Mainstream Christianity in the United States is very Pelagian - at least in practice. A recent survey by Christianity Today of Evangelicals has revealed that 68% of American Evangelicals believe that people seek God first and then He responds with grace. 67% agree that people can turn to God on their own initiative. Over half -55%- believe that we must contribute to our own salvation. And 18% said that God loves them because of the good they do or have done. I have provided a link to the article below, which also points out that Arianism is alive and well, as well as the denial of the personhood of the Holy Spirit.
Evangelicals Favorite Heresies
I do think, however, that this result should not surprise us that much. After all, mainstream Evangelicalism has been severely influenced by humanistic methods and American ideals. The poster boy for Evangelicalism and the methods they use has got to be Charles Grandison Finney. The Mainstream Evangelical Church is held in captivity to many methods that originated with Finney and other preachers like him.
My point is, these Evangelicals believe these things because they are taught certain methods that are used to get people saved. They hear these methods week in and week out from the pulpit.
Functionally, Pelagianism relies heavily on a denial of original sin. the denial of original sin goes hand in hand with another doctrine that is nearly universally taught and assumed in Evangelical circles; the Age of Accountability.
When Evangelicals hear week in and week out that their infants and small children have not reached the Age of Accountability and only then are they responsible to make their own decision for Christ, what should we expect? Do the math. A person is innocent and thus saved until they can apprehend and understand their sin, the Gospel, and so on. And then, to be saved, they must make their own decision to follow Christ.
Where is grace in all of this? According to the Christianity Today poll, 68% of Evangelicals believe that grace is a reward or result of their own decision. We find God, then He helps us out.
Should we be shocked? No. Should we be outraged? Maybe. Should we be upset and saddened by these outright heretical teachings and beliefs? Absolutely.
The point is, they believe this because this is what the methods used teach them to believe. When you hear that you are saved by making a decision, saying a prayer, or coming forward for an altar call, what should we expect? It's all human initiative, and it's all unbiblical at best.
Traditional American values also play into this sort of theology. In America, we love the idea of individualism. We adore the "self-made man." We love to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and create our own destiny. So why not import those ideas in some form into the church?
What can rectify this situation? Well, theologically, Evangelicalism doesn't have the answers to this. This is for a few major reasons.
1. They minimize the Ecumenical Creeds. The Ecumenical Creeds (Apostle's, Nicene, Athanasian) properly read and understood would do away with the Arianism and the denial of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. The shameful Word of Faith and Prosperity movement is a very big reason for the denial of the Spirit's personhood.
2. Their Ecclesiology is weak at best. They do not have a robust doctrine of the office of the ministry. A pastor in Evangelicalism is a hireling. It is not a divine call to preach Christ crucified and properly administer the Sacraments.
3. They do not have any Sacraments. This is a huge one. Evangelicalism rejects that the Sacraments are means of grace; divine gifts that deliver to us Christ the crucified. Where there are no Sacraments, Pelagianism is bound to take over. Where there are no Sacraments, the human will becomes the arbiter of salvation. It's not given to you. Rather, you must take it and appropriate it for yourself by your decision.
The Church catholic has always been creedal, confessional, and sacramental. Without the powerful creative Word working through sound, light, water, bread, and wine, we are left with an idea of grace as a nebulous thing that we get when we choose God. But how can we know we are receiving grace if it is not outside of ourselves and objective?
Thanks be to God, despite the outright Pelagianism and anti-Christian doctrines being taught in American Evangelicalism, God will have the last Word. His Church will be triumphant and He will continue to save people and lead us to everlasting life.
Amen
Showing posts with label Heresy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heresy. Show all posts
11/3/14
12/28/13
False Teaching, Christian Unity, and Theological Liberalism
Christian unity is one whopper of a topic now days. The simple fact of the matter is that much of mainstream Christianity (i.e. American evangelicalism) has thrust the issue of unity upon the entire Church. We ought to be thankful for that, for unity is indeed a big deal. Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in St. John 17 has much to do with unity.
However, as thankful as we should be for the emphasis on unity within the church, I do believe, on Scriptural grounds, that this common attempt at unity is severely misguided and in many ways very theologically liberal, postmodern, and ultimately unbelieving.
It is all too common for the charge to get leveled that Christians who leave a church over doctrine or refuse to accept false teaching in the church as being bad for unity. These people generally get labeled as folks who are splitting the church and are enemies of Christian unity.
Ultimately this accusation is nothing more than theological liberalism with a dash of postmodernism thrown in. This stance ultimately is massively minimalist in their stances, other than they're pretty dogmatic that they're right about being doctrinal minimalists. What do they consider the test of Christian unity? Well, generally, all a person has to do is call themselves a Christian or say they love Jesus. Granted, many churches have statements of faith that they believe, but one needn't be in-line with everything to be a member. That begs the question if they really believe their statement of faith at all.
Should we, as Confessional folks, be in unity with these doctrinal minimalists who demand that we cannot hold our Confessions as standards for unity?
I do not believe so. First of all, what if these persons who affirm they are Christians and love Jesus have some massive and blatantly heretical ideas about Christ. What if these folks outright deny the inerrancy of Scripture? In short, why do postmodern theological liberals get to reduce nearly everything to "secondary issues?" When did Baptism and the Lord's Supper get reduced to secondaries? Why has much of American Evangelicalism followed suit?
Can we be in unity with someone who loves Jesus but denies the Virgin Birth? No.
How about someone who believes Christ was a created being? No.
What about those who deny the efficacy of the Sacraments? No again. This is a big one that gets reduced to secondary.
What about denial of the inerrancy of Scripture? No. This leads to a grab bag. Take what you like and reject the rest.
The list goes on and on and on. And those who separate from churches that tolerate false views are decried as separatists and cancers to the unity of the church.
The bigger question is this: Why aren't these doctrinal minimalists worried at all about false doctrine? Why aren't they worried more about true doctrine? After all, if someone claims to love Jesus, and Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, shouldn't we be precise and cautious about what comes out of our mouths regarding the Crucified King? This should be what we live for. Not some nebulous idea of "love," but Christ. And you know what? Christ is a person and there are specific things about Him that we ought to know.
That brings me to my next point. In Scripture, who are the ones who create disunity? It's not those who earnestly contend for the faith. It's the false teachers. Doctrinal minimalism and acceptance of a plethora of doctrines as secondary won't save you here. Doctrinal minimalism in the name of unity is something that is responsible for disunity. There is no way around that. The other problem is that it was ever tolerated in the church in the first place.
So what should we use as a guide for Christian unity? I would assert that the Church has used the 3 ecumenical creeds for centuries. Can we at least start there? That would eliminate much of the nonsense as acceptable right from the start.
How many churches can affirm the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds? Less than half, I would guess. How many churches can affirm the early church ecumenical councils? I would argue that in this case, far less than half. Why do we throw out all of these Creeds and Councils in the name of unity? These guys knew a lot more than us. We stick them on the back burner and slowly repeat our mantra: We all love Jesus, nothing else matters. Lose your faith, hug your neighbor (and maybe even a tree), and feel the love. It doesn't matter much what you believe, as long as you love Jesus. Unbelieving much?
We seek feelings, and not truth. And if we say differently and challenge false teaching, we get labeled destroyers of unity.
This is completely *against* what Christ's Church has always stood for. God help us.
However, as thankful as we should be for the emphasis on unity within the church, I do believe, on Scriptural grounds, that this common attempt at unity is severely misguided and in many ways very theologically liberal, postmodern, and ultimately unbelieving.
| How about we take a lesson from the early church? |
It is all too common for the charge to get leveled that Christians who leave a church over doctrine or refuse to accept false teaching in the church as being bad for unity. These people generally get labeled as folks who are splitting the church and are enemies of Christian unity.
Ultimately this accusation is nothing more than theological liberalism with a dash of postmodernism thrown in. This stance ultimately is massively minimalist in their stances, other than they're pretty dogmatic that they're right about being doctrinal minimalists. What do they consider the test of Christian unity? Well, generally, all a person has to do is call themselves a Christian or say they love Jesus. Granted, many churches have statements of faith that they believe, but one needn't be in-line with everything to be a member. That begs the question if they really believe their statement of faith at all.
Should we, as Confessional folks, be in unity with these doctrinal minimalists who demand that we cannot hold our Confessions as standards for unity?
I do not believe so. First of all, what if these persons who affirm they are Christians and love Jesus have some massive and blatantly heretical ideas about Christ. What if these folks outright deny the inerrancy of Scripture? In short, why do postmodern theological liberals get to reduce nearly everything to "secondary issues?" When did Baptism and the Lord's Supper get reduced to secondaries? Why has much of American Evangelicalism followed suit?
 |
| Bullcrap |
Can we be in unity with someone who loves Jesus but denies the Virgin Birth? No.
How about someone who believes Christ was a created being? No.
What about those who deny the efficacy of the Sacraments? No again. This is a big one that gets reduced to secondary.
What about denial of the inerrancy of Scripture? No. This leads to a grab bag. Take what you like and reject the rest.
The list goes on and on and on. And those who separate from churches that tolerate false views are decried as separatists and cancers to the unity of the church.
The bigger question is this: Why aren't these doctrinal minimalists worried at all about false doctrine? Why aren't they worried more about true doctrine? After all, if someone claims to love Jesus, and Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, shouldn't we be precise and cautious about what comes out of our mouths regarding the Crucified King? This should be what we live for. Not some nebulous idea of "love," but Christ. And you know what? Christ is a person and there are specific things about Him that we ought to know.
That brings me to my next point. In Scripture, who are the ones who create disunity? It's not those who earnestly contend for the faith. It's the false teachers. Doctrinal minimalism and acceptance of a plethora of doctrines as secondary won't save you here. Doctrinal minimalism in the name of unity is something that is responsible for disunity. There is no way around that. The other problem is that it was ever tolerated in the church in the first place.
So what should we use as a guide for Christian unity? I would assert that the Church has used the 3 ecumenical creeds for centuries. Can we at least start there? That would eliminate much of the nonsense as acceptable right from the start.
How many churches can affirm the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds? Less than half, I would guess. How many churches can affirm the early church ecumenical councils? I would argue that in this case, far less than half. Why do we throw out all of these Creeds and Councils in the name of unity? These guys knew a lot more than us. We stick them on the back burner and slowly repeat our mantra: We all love Jesus, nothing else matters. Lose your faith, hug your neighbor (and maybe even a tree), and feel the love. It doesn't matter much what you believe, as long as you love Jesus. Unbelieving much?
We seek feelings, and not truth. And if we say differently and challenge false teaching, we get labeled destroyers of unity.
This is completely *against* what Christ's Church has always stood for. God help us.
11/13/13
Feel Good Tree Huggin Hibbity Dibbity
What is the purpose of Christianity? What is it about? Who is the central figure?
If you listen to your general run of the mill evangelical testimony now days, Christianity is something vastly different than what Scripture purports it to be.
Not so long ago, I had the privilege of hearing numerous testimonies at a church at which I am not a member. I like hearing testimonies. The majority of them were stories about how their lives have changed due to the ministry of the church. Marriages have been saved, people have been set on a course to financial freedom, and lives have been changed. Other testimonies focused on how good something made them feel, or how they just could feel the Spirit moving. All of that is good, of course. Lord knows He saved my marriage once upon a time, and He continues to uphold us by His hand of providence and grace.
But none of that is really Christianity.
The thing that saddened me is that not once did someone say anything about Christ crucified and the forgiveness of sins. What about the resurrection? Pfft. Not to be found. If an outsider were in attendance, they would without doubt come away from those testimonies thinking that Christianity is a self-help program to get your life on track. But can't they get self-help from the culture around them? Well, yeah, they can. You don't need Christ for that.
If this is the case; that Christianity is something to get your life on track, we're still all dead in our sins. And that's a huge problem of eternal proportions.
If this is the case; that Christianity is something to get your life on track, the best "Christians" out there are the best motivational speakers, psychologists, and shrinks.
If this is the case; that Christianity is something to get your life on track, Dr. Phil, Oprah, and other secular anti-Christian self-help gurus are the new Apostles. Perhaps we might throw Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen into the mix here too, but they're anti-Christian as well.
Nobody wants to hear that they are a wretched sinner. Nobody wants to hear that they can do nothing to save themselves. Nobody wants to hear that Christianity is not a self-help program, because at our core we are sinful selfish beings. Our first question usually is "what's in it for me?" And Christianity ends up with a whole ton of people within the walls of the church who have no clue what Christianity is. This is a horrific shame.
Your quality of life, materially and relationally speaking, might get better as a Christian. But it might get worse. But you're forgiven. God has saved you, is saving you, and will save you. He gives you Himself in the Word, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.
But it's OK, most people surmise. Because, you know, we all believe in Jesus. But which Jesus? Who is He? What has He done? Why, oh why, is the Good News not proclaimed over and over? Why are we not partaking of the Lord's Supper more often?
Reformed author Michael Horton puts it well:
“Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we've never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the Dali Lama, and probably a lot of Christian leaders will tell us that the point of religion is to get us to love each other. "God loves you" doesn't stir the world's opposition. However, start talking about God's absolute authority, holiness, ... Christ's substitutionary atonement, justification apart from works, the necessity of new birth, repentance, baptism, Communion, and the future judgment, and the mood in the room changes considerably.”
Houston, we have a problem. The Church is not doing her job. People believe these self-help messages and feel good testimonies because that is precisely what they have been taught in the church.
People are looking for God in themselves and the change in their lives. But that's not where God is, according to Scripture. He's on the cross, dying for you. He's in the grave. He's risen from the grave for you. He's in His Word, given to you. And He is in His Sacraments; those places where He promises in His Word that He will be.
Christianity is not a religion of how much God changed my life or of how much I am doing for God. It's a religion (And please, please, please don't tell me Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. That's a massive false dichotomy.) of Christ saving you. At Calvary, rising from the grave, in His Word, and in His Sacraments.
Because you...are a sinner. And you need forgiveness continually.
Why don't we hear that at most churches? Because they've exchanged the truth (even though they usually know this truth...it gets brushed under the rug) for some lies. That's why.
If you listen to your general run of the mill evangelical testimony now days, Christianity is something vastly different than what Scripture purports it to be.
Not so long ago, I had the privilege of hearing numerous testimonies at a church at which I am not a member. I like hearing testimonies. The majority of them were stories about how their lives have changed due to the ministry of the church. Marriages have been saved, people have been set on a course to financial freedom, and lives have been changed. Other testimonies focused on how good something made them feel, or how they just could feel the Spirit moving. All of that is good, of course. Lord knows He saved my marriage once upon a time, and He continues to uphold us by His hand of providence and grace.
But none of that is really Christianity.
The thing that saddened me is that not once did someone say anything about Christ crucified and the forgiveness of sins. What about the resurrection? Pfft. Not to be found. If an outsider were in attendance, they would without doubt come away from those testimonies thinking that Christianity is a self-help program to get your life on track. But can't they get self-help from the culture around them? Well, yeah, they can. You don't need Christ for that.
If this is the case; that Christianity is something to get your life on track, we're still all dead in our sins. And that's a huge problem of eternal proportions.
If this is the case; that Christianity is something to get your life on track, the best "Christians" out there are the best motivational speakers, psychologists, and shrinks.
If this is the case; that Christianity is something to get your life on track, Dr. Phil, Oprah, and other secular anti-Christian self-help gurus are the new Apostles. Perhaps we might throw Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen into the mix here too, but they're anti-Christian as well.
Nobody wants to hear that they are a wretched sinner. Nobody wants to hear that they can do nothing to save themselves. Nobody wants to hear that Christianity is not a self-help program, because at our core we are sinful selfish beings. Our first question usually is "what's in it for me?" And Christianity ends up with a whole ton of people within the walls of the church who have no clue what Christianity is. This is a horrific shame.
Your quality of life, materially and relationally speaking, might get better as a Christian. But it might get worse. But you're forgiven. God has saved you, is saving you, and will save you. He gives you Himself in the Word, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.
But it's OK, most people surmise. Because, you know, we all believe in Jesus. But which Jesus? Who is He? What has He done? Why, oh why, is the Good News not proclaimed over and over? Why are we not partaking of the Lord's Supper more often?
 |
| Michael Horton |
Reformed author Michael Horton puts it well:
Houston, we have a problem. The Church is not doing her job. People believe these self-help messages and feel good testimonies because that is precisely what they have been taught in the church.
People are looking for God in themselves and the change in their lives. But that's not where God is, according to Scripture. He's on the cross, dying for you. He's in the grave. He's risen from the grave for you. He's in His Word, given to you. And He is in His Sacraments; those places where He promises in His Word that He will be.
Christianity is not a religion of how much God changed my life or of how much I am doing for God. It's a religion (And please, please, please don't tell me Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. That's a massive false dichotomy.) of Christ saving you. At Calvary, rising from the grave, in His Word, and in His Sacraments.
Because you...are a sinner. And you need forgiveness continually.
Why don't we hear that at most churches? Because they've exchanged the truth (even though they usually know this truth...it gets brushed under the rug) for some lies. That's why.
10/31/13
Reformation Day Isn't Dumb...But Your Post Sure Was...
Reformation Day is dumb. That is the title of a recent blog post over on the patheos network posted by Jonathan Ryan, a former Presbyterian who says:
"As many of you recall, I just resigned my Presbyterian ordination back in April. It was not an “I’m angry at Evangelicals” decision. It was a deeper, more profound reconnection with the Catholicism of my youth. While I’ve not “taken the Tiber plunge” just yet, much of my system of Christian thought is now fully Catholic."
So, from the outset, Mr. Ryan, who describes himself as a novelist, blogger, and columnist, lays out his hand on the table. He's a Roman Catholic, or at the very least, heading in that direction at a very fast rate.
Awesome, fair enough. There are worse places to head to than Rome. Within Rome you will find a high view of Scripture, a high view of grace, and a high view of the Sacraments, even though they have too many of them. :P
Mr. Ryan's blog post can be found here, by the way:
Reformation Day Is Dumb
After Mr. Ryan's introduction, the shenanigans start to fly. He mixes truth with opinion, strawmen, and bait and switch techniques.
"Luther saw (rightly) the rampant corruption in the Papacy, that had become mired in local political intrigue."
So, the author starts by making Luther look like a good guy. He saw the corruption within Rome and wanted to address the issues. The author admits openly that there was rampant corruption within the Papacy at the time. And really, this is not really historically debatable. There was, and Luther confronted it.
The author continues later in the article, saying, "Does this mean that the Protestant Reformers didn’t have a good reason for questioning the Church? No. In fact, as we’ve already discussed, they did."
So then, we have an author who agrees that the Roman Church at the time needed overhaul. So far so good.
It's everything else he writes that is the problem...
Here is where he starts dropping the ball in serious fashion. I quote, "Still, I’m always amazed at how people think Luther was a lone voice in the wilderness. That just isn’t so. Many voices in the church were rising against the sinful practices rampant in the church at the time."
Well, I don't think we would dispute this either, to be honest, not to mention, I don't think many of us think that Luther was a lone voice in the wilderness. Sure, perhaps there are people who think that. But does that mean Reformation Day is dumb? Hardly.
I look in vain through this article to find any reasons the author actually gives as to why Reformation Day is dumb. All I can find is completely unrelated opinions and sloppy argumentation.
The only thing I can find is the typical worn out Roman Catholic argument regarding unity. But this is nothing more than a facade. Unity in what? Allegiance to the Pope? Rome is not as united as they would have us believe.
He quotes a conversation he had with a Protestant pastor friend of his: “You know, I think I’ve got it, celebrating Reformation Day is like celebrating a divorce. Maybe it was necessary, but not something you really build a holiday around. And, I can’t help thinking that God isn’t a huge fan of what happened after the Reformation.”
Ah...I got it now. These guys don't understand what Reformation Day is. Are Mr. Ryan and his friend really that obtuse? Apparently so.
The conclusions and ideas of the author don't make any sense. In short, he twists history in some ways after laying a true historical foundation. That, at best, is shoddy scholarship and misunderstanding, and at worst, is dishonest. In the best case, he should have never posted the blog. In the worst case, he's bearing false witness against his brothers.
"I always find it interesting that my Protestant friends who go on about “The Bible Alone” tend to skip large parts about the passion God has for the unity of His people."
"Jesus dedicates a long prayer to Christian unity and tells the disciples that, “All men will know you’re my disciples by the love you have for one another.”
"The problem is, the Reformers set a torch to an already volatile political situation. The early Reformers didn’t break from the church until the political pressure became too much. All of them did so with great reluctance and with sadness. Certainly, most of them didn’t celebrate it. They knew, deep down, they might have done more damage than good."
These statements reveal his faulty conclusions. What is he trying to tell us here?
1. He is telling us that division for the sake of truth is wrong. Unity is more important, even if that unity pitches some grievous false teachings and massive corruption.
2. Deep down the Reformers knew what they did was wrong and it is nothing to celebrate.
3. Protestants don't take the unity passages of Scripture seriously.
All three of these assumptions and ideas given by the author are completely foolish. The first one, to quote a phrase from the author, is "profoundly unbiblical." Holy Scripture nowhere encourages us to tolerate corruption or false teaching for the sake of unity. If anything, we are to confront it and get rid of it.
The second one is nothing more than a nonsense opinion. The author is telling us that he knows the Reformers knew they were doing something wrong. I don't think the author gets it here. At all. Martin Luther and the other Reformers were not happy about leaving the Roman Church. That's totally not the point. Luther was kicked out by the Pope for challenging corruption. Surely the author knows that. Luther did not want to leave the Church. The Pope did not want to hear what Luther had to say and excommunicated him. They liked their corruption too much, evidently. Johann Tetzel, anyone?
So yeah, let's stop trying to authoritatively peer into the souls of the Reformers and tell us what they were thinking.
The third one is a strawman. Now I will agree that too many Protestants use division as a badge of honor. I will give you that one Mr. Ryan. But speaking for traditional Reformation Churches, I will not concede that at all.
See, we Lutherans (and Reformed) take our Holy Scripture very seriously. We hold it to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God - just like you Romanists do, by the way. We see that there are many truths contained within that are non-negotiable. Why, oh why, would we desire unity over GOD'S truth? Do we desire unity? You bet we do, because Jesus' prayer for unity is part of that truth contained in Holy Scripture.
So what if there were other voices in the Roman Church calling for Reform at the time? The sad fact of the matter is, all of those other voices didn't have the guts to stand up for truth and instead succumbed to corruption and error. Men like Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Zwingli saw truth as greater than false unity around error and corruption. They were the ones who actually took a stand.
But we argue, on Scriptural grounds, that unity must be in the truth. We must be intolerant of false doctrine. We must be intolerant of corruption. And when churches refuse to fix their corruption and false teaching - like medieval Rome - Reform is necessary.
Reformation Day is a celebration of truth, not of division. We rejoice that God worked through Luther and others to bring the truth of His Holy Word to us. We rejoice that God worked through Luther and others to fight the horrible corruption of the time. By the way, in case you've been following, Rome has never repented of their doctrine of indulgences and salvation for sale. You can get one by following the Pope on twitter now. Or so I hear.
We get it man. You don't like Reformation Day. The least you could do is tell that you don't like it because you're a Roman Catholic. That would be fine. But posting an article that argues from a stance of foolishness while trying in vain to hide behind a few historical facts doesn't work. Baiting and switching and then moving on to nothing but opinion and strawmen doesn't work either.
So this Halloween, I'm dressing up as Luther. My wife and all my kids are dressing up as things completely unrelated to the Reformation. And we're going to walk around the 'hood and get us some candy; knowing that we are hid in Christ.
You ought to take the blog down. It's embarrassing to the well-thought Roman Catholics I know. This article, as it is written, is a joke. You're a novelist, blogger, and columnist. Get rid of the clown shoes and the big red nose, be a man, and either take the thing down or rewrite it and make it better. As it reads right now, it's kind of an embarrassment. Surely you know better.
"As many of you recall, I just resigned my Presbyterian ordination back in April. It was not an “I’m angry at Evangelicals” decision. It was a deeper, more profound reconnection with the Catholicism of my youth. While I’ve not “taken the Tiber plunge” just yet, much of my system of Christian thought is now fully Catholic."
So, from the outset, Mr. Ryan, who describes himself as a novelist, blogger, and columnist, lays out his hand on the table. He's a Roman Catholic, or at the very least, heading in that direction at a very fast rate.
Awesome, fair enough. There are worse places to head to than Rome. Within Rome you will find a high view of Scripture, a high view of grace, and a high view of the Sacraments, even though they have too many of them. :P
Mr. Ryan's blog post can be found here, by the way:
Reformation Day Is Dumb
After Mr. Ryan's introduction, the shenanigans start to fly. He mixes truth with opinion, strawmen, and bait and switch techniques.
The Bait...
"Luther saw (rightly) the rampant corruption in the Papacy, that had become mired in local political intrigue."
So, the author starts by making Luther look like a good guy. He saw the corruption within Rome and wanted to address the issues. The author admits openly that there was rampant corruption within the Papacy at the time. And really, this is not really historically debatable. There was, and Luther confronted it.
The author continues later in the article, saying, "Does this mean that the Protestant Reformers didn’t have a good reason for questioning the Church? No. In fact, as we’ve already discussed, they did."
So then, we have an author who agrees that the Roman Church at the time needed overhaul. So far so good.
It's everything else he writes that is the problem...
Nonsense Commences...
Here is where he starts dropping the ball in serious fashion. I quote, "Still, I’m always amazed at how people think Luther was a lone voice in the wilderness. That just isn’t so. Many voices in the church were rising against the sinful practices rampant in the church at the time."
Well, I don't think we would dispute this either, to be honest, not to mention, I don't think many of us think that Luther was a lone voice in the wilderness. Sure, perhaps there are people who think that. But does that mean Reformation Day is dumb? Hardly.
I look in vain through this article to find any reasons the author actually gives as to why Reformation Day is dumb. All I can find is completely unrelated opinions and sloppy argumentation.
The only thing I can find is the typical worn out Roman Catholic argument regarding unity. But this is nothing more than a facade. Unity in what? Allegiance to the Pope? Rome is not as united as they would have us believe.
He quotes a conversation he had with a Protestant pastor friend of his: “You know, I think I’ve got it, celebrating Reformation Day is like celebrating a divorce. Maybe it was necessary, but not something you really build a holiday around. And, I can’t help thinking that God isn’t a huge fan of what happened after the Reformation.”
Ah...I got it now. These guys don't understand what Reformation Day is. Are Mr. Ryan and his friend really that obtuse? Apparently so.
The conclusions and ideas of the author don't make any sense. In short, he twists history in some ways after laying a true historical foundation. That, at best, is shoddy scholarship and misunderstanding, and at worst, is dishonest. In the best case, he should have never posted the blog. In the worst case, he's bearing false witness against his brothers.
"I always find it interesting that my Protestant friends who go on about “The Bible Alone” tend to skip large parts about the passion God has for the unity of His people."
"Jesus dedicates a long prayer to Christian unity and tells the disciples that, “All men will know you’re my disciples by the love you have for one another.”
"The problem is, the Reformers set a torch to an already volatile political situation. The early Reformers didn’t break from the church until the political pressure became too much. All of them did so with great reluctance and with sadness. Certainly, most of them didn’t celebrate it. They knew, deep down, they might have done more damage than good."
These statements reveal his faulty conclusions. What is he trying to tell us here?
1. He is telling us that division for the sake of truth is wrong. Unity is more important, even if that unity pitches some grievous false teachings and massive corruption.
2. Deep down the Reformers knew what they did was wrong and it is nothing to celebrate.
3. Protestants don't take the unity passages of Scripture seriously.
All three of these assumptions and ideas given by the author are completely foolish. The first one, to quote a phrase from the author, is "profoundly unbiblical." Holy Scripture nowhere encourages us to tolerate corruption or false teaching for the sake of unity. If anything, we are to confront it and get rid of it.
The second one is nothing more than a nonsense opinion. The author is telling us that he knows the Reformers knew they were doing something wrong. I don't think the author gets it here. At all. Martin Luther and the other Reformers were not happy about leaving the Roman Church. That's totally not the point. Luther was kicked out by the Pope for challenging corruption. Surely the author knows that. Luther did not want to leave the Church. The Pope did not want to hear what Luther had to say and excommunicated him. They liked their corruption too much, evidently. Johann Tetzel, anyone?
So yeah, let's stop trying to authoritatively peer into the souls of the Reformers and tell us what they were thinking.
The third one is a strawman. Now I will agree that too many Protestants use division as a badge of honor. I will give you that one Mr. Ryan. But speaking for traditional Reformation Churches, I will not concede that at all.
See, we Lutherans (and Reformed) take our Holy Scripture very seriously. We hold it to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God - just like you Romanists do, by the way. We see that there are many truths contained within that are non-negotiable. Why, oh why, would we desire unity over GOD'S truth? Do we desire unity? You bet we do, because Jesus' prayer for unity is part of that truth contained in Holy Scripture.
So what if there were other voices in the Roman Church calling for Reform at the time? The sad fact of the matter is, all of those other voices didn't have the guts to stand up for truth and instead succumbed to corruption and error. Men like Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Zwingli saw truth as greater than false unity around error and corruption. They were the ones who actually took a stand.
But we argue, on Scriptural grounds, that unity must be in the truth. We must be intolerant of false doctrine. We must be intolerant of corruption. And when churches refuse to fix their corruption and false teaching - like medieval Rome - Reform is necessary.
Reformation Day is a celebration of truth, not of division. We rejoice that God worked through Luther and others to bring the truth of His Holy Word to us. We rejoice that God worked through Luther and others to fight the horrible corruption of the time. By the way, in case you've been following, Rome has never repented of their doctrine of indulgences and salvation for sale. You can get one by following the Pope on twitter now. Or so I hear.
We get it man. You don't like Reformation Day. The least you could do is tell that you don't like it because you're a Roman Catholic. That would be fine. But posting an article that argues from a stance of foolishness while trying in vain to hide behind a few historical facts doesn't work. Baiting and switching and then moving on to nothing but opinion and strawmen doesn't work either.So this Halloween, I'm dressing up as Luther. My wife and all my kids are dressing up as things completely unrelated to the Reformation. And we're going to walk around the 'hood and get us some candy; knowing that we are hid in Christ.
You ought to take the blog down. It's embarrassing to the well-thought Roman Catholics I know. This article, as it is written, is a joke. You're a novelist, blogger, and columnist. Get rid of the clown shoes and the big red nose, be a man, and either take the thing down or rewrite it and make it better. As it reads right now, it's kind of an embarrassment. Surely you know better.
10/23/13
Furtick Speaks it into Existence. Wake Up People.
There are a lot of big shot "rock star" pastors these days. A lot of them. There is Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, and Joyce Meyer. Those are four big names and are very easily identified by the majority of orthodox Christian believers as false teachers. Their teachings are pretty obviously false directly on the face of it.
A newer guy on the block who is moving his way up to rock star status in the preaching world is Steven Furtick. You've probably heard of him. He pastors Elevation Church in North Carolina which has well in excess of 10,000 members.
It's not popular now days to criticize anyone for anything. It's viewed as unloving, and truth be told, I'm generally not too concerned with that on the blog. The three of us here tend to stick to Confessional Lutheran stuff. That said, I have a lot of friends outside of Confessional Lutheranism in both the real world and in cyberspace. Furtick is popular - and he is not as obviously heretical as the others.
A recent article has come out regarding Furtick building a 1.7 million dollar home. While I do believe that he may indeed be fleecing the flock and using it for his personal gain here, I am not going to criticize Furtick for having money. Nor am I going to be harsh for Pr. Furtick having a huge church with a ton of members. Heck, I'm happy for the man in that regard. That's not the point of this post.
Rather, I would like to point out some of the things Furtick believes that have come straight from his mouth. He is a Southern Baptist by name, but he really isn't by practice. I will argue here that Pr. Furtick is heading very quickly down the same Word-of-Faith heresy road as the aforementioned Osteen, Dollar, and Meyer. He's certainly not all-in on Word-of-Faith, but he's already accepted one of the major tenets.
Pr. Furtick released a short video that spoke about his rituals that he uses before he preaches. In it, much of Furtick's theology is revealed. And, as you may not expect, it is chock full of Word-of-Faith nonsense. It's not by any stretch of the imagination classical Southern Baptist theology of the Calvinist or Arminian stripe.
Here is the video. Just watch it. The discerning ear will have horns going off continually and red flags flying.
Furtick - Activating Your Faith
However, I would like to specifically address some of the things Pr. Furtick says in the video.
At the 1:19 mark, he begins to describe his "ritual" which he is "superstitious" about. No, I'm not going to pick on those words. That's just how he describes it.
The first thing that should throw up some red flags is that he uses speaking the Word out loud to "activate" different parts of his body. He claims it is very important to speak these words out loud in order to create an atmosphere of God's Word around him. Through this process, Pr. Furtick says that he becomes bold and established, and from God's Word coming from his mouth, his faith is activated.
To keep it short and allow the video and Pr. Furtick's words to speak for themselves, let's just leave it at this: The claims Pr. Furtick is making, that speaking the Word vocally activates faith, builds up an atmosphere around you, and so on, are nothing short of "speak it into existence" theology. This has more in common with metaphysical mind science cults than it does with Christianity. And this is a core doctrine of the anti-Christian Word-of-Faith cult.
This is NOT Christian teaching. This stuff is dangerous. Pr. Steven Furtick is essentially a quasi Word-of-Faith teacher dressed up in Southern Baptist clothes.
This is a soft form of ex nihilo (out of nothing) creation. What's next? Now that our words are little packets of power that speak things into existence, should we now try to speak material things into existence and claim that the Word says we can do that? Wait a second, I think I've heard that before. The problem is, only one guy can create things out of nothing and it's not Pr. Furtick.
His name is YHWH. Ever heard of Him???
A newer guy on the block who is moving his way up to rock star status in the preaching world is Steven Furtick. You've probably heard of him. He pastors Elevation Church in North Carolina which has well in excess of 10,000 members.
 |
| Pr. Steven Furtick |
A recent article has come out regarding Furtick building a 1.7 million dollar home. While I do believe that he may indeed be fleecing the flock and using it for his personal gain here, I am not going to criticize Furtick for having money. Nor am I going to be harsh for Pr. Furtick having a huge church with a ton of members. Heck, I'm happy for the man in that regard. That's not the point of this post.
Rather, I would like to point out some of the things Furtick believes that have come straight from his mouth. He is a Southern Baptist by name, but he really isn't by practice. I will argue here that Pr. Furtick is heading very quickly down the same Word-of-Faith heresy road as the aforementioned Osteen, Dollar, and Meyer. He's certainly not all-in on Word-of-Faith, but he's already accepted one of the major tenets.
Pr. Furtick released a short video that spoke about his rituals that he uses before he preaches. In it, much of Furtick's theology is revealed. And, as you may not expect, it is chock full of Word-of-Faith nonsense. It's not by any stretch of the imagination classical Southern Baptist theology of the Calvinist or Arminian stripe.
Here is the video. Just watch it. The discerning ear will have horns going off continually and red flags flying.
Furtick - Activating Your Faith
However, I would like to specifically address some of the things Pr. Furtick says in the video.
At the 1:19 mark, he begins to describe his "ritual" which he is "superstitious" about. No, I'm not going to pick on those words. That's just how he describes it.
The first thing that should throw up some red flags is that he uses speaking the Word out loud to "activate" different parts of his body. He claims it is very important to speak these words out loud in order to create an atmosphere of God's Word around him. Through this process, Pr. Furtick says that he becomes bold and established, and from God's Word coming from his mouth, his faith is activated.
To keep it short and allow the video and Pr. Furtick's words to speak for themselves, let's just leave it at this: The claims Pr. Furtick is making, that speaking the Word vocally activates faith, builds up an atmosphere around you, and so on, are nothing short of "speak it into existence" theology. This has more in common with metaphysical mind science cults than it does with Christianity. And this is a core doctrine of the anti-Christian Word-of-Faith cult.
This is NOT Christian teaching. This stuff is dangerous. Pr. Steven Furtick is essentially a quasi Word-of-Faith teacher dressed up in Southern Baptist clothes.
This is a soft form of ex nihilo (out of nothing) creation. What's next? Now that our words are little packets of power that speak things into existence, should we now try to speak material things into existence and claim that the Word says we can do that? Wait a second, I think I've heard that before. The problem is, only one guy can create things out of nothing and it's not Pr. Furtick.
His name is YHWH. Ever heard of Him???
10/11/13
Directly Proportional Theology
Jesus Christ is the center of everything in Christianity. No orthodox Christian body denies that. But lurking at the very beginning of the history of mankind are things like the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, Satan's deception, the fall of man, and original sin.
It is no surprise to this ramblin' man that views on original sin and the fall of man are directly proportional to soteriology. How we view the fall of man has a direct effect on the view we have of mankind in general. Likewise, it also has a direct effect on how we view salvation.
Original sin can be a tricky topic. There are some who outright deny it. This is heretical, of course. There are others who affirm it but not in its fulness. And there are yet others who hold the orthodox doctrine of it. So, we can group doctrines of original sin into these three divisions. We could assuredly come up with even smaller divisions if we wanted to, but these will suffice for us.
The first group we have are those who deny original sin. Pelagians are famous for this. Yet, we also have some folks in the postmodern Emergent Church movement who also deny it. Open (free will) theists don't by necessity deny it, but some do. Emergent Church pastor Tony Jones once quipped, "Original sin is a depraved idea." He thus dismisses original sin and the doctrine of depravity in one fell swoop.
Proponents of this view would assert that humans are born good and innocent. To put it another way, they are born in the same state as Adam was created in the Garden of Eden. This is to say, we are born good and then later learn to sin and choose to sin based on the negative influences around us.
It shouldn't surprise us then, that these proponents also are very weak on their view of God's grace. In Pelagianism, grace is nice, grace is helpful, but it's not necessary. One created innocent and sinless can attain salvation all by himself by perfect obedience. This is at least a possibility in Pelagianism, even if they would admit that it is not a practical reality.
Deniers of original sin tend to be very heavy on choices, works, and so on. In short, they're very synergistic at best. Their soteriology is dependent more so on their choices than it is on God's grace. After all, with their low view of original sin comes with it a high view of mankind. This makes sense in the grand scheme of things.
Sitting in the middle of things on this topic are bodies like the Eastern Orthodox Churches. They affirm original sin, but have a shallow view of it. Original sin, to them, is nothing more than the inherent desire for man to sin. In other words, you're still born sinless, but you have a nature that will lead you to sin sometime down the road.
Another way of saying this is that original sin does not convey guilt. Only actual sin does that. This means that infants, while properly sinful in nature, are still innocent because they have not yet acted on that.
The Orthodox Churches baptise infants, but it's not to forgive them of anything, because they have nothing to be forgiven of. It's rather to raise them in righteousness and give them Christ. All well and good, but that leads these churches as well to be very synergistic too. They properly insist on the necessity of the grace of God, but they also insist on our cooperation with it in order to be saved. After all, we don't have to act on that sinful nature and we're capable of cooperation with God in order to be saved.
The final group are bodies that fully affirm original sin; such as the Calvinists and the Lutherans. We affirm that original sin has corrupted the whole person: body, mind, and will. We are guilty in front of God by Adam's sin alone. In short, we are conceived as sinners, we are born as sinners, and we are sinners.
The indwelling sinfulness that we are conceived and born into is enough to condemn us. Infants too, are guilty, because they are what they are. And what they are is sinners.
Because of our sinfulness, we are at enmity with God. We are by nature haters of God. He is the Light and we love the darkness. For this reason, theologies that fully affirm original sin tend to be monergistic. Our sinful nature will never even desire to cooperate with God or choose Christ. Thus, God chooses us. He comes to us in grace and saves us by Himself alone. The only thing we can do in this process is reject Him. The Old Adam still wars against God, even in the justified person. The great baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon once said: "It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies which have arisen in the Christian
Church have had a decided tendency to dishonor God and to flatter man."
And that's just it. We get original sin wrong, and we end up flattering ourselves. We end up thinking we are capable of much more than we are in front of God. We attribute less to God and more to ourselves. The theological end game of this is Pelagianism and/or Open Theism. We deny original sin, we demand our right to earn things in front of God, we love our selves, and ultimately we make so much of ourselves that we start to denigrate God. First we reject the necessity and saving nature of His grace alone, then we progress to the point where He doesn't even know the future in order to protect our greatest attribute: our free will. Or so we think.
Original sin is a non-negotiable. Denial of it leads to a point that isn't even Christian. It's humanism masquerading as theology that throws the name of Jesus around sometimes.
So get it right. Original sin is true. It exists. You are a sinner, and as such, you are completely dependent upon God's grace. Thankfully, God has told us how He comes to us in grace and gives us this grace. It's found in Word and Sacrament.
Thanks be to God.
It is no surprise to this ramblin' man that views on original sin and the fall of man are directly proportional to soteriology. How we view the fall of man has a direct effect on the view we have of mankind in general. Likewise, it also has a direct effect on how we view salvation.
 |
| Tony Jones |
The first group we have are those who deny original sin. Pelagians are famous for this. Yet, we also have some folks in the postmodern Emergent Church movement who also deny it. Open (free will) theists don't by necessity deny it, but some do. Emergent Church pastor Tony Jones once quipped, "Original sin is a depraved idea." He thus dismisses original sin and the doctrine of depravity in one fell swoop.
Proponents of this view would assert that humans are born good and innocent. To put it another way, they are born in the same state as Adam was created in the Garden of Eden. This is to say, we are born good and then later learn to sin and choose to sin based on the negative influences around us.
It shouldn't surprise us then, that these proponents also are very weak on their view of God's grace. In Pelagianism, grace is nice, grace is helpful, but it's not necessary. One created innocent and sinless can attain salvation all by himself by perfect obedience. This is at least a possibility in Pelagianism, even if they would admit that it is not a practical reality.
Deniers of original sin tend to be very heavy on choices, works, and so on. In short, they're very synergistic at best. Their soteriology is dependent more so on their choices than it is on God's grace. After all, with their low view of original sin comes with it a high view of mankind. This makes sense in the grand scheme of things.
Sitting in the middle of things on this topic are bodies like the Eastern Orthodox Churches. They affirm original sin, but have a shallow view of it. Original sin, to them, is nothing more than the inherent desire for man to sin. In other words, you're still born sinless, but you have a nature that will lead you to sin sometime down the road.
Another way of saying this is that original sin does not convey guilt. Only actual sin does that. This means that infants, while properly sinful in nature, are still innocent because they have not yet acted on that.
The Orthodox Churches baptise infants, but it's not to forgive them of anything, because they have nothing to be forgiven of. It's rather to raise them in righteousness and give them Christ. All well and good, but that leads these churches as well to be very synergistic too. They properly insist on the necessity of the grace of God, but they also insist on our cooperation with it in order to be saved. After all, we don't have to act on that sinful nature and we're capable of cooperation with God in order to be saved.
The final group are bodies that fully affirm original sin; such as the Calvinists and the Lutherans. We affirm that original sin has corrupted the whole person: body, mind, and will. We are guilty in front of God by Adam's sin alone. In short, we are conceived as sinners, we are born as sinners, and we are sinners.
The indwelling sinfulness that we are conceived and born into is enough to condemn us. Infants too, are guilty, because they are what they are. And what they are is sinners.
| Spurgeon |
And that's just it. We get original sin wrong, and we end up flattering ourselves. We end up thinking we are capable of much more than we are in front of God. We attribute less to God and more to ourselves. The theological end game of this is Pelagianism and/or Open Theism. We deny original sin, we demand our right to earn things in front of God, we love our selves, and ultimately we make so much of ourselves that we start to denigrate God. First we reject the necessity and saving nature of His grace alone, then we progress to the point where He doesn't even know the future in order to protect our greatest attribute: our free will. Or so we think.
Original sin is a non-negotiable. Denial of it leads to a point that isn't even Christian. It's humanism masquerading as theology that throws the name of Jesus around sometimes.
So get it right. Original sin is true. It exists. You are a sinner, and as such, you are completely dependent upon God's grace. Thankfully, God has told us how He comes to us in grace and gives us this grace. It's found in Word and Sacrament.
Thanks be to God.
10/9/13
If Ur Theology ______ You Might Be A __________
The Church is a hospital for sinners. That is true. The Church is the place where Word and Sacrament are preached and administered, and those are things that you need. Sadly, nowadays, especially in light of our egalitarian and postmodern society, there are some downright wrong ideas of the Church out there. At the very least, there are ideas that throw the baby out with the bathwater.
One such problem running rampant these days is a severe lack of a doctrine of the Office of the Ministry, which leads to a denial of any sort of structure within the Church and finally to self-sufficient worship where there are no means of grace present, no pastors, and no authority. I refer to modern House Church movements mainly.
It is true that local churches met in houses in the first century. However, what is also true is that those first century house churches were nothing like what people are trying to bring back today. They generally met in very large houses that accomodated many people. It wasn't four people sitting around whipping up an emotional atmosphere with an acoustic guitar. It wasn't unstructured anti-liturgical spontaneous combustion either.
The worst theological book I have ever read, Pagan Christianity by Viola and Barna, argued for these sorts of things. Their arguments were extremely faulty for the most part. In essence, some of their argumentation went sort of like this:
The underlying problem with all of this is that this movement does not have any sort of doctrine of the Office of the Ministry. They use the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers quite incorrectly in order to do away with structure within the church and offices within the church. They generally think ordination is a scam as well.
But, this is precisely what Christ Himself instituted. He brought a Kingdom, of which He is the King. He also sent officers to do His work within that Kingdom. He sent Apostles first and then the Apostles sent more people. We have pastors, for instance. The Roman Catholic Church has priests. The bottom line is that the Church needs officers. The Church needs overseers. The Church needs pastors, elders, and deacons. Christ instituted offices. He did not institute a spontaneous free-for-all.
This is not about equality. We're all equal in Christ. It's about what Jesus Christ Himself gave us.
These officers are ordained and commissioned to do Christ's work, to deliver Christ to a sinful world via His Word, given to us in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.
Yes, the Greek word used for church in the New Testament (and the Septuagint) means an assembly, more or less. The House Church proponents once again abuse the meaning of this word to flaunt their self-sufficient agenda. In short, they use the definition of the Greek word for church and eliminate everything that comes with that term. It's just an assembly of believers, they say. And again, that's true. But within that assembly of believers, Christ gave us the Office of the Ministry.
So, if you are running away from the Church as Kingdom of believers that includes offices of leadership, you're running in the wrong direction. The Church is an assembly, but it's also an institution. Christ Himself gave us men to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. He didn't set up a House Church with no leadership and a heavy dose of spontaneity.
If you're running away from the Church as both assembly of saints and institution of grace with clear leadership and confessions - and running to a house church instead - you're actually running away from Christ and what He gave us.
You're not "doing church." Your version of church isn't more authentic or more real. It's actually false, prideful, and unbelieving. In reality, you're playing church much like little girls play tea parties with empty plastic cups. There is no substance. There is no leadership. You have no Sacrament. There is absolutely nothing except yourself to guard against heresy.
You got nothing, yo. It's nothing more than a version of me, myself, and I Christianity. They love Jesus, but they don't love what He gave us. They love their Father in heaven, but they despise their mother that Christ gave them here to give them grace and guide them to eternity.
Don't get me wrong here either. I am in no way against house worship and family worship. I'm not against small groups. I'm not against meeting together to pray and read the Scriptures as often as possible. But Max and his acoustic is not a means of grace, either.
But those things are not the church catholic. You need to go to that place, usually held in a building, that delivers Word and Sacrament to you. Stop despising Christ's gifts to you just because you don't like corporate worship and think you can do it better yourself. You can't, and what you are doing is not church.
So yeah...If Ur Theology says you should run away from that mother the Church that Christ gave you, that hospital for sinners and that embassy of grace via Word and Sacrament through the Office of the Ministry, given for you to deliver the forgiveness of sins...
You might be a pagan yourself, because what you're passing off as church is a form of unbelief.
House Churches in the modern day form are nothing more than rebellions against what Christ Himself gave us, and Viola and Barna's book Pagan Christianity is the epitome of this rant against what Christ instituted. Don't be fooled by a couple guys with an agenda. Get to church.
One such problem running rampant these days is a severe lack of a doctrine of the Office of the Ministry, which leads to a denial of any sort of structure within the Church and finally to self-sufficient worship where there are no means of grace present, no pastors, and no authority. I refer to modern House Church movements mainly.
It is true that local churches met in houses in the first century. However, what is also true is that those first century house churches were nothing like what people are trying to bring back today. They generally met in very large houses that accomodated many people. It wasn't four people sitting around whipping up an emotional atmosphere with an acoustic guitar. It wasn't unstructured anti-liturgical spontaneous combustion either.
The worst theological book I have ever read, Pagan Christianity by Viola and Barna, argued for these sorts of things. Their arguments were extremely faulty for the most part. In essence, some of their argumentation went sort of like this:- The Early Church met in houses.
- We meet in buildings specifically for "church."
- Therefore, buildings for church are pagan because we're not meeting in houses.
The underlying problem with all of this is that this movement does not have any sort of doctrine of the Office of the Ministry. They use the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers quite incorrectly in order to do away with structure within the church and offices within the church. They generally think ordination is a scam as well.
But, this is precisely what Christ Himself instituted. He brought a Kingdom, of which He is the King. He also sent officers to do His work within that Kingdom. He sent Apostles first and then the Apostles sent more people. We have pastors, for instance. The Roman Catholic Church has priests. The bottom line is that the Church needs officers. The Church needs overseers. The Church needs pastors, elders, and deacons. Christ instituted offices. He did not institute a spontaneous free-for-all.
This is not about equality. We're all equal in Christ. It's about what Jesus Christ Himself gave us.
These officers are ordained and commissioned to do Christ's work, to deliver Christ to a sinful world via His Word, given to us in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.
Yes, the Greek word used for church in the New Testament (and the Septuagint) means an assembly, more or less. The House Church proponents once again abuse the meaning of this word to flaunt their self-sufficient agenda. In short, they use the definition of the Greek word for church and eliminate everything that comes with that term. It's just an assembly of believers, they say. And again, that's true. But within that assembly of believers, Christ gave us the Office of the Ministry.
 |
| Looks like fun, but this aint church. |
So, if you are running away from the Church as Kingdom of believers that includes offices of leadership, you're running in the wrong direction. The Church is an assembly, but it's also an institution. Christ Himself gave us men to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. He didn't set up a House Church with no leadership and a heavy dose of spontaneity.
If you're running away from the Church as both assembly of saints and institution of grace with clear leadership and confessions - and running to a house church instead - you're actually running away from Christ and what He gave us.
You're not "doing church." Your version of church isn't more authentic or more real. It's actually false, prideful, and unbelieving. In reality, you're playing church much like little girls play tea parties with empty plastic cups. There is no substance. There is no leadership. You have no Sacrament. There is absolutely nothing except yourself to guard against heresy.
You got nothing, yo. It's nothing more than a version of me, myself, and I Christianity. They love Jesus, but they don't love what He gave us. They love their Father in heaven, but they despise their mother that Christ gave them here to give them grace and guide them to eternity.
Don't get me wrong here either. I am in no way against house worship and family worship. I'm not against small groups. I'm not against meeting together to pray and read the Scriptures as often as possible. But Max and his acoustic is not a means of grace, either.
 |
| Don't run from the Church, silly. |
So yeah...If Ur Theology says you should run away from that mother the Church that Christ gave you, that hospital for sinners and that embassy of grace via Word and Sacrament through the Office of the Ministry, given for you to deliver the forgiveness of sins...
You might be a pagan yourself, because what you're passing off as church is a form of unbelief.
House Churches in the modern day form are nothing more than rebellions against what Christ Himself gave us, and Viola and Barna's book Pagan Christianity is the epitome of this rant against what Christ instituted. Don't be fooled by a couple guys with an agenda. Get to church.
10/7/13
No Nestorianism Allowed
Omnipresence. It's a big word that means something rather important in Christian Theology. To summarize the term and give it a definition, we will consult a dictionary reference, which will suffice.
But beyond this simple definition, the disagreements start to fly. The next question that pops up is: HOW is Christ omnipresent? I think, if we simply keep our Christology orthodox, we can answer this one. The best treatment of these issues can be found at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Hence, these folks, when speaking about the Lord's Supper, may opine that Christ is spiritually present in the sacrament, but His body is in glory. Therefore, we partake of Christ according to His divinity in the sacrament. Or, better yet, we partake of Christ bodily in the sacrament, but only because the Spirit of Christ lifts us up in faith to the throne room of God to partake of the body and blood of Christ, who is there and not here.
om·ni·pres·ent [om-nuh-prez-uhnt] adjective; present everywhere at the same time: the omnipresent God. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/omnipresent)
In Christian Theology, the first thing we have to answer is if God is omnipresent. The answer from Holy Scripture is clearly yes. (1Ki 8:27; Ps 113:5; 123:1; 139:8; Jer 23:23-24; Mat 6:9; 18:20; Rom 8:9; 10:6-7; 1Co 1:27; Eph 2:22)
So, from Scripture, God is indeed omnipresent. He fills the heavens and the earth; He is in our midst when we are gathered in His name, and so on. Our God is omnipresent. You cannot hide from Him nor escape from Him.
So, having established that, let's move on to the Triune God; or as commonly formulated: The Trinity, consisting of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
So, having established that the omnipresence of God is indeed a Christian belief and doctrine, let us turn our gaze to the three persons of the Trinity. If God is omnipresent, is the Father omnipresent? Clearly, the answer is yes, since the Father is God. What about the Holy Spirit? If He omnipresent? Once again, since the Holy Spirit is God, the answer is yes.
What about Jesus Christ, the Son? Is He omnipresent? Well, if we affirm the deity of Christ, this answer should be a no-brainer. Of course He is omnipresent. Yet, here is where we run into problems historically. The orthodox Christian teaching has always been that Christ is omnipresent. There is no question about that. Likewise, I do think it is affirmed across the board that since Christ is God, He is omnipresent. I would not dispute that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Baptists would all affirm that. Jesus Christ is omnipresent.
But beyond this simple definition, the disagreements start to fly. The next question that pops up is: HOW is Christ omnipresent? I think, if we simply keep our Christology orthodox, we can answer this one. The best treatment of these issues can be found at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Christ is God, we affirm this along with every other Trinitarian Christian group. Yet, some Christian groups have some big errors when giving as answer to how Christ is omnipresent. The most prevalent error that is still extremely common today is called Nestorianism. This ancient (and modern!) heresy holds that the two natures of Christ, divine and human, are only loosely related, and can be separated, but never mixed.
How does this relate to omnipresence of Christ? Well, generally this comes up when we talk about the Lord's Supper. One person might say: Well, Christ ascended to heaven, therefore He is in heaven alone and nowhere else. Clearly, this is actually a denial of the omnipresence of Christ, but it is not necessarily Nestorian. Proponents of this view would thus take a very memorialist view of the Lord's Supper, saying that the bread and wine are only metaphorical or figurative. Christ is not present in the sacrament because Christ is not with us; He is in heaven.
Another person may say: Christ is omnipresent according to His divinity but not according to His humanity. He ascended and thus the man Christ is in heaven at the right hand of God. But He is still God, so His divinity is omnipresent. This is very Nestorian, whether the person intends to be or not. For Christ to be present according to His divinity but not His humanity, you necessarily need to split the natures of Christ.
| This IS My body |
Of course, the biggest historical proponent of this view was John Calvin. Personally, I don't think Calvin intended to be Nestorian in this regard. Calvin was a serious student of Holy Scripture who simply desired to reckon with two things in the Eucharist: The real presence of Christ and the Ascension of Christ. I appreciate Calvin's desire to be faithful to Scripture here, but he ended up with a faulty conclusion.
The problem is that the Ascension of Christ does not make Christ confined to heaven. He is still God and therefore is still omnipresent, which Calvin affirms, of course. However, in order to account for the Ascension, Calvin ends up splitting the natures of Christ in his doctrine of the Lord's Supper. 17th century Reformed theologians put forth the phrase and idea "Finitum non capax infiniti." Or, in English: The Finite Cannot Contain the Infinite. This, of course, is in regards to the Eucharist.
But, here is the problem. It's false. If you stretch that idea too far, you end up denying the Incarnation of Christ. I mean, Christ is a man, right? Men are finite, right? Christ is God too, right? So the finite can contain the infinite. Christ is still Christ. Christ is still God.
So then when Christ says "This is My body" and "This is My blood," we should simply take Him at His Word here. He is God. He is omnipresent. He is both fully God and fully man. Thus, the full Christ is present in the sacrament. The God man is there amongst us, bodily. To separate the body of Christ from the divinity of Christ, well, that is Nestorianism. And we shouldn't go there. It's heretical, per Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451).
To affirm that Christ is not present in the sacrament either due to a memorialist view or a view that lifts us to heaven to partake in faith is akin to saying "this is NOT My body."
So Christ is God and is omnipresent. Objections that He cannot be present in the sacrament are both foolish and erroneous. Uh, He's the Son of God and stuff. He can be present wherever He wants to be.
Especially if He said so.
So Christ is God and is omnipresent. Objections that He cannot be present in the sacrament are both foolish and erroneous. Uh, He's the Son of God and stuff. He can be present wherever He wants to be.
Especially if He said so.
9/25/13
False Dichotomous Smoking Devices
This morning I was blessed, fascinated, saddened to come across yet another theologically liberal Emergent blog. I'm sort of a glutton for punishment in this regard. I follow things like this because I like to see what some of these folks in these strains of left-wing theology are saying. The blog I found today was nothing more than a quote from a book by John A. Sanford. I have always been of the opinion that it is best to keep up on what others are saying and teaching who are outside of my main group of people and influence. Of course, in this case, that would be things outside of Confessional Lutheranism. I am a Confessional Lutheran by choice, of course, and that means I am unashamed to hold to the teachings and doctrines laid out in Scripture and summarized by the Lutheran Confessions, namely, the Book of Concord.
I'm not a Lutheran pastor, so I'm going to keep my hat out of the ring on the latest big thing running through online Lutheran circles: paedocommunion. So, I'll just say that I am not in favor of paedocommunion because I think the Confessions don't allow for it. I think guys like Todd Wilken are in the right on this one, and Mr. Wilken has been very vocal and critical of the paedocommunion advocates lately on facebook and over at his blog The Bare Bulb. It's best to let our clergy sort these things out. And that's that.
But I came across the Emergent Village Voice blog at Patheos this morning and found this absolute gem of a quote.
The problem is not that Paul is such a bad person, but that he was an historically conditioned personality who, however inspired he might have been in certain respects, did not go beyond the prevailing collective opinions with regard to the psychological problem of the persona and the Shadow. Jesus was sufficiently conscious that he was able to transcend the collective thinking of his time. Paul was not able to do this. It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admonitions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus in this regard. But that was inevitable. Given the general level of consciousness of the Church, it was certain that the teachings of Jesus would be disregarded, and the words of Paul would be followed, for this is where people were at that time. Nevertheless it is unfortunate for a great deal of psychological damage could have been avoided had the teachings of Jesus been followed with regard to the dynamics of human personality." (John A. Sanford, Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality, pp. 75-76.)
Patheos, Emergent Village - Jesus vs. Paul
The link to the blog where I found the quote is given above. This short quote actually contains a lot of information that tells us about the errors of the Emergent Church "conversation," as they like to call it.
1. "The problem is not that Paul is such a bad person, but that he was an historically conditioned personality..."
The opening statement of the quote conveys one of the Emergent presuppositions that is in error. They read the bible through culture. What I mean by this is that instead of Scripture being God's Word then as it is now and will be forever, it's more of a culturally conditioned document that we are allowed to update to conform to what our culture's values are today. So, they would argue that St. Paul wrote in a specifically Jewish culture then, but we're not in that culture anymore. So there are many statements in St. Paul that are not true for us today; such as St. Paul's very clear complimentarian stance regarding the roles of men and women. Things are different in our culture they say, so we are free to take an egalitarian stance on the topic.
2. "It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admonitions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus..."
Here is another whopper of a statement. The author argues in essence that Christ was able to transcend culture but St. Paul was stuck in his. Therefore, what Jesus taught and what St. Paul taught were different and even opposed to one another.
Here we have a major false dichotomy implied in this statement. Do you see it? It's all over the quote from Sanford's book.
Sanford argues that Christ transcended culture and St. Paul didn't; therefore, St. Paul taught things very different from Jesus Christ, and we need to be following what Jesus said -the red letters- and not what St. Paul said.
But this is false. It forces a false choice. There are other options here. How about the fact that St. Paul was the chosen Apostle of Christ to the Gentiles (Acts 9, anyone?) and that St. Paul's epistles accurately and properly interpret the words of Christ?
St. Paul didn't change the teachings of Christ, nor did he teach something different. He expounded on them accurately and properly. So when Sanford says that "It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admontions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus" he is erecting a strawman and a false dilemma. The answer is: Yes, both. We follow the teachings of Jesus and of St. Paul, precisely because they are in the same ballpark. St. Paul accurately and properly gives us doctrine, just like Jesus did. They're not opposed at all.
3. The entire statement denies the inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration, and authority of Scripture.
In short, the author is claiming that St. Paul is just plain wrong sometimes. Jesus transcended culture and St. Paul didn't. And the church is in error to follow the teachings of St. Paul over against the teachings of Christ. So, St. Paul is wrong, pretty much. He may have been right in that culture, but he's not anymore.
The statement actually calls into question the entire Scriptures. If St. Paul is in error, so is St. Peter. After all, St. Peter called St. Paul's epistles Scripture (2Pet 3:16). And if St. Paul and St. Peter got all sorts of things wrong and couldn't transcend culture, then how do we know that St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John didn't do the exact same thing? You know, they wrote the Gospels where we read most of what Christ said. So why not say the authors of the Gospels were culturally conditioned too and they were wrong?
In short, why believe anything in Scripture at all? Why not say the whole thing is culturally conditioned and can be rejected and/or tweaked to fit what our culture says is correct now days, including the red letter words of Christ, which were recorded and written by culturally conditioned men?
So stop playing Jesus vs. St. Paul Emergents. Stop the false dichotomies. The whole argument betrays what you really think about Scripture and Christ as well. You may say you love Jesus, but the Jesus you love is an invention because you ultimately reject the authority of the Holy Scriptures that tell us about Him and are given to us by inspiration.
Your foolish statement proves way too much, as it were. It's a joke.
Put that in your false dichotomous pipe and smoke it.
I'm not a Lutheran pastor, so I'm going to keep my hat out of the ring on the latest big thing running through online Lutheran circles: paedocommunion. So, I'll just say that I am not in favor of paedocommunion because I think the Confessions don't allow for it. I think guys like Todd Wilken are in the right on this one, and Mr. Wilken has been very vocal and critical of the paedocommunion advocates lately on facebook and over at his blog The Bare Bulb. It's best to let our clergy sort these things out. And that's that.
But I came across the Emergent Village Voice blog at Patheos this morning and found this absolute gem of a quote.
The problem is not that Paul is such a bad person, but that he was an historically conditioned personality who, however inspired he might have been in certain respects, did not go beyond the prevailing collective opinions with regard to the psychological problem of the persona and the Shadow. Jesus was sufficiently conscious that he was able to transcend the collective thinking of his time. Paul was not able to do this. It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admonitions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus in this regard. But that was inevitable. Given the general level of consciousness of the Church, it was certain that the teachings of Jesus would be disregarded, and the words of Paul would be followed, for this is where people were at that time. Nevertheless it is unfortunate for a great deal of psychological damage could have been avoided had the teachings of Jesus been followed with regard to the dynamics of human personality." (John A. Sanford, Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality, pp. 75-76.)
Patheos, Emergent Village - Jesus vs. Paul
The link to the blog where I found the quote is given above. This short quote actually contains a lot of information that tells us about the errors of the Emergent Church "conversation," as they like to call it.
1. "The problem is not that Paul is such a bad person, but that he was an historically conditioned personality..."
The opening statement of the quote conveys one of the Emergent presuppositions that is in error. They read the bible through culture. What I mean by this is that instead of Scripture being God's Word then as it is now and will be forever, it's more of a culturally conditioned document that we are allowed to update to conform to what our culture's values are today. So, they would argue that St. Paul wrote in a specifically Jewish culture then, but we're not in that culture anymore. So there are many statements in St. Paul that are not true for us today; such as St. Paul's very clear complimentarian stance regarding the roles of men and women. Things are different in our culture they say, so we are free to take an egalitarian stance on the topic.
2. "It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admonitions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus..."
Here is another whopper of a statement. The author argues in essence that Christ was able to transcend culture but St. Paul was stuck in his. Therefore, what Jesus taught and what St. Paul taught were different and even opposed to one another.
Here we have a major false dichotomy implied in this statement. Do you see it? It's all over the quote from Sanford's book.
Sanford argues that Christ transcended culture and St. Paul didn't; therefore, St. Paul taught things very different from Jesus Christ, and we need to be following what Jesus said -the red letters- and not what St. Paul said.
But this is false. It forces a false choice. There are other options here. How about the fact that St. Paul was the chosen Apostle of Christ to the Gentiles (Acts 9, anyone?) and that St. Paul's epistles accurately and properly interpret the words of Christ?
St. Paul didn't change the teachings of Christ, nor did he teach something different. He expounded on them accurately and properly. So when Sanford says that "It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admontions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus" he is erecting a strawman and a false dilemma. The answer is: Yes, both. We follow the teachings of Jesus and of St. Paul, precisely because they are in the same ballpark. St. Paul accurately and properly gives us doctrine, just like Jesus did. They're not opposed at all.
3. The entire statement denies the inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration, and authority of Scripture.
In short, the author is claiming that St. Paul is just plain wrong sometimes. Jesus transcended culture and St. Paul didn't. And the church is in error to follow the teachings of St. Paul over against the teachings of Christ. So, St. Paul is wrong, pretty much. He may have been right in that culture, but he's not anymore.
The statement actually calls into question the entire Scriptures. If St. Paul is in error, so is St. Peter. After all, St. Peter called St. Paul's epistles Scripture (2Pet 3:16). And if St. Paul and St. Peter got all sorts of things wrong and couldn't transcend culture, then how do we know that St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John didn't do the exact same thing? You know, they wrote the Gospels where we read most of what Christ said. So why not say the authors of the Gospels were culturally conditioned too and they were wrong?
In short, why believe anything in Scripture at all? Why not say the whole thing is culturally conditioned and can be rejected and/or tweaked to fit what our culture says is correct now days, including the red letter words of Christ, which were recorded and written by culturally conditioned men?
So stop playing Jesus vs. St. Paul Emergents. Stop the false dichotomies. The whole argument betrays what you really think about Scripture and Christ as well. You may say you love Jesus, but the Jesus you love is an invention because you ultimately reject the authority of the Holy Scriptures that tell us about Him and are given to us by inspiration.Your foolish statement proves way too much, as it were. It's a joke.
Put that in your false dichotomous pipe and smoke it.
9/20/13
AA is For Denial
A Confessional Lutheran blog about AA!!! What is the world coming to? But wait, isn't AA for people that aren't in denial anymore and have come to the realization that they are alcoholics?
OK, OK...AA doesn't stand for Alcoholics Anonymous in this instance. Here it stands for the Age of Accountability.
The Age of Accountability is a doctrine commonly found in baptist churches, or at least in baptist-type churches. The doctrine essentially states that a child or infant is guaranteed heaven due to innocence until they are old enough to understand who Christ is and make a decision one way or the other. Or, in more Calvinistic versions of this, the infant is saved by grace alone until they are old enough to make a choice to reject Christ. Therefore, all infants and children who die before the age of accountability are elect.
This doctrine sounds awesome. It really does. I would love to think that every single infant and child dying at a very young age is automatically elect and inherits the Kingdom. And I even hold out hope that they are elect and do inherit the Kingdom.
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| Baptism is for you and your children. And forgives sins. Acts 2:38 |
The first core Christian doctrine that the Age of Accountability denies is original sin.
The Augsburg Confession speaks to original sin in this way:
Augsburg Confession, II, 1-3
1 Also they teach that since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with 2 concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost.
3 They condemn the Pelagians and others who deny that original depravity is sin, and who, to obscure the glory of Christ's merit and benefits, argue that man can be justified before God by his own strength and reason.
This is to say, that all humanity is conceived and born sinful and that original sin is something that makes us guilty. We are guilty in front of God because we are sinners.
This orthodox and catholic doctrine of original sin does not mesh with any sort of age of accountability doctrine. Yeah, pretty much not at all.
The age of accountability says young children (and the mentally infirm, I should add) who cannot yet understand who Christ is and cannot thus make a decision are innocent. Original sin says not so. These two doctrines cannot coexist. One is true, the other is false.
This doctrine also denies the depravity of man. Original sin is either outright denied or redefined to what amounts to a denial.
Holy Scripture has a few things to say to this topic as well, such as:
Psalm 51:5: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Romans 5:12: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Romans 5:18: Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
These three Scriptures, among others, teach original sin. We are a condemned race, not a race born innocent. Adam was created innocent, but we are not born good.
Get it? Your children are sinners. Even in the womb. They need grace just as much as every other person. Ever.
So, speak God's Words to them. Teach them. Baptise them. They need grace. They are not innocent, despite what we may think or how cute they are. They're sinners. Why invent a doctrine that gives them a free pass, contrary to biblical teaching, when the grace of God is right there to be administered to them at the font? That's just rank gambling with your children, based on your opinion that your children aren't sinners. I mean, come on! Stop being so dense, whip out your KJV, ESV, or NIV, (but you better not whip out The Message. That thing is a joke) read what baptism does, recognize what God's Word so clearly says it does, stop fighting the blatantly clear words of Scripture because of your tradition that you are afraid to say is wrong, stop being a heretic like the Anabaptists of the Reformation era who openly denied original sin, and bring your kids to Holy Baptism. The grace is the water! And your kids need it.
The second core Christian doctrine that is denied by the Age of Accountability is that faith is a gift of God's grace given to recipients thereof.
In short, to the Age of Accountability supporters, faith means two other things other than one-sided divine gift of grace. It means,
- A choice of the will.
The first thing the AA folks object to is that faith being a one-sided divine gift of God violates the will and the right to choose of the individual. Hmm...right to choose...where else have I heard that argument? Oh, never mind, off the topic. In short, unless the person can choose to be saved, they can't be saved by God giving faith.
The Age of Accountability has a natural bedfellow in this. Her name is decisional regeneration. Usually she consists of coercing the wills of sinners to make a choice for Jesus, try Him out, ask Him into your heart, or say the sinner's prayer.
This is more or less rationalistic humanism masquerading as Christianity in a sense. The cult of choice, the triumph of the human will, as it were.
So, to fill heaven and because they love babies (don't we all?), they concoct the Age of Accountability doctrine. Because they simply aren't old enough to choose to have faith. And they're just so cute. And innocent. And stuff. Which brings us to the next problem:
- Faith requires a certain amount of cognitive ability.
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| Gotta know enough to be able to choose. Said Scripture nowhere. |
This definition of faith is pure rationalism. Who are they to say that God cannot grant faith in Christ to an infant or a small child? Really? God can't do that? Because, you know, God actually created faith in infants in Scripture. There really are examples of that. But no, God can't possibly do that! It violates the infants freedom of choice! Those little sovereign infants. Just like us and our sovereign wills. See how foolish this gets?
In their scheme, no, He can't, because they don't have the necessary ability to choose Christ and God won't just give faith as a gift apart from the person making a choice. God's not allowed to violate the will, they say. Well, that's fair, sure. But what the heck is wrong with God doing the most loving and gracious thing for them possible and saving them by granting them faith as a gift of grace?
The third problem denied by the Age of Accountability doctrine is an invention of alternate ways of salvation.
The Holy Scriptures tell us that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ. They don't even hint at any other way. Making a dogma out of something that is another way of salvation is silly when Scripture is silent. This is exactly what the Age of Accountability doctrine does. Infants, young children, and the mentally infirm are incapable of choosing to have faith. Thus they don't have faith. They are saved by ignorance and innocence. It may be grace, but ignorance and innocence are not faith. So why isn't grace giving what grace gives in this case, namely, faith in Christ?
In short, the Age of Accountability doctrine comes up with an alternative means of salvation for those who can't choose to have faith. Age of Accountability folks are banking on their children being saved by a manner of salvation that Scripture never talks about. That. Is. Super. Duper. Dangerous.
That's because, to be clear, the Age of Accountability doctrine is false teaching based on a humanistic misunderstanding of faith. ALL false teaching is dangerous, and this is no exception. As opposed to a gift of God, it becomes the triumph of the human will; of the choice of man.
I call it false teaching. Is that unfair? No, because it is false teaching and baptist churches are dead wrong for teaching this false doctrine. Does this mean our baptist brothers and sisters are unsaved? No, of course it does not mean that. Yet it is still important to get our doctrine correct. And in this case, they get it wrong in a large way.
Regarding the nature of faith, the Scriptures say:
Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Philippians 1:29: For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.
Acts 11:18: When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Acts 5:31: God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
2 Timothy 2:25b-26: God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
Faith in Christ is a gift of grace, as is repentance, which involves faith and contrition. As it is a one-sided divine gift, God can and does work it in whoever. Age is no obstacle for the Triune God, nor is cognitive ability or lack thereof.
This is the biggest reason why we baptise infants in the Lutheran Church. We hold to the orthodox and catholic doctrine of original sin. As such, your children stand condemned apart from faith in Christ. Grace, however, works faith as a gift of God. Baptism is a means of grace. Why stake your children's salvation on a doctrine that is nowhere taught in Scripture and gamble with their eternal salvation when Scripture tells us about all the glorious things baptism brings to us? Why would we ever want to deny our children that? Seriously. To deny our children baptism is to deny them grace, deny them Christ, and deny them God's good gifts given in the washing of regeneration; the washing of water with the Word.
Keep your fonts full and your infants wet.
11/1/12
The Evangelical Obsession With Satan
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. ~1 Peter 5:8
In addition to the excellent book on apologetics I have been reading, authored by Dr. Greg Bahnsen, I have also had my nose in another book written by John MacArthur entitled Our Sufficiency in Christ. In it, he exposes the modern day obsession of Christians with Satan. His analysis, in my judgment, is spot on.
MacArthur opines, "I am amazed at the number of Christians being drawn into the burgeoning "spiritual warfare" movement. I am convinced it represents an unhealthy obsession with Satan and demonic powers. Judging from the turnouts, thousands of Christians really believe that if they don't attend a spiritual warfare boot camp and learn some strategy for fighting demons, Satan will have them for breakfast." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 214)
Now take careful note what MacArthur is and is not saying. He is saying that he believes that this participation in the spiritual warfare movement is unhealthy and represents a foolish obsession with Satan within the Christian community. He is not saying that spiritual warfare is a fiction and does not exist.
He continues: "Is that true? Is there some secret strategy to be learned from "experts" in the art of spiritual warfare? Do Christians need to study mystic teachings for confronting and commanding evil forces, "binding" the devil, "breaking the strongholds" of territorial demons, and other complex strategems of metaphysical combat? Is it simplistic to think that the basic armor described in Ephesians 6 is sufficient to keep us from being breakfast for Satan?" (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215)
The short answer is, why do we need to be trained by certain incantations to get rid of Satan? I will also propose another idea that needs to be considered. Is Satan omnipresent like God? That is, is Satan available to be everywhere all at once? If so, then many evangelicals may be right, Satan attacks them all the time. However, what Scripture do we have that supports this idea? Simply put, we have none. Scripture never tells us that Satan is omnipresent. It does tell us, however, that God is. My conclusion is that yes, Satan does go after the saints, but not all at once at the same time.
MacArthur continues, "Absolutely not. One of the glorious truths of our sufficiency in Christ is that we are alredy more than conquerors in the great cosmic spiritual warfare (Rom. 8:37). Satan is already a defeated foe (Col. 2:15, 1 Pet 3:22)." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215)
Why then are we so obsessed with Satan? Is he our enemy? Yes, absolutely. Are we supposed to seek him out and defeat him? Nope. In fact, Christ already defeated him via his work. Let us see what the Scriptures have to say about this topic.
Colossians 2:15: He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Matthew 12:25-29: Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.
In fact, I would argue strongly that Christ already has bound Satan. That does not mean that Satan doesn't exist or that Satan doesn't stir up strife or attack the saints. But it does mean that Christ, through His work, has defeated him already. The idea that God is trying really hard to defeat Satan and He needs our help to do it is absurd. Satan is already defeated. He is already bound. He has not once been able to rally the whole world together to make war against the saints since the work of Christ was completed at Calvary.
MacArthur continues, "Certainly we are involved in an ongoing "struggle...against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12). But Christ is already the Victor in this spiritual war. When the apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians, he was not suggesting that they view their conflict with the powers of darkness as a battle whose outcome still hung in the balance. He was telling them they needed to "be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might" (v. 10); to "stand firm" (vv. 11, 13); to use the spiritual armor - truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and God's Word - to resist the schemes of the devil. They were to fight from a position of victory, not out of fear that Satan might make them toast." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215)
How different this is than what is commonly portrayed and practiced today!
"Nor was the apostle suggesting that the church should infiltrate confrontations with evil principalities and powers. There's no need for Christians to seek to engage Satan in combat. Nowhere in Scripture are we ever encouraged to do so. On the contrary, we are to "be of sober spirit, [and] be on the alert," for he (Satan) prowls around like a roaring, devouring lion (1 Pet 5:8). After all, who is after whom?" (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215-216)
Excellent insight here from MacArthur. We are never commanded to seek out Satan and engage him. Why would a Christian ever want to do that? I'll let MacArthur have the final word.
"Since Satan is pursuing us, how do we keep from becoming instant breakfast? Certainly not by chasing after him, hunting him down, attempting to bind him, commanding him, or rebuking him with some incantation. We simply "resist the devil and he will flee" (James 4:7). Why? Because the One who indwells every believer is greater than the devil (1 John 4:4) - and all the powers of hell know it (Matt 8:28-32).
That a movement so obsessed with Satan and his minions could suddenly gain popularity among Bible-believing Christians is proof of the influence mysticism has had in the church. Many of the tactics these self-styled experts in spiritual warfare are advocating have no Scriptural warrant whatsoever. They are the fruit of mysticism run amok. Those who advocate them speak as if they had great authority, but the truth is you won't find biblical support for most of the techniques they recommend. Where does Scripture indicate, for example, that Christians should band together to wage prayer wars against crime and traffic jams or exorcise phenomena like the Bermuda Triangle?
Worst of all, such teaching actually encourages Christians to dabble in demonic affaris or to live in fear and superstition. That is exactly contrary to God's design. We are to equip ourselves for spiritual warfare by becoming experts in righteousness, not by focusing our thoughts and energies on the enemy and fearing his power (Phil 4:8, Rom 16:19).
To put it another way, our sufficiency in Christ fits us for the battle. The spiritual resources we gain in Him are sufficient to sustain us in the face of the enemy - apart from any maneuvers that might be learned in some spiritual warfare seminar. "We are not ignorant of his schemes" (2Cor 2:11); we have a greater power indwelling us (1 John 4:4); and we have God's own promise of absolute security in Christ (Rom 8:38-39)." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 216-217)
Indeed, it is Christ alone who has won the victory over Satan, sin, and death. Only in Him - and not by seeking out Satan and engaging Him - are we victorious. Precisely because He alone is the Victor. It's not "me and God against the devil." Satan is not sovereign, God is. Christ alone has already won.
In addition to the excellent book on apologetics I have been reading, authored by Dr. Greg Bahnsen, I have also had my nose in another book written by John MacArthur entitled Our Sufficiency in Christ. In it, he exposes the modern day obsession of Christians with Satan. His analysis, in my judgment, is spot on.
MacArthur opines, "I am amazed at the number of Christians being drawn into the burgeoning "spiritual warfare" movement. I am convinced it represents an unhealthy obsession with Satan and demonic powers. Judging from the turnouts, thousands of Christians really believe that if they don't attend a spiritual warfare boot camp and learn some strategy for fighting demons, Satan will have them for breakfast." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 214)
Now take careful note what MacArthur is and is not saying. He is saying that he believes that this participation in the spiritual warfare movement is unhealthy and represents a foolish obsession with Satan within the Christian community. He is not saying that spiritual warfare is a fiction and does not exist.
He continues: "Is that true? Is there some secret strategy to be learned from "experts" in the art of spiritual warfare? Do Christians need to study mystic teachings for confronting and commanding evil forces, "binding" the devil, "breaking the strongholds" of territorial demons, and other complex strategems of metaphysical combat? Is it simplistic to think that the basic armor described in Ephesians 6 is sufficient to keep us from being breakfast for Satan?" (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215)
The short answer is, why do we need to be trained by certain incantations to get rid of Satan? I will also propose another idea that needs to be considered. Is Satan omnipresent like God? That is, is Satan available to be everywhere all at once? If so, then many evangelicals may be right, Satan attacks them all the time. However, what Scripture do we have that supports this idea? Simply put, we have none. Scripture never tells us that Satan is omnipresent. It does tell us, however, that God is. My conclusion is that yes, Satan does go after the saints, but not all at once at the same time.
MacArthur continues, "Absolutely not. One of the glorious truths of our sufficiency in Christ is that we are alredy more than conquerors in the great cosmic spiritual warfare (Rom. 8:37). Satan is already a defeated foe (Col. 2:15, 1 Pet 3:22)." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215)
Why then are we so obsessed with Satan? Is he our enemy? Yes, absolutely. Are we supposed to seek him out and defeat him? Nope. In fact, Christ already defeated him via his work. Let us see what the Scriptures have to say about this topic.
Colossians 2:15: He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Matthew 12:25-29: Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.
In fact, I would argue strongly that Christ already has bound Satan. That does not mean that Satan doesn't exist or that Satan doesn't stir up strife or attack the saints. But it does mean that Christ, through His work, has defeated him already. The idea that God is trying really hard to defeat Satan and He needs our help to do it is absurd. Satan is already defeated. He is already bound. He has not once been able to rally the whole world together to make war against the saints since the work of Christ was completed at Calvary.
MacArthur continues, "Certainly we are involved in an ongoing "struggle...against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12). But Christ is already the Victor in this spiritual war. When the apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians, he was not suggesting that they view their conflict with the powers of darkness as a battle whose outcome still hung in the balance. He was telling them they needed to "be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might" (v. 10); to "stand firm" (vv. 11, 13); to use the spiritual armor - truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and God's Word - to resist the schemes of the devil. They were to fight from a position of victory, not out of fear that Satan might make them toast." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215)
How different this is than what is commonly portrayed and practiced today!
"Nor was the apostle suggesting that the church should infiltrate confrontations with evil principalities and powers. There's no need for Christians to seek to engage Satan in combat. Nowhere in Scripture are we ever encouraged to do so. On the contrary, we are to "be of sober spirit, [and] be on the alert," for he (Satan) prowls around like a roaring, devouring lion (1 Pet 5:8). After all, who is after whom?" (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 215-216)
Excellent insight here from MacArthur. We are never commanded to seek out Satan and engage him. Why would a Christian ever want to do that? I'll let MacArthur have the final word.
"Since Satan is pursuing us, how do we keep from becoming instant breakfast? Certainly not by chasing after him, hunting him down, attempting to bind him, commanding him, or rebuking him with some incantation. We simply "resist the devil and he will flee" (James 4:7). Why? Because the One who indwells every believer is greater than the devil (1 John 4:4) - and all the powers of hell know it (Matt 8:28-32).
That a movement so obsessed with Satan and his minions could suddenly gain popularity among Bible-believing Christians is proof of the influence mysticism has had in the church. Many of the tactics these self-styled experts in spiritual warfare are advocating have no Scriptural warrant whatsoever. They are the fruit of mysticism run amok. Those who advocate them speak as if they had great authority, but the truth is you won't find biblical support for most of the techniques they recommend. Where does Scripture indicate, for example, that Christians should band together to wage prayer wars against crime and traffic jams or exorcise phenomena like the Bermuda Triangle?
Worst of all, such teaching actually encourages Christians to dabble in demonic affaris or to live in fear and superstition. That is exactly contrary to God's design. We are to equip ourselves for spiritual warfare by becoming experts in righteousness, not by focusing our thoughts and energies on the enemy and fearing his power (Phil 4:8, Rom 16:19).
To put it another way, our sufficiency in Christ fits us for the battle. The spiritual resources we gain in Him are sufficient to sustain us in the face of the enemy - apart from any maneuvers that might be learned in some spiritual warfare seminar. "We are not ignorant of his schemes" (2Cor 2:11); we have a greater power indwelling us (1 John 4:4); and we have God's own promise of absolute security in Christ (Rom 8:38-39)." (MacArthur, Our Sufficiency in Christ, p. 216-217)
Indeed, it is Christ alone who has won the victory over Satan, sin, and death. Only in Him - and not by seeking out Satan and engaging Him - are we victorious. Precisely because He alone is the Victor. It's not "me and God against the devil." Satan is not sovereign, God is. Christ alone has already won.
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