Something Beautiful - 7

Death Cab for Cutie - Title and Registration

I love this video. In a world so saturated with cutting edge technological innovation it is always refreshing to see people use simple materials and techniques to make something visually engaging.

Heretical Crazy Talk Videos

The mockingbird blog posted their seven favorite heretical crazy talk videos of 2009. You should watch them. Some are so crazy they are funny, like Benny Hinn revealing that there are actually nine persons in the trinity, but mostly they are just sad.

Here is the link.

Old, Stable, and Reformed---#2

“Unless I am convinced by Scripture and by plain reason and not by Popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves, my conscience is captive to the word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. I cannot and I will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”

When considering the issues of salvation and the gospel, the most crucial concern is the question of authority. What is the final authority for establishing and defining the message of salvation? Who owns the gospel? Who has the right to define the gospel? How can I know and trust the gospel message that I hear? That was the concern of the young monk Martin Luther as he faced the might of the political and religious rulers of his day. Luther saw the issue as a gospel issue. The Roman church asserted their ownership of the gospel and opposed any questioning of their authority. Luther struggled with the authority question as he exegeted scripture and assessed the practices and preaching of the Roman church around him. After several years of development, Luther stood before the Diet of Worms and rejected the Roman church’s claim to absolute authority over the gospel. Luther asserted that the church’s authority over the gospel was secondary and derived. The church’s authority was limited to the scripture and scripture alone.

Luther’s dilemma must be lived out in the thought of each would-be theologian. What/who is our ultimate authority? Is it the scripture or one of the scripture’s rivals: human reason, human tradition, or human psychology? Is it God or one of God’s rivals? It is important for us to establish the correct epistemological foundation early in the process because of the difficulty of the questions that eventually develop in our study of the gospel.

The central issue in all of human knowledge always boils down to revelation vs. autonomous reason/experience. It is no less so in this crucial are of the gospel

Pastor Tony - Serving By Saving

This is my pastor, Tony Buford. This is an excerpt from the sermon "Born to Serve", preached on 12-22-09.

All of pastor Tony's sermons can be found on Sermon Audio.

The Gift of Life

What could be a more Christlike act than being a bone marrow donor? Undergoing some physical discomfort (very modest pain) in order to save the life of someone by giving them your blood (stem cells to be exact). I don't want to push the analogy too far but you can see what I am saying. You really can save someones life who otherwise would not have gotten a second chance.

If after watching the video above you feel like this is something you would like to do, please join our donors circle.

Saint Joseph Area Life Savers - Donors Circle

Facebook Group

Pastor Tony - Hypocrisy

This is my pastor, Tony Buford. This is an excerpt from the sermon "Purity and Profanity in the Temple", preached on 10-4-09.

All of pastor Tony's sermons can be found on Sermon Audio.

How Things Have Changed

Things have changed in many sectors of evangelicalism. There has been a shift. I'm not going to focus on what caused the shift. Although I think it can be summed up by saying that there was an overreaction to some books doing shoddy cultural analysis that amounted to nothing more than faux-intellectualism. You know, the books that essentially said that the sky was falling because humanity had fundamentally changed and backed up their claims by attaching the prefix "post" to everything. These books told us that Christianity must change or die. I say that the only kinds of "christianity" that ultimately end up dying are those that change in an attempt to ride the momentary waves of cultural preference and philosophical fad. Those waves always crash on the shore and you can only reinvent yourself so many times before you start to come off like Madonna. Alright, back on topic.

I want to compare the new and improved Christianity with the caricature of the old Christianity that was beaten up on in so many books and sermons. I think the two are very similar. They are similar because the underlying system of religion wasn't changed. Most of the old categories were kept in place and simply filled with different items. In fact the only substantive changes that have been made thus far are changes for the worse.

Both systems preach a legalistic gospel of sin management. Both systems have an us versus them attitude. Both systems have a certain class of sinner that they are ungracious toward. Both systems see their ultimate

Something Beautiful - 6

Passion Pit - To Kingdom Come

Calvary Chapel Distinctives #1

This is the first of numerous posts blogging through Chuck Smith's book, "Calvary Chapel Distinctives: The Foundational Principles of the Calvary Chapel Movement". In this post I will be going through the first two sections of the book entitled 'Preface' and 'The Call To The Ministry'.

Preface:

The first sentence in the book is as follows:

What is it that makes Calvary Chapel different from other Bible-believing, evangelical Churches?

Smith goes on to explain that there are indeed important enough differences to not merge with the church across the street. So, he sets the book up as a confession of faith, a "what we believe" of sorts, of which I am all for. I think it is a very good thing that this book was written for the purpose it was written for. A lot of churches, mostly congregations who are not affiliated with any particular denomination, do not have a standard, a starting point for pastors and members to adhere to. So again, I am glad Calvary Chapel has separated itself from other denominations.

The Call To The Ministry:

To start out the section, Chuck Smith makes it clear as to whom he is addressing this book to. He often uses pronouns like 'our', 'we', and 'us'. This whole section is dedicated to "the vital subject of our calling and commitment to the ministry". So this book is written to/for Calvary Chapel ministers.

Smith writes,

If there is one characteristic that is absolutely essential for effective ministry, it's that we must first have a sense of calling- the conviction in our hearts that God has chosen and called us to serve Him. The Bible tells us to make our calling and election sure. Are you convinced that God has called you into the ministry? (Italics mine)

Here is the books first exegetical error. He references 2 Peter 1 when he speaks of us making our calling and election sure. There is just one problem, the 'calling' that Peter speaks of, has nothing to do with a "conviction in our hearts that God has chosen and called us to serve Him" in pastoral ministry. Smith takes this verse (2 Peter 1:10) out of context and uses it for his purpose in this chapter. This is not to be taken lightly. Peter had an intention for the words he used in his letter. We, 2000 years later, should not take the words he used and make them mean what we want then to mean.

Smith moves on to give some practical examples of how ministering/serving God's people works out. He tells of how he hates picking up peoples cigarette butts off the ground. Every time he would pick one up outside of the church building, he would grumble in his heart and think unloving thoughts about the person dropping them. Then Smith says something odd,

Then the Lord spoke to my heart. He simply said, "Who are you serving?" I said, "I am serving You, Lord." And He replied, "Then quit your gripping."

Now, I don't actually think he heard the very voice of God saying these things to him. At least I hope not. I get the point hes trying to make. But why not use God's actual voice, His word? Why not use scripture to make the point? What does "the Lord spoke to my heart" even mean? This lingo of conversations with God is popular in evangelicalism. People claim to have heard a still, small voice. They claim they have dreams and visions from God. My question is this: If Chuck actually hears God speak to him, shouldn't we be typing this stuff out and stapling it in our Bibles just after Revelation?

He goes on to explain the right attitude and commitment ministers should have in ministry work. He says,

We must not only maintain a commitment to Jesus and to serving His people, but there must also be a commitment to the Word of God. I believe that anyone who doesn't believe that the Bible is the inspired, innerant Word of God has no business being in the ministry. And if you do believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and that it's your duty to preach it, then, by all means, know it. Be committed to it.

Here is a clear affirmation to the innarency and total inspiration of the Bible. Smith takes a firm stance in his position against ministers who downgrade the Word of God. On this issue, he stands on the shoulders of giants of the Christian faith. I am extremely grateful for his insistence on this subject. I know, and am thankful to God, that Chuck Smith would wholeheartedly say with the prince of preachers, C.H. Spurgeon:

We care little for any theory of inspiration: in fact, we have none. To us the plenary verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture is a fact, and not hypothesis. It is a pity to theorize upon a subject which is deeply mysterious, and makes a demand upon faith rather than fancy. The coin of inspiration comes from the mint of infallibility.

Old, Stable, and Reformed-- Personal Journey

I am reformed. I have been reformed since my early days of college (a long time ago, on a planet far, far away). In some respects it was a big change for me as I moved from a confused fundamentalist to a more clear thinking reformed perspective, but in other respects it was simply dealing logically and consistently with the deepest concerns of life.

The move officially began with an effort to clearly understand the gospel as the Bible presents it rather than the gospel that had permeated the particular Christian subculture that I had been born into. I wanted to understand the gospel for several reasons. First, because I was plagued with lack of assurance. I had never had the dramatic emotional experience that I had been hearing in the testimony conversion stories in the churches that I was attending. I wanted a biblical assurance that was rooted in something outside of me, apart from my feelings and performance (or lack thereof). Second, I wanted a gospel that was firmly planted within the entire context and flow of the big biblical story. The gospel that I had heard was more a collection of snippets, slogans, and potpourri (I always wanted to use this word). Third, I wanted a "Big Gospel" that was mysterious, audacious, and had operative roots outside the salesmanship and persuasiveness of men. A gospel that was consistent with Jesus' words, consistent with the Apostles' words, and consistent with the formulations and clarifications of the Church Fathers. A time tested and confirmed formulation of the gospel.

Some of the early questions/issues were: What was the goal of the gospel: my eternal safety or God's glory? What was the tipping point of the gospel: my decision or the Spirit's sovereign work? What was the security of the gospel: My conviction and lack of doubt or the sufficient priestly work of Jesus? What was the presentation of the gospel: appeal to man's felt needs or informing man of God's demands upon him (possibly un-felt needs). What was the authoritative standard for the gospel: my philosophical reasoning and rationalizations or the clear statements of the biblical texts? The question ultimately boiled down to: Whose gospel was it anyway: mine or God's?

I am reformed, so you know the answer to the question. The gospel is God's. It is God's whether I like it, accept it, proclaim it or not. Facts are facts.

The Inconsistency of the Secular Environmentalist

The goal of this post will be to show that the secular environmentalist who holds his moral convictions to be objectively true and therefore universally binding on all of humanity, is living inconsistently with his own professed world view. If we presuppose an atheistic world view, all grounds for objectively true moral judgments are lost. Let me explain why.

Within the atheistic world view, we are a cosmic accident. Our entire solar system is an unimaginably minute speck in a undesigned and meaningless universe. We are minute specs on a planet in that minute solar system in that meaningless universe. The universe is expanding at such a speed that gravity will not be able to pull it back together, thus sealing the fate of the universe. The universe will continue expanding at an ever increasing rate only to eventually burn through all the available fuel, go completely dark and then go through a process called the "big rip", where even the cold dark chunks of matter that remain will be pulled apart at the sub atomic level. Nothing will survive this. All memory and record of all the events that ever happened in this cosmos will be permanently erased. As if it had never happened. What would be the difference if it never really had?

Within this framework, on what basis do we think we can make moral claims that are objectively true? By what standard? Our own? Wouldn't that be the hight of arrogance to believe that our personal judgement is the source for objective morality that is binding on all people? Of course it would. But beyond being arrogant it is a downright nonsensical notion. It is nonsensical because you are an accidental collection of atoms. You are meaningless. You are purposeless. You are without value. A cosmic accident. So how could from this non-value, objective moral value be derived? It can't. Your moral pronouncements are meaningless syllables coming from an insignificant spec in a meaningless universe. And it doesn't matter how many of these specks you add together in a collective (0xN=0) you cannot create a source from which objective morality could be based.

A Watercolor I Painted

This is a watercolor I did a few months ago. It seems appropriate for the theme I have been posting on.

To Each According To His Need

What does Light Beer and American Evangelicalism have in common?

This comes from the Irish Calvinist. Check out his blog on the blog-roll. It's a good one.




People have described some of the contemporary practices within evangelicalism as being driven by consumerism. We can see evidences of this with many of the popular devices that are employed, whether it be in the altering of vocabulary, the transition from preaching to conversations, the emphasis upon felt needs rather than spiritual needs, the polling of unbelievers as to how church should be conducted, a deemphasis upon doctrine, a redefinition of Jesus as weak and effeminate, and an idolatrous portrayal of a God who’s love is able to trump his righteousness. Regrettably, all of these things are common today.

Even here in Omaha we have seen a confessional evangelical church, with a history of teaching the Bible, hang up pictures of the Pope and encourage believers to be more like him. Proponents of this type of reproachable compromise argue that such things are done to attract the large Catholic community that surrounds the church.

In effort to create something that is universally accepted by all, even unbelievers and heretics, such people are unwittingly making themselves irrelevant. The church is supposed to be different, we are supposed to have distinct contours that reflect our God who has called out us of the world and given us the same message to proclaim to a world who does not know him.

Excellent post from "The Old Adam Lives" !

Why Did He Come?
"To give us a blueprint on how to fix this world?

To be a shining example to us that we might finally ‘get it’ and whip ourselves into shape?
To give us something to shoot for?

Ah…no.

He came to save the people that He made who inhabit this fallen world. He came to save those complicit with the brokeness of this world. He came to save us......"

Click the link above and read the rest of his post. It is important to keep this life in perspective. This post will help you do just that.

Something Beautiful - 5

Passion Pit - The Reeling

I love this video!

When are they going to make glasses that allow us to apply real time effects to what we are seeing. Like saturation, color temperature, etc. The first thing I would try would be a setting of slight desaturation, tweak the color temperature to the cool side, a little visual noise, a vignette and an exaggeration of depth of field blur. It would be beautiful!




We dug these holes we crawled into. Now they're my home
Down here I cannot feel the wind. Can't feel the rain or cold.
And I believe in gentle harmony. How I loathe all this obscenity
Is this the way my life has got to be? By a single opportunity.

Look at me, oh look at me. Is this the way I've always been?
Oh no, oh no
Now I'm dreaming somebody. Would simply come and kidnap me.
Oh no, oh no
Everyday I lie awake and pray to God today's the day.
Oh no, oh no
Here I am, and here I am, when will someone understand?
Oh no, oh no

And all at once I feel this. Oh how it clings to me.
It reels and calls me towards it. Confounding destiny.
And I can feel the madness pinch my hands. The more I run the more I am convinced
A girl who loves is like a precious glimpse. Just like we settle in the foggy mist

Look at me, oh look at me is this the way I've always been?
Oh no, oh no
Now I'm dreaming somebody would simply come and kidnap me.
Oh no, oh no
Everyday I lie awake and pray to God today's the day.
Oh no, oh no
Here I am, here I am, when will someone understand?
Oh no, oh no

Musical Interlude

Look at me, oh look at me. is this the way I've always been?

Oh no, oh no
Now I'm dreaming somebody would simply come and kidnap me
Oh no, oh no
Everyday I lie awake and pray to God, today's the day
Oh no, oh no
Here I am, here I am, when will someone understand
Oh no, oh no

The Road to Serfdom

Below is a very rough sketch of how entire societies have been led into the abyss of fascism and the statist authoritarianism of command economies. History shows that any time this is allowed to happen it always ends in bread lines, gulags, concentration camps and killing fields. The road to these terrible outcomes is always paved with good intentions and the way down the slippery slope it greased by altruistic utopian rhetoric.

Replace the word “War” in step one below with say “global warming” and you can see how we are at a precipice that if crossed would almost certainly, like every example history has shown us, end in one or more of the afore mentioned outcomes. I fear we may have crossed that precipice sometime back but maybe there is still time to fight against the tide and limit the suffering that our children and grandchildren would have to endure if the collectivists are once again allowed to destroy a country.

I would rewrite step one in the following way. Global Warming forces "national planning". To avoid  the cataclysmic effects of climate change, you gladly surrender many freedoms.You know that we have to convert to a "green" economy.

You can use your own imagination to see how the other steps might fit into what we are currently watching unfold.

The Gospel of Envy - Part 2

The Gospel of Envy - Part 1

In part one of this post I explained that the proponents of the gospel of envy, both secular and religious, present some form of class struggle as humanities greatest problem. And salvation for them consists of winning this struggle and restoring "social justice". Not only do I disagree that any form of social injustice, either real or imagined, is the problem that humanity needs salvation from, I also disagree with what they consider to be unjust.

A comparison of the biblical view of what is unjust with that of the proponents of the false gospel of envy will be the focus of this post. I will start by attempting to paint a picture of social injustice as defined by the gospel of envy.

I want to be careful not to paint with too broad a brush. There is a fairly wide spectrum of how people define the unjust within envy religion. It ranges from those that see any level of variation in wealth or possessions as unjust, to those who have the right categories for what is unjust but try to shoe horn people into those categories who don't belong and even those who have the right categories and people in them but have elevated the issue of injustice above humanities real problem thereby distorting their gospel message and view of salvation.

The people at the top end of this scale aren't hiding behind any religious fig leaf. They are the people like Marx who preach the envy gospel in its pure secular form. They preach a completely classless society brought about by the abolition of economic freedom and the installment of a strong central power and command economy. This utopian idea has been throughly debunked by history in every way. The means these people preach have never come close to bringing about the ends that they promise. First of all, social classes remain they just take different forms. In a free capitalistic society you will have some class distinction with varying levels of wealth and material possessions. In a communist/socialist society the classes remain in the form of a ruling class and a serf class. The difference is that in the "utopia" you aren't able to change your circumstances through hard work and determination. Not only does it not create a classless society it also doesn't raise the living standards of those that it claims to "liberate". At best the result of this system is abject poverty and scarcity of goods and at worst mass graves. When planning an economy becomes the job of the state every aspect of the lives of the people (cogs in the wheel) becomes the business of the state. They say, "our plan would work if only,________). You can put many thing in that blank space. Things like, "families would have only one child", "the infirm were put out of their misery freeing up the money it takes to care for them", "the elderly didn't live so long", "we could implement a strict form of eugenics", "we implement the finale solution", "we liquidate forty percent of the population", etc...  This is the way these social experiments always end. There is no historical exception and there never will be an exception. All the premises this gospel is built upon are lies. And one of  the biggest is that the existence of social classes resulting from economic freedom are inherently unjust. This form of the gospel is so obviously contrary to scripture that it is hard to believe anyone calling themselves a Christian could ever advocate it, but sadly they do. On top of scriptures disagreement with what they label as unjust it is also completely at odds with the means these people use to accomplish their goals. The Christians who believe this false gospel believe that they are going to create the Kingdom of God on the earth. Do they really believe that the tool that will be used to do that is Ceasar's guns? Everything that the government does it does with the inherent threat of force. That is fine when the government doesn't stray from its legitimate role of protecting the people from others who wish to harm them. But when that force is turned on the nonviolent non-dangerous public the government has relinquished its legitimacy. But I digress. The Kingdom will never be built by the muzzle of Ceasar's guns!

"The old-line Marxists used to claim that a single modern factory could produce enough shoes to provide for the whole population of the world and that nothing but capitalism prevented it. When they discovered the facts of reality involved, they declared that going barefoot is superior to wearing shoes.". ~Ayn Rand

Now lets consider those who have the right categories for the unjust but are shoe horning things into them that don't belong. One clear example of this is the belief that it is unjust that anyone should have to live on the "poor" side of town. If you read my posts titled "The Relativity of Wealth" you will see that in most cases people are labeled poor based on their relative wealth compared to others that live close to them. Being at the low end of a scale of relative wealth is no automatic indication of injustice. In this category you will also find that the idea that consequences for bad actions are considered an injustice. This runs contrary to scripture. Consider, Prov 10: 4 , Prov 12:27 , Prov 21: 5 , Prov 20: 4 , Prov 21: 25 , Prov 19: 15 , Prov 12:11 , Prov 16: 26 , etc... This is the natural order of things. The bible never calls these realities unjust. It is perfectly just for a sluggard to suffer poverty. It is actually beneficial to him. Eventually his hungry stomach will motivate him to work and fill it. It is also fairly obvious that if someone feels it is unjust for a man to suffer the consequence of poverty for his laziness they will also feel it is unjust for someone to suffer the consequence of hell for his sinfulness. This attitude puts them completely at odds with biblical Christianity. All this isn't to say that we can't ever help someone who is suffering the just consequences of their actions but it is saying that we should be careful not to declare unjust what God declares to be just. That is a very dangerous road to go down.

Finally, lets consider the error of elevating social injustice, even legitimate forms, to an improper level of importance. Putting it in a place where it eclipses mans real problem (the one that will send him to hell) or replaces it all together. I will start by saying that I believe the primary cause of this error is that humanities real problem becomes very unfashionable and politically incorrect causing people to reject it and put something else in its place e.g., social injustice. After doing this the biblical account of Christs work no longer makes sense because it is addressing a problem they no longer accept. So they redefine the gospel and Christs work turning Him into nothing more than a moral example and His death on the cross into merely an example of self sacrifice that we are to emulate. We are living in just such a cultural climate where the biblical view of mans sinfulness and impending judgment are repulsive concepts. This explains why we have seen much growth in "Christian" movements who have given in and redefined the gospel in this way.

The people who abandon the biblical gospel and adopt any form of the gospel of envy have as their spiritual fathers not Jesus and the apostles but rather Marx and the biggest mass murders who have ever lived.

“An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains” ~Henri Frederic Amiel

"The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency." ~Pope John Paul II

"The Nazis are well remembered for murdering well over 11 million people in the implementation of their slogan, 'The public good before the private good,' the Chinese Communists for murdering 62 million people in the implementation of theirs, 'Serve the people,' and the Soviet Communists for murdering more than 60 million people in the implementation of Karl Marx's slogan, 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.' Anyone who defends any of these, or any variation of them, on the grounds of their 'good intentions' is an immoral (NOT 'amoral') enabler of the ACTUAL (not just the proverbial) road to hell." ~Rick Gaber

Something Beautiful - 4

I love Bjork's voice. And she really shows it off in this song.

The Gospel of Envy - Part 1

I will start this post with the quote that was the inspiration for its title.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." ~ Winston Churchill

Regardless of their differences, the three men in the image at the top of this post have at least one thing in common. They all gained power by preaching the gospel of envy. They along with their fellow evangelists preached this gospel long and hard until they finally had enough converts to centralize and seize power. Unfortunately these evangelists are often helped along by those who call themselves Christian but instead are deceived false teachers preaching the materialistic gospel of envy.

Lets begin with Marx. Marx's viewed all of history as a struggle between social classes. He believed that the working class needed to rise up and seize the means of production by force. Obviously the ideas of a free market and private property ran contrary to his vision . Since these are the backbone of capitalism we can understand why he despised it. So in Marx's world view, humanities big problem is the repression of one social class by another. The gospel message consists of imperatives generally stating that people should fight against the social injustice. Salvation in his world view is when the struggle for social justice is won and the working class seizes control and abolishes private property etc...

Now lets consider Hitler. His message was nearly identical to that of Marx but it also had an ethnic component to it. Hitler turned his country against the Jews by preaching Marx's gospel of envy. After WW1 the German people were going through some extreme financial hardship. During this time the Jewish population in Germany was doing quite well and had bought many "German" businesses. In this environment the gospel of envy was very potent. Hitler preached the problem as being a struggle between classes with the "greedy capitalist" Jews as the exploiters of the German people. His gospel also consisted of imperatives urging people to fight for social justice. And salvation in Hitlers world view consisted of Germany throwing off its oppressors and creating powerful state that demanded sacrifice of the individual for the good of the collective. Hitler's political party was the National Socialist party... yes that kind of socialism. their party platform consisted of the many of the same planks that you will find in any other socialist party. Here are some samples from their party program:

...The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.... ...We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens... ...We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries... ...We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries... ...We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare... ...We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses... ...We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race... ...The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education... ...For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich... etc...

 The German people were no different than us. The potential for that level of wickedness exists within every human and therefore every culture. They simply believed the gospel of envy and it led them down a very dark road. As it has every culture who has believed its message and used its means to strive towards the ends that it presents as salvation.

Now lets consider the religious version of this gospel. The religious version is created when the secular version embeds itself parasitically in a religion and disguises itself by incorporating some of the terminology of the host religion. A clear example of this is what is called Liberation Theology or Christian Socialism. In these false religions, that are no more Christianity than chalk is cheese (Spurgeon's line), the biblical categories for humanities primary problem, the gospel and salvation are replaced with those from the gospel of envy. And thus you basically have Marx's gospel tricked out in some biblical terminology and scriptural distortions consisting of out of context verses. This false Christianity with its false gospel is alive and well in the United States. You can recognize it by what it consistently inserts into the categories of humanities problem, gospel (will consist of imperatives) and salvation. It will differ from the biblical categories which are:

Humanities primary problem - This is the problem that necessitates salvation. The gospel is good news because it addresses this problem. This is why Jesus had to die. (if your theology cant explain why Jesus HAD to to die then you need a different theology) The biblical view of humanities problem is that each individual is a guilty sinner ( Rom 10: 3-18 ). And since we do not meet the standard of perfect Holiness that God being perfectly just demands ( Rom 3: 25-26 ), we are left without hope forever separated from our creator and sure to suffer His wrath at the time of judgement.

The Gospel - This is good news! You, man of unclean lips. You who were without hope, facing sure and deserved wrath. God has made a way where there was no way! God in His infinite grace and love sent His only begotten Son to suffer the punishment for your sin. His name was Jesus. He was born of a virgin. He lived a perfect life fulfilling every requirement of the law. His perfect life made Him a perfect sacrifice for your sin. He willingly laid His life down and was crucified as a payment for your sin. On the cross, the wrath that God had stored up for those that would be saved was poured out on Jesus. He was dead and in the grave for three days and then God raised Him from the dead defeating Hell and the grave. He did all of this to make a way of salvation for you. All that is required of you is to humble yourself, repent and believe.

Salvation - Is being brought into right standing with your creator. It is the complete nullification of the problem I outlined earlier. It is having Christ's perfect righteousness imputed to you. It is eternal life rather than eternal damnation.

When you know and understand what the biblical answers to these questions are it isn't hard to spot the counterfeits.

Ran out of time, so I will pick up here on part two.

"Our business is to present that which is timeless, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, in the particular language of our own age, the bad preacher does exactly the opposite: he takes the ideas of our own age and tricks them out in the traditional language of Christianity.” ~ CS Lewis

Something Beautiful - 3

Neko Case is one of my favorite artists. I have seen her live several times and when she comes through again I will most likely be there.

This Is Just Good...

I usually don't really like the music behind preaching on videos like this, but this is too good to pass (the preaching I mean, not the music, well, I like the music too but, you know what I mean).

The Gospel of Envy - Primer

Here is something to set the stage for my next post.

"Justice is always naive and self-confident; believing that it will immediately win once recognized. That is the reason why the forces of Justice are so poorly organized. On the other hand, the Evil is cynic, sly and fantastically organized. It never ever has the illusion of the ability to stand on its own feet and to win in a fair competition. That is why it is ready to use any kind of means without hesitation. And of course it does - under the banners of the most noble ideas."
~Vladimir Bukovsky

"At the end of a century that has seen the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies, the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent."
~Joseph Sobran

"Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice."
"Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity – in short, of tyranny – and it is committed to making tyranny universal.
~Adlai E. Stevenson

"Communists are of two kinds only. Gadarene Swine whose wits have been taken from them so that they rush headlong down the slope to their own destruction, and ordinary voracious swine who, if you were standing in their sty, had a heart-attack and fell among them, would instantly set upon and devour you."
~Dennis Wheatley

"The scientific approach uncovers, that Communism does not eliminate the inequality between men, the social injustice, exploitation of man by man and other evils of society – communism merely changes their form and gives birth to new evils, which become eternal fellow-travelers of communism."
"All in all, Engels talked so much rot of every kind, that now all the world’s academies of science should be directed to rectify his mistakes and idiocies.""
~Aleksandr Zinovyev

"Today the primary threat to the liberties of the American people comes not from communism, foreign tyrants or dictators. It comes from the tendency on our own shores to centralize power, to trust bureaucracies rather than people."
~George H. Allen

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.”
~Mao Tse-Tung

“I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism”
~Whittaker Chambers

“Marx was wrong; jealousy and pride, emotional forces, are just as responsible as hunger and necessity for our actions; they explain the whole of History, and the initial fall of man.”
~Eugene Ionesco

Richard Dawkins

Behold, a creature in denial of his Creator.

Calvary Chapel

This may be a touchy subject for some, but I think it is very important to talk about because Calvary Chapel may well be the largest non-denominational denomination in Christendom. I am going to be reading through Chuck Smith's book, Calvary Chapel Distinctives, and posting chapter-by-chapter some of my concerns about the content. The subtitle to this book is 'the foundational principles of the Calvary Chapel movement'. In other words, it's the functional Calvary Chapel confession of faith written by the functional Calvary Chapel pope (more on that later).

To give some background, I was a part of this movement for five years (the first being kind of off-and-on) and was converted while attending Calvary Chapel St. Joseph, MO (where my wife attended for ten years). I grew up in the middle of the out-breaking of the movement in Southern California, living five minutes from the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta (where my wife attended for a short while). To put it plainly, I was in the bubble.

So, in the next couple of weeks I will be picking on Calvary Chapel as a whole and on Chuck Smith as a man who has been elevated to a teaching and preaching role in the movement.

Something Beautiful - 2

I love this band and I love this song. Throw in the lomo styling of the video and you definitely have something beautiful.

Camera Obscura - Honey In The Sun
 

The Relativity of Wealth - Part 3

The Relativity of Wealth - Part 1
The Relativity of Wealth - Part 2


Who is poor. I mean really poor, not just that they feel poor because of comparing themselves to others who have more possessions or income. I believe the best definition would be, "someone who does not have and cannot provide for themselves the necessities of life such as food, clothing and shelter". I understand that a precise definition would require developing each one of those three items to determine what conditions can legitimately be considered to have met the minimal standard of say adequate shelter. Trying to precisely pin down the minimums is not necessary for the purpose of this post.

Lets just go back to persons "A" and "B" from part 2 of this series:

This person lives on the "wrong side of town" in a very simple 900 square foot house and drives a rusty old car. We will call this person "Person-A". Now let's add someone else to our thought experiment. We will call this person "person-B". Person-B lives in a 6000 square foot house, owns several nice vehicles, a boat and vacations frequently.

My assertion is that neither person in this example should be considered poor. Remember that on the global scale they occupy the same fraction of a percent of possible financial situations. They both have houses, a motor vehicle, clothing, refrigeration, electricity, running water, air conditioning, etc... The difference in their situations is more in style than substance. If you can really grasp this truth it will have a profound effect on how you view the world. If you live in a "poor" area and you come to the understanding that you are essentially in the same financial situation as those in the "rich" part of town it will help you battle envy, dissatisfaction, covetousness, greed, self pity, etc... in your heart.

Now the societal elites such as those in Hollywood recoil at the thought of having to drive a rusted out car or wear modest clothing that is out of fashion. They see this as an injustice that no one should have to endure. But they are preaching a materialistic gospel. The version of the materialistic gospel that says "no one should have to live like they do on the poor side of town" is essentially the same as the version that says "God wants you to get a flashy car and move out of the poor side of town". I doubt that God is to concerned about the stylistic differences between the lives of "A" and "B". Especially considering that both in many ways live more comfortably than royalty did in the time of Jesus.

If you look at people with out of style clothes and ugly cars and you pity them and label them as "poor", you need to check your heart. This seems to be especially common among the young hipster crowd (I probably fit into this category) that places a lot of stock in their fashion. That pity you feel for the person in the uncool clothing is not a virtue! Why are your cloths / hair style really any better than theirs? Pity where none is needed is as good an indicator as any that there is pride in our hearts. Lets all try to work on our hearts to get to the place where we don't see a "poor" and a "rich" side of town but rather recognize that most of us are in a very good financial situation when viewed on the historical and global scale.

I think I am finished with this series but not this theme. I am going to work on at least two more posts in this theme. One will be called "The Gospel of Envy" and the other will be "The Materialistic Gospel".

I will end this series with a description of my childhood. I grew up in Fillmore MO, a small farming community. My mom has six siblings so I had plenty of aunts, uncles and cousins to run around with. It really was a pretty idealistic small-town childhood. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I grew up in a 900 square foot house with my sister and I sharing a bedroom. Everyone I knew lived a very modest life. I'm sure many looking in from the outside might have labeled us as "poor". I know one thing for sure and that is we never considered ourselves poor. No one I knew did. We were perfectly happy with our houses and rusty vehicles and jeans with holes in them... I never heard anyone griping about the rich man... we didn't envy the "rich" man... we didn't consider ourselves poor... no one had evangelized us and converted us to the materialistic gospel of envy. We would rightly have viewed anyone who attempted to come in on their white horse and deliver us from our "plight" condescending and ignorant.

I promise that i will stamp out any pity in my heart for anyone who is not really poor. I promise that I will not condescendingly label someones life a social injustice just because it differers stylistically from mine. I promise I will not view those on the "wrong" side of town as something that needs fixing but instead as my equal in all ways that matter.

I could also write some promises that those who live on the "poor" side of town should recite. Like, I promise I will not resent someone or label them greedy just because their life differs stylistically from mine... How about you ponder this and see what other promises you could come up with.

Something Beautiful - 1

If this video doesn't inspire you to blow the dust off the camera and snap some pictures, nothing will.

Bad Church

Are we called to be members of bad churches? I can't find the verse that says if we find ourselves in a bad church, to stay in it. Now, by bad I don't mean you don't like the preachers hair dew or that one dude who always sits on the right side that always blows his nose way too loud and you can't stand it. By bad, I mean bad theology, or a church who doesn't, or isn't willing, to practice church discipline. There are many things that can make a church a bad one. If you are a part of one, get out. Find a biblical church.

I say all this because it's the Lord's day, and I'm about to go to my church and I love it. I love it for being a biblical church.

The Relativity of Wealth - Part 2

This is a continuation of a previous post which can be found here

Now I want to explore further how pride, envy, shame, etc... as they apply to a persons finacial/material situation are determined more by comparison made to others rather than arising independantly from a dissatisfaction with their objective f/m situation.

Let's consider a person who lives in the United States. This person lives on the "wrong side of town" in a very simple 900 square foot house and drives a rusty old car. We will call this person "Person-A". Now let's add someone else to our thought experiment. We will call this person "person-B". Person-B lives in a 6000 square foot house, owns several nice vehicles, a boat and vacations frequently.

In this thought experiment lets focus on person-A, how he views himself and his resulting satisfaction with his f/m situation. When "A" lives in a place where he regularly encounters "B" and others like him, he will very likely view himself as poor and he will be generally dissatisfied with his f/m situation. This dissatisfaction will most likely breed shame, resentment, envy, covetousness, etc... In this example "A" is subject to shame, envy, and covetousness while "B" it subject to pride.

Now let's shake things up a bit. Let's pluck "A" and all his belongings up and put him in an area where the difference between him and the others he lives around is proportional to the difference between him and "B". Only in this situation "A" is the person at the top of the scale. Remember, we have made no changes to the f/m situation of "A". We have merely changed the evironment he has grown up and lives in. Now he is at the top end of the scale. In this situation he will no longer feel shame, envy or covetousness when he makes comparisons between himself and others. In this setting "A" rather than being dissatisfied, will be quite happy with his f/m situation. He will now have to guard his heart against pride.

What have we learned? For one, person-A's dissatisfaction never really had anything to do with his actual situation at all. But the most important thing we learned is that Person-A is not poor. No matter what situation you put him in.

So who is really poor? I will attempt to answer that question in part 3.

A few Doug Wilson quotes...

Hitchens:"One of Christianities specifically horrible contributions to human mythology and delusion is the terrifying idea that you could be tortured forever (in hell)"
Wilson:""Horrible" by what standard?"
Hitchens:"Umm, horiblllle byyy, oh, well, good question"
Wilson:"Yeah, I know!"


"The god Christopher (Hitchens) doesn't believe in, I don't believe in that one either".- Doug Wilson

Advent and Hope

During this Advent season, I am trying to keep in mind the hope I have in God. Old Covenant believers hoped in a Christ, a Savor to come in the future. We, as New Covenant believers, have a steadfast anchor for our souls. Our hope is a hope that enters into the most holy place, behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner for us to become a High Priest forever (Heb. 6). This means we have access to God through Jesus Christ by his atoning work on the cross in our stead forever. Believers before Christ looked forward for hope, we look backward for hope. Something that happened in the past, in time and space, gives us a hope of a right standing before the throne of the Most Holy Judge.

So we hope in God, as Christians, to act according to his will. He is a God of his word, his promise, his covenant and we can have certainty that he will be faithful to what he has said.

Praise be to God for swearing to himself, for there is no one greater by whom to swear.

Soli Deo Gloria

The Relativity of Wealth - Part 1

Wealth and poverty are relative. To be more specific, the emotional and psychological states that determine how we view ourselves on the scale of wealth and poverty are relative. In fact, I believe that nearly all cases in which people are dissatisfied with their objective financial/material situation can be explained by the fact that those people are comparing their situation to the financial situation of others. So you see, their discontent isn't a legitimate signal that there is a real problem with their f/m situation, but rather a purely subjective mental state triggered by nothing more than seeing that others have more and then determining that their own possessions are insufficient.

We tend to plot the scale of wealth and poverty based on a pretty small geographical area around us. Consider your average small city. I will use Saint Joseph as an example. At one end of the spectrum we place some blighted neighborhood (I won't name any) and at the other end we put a community like Twelve Oaks. We then apply the label poor to the inhabitants of one and rich to the inhabitants of the other. All too often this then becomes the default scale that is used when we think about the ethical issue of wealth and poverty e.g., when reading relevant scripture in our bibles.

If we would expand the geographical area used to create this scale to include the entire planet, a very different picture will emerge. We will now have at one end of the scale abject poverty where life literally cannot be sustained and at the other end multi-billionaires whose immense wealth is such that it puts them above the law and gives them near unlimited earthly power. When using the expanded scale, the financial situations of the two communities used in our Saint Joseph scale (according to my rough calculations) differ by only about .002 of one percent. This paints a much more accurate picture and I believe it would be very beneficial for everyone if we could learn to view ourselves this way.

Well I have just begun to say everything I want to say about this subject and I have run out of time for the moment. So this will now be a multi-part blog.

The Whole Gospel is Outside of Us

At that point I really feared that Christ’s terrifying words “Depart from me, I never knew you” might be for me. And there was nothing I could do about it. I was a Christian, but a poor excuse for a Christian. I looked at my life and everything I did was tainted with sin. Even the best works I did were tainted with sin. My heart was desperately wicked and I did not love God with all my heart. And worst of all, there was something inside me that hated God, that had contempt for Him. How could I possibly be saved?

Maybe I was fooling myself about being a Christian. The lives of true Christians kept getting better and better, and I felt as though mine was getting worse and worse. My “growth in holiness” and in love for God was supposed to assure me that I really was a child of God. But I did not see this. All I saw was sin. And I despaired that the salvation offered in Christ was really for me. Salvation was for people who really believed. And I was not sure I really believed. How could I be a true believer when I continued to sin and sin and sin and abuse the grace of God? How could I be a true believer if everything within me is sin?

Above is a sample from some very interesting posts at "New Reformation Press". It is a three part series. I have posted the links below. Enjoy!

The Whole Gospel Is Outside Of Us - Part 1
The Whole Gospel Is Outside Of Us - Part 2
The Whole Gospel Is Outside Of Us - Part 3

Driscoll & Sproal

Mark Driscoll asks RC Sproal what the biggest upcoming theological battle will be. I agree with his answer completely.

Satisfaction

I know that we all say we understand money, fame etc... will not deliver the satisfaction and happiness that throughout history humans have believed it would bring them. But I also know that deep in our heart there is a constant struggle to accept this truth completely. It is hard to not be envious when looking at people who are "set for life" and jet setting around the globe never having to worry about the day to day grind of paying the bills etc... But all we need to do is consider the all too common stories of the people who have achieved this lifestyle only then to self destruct due to their dissatisfaction with the life they have acchieved. They seemingly have it all yet it is still not enough. Tiger Woods became a billionaire doing something He loves to do, has a super model wife and healthy children. He still wasn't satisfied. You wouldn't be either.

One of Tiger's houses

If you aren't content with your situation in life now you're not going to be helped at all by achieving fame and fortune. Only after you have dealt with your heart and are content to be right where God has you will you be at a place where money and fame could be anything but a destructive force in your life.

These issues of money, envy, contentment, etc... will lead right into my next blog post, "The Relativity of Wealth".

Maranatha?

I don't pretend to be an expert on matters of eschatology. But there is one position that I just cannot accept. That position is the strain of post-millennialism that says Jesus will only return after the Earth has been restored to God's original design. Planetary salvation. It states that Jesus's return will occur at the culmination of the process of societal transformation.

There are a few reasons why I reject this teaching. A major reason is that it seems to contradict scripture. Consider Mathew 24 . Secondly, There is no evidence of meaningful "societal" transformation occurring in the last 2000 years. The death tolls from war and democide of each century (even adjusted for population growth) are steadily rising. Slavery in more rampant than it ever has been. And just the general level of societal decadence has made no improvement although the form of that decadence may have changed. It seems to me that if we judge Christianity using the measuring stick of societal transformation, up to this point it has been a massive failure.

Finally, the main reason I reject this teaching is because implicit in it is the assertion that we can have certitude that Jesus will not return five minutes from now or even five years from now. There is only one way to hold this view and avoid that conclusion and it is to assert that the current state of human civilization is such that it counts as the transformation Christ is waiting for therefore allowing Him to return at any moment. I cannot accept either premise and therefore I cannot accept this teaching.

Maranatha!

2 Corinthians 11:12-15

“Thousands will crowd to hear a new voice and a new doctrine without considering for a moment whether what they hear is true….Inability to distinguish differences in doctrine is spreading far and wide, and so long as the preacher is ‘clever’ and ‘earnest’, hundreds seem to think that it must be all right, and call you dreadfully ‘narrow and uncharitable’ if you hint that he is unsound!”

J. C. Ryle

“The urgent necessity to proclaim the Christian message in an unchristian world is obvious. But, in a logical sense, it is subordinate to and secondary to the need to keep the Christian message Christian.”
Harry Blamires

Collectivism

"The Nazis are well remembered for murdering well over 11 million people in the implementation of their slogan, 'The public good before the private good,' the Chinese Communists for murdering 62 million people in the implementation of theirs, 'Serve the people,' and the Soviet Communists for murdering more than 60 million people in the implementation of Karl Marx's slogan, 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.' Anyone who defends any of these, or any variation of them, on the grounds of their 'good intentions' is an immoral (NOT 'amoral') enabler of the ACTUAL (not just the proverbial) road to hell."

~Rick Gaber

“The public before the private good"

"State-mandated compassion produces, not love for ones fellow man, but hatred and resentment. The breakdown of 'basic civility' and the rise of the welfare state occur concurrently."
~Lizard

"Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. ... Collectivism is not the 'New Order of Tomorrow.' It is the order of a very dark yesterday."
~Ayn Rand

"Contrary to what leftists want us to believe, individualism does not mean looting others to satisfy one's desires. Nor does it mean unconcern for others. ...Individualism, not collectivism or altruism, is the root of benevolence and good will among men."
~Glenn Woiceshyn

"...we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow men."
~Adolf Hitler

"Serve the People"

“Although images of perfection in people's personal lives can cause unhappiness, images of perfect societies, utopian images can cause monstrous evil. In fact, forcefully changing society to conform to societal images was the greatest cause of evil in the twentieth century.”
~Dennis Prager

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
~Winston Churchill

“The goal of socialism is communism.”
~Vladimir Lenin

"Most modern intellectuals congratulate themselves for having achieved the allegedly momentous insight that capitalism and altruism are ultimately incompatible. Yet they're still too damned ignorant to realize, or too damned stubborn to acknowledge, that altruism is definitely NOT the only moral code available to mankind; it is, in fact, the bloodiest and most regressive one of all. Such stunted thinking on the part of the intelligentsia has resulted in their committing the intellectual atrocity of rejecting the capitalism and freedom instead of the altruism and coercion."
~ Rick Gaber

"To Each According to His Need"