Driving around town, it’s not uncommon to finds that mimic popular slogans such as “Got Jesus”. Sometimes they seem kind of cute or clever. But after I consider them a bit, I’m left feeling unsettled as opposed to humored. The reason for this is simple. The church is not intended to identify with the world. We’re not to associate, market, etc. The church is to be the pillar and ground for the truth.

Consider this sign. “I Kissed a Girl” is a popular song by Katie Perry.

While it might seem right to preach against homosexual behavior and to denounce the lesbian lifestyle, the church errs when it takes the low road and takes to identifying with the world’s methods. Where does it all end?

You see, the problem is that rather than trying to elevate the word of God and to teach it, churches today believe they must reach down to people. Hence they continue to lower their standards. But if our churches continue to lower their standards, where will Christians be helped? And if Christians fail to receive proper training, where will people hear truth? It all becomes a slippery slope.

We need to get back to focusing on what is truthful, not chasing every little rabbit we come across. These things are merely diversion tactics, which take away from what is truly important.

I was catching up on some of my reading reading and came across a summary of a NY Times article on Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle. The summary wasn’t necessarily meant to be kind to the pastor, but emphasized a closing point.

Driscoll’s New Calvinism underscores a curious fact: the doctrine of total human depravity has always had a funny way of emboldening, rather than humbling, its adherents.

This quote seemed to resonate with me. A couple of years ago, I got so sick of being around Calvinists for this primary reason. It seemed I had joined a book of the month club where the members constantly prided themselves on their latest read.

Anyway, anyone who knows me well, knows how I feel about the mega church mentality and about marketing to various crowds. Having said that, I actually like some of the messaging in this article, especially about how they are fairly open to the non-Christians. This certainly stands in stark contrast to the Fundamentalist mentality that seeks to keep company with only its own kind; a practice you never saw with Christ who constantly ministered to everyone he came in contact with and who shunned the religious crowd.

To a certain extent, I find this is a bit refreshing. But I also wonder whether or not it’s truly effective too. Is this ministry making a difference? I certainly hope so. The current trend of Christianity in America is rather sickening. So I welcome anything that might have a hint of realism to it. The idea that Christians are to live in a vacuum has to cease and seeker driven churches need to fall by the way side. There is a distinction to be made between the job of the church and the job of the Christian.

In our current age, it seems we may have things a bit confused. Christians don’t want to be evangelists; that’s for the church to do. Churches don’t seem to want to preach the real and full gospel; that’s left for the Christian to elaborate on. We’ve gone too topical with our sermons and there is no real study any more. What passes for studying is a recap of some author’s book, typically from one of John’s– and not the apostle, but rather John MacArthur or John Piper.

We’re superficial at best. And what passes for depth these days is completely devoid of any compassion. I am all for a Christianity that doesn’t try to mask the human frailty by trying to be more pious than is real. This pastor is known as the cussing pastor. I’m not sure that’s the level of reality I would look for. But I’m also sure he’s not the only one who wanted to.

Read the article for yourself and you decide how you feel. You will have to register with the NY Times. But that’s not a bad thing, and it’s free. Enjoy!

I was reading a post over at Tim Challies’ site about Free Will. Tim raises some good points concerning the subject and includes a nice little chart from Augustine of Hippo that describes the various states of man’s condition.

The key point of the post deals with a statement by C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity:

Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Is this truly the case? Is it really free will that makes love possible? Consider this: did we love God first or did he love us first? Did we choose to follow God, or did he first choose us? Now, if you’re a Christian, I expect that you’ll refer to your scriptures to answer these questions.

As I commented on Tim’s site, we are told in 1Cor 2:14 that in our natural state, we are incapable of comprehending the truths or nature of God. They’re utter foolishness unto our natural, depraved state. Now, either this is completely false or it isn’t. And if it is true, then how can we properly choose that which we cannot see, let alone comprehend? And if this is assertion is false, then what’s the point?

My point is this: as Christians, we operate on the notions of faith and grace. We believe what we believe out of faith. But it was grace that gave us the faith to believe in the first place. Take either of these components away and we’re merely religious people, no different than any other religious people. It is the notion of an active God that really separates our religion from the others in the world.

Based on these assumptions, is our free-will really that important when it comes to loving God with any sort of quality? Do we really gain anything by asserting our free will? Let’s suppose I have free will and have an IQ of 70. Am I really going to derive something paramount to Einstein’s theory of relativity just because I desire to? We’re talking, here, about overcoming a deficiency of intelligence. And to a certain extent this is possible. But I have yet to see any person or creature over come its nature. Just because you can here a parrot talk, doesn’t mean it has the nature of a man. And while I like to think my dog, Barkley, is a better “person” than most people I know, doesn’t actually mean he’s human. He’s still a dog.

This concept is pretty important to professing Christians. At what point do you stop insisting on your own rights and start taking God at his word? Just because an unregenerate man cannot turn from his ways and turn to God, in his own power, doesn’t alleviate the responsibility from him. Nor does it make God a tyrant by calling on men and women to do so.

I was perusing some sites to see what the controversy of the day was, when I found a reference to an old friend of mine who is pastoring in Jacksonville FL. On his church’s site, they’ve been having a series of lessons on Evangelism and one of the points struck a cord with me:

Probably the most common and dangerous mistake made in evangelism is the
misinterpretation of the results of evangelism, (which is the conversion of unbelievers), as being evangelism itself. Evangelism must not be confused with its fruit. If one has a misunderstanding of the results of evangelism, a misunderstanding of the gospel and what the Bible teaches about conversion, then it is possible that they may end up thinking that not only is it possible to see people converted, but they may also think that it is within their power to make it happen. According to the Bible, converting people is not in our power. Evangelism is defined in terms of our faithfulness to the message that must be preached. 2nd Corinthians 2:15-16 says “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?” We are reminded that the same ministry has two different effects (life and death). The parable of the sower reminds us that the same seed was planted in different places, but the response or results varied according to the nature of the soil. Evangelizing isn’t converting people; it is telling them that they need to be converted, telling them how they can be saved, and leaving the increase up to God.

I wish I had known this back in 1992 when I left FL and was introduced to the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. It may have actually spared me a considerable amount of pain. It was seeing what I thought were results that lured me into attending a fundamentalist church for the better part of 14 years.

The first year was spent in amazement over the incredible zeal. The second was spent in discomfort as I soon started to have realizations over what was and wasn’t the gospel. This where this lesson could have come in handy. My 3rd year was spent trying to gain approval and dealing with guilt over feeling as if I wasn’t loyal. And the rest of my years were spent trying to get out.

One of things I have found is that there are few people who actually evangelize. Most hide their light under a bushel or have diluted their salt to the point of lacking any savor whatsoever. It’s virtually worthless. But this particular point of confusing people being saved with evangelism resonates well with me. It reminds me of the distinction between the first and the second great awakening. God did mighty things during the first great awakening. Inexplicable things. Finney, during the second great awakening introduced the New Measures, or psychological manipulations which brought about man-made counterfeits.

Anyway, I do think there are some nice things to be had by this study. I’ve only posted this snippet because I’m not sure about copyrights. If you want access to the rest of it, send me a note and I’ll forward the link to you.

As far as blogging has been concerned, I’ve been absent for the better part of 2 years. Sure, I’ve poked around to various friends’ sites and dropped an occasional comment or two. I’ve even written a post on very rare occasions. But it has been difficult to write much of anything. I basically reached a point where I either didn’t care, felt I had nothing to say, or was annoyed at what I’ve seen and heard. Most of the time, it was this later feeling that contributed to me wanting to stop caring, which caused me to have little to say.

When I started my blog back in 2001 it was with the intention of writing about theological changes being brought into my life. My eyes were in a constant state of being opened to new realities and I tried my best to document the journey. During the course of much changing, I experienced numerous battles which eventually turned me quite sour on our churches in America and on Christians in general.  I had tried numerous times over the years to help people through various means: finances, education, friendship, and so on. What I derived in the end was nothing short of a realization of 2Peter 2:22:

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘a dog returns to its own vomit’, and ‘a sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’.

No matter the occasion, I can count on one hand the number of times that I saw true change. And, without exception, the ones who didn’t return their mire were non-Christians. Those who professed Christ were typically full of deception. Even the ones who genuinely looked to be struggling against the norm, the ones who appeared to be dealing with deep, personal conviction, seemed to return to the thing or the ones that caused so much unrest in their soul.

It was also during this period, especially 2006 through 2007, that I began meeting and conversing with other Christians online who claimed to have become reformed in their theology. What I found, instead, was lack of desire to sincerely follow the new path they were supposedly embarked upon. Rather, they would cling to their former ways, yet continue to gripe over them.

In the end, I came to some conclusions:

1. My eyes were not opened by my own initiative, but rather against them
2. No matter how hard I tried, I could not change a person’s mind concerning spiritual things
3. Much internal conflict gets confused with conviction, but rarely is it of the effectual, changing nature
4. People would rather live vicariously through others than to endure their own journeys
5. Um… you can lead a horse to water but you definitely can’t make him drink

But you know what? It was Paul who really summarized this more succinctly:

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

–Phil 2:12-13

So, where am I after all of this? I am doing my thing, not really worried about what others think or do. Rather, I am resolved to do my part in this world, trusting God to place the desires in my heart, and to equip me to actually cary out them out. If I can be used to make an occasional difference, then perhaps my life will not be in vain. But in the end, it is all up to God and his desires and mercies. I am merely an active passenger on this journey.