This Lent I am Giving Up . . . Reticence

I will make no bones about it: I am an Old World (for which please read 'continental European') Christian, of Puritan inclination, and a Dissenter - specifically, a Particular or Reformed Baptist. That means several things. By conviction and heritage I belong to those who left the Anglican communion as a matter of conscience, sick of its halfway reformation and unwilling to conform to the general shabbiness and unscriptural demands of the Act of Uniformity. My conscience with regard to the extra-Biblical trappings of mere religiosity is tender. My attachment to simplicity of worship as a gathered church is sincere. I am sensitive to those doctrines and practices over which my forefathers spent their energies and shed their tears and sometimes their blood, both from within and then from without the established folds of their day. I see things with an awareness tuned by walking the streets, graveyards and memorials of men and women who suffered and sometimes died for conscience' sake.

Out of such an atmosphere I cannot help but be sickened by the seeming obsession with Lent and Easter at this time of year, and Christmas at the end of the year. Please do not misunderstand me: conscience also demands that - where the cultural vestiges of a more religious society patterned to some extent on the significant events of the life of Christ provide for it - I take every legitimate opportunity to make Christ known. If an ear is even half-opened by circumstance, I willingly and cheerfully speak into it, and seek to make of it a door for the gospel. I do not see the point of making a point by not preaching about the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord if some benighted soul wanders into the church with at least some expectation of hearing about his humiliation and exaltation.  Continue at Jeremy Walker

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See  also: To Lent or reLent? Some thoughts on a recent post at The Gospel Coalition

Coexist: Today’s Tower of Babel

Liberal denominations keep pushing for ecumenism. They see it as a beautiful thing. It’s not.  

Meltdown Mondays are about issues in the church. Basically it is a rant about the heretical teachings and worldly concepts being perpetrated in the visible church these days.

 

The church has been flooded with postmodern, liberal philosophy. Things that are in contradiction to the Word of God. Things that do not line up with the Christian worldview. Does that stop it? No. Just get rid of the Bible and push those narrow minded ‘fundies’ to the fringes. Denounce them as stupid. As unenlightened. That’s what happens when the church is full of false converts. 

In my emergent days, I was a huge U2 fan. I have a live concert of theirs on DVD. In this concert, Bono (the lead singer) puts on a head band that says coexist on it. The letters are made up of various religious symbols, basically saying that all the world’s religions need to be in unity.  

Emergent authors like Brian McLaren keep calling the Christians the aggressors, the ones causing all the problems. How we are all about exclusion and how that is bad.

The thing is, the truth is exclusive. If you don’t believe it, you don’t get to be a part of it. Simple math.

If you do not believe the gospel, you don’t get to be a part of it.

If you don’t believe in Jesus, you don’t get to be a part of Him.

You see, to be in God’s kingdom, you enter on His terms. You don’t get to jump the fence and disregard Him.   Continue at Such Was I

Two Rival Religions? Christianity and Post-Christianity

On November 3, 1921, J. Gresham Machen presented an address entitled, “Liberalism or Christianity?” In that famous address, later expanded into the book, Christianity and Liberalism, Machen argued that evangelical Christianity and its liberal rival were, in effect, two very different religions.

Machen’s argument became one of the issues of controversy in the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversies of the 1920s and beyond. By any measure, Machen was absolutely right: the movement that styled itself as liberal Christianity was eviscerating the central doctrines of the Christian faith while continuing to claim Christianity as “a way of life” and a system of meaning.

“The chief modern rival of Christianity is ‘liberalism,’” Machen asserted. “Modern liberalism, then, has lost sight of the two great presuppositions of the Christian message — the living God and the fact of sin,” he argued. “The liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to the Christian view. But the divergence concerns not only the presuppositions of the message, but also the message itself.”

Related Posts

• Two Rival Religions?
• Two Rival Religions?
• Two Strands of Faith? No, Two Different Religions
• Machen on Christianity as a Way of Life ‘Founded Upon a Doctrine’
• Two Competing Religions–The Legacy of the 1960s

Howard P. Kainz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Marquette University, offers a similar argument, warning that it is now modern secular liberalism which poses as the great rival to orthodox Christianity.

Observing the basic divide in the American culture, Kainz notes: “Most of the heat of battle occurs where traditional religious believers clash with certain liberals who are religiously committed to secular liberalism.”   Continue at Al Mohler

Holy Cow: The Holiness of Hindu Herds by Clint Archer

The apogee of Hinduism extends far beyond the borders of India. And though Hindus do not proselytize (most believe you need to be born Indian to be Hindu), the religion is exported with the emigration of its adherents. Our church is nestled near the epicenter of the largest population of Indians outside of India—Durban, South Africa. Hinduism is not monolithic, it is a chaotically diverse kaleidoscope of beliefs, attitudes, and practices. It is mystical and enigmatic, but it does contain certain threads of commonality woven throughout its diversity. These threads reveal a religion that is fundamentally flawed as a deadly trap of false hope, with tragic results in this life and the life to come. I wanted to share one tenant which makes this religion harmful to its adherents, namely the famishing fetish they have with the sacred cow.

Most Westerners can hardly tell the difference between any old cow and the sacred cow of India. This ignorance is excusable when one considers how ordinary the holy cow seems. It grazes, chews the cud, and after allowing for the masticated mess to move through the seven sacred stomachs, it fertilizes the field just as any other cow would. If one were tramping through that field—or were a pedestrian in Delhi—and happened to plant your foot in that freshly fertilized spot, you might fail to appreciate the privilege of encountering a holy cow pie. And every report I’ve heard from visitors to India include a special mention for the ubiquitous postprandial packages strewn all over the city streets. So holiness is often in the eye of the beholder. To a Hindu Indian the cow represents something wholly different than it does to, say the average MacDonald’s customer.    Keep Reading...

Why So Many Denominations?

Religious Fault Line - Christianity and Islam in Africa

"The Orthodox Are Finished"

See also Two Rival Religions?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Should Christians “Respect” Other Religions? - Albert Mohler

Headlines throughout the world announced this week that Pope Benedict XVI, while visiting Jordan, spoke of his "respect" for Islam. This came on the heels of the Pope's notorious 2006 speech at Germany's Regensburg University. In that speech Benedict quoted Emperor Manuel II, one of the Byzantine monarchs, who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The outrage throughout the Muslim world was immediate and overwhelming. The Pope issued clarifications and explanations, but Muslim outrage continued. This week, with the Pope scheduled to make his first papal visit to an Islamic country, the sensitivities were high.

The Vatican's official transcript of the Pope's comments at the Amman airport records him as saying:

My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam. Read the rest HERE