apparently Peter and Paul preached universal atonement!  Read this!

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, (I Peter 3:18)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. (Eph 2:8-9) ** note, there is no limitations on the “you”.  “You” must be referring to everyone!

DID YOU READ THAT!!  He said that Christ died for ALL!!!  All will be SAVED!!!!  Peter and Paul were a UNIVERSALIST!!!!

I guess you can twist anything to have it fit your agenda, right Ken?
for the record — the bible doesn’t preach universalism.

I saw this little tidbit posted on SOL this evening, and I have to say that this confirms my suspicion.  These people really do have a persecution complex.  Who knew receiving junkmail was such a big deal?

Using the word “Holiday” instead of “Christmas” apparantly is reason enough for Christians to be offended (it’s also Un-American from what I gather).  It seems to me that as Christians, we are supposed to lay down our rights for others, not stand up for our own.  Maybe that doesn’t apply to American Christians…

 p.s. – I know someone will come here say that this is just comedy, blah, blah, blah.  But really the fact that they’re willing to make an issue out of it speaks for itself.

I wonder what would happen if I wrote an article in which I expounded on the links between Hitler and Luther’s anti-Semetic views.  And then I wrote about how most ODMs are “reformed” and hold Luther’s writings in high regard.  Then, having done this, I made a statement about how related these two really are in that most ODM’s are facists, just like the Nazis!*

Why, I might just have a parody article like this morally bankrupt drek,

HT: CR?N

*My apologies to any Nazis offended by this example, as it was purely fiction for the purpose of demonstrating ad hominem Association Fallacy.

Once again, Old Truth doesn’t necessarily mean good truth. In this article, the author’s cynicism and god-complex is in plain sight. Oak Leaf Church celebrated 39 people coming to Christ in their service. The exact line reads

“39 people decided to follow Jesus! 39 people who are now Christians! It’s cool when you run out of counselors.

to this, Jim replies

“Aside from the fact that salvation is not due to human will and decision (Romans 9:16, John 1:12-13, etc), Michael’s remarks beg the question – how does he know they are now Christians? We all know how angry people get if someone questions the salvation of another professed believer. Questions start flying like “how do you know that person is not saved?”. Just turn that question around 180 degrees and ask pastors like Michael “how do you know 39 ARE saved?”

First off, ladies and gentlemen, this is what we in the theological community like to call hyper-Calvinism. When the scriptures say if you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart, you will be saved — it really means that if the holy spirit takes over your bodily functions, and God himself mutters the words for you, then you will be saved. There is no responsibility on the human to make the decision to make Jesus Lord of their life.

Second, why could Jim not just be happy for this church, instead of messing with semantics and playing God. Maybe we should put all 39 of those people in a room with Jim, so he can judge their hearts and be the final word on IF they are saved. It’s rediculous to make those statements when someone is sharing that several people came to faith. I am all for looking for fruits in new converts, but to make these comments about a church service that you were not at is juvenile at best. In fact, Jim closes the article with this

“When I see posts like this, I can’t help but wonder if these pastors are simply engaging in self-promotion, ie: “look at what we’ve done HERE at OUR church?”. Praise God for any true converts that may be in the bunch of 39″

I usually hear statements like this (about self-promotion and boasting) about other pastors from Christians who are not leading people to Christ themselves. I guess If you can’t do the work, just criticize those that are attempting to.

When I saw this post on SOL today, my first reaction after reading it was “wow, I actually agree with Ingrid on something”. Then I went and read the linked article, which seemed to really be a journalistic hit piece, and I started to feel a bit convicted. I read some of the reader comments from people who attend the church, and it seems that the vast majority of the people involved were volunteers, and the production did have a positive impact on the community. Was I too fast to judge this church?

I guess there’s part of me that really loathes these types of productions. It might be because of my experience in these types of things (on a much smaller scale). It seems that they really cause a lot of stress to people involved, and in the end I wonder what the lasting fruit is. I also wonder, is it worth the expense in money and time? I know we can’t put a price on someone coming to know Christ, but what if the hundreds of volunteers in a production this size focused their efforts on a different need in the community?

I guess my point is this. I certainly do not feel it is my place to judge a church over 1,000 miles away from me. What they do worth their money is between them and God. Seeing things like this does make me stop and think about the institution we call the church, though. Is this what we are called to do? Is putting on excellent dramatic productions a good thing? Should we compete with Broadway?

I guess I’m doing this as discussion starter more than anything, because I really don’t have all the answers. I look forward to hearing others’ input.