HT: Zan…

Reading through part 25 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, a decidedly Reformed Confession, one comes across this:

V. The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to His will.

Well, my friend Chris L., who also blogs here sometimes has taken a lot of heat for his use of the ’synagogues of Satan’ phrase found in Scripture and his particular application of it. But here we see that even in this Confession, this is a validly used phrase to describe *some* who have drifted away from so-called orthodoxy. So, let’s rework this ‘confession’ of faith and give it a broader application, 25:5:

V. The purest blogs on the internet are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no blogs of Christ, but blogs of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a blog on the internet where the Word of God is rightly divided.**

Thanks Chris, for a great series of posts on the Revelation.

**in case you missed the categorization, this is satire and meant to lessen the tension by giving you a laugh or two. May your pleasures be many, your troubles be few!

Phil Johnson has long been critical of Mark Driscoll.  As an admitted Driscoll fan-boy, this would bug me, particularly when he employed tactics similar to those who have a blind hatred for the man (and an utter distaste for actual, ya know, facts).

But on Friday, at the Shepherd’s Conference, Johnson tipped his hand and revealed to the world that he’s just been kidding the whole time.

Early in his message, Johnson quoted the opening sentence of the recent New York Times piece that was largely on Driscoll:

Mark Driscoll’s sermons are mostly too racy to post on [an] evangelical Christian ‘family friendly’ . . . Web site.

This is an easily demonstrable lie.  Well, perhaps the NYT writer wasn’t lying, but was just phenomenally ignorant of her main topic. *

But Johnson is not ignorant.  He knows that that statement is false.  And yet, he did nothing to discredit it.

Now, I wouldn’t dream for a second that Johnson would knowingly deceive his listeners just to bolster his point.  And the clue that he wasn’t doing this is in the title of his message: “Sound Doctrine, Sound Words” and the Scripture (Titus 2:7-8) he used as his main text.

Knowingly deceiving your Christian brothers isn’t in the same zip code with sound doctrine (or sound anything for that matter).  So he clearly was being ironic.

Good one, Phil. Ya got me.

* Insert your favorite “research” joke here.

According to a list posted at CR?N of the Ten Marks of a False Convert, one such mark is belief in macro-evolution or Darwinism.

We’ve read other times at this ADM and its sister sites about the abomination of disbelief in a literal, 7-day Creation. Alas for one of their “heroes of the faith” Charles Haddon Spurgeon -

“In the 2d verse of the first chapter of Genesis, we read, ‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be—certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came, wherein man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator gave up the world to confusion.” [emphasis mine]

– Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Sermon delivered on Sunday, June 17, 1855 at New Park Street Chapel.

Granted, you can’t call him a Darwinist, since this was 4 years before Charles Darwin wrote Origin of Species, but what he’s describing is inclusive of macro-evolution.  False Convert! Shame!  The next thing you know, people will be saying that Chuck S was a smoker and drinker, too!

Poor Charlie…

The following article was submitted by CRN.Info Reader, Steve W. Thank you, Steve!

__________________________________
I went to a new church the other day. At first, I was having a great time. The pastor spoke for one hour about his favourite topic, which was why 99.999 per cent of the churches out there are apostate.

At first, I was thrilled to hear such a stirring and uplifting message. Pastor Joe gave at least a dozen different examples as to how the modern church differentiates from the early New Testament church. “We’ve replaced this with that and that with this,” Pastor Joe said. “God is angry. He hates these apostate churches.”

He went on about how women should have their heads covered in church and he deplored how modern church youth groups will actually do evil Satanic things like go on trips to waterslide parks.

“The early Christians certainly never took time out from preaching the word in order to go water parks or amusement parks,” he said.

Amen, brother Joe, I thought. All these Satanic forms of entertainment were put there by the devil with the exclusive goal of tearing our eyes from Christ.

But now I come to the sad part of the story.

After the service was over, I walked up to Pastor Joe and kissed him on the cheek.

Pastor Joe did not kiss me back. Instead he looked stunned, and a little angry.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

I was a little taken aback, but I explained to him that I was merely greeting him with a holy kiss, as the early New Testament church did and as we are instructed to do in Romans 16:16.

Pastor Joe had none of it. He told me not to do that again.

I left that church with great heaviness in my heart. I really thought they were one of the few churches on the straight and narrow, but now I can plainly see that they are just another apostate church that is on the broad road to hell.

So what was it like to be in ministry prior to the internet?  Well Graham Cooke had his own ADM’s that followed him around wherever he went.  Little did he know that God was gonna use it to teach him and refine him.

It seems that controversy has entered all spheres of Christendom lately, and the last standout of American Evangelical culture, the Christian bookstore isn’t immune to it.  Now, it’s true that through the years there have been many “Christian” books that aren’t worth the paper their printed on, but for the most part, these books sold or didn’t sell based on the old maxim that the customer is always right, and that customers are smart enough to inform themselves about products they purchase.  Apparently, LifeWay Christian Stores has started to doubt the ability of it’s customer base to decide what they like and don’t, and started offering its own opinion.

That’s right folks, just like those CDs you hid in your room with the “Parental Advisory” sticker, some books in LifeWay bookstores may be dangerous, and are labeled with a red sticker that warns “Read With Discernment” (as opposed to what I ask – coffee, beer, painkillers?).  Now, it’s pretty clear to me that LifeWay is bowing to pressure from some of the more ADM-minded people who either shop at their stores or have influence about company policy, and being the libertarian minded guy that I am, I would agree that they are completely within their rights to do this.  It’s their business, and they need to decide how to run it.  (I will note, though, that it does seem somewhat hypocritical to continue to sell a product you think dangerous enough to require a warning label).

As a service to LifeWay, I propose that they don’t stop at printing labels for these books.  I say why not do their customer base a favor and add warning labels to their entire inventory?  Here are few suggestions to get them started:

• Christian Music under “Pop/Rock” heading – Warning: The music on these CDs is highly derivative and over-produced.  Listening to more than one hour straight will cause you to want to kick small animals.
• Thomas Kinkade prints – Warning: Displaying these paintings in your house may cause you to be ridiculed by friends and family.  Plus, they will clash with your couch.
• Test-a-Mints Breath Mints – Warning: These mints may help the stench coming from your mouth, but they can’t help the darkness in your heart.  Additionally, these are really just Certs with Christian packaging.
• The Holy Bible – Warning: Taking this book too seriously will seriously f*** up your life.  Seriously, you probably shouldn’t even try to understand this on your own.  Try asking your pastor, or better yet, buy one of the LifeWay approved commentaries on sale now!

HT: Brant Hansen

Season Gre…, er, a, Merry Christmas fellow Christmas warriors!

I proudly present this great anthem for the ongoing War on Christmas.  May it help you remember the true spirit of the season!

HT: BWIII

A recently intercepted letter from the Armchair Mafia to Compassion International:

Dear Friends at Compassion International,

This letter is to inform you that Erika (pictured here) will not be receiving sponsorship funds for the next 10 months.

The money was, instead, spent on attendance at a conference. And not just any conference, but the recent Reveal Conference at Willow Creek. Please know that the “Super Early Bird” registration was used. Had it not been, Erika would’ve been left out in the cold for a year instead of just 10 months.

More important than this fiscal responsibility, the attendee extensively fisked the conference here and here. As an added bonus, you will also find the occasional critique of the church in general or the divining of motivations by conference speakers. Some may see these as unnecessary and irrelevant, but they are actually very important in getting the point across.

I think it’s obvious that “revealing” that which we have already decried for years is much more important than feeding some random 7-year-old.

Sincerely,

Your Friends at [a prominent Armchair "Discernment" Ministry]

P.S. Our sincere apologies for what seems to be praise for Hybels in the first post. We are now counseling with Chris regarding his poor discernment shown by attributing something positive to one of our enemies.

HT: A Little Birdie…

Friends,

I am currently engaged in a through-the-bible-in-90-days reading ‘program.’ It is a fast-paced, exhilarating, whirl-wind adventure! This week I finished Leviticus and Numbers and started Deuteronomy. Anyhow, as you know, those books are filled with plenty of sermon stuff and, interestingly enough, one of the topics is that nasty three letter word ’sex.’

Now we have discussed much around here about whether or not sex is an appropriate topic for sermons on Sunday. It’s a good conversation to have. (Ironically, whenever the subject of ’sex’ comes up we always rush to Song of Solomon and never to the book of Numbers or Leviticus, but I digress.) So, since everyone is contributing humor this week, I thought perhaps to add my own bit of humor to the posting with this piece from Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby) that I clipped about 14 years ago.

When I went to City Hall to renew my dog’s license, I told the clerk I wanted a license for Sex. He said, ‘I’d like one, too!’

I said, ‘But this is a dog.’

He said he didn’t care what she looked like. Then I said, you don’t understand. I’ve had Sex since I was 9 years old.’ He winked at me and said, ‘You must have been quite a kid.’

When I got married and went on my honeymoon, I took my dog with me. I told the hotel clerk I wanted a room for my wife and me, and a special room for Sex. He said, ‘You don’t need a special room for Sex. As long as you pay your bill, we don’t care what you do.’

I said, ‘Look, you don’t seem to understand. Sex keeps me awake at night.’

The clerk said, ‘Funny, I have the same problem.’

Well, one day, I entered Sex in a contest, but before the competition began, the dog got loose and ran away. Another contestant asked me why I was just standing there, looking disappointed. I told him I had planned to have Sex in the contest. He said, ‘Wonderful! If you sell tickets, you’ll clean up!’

‘But you don’t understand,’ I said. ‘I want to have Sex on TV.’

He said, ‘They already have that on cable. It’s not big deal anymore.’

Well, my wife and I decided to separate, so we went to court to fight for custody of the dog.

I said to the judge, ‘Your honor, I had Sex before I was married.’ The judge said, ‘The court is not a confessional. Please stick to the facts.’ Then I told him that after I was married, Sex left me. He said, “Me, too.”

Well, last night Sex ran away again, and I spent hours looking all over town for him. A cop came over to me and asked, “What are you doing in this alley at 4 o’clock in the morning?’

I said, “I’m looking for Sex.’

My case comes up on Friday.

Have a good weekend everyone.

HT: Levticus 18

jerry