Trading Good Ethics For Bad Church Marketing By Jim B.

A few weeks ago I posted on the willingness of seeker-driven churches to be evangelistically offensive, whenever it helps them to achieve their pragmatic aims. Recently a city newspaper published a protest about another church that we are familiar with, and who was willing to put aside advertising ethics in order to "get results". It's a set of billboards designed to bait people into attending a series of parenting sermons, but once again - the church's advertising methods don't seem to be very well thought-out. In fact, the author of the newspaper article referred to the billboards as offensive. As we've seen before however, this is not the biblical "offense of the cross" that the Apostle Paul talked about, it's just the offense of another bad marketing campaign.
The author of this piece seems to know a thing or two about advertising, being that he's an Associate Professor of Communication at Anderson University. He also lives in the neighborhood of this church, and his family is subjected to seeing these signs on a regular basis. Here's what he had to say in the October 26 edition of the Anderson Independent-Mail Newspaper:
Newspaper Article: Church Billboards Offend Local Resident
Earlier this month, the image of a teenage girl with her shirt pulled provocatively down from her shoulder appeared on a billboard on Clemson Boulevard, offering to tell anyone who would listen about the birds and the bees. Drivers are encouraged to visit a Web site (ParentsAreClueless.com) to find out more, apparently for a salacious teenage version of the facts of life.
Elsewhere in Anderson, another billboard shows a bratty second-grader announcing that she calls the shots at her home. Yet another features an angry-looking mom standing back to back with her adolescent daughter, next to the question, "I put my career on hold for this?"
Who would want to share such a dour view of parenthood with our community? It's not obvious from the billboards, but it's our city's largest church, NewSpring Community Church, pastored by Perry Noble. The publicity campaign is intended to attract people to a six-week series on parenting.
Attracting new customers is usually a good idea, whether you're a church or a business. Most businesses have ethical limits on how they construct their marketing campaigns. There's little evidence the planners at NewSpring were thinking much about ethics when they dreamed up this misfire.
For a church that's about to tell people how to deal with their kids, Pastor Noble and his team demonstrate little understanding of, or maybe just little care for, how children respond to advertising. Consider that the government's continuing regulation of tobacco advertising (Joe Camel, for example) is based on the assumption that children don't read advertising the same way that adults do. Children don't distinguish between fact and fantasy, between truth and irony, the same way adults do. Did anyone at NewSpring think about how children would read those ads?
We're exposed to thousands of advertising messages every day, so it's impossible to act on many of them at all. Almost all of the people who see the anti-family billboards will never visit the associated Website, so they're left with a senseless and depressing assault on parenthood by angry, oversexed and bratty kids.
But that's the good news. If you dare to visit the associated Website, the picture gets even worse. NewSpring offers parents and kids a chance to publish anonymous confessions, which from the outset turned the site into a cesspool of rebellious threats and taunts. Children angrily accuse their fathers of being perverts. Young kids brag about sexual misadventures that their parents don't know about. The content on the site is bad, but don't blame rogue Internet writers for the voyeuristic dirt on display there. Instructions on the site make clear that church staff approve everything before it's posted.
Confession can be good for the soul, but usually only when it's matched with repentance. Anonymous public in-your-face "confessions" are something beneath even Jerry Springer. What would Jesus do? Not this.
Parents remain clueless about their kids' anger and problems. Troubled kids stoke their anger without any resolution. Is confession going to stop these kids from engaging in dangerous romantic liaisons? Very unlikely. Who is going to help them? Probably no one.
So who does this help? Possibly only Mr. Noble.
The whole point of this provocative campaign is to get bodies through the doors of his church. To the extent that that actually works, and that needy families are helped, good for him and good for them.
To the extent that the campaign doesn't work, however, it amounts to child exploitation and neglect in the name of church attendance. Most of the people who leave their confessions on the Web site are unlikely to attend any of Mr. Noble's sermons. There is no positive message on the billboards. There are only scattered positive confessions on the Web site, as well a linked ad that takes visitors to a page announcing the sermon series. The picture of the family that NewSpring has chosen to present to the world is desperately bleak.
Most families who drive past the billboards are offered nothing but pessimism. This campaign is going to create a significant amount of collateral damage that Perry Noble will never see, and is unlikely to have to take responsibility for.
It's selfish. It's arrogant. It's unchristian.
Though that's not a complaint that's likely to bother Mr. Noble, who has repeatedly disowned the term "Christian." He announced on his blog recently that he doesn't want his newborn daughter to grow up to marry a "nice Christian boy." "Christian" was the adjective that so offended this church leader that it made him want to punch said future boy in the throat.
Perry Noble is rapidly becoming a national leader of a powerful contemporary movement that is effectively seeking to redefine traditional Christianity. These churches, variously referred to as seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven and emergent, blend whatever-floats-your-boat postmodernism and modern marketing theories with high-tech, high-energy media presentations. It's the Bible brought to you by MTV and Starbucks.
Mr. Noble's approach has brought results that most churches would envy. His local services routinely draw 7,500 people, and attendance is growing at an annual rate of around 35 percent. A national church magazine recently ranked it in the top 20 fastest-growing churches in the nation. NewSpring just raised more than $13 million in donations for an ambitious program that will, in part, begin to franchise the church around the state, starting with a satellite campus in Greenville.
Undoubtedly, Mr. Noble's church has been a benefit to our community. All the NewSpring members I know have a passion for serving Jesus, helping others and improving our community.
For all the hands-on work that NewSpring and its members excel at, it would be nice if its leadership team could limit their media-induced damage. While a television-based style has helped NewSpring-type churches make their services more exciting, their leaders also have adopted the reality-TV ethic of attracting people by offering more and more outlandish stunts. As happens in television, once they get your attention with one outrage, the next one has to be even bigger to keep it.
Visit the blogs of any of these new-style church pastors (Mr. Noble, Steven Furtick, Gary Lamb, for example), and you'll see repeated examples of this raise-the-stakes mindset. "Wow, can you believe we did that in church today! Wait until you see what we have in store for you next week!!!" One day a pastor is going to get naked (a trajectory that Mr. Noble has implicitly acknowledged on his own blog).
Thankfully, we've not been subjected to naked pastors yet, but these new-style churches are not beyond inflicting nakedness on their communities. NewSpring has yet to do it, but similar churches in Georgia and Tennessee have outraged their communities by posting billboards of naked couples (with strategically placed sheets) engaged in very intimate activities. [See Old Truth post]
If these were ads displayed by a local sex shop, we'd be livid. When a church does it, it's no less problematic. Ethics do matter, especially in church advertising.
What Perry Noble says in his church is largely his business. When he says it on Clemson Boulevard and Mall Road, it becomes my business.
Mr. Noble, I don't like the way you do business. Please take down your billboards and leave my family and me alone.
Be sure to visit the source article and read some of the comments at the bottom of that page; also visit that church's "confession page" to read what the kids and parents are saying about each other. Aside from being yet another example of today's "what God can do for you" therapeutic gospel, this is just one more case of a pragmatic church being willing to put aside acceptable standards of ethics that even the world recognizes.
When churches pull these stunts, they loose credibility with the very same community that they are targeting for evangelism. As we saw in the earlier offensive marketing post on Old Truth, so often the church's response to this kind of criticism is: "so what if we offend a bunch of people, just as long as we get enough of the others through the doors". It's an offense, but not the offense of the Cross.

Jesus the Evangelist Review by Jesse Johnson

Jesus the Evangelist by Richard D. Phillips (Ligonier, 2007)

Jesus the Evangelist, by Richard Phillips, is a collection of sermons Phillips preached at his Presbyterian church through the Gospel of John. These sermons focus on John 1, 3, and 4, and examine the evangelism of Jesus.
Perhaps the biggest danger in studying historical narratives is confusing description with prescription. Just because Jesus walked on water, for example, does not mean Mark is telling us to walk on water. This danger is the trap that plagues many books on evangelism. Many evangelistic methods take one example of evangelism from a Gospel or from Acts, and build a model upon that singular event as if it were prescriptive.
But Phillips threads this needle exceptionally well, by summarizing the text, asking questions of the text, and then showing how those answers can be applied to us today. For example, from Jesus’ exchange with Nicodemus, Phillips gives us theology: “The reason we can be born again, receiving eternal life, is that God loves the world.” And later: “John 3:16 shows that it is not enough to know what faith is; we must actually have it.”
Finally, he shows how these truths illuminate why Jesus said what he said: “Sometimes, when doctrinal explanations have failed to move a sinner’s heart, a biblical portrait of Jesus’ beautiful love will bring him or her to salvation.” He does this all while resisting the temptation to reduce evangelism to a singular method, and instead he shows principles from all three of these evangelistic encounters that are useful today.
Jesus the Evangelist moves beyond the normal illustrations and evident principles to the more practical and profound. He peels back the Samaritan’s woman’s questions to show that people are often seeking the wrong things—things that will not satisfy. In order to get a sinner to realize this, their sin must be confronted, and this is what Jesus did in John 4:16-19. Jesus’ confrontation turned into multiplied evangelism, as the woman returned home, testifying that Jesus is “the Savior of the World” (John 4:42).
Phillips brings an exegete’s keen eye to these texts, and he matches that with a God-centered theological precision. He shows how Jesus proclaimed his sovereignty over salvation in John 3, while also claiming that whoever believes in Him will be saved. He does this in a way that is faithful to the text, and more importantly, in a way that makes the reader want to go outside and witness.
His section on how the Gospel shows the love of God was remarkable for precisely this reason: he let the text speak, instead of getting bogged down in theological arguments foreign to the passage. I finished reading those pages not with questions about free will and predestination, but with a sense of being overwhelmed at the love which God has shown not just me, but the world.
This book is as precise as it is practical. It would be helpful for pastors preaching through John, and it would be helpful for Christians who want to study the way Jesus practiced evangelism. I’m glad Phillips put this out as a book on evangelism, rather than as a commentary, because if an author were to write a faithful commentary on these three passages, it would end up being a book on evangelism. Each section also ends with discussion questions which are helpful for small groups.

Crossing the Channel by Dr R.C. Sproul

The rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation from Wittenberg, Germany, throughout Europe and across the Channel to England was not spawned by the efforts of a globe-trotting theological entrepreneur. On the contrary, for the most part Martin Luther’s entire career was spent teaching in the village of Wittenberg at the university there. Despite his fixed position, Luther’s influence spread from Wittenberg around the world in concentric circles – like when a stone is dropped into a pond. Many means were used to spread Luther’s message to the continent and to England. One of the most important factors was the influence of virtually thousands of students who studied at the University of Wittenberg and were indoctrinated into Lutheran theology and ecclesiology. Like Calvin’s academy in Geneva, Switzerland, the university became pivotal for the dissemination of Reformation ideas. Wittenberg and Geneva stood as epicenters for a worldwide movement. The printing press made it possible for Luther to spread his ideas through the many books that he published, as well as his tracts, confessions, catechisms, and pamphlets. In addition to these methods of print, music was used in the Reformation to carry the doctrines and the sentiments of Protestantism through the writing of hymns and chorales. Religious drama was used not in the churches but rather in the marketplace to communicate the central ideas of the movement – the recovery of the biblical Gospel. Students from England, who studied at Wittenberg also had a major impact in bringing the Reformation across the Channel to Great Britain. Probably the most important person, in the English Reformation was William Tyndale, whose translation of the Bible into English was of cataclysmic importance. In 1524, he left England for the continent and studied for a period of time at Wittenberg. His first edition of the New Testament was published in Flanders in 1526, five years after the fated Diet of Worms during which Luther gave his famous “Here I Stand” speech. Thousands of these Bibles were smuggled into England. In addition to those who influenced the English Reformation directly from Luther’s Germany, were those whose influence came by a more circuitous route, via Geneva, Switzerland. John Calvin himself had to flee from Paris because of the views he learned from his friends who had been influenced by the teachings of Martin Luther. This Frenchman found his refuge in Geneva, where his pulpit and teaching ministry became known around the world. Geneva became a city of refuge for exiles who fled there for safety from all over Europe. Of the countries that sent exiles to Calvin’s Geneva, none was more important than England and the British Isles. John Knox, who led the Reformation in Scotland, spent some time in Switzerland at the feet of Calvin, learning his Reformation theology there. Though Calvin was twenty-six years younger than Luther, Luther’s views made a dramatic impact on the young Calvin’s life while he was still in his twenties. Though Calvin is usually associated popularly with the doctrine of predestination, it is often overlooked that there was nothing in Calvin’s view of predestination and election that was not first articulated by Luther, especially in Luther’s famous work The Bondage of the Will. Some of the exiles from England under Calvin’s tutelage set upon the task of translating the Bible into English. This Bible, called the Geneva Bible, was the first Bible to have theological notes printed in the margin, which notes were heavily influenced by Calvin’s preaching. This Bible was the predominant Bible among the English for the next hundred years before it was supplanted by the popular King James Version. It was the original, official version of the Scottish Presbyterian Church. It was the Bible of Shakespeare, the Bible the Pilgrims brought with them on the Mayflower to America, and it was the Bible of choice among America’s early colonists. From Wittenberg directly to England, or from Wittenberg to Geneva to England, in this roundabout route, the seeds of the Reformation that were planted in Germany sprouted into full bloom as they made their way into the English empire. To trace the pathway from Wittenberg to London, one must follow a series of circuitous routes, but the origin of that movement in Wittenberg is unmistakable, and its influence continues even to this day.

Dark Matter By Dr Phil Ryken

Presumably the blogosphere is already abuzz with warnings about The Golden Compass, a New Line Cinema production scheduled to open on December 7.The warnings are justified: the film is based on Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, which is nothing less than a deliberate assault on God, the church, and the saving work of Jesus Christ. While the film is unlikely to be as overt as the book in its anti-Christianity, it will undoubtedly promote sales of the book and expose children, especially, to the seductions of an anti-God worldview.It would be helpful, though, if the evangelical church could avoid giving the film undue publicity by making its release a cause celebre -- if we could avoid, in other words, the Last Temptation of Christ phenomenon. It would be more helpful for us to give a clear warning to our congregations and then simply refuse to see the movie or read the books.

Puritan Quote of the Week From the Pastor's Desk

"Faith, without trouble or fighting, is a suspicious faith; for true faith is a fighting, wrestling faith."
RALPH ERSKINE

THE UNDETECTED SACREDNESS OF CIRCUMSTANCES By Oswald Chambers

"All things work together for good to them that love God." Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say - I am going to be my own providence here, I must watch this, and guard that. All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize the common-sense circumstances God puts you in, and the common-sense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God's throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them. In this way God is going to sweep the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being indefinite, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession, and the human side is the circumstances I am in and the people I am in contact with. I have to keep my conscious life as a shrine of the Holy Ghost, then as I bring the different ones before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, but the Holy Ghost makes intercession in our particular lives, without which intercession someone will be impoverished.

Why Do We Need Christian Higher Education? By Dr Al Mohler

Martin Luther once warned Christians with these words: "I greatly fear that schools for higher learning are wide gates to hell if they do not diligently teach the Holy Scripture and impress them on the young folk." The great Reformer knew of the importance of Christian education and the development of Christian thinkers, but his great fear of schools as potential "wide gates to hell" is all too justified.
In his new book, Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society through Christian Higher Education [B&H Academic], David S. Dockery proposes that the Christian college or university should not be merely an academic institution with Christian teachers and Christian students, but instead it should be "the academic division of the kingdom enterprise."
Dockery serves as president of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee and that school serves, in substance, as evidence of his vision for Christian higher education. Dockery's central model is the Christian university, combining several disciplines of learning and professional study within its institutional reach. He proposes his own vision for making all of these areas of study accountable to Christian truth.
He also calls for the recovery of the Christian mind and the development of Christian thinkers:
Our task will be intellectually challenging. The work is not easy, but it is faithful to the calling upon Christ-followers. There is no room for anti-intellectualism in Christian higher education. We are to have the mind of Christ, a concept that certainly requires us to think and wrestle with the challenging ideas of history and the issues of our day. To do otherwise would result in another generation of God's people becoming ill-equipped for faithful thinking and service in this still-new century. A Christian worldview is needed to help interpret an ever-changing culture. Instead of allowing our thoughts to be captivated by culture, we must take every thought captive to Jesus Christ.
To their shame, many Christian institutions of learning fall short of a model of responsible Christian scholarship. Dockery calls for a reversal of this trend and a reassertion of the scholarly vocation and responsibility.
In his words:
Serious scholarship is often described as "a search for knowledge or a quest for truth," phrases so familiar as to be clichés in higher education. Our task must not be described carelessly or flippantly. When we speak of scholarship from a Christian perspective, we speak of more than scholarship done by Christians. Rather, we speak of a passion for learning based on the supposition that all truth is God's truth. Thus, as Christian scholars related together in a learning community, we are to seek to take every thought captive to Christ.
But the recovery of Christian scholarship and the development of young Christian minds also requires the recovery of the vocation of the teacher. Even as many of the most prestigious academic institutions in the land elevate research above teaching, the Christian school can never forget the central role of the teacher in the educational process. At the same time, those teachers must be practicing scholars who model the academic vocation and the life of the mind.
Dockery explains:
In the large majority of Christian universities, it is teaching that is rightly prized and prioritized, but we also need a complementary place for Christian scholarships. Rightly understood, Christian scholarship is not contrary to either faithful teaching or Christian piety. Christian scholarship provides a foundation for new discovery and creative teaching as well as the framework for passing on the unified truth essential to the advancement of Christianity.

This revealed truth is the foundation of all we believe, teach, and do. We believe that this God-revealed truth is the framework in which we understand and interpret our world, the events of human history as well as our responsibilities toward God and one another in this world. This is what it means for us to advance the Christian intellectual tradition and to love God with our hearts, our strength, and our minds.

Renewing Minds is a genuine and helpful contribution to evangelical scholarship. Furthermore, it comes from one who leads a major Christian university and has earned the credibility to set forth his vision. This book should be read by pastors, parents, educators -- and all who share a passion to see the renewal of Christian minds in this generation.

Parental Rights in Education -- Constant Vigilance Needed

Who makes the crucial decisions about the education of your children? The rights of parents to make these essential decisions must be asserted and defended in every generation. There are others who would wish to make those decisions concerning your children.
Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe begins a recent column with these words, drawn from a national party platform:
"Freedom of education, being an essential of civil and religious liberty . . . must not be interfered with under any pretext whatever. . . . We are opposed to state interference with parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children as an infringement of the fundamental . . . doctrine that the largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government."
Those impressive words are taken from a resolution adopted by the 1892 Democratic National Convention. Can you imagine the Democratic Party adopting similar language today? Not hardly.
In the years since 1892, teacher unions have grown in membership and influence, now representing one of the most powerful political forces in Washington and state capitals. The teacher unions and the educational establishment continually press for more government control of education and against innovations such as charter schools. Both national parties are, at least in part, captive to the educational establishment. The teacher unions are one of the most powerful forces within the Democratic Party, but the educational bureaucracies also hold at least some sway over Republicans. President Ronald Reagan ran for office in 1980 calling for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education. Nevertheless, even after the so-called "Reagan Revolution," the department grew larger than ever.
With reference to the 2008 race for the presidency, Jacoby notes:
Today, on education as on so much else, the Democrats sing from a different hymnal. When the party's presidential candidates debated at Dartmouth College recently, they were asked about a controversial incident in Lexington, Mass., where a second-grade teacher, to the dismay of several parents, had read her young students a story celebrating same-sex marriage. Were the candidates "comfortable" with that?
"Yes, absolutely," former senator John Edwards promptly replied. "I want my children . . . to be exposed to all the information . . . even in second grade . . . because I don't want to impose my view. Nobody made me God. I don't get to decide on behalf of my family or my children. . . . I don't get to impose on them what it is that I believe is right." None of the other candidates disagreed, even though most of them say they oppose same-sex marriage.
Then:
Thus in a little over 100 years, the Democratic Party - and much of the Republican Party - has been transformed from a champion of "parental rights and rights of conscience in the education of children" to a party whose leaders believe that parents "don't get to impose" their views and values on what their kids are taught in school. Do American parents see anything wrong with that? Apparently not: The majority of them dutifully enroll their children in government-operated schools, where the only views and values permitted are the ones prescribed by the state.
As Jacoby rightly observes, no one would want government to control 90% of housing or 90% of entertainment, but the government does control 90% of primary and secondary education. Furthermore, most parents seem unconcerned about this.
Jacoby responds:
But we should be concerned. Not just because the quality of government schooling is so often poor or its costs so high. Not just because public schools are constantly roiled by political storms. Not just because schools backed by the power of the state are not accountable to parents and can ride roughshod over their concerns. And not just because the public-school monopoly, like most monopolies, resists change, innovation, and excellence.
In several states, forces including the teacher unions are pushing for universal preschool programs reaching down as young as 3-year-olds. Most of the candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination are fully supportive of these proposals. The government will, if allowed, extend its reach and control into younger and younger ages -- and will include additional millions and millions of children.
Parents do have choices, and parental choice in education is a necessary precondition for a free society. Beyond this, parents bear a responsibility before God to make wise and responsible decisions concerning the education of their children. Indeed, parents cannot evade this responsibility.
Jeff Jacoby's column is a timely reminder of the fact that the rights of parents must be protected in every generation. Otherwise, other forces with other agendas will run roughshod over the convictions and worldviews of parents. It is happening all around us even now.
________________________
READ ON: Evidence of the governmental subversion of parental rights over children in public schools comes just last night as a Maine school district voted to provide contraceptives to students ages 11-13 in a Portland-area middle school -- without parental notification. As The Associated Press reported late on Wednesday:
Pupils at a city middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal Wednesday evening.
The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Further:
At King Middle School, birth control prescriptions will be given after a student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner, said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland's student health centers.
Students treated at the centers must first get written parental permission, but under state law such treatment is confidential, and students decide for themselves whether to tell their parents about the services they receive.

An Argument Against the Atheists -- Dinesh D'Souza on Christianity By Dr Al Mohler

"Today's Christians know that they do not, as their ancestors did, live in a society where God's presence was unavoidable. No longer does Christianity form the moral basis of society. Many of us now reside in secular communities, where arguments drawn from the Bible or Christian revelation carry no weight, and where we hear a different language from that spoken in church." That is the opening salvo from author Dinesh D'Souza in his new book, What's So Great About Christianity.

D'Souza's book is written, at least in part, as a response to the frontal attacks on Christianity launched by figures such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. He writes with a clear and uncluttered style and his arguments should attract considerable attention.

D'Souza chides believers for taking "the easy way out," sheltering themselves in Christian intellectual enclaves rather than engaging the issues. They live separate secular and sacred lives without recognizing that this is incompatible with the Gospel.

Here is how he sees the challenge:

This is not a time for Christians to turn the other cheek. Rather, it is a time to drive the moneychangers out of the temple. The atheists no longer want to be tolerated. They want to monopolize the public square and to expel Christians from it. They want political questions like abortion to be divorced from religious and moral claims. They want to control school curricula so they can promote a secular ideology and undermine Christianity. They want to discredit the factual claims of religion, and they want to convince the rest of society that Christianity is not only mistaken but also evil. They blame religion for the crimes of history and for the ongoing conflicts in the world today. In short, they want to make religion – and especially the Christian religion – disappear from the face of the earth.

In fact, the new atheists are frustrated that belief in God has not passed away. They had great confidence that the theory of secularization would promise a new secular age, with belief in God relegated to humanity's past. Nevertheless, this isn't happening. Europe may be overwhelmingly secular, but Americans are still a deeply religious people -- even if this does not represent an embrace of authentic Christianity.

Meanwhile, traditional religion is growing all over the world. The world is not becoming more secular, but more religious in a myriad of forms.

D'Souza sees this in his own personal story:

I have found this to be true in my own life. I am a native of India, and my ancestors were converted to Christianity by Portuguese missionaries. As this was the era of the Portuguese Inquisition, some force and bludgeoning may also have been involved. When I came to America as a student in 1978, my Christianity was largely a matter of birth and habit. But even as I plunged myself into modern life in the United States, my faith slowly deepened. G.K Chesterton calls this the "revolt into orthodoxy." Like Chesterton, I find myself rebelling against extreme secularism and finding in Christianity some remarkable answers to both intellectual and practical concerns. So I am grateful to those stern inquisitors for bringing me into the orbit of Christianity, even though I am sure my ancestors would not have shared my enthusiasm. Mine is a Christianity that is countercultural in the sense that it opposes powerful trends in modern Western culture. Yet it is thoroughly modern in that it addresses questions and needs raised by life in that culture. I don't know how I could live well without it.

The continent of Europe is now the great exception -- the secular continent. D'Souza explains:

Then there is Europe. The most secular continent on the globe is decadent in the quite literal sense that its population is rapidly shrinking. Birth rates are abysmally low in France, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. The nations of Western Europe today show some of the lowest birth rates ever recorded, and Eastern European birth rates are comparably low. Historians have noted that Europe is suffering the most sustained reduction in its population since the Black Death in the fourteenth century, when one in three Europeans succumbed to the plague. Lacking the strong religious identity that once characterized Christendom, atheist Europe seems to be a civilization on its way out. Nietzsche predicted that European decadence would produce a miserable "last man" devoid of any purpose beyond making life comfortable and making provision for regular fornication. Well, Nietzsche's "last man" is finally here, and his name is Sven.

D'Souza's strongest analysis comes when he considers the true character of the new atheism. It is, he suggests, a "pelvic revolt against God." In other words, it is a revolt against Christian morality -- especially sexual morality. This is not a new observation or argument, but D'Souza makes it exceptionally well:

My conclusion is that contrary to popular belief, atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it is a moral revolt. Atheists don't find God invisible so much as objectionable. They aren't adjusting their desires to the truth, but rather the truth to fit their desires. This is something we can all identify with. It is a temptation even for believers. We want to be saved as long as we are not saved from our sins. We are quite willing to be saved from a whole host of social evils, from poverty to disease to war. But we want to leave untouched the personal evils, such as selfishness and lechery and pride. We need spiritual healing, but we do not want it. Like a supervisory parent, God gets in our way. This is the perennial appeal of atheism: it gets rid of the stern fellow with the long beard and liberates us for the pleasures of sin and depravity. The atheist seeks to get rid of moral judgment by getting rid of the judge.

D'Souza's argument here is very insightful. These atheists are not so much struggling with intellectual doubts but feel limited by moral constraints. They are repulsed by the very idea of divine judgment, so they get rid of the Judge.

Christians will find Dinesh D'Souza's latest book to be both interesting and helpful. His apologetic model is G. K. Chesterton, and he writes with a similar style and verve. I found his argument that Christians should embrace evolution while rejecting Darwinism to be unconvincing and unhelpful. The dominant model of evolutionary theory is just as atheistic and incompatible with Christianity as classical Darwinism.

Nevertheless, the book is filled with interesting and helpful arguments offered by a Christian intellectual who is heavily engaged in the great battle of ideas. What's So Great About Christianity is a helpful addition to our public debate

Is Abortion a Theological Issue? Garry Wills Says No

Garry Wills is at it again -- this time in the pages of The Los Angeles Times. A liberal Roman Catholic, Wills is a prolific historian who also writes works on contemporary religion. His new book, Head and Heart: American Christianities presents his pluralistic model of American Christianity and his effort to counter the influence of conservative Christians in the public square.
In his November 4, 2007 opinion column in The Los Angeles Times, Wills argues that abortion should be seen as a purely secular and scientific issue. Abortion "is not a theological matter at all," he insists -- making a brazen argument that is likely to shock parties on both sides of this issue.
"There is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion," he claims. Further, "The subject of abortion is not scriptural. For those who make it so central to religion, this seems an odd omission. Abortion is not treated in the Ten Commandments -- or anywhere in Jewish Scripture. It is not treated in the Sermon on the Mount -- or anywhere in the New Testament. It is not treated in the early creeds. It is not treated in the early ecumenical councils."
This is intellectual sophistry on display. Abortion is not "treated in the early ecumenical councils" because abortion was not an issue in those debates. Neither was homosexuality . . . or any number of other issues. How exactly does Wills interpret "Thou shall not murder?" If abortion is not included here, what else is left out? Abortion is a theological issue because it deals with the questions of human life, personhood, the image of God, and the sanctity of the gift of life. There is no way that is can be anything less than theological at its core, which is why so many Christians take the issue with such seriousness.
Wills wants to secularize the abortion debate and leave it to science. So, when does he believe that a fetus becomes a person? He suggests that this is marked by the development of a "functioning brain" at about the end of the sixth month of gestation. He celebrates that this also marks where he considers the fetus viable.
But Wills also makes this argument:
The question is not whether the fetus is human life but whether it is a human person, and when it becomes one. Is it when it is capable of thought, of speech, of recognizing itself as a person, or of assuming the responsibilities of a person? Is it when it has a functioning brain?
Does Garry Wills believe that a fetus at six months is capable of "recognizing itself as a person, or of assuming the responsibilities of a person?" This sounds like the logic of philosopher Peter Singer, who argues that an individual is not to be considered fully human until he or she develops such understandings of self as a person and is able to communicate, establish relationships, and envision the future. Needless to say, these capacities are not present at birth -- which is why Singer would not consider infanticide murder.
Would Wills go this far? Probably not. But his argument that the issue must be settled on purely secular terms leaves the door wide open.
Wills is certainly right that abortion is not specifically mentioned in the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, or the early Christian creeds. He fails to mention, however, that it is specifically mentioned in the Didache -- a compendium of early Christian teaching that claims an origin tied to the twelve disciples. The Didache states that a Christian "shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born."
Consider these two paragraphs from Wills' article. The first is his opening salvo:
What makes opposition to abortion the issue it is for each of the GOP presidential candidates is the fact that it is the ultimate "wedge issue" -- it is nonnegotiable. The right-to-life people hold that it is as strong a point of religion as any can be. It is religious because the Sixth Commandment (or the Fifth by Catholic count) says, "Thou shalt not kill." For evangelical Christians, in general, abortion is murder. That is why what others think, what polls say, what looks practical does not matter for them. One must oppose murder, however much rancor or controversy may ensue.
Then, a later paragraph:
If we are to decide the matter of abortion by natural law, that means we must turn to reason and science, the realm of Enlightened religion. But that is just what evangelicals want to avoid. Who are the relevant experts here? They are philosophers, neurobiologists, embryologists. Evangelicals want to exclude them because most give answers they do not want to hear. The experts have only secular expertise, not religious conviction. They, admittedly, do not give one answer -- they differ among themselves, they are tentative, they qualify. They do not have the certitude that the religious right accepts as the sign of truth.
Wills is a Roman Catholic, and Catholicism has a much longer tradition of dealing explicitly with abortion than does Evangelicalism (to our shame). Nevertheless, he aims his sights on evangelicals, accusing evangelicals of opposing abortion "however much rancor or controversy may ensue."
But later, in pressing his own preferred agenda, he admits that his designated secular experts -- the scientists and philosophers -- "do not give one answer" and "differ among themselves." Is he seriously arguing that if evangelicals went away, the abortion controversy would disappear?
There is more to Wills' article (and book) on this subject, and it is clear that this Catholic author and intellectual has huge problems with his own church. But his suggestion that abortion is a merely secular issue will get nowhere. Theology is inevitably involved whenever human life and human dignity are defined or debated. A world in which these issues are considered merely secular is the stuff of nightmares.

Imitate Their Faith By Tim Challies

It was near the end of the book of Hebrews that I found some verses that have been bouncing around in my head for some time now. With the epistle drawing to a close, the pastor who authored this letter exhorts the believers to remember the men who had once led the church, to consider how these men lived, and to imitate their faith. “Remember your leaders,” he says, “those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”
That verse has given me a lot to think about. God, working through the written words of an anonymous pastor who lived 2,000 years ago, challenged me to consider men who once spoke the word of God—men whose lives I should consider that I might imitate their faith. Unlike the recipients of this letter, I do not have a long legacy of being in a church where leaders have served for decades and have finished well. I have been more of a church pilgrim, often moving from one town to the next through my childhood and early years of my marriage. At long last we’ve settled in a town and in a church where we hope to remain for the long haul. But as I considered these verses I thought of a church like Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, a church that has prospered under the long ministries of men like Donald Barnhouse (33 years), James Montgomery Boice (32 years) and Phillip Ryken (12 years and counting). People who attend churches like that and who have been members of such churches for many years will be able to look to the past and to consider how these men lived. From there they can learn about the faith that sustained these pastors and then imitate that faith.
Not all of us have been so privileged. But we have the ability to find heroes in history by reading good biographies. And this is, I think, one of the reasons I am so often drawn to biographies of great Christians. Through these books we are able to read about the faith of Christians who served God through their lives and then finished strong. John Piper says, “This is why dead heroes are more important than living heroes. Living heroes are important, but they might cease to be heroes before they die. They might let you down. Rather, he says, ‘remember’ - that’s a word that reaches into the past. Remember those whose conduct you can survey from beginning to end, and consider all of it - especially how it ended.” It is really only when the final chapter has closed in death that we may know how a man has lived. Dead heroes harbor few surprises.
It is important to note that the exhortation is not to imitate these men—it is not to ponder their lives and then to imitate their conduct. Rather, the author exhorts people to ponder the outcome of these lives, to see how these men finished their races, and, having found worthy examples, to imitate their faith. John Piper sounds an important warning about imitating the conduct of others. “If you try to imitate their conduct, you become a religious fake, a spiritual counterfeit. This is a frightening reality when you see it - people who have learned the forms of godliness and know nothing of the power that comes from genuine faith. Instead he says: look at the whole course of their conduct and how they finished their course, and get the same motor that made them what they were: their faith.”
Verse seven cannot be separated from the verse that follows. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Jesus Christ is the same today as He was when these men led the church and when they encouraged your faith. Jesus was worth serving then and He is worth serving now; Jesus sustained these men even through times of hardship and He can and will sustain you in the same way. Though months and seasons and years come and go, Jesus remains the same—still available, still powerful, still in control. Richard Phillips writes, “The writer’s confidence is not in men of God; it is in the God of men.” Though we are to imitate the faith of these men, we are to see this faith as a gift of God and to place our confidence in God who gives faith, not in men who express it.
By way of conclusion, Richard Phillips says, “This is the greatest legacy any of us can impart from the pattern of our lives, and it is by providing such examples that Christian leaders most powerfully serve the Lord and his church.” The questions I had to ask myself were these: First, whose faith am I imitating? Who are the Christians of days gone by whose faith serves as an example to me. And second, what will my legacy be? Will I leave behind a pattern of trust and faithful service that another person may find worthy of imitation, or will I be fearful and faithless, leaving behind a legacy I’d want no one to imitate?
Perhaps your faith would also be served by pondering those same questions in light of
Hebrews 13.

Explaining the Gospel to a Child

How can parents explain the gospel to their children without toning down the commands of Scripture?

Certainly children are limited in their ability to understand spiritual truth, but so are adults. Very few people intellectually understand all the gospel truth at the moment of salvation. Fortunately, the essential truths are basic enough that even a child can understand. Jesus Himself characterized saving faith as childlikeness (Mark 10:15). True belief is not a function of advanced intellect, sophisticated theological understanding, or complex doctrinal knowledge.
Children old enough to be saved can grasp the concept of coming to Christ with an obedient heart, and letting Him be the Lord of their lives.
When sharing the gospel with a child, keep these points in mind:
1. Remember that repetition and restatement are especially helpful. Give the gospel simply and briefly, but don’t assume the first positive response means they got all the truth they need to know. Continue explaining and expanding your explanations. Too many ministries to children equate every positive response with a real conversion.
2. Use Scripture and explain it clearly. Even with children, God’s Word is the seed that produces life (1 Peter 1:23). Don’t use approaches that give gospel outlines with no Scripture. Only the Bible can speak with authority to the human heart—including a child’s heart.
3. Understand the inherent danger in any outline or prefabricated presentation: they tend to follow a predetermined agenda that may bypass the child’s real needs or fail to answer his or her most important questions.
4. Finally, remember that the issues in salvation are the same for a child as for an adult. The gospel is the same message for every age group. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote,
We must be careful that we do not modify the gospel to suit various age groups. There is no such thing as a special gospel for the young, a special gospel for the middle-aged, and a special gospel for the aged. There is only one gospel, and we must always be careful not to tamper and tinker with the gospel as a result of recognizing these age distinctions. At the same time, there is a difference in applying this one and only gospel to the different age groups; but it is a difference which has reference only to method and procedure. (Knowing the Times [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989], 2.)
Children must be able to understand that sin is an offense to God’s holiness and that they are personally guilty (though because of their limited experiences, most kids obviously won’t have as deep a sense of personal guilt as adults). There’s nothing wrong with telling children about hell and God’s wrath. Children do not have a difficult time grasping such concepts. They understand punishment for wrongdoing and are capable of understanding that Jesus died to take the punishment for the sins of others. They need to be told that Jesus expects to be obeyed, and they will understand even better than some adults that trusting Jesus means obeying Him. The importance of obedience needs to be emphasized repeatedly, even after the child makes a profession of faith.

Hymns: Effective Carriers of Christian Doctrine By Paul S. Jones

Quoting Paul S. Jones . . .
The average college freshman today, who has attended church all of his life, is acquainted with twenty hymns or fewer; some know none at all. This is more than sad; it is tragic. Robert Rayburn, founding President of Covenant Theological Seminary, encountered that same kind of folly fifty years ago.
He wrote of the then-popular 'gospel song' [genre]:
"It is not just the poverty of the gospel song as an instrument of praise that is of serious concern. It is the woeful ignorance which Christians today demonstrate with regard to the almost inexhaustible riches of sacred song which are theirs in the great hymns which have come down through the centuries. A good hymnbook is the repository of the deepest devotion of the saints of the ages. It's treasures are priceless. Next to the bible a good hymn book is a Christian's greatest devotional guide. Yet many Christians will spend money readily for daily devotional readings which are far inferior to the great poetry of the hymnbook."
Hymns have always been effective carriers of Christian doctrine, and without their definitive presence our collective theological understanding has become shallower. But this should not surprise us if we take a good hard look at ourselves. In the postmodern, post-Christian age in which we live, worship and the music of corporate worship in evangelical churches have both followed the relativistic path of our culture.
From:
Singing and Making Music

Truth: The Absolute Necessity for Reformation…recovering sola scriptura in the proclamation of the gospel by Steve Camp

Reformation means: to right the wrong; to remedy error; to be returning to a rightful course; to rescue from erroneousness. The Greek word rendered reformation (diorphosis) means emendation, improvement, reform. It refers to putting a thing back in correct or upright condition; making it better; or raising up and restoring that which is fallen down. A “hapax legomenon”, this word is mentioned only once in the N.T. found in Hebrews 9:10 which says, “but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.” This is unmistakably refering to the gospel setting all things right in Christ Jesus–our once for all sacrifice for sins compared to the old covenant (cp, Acts 3:21; Hebrews 8:8-12; 9:23).
There are a few things that historically and biblically mark or accompany true reformation and revival:
Conviction, contrition, and confession of sin
Repentance that is more notorious than ones transgressions
Prayer that is urgent and unceasing
Renewed loving of, long for, obedience to, and craving of God’s Word
Uncompromised preaching and teaching of God’s Word
Recovery of boldness in proclaiming the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
Refutation and correcting of aberrant teaching, skewed doctrine, and theological error
Worship that is unfeigned in spirit and truth
And finally, authentic evangelism - lasting regeneration, a heavenly work by the Spirit of God

Unfortunately, many today that the Scriptures heralded, obeyed, and lived in the power of the Holy Spirit are not enough. They are deficient and inadequate to meet the needs of our comple, postmodern times. Thus, new movements like the emerging/emergent church spring up to try and address the needs of our time; but ultimately find themselves falling woefully short for their emphasis is more on the pragmatic than the eternal.Read more……

‘Prophetic Untimeliness’ by Os Guiness Review by Nathan Williams

Some books simply need to be read. This is one of those books. It is a couple of years old, but when I read it through for the second time I was amazed again at the impact it had on my thinking. It speaks volumes to our Christian culture and helps us understand the stance we need to take toward our culture. Guiness possesses the amazing ability to analyze our current situation and express it in ways that are memorable and easy to understand. This book is a treasure chest of great quotes so reading it must be done with a highlighter at hand.
Guiness understands the heart of the problem the church faces today. “…an unprecedented Christian pursuit of relevance has led directly to an unprecedented Christian irrelevance” (p. 45). He describes this statement as the central concern of the book. The irony is astounding. The Church today wants nothing more than to be relevant to the culture. Many in the church feel relevance is the only way to reach the culture with the gospel. Guiness says this pursuit of relevance is precisely the reason the Christian church today has never been more irrelevant. It’s an impossibly frustrating cycle to find ourselves caught in. The harder we push to be culturally relevant, the more behind the times we fall.
If you wanted to boil this book down to the most basic level, it would be a book about worldliness. Guiness explains how the church has become like the world in one specific area. Prophetic Untimeliness divides into three sections, with two chapters making up each section.
The first section is entitled, “The Tool That Turned into a Tyrant.” This tool is time and Guiness spends the first two chapters explaining the features of our modern understanding of time that have affected our faith. Most of us are so caught up in the modern understanding of time that we never consider that our culture has affected the way we view time itself. “But it is impossible to stop the world today even if you want to get off — and this manic speed is affecting our faith as much as our blood pressure” (p. 36). One specific result of the modern view of time discussed in these chapters is our bias for change. “Any kind of change is enough to qualify as progress” (p. 42).
The second section of Prophetic Untimeliness is entitled “Shorn of Our Secret Strength” and deals with the relationship of the church to the world. Guiness explains that the church has always possessed the ability to be “against the world, for the world” (p. 49). Taking this phrase from C. S. Lewis he goes on to explain how our ability to maintain this position is harder in the modern world than it has ever been. The modern view of time has infiltrated our way of thinking to the point that we value relevance so much that we are willing to sacrifice faithfulness to obtain it.
The closing section of Prophetic Untimeliness is entitled “Restoring the Archimedean Point.” In this section Guiness explains that we must have some point outside of the world with which to judge the world. To remain faithful and ultimately to gain relevance, we must maintain an eternal perspective.
Early on in this book, Guiness explains that relevance is not the problem. In fact, he claims that relevance is more needed than ever! The problem is that to be truly relevant, we must not float along with the spirit of the age, but we must push against the current that would drag us down. I wanted to finish this review, not by explaining why I think this book would be valuable to read, but by letting Guiness speak for himself. Here are a few memorable quotes from Prophetic Untimeliness.
“Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant” (p. 12).
“If relevance is properly understood — the quality of relating to a matter in hand with pertinence and appropriateness — we who define ourselves and our lives by the good news of Jesus Christ should be, of all people, most relevant” (p. 12).
Speaking of the Churches’ stance, “against the world, for the world” . . .
“When the church is weak or careless in maintaining this dual stance, it leads directly to cowardice and corruption, decadence and decline. But when the church is faithful, it lies at the core of her power to transform and renew culture” (p. 49).
“Thinking and acting Christianly in the blizzard of modern information and change requires the courage of a prophet, the wisdom of a sage, and the character of a saint — not to speak of the patience of Job and the longevity of Methuselah” (p. 56).
“The fact is that nothing is finally relevant except in relation to the true and the eternal” (p. 106).

Back to Polytheism? -- Some Moderns See Monotheism as Menace By Dr Al Mohler

These strange times now witness encouragements to turn from monotheism back to ancient forms of polytheism. The argument is that monotheism -- belief that there is only one God -- inevitably leads to division, hatreds, and moral judgment.
This argument landed squarely on the pages of The Los Angeles Times in recent days through an opinion article written by Mary Lefkowitz, professor emerita at Wellesley College. She gets right to the point: "Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion "poisons" human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn't religion; it's monotheism."
So monotheism -- a belief fundamental to Christianity -- is a "poison." Of course, what Lefkowitz has in mind is an argument that monotheistic religions will inevitably come into conflict due to the simple fact that each claims to know and to serve the only true God. As for Lefkowitz, she prefers the ancient Greeks and their polytheism:
The polytheistic Greeks didn't advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.
The ancient Greeks, we should note, did find plenty of reasons to kill each other. But Lefkowitz likes their low-intensity religion. It had no right answers, fumbling gods, and no clear doctrines. In other words, a religion perfectly suited for the postmodern age.
There is more, of course:
Openness to discussion and inquiry is a distinguishing feature of Greek theology. It suggests that collective decisions often lead to a better outcome. Respect for a diversity of viewpoints informs the cooperative system of government the Athenians called democracy. Unlike the monotheistic traditions, Greco-Roman polytheism was multicultural. The Greeks and Romans did not share the narrow view of the ancient Hebrews that a divinity could only be masculine. Like many other ancient peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, the Greeks recognized female divinities, and they attributed to goddesses almost all of the powers held by the male gods.
The Greek gods were dialogical deities, respecting diverse viewpoints, she argues. Of course, they were also often inebriated and caught in less than admirable situations and behaviors. This doesn't bother Lefkowitz, since they were also feminists who "recognized female deities." That evidently excuses otherwise distasteful behavior among the Greek gods.
In her essay, Lefkowitz offers other arguments for adopting a polytheistic set of beliefs, though she never actually confesses to believe in any God or gods. She does argue that ancient polytheism "gives an account of the world that in many respects is more plausible than that offered by the monotheistic traditions. Greek theology openly discourages blind confidence based on unrealistic hopes that everything will work out in the end. Such healthy skepticism about human intelligence and achievements has never been needed more than it is today."
So it appears that her agenda is more about skepticism than polytheism. In any event, she would commend skepticism toward any monotheistic claims.
Here we face one of the great challenges of the day. The idea that there is only one God runs counter to so many of the most cherished assumptions of the day. Monotheism runs right into conflict with modern ideas of truth, fairness, knowledge, and morality.
The important point here is that this is not a new development. It has always been so. Nevertheless, this is the very center of biblical Christianity. The Bible straightforwardly claims that there is only one God. This has never been popular or politically correct. Just ask Elijah.

THE AUTHORITY OF REALITY By Oswald Chambers

"Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." James 4:8

It is essential to give people a chance of acting on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual, you cannot act for him, it must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message ought always to lead a man to act. The paralysis of refusing to act leaves a man exactly where he was before; when once he acts, he is never the same. It is the foolishness of it that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Immediately I precipitate myself over into an act, that second I live; all the rest is existence. The moments when I truly live are the moments when I act with my whole will.
Never allow a truth of God that is brought home to your soul to pass without acting on it, not necessarily physically, but in will. Record it, with ink or with blood. The feeblest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is emancipated the second he acts; all the almighty power of God is on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, we confess we are wrong, but go back again; then we come up to it again, and go back; until we learn that we have no business to go back. We have to go clean over on some word of our redeeming Lord and transact business with Him. His word "come" means "transact." "Come unto Me." The last thing we do is to come; but everyone who does come knows that that second the supernatural rush of the life of God invades him instantly. The dominating power of the world, the flesh and the devil is paralysed, not by your act, but because your act has linked you on to God and His redemptive power.

Questions 4-6 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. For your Family Devotion today.

Q4: What is God?

A4: God is a Spirit,[1] infinite,[2] eternal,[3] and unchangeable,[4] in his being,[5] wisdom,[6] power,[7] holiness,[8] justice, goodness, and truth.[9]
1. John 4:242. Job 11:73. Psa. 90:24. James 1:175. Exod. 3:146. Psa. 147:57. Rev. 4:88. Rev. 15:49. Exod. 34:6

Q5: Are there more Gods than one?

A5: There is but one only,[1] the living and true God.[2]
1. Deut. 6:42. Jer. 10:10

Q6: How many persons are there in the Godhead?

A6: There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;[1] and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.[2]
1. Matt. 28:192. I John 5:7

Puritan Quote of the Week From the Pastor's Desk

"The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print."
WILLIAM GURNALL

INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVE LAWSON

The Mike Corley Program will be broadcasting live today (Friday November 2, 2007) from the site of the conference Pantego Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Our special guest will be Dr. Steve Lawson. Dr. Lawson is senior pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, and author such books as Foundations of Grace and The Expository Genius of John Calvin.
The Mike Corley Program airs live at 1pm ET/12pmCT and you can listen to the program by clicking OnePlace.com

iLife?? Is That What Christianity is About?

Apparently Christianity is no longer about Jesus Christ but it is now about offering you an iLife so that you can iLive, iLove, iWork and iPlay. This sounds eerily like Isaiah 14:13-14. We wonder when this church will do a sermon series about iSin, iRepent and iAmForgiven?
Click here for video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zZhfUex4D4&eurl=http://www.alittleleaven.com/2007/11/index.html

After seeing this video you will know why it is so important for the Pastor to be studying the Word of God. And not studying the ways of the world. But remember this,THE WAY THE PULPIT GOES WILL BE THE WAY THE CHURCH GOES. May we all join together in the persuit of a Modern Day Reformation.
Rev C.J. Paul

Trusting God's People Again When the church injures, God's Word offers healing

DALLAS, November 2 /Christian Newswire/ -- Depending on whose statistics you believe, anywhere from 15% to 40% of Christian believers today have felt betrayed or wounded by the church at some point. Many of them are spiritually incapacitated and just sitting on the sidelines. What if we found a way to bring them healing and to reinvest them in kingdom work?
In their new book, Trusting God's People...Again (VMI Publishers, November 2007), authors Blake Coffee and Debbie Taylor Williams offer hope and biblical direction for those who have been wounded at the hands of God's own people. The book acknowledges a fact that is often forgotten, namely that "the church" is made up of flawed people who still sin. When that many sinners gather in one place, someone is bound to get hurt.
"When we talk of those who have stopped trusting the church, we tend to think of people who have been molested by a member of the clergy or have been disillusioned by the public moral downfall of a high- profile minister," Coffee states. "The reality is that those people represent a very small percentage of the people who feel betrayed by the church. The vast majority are those whose feelings were hurt because of an administrative conflict or who were treated unkindly or otherwise wronged by some individual(s) in the church. These folks are experiencing some very real pain-and many of them would rather not take the risk of coming to church again."
"Part of the story of Trusting God's People...Again is focusing on the true enemy," Williams stresses. "Divisiveness is one of Satan's favorite strategies, and Christians are a prime target today, especially Christian leaders. I hope readers will be encouraged to seek the Lord of the church and to understand that the church is made up of saved sinners who are in the process of being sanctified."
For those who are spiritually incapacitated by the wounds they've suffered at church, the authors offer these words of encouragement: "You are not alone. You are not the first person to be injured by God's people and you will not be the last, but God's Word really does show you a pathway toward healing. He loves you and wants you to experience that love even in the midst of your pain."

Advice On Reading by Richard Baxter (1615-1691)

http://www.puritansermons.com/baxter/baxter30.htm

YE ARE NOT YOUR OWN By Oswald Chambers

"Know ye not that . . ye are not your own?" 1 Corinthians 6:19
There is no such thing as a private life - "a world within the world" - for a man or woman who is brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ's sufferings. God breaks up the private life of His saints, and makes it a thoroughfare for the world on the one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves, we are called into the fellowship of the Gospel, and things happen which have nothing to do with us, God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way, if you do not, instead of being of the slightest use to God in His Redemptive work in the world, you will be a hindrance and a clog.
The first thing God does with us is to get us based on rugged Reality until we do not care what becomes of us individually as long as He gets His way for the purpose of His Redemption. Why shouldn't we go through heartbreaks? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down on the threshold of God's purpose and die away of self-pity, and all so called Christian sympathy will aid us to our death bed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, and says - "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.

A Revision of Evangelical Doctrine, Now Underway By Dr Philip Ryken

Quoting Philip Ryken . . .
I do not think for a moment that the church should aspire to become irrelevant. There is always a need for Christians to speak the gospel into their own context. Rather, my concern is with the ever present danger of over-contextualizing. Consider what happens to a church that is always trying to appeal to an increasingly post-Christian culture. Almost inevitably, the church itself becomes post-Christian. This is what happened to the liberal church during the twentieth century, and it is what is happening to the evangelical church right now.
As James Boice has argued, evangelicals are accepting the world's wisdom, embracing the world's theology, adopting the world's agenda, and employing the world's methods.
In theology, a revision of evangelical doctrine is now underway that seeks to bring Christianity more in line with postmodern thought. The obvious difficulty is that in a post-Christian culture, a church that tries too hard to be relevant may in the process lose its very identity as the church. Rather than confronting the world the church gets co-opted by it. It no longer stands a city on a hill, but sinks to the level of the surrounding culture. (ht: Ligon Duncan, T4G blog, 10/26/06)
From:
City on a Hill: Reclaiming the Biblical Pattern for the Church...

"YOU" are a Hero and "YOU" Have What it Takes! (Not Really... But, That Message is Guaranteed to Draw a Crowd)

-Christians (oops we meant the 'un-churched') are just not going to come to church to hear someone preaching expository Bible sermons (or so the story goes). So why not preach about popular TV shows instead and try to loosly tie them to the Bible? Pastors are already exegeting blockbuster movies and comic books, so adding popular TV shows to their repertoire just makes sense.
Below we've posted the graphic for the upcoming sermon series at South Hills Church in Corona, CA. (This is the same church whose pastor rather than preaching about Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday thought it would be better to preach about dysfunctional relationships. We can't wait to see what he preaches about on Christmas Day. We bet it will be about weight loss or new year's resolutions). Now pastor Chris Sonksen is going to tie the popular TV show, Heroes to the Bible. He plans to let everyone at his church know that they are 'heroes' and that "THEY have what it takes". Sermon Topics Include...
• How courage can help YOU conquer a storm (Noah)• How faithfulness can keep YOU from quitting (Abraham)• How generosity can multiply YOUR impact (Rebekkah)• How commitment can take YOU beyond YOUR limitations (David)
In Sonksen's religion you already 'have what it takes' to be a hero. You just need to learn how to put it into practice. But a careful reading of the scriptures will show you that Noah's story isn't about Noah's courage at all. It is about God's justice, God's mercy and God's salvation. Noah was FAR from virtuous. Noah shamed himself and scandalized his sons through the sin of naked-drunkeness. The story of Abraham is NOT about Abraham's faithfulness. It is about God's faithfulness! Abraham lied about his marriage to his wife (twice) in order to save his own skin. Abraham also fathered Ishmael because he'd lost faith in God's promise. Rebekah was far from generous. She conspired with her son Jacob to trick Isaac into blessing Jacob and steal Esua's birthright. (stealing is the opposite of generous) As for David, we all know how well he kept his commitments. He was a murderer and an adulterer.
Reducing these Biblical stories down to morals or virtues (like Aesops fables) that we can somehow apply to our lives so that we can be heroic completely misses the point. The thing that we all have in common with Noah, Abraham, Rebekah, and David is that we are all wicked sinners. We are not virtuous, courageous and faithful. Instead we are faithless, heartless and ruthless. We are not heroes we are all villians. The Bible tells us that all of us are sinners in need of a savior. In other words, NONE of us 'has what it takes'. We, like Noah, Abraham, Rebekah and David NEED a hero and a savior to redeem us and save us. That's why those Biblical stories are NOT about Noah, Abraham, Rebekah or David, they are ultimately about Jesus Christ.
But, Pastor Chris is a proponent of the infomercial gospel and has bought into the lie that drawing large numbers of people to church is what determines success. He preaches these types of man-centered feel good messages in order to be seeker-sensitive and attract a big crowd.
We wonder if Pastor/Life Coach Sonksen has heard the news that this approach to church has been proven to be completely impotent at making disciples of Jesus Christ?
We wonder if he has the moral character to admit that he's been doing the wrong thing and repent? We wonder if he will stop preaching pop-psych and self-help. We wonder if he will stop pointing people to themselves and will instead point the people in his church to our one true hero, Jesus Christ?

1Cor. 2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Pray in Everything! By James Rosscup

* Dr. Rosscup teaches prayer and Bible exposition classes at The Master’s Seminary. Logos Bible Software is currently releasing his lifework on the topic of prayer. Today’s post is adapted from part of that larger work.

Philippians 4:6-7 — “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
These often quoted words meet us in a context that blends key concepts of the letter. Our eyes can leap to meet the ideas of standing firm (v. 1), and living in unity (v. 2) for the gospel (v. 3). And we can live in joy (v. 4), thanking God (v. 6), focused on true values (v. 8 ), and content with sufficiency in Christ (10-13).
Eleven words capture the related points. At the heart is saturation in prayer.
Constancy (v. 1). Urgency rings in Paul’s call to stand firm in the Lord. Prayer in v. 6 can be a vital part of drawing on strength Christ gives (v. 13) and His supply to meet all needs (cf v. 19). Peace God bestows is a fitting result (v. 7). Joining constancy is concert (v. 2), keeping in heart-sync with fellow believers. This is in cooperation (v. 3). Christians’ teamwork can give impetus to the gospel. In this case two women need to dissolve a rift in a bond that rises above petty things for the bigness of Christ’s cause.
Cheer (v. 4) “in the Lord” is vital. It is an optimism and shine that springs from faith that the values, promises, and resources in Christ are adequate. To be in “the book of life” is to have a destiny so bright that no circumstance should dim it. Not only such life but the Lord’s near presence at any time gives joy, as does the open door to God in prayer. All is well, and congeniality (v. 5a) can be the tone in “a forbearing spirit” which is a sweèt reasonableness to live in good will.
Closeness (v. 5b) of the Lord in being “at hand” may refer to His soon coming to solve all problems. But it seems better to see this as a focus on His very nearness in being right here, very near with coping uplift. In either view Christ is adequate. In the second meaning He is present go supply all that this outline is emphasizing, as He is near in other Scripture (Ps. 34:18; 73:23; 119:151, etc.). In either view speaking in prayer in the same breath (Phil. 4:6) is natural. Not only is Christ to come, but we may come to Him now, or He is very present and ready to open His door to a prayer knock (cf. v. 19; Matt. 7:7-11; Acts 2:25).
With such uplift we can be coming to God often (v. 6), “in everything,” seasoning life “with thanks.” This is apt due to past answers, present blessings, and future expectations. Such a boon gives composure (v. 7), peace that is the calm of a Christ-given poise. This “passes all understanding” for it goes beyond every expectation based on any mere natural, human spin on how things can work out. It jettisons a limiting spirit about the possibilities God has in taking care of people and situations.
This life is to be with contemplation (v. 8 ) that thinks in values and attitudes God’s Word reveals. It is with a conduct (v. 9) in the Lord’s will that Paul and we have received. Such is a carriage of contentment (vv. 10-13). Be circumstances what they will, Paul can react and we can cope in the contentment of “I am able to do all things through means of Christ, who keeps on strengthening me” (v. 13).

Click and donate to make John Paul II a saint

This post will show evry True Christian why we must stand together and stand up for the Truth of the Gospel. The time is now for a Modern day Reformation. Rev. C.J. Paul


Roman Catholics are being asked to donate on the internet to receive a piece of John Paul II's gown and help make him a saint.

Pope John Paul II lies in state at the Vatican
The official website of the Diocese of Rome has a section dedicated to the former Pope's beatification and canonisation, offering prayer groups, testimonies and even a piece his gown.
There is also an option for Catholics to help fund the "Cause" and voluntarily donate a sum to set John Paul II on the path to sainthood.
"The aim of the website is to give everyone a chance to take part in the process," website editor Stefano Chiodo told Bloomberg News.
"It's a way of reaching out. I am overwhelmed with requests. I can't keep up."
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The overwhelming response has resulted in a delay in sending out holy cards which contain a piece of John Paul II's clothing.
Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who heads the campaign for canonisation, apologised to users saying the website has received an unanticipated "great volume" of requests for the "relics".
The Diocese recommends that the fabric cards be used for "private devotion only".
While the requests have run into "thousands", the campaign has also received numerous generous donations.
A note in English on the site thanks followers for their willingness to help promote the "Cause of the Servant of God John Paul II".
"It is a testimony of just how well loved our John Paul II is", it reads.
At a Mass to commemorate the second anniversary of John Paul II's death earlier this year, Pope Benedict said his predecessor was quickly heading towards sainthood.

All Saints Day By Rev. Rick Phillips

Today is All Saints Day, the super-bowl Sunday of sacred relics in the Roman Catholic Church. Not many people realize that this is the reason why Reformation Day is the same as Halloween (All Hallows Eve). Luther was specifically protesting the exploitation of the peasantry through the sacred veneration of relics (for a price, of course), the apex of which occurred on Nov. 1. But all that is old news now, right? So say the many voices that insist that the Reformation is now irrelevant. Well, check out this website, which complains about the sale of sacred relics on the internet (i.e. where the pope doesn't get the money). Most importantly, it shows that Tetzil lives today in the Roman Church. The Daily Telegraph also reports that the papacy is funding the canonization of the late pope John Paul II by selling pieces of his garments as sacred relics. Looks like the 95 Theses might not be old news yet!But of course there is an evangelical version of the same. So with this in mind, to all who think you can buy your way into God's graces, whether papist or protestant, happy All Saints Day!

Facilitating Evangelism in the Church By Jesse Johnson

If evangelism is a lifestyle, not an event, are there certain things that pastors can do encourage people to be faithful to their calling?
Here are some ideas that we have used at Grace Church to facilitate, encourage, and equip our people for evangelism:
Hand out free New Testaments to your congregation: Have the church purchase these, and hand one to everyone on a Sunday morning. Encourage them to hand them out to someone whom they know, but with whom they have been reluctant to share the Gospel. Encourage the people to personalize it in some way, such as marking their favorite passages or favorite chapter. Many non-believers who would not read a tract or be open to a church invitation, may very well respond to a gift such as a book, especially when the person giving it has put thought into what he is asking them to read.
Offer an evangelism training class in Sunday School or at home Bible studies: More mature believers can easily forget how intimidating evangelism can be. What should people say, how do they turn a conversation toward the Gospel, how do they (or should they) witness to their boss? These are questions many people in church have. A short class (at Grace it is 4 weeks) that trains people on the basics in evangelism is very useful in answering these questions, and creating a climate where evangelism is expected. We offer these classes on Sunday morning, as an alternative to Sunday school, as well as at many of our home Bible studies. Often, small group leaders are excited to take a break from their current study in order to do a short series on evangelism.
It is not necessary to even use a particular curriculum for these classes, although many good ones are available. If you have gifted teachers, perhaps just having them teach a series through evangelistic passages of Scripture might be effective.
Take advantage of Christmas programs your church already does: Easily Grace’s biggest evangelistic event of the year is our Christmas concert. We mail tickets to our neighbors who live around the church, and many of our members invite several friends. One of our pastors does a brief Gospel presentation in the middle of the concert. This does not make the concert that much longer, but increases the church’s love of the concert dramatically. People begin praying about who they are going to invite weeks in advance, and there is a genuine excitement around the campus as it seems everyone is bringing non-believers to church that week.
Model through your lifestyle your priority of evangelism: Those that know Pastor John know his love for evangelism. He models it from the pulpit by the way he earnestly proclaims the Gospel and offers salvation. He models it in his prayers by how he asks God to save others. He models it in his ecclesiology, by having the focus of the church be on the salvation of sinners. And he models it in his personal life, by witnessing to his neighbors, doctors, and those whom he comes in contact with. His love for evangelism is prevalent through our church, and is contagious.