ACLU Needs Legislation to Protect Its Anti-God Religion

Wake up Christians! When the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is  successful in getting the Ten Commandments out of public places and the teaching of creation, the Bible, and prayer out of public schools, they did not get religion out.

They just replaced the Christian religion with their religion of atheism. They are involved in this effort again, this time in Ohio, as a Fox News report explains:

A proposal by an Ohio school district to add creationism to a list of controversial topics deemed appropriate for classroom discussion has ignited a debate over the separation of church and state among parents and a civil rights group.

The Springboro Board of Education took comments on the proposal at a meeting Thursday night attended by parents, students and teachers. Some parents urged the board to abandon the plan, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sent a letter to the board, saying the policy would violate the separation of church and state. [Read more at this link.]

I get so tired of reading the same old misrepresentations and false information from the ACLU and secular media (even from Fox News, which is less hostile towards Christianity) when it comes to the creation-evolution issue in public schools.    Continue at Ken Ham

CT’s “Insider” Interview Prompts Questions and Concerns

“Worshiping Jesus in the Mosque: Inside the World of a Muslim Follower of Isa.”

That’s what the cover says on the latest issue of Christianity Today. Inside are several articles on the insider movement–so named because in these movements Christian converts stay within their original religious context and continue to identify themselves with the religion of their birth. The whole issue is worth reading. In it you’ll find a background piece on the C1 to C6 spectrum by Tim Tennent, a pro and con piece by “John Travis” (pro) and Phil Parshall (con), and a predictably middle of the road editorial that is “cautiously optimistic about this deep insider strategy.”

The cover story is an interview by the missionary “Gene Daniels” (not his real name) with a Muslim follow of Isa named “Abu Jaz” (also not his real name). While we can clearly learn from someone like Gene Daniels laboring in a difficult Muslim context, and while we must certainly rejoice to hear of Abu Jaz’s commitment to Christ, the interview also raises a number of questions and concerns. Let me raise three of each.

Three Questions

Question 1: What is the role of the church? Proponents of the insider movement are quick to point out that insider believers belong to the church universal (see Travis’ piece) and share in Christian fellowship with other insiders. And yet, doesn’t the Bible understand the church in more robust terms than this? What about church officers, weekly preaching, the administration of the sacraments, membership, and church discipline? Are these all adiaphora? Doesn’t Paul’s missionary strategy and Jesus’ Great Commission presuppose that believers will be gathered in visible, constituted churches?   Continue at Kevin DeYoung

Mormonism isn’t Christianity, even if the President of Fuller Theological Seminary says Otherwise.

Richard J. Mouw wrote an astounding article for CNN in which he used the subject of presidential candidate Mitt Romney in an attempt to legitimize Mormonism.

Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary who claims to “know cults” and has “studied them and taught about them for a long time,” for some reason seems utterly incapable of spotting one right in front of him.

God gave us a means by which to identify a false prophet, false teacher, or cult. Through the pen of Paul He told us in Galatians 1:6-9 to watch out for anyone (even an angel from Heaven) that preaches “another gospel.” If anyone (which includes religious organizations) preaches “another gospel,” they are anathema! Mr. Mouw, however, is actively directing us away from Scripture and toward human reasoning by advancing his own means of how to identify those that are accursed. From Mouw’s article:

“[A cult's] adherents are taught to think that they are the only ones who benefit from divine approval. They don’t like to engage in serious, respectful give-and-take dialogue with people with whom they disagree. Nor do they promote the kind of scholarship that works alongside others in pursuing the truth. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, haven’t established a university. They don’t sponsor a law school or offer graduate-level courses in world religions. The same goes for Christian Science. If you want to call those groups cults I will not argue with you. But Brigham Young University is a world-class educational institution, with professors who’ve earned doctorates from some of the best universities in the world. Several of the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have PhDs from Ivy League schools.”

You read that right (I actually had to read it twice). The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Science are cults because they have not established a university, sponsored a law school, or offered graduate-level courses in world religions, but Mormonism is not a cult because they founded Brigham Young University and several of their top leaders have earned degrees from Ivy League schools.  Continue at Pilgrim

MTD: Not Just a Problem with Youth Ministry

Editors' Note: Everyone has an opinion about youth ministry. Parents, pastors, and the youth themselves have expectations and demands that don't always overlap. But the rash of dire statistics about the ineffectiveness of youth ministry has prompted rethinking in these ranks. So we devote one day per week this month to exploring several issues in youth ministry, including its history, problems, and biblical mandate. The Gospel Coalition thanks Cameron Cole and the leadership team of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry for their help in compiling this series. Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, will host their 2012 conference from August 9 to 11. Speakers Ray Ortlund, Timothy George, and Mary Willson will expound on the conference theme, "Adopted: The Beauty of Grace."

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That a youth ministry "teaches the Bible" does not necessarily mean it teaches the gospel. Many mistake the gospel with moralism---being a good person, reading your Bible, or opening the door for the elderly in order to earn God's favor. But the gospel is altogether different.

This is a problem across the youth ministry landscape. It's not because teenagers and youth leaders have misunderstood the church's teaching of historical-confessional, gospel-infused Christianity. It's a problem in youth ministry wherever the American church has not preached Christ crucified and has catered to a pragmatic, entertainment-driven, and numbers-oriented model of church growth.  Continue at Brian H. Cosby

Christianity in Crisis? A Response to Andrew Sullivan

Newsweek’s cover story, written by popular author Andrew Sullivan, encourages Americans to “forget the church” and just “follow Jesus.” According to Sullivan:

We inhabit a polity now saturated with religion. On one side, the Republican base is made up of evangelical Protestants who believe that religion must consume and influence every aspect of public life. On the other side, the last Democratic primary had candidates profess their faith in public forums, and more recently President Obama appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast, invoking Jesus to defend his plan for universal health care. The crisis of Christianity is perhaps best captured in the new meaning of the word “secular.” It once meant belief in separating the spheres of faith and politics; it now means, for many, simply atheism. The ability to be faithful in a religious space and reasonable in a political one has atrophied before our eyes.

Sullivan sees the problem of a politicized faith, one that focuses relentlessly on gaining power, changing laws, and regulating the morality of others. He sees contemporary Christianity as a faith obsessed with getting doctrines about Jesus right to the exclusion of what He actually taught us to do and be. This leads him to ask some piercing questions:

What does it matter how strictly you proclaim your belief in various doctrines if you do not live as these doctrines demand? What is politics if not a dangerous temptation toward controlling others rather than reforming oneself?

From the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality to evangelical Christian support of torture, Sullivan makes his way through a long list of perceived threats to the centrality of Christ among believing people.  Continue at Trevin Wax

Should We Drop “Son of God” in Bible Translations for the Sake of Reaching Muslims?

No.  Honestly, I can’t think of a more damaging action than the translation attempts some groups are making in predominantly Muslim countries. 

 

 Dropping the familial language “Son of God” or “God the Father”:

1. Undermines the perceived integrity and reliability of the Scriptures;

2. Robs the Church of centuries of theological reflection and meaning, including Trinitarian orthodoxy, Christology, and more;

3. Betrays the radical sacrifices that believers are making in these lands for these truths; and,

4. Tends toward a denial of the uniqueness of the gospel witness itself.

World Magazine’s current article, “The Battle for Accurate Bible Translation in Asia,” hits all the issues on the head.  I heartily commend it.  Here’s the opening paragraphs:

Fikret Bocek says that Turkish quince, a fruit like a pear, takes a long time to grow and ripen, but it’s delicious. Patience is key for good quince, he says, and also for the salvation of his fellow Turks, most of whom are Muslim like he once was.

Patience was key when the Turkish police arrested and imprisoned him for 10 days in 1988, when he was beaten, verbally abused, and tortured with electrical shocks. The police ordered Bocek, then a teenager and a new convert to Christianity, to recite the shahada, “There is no God but Allah.” Despite a crippling fear, he found he could not physically open his mouth to say it, which he attributes to divine intervention.  Continue at Thabiti Anyabwile

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Iran Sentences Pastor to Execution for Converting to Christianity

The Story: Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani faces imminent execution for charges of abandoning Islam and refusing to recant his Christian faith, the American Center for Law and Justice reports.

The 34-year-old husband and father of two, whose case was temporarily delayed in December, may now be executed at any moment without warning, according to a new---and apparently final---trial court verdict. Unfortunately, many of the details surrounding the case remain unclear.

The Background: Pastor Nadarkhani's clash with the Iranian government began in 2006 when he was briefly imprisoned on charges of apostasy and evangelism. In 2009 he was arrested for protesting mandated Islamic instruction in his son's school. This charge, however, was soon changed to fit his original "crimes" of apostasy and evangelism.

Nadarkhani was sentenced to death in September 2010 but proceeded to remain alive in prison. In July 2011, his lawyer received a written verdict from the Iranian Supreme Court, which upheld the death sentence yet included a provision for annulment should the pastor recant his faith. In September 2011, the Commission on International Religious Freedom and even President Obama issued statements denouncing Iran's egregious human rights breach and demanding Nadarkhani's immediate release.  Continue at Matt Smethurst

Who Exactly is This Extraordinary Man, Jesus Christ?

At the center of biblical Christianity we find, not ideas and instructions, but a person and events. Jesus is the person and the events are His doing, dying and rising again. Christ, unlike other religious leaders, didn’t come here merely to tell us how to live, but as the God/Man he came to actually live, die and rise again in our place.

Throughout the ages, apart from Jesus, there have been three principal religious teachers, Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed. These men either taught on how we could improve ourselves or instructed us on what to do to find God. But Jesus wasn’t part of their club. In fact He can’t even be compared with any of them. When comparing these world religions the issue is not whether Buddha out-taught Jesus or whether Jesus had better things to say than Confucius. The issue is this, Jesus claimed to be God. Buddha didn’t do that, nor did Mohammed nor did any of the other founders of the world’s great religions. Jesus, therefore, stands apart from them all.

So was Jesus mistaken about Himself? Was He out of His depth? Was he simply nuts when he claimed that He would be the great end time Judge (Matt 25:31-46)? Was He lying when He said that if we have seen Him we have seen the Father (Jn 14:9). Was he deluded when He allowed Thomas to fall down before Him and address Him as, “My Lord and My God?”(Jn 20:28).

 Although Jesus had many revolutionary things to say about ethics and outclassed all other teachers in this department, at the heart of His message He taught, not on self-improvement, but about Himself. He Himself was the message and at the heart of this message was His claim to being the man who was God. Indeed, so angered were the Jewish leaders by these frequent claims that they made plans to kill him (See John 5 and John 10:33).  Keep Reading >>>

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Courageous Christianity?

Last weekend saw the release of Courageous, the fourth film produced by the media ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. Opening fourth at the box office with a call to responsible fatherhood, the movie is being trumpeted as the latest culture-transforming hope for some evangelicals. As with Facing the Giants and Fireproof, endorsements are marching out from various churches and para-church organizations across the country.

I’m less concerned with how individual Christians personally choose to interact with the film and more with the troubling trends of American evangelicalism it illustrates. Is Courageous really something to be whole-heartedly embraced? Art being reduced as a vehicle for sermonizing is problematic enough, but even more so is the type of sermon being preached. The emphasis on personal morality and simplistic transformation turn this film into a superficial lecture rather than a robust exploration of life as a Christian father. Our personal piety, our self-improvement, and our “courage” forms the fabric of the story. Christ and his gospel, along with church life and God’s established means of grace, are marginalized.

The story follows a group of four law enforcement officers who seek to become better fathers and live up to God’s calling of leadership in their homes. When tragedy strikes his family, Adam (played by writer/director Alex Kendrick) looks for renewed identity by telling his pastor “I want to know what God expects of me as a father.” Six weeks later he’s typed up a list of resolutions and is on a mission to live up to each and every one of them. “I don’t want to be a good enough father.” His other friends soon join in and they all agree to hold each other accountable. Resolutions are framed and vows are given in a backyard ceremony. They are warned to now be “doubly accountable” and when challenges arise will need “courage, courage, courage.”   Keep Reading>>>

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The Holiness of God - R. C. Sproul

The Holiness of God examines the meaning of holiness and why people are both fascinated and terrified by a holy God. This series closely explores God’s character, leading to new insights on sin, justice, and grace. The result is a new awareness of our dependence upon God’s mercy and a discovery of the awesomeness of His majestic holiness. Dr. R.C. Sproul says, “The holiness of God affects every aspect of our lives — economics, politics, athletics, romance — everything with which we are involved.”

Chosen by God - R. C. Sproul

Many people reject Reformed theology or Calvinism because they believe it teaches that God drags people kicking and screaming into the church against their will. This, however, is a gross distortion of the biblical doctrine of election, which is grounded in God’s love for His people. In this series, Dr. Sproul carefully explains the meaning of God’s sovereignty in the work of redemption and shows how it relates to the will of man.

What Is Reformed Theology? - R. C. Sproul

There is something healthy about returning to one’s roots. When it comes to evangelical Christianity, its roots are found in the soil of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. Just as the Reformers protested the corrupt teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, so today evangelicalism itself is in need of a modern reformation. In What Is Reformed Theology?, Dr. R.C. Sproul offers a comprehensive introduction to Reformed theology. Simply put, it is the theology of the Protestant Reformers and the heart of historical evangelicalism. As C.H. Spurgeon once said, Reformed theology is nothing other than biblical Christianity.

See: R. C. Sproul

Islam, Christianity, and the Wrath of God – Part 1

All We Need Is Love

In September 2006 the Pope received An Open Letter to the Pope from 38 Islamic scholars from around the world. In September 2007, 138 Muslim scholars complied a document entitled A Common Word Between Us and You. This document attempted to identify a point of agreement common to both Islam and Christianity, that being the summons to love God and to love neighbor. In November 2007, a favorable and welcoming response was drafted by Christian scholars at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture. Some of the signatories are unknown to me. I sadly recognize some others who don’t surprise me and there are others who I recognize upon whose motives for signing I want to put the best construction. I’ve found the contribution of Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe of The World Evangelical Alliance entitled We Too Want To Live In Love, Peace, Freedom And Justice (March 2008) to be a more biblically cogent response.

This present dialog brings me to ask some questions. We know that God is love (1 John 4:8). Is our God the God of Mohammed? We know in this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). Can “love” be defined apart from the cross of Christ? Is “love” something we have in common with Islam? Keep Reading...

Clarifying Exclusivism

Jesus is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). In saying this I am making two claims (both of which can be supported from John’s gospel): 1) The saving work of Jesus is the only way to be saved. 2) Putting faith in Jesus is the only way to appropriate that saving work.

In saying this, in espousing what is sometimes called “exclusivism,” I should be clear what I am not saying.

1. I am not saying there is nothing decent or honorable in other religions or in people from other religions. Ultimately, there is no good deed apart from faith, but Christians should recognize that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus (and secular atheists for that matter) can be charitable, honest, and kind. Exclusivism does not demand that we reject everything about every other belief or every other religious person. What we do believe is that the most important doctrines of the Christian faith are not shared by other faiths and that even the most moral neighbor cannot be saved by good works. Keep Reading>>>

We Have Seen All This Before: Rob Bell and the (Re)Emergence of Liberal Theology

Protestant Liberalism emerged in the 19th century as influential theologians argued for a doctrinal revolution. Their challenge to the church was simple and straightforward: The intellectual challenges of the modern age made belief in traditional Christian doctrines impossible. Friedrich Schleiermaher wrote his impassioned speeches to the “cultured despisers” of religion, arguing that something of spiritual value remained in Christianity even when its doctrines were no longer credible. Church historians such as Adolf von Harnack argued that a kernel of spiritual truth and power remained even when the shell of Christianity’s doctrinal claims was removed. In the United States preachers such as Harry Emerson Fosdick preached that Christianity must come to terms with the modern age and surrender its supernatural claims.

The liberals did not set out to destroy Christianity. To the contrary, they were certain that they were rescuing Christianity from itself. Their rescue effort required the surrender of the doctrines that the modern age finds most difficult to accept, and the doctrine of hell was front and center on their list of doctrines that must go. Read the rest HERE

Call it a Comeback: Evangelicals, Liberals, and the Problem of Hell

In his 1971 IFES addresses on "What is an Evangelical?" Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones referred to the tendency of denominations to so lose their way that they end up becoming institutions whose beliefs, values, and practices run counter to the convictions and vision of their founders.  Lloyd-Jones summed it up in the epigrammatical words of Dean Inge, "institutions tend to produce their opposite."

At first blush the thought that evangelicalism could prove itself capable of reproducing, under different circumstances, the virulant strains of liberal theology seems, frankly, implausible.  How could those committed to the authority of Scripture and the supernatural Christ of the Bible descend into a world where long held dogmas were routinely thrown overboard?

Part of the answer is in understanding liberalism as a mood, and a mindset, as well as a particular set of denials.  Another part of the answer lies in the tension evangelicals constantly feel when they relate the "scandal of particularlity," all those non-negotiable hard edged truths of the Christian faith, to the desires, aspirations, and intellectual and moral boundaries of contemporary culture. Keep Reading>>>

The Evil of Cultural Christianity

John Piper - What about Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, and Jewish people?

U2charist?

From reformation21 - A student sent this link to me, for a so-called U2charist at a local church, where the purpose is to spread the gospel/U2 vision for reconciliation and peace. It reminded me very much of the much-missed earthwindandfirecharists of the late 70s, where the agenda was to bring the message to a hurting world that we just needed to blame it on the boogie, and the even better pinkfloydcharists of the 80s where, chafing under the authority of Mrs Thatcher, we all sat around and got depressed.

It raises an interesting question: when will we understand that orthodox, biblical Christianity is actual doomed by its very nature to be an intellectual and cultural embarrassment (1 Cor 1 and 2) and embrace our cringe-inducing identity without compromise? Like middle aged men with paunches, Coldplay teeshirts, reversed baseball caps, and conversation littered with references to `the latest cool bands,' trendy Christianity is not only an oxymoron, it's a real embarrassment as well -- even for those of us who profess to be Christians.