Fascinating article…

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25348657-401,00.html

There is a fascinating essay on the Christian Science Monitor website predicting, “The coming evangelical collapse.”  I’m not familiar with the author, Michael Spencer.  But he describes himself as an evangelical and he comes to some compelling conclusions, including:

“We evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.”

Many will dismiss his conclusion that our involvement with the culture war and political conservatism “will prove to be a very costly mistake.”  But keep in mind, the decline of mainline protestantism a century ago was triggered, in part, by its involvement in all kinds of seemingly good causes, including Prohibition.  The problem is those mainline churches got so involved in “good causes,” they left the Gospel behind.  Soon, theological accuracy on the essentials of the faith, including the Trinity, the Resurrection, sin, justification by faith, etc., was jettisoned.

As an elder in a local congregation of an evangelical church, I would add one more concern to Spencer’s list.  I believe disloyalty displayed through “church hopping” is a grave sin in our movement.  Too many people are all too quick to leave a church for unbiblical reasons.  Having talked to dozens of people over the years who’ve left churches, I’ve discovered that many will say, “Well, we just weren’t being fed at that church.”  But after scratching below the service, I’ve discovered they fled because of a conflict with a pastor, leader, or another member.  As a result, they have rejected the notion that God, in His Sovereignty, placed them in that situation for their good; to work through the conflict and thus, bring glory to God.  Scripture has given us clear guidelines for working through conflict, but far too many Christians ignore them and choose the easy, cowardly way out.  If we’re called to be imitators of Christ, we’ve failed miserably to show a lost and hurting world what His loyalty and faithfulness looks like.

At any rate, here’s Spencer’s column:  http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

 

Check this out…you got to love their willingness to pick a fight…

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/18/north-dakota-house-gives-fertilized-eggs-human-status/

So what do you think?  Should we all move? 

In our Galatians Sunday school class we’ve been talking a lot about the feelings that 1^st century Jewish Christians had toward Gentile believers.  While having no problem with Gentiles viewing Jesus as their Savior, many believing Jews in New Testament times felt that Gentiles needed to become “Jewish” before being considered fully right with God.  This meant that Gentiles needed to adopt the practices of the Mosaic Law, i.e. circumcision, dietary rules, cleanliness laws, Sabbath regulations, etc. 

 

Many in the mainstream media these days are blaming “free market” economics and Pres. Bush for the current recession.  We constantly hear things like “it was the free-market, laissez-faire policies of the Bush administration that got us into this mess.  We need to abandon that type of thinking and allow government to control and fix the economy.” 

The problem with such reasoning is that Bush’s economic policies were anything but what could be considered true “free market.”  Click on the link below to read a fantastic article on this very topic:

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=10

Click on the link below to read an absolutely fantastic article about sickness, healing, and the goodness of our God. 

http://byfaithonline.com/page/ordinary-life/he-heals-all-your-diseases

By the way, By Faith is the official magazine of the PCA.

Lee Webb raises a very interesting and telling point…check it out below:

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/524342.aspx

http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2009/01/05/65133.aspx

See the link above.  And the hits (to global warming, that is) just keep on coming.  Has anyone seen these findings reported by any mainstream media outlet?  I’d be shocked if someone has.

Check out the video of this debate between Pastor Douglas Wilson and prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens.  Oh by the way, the debate is hosted by our very own Lee Webb.  Pretty cool, huh?

Just click the link below:

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/507477.aspx

We have now arrived at Part 3 of our blog series dealing with Newsweek’s semi-recent cover story arguing that the Bible, when interpreted correctly, lends its support to the practice of gay marriage.  Author Lisa Miller attempts to bolster her thesis with three main points:

 

1)     The Bible, when interpreted rightly, does not really condemn committed and loving gay relationships.

 

2)     The Bible does not really support the idea of “traditional marriage” as defined by most evangelicals today. 

 

3)     The Bible’s most important teachings, when properly understood, actually embrace loving relationships of any kind, even those among gays and lesbians.

 

Point 1 and Point 2 were dealt with in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.  This post will be handling her third main point.

In Pt. 1 of this series we saw how Miller’s first point failed on the grounds that her arguments were so arbitrary.  Right away it should be clear that her third point suffers from arbitrariness as well.  Why does she ignore or dismiss the Bible’s teachings that undermine gay marriage while at the same time embracing biblical teachings that seem to, in her opinion, support it?  Why not the other way around?  Wouldn’t the logic be same?  And if the Bible is as inconsistent as Miller thinks it is, why even discuss it all?  Why not just dismiss evangelicals as silly, inconsistent bigots and call it a day?  If I were in Miller’s shoes, the answers to such questions would be obvious.  Yet for some reason, Miller can not resist attempting to make a positive, biblical case for gay marriage, no matter arbitrary her logic is along the way.