I have now started to read ‘Calvin for Armchair Theologians,’ by Christopher Elwood. I have to admit that I come to this book with a very doubtful attitude. The front cover illustration of John Calvin and the many ‘comic-like’ illustrations throughout the book worry me. I just don’t get a sense that this book is a serious treatment of John Calvin. That is the impression that presents when just looking at the book – I hope to be proven wrong for having ‘judged a book by its cover.’ The illustrations in the book are by Ron Hill, who is apparently a freelance illustrator and cartoonist.

I have to admit that the ‘armchair theologian’ part of the title also gives me a poor impression of the book – it sort of gives me the picture of a guy who loves to watch sport on the TV while sitting in his armchair, while not really taking the sport seriously in his actual life – has nothing to do with it in reality, in that he doesn’t play sport. This is the idea that ‘armchair theologian’ paints for me, which is an approach to theology that is far removed from the Bible’s idea of involvement with the truth.

But, as I said, I hope to be proven wrong for having ‘judged a book by its cover.’

As readers of this Blog would know, I have been reading ‘The Reformers and Their Stepchildren,’ by Leonard Verduin. I have now completed this book and maintain that this is a book that should be read by all Reformed believers. It is a brilliant treatment of both the Reformers and those who sought a more ‘radical’ reform, in order to bring the church back to that which was modelled on the New Testament example.

Verduin deals with many of the disputed areas between the Reformers and the Stepchildren, and in so doing shows how the Reformers chose to go only so far in their work of reformation and indeed how some chose to back peddle in some areas. As much as I respect many of the Reformers (if not all), I have always been saddened by their refusal to fully reform the church/separate from it, and to set up a church based on the New Testament model, which was something the stepchildren also sought. The Reformers treatment of the stepchildren will always be a blight on their legacy also.

Read this book without being biased either way and allow the truth of the Scriptures to determine the path on which you walk. There is much food for thought in this book and a real challenge for Reformed believers throughout.

Rod Dreher makes several salient points about converts to Rome and Orthodoxy:

Yes, but in my personal experience, the Catholic Church in America has only a facade of unity. Every Catholic parish I’ve been a part of has been basically Protestant, insofar as most of the people seemed to believe that they had a right to believe whatever they wanted. The unity was fairly superficial. Mind you, I’m in no position to say to what extent the Orthodox Church in this country is any different, because my experience is relatively short and limited almost entirely to my own parish. But I would be surprised to learn that we Orthodox on the whole were much different in that regard.

I’ve said the same thing myself: Catholicism in the USA is just Protestantism with a different name. You have gay Jesuits, hardcore Trad Opus Dei types, the First Things crowd, EWTN, liberals like the Kennedys, and on and on. There is no unified, glorious Church. It’s an illusion in the mind of the convert who lives in the world of ideas. Dreher continues:

I keep telling Protestants I know who want to convert to Catholicism that I don’t want to get in the way of their decision — though I would like them to consider Orthodoxy — but that they should realize that they’re probably not going to find an escape from modernism in their local parish. The church of Pope Benedict and First Things magazine, and your favorite conservative Catholic bloggers, is not the church you’re likely to encounter down the street. If you’re convinced of the case for Catholicism, then you almost certainly have to become Catholic — but go in with your eyes open. Similarly with Orthodoxy, we have, like Catholicism, the institutional and historical tools for resisting modernism, but if the pastors and the people remain indifferent or hostile to them, Protestants searching for solid ground to stand on may be unpleasantly surprised.

Again, this is not an argument against becoming Catholic or Orthodox. But it is a warning that it’s impossible to escape modernity and its challenges to tradition and traditional faith. When Father Dwight says that the fissiparous nature of individualist modernist faith will eventually give way to disbelief, because it’s not anchored in communal experience, I agree with him in principle, but would ask him what his prediction is for Catholic parishes that are populated by individualists in religion? (N.B., Father Dwight recognizes in his post that modernist Catholic priests shouldn’t be surprised when people quit coming to mass.) Similarly, I am aware of several Protestant congregations who are far, far more unified in belief than any Catholic parish I’ve been a part of, no doubt because those Protestants who don’t share the core convictions of that congregation found another congregation to attend. Mind you, without a Magisterium (Catholic) or a high view of the authority of Tradition (Orthodox) to hold on to, I don’t know how those congregations over time will remain grounded in their particular judgments. But having the theological mechanism for stability, as the Catholics and the Orthodox do, is no guarantee either.

This makes lots of sense. Because Protestant churches in our day are usually based on shared convictions such as worship style or theology, we have much more unity (at the micro level) than Catholics do.

I have a friend who left the Greek Orthodox church to which he belonged, because he was desperate for a spiritual encounter with the living God, as opposed to the empty formalism of his home parish, which, as he puts it, was more interested in worshiping Greekness than in worshiping God. He became a born-again Evangelical. Despite all the legitimate criticism that can be leveled at American Evangelicalism re: its lack of stability and susceptibility to cultural trends, is it really the case that children raised in a traditional church that has valid sacraments but is spiritually dead are going to have a better chance of living as Christians there than they would in an Evangelical church that has all the trappings of modernity, and an essentially modernist, individualist theology, but that for whatever reason has chosen a theologically traditional set of principles around which to organize, and lives it out in a vigorous, vibrant way?

This is the rub. Tradition and liturgy are life to me and those like me who seek to escape the modern church wasteland, but they were death to my Mom who wanted relationship with God and wasn’t taught that in the Lutheran Church of her day (though she could have had it, had they rightly understood their own past). We can’t re-pristinate the past and create some perfect model that never existed. We can meld the best liturgy and tradition with our modern condition, all the while being bathed in the Scripture as the ultimate norm.

John Robinson (1575 – 1625) English pastor of the Pilgrims before they left on the Mayflower

John Carver (1576 – April 5, 1621) English Pilgrim leader and first governor of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts

Edward Winslow (1595 – 1655) English Pilgrim leader and governor of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts

Elder William Brewster (1566 – April 10, 1644) Pilgrim and preacher from Scrooby, England

William Bradford (March 19, 1590 – May 9, 1657) Pilgrim leader and eventual governor of the Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts; author of Of Plimmoth Plantation – America’s first history book

Myles Standish (1584 – Oct. 3, 1656) English military adviser for Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts

Separatists: A strict Puritan sect of the 16th and 17th centuries that preferred to separate from the Church of England rather than reform. Many of those who first settled America were separatists.  They were advocates of the separation of church and state.

Adventurers:  (“Strangers”) A seeker of fortune in daring enterprises.

It’s good to remember that there were two seeds of people on the Mayflower; one pursuing religious freedom, and the other in search of riches and adventure.  And as it was then, so it is now with the current American population.

In spite of the liberal bias and revisionism in certain parts of this video, we enjoy this documentary every Thanksgiving; and if you are led to watch, we hope you will too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Click on following for earlier articles: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give an account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

In 1987, I really thought the Lord was promoting me when He directed me to leave a large liturgical church and attend a small Charismatic one. Ouch! How naive I was!

At the first church service, I thought, freedom at last. Now, my calling will come forth as it should, amongst people who understand prophetic callings and the gifts of the Spirit.

The following four years of my life were spent at this small church,  giving hundreds of prophetic words and praying hours upon hours at the altar. That’s the good part.

But the ugly side is I took so much correction and so many rebukes that after a while I could no longer discern what was from the Lord and what was not. I was confused.

Once, a prophet noticed my attire. “You are called to be a man of God; and a man of God needs to always wear a suit or sport coat every time he comes to church,” he said, pointing his finger at me.

Clothing pleases the Lord?

Another respected prophet lambasted me during a special meeting. “You are not called to be a prophet, but instead, you are called to just give the oracles of God,” he said.

Talk about adding confusion to my life, this prophetic word certainly did!

A prophetess said, ” Larry used to be a good prophet, but he doesn’t pray enough anymore.”

At the time, I was getting up at 3:50 AM, praying for two hours and then heading over to the church for another hour of prayer. All of this took place before I went to work, laboring at maintenance and construction for 8 hours. Then, I came home and studied.

Not praying enough?

An elder with his nine-year old daughter stopped at the one-room apartment I was renting because of my marital separation. He looked at the shabby, 10′ x 7′ room, and then said to his daughter, “This is what happens when you disobey God!”

Disobeying God?

I received corrections on my clothing. On my prophetic style. On my teachings. On my preachings. On my finances. On what books and teaching tapes I listened to. On whether I should submit every teaching I gave outside the church to the leadership beforehand for their approval or not. On this and on that. On everything.

Can you guess what scripture was always used to validate my corrections? Good old Hebrews 13:17.

Now, none of these people were mean spirited. They actually believed they were doing the will of the Lord for my life. Plus, they were victims of bondage, too.

And it was the worst type of bondage.

Prophetic bondage!

(Continued in Part 5)

Over the past year, I’ve had several people ask me why I am reformed in my beliefs. I just wanted to give a general reply using some very basic reasons I became reformed in my theology this year.

I started pondering the Grace of God shortly after I left a local emergent church called NewSpring Church in Greenville, South Carolina. I always considered myself a non-Calvinist because I thought it was up to us to choose when we accept Christ. After sitting in this false church watching hundreds of people profess the name Jesus, the Holy Spirit started working on my heart about what I was observing at this church. I admit that when I was attending this Seeker Sensitive Purpose Driven Church for the Carnal Nature of Mankind that I was out of the will of God and rebellious in my life. I knew better than to be at this church because of my fundamental background, but I wanted change and a new way to reach people that the traditional church had thrown away. With this thought and logic, my journey into the Emergent Church began. Little did I know that my carnal desires would lead me to a place where I would become Reformed. When I repented of my rebellion, I took my family out of this church. I started pondering the Grace of God and how God’s Grace saves us. I could not get the images of people simply repeating the name Jesus out of my head. I could not find peace until I prayed and started studying the Scriptures concerning our sinful nature and the saving Grace of God. I kept pondering how repentance from sin was not explained and how I watched people being compelled to profess Jesus with little or no clear Gospel message being taught. I thought about the numbers game and how numbers were used by Perry Noble and his staff as a benchmark for God’s blessing. For months I kept digging and seeking God’s Will for my life and asking for a deeper understanding of my carnal nature and His Grace. I thought about the altar calls from other churches I visited and attended over the years past. I pondered and prayed asking God to give me peace and answers.

I am Reformed in my beliefs because:

I believe in the power of God to save and God alone (1 John 4:10). We do not seek God (Romans 3:10-12). God draws us to Him because we cannot come to God by our own merits (1 Corinthians 2:13-15 ,Romans 10:17).

I know there are more verses I could list concerning this subject. I just wanted to share a little about my experiences and why I am Reformed in my beliefs.

Somebody has a great sense of humor — “12-21-2012″ is the Day the World Ends (or EOW if you’re a true aficionado…) I don’t know if God picked this day or  José Argüelles (who’s also the founder of “Earth Day”…)

As a born and bred Baptist (well, close to it anyway…), angst generating myths like the Mayan’s and their 2012 End of the World (known as “EOW”) are old hat. Old like (“yawn”), “Here comes Yet Another EOW…”

Honestly though, over the years I’ve grown to love EOW scenarios — except for when people take them too seriously. Oscar Wilde once said, “Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow”, and I’m too happy with life to let Very Serious People bummer my depth of good humor. But I’ve actually seen people who were friends until one discovered the other didn’t believe in the same EOW chart of Last Things that he believed in. That was it: no more friendship, no more fishing trips, no more potlucks, don’t you let me see you at my church any more and you shore better stay away from my daughter… (“Momma? Can you believe it? I thought that guy and our little Petunia were made for each other — but then he went and told me he was a midtrib rapture dispensational premillennialist! God save us!”)

So, æons ago there was a kid who used to follow me around in high school (mainly because I didn’t diss him like the jocks did) and all the time he wanted to talk about the Bible. Well, not the Bible, really, but the last book of the Bible — Revelation. (Notice it’s not plural? Anyone talks about “666 in the Book of Revelations”, ask him what he’s talking about ’cause there is no such book — not in the Bible, anyway.) So my high school friend always got really excited saying things like, “This is the greatest sci-fi anybody ever wrote! It’s got monsters better than Hollywood and weirder than Japan, and demons and angels and lots of really freaky, weird stuff — and it’s all True Cause it’s in the Bible!”

BTW — next time someone starts talking to you about the Beast and the False Prophet and 666 (the number of the Beast), if he looks serious like he buys all that, just ask him if he’s learned the Number of the Neighbor of the Beast yet. He’ll stop and suspiciously consider your question (can you believe anyone would seriously consider a question like that?) and then he’ll shake his head no and you tell him, “Yeah — the Number of the Neighbor of the Beast is 665.” If he’s got a lick o’ brains he’ll get it and leave you alone. (If not, you’ll just have to explain it to him. Oh, well… Humans: can’t live with ‘em and can’t live without ‘em!

Like I said, though, over the years I’ve grown to love EOW scenarios. One of my fav authors is John Wyndham, one of the most famous British post-apocalyptic authors in the world. He’s been called one of England’s “cozy catastrophe” writers who mix the EOW with a few remaining people who get to start all over again without having to solve any of the world’s problems because they’re all gone! Wyndham wrote The Day of the Triffids; The Midwich Cuckoos; and Trouble with Lichen.

Wyndham catches the heart of what I enjoy about EOW scenarios. I don’t really like the stories in which the world truly ends, like in Twelve Monkeys (1995, directed by Terry Gilliam.) In my mind, these truly hard core EOWs miss the best part — getting to rebuild a wonderfully non-urban world without 5 billion humans getting in the way. Instead, IMHO they belong to the horror genre which would bring them alongside of vampires (New Moon), Terminators (quick bow to the Gov), Japanese ghost movies (in which the evil spirits always win), and countless Hallowed Eve bloodbaths. I never enjoy movies that try to scare me — I get enough of that standing in front of a full-length mirror.

While reading the awesome series about the rebuilding of civilization by Paul O. Williams, The Pelbar Cycle (a thousand years after a series of nuclear exchanges destroyed human civilization), I started to wonder why it was that a good Baptist boy [I didn't want a "black belt" 'cause I already had a "Bible belt"...] like me loved world wide destruction. Part of it was that being raised on Revelation, the idea of the End of Everything naturally became part of my personal theology. But what truly gripped my imagination about the EOW theme focused instead on the world-wide collapse of social infrastructure and the human response in trying to cope with what remains. “Infrastructure” (for you non-EOW fans) refers to the basic physical and organizational structures that undergird the daily operation of society such as we know it. Those “structures” might be bridges and roads, power plants, sewers and electricity (and now — the Internet) as well as governments from towns and cities to states and nations, as well as churches, law courts, police and fire personnel… were these to be seriously interrupted or somehow destroyed, life such as we know it could not carry on.

Only two years ago, while first watching the mini-series by Stephen King broadcast as The Stand, I finally grasped why I loved “cozy” EOW “catastrophes” so much. For 6 hours straight, I watched his powerful portrayal of a small number of survivors of an EOW flu pandemic ["H1N1 --  shall we supersize that for you?"] They traveled across the USA, gathering new people along the way as they looked for a place to rebuild civilization. And somewhere about hour four, something clicked inside my heart, and I realized the EOW theme (and the destruction of existing infrastructure) actually depicts a coming spiritual Reality.

Not the “Rapture” or “2012″ — those aren’t “spiritual” EOWs, just stories to scare kids with. No. I’ve had a life-long, fundamental sense that the Church of this New Millennium simply cannot be the same ol’, same ol’ of the religious status quo. As far as institutionalized religion goes, I’m looking for those people who (like me) are shouting, “I ain’t gonna be conducting ‘business as usual’ any more!” In fact, I dream of the Day that the “human infrastructure” of Christendom collapses, allowing us cope with the Reality that remains.

Oh? The Reality  that remains? And what (kind Sir) would that be? My God or yours?

That’s part of my point. Once people stop replicating the religious stuff they’ve been raised with, if there’s a Real God Out There, maybe He’d finally have a chance to Stand Up and be recognized. Or better yet — if there’s a Real God In There, He could more easily show Himself once the religious trappings have fallen away.

Earthquakes, that’s what we need. Good, strong, destructive seismic activity in the social/spiritual realm that is able to shake apart the facile arguments of the religious, and pull down the empty icons of the pious. One of the quotes I like from the Bible is when God promises One Day (at the EOW, you know?) that “everything that can be shaken, will be shaken.” This gives me the clear impression that He’s not really satisfied with how things have been built up in His Name, and one day He’s going to take time to clean our clocks real good.

Here’s what I’m thinking: maybe we don’t have to wait for God or the aliens or thick-headed politicians who hold in their hands endless atomic powers, to bring the religious world to and End.

Maybe we can just start with you and me. Maybe, in fact, if you and I and maybe one or two others step out of the familiar religious trappings in which we’ve been raised, maybe we can be the ones, even the first ones, to see the Real God Out There/In There Stand Up to be Recognized! (That would certainly make a fine movie, but an even better Reality!)

To go along with my post, “Hooray For 2012″, here are a couple of EOW poems I’ve written. Don’t ask me what they mean — they is what they is, and “I yam what I yam.” [1Cor 15.10; my "Popeye" affirmation]

After the Bombing

St. Paul’s, London; 12 September 1940 (WWII)

Shards of beauty (stained glass divinity) lay in fallen heap — glassy.
Shrouding heavily these huddled fearful worshipers — crushed.
Burying deeply, vaguely concerned proselytes, the Bomb
Which buried these bodies wiped all tears from their
Salt-streaked eyes and brought them peace.
A shuffled step is heard — this shocked
Survivor finds he’s Late for the
Bomb.

That Piano Thunder Roll

That voice didn’t really roll in thunder
From the east, and assuredly there were
Not words in that storm bred tempo that rose
Shouting, from the very roots of the world.
Though all creation paused — listening to the
Wind, Bearing that muted voice which rolled beyond
The threat’ning eastern clouds, preceding storm
Torn earth and sea; though all life halted, ears
Deafened by that storm clap, yet assuredly
There were not words in that aweful thunder
That smote beneath the ears, around the ears.
Assuredly that rooted thunder which
O’retook Westering man and turned his ears
To dust, spoke not words which woke his deafened
Heart to hear that Voice — that piano thunder roll.

EmDog

I confess to thinking that the Reformation is overly romanticized and just plain overrated. I think the Reformed tradition has about as much to commend it as the Roman Catholic tradition does.

“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)  The call of God in our lives will deal with how to turn the changing face of call in our lives into a transition of purpose in God’s will.

To understand call means to understand who we are and God’s purpose in our lives in the world. It means recognizing there are many variables playing upon our lives and affecting our opportunities for ministry.

The really great truth is that God is a God of redefinition. He takes those variables when we submit our will to Him, and He rules and overrules in them, and calls us in to greater meaning in ministry…

To understand call means:

• To be able to name our changing fields of work.
• To know when the season is complete.
• To know when it is time to begin a new season of call to being and service

Both, simple and complex people or persons are responsible for the following leaps in God’s purpose and our Lord’s redefinition of any ongoing status quo.

• The reform of prisons
• The founding of the American Red Cross
• The origin of the Braille system
• The rise of Tuskegee Institute
• The discovery of penicillin…WOW!

“I worship thee sweet will of God,
And all thy ways adore.
And every day I live,
I seem to love thee more and more.

 Thou were the standard and the rule
Of my Savior’s toil and tears.
Thou were the passion of His heart,
Those three and thirty years.

And He has breathed into my soul,
A special love for thee,
A love to lose my will in thine,
And by that loss be free.” by F.W. Faber…I Worship Thee Sweet Will of God

 Respect and Understanding and Peace and Love to all of us…Amen.

God cares deeply about issues of justice, equality, education, and poverty – and He calls His people to engage in these vital issue with specific Bible-driven strategies.

[embed]http://www.visionaryparenting.com/audio/crisisresponse.mp3[/embed]

Click on following for earlier articles: Part 1 and Part 2.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his generation, fell asleep…(Acts 13:36)

Not too long ago, a young girl was suffering through her first night working at the pizza delivery store where I work. She was nervous and self-conscious. And worst of all, it was Friday night. We were busy!

My manager brought her to me. “Just listen to Larry on the phone and do it the same way,” said the manager to the girl. Then, the manager left.

The phone rang; I picked it up. I greeted the customer,  introduced myself and entered the name on a computer. Then I added, “So, where have you been, we’ve been waiting all evening for your phone call? What’s your excuse?”

I continued throughout the whole phone order in this light-hearted banter. When I finished, I looked at the young girl. She broke down crying. “I can’t be like you. That’s not me.”

And of course, she was right. She needed to be herself.

This experience illustrates a major problem with us American believers, and probably most western ones.  Christianity desires standardization. We want cookie-cutter callings, stamped and approved by some well-respected college, Bible school or mentor.

Wait a second! I’m not against all Bible schools or mentors, okay? Just maybe 90% of them; but at least, this allows some leeway in my thinking.

“Why?” you shout.

“Good question,” I reply.

Who mentored Charles Finney, William Booth, Maria Woodworth-Etter, Evan Roberts, Billy Sunday, William Seymour, John Lake, Aimee Semple McPherson, Smith Wigglesworth, Jack Coe, Kathryn Kuhlman and hundreds of other pioneers? No one! Each sought the Lord and brought forth a special uniqueness, unlike any other,  for his or her generation.

To be honest, our generation does not need another Finney, Booth, Etter, Roberts, Sunday and so forth.  Not at all. We need callings of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher who are totally new and will reflect what Jesus wants done in our age.

And this can not be carried out by standardized, cookie-cutter methods where one size fits all. It must be unique for each person, guided by the Lord and suited to the uniqueness of the individual.

My personal beliefs on training people for their callings is much like General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army:

Here’s a Bible. There’s a place on the floor over there where you can pray. Tomorrow morning, you will be out on the streets ministering and preaching to people.

Would people make mistakes under my system? Yes; maybe lots of them. But all the problems can be talked out over supper at the end of the day.

Oh! And by the way, this is the way the early Christians did it. They called it church.

(Continued in Part 4.)

A lot of Christians will tell you that the explosive Reformation and rebellion against the Roman Catholic church was primarily a debate over justification by faith alone vs justification by a mixture of faith and merit, or perhaps over the issue of the authority of Scripture. And it’s true, all of these were focal points of the Reformation, and we owe it to the Reformers for our heritage of the “solas” of grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, Christ alone, and to God’s glory alone.

But as you delve into the history of the Reformation, you begin to see that issues like justification was actually peripheral to the main, overriding concern of the Reformers: that Christ’s work in salvation be seen as sufficient, and that God be seen as free and sovereign in dispensing His powerful grace to human beings.

“It is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith.” (Michael Haykin, The Reflections of a Puritan Theologian on Regeneration and Conversion)

Haykin’s point is that, in reality, the emphases of justification and the authority of Scripture and empty-handed faith were fought for so vehemently for the sake of protecting and heralding something deeper and most essential, that is, the glory of the Trinitarian God in showing free, sovereign, effective grace towards His people. We’re missing the point of the Reformation, and doing a disservice to the efforts of the Reformers if we fail to see what their true emphasis and concern really was. The God of the Roman Catholic church was simply too small, too limited, and too distant compared to the God that the Reformers saw in Scripture. This God was big. This God was utterly sovereign. This God was jealous for His glory. And this God saved people, completely, from beginning to end, by electing, loving, sustaining grace. The way the Reformers saw the character of God and acts of God in Scripture were consistent with what we’ve come to call “Calvinism.”

Today, this is still no small issue. Churches continue to divide, denominations continue to decry other denominations, church members are kicked out, and preachers rant (on both sides), all due to this preoccupation of the “doctrines of grace,” otherwise known as that terrible word: Calvinism.

I hope to spend the next few weeks discussing what Calvinism really entails, and whether or not it’s that important anyways. I think this is worth doing for quite a few reasons, but I’ll voice two of them:

1. There is an unavoidable resurgence of interest in (mostly) Evangelical, Protestant, and missional churches across the U.S. and globally in theologically robust Calvinism. Take a look at Collin Hansen’s recent book Young, Restless, and Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists to see the renewed interest and passion for Calvinism among especially younger people. Many of the preachers and teachers that younger Christians are growing under and watching on YouTube all happen to be Calvinists in their theology, including Mark Driscoll, Paul Washer, C. J. Mahaney, John Piper, and Tim Keller, to name a few. As the world becomes disillusioned with the failures and ironic irrelevance of megachurches and shallow theology, Calvinism is making a comeback, and opening up forums and discussions for the topic. Considering Calvinism and forming some kind of opinion about it is fast becoming unavoidable, and I think presenting the issue as fairly as I can may help some to start making that decision.

2. From talking to some close friends and mentors, I’m becoming more and more convinced that Calvinism has profound implications for our sanctification and Christian growth in the gospel. As Spurgeon insisted, Calvinism is undeniably bound up in the gospel (see his A Defense of Calvinism) We can be grateful for God’s working in the church to return us to a much more fully-orbed view of the gospel for all of life. God has granted the church a new vision for seeing the gospel as more than just a ticket out of hell, and entrance into heaven, but a proclamation of “good news” that promises grace for today and tomorrow, and a new dynamic for viewing every area of life. But I’m going to go further and say that I’m fully convinced that we can take this knowledge of the gospel deeper when we come to embrace the flooring doctrines of unconditional election, definite atonement, etc. In my opinion, the doctrines of grace emphasize and highlight God’s love and grace exponentially more than alternate views, and allow us to behold the glory of God in fresh and powerful ways. Beholding the glory of God, according to 2 Corinthians 3, is indeed the way we grow, and I’ll hope to show how we can come to a deeper worship and love for God through embracing Calvinism.

There are two things you cannot do with Calvinism, but these happen to be two of the most common responses when people are confronted with such staggering, grounding theology: The first is to caricature it and superficially tear it down without engaging it. And the second is to relegate it to an area of mediocre or of no importance.

Quite frankly, we had better be quite certain Calvinism is completely Scripturally false before we write it off. There is simply too much at stake to consider Calvinism flippantly. If Calvinism is faithful to Scripture, it changes everything. It changes our worship. It changes our conception of our God. It changes how we think. It changes how we grow. It changes how we love and evangelize. It’s much easier to dismiss something rather than engage, yet so often we’re content, especially in theology, to dismiss something due to preconceived opinions. I’m personally convinced that one must eventually caricature or misrepresent Calvinism in order to dismiss it, and so part of these blogs will be devoted to working through popular (and often well thought-through) caricatures and misrepresentations of Calvinism. Calling Calvin a killer of heretics doesn’t get rid of Calvinism. Ridiculing Calvinists who agonized over their assurance of salvation doesn’t get rid of Calvinism. Our ultimate, overriding rule of faith and doctrine here must be Scripture, and Scripture alone. There is where the battle must be fought, not in anti-intellectualism and caricature.

And it will not do to write off Calvinism as simply unessential or peripheral. Often the church has faltered for its overemphasis on church unity and underemphasis on strong theology (which build churches, not breaks them!), and our attitude is often to leave issues untouched or shelved due to an unwillingness to engage and take sides. Others here are simply uninformed and ungrounded in Scripture as their lens for viewing the world. God’s character, our joy and salvation, the defeat of evil and Satan, and the renewal of the world are at stake with Calvinism. Our worship is at stake. Ephesians 1 is crystal clear on the truth that our doctrine of God’s character and election of us will determine the extent to which we see His extravagant grace and worship Him for it. Whatever election does happen to mean, election cannot be peripheral. Our worship depends on it. Calvinism is too important, too substantial to be ignored. Disagree or agree, it must be dealt with.

I should end with this: this exploration is not a discouragement or insult to those who would differ before (and maybe after) with the issues I engage and support. Both Calvinists and Arminians who question the reality of someone’s standing in Christ due to their stance on the doctrines of grace have missed it! Though I believe full-fledged Arminianism and much of the “halfway” positions on God’s sovereignty in salvation held in the church are unhelpful and often harmful, I also believe that God has and will continue to work to show His unifying grace through believers from different walks of life and different persuasions theologically. When I come to question theology that disregards Calvinism, I at the same time affirm that Arminians and “half-wayers” stand with me on many essentials, and are able to appreciate and understand God’s character and grace in many profound ways. God does honor the needle of truth in the haystack of error.

But what I will be arguing is that this common ground is not enough. We are called to vigorous, relentless pursuit of knowing God in the totality of His character(within the limits of our human finiteness, of course), and to pursue the knowledge of Him and the loving of Him with all our heart, mind, and strength until death, and then beyond. We remain responsible to deal with God’s truth as communicated in Scripture consistently and faithfully, recognizing that our very joy and happiness depends on it. We cannot stagnate over this issue just because there happen to be points of unity on different sides of the issue. If Calvinism is true, we stand responsible before God to bow before His Word in humble submission to who He has revealed Himself to be, in all his sovereignty, might, glory, and power.

Since the middle of the 20^th century women have been working to place themselves within what some see as power structures within the various churches. For many protestant traditions this simple means women can now preach, teach, or serve in some leadership capacity. And since the Anglican Church has tried for the past three centuries to work within the via media between Protestantism and Catholicism it too has ordained women to be leaders in the Church. However, it has not simply allowed women to be leaders but a minority within the Church has said that women can be for the first time in history “priests” in the Church. This is something different than just mere leadership, for it carries with it the belief that females can represent Jesus the Man. It has introduced what some have called the Lesbian Eucharist to the Church, which is a female standing in for the Groom Jesus at the feast that anticipates the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Many have no problem with this for the primary reason that the Anglican Church has failed miserably (out of fear of chauvinism) in teaching and passing down the Apostolic Teachings of the Church to this generation.

For those within the Anglican Communion who still believe in the Sacerdotal ministry of the Priesthood, the Maleness of the Priest is tied necessarily to the Maleness of Jesus. The priest behind the Table is “in persona Christ:” in the Person of Christ. They do not stand in for Christ, but in the Sacramental moment they make present the High Priest Christ. They do not represent themselves but the Other: the Man Christ. Now those who argue that women can be priests in the Church have to say that this is all entirely wrong. That in fact, human sexuality does not matter. Men and women can stand behind the Table and be “in persona Christi” However, if sexuality does not matter behind the Table today, then sexuality did not matter behind the Table two thousand years ago. Which then begs the question: Could Jesus have been a female? Could God have been Incarnate as a female and saved the world from its sins? Is the maleness of the Man Christ accidental? Or is the maleness of Christ necessary. This is the question that those who have introduced the novelty of female priests have to answer.

Up until 60 years ago, the maleness of Christ was also understood to be essential. The reason it was essential had to do with the idea of headship. Now headship is a word that most people shun in the West today. Yet this is something that is terribly important to the over arching Narrative of Creation as it pertains to Salvation History. It is true that God created “male and female,” but it is also true that He created Adam first and was given dominion over Creation. Whether this is literal or simply figurative is not an issue. The issue is that with this story Scripture affirms that men possess the headship over Creation and that includes women. Consequently, that is why it was necessary for Jesus the Man to die and rise again to redeem and renew all of Creation. He did not do this to save sexless souls; but to be the Perfect Man, the One True Head of all Creation, the faithful Adam: Jesus of Nazareth stood in for all men, women, and everything else within creation.

While many people might find this a hard teaching, very few would outright deny it. But for those that argue for female priest in the fullness of the sacramental tradition that is what they do in practice. To be “in persona Christi” is not to be a sexless or a bare human but to be in the Man Christ. And only those that are men can bring to the Table that which is essential to Christ: maleness. This in no way denies women roles within the life of the Church. Actually, the churches that affirm the all male priesthood the strongest are the ones who afford Mary the Mother of Jesus the highest honor among all of Christendom. Now this does not address the issue of all male leadership within other denominations outside the Sacramental tradition, nor does it deal with those who deny the sacerdotal ministry of the priesthood yet still hold firm to all male priests. They will have to address why they deny women leadership or priestly roles. Those of us within the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic tradition, women are honored and received within leadership roles as God calls them; but men are only called to headship, the Priesthood, the Bishopric. Let us hope so, for if headship does not exist can creation or women themselves be renewed, restored, and brought to salvation? That will be the topic of the next blog.

To Him who was in the Beginning and will preside at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: All honor and Glory be His Now and forever. Amen.

The following is a little article that a friend of mine asked me to write on the subject of Unity: The urgent need within our homes.  Please forgive the potentially dyslexic flow of the article.  It is not intended to be a theological discourse but rather the outflow of my own heart.  It is a call for unity within the corporate Church as I see its problems rooted in its families.

As I have come to know the word “home,” it has come to mean an environment where affection and security are present.  There are many thoughts and opinions out there as far as what’s the best social unit that could provide such an atmosphere but for the sake of this post, I’m going to simply refer to the traditional husband, wife, and kids type of family unit.  There’s lots of statistical proof that that social unit is the “best” for a child, but I’m not here today to prove that, only to talk about a deeper subject that pervades our culture, our businesses, our jobs, our relationships, and sadly even our churches.  Like “ministry,” unity is a subject that begins in the home.  Unity is a critical life issue that we are seldom trained for.

Unity in the home equals unity in the Church.  When we learn to “keep the peace” or unity in our homes, it will automatically flow into the Church.  After all, we, our families included, make up the Church.  In Ephesians chapter 4 the beloved Apostle Paul speaks to this subject of unity.  You see what Paul saw in the church of Ephesus is the same thing that God showed John on the Isle of Patmos in the writing of Revelation.  In chapter 2 God says “I have something against you, because you have left your first love.”  Oh church, verse 5 gives a grave warning to remember that we are all fallen and that we need to repent OR ELSE God will snatch his “candlestick” away from among us, but this is an urgent message for the Church, both of that day and of this day too.  In the preceding verses of chapter 2, it is evident what God is referring to as far as losing the first love, and what is our first love?  John 13:34 & 35 says that the new commandment is that we love one another and Christ loves us . . . that by this type of unified demonstration of love everyone will know that we love Him . . . if we have love one to another.  Revelations makes it clear that the church of Ephesus had some divisive issues.  Paul tried to warn them saying that with all the humility you can muster to forbear each other . . . in love . . . endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace.  Brothers and sisters, if we can’t first keep the unity in our homes, how can we expect there to be unity in the church?  We, that have been bought by the blood of Christ, are all part of His Body, individual members of and to the other.  That being said the Church is as strong as its weakest link.

The weakest link . . . that reminds me of the verse where once again Paul is admonishing us.  In chapter 6, he speaks of bringing up, of nurturing others and the giving of cautionary advice of the Lord.  This is a call for Christian, God directed nurturing of those who are in a position where they aren’t at their strongest point, where they are at the weakest times in life.  II Timothy 2:24-26 speaks of teaching those who are captive and at the will of the devil so “that they may recover.” You see, we are all called to share the burden of neighbor.  Would the “Good Samaritan” have been just as “good” if the one whom he had helped had captivating issues whether spiritual, emotional, or psychological?  I think yes.  We are called to be like Christ, who said of Himself that He came to minister to the needs of the sick, not the ones who have it all together, but to bring about a change in their lives.

Yes our ministry does start at home.  It starts with my home.  It starts with your home.  Let us share the burden together in the bond of peace and unity. In a society where depression is at an all time high, self-inflicted pain is on the rise, and families are breaking up every day.  The world needs those who can help the hurting by redirecting their eyes to Jesus, leading them to a successful outlook for a victorious life. 

The Church is only as strong as its weakest links.

Until later . . .

P.S. Wanna see more of my fastidious and incisive enponderments? I invite you to join me on the vectored dance floor of life as I muse on my journey through the terpsichorean edifice called life. Enter here.

I am completely torn over this. The people who brought you the Atheist Bus Campaign are now bringing us a billboard campaign in which a young child asks us ‘Please don’t label me’. The campaign is the shop window for the brash evangelical wing of atheism, the Dawkins–Hitchens tendency.

First of all, the real political issue behind ‘Please don’t label me’ is faith schools. Regardless of a certain moral panic among secularists, the number and popularity of faith schools in the UK have been increasing. This has happened due to a complex network of reasons that are not all that easy to unravel. I want to talk about the political issues around faith schools first, and then the philosophical issues around the labelling of children. I’ve given the two sections under headings below, so you can skip whatever does not interest you.

Faith schools

The Church of England owns and runs a large number of schools throughout England. They exist for mainly historical reasons: the church was historically at the forefront of providing free education for all. Most of these are categorized as ‘voluntary controlled’, which makes them mostly indistinguishable from full state schools (technically called ‘community schools’). There are important differences, the local vicar is a governor and the head teacher should be ’sympathetic’ to the religious connection. The church has some ‘voluntary aided’ schools, which tend to have closer church ties, but I would still hope that the educational ethos of such places prevents them from being Anglican boot camps. My primary school was VC, and, as a vicar, I have served as governor to one VC school and one community school, and I can’t say that I noticed much difference in these school’s relationship with religion. This is somewhat similar to what a report by Theos says about faith schools.

The much bigger difference has been the New-Labourism of ‘foundation schools’ which became ten-years old last September. These schools are funded through the local education authority, but have employment, admissions and physical ownership vested indirectly in a charitable foundation. Most of these foundations are religious in nature. Giving other religions parity with the Church of England in running schools is a nod to multiculturalism, and makes certain sense, but the other part is the New Labour mantra of ‘public-private partnerships’ and ‘private finance initiative’. A decade on, PFI has become decidedly problematic and our approach to multiculturalism, even multiculturalism itself, is being questioned.

So, perhaps the Church of England is part of the problem. If we weren’t so eager to hang onto our schools, other religions wouldn’t feel obliged to have schools too. Perhaps it might be better if all schools that received state funding were under local education authority control, as ‘community schools’, and that if religions want to do education they have to do it in the private sector. However, buying out the Church of England alone would mean buying thousands of schools and making hundreds of employees of diocesan boards of education unemployed, and would have little practical effect at the chalk face.

So, perhaps we’re back to the moral panic and media hype about faith schools. After all, the New Atheist movement is almost entirely middle-class and middle-aged, a demographic for whom school admissions is the major battleground on which they fight to get their children a head start.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s time that the public side of public-private partnerships showed some leadership for the money we invest in faith schools. This could involve moves to scrap any religious qualifications for admissions, scrap ‘religious tests’ for the employment or promotion of certain teaching posts (which range from asking applicants to be ’sympathetic’ to requiring membership of a specific religious group), allowing only the LEA syllabus for religious education (banning the ‘faith-based RE’ option exercised in a minority of faith schools), and no longer accepting that assemblies can be ‘worship’. I think such moves by an education secretary would win such wide support in society that the Church of England would have to give in, and then other religious groups would be left in a reactionary minority.

Labelling children

At the Reformation, many reformers responded to the Enlightenment by declaring that a faith commitment can only be made once one is old enough to formulate it for one’s self. This led them to reject infant baptism and call for the baptism of adults only, and the rebaptism of those who were baptized as babies. The modern response from those, who like me, baptize babies is that this turns faith into a rational proposition and something to be arrived at rather than marking the commencement of a journey of faith. Maybe it’s no surprise then that the Evangelical Alliance have supported the posters. It is also interesting to see the comments on the Comment is Free article where the non-religious are going through the same arguments again: either labels require rational assent and children shouldn’t be labelled, or that parents have an important role in passing on what is important to them to their children. Atheism, like Protestantism, is based on the Enlightenment ideals of rational formation. Whereas sociologists (Weber for example), along with baptizers of infants, would point to the importance of the childhood ethos that leads to that rational formation.

Raising children is not a value-free activity, and education, however it is done, involves the imparting of a ethical framework to children, even the imprinting of such. Education and child-rearing is always based on some such ethical framework however ill-conceived or fragmentary. Thus, there is no such thing as a childhood exempt from values, and these values have labels attached. Although there is plenty of room for parental expression of these values (for good or ill), when education takes place beyond the family unit society’s collective values are used (for good or ill). In a multicultural society, we recognise differing, even conflicting, values, and, if we have no overarching ethical framework, this leads to fragmentation. This fragmentation is demonstrated by the idea of a plurality of labels being a Bad Thing. In this light the poster campaign is simply part of a moral panic about the fragmentation of society, admittedly done in a more United Colours of Benetton than Daily Mail way.

Ideas, values, philosophies and religions permeate every part of our society. All of us are participants in labelling however apathetic, and no child can be exempt without living in a bubble. What the New Atheists have done is put a soundbite on a billboard. Its philosophical depth is as shallow as much of their arguments (a discredit to the honourable traditions of atheist thought). There is a poorly articulated campaign behind the slogan, which could positively been seen as a call to develop an overarching ethical framework within which state education should function, but it is more likely to find greater engagement with middle-class moral panic over fragmentation in society, getting their children into the ‘best schools’ and an old idea that religion isn’t a nice dinner-party topic for conversation (leading to general desire to disengage). I’m sure many BoBos (bourgeois bohemians) will find the poster smugly satisfying, but in the end it is philosophically empty at best, reactionary and monoculturalist at worst.

In the end, I’m still torn. I think there’s an important discussion to be had here, but the manner of the proposition means that it’s not going be had.

We are delighted to announce that Mia M. Mochizuki’s book The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566–1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age has won the 2009 ACE / Mercers’ International Book Award. The prize is awarded for a book which makes an outstanding contribution to the dialogue between religious faith and the visual arts. Mia Mochizuki’s book is the fruit of fifteen years’ research, and it well deserves all the plaudits it has been receiving.

Graham Howes, who presented the award, had this to say about the book:

Outstanding…  It sets one building – the Great Church at Haarlem – in an exceptionally broad context – as built form, as culturally symbolic artefact, and as a vehicle for didactic decoration…  Her story begins in the Roman Catholic era, examines the motives behind iconoclasm, its destructive force as well as its generative power, and then details the appropriation of the church by the local Reformed Community. All this is done with exceptional precision, imaginative insight and scholarly depth. The judges themselves found the book ‘enthralling’ and referred frequently to the way in which it re-shaped their entire perception of the relationship between a, perhaps the Protestant aesthetic and their own visual and emotional experience of that aesthetic. They also praised the sheer quality of the book’s production, and especially the way in which the excellent illustrations are placed throughout in close association to the text.

Other reviews and endorsements:

‘The long-term impact of iconoclasm on the development of art in the Reformed Netherlands is one of the most urgent and least understood problems in our field. Mia Mochizuki’s book gives us nuanced new answers, deftly combining concrete historical description and analysis with a sophisticated understanding of the theological, political and aesthetic issues at hand. Dutch Protestants cared about art. Mochizuki tells us why and how.’
Mariët Westermann, New York University, USA

‘Mochizuki has conclusively shown how artistic vision, like artistic style, is not only transitory in nature, but also how it is interwoven with theological insights and social circumstances. She has given art its place in society, indeed one that goes to the heart of the Church Masters’ and Church Council’s views on attracting viewer attention through design, by drawing well considered and profound conclusions from archival documents, abundant literature, artifacts and comparable examples. For the Netherlands, I am pleased our culture has been illuminated by such an impressive and knowledgeable scholar.’
C.A. van Swigchem, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands

‘Mia Mochizuki’s The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm is a highly original approach to the subject of art and the Reformation and a major contribution to our understanding of the early modern period on various levels. This book breaks new ground through its conceptual structure and its approach to art in sacred space and helps explain how the rejection of religious imagery led to a redefinition of art itself. This is history at its best, and as such, it should command the attention of a wide range of readers: anyone who is interested in the Reformation, the Netherlands, religious symbols, art and aesthetics will find this book indispensable.’
Carlos M.N. Eire, Yale University, USA

‘… a beautiful book, illustrated with lots of wonderful images, all in colour … The author’s commitment and thorough engagement with her materials is also evidenced in generous footnotes and wide reading … a remarkable contribution to the developing field of early-modern religious art history.’
Art Newspaper

‘Mochizuki’s book is praiseworthy for numerous reasons. It demonstrates the richness offered by interdisciplinary studies of art and religion, as it skillfully encourages readers to reconsider the relationship between sacred word and image through numerous high-quality color images of objects rarely illustrated… Mochizuki presents an insightful interpretation of Reformed visual piety, one that should encourage scholars to look at seventeenth-century Holland in new and exciting ways.’ caa.reviews

‘Highly recommended.’ Choice

A wonderful article by Jim Elliff, written in 1997, and just as relevant today. You read more article by Jim at www.CCWtoday.org

If you have been around me very long, you have heard me emphasize that the crying need, the absolutely desperate need of the hour, is reformation. You have also been aware that for years I have also longed for revival. Recently I was asked what the difference actually is, if any, between revival and reformation. This is an important question worthy of your precious time to think it through.

Though many are blinded to the current dilemma, the fact is that a sound and lively truth-basis has been ejected from the premises of modern evangelicalism. Evangelicalism has been dispossessed of truth to such an extent that it is becoming frightening. In its place experience and mysticism are house-sitting the church or, if not these, then church growth pragmatism or an unhealthy preoccupation with the psychological. But the necessary doctrines of the holiness of God and His just wrath, justification by faith alone, the transforming nature of regeneration, the sovereignty of God over all of creation and in salvation itself, the nature and extent of grace in justification and in sanctification—doctrines upon which the earlier revivals thrived—have been considered unimportant and useful only for wizened old theologs holed up in ivory towers who do not relate to the church’s future.

Many are unaware that Jonathan Edwards was preaching a series on justification by faith alone when revival came to New England, or that the many of the Scottish revivals, for instance, were precipitated by the preaching of series on regeneration, or that the highly doctrinal book of Romans has an illustrative history as a tool of great revival of the kind I am speaking. Sound doctrine was at the core of revival. But sadly, to large numbers of evangelicals, it doesn’t seem to make any difference what we believe, only that we are feeling something or enjoying any number of the other substitutes for biblical Christianity.

On such a foundation, does it make sense to revive the experience of believers alone? To revive a church’s experience alone when it has a mushy and insufficient doctrinal foundation is only to magnify our problems, to give credence to error, and to expand what got us into trouble in the first place.

Because of this dilemma, let me make an easily misunderstood statement: Revival, as we commonly understand it, would be ill spent on such doctrinally deficient churches as we find today. This may seem a strange comment to make since I, like many of you, have actually hoped for and preached for revival. But my conviction has to do with the usual, one-sided understanding of revival prevalent in most circles. As A. W. Tozer said, “A revival of the kind of Christianity which we have had in America the last fifty year would be the greatest tragedy of this century, a tragedy which would take the church a hundred years to get over.”

Merely bringing to vibrancy or bringing to life the experience of the believer alone may be extremely useful for dead orthodoxy—orthodox or correct belief without life. But we do not, on the main, have dead orthodoxy today. We have live heterodoxy. Hetero means “other” or “different.” Heterodoxy is divergent or even heretical belief. Reformation is that word we use to speak to the recovery of the correct doctrines and their vigorous application to all of life.

We should not want a revival of experience alone without true reformation. And so the term revival is not adequate for our day unless we add the qualifiers “reformational” or “word-driven.” It is not wrong to desire revival if we mean a revival that is a resurgence of correct believing along with the enlivening of our experience with God which comes out of (not apart from) that sound doctrine. This means that I believe the most long-lasting change would not come by only having merely warm, or even powerful, dramatic experiences with God. No, what is needed is for some of the major organizations and churches, for instance, to reshape their view of the gospel to conform to the Bible.

I pick this issue of the nature of the gospel, from among many choices, because the “gospel” which is being preached is resulting in such massive fallout (sometimes as high as 90% or more in certain campaigns) that failure to re-think doctrinally the nature of the gospel is one of the great anomalies of our day. But, unfortunately, if you gather the leaders of many of the religious organizations together today, they would make a very definite point of not discussing what they believe. Their aim, in terms of revival today, is to see more experience, or more expansive growth. I do not mean that anyone is malicious in this oversight, but somehow the importance of reformation is just not sinking in.

This incognizance explains why the theologians almost never invite the parachurch leaders to their meetings, and the leaders, who are planning and writing the future of evangelicalism, almost never get the theologians to speak to them about the message they are promulgating. There are exceptions which could be noted, but, in the main, we are really failing to help each other by going our own way.

Now, to clarify, I am not saying that experience with God is not useful or desirable. Remember that I said dead orthodoxy needs experience with God. And if that is a description of you, then you know just what you need. I don’t doubt the extreme value of renewed experience with God. What I am saying is that experience is the servant or handmaiden of the truth, and first things should be first.

If you shoot past truth to get to experience, then you will have at best something very limited and immediate only, something which, in the final case, will produce a greater heteropraxis (wrong living). Heterodoxy always leads to heteropraxis. God has already instructed us as to how transformation of behavior is to take place. It is through the truth, not by mere experience. “Sanctify them by Your truth; Your Word is truth.” Jn. 17:17.

Perhaps it will help to illustrate through the recent and rather short-term season of public confession which affected many of our schools and churches. Sadly, in the midst of this wonderful and blessed activity, there was the distinct desire, perhaps in more cases than we would like to admit, to suspend preaching or teaching of the Word in favor of on-going experience. Now I believe God brought the conviction we saw, and I believe that it is possible for a group to experience times of confession within biblical sanctions, but a major mark of the recent work was the stark absence of the centrality of preaching.

During this period of public confession, it seemed to be a matter of excitement in the testimony of people that there was no preaching at all. It was as if preaching was unnecessary, that truth explained would actually get in the way of the work of the Spirit. Compare this to the early church in the New Testament during their inaugural revival. These people would hang on to Paul’s teaching through whole nights if possible!

Again, I am quite happy to believe that God was involved in much of what happened, and we should all be thankful for that, but it is possible, unwittingly, to fail to obey God in our handling of this great blessing of conviction and Divine presence. You will find nothing like such minimizing of preaching, for instance, in the Great Awakening or other earlier revivals before the mid-1800’s. And even if we could point to a work of God here and there with a reduced emphasis on the preaching of the Word, our present dilemma would still demonstrate the need for such a reforming work of God. It is not just great experience over a few days or even weeks that will rectify our situation, but a complete re-orientation to truth and a return to thinking and doctrine.

Experience-driven revival is more like a flash flood than a mighty river. Heightened experience certainly leaves its mark, some of which may be good wherever it meets orthodoxy, but a reformational revival is a life-giving river which has continuing positive effects. When reformation takes place, the conviction is not just over our behavioral sinfulness but over wrong doctrine (or simply apathy toward pursuing truth itself) as well. As Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor and author, Dr. Don Whitney, said to me, “We must repent of our doctrine as well as our lives.”

John Wycliffe

Said Wycliffe,

“Even though there were a hundred popes and though every mendicant monk were a cardinal, they would be entitled to confidence only in so far as they accorded with the Bible.”

“Trust wholly in Christ; rely altogether on his sufferings; beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation.”

And Wycliffe translated these life-giving words into English for the first time:

“For God louede so the world, that he yaf his `oon bigetun sone, that ech man that bileueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf.”

Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years

 By Philip PullellaFri

“The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.

 A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, “‘Processus Contra Templarios — Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars”‘ is a massive work and much more than a book — with a 5,900 euros ($8,333) price tag.

 ”This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project,” said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican’s Secret Archives.

“Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars,” she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official presentation of the work on October 25.

The epic comes in a soft leather case that includes a large-format book including scholarly commentary, reproductions of original parchments in Latin, and — to tantalize Templar buffs — replicas of the wax seals used by 14th-century inquisitors.

Reuters was given an advance preview of the work, of which only 799 numbered copies have been made.

 One parchment measuring about half a meter wide by some two meters long is so detailed that it includes reproductions of stains and imperfections seen on the originals.

Pope Benedict will be given the first set of the work, published by the Vatican Secret Archives in collaboration with Italy’s Scrinium cultural foundation, which acted as curator and will have exclusive world distribution rights.

The Templars, whose full name was “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon,” were founded in 1119 by knights sworn to protecting Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099.

 They amassed enormous wealth and helped finance wars of some European monarchs. Legends of their hidden treasures, secret rituals and power have figured over the years in films and bestsellers such as “The Da Vinci Code.”

The Knights have also been portrayed as guardians of the legendary Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper before his crucifixion.

The Vatican expects most copies of the work to be bought up by specialized libraries at top universities and by leading medieval scholars.

BURNED AT THE STAKE

The Templars went into decline after Muslims re-conquered the Holy Land at the end of the 13th century and were accused of heresy by King Philip IV of France, their foremost persecutor. Their alleged offences included denying Christ and secretly worshipping idols.

The most titillating part of the documents is the so-called Chinon Parchment, which contains phrases in which Pope Clement V absolves the Templars of charges of heresy, which had been the backbone of King Philip’s attempts to eliminate them.

Templars were burned at the stake for heresy by King Philip’s agents after they made confessions that most historians believe were given under duress.

The parchment, also known as the Chinon Chart, was “misplaced” in the Vatican archives until 2001, when Frale stumbled across it.

 ”The parchment was catalogued incorrectly at some point in history. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was incredulous,” she said.

 ”This was the document that a lot of historians were looking for,” the 37-year-old scholar said.

Philip was heavily indebted to the Templars, who had helped him finance his wars, and getting rid of them was a convenient way of cancelling his debts, some historians say.

Frale said Pope Clement was convinced that while the Templars had committed some grave sins, they were not heretics.

SPITTING ON THE CROSS

Their initiation ceremony is believed to have included spitting on the cross, but Frale said they justified this as a ritual of obedience in preparation for possible capture by Muslims. They were also said to have practiced sodomy.

 ”Simply put, the pope recognized that they were not heretics but guilty of many other minor crimes — such as abuses, violence and sinful acts within the order,” she said. “But that is not the same as heresy.”

Despite his conviction that the Templars were not guilty of heresy, in 1312 Pope Clement ordered the Templars disbanded for what Frale called “the good of the Church” following his repeated clashes with the French king.

Frale depicted the trials against the Templars between 1307 and 1312 as a battle of political wills between Clement and Philip, and said the document means Clement’s position has to be reappraised by historians.

“This will allow anyone to see what is actually in documents like these and deflate legends that are in vogue these days,” she said.

Rosi Fontana, who has helped the Vatican coordinate the project, said: “The most incredible thing is that 700 years have passed and people are still fascinated by all of this.”

“The precise reproduction of the parchments will allow scholars to study them, touch them, admire them as if they were dealing with the real thing,” Fontana said.

 ”But even better, it means the originals will not deteriorate as fast as they would if they were constantly being viewed,” she said.

“The Lord said, ‘I will hasten my work in its time’ (D&C 88:73). Surely anyone observing the recent growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is keenly aware of that hastening process. This should make us humbly grateful for the Lord’s omnipotent hand. Obstacles that seemed insurmountable have proven to be merely challenges for the faithful, for ‘with God nothing shall be impossible’ (Luke 1:37). “Inspiration has prepared the way from the beginning, when the Lord impressed the Prophet Joseph Smith to compose the twelfth article of faith: ‘We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.’ This inspired statement was surely written for our day. The Prophet knew that the gospel was ultimately to be taken to all nations regardless of their governmental differences. He knew that the ordinances of salvation and exaltation could bless the lives of people regardless of their politics. And he knew that people who were taught correct principles and who were loyal to their civil leaders and observing of their local laws would be most able to enjoy the blessings of the gospel.”

Elder Russell M. Nelson

Click on following for earlier articles: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

You put up with it when they make you their slaves, take everything you have, take advantage of you, put on airs, and slap you in the face. (2 Corinthians 11:20 NLT)

It’s one thing for pastors to misuse their authority, and thereby, try to control believers. But it can become devastating when a person with an apostolic or prophetic anointing misuses his authority – knowingly or unknowingly – to control Christians.

One of the most  extreme examples of a person misusing a prophetic anointing is Jim Jones. His name is forever linked to the words: Jonestown Massacre.

In my case, the prophetic bondage I suffered was certainly not on the scale of a Jim Jones, but still, it was devastating enough for me.

As I wrote in Part 4, I attended a little church for four years. A husband and wife were the pastors. One had a prophetic anointing and the other an apostolic one; both had strong gifts.

But the problem was that they had control issues, especially over people with callings. They saw us as gems for their personal ministry which they envisioned as being national in scope.

For me, they believed I would be their Silas, a prophet who would minister in the churches they hoped to plant. (Later, I discovered this important point: they were even praying and prophesying this vision over my life in their personal prayer times. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!)

When they would talk about their vision for me, I’d say, “I don’t think that’s what the Lord has in mind for me. But of course, if it is, I’d certainly be open to it.”

All of this came to a head one day when I had a disagreement with them. We agreed on a meeting for that evening.  To prepare myself,  I spent the afternoon praying and fasting, and had a strong prophetic word for them, especially the husband.

They asked me to speak first. As I finished reading a verse of scripture and was ready to give the prophetic word, one of them interrupted me by speaking in tongues. And then, the other interpreted it.

The tongues and interpretation felt like machine-gun bullets, ripping through my guts. Whatever anointing I had for the meeting with them was blown apart. I was destroyed.

As I limped home that evening, I cried out to the Lord. “Lord, You have to help me. I want to obey the rulers You have placed over me, but right now,  I’m confused. And I don’t understand what’s going on.”

So, how was I set free from this prison with a steeple on its roof?

(Continued in Part 6.)