certain things.
In Jesus’ day, those who were so certain about who was “in” and who was “out” were the ones for whom He had the harshest words.
#10 – *Applause heard around the world (or at least the world wide web).
#10
How very judgmental and intolerant. You cannot debate what the modern church is and does, and how that differs radically from the biblical description and role of the true Church in the present era.
I guess your whipping boys (Ken Silva, Ingrid Schleuter et.al. are a-ok, but mine are not. Well, k sera sera. Hypocrisy. Pure. Unfiltered.
I will try to honor your request, but I am sure moderation is coming, probably even after this little post.
As to the OP, the church is to be discerned as to its function and practice according to the Word of God, not the standard of man. It is not to be viewed with a plank, or even a man-centered bias. We are to learn and be taught within the church, to be built up and equipped by using our gifts and receiving gifts of others in the church, and then we are to go out and be the church through evangelism.
Any other paradigm is not the church, and has earned the right to be criticized.
Wow. Pot – meet kettle.
And as for our “whipping boys” that you’ve mentioned – we don’t talk about them all that much. It’s been 9 months since Ken’s been mentioned in an article, and he’s been mentioned in 4 articles in the past 18 months (one article which was condolences for the loss of his brother). It’s been 15 month’s since Ingrid’s been mentioned in an article. Tell you what – if you can go 15 months w/o mentioning your whipping boys in an off-topic manner, we’ll show some grace on that count.
Also – when we do talk about them, we’re bringing up a current event, not something they did/said years ago which has subsequently been beaten like a dead horse. I could inject John MacArthur into every thread as an example of attitudes/teachings/actions wrong with the church today, but he’s not relevant to 99% of the discussions, and he says and does enough foolishness that it becomes self-evident. So why bother, unless it is current, evident and germane?
Who’s Ken Silva?
See the problem is, John, you do not use discernment when you post. You continue to post lies and false accusations that have been proven time and time and time and time again to be such. And yet you continue to spout them off.
It is not judgmental or intolerant to ask someone to stop lying. It’s just not.
Referring to the original piece. I think being a pupil is important but I also understand where Lewis is coming from.
So often I hear people say “We are looking for a new church or we want a church with a good youth group.” I understand these concerns but I think the focus should be on “I want a church that is focused on Jesus and loves people.”
So often we hear people leave because of a disagreement with a pastor over some tradition that he didn’t hold up or some comment that they felt was inappropriate.
I disagree with my pastor on several minor doctrinal issues and several tradition issues, but… so what?
I enjoy his sermons, he challenges me to focus more on Christ and I learn something every time he preaches. I think I’ll stay.
-Blessings
I love this quote for its focus on what God wants to teach the person.
I firmly believe that God wants to “plant” every believer in a local body (church) and that is God who decides. If one searches for a church which suits him/her that person will decide on the basis of likes/dislikes. But God has our spiritual growth in mind and may even place a person in a church that the person doesn’t like at all… IF we listen to His voice.
pboy,
re 4: no one elevates culture as much as you… though you do not do it to please, you do it to offend. you believe being offensive is some kind of spiritual badge.
re 4: jesus prayed for the kingdom to come to earth, so pursuing that sounds like a good idea to me. not sure why you would oppose that.
re 4: you replace the leading of the holy spirit, not with candles and incense, but with your own preferences which you have elevated to a biblical norm that all must adhere to or be deemed a whore.
the op speaks of you and those who would critique others based on extrabiblical standards and personal preferences. in jesus’ day your type was best exemplified by the pharisees.
in our day many have reinterpreted the faith to allow for sin… some do so by lessening god’s commands while others do so by increasing them.
the former includes those who say god does not care who you have sex with, or deny the exclusivity of christ; or speak of an empty hell. some say god wants you to be happy and rich.
the latter includes those who critique the manner in which others express their faith; or mock their concern for kingdom and justice; or grade a brother’s spirituality based on things not of the bible.
both are equally whorish.
John Chisam
Neil – I believe deception is much more sophisticated and layered than that. But to add to your accurate perspectives I believe the same effect can be experienced when teachers downplay, dilute, speak ambiguously about, or downright ignore the issues that you rightfully identify as falsehoods.
While it is true that some use doctrine as weapons and badges of self righteousness, it is also true that the things you identified are rarely, if ever, overtly dealt with in other quarters.