CRN.Info and Analysis

I woke up this morning to this. I have to say it wasn’t the best thought as I sipped my extra dry cappuccino at Pete’s Coffee and Tea. I actually began to feel incredibly sorry for the many people who read this and will actually believe it. I mean, imagine walking through life wondering if the purpose God has for you is a good one, or one that will lead to total destruction. How would that change how we live… in complete and udder fear of the future. I mean, life becomes one big turn of the dice. Will God give me a good purpose in life, or will He not?

You see, this is the God of illogical predestination. He randomly chooses some to have a good purpose in life, and randomly chooses some who will not. And, you will / can never know which one he will choose for you. We are simply pawns on some divine chess board.

Now, we may not have the ideal life by human standards. I am sure that Jim Elliot was not planning on being speared to death, leaving his family behind at such a young age. But was his purpose still good? Sure. Hundreds came to the faith. And, if you ask Elisabeth Elliot if she has any regrets over the situation, she would probably tell you the same. His life had a beautiful purpose. Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. was probably not planning on being assassinated. But the good and blessed purpose of His life has left ripples in eternity. For those that follow the Lord, there is a great purpose for our lives (and Rick Warren would agree that following God is the prerequisite for having a good purpose in life).

If course, the ironic thing is that most of the people who would hold to this view probably believe that they all have a good purpose in life. This poster and ideology would only apply to anyone other than themselves and their pack of Christian friends.

That if you:

A. confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,”

B. believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

-The Scriptures

Rick Warren’s Gospel presentation from PDL:

First believe God loved you and made you for His purposes. Believe that God has chosen to have a relationship with Jesus, who died on the cross for you. Believe that no matter what you’ve done, God wants to forgive you. Receive Jesus into your life as your lord and savior. Receive his forgiveness for your sins. So I invite you to bow your heads and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity. “Jesus, I believe in You, and I receive You.”

John MacArthur’s required additions to the gospel presentation for salvation

* Repentance
* Know who the family of God is
* A sense of eternal judgment
* A discussion on hell
* Self-denial
* Laying down the law of God against which the sinner is broken
* A sense of guilt in the person
* Sense of condemnation in the person
* A fear of eternal torment in the person
* An understanding of God’s wrath
* The sinner should be crushed under the weight of his violation of the law of God

One might be guilty of laying it on a little light, the other just might be guilty of turning the already narrow road into a tiny beaten path. Let the crusades continue.

Remember that part in the purpose driven program where Rick Warren said that pastors should do the following:

- lie, manipulate, and breached confidentiality
- remove Sunday School teachers for refusing to back down from their position on the Purpose Driven program, even if it is a confidential and discreet position.
- no longer welcome confidential and discreet dissenters to attend Sunday School
- refused to respond in writing concerning removal of dissenters (which should occur without a vote by the congregation, even if that congregation originally voted to install the discreet dissenter as a teacher and a deacon)
- tell the secret dissenter’s Sunday School class that they were removed for challenging his authority
- have the deacons claim that they were removed temporarily for an investigation they did not conduct
- not allow the congregation to hear the either side of the complaint
- have the discreet dissenter’s fellow deacons cutoff the mediation process with a mediator from the state convention
- make sure the fellow deacons send them a letter stating that they see no evidence of pastoral misconduct or theological issues with Purpose Driven.

Oh wait… none of that is part of the purpose driven program. But apparently one ODM would like to blame their bad purpose driven experience on Mr. Warren personally. I am finding more and more that many who hate the PD program actually hate the experience they had with a pastor implementing the five purposes of the church. They don’t like the way they were treated, being forced to sing new songs, working with new church structures and that five letter word… change.

I mean, basing everything in your church around worship, evangelism, fellowship, discipleship and service should not be all that alarming. It is the growing pains that come with change, and the bad implementation of the five purposes by pastors who truly do not understand it that cause such dissension. So many times, pastors get over zealous with wanting their church to be the next Saddleback, that they make the wrong changes. So, it is one thing to critique the program, it is another thing to critique the program based on how pastors have inappropriately used it.

Plus, I am not at all familiar with this situation, but it is rare for a whole church community to treat an individual in this manner when they are confidential, discreet, respectful and supports the leadership in the midst of their concern. Red flags are always sent up when the pastor, leadership and deacons all find issue with the person who is in disagreement.

I’ve been re-reading Philip Yancey’s book called What’s So Amazing About Grace? In the beginning he shares this story that a friend of his told him.

A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears she told me she had been renting out her daughter– two years old! —to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing it made me legally liable—I am required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. “Church!” She cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

Yancey continues,

“What struck me about my friend’s story is that prostitutes much like this woman fled toward Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge. Has the church lost that gift? Evidently the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer felt welcome among his followers. What has happened?

I’ve pondered this question for years. What has happened? How have we as the church lost our way? When did it become about being right instead of being refuge? When did it come about posting our credentials? When did it become about creating mocking names about offering children to Molech? When did it become Ok to mock and jeer those we disagree with or those we agree with who aren’t as mean as we want them to be? When did Jesus tell people to take their plank and shove it? How many people have walked away from the church because those who made it up forgot how dirty they truly were? Somehow, we’ve lost our way as a church. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the blogosphere where people can hide behind any name they want and say whatever they want to say. Someone can call 15 year old girls painted whores of Sodom and write Tabloid titles because they don’t have to see the pain they are causing people. Somehow, the political party you belong to is more important than the family you belong to. If we believe we are criticizing children of God then we are family. If one is not criticizing God’s children then we’re violating all sorts of Scriptures not in the criticism but in the name calling. Lines are being drawn not about salvation but about what is worn on Sunday’s to church.

And the whole time people who’s lives are being blown apart just keep on dying. They just keep on living the wrong way because Darn It, I AM RIGHT!!! One camp picks apart a person in the other camp because he doesn’t go far enough down the Theological trail with them. They may agree that one goes to Heaven by believing on the work on Christ but down the path they disagree so it’s Ok to tear each other apart. I wonder, does this make you as sick as it does me?

Here’s what the Apostle Paul had to say about it,

The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

I wonder how many people have been devoured by someone who “was right” and “justified.”

Confession and testimonies may not look or sound the same in AD 2008 as they did in AD 208, but I imagine that they have always been moving in their demonstration of God’s work in His kingdom

HT: Rick Frueh

That’s it folks! Look no further for the reason why we all in decline. According to this slice post, from this ABC news story, the problem is hygiene! Now why didn’t I think of that?! All these kids coming into our churches, wearing the latest fashions of tattered jeans and bed head - they just need a good shower! Maybe if we had Colgate come and do a 45 minute presentation in all of our churches, we would be rid of the slobbery. Better yet, we can have the ushers hand out disposable toothbrushes at the door. And maybe we can get people back into those polyester three-piece suits again! Remember… the Lord looks at the hygiene, the clothing style and how well you are able to color coordinate your clothing.

**this post contains many facetious statements. While I do believe that our society is becoming more brash, rude and crude, I have no clue how that corresponds to hygiene, clothing choice and how those two affect the current state of the church.

I thought this comment by new commenter, Chad, was rather insightful, demonstrating a truth I’ve tried to convey in the past, though much more ham-handedly than he has elegantly phrased.  In answer to the question “what would you consider ‘heresy’”, he writes:

Making works necessary for salvation. I would qualify this, though, by saying that our Roman Catholic friends are not heretics in this regard. When I say “works as necessary for salvation” it is to say that grace is being denied as free gift (or more to the point, that there is no need of grace), that God in Jesus has not done something to open the door to heaven.

I am quick to point out that many of my protestant brothers and sisters are no different than our RCC brothers and sisters - they have simply changed the system of “works” from one of penance to one of mental assent to a set of propositional truths or doctrines. While not “heresy” I consider it to be a departure from orthodox understandings of grace (gift!).

In the early church, particularly those with a Jewish background, the separation of “works” from “faith” was inconceivable.  In this mindset, one physically cannot have a belief system that is not demonstrated.  Sin, itself, is a demonstration of a belief that God cannot provide.  As most of the world, and the church along with it, was Hellenized it began creating abstract compartmentalizations which separated ones “faith/belief” from one’s “actions”, leading to the church schizophrenically pitting one against the other.

We see the seeds of this already planted in the book of James, and the schizophrenia fully realized in Luther’s desire to strike it from the canon, since it appears to stake out ground somewhere between legalism and sola fide.  To paraphrase James, “faith” (mental assent) really isn’t faith (mental assent) unless it is demonstrated.

And all of this is independent of grace, which is freely given.

As you survey the online landscape of Christianity (in which the relative percentage of Evangelical vs. Reformed vs. Catholic is skewed far differently that represented in living, breathing human beings), you can’t help but wonder why so many people are busy defending a 450-year-old church split, looking for the devil in the other party.  One need only examine the wailing and gnashing of teeth anytime a Protestant church reintroduces a Catholic tradition.  What you end up seeing is extra-biblical whining in condemnation of extra-biblical tradition (noting that I used ‘extra-biblical’ and not ‘unbiblical’ or ‘anti-biblical’).

It’s no wonder Jesus’ criticisms were almost exclusively about the religious class, always eager to demonstrate their righteousness while condemning anything that didn’t fit their own narrow traditions.

This post is more personal than that of the standard fare here at .info but I think there are some applicable learnings for current affairs buzzing in the blogosphere.

I’ve been estranged from my family (mom, step-dad, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc…) for the better part of 9 years. Without giving all of the details; suffice it to say I did many things wrong as a teenager and my parents did many things wrong as parents. Neither party was able to forgive. Because of the strain I chose to close off communication. One time about 5 years ago I did contact my Mom in an attempt to live out the verse “As much depends on you be at peace with all people”. In a God given moment of humility I was able to say “Please forgive me” to which my Mom responded with “You’ve made your bed now lie in it” and slammed down the phone. In that moment, having honored God with his command to seek forgiveness, I had peace. The bridge to my family wasn’t reopened that day but I continued to trust that “All things work to the good for those of love Christ”.

Fast Forward 4 years. This past Christmas I received a Christmas card in the mail from my Aunt. Stunned that I got a Christmas card from her I didn’t open it. My wife however did. Inside was a personal note that read “We miss you guys being a part of the family give us a call. P.S. (my cousin) is getting married in May and she would love for you guys and the girls to come” My immediate response was I’m not going to the wedding. I questioned everything… “Who’s gonna be there”; “What’s their motivation for inviting me”; “What if so and so is there”; etc…

But then God began to nudge me. He reminded me of the call of a Christian. We are to be ministers of reconciliation; by our Love they will know us; as much depends on you be at peace with all people; Bless those who curse you. On and on scripture came in rapid fire pattern until I was literally on my knees humbled by the words of my Savior. Now I knew I had to go to that wedding to honor God and the commitment I made to follow him wherever leads.

Recently Saddleback Church issued personal notes to those in the blogosphere that have been most critical of what Rick Warren is doing; inviting them to a future conference. To say that this has caused a little questioning of motives would be an understatement. Quite frankly their (the bloggers) thoughts haven’t varied much from the thoughts that I had when I was invited to the wedding of my cousin. What is very different however is the public manner in which they are airing those thoughts.

A few weeks ago Ingrid wrote a scathing response essentially stomping on the graciousness of Rick Warren to pay for the trip. Recently Chris Rosebrough of Extreme Theology wrote a more balanced response to his invite and in fact accepted the invite. But again questioned the motives of the invitation. In fairness to Chris he has since removed that post stating “There is a commitment that I need to honor and I want to respect the wishes of my host.” Which shows character and perhaps a willingness to take a “wait and see” approach.

Others however (who haven’t received invites) have been blogging and commenting voraciously; ascribing all kinds of conspiracy theories to Rick and Co.

Purpose Drivel had this to say.

Wow. I have to wonder what the spin will be on this one. I would be torn. Do I go and let him twist the event to his own advantage? Or do I decline and let him publicly say “they wouldn’t play nice, look we even invited them for ‘dialogue’!”

I guess if I could have a recording team there to record the meeting, I would be OK with it. Then nothing could be edited for slant/spin purposes without it being exposed by the opposing team.

Jim Bublitz of Old Truth in the Extreme Theology comments (the old post)

I‘ve been hearing about all of the invites to this event for the past week and have wondered what’s really behind it all. Is Warren finally starting to see that the blog world is a great detriment to his methods, and this is his way of doing damage control? Surely he’s not naive enough to imagine that he’s going to change the minds of people like you and Pastor Bob DeWaay who is also there and has written a book against Warren’s teachings. Or maybe Warren thinks he’s going to shower you with gifts and kill you with kindness (so to speak) to the point where you are going to think of him as “Uncle Rick” from now on; somebody you just can’t speak poorly about. I just don’t know, but will be interested in your opinions. It just doesn’t make sense.

You’re right Jim; it doesn’t make sense. Why would Rick Warren a heretic invite a fringe group of malcontents to a conference on his dime. I suspect because Rick is wise enough to understand that the caricatures we have in our heads (heretics and malcontents) vary widely from the reality of who people are in real life. Communication is the only thing that will close that gap. Which is exactly what I experienced at my cousins wedding.

Most of my relatives (sans my mom and step-dad) were gracious and affirming of me. Many were able to see the change (Christ) in my life and I was able to say to them that I am where I am today because of Christ. It was a powerful night and my wife, kids, and me were able to witness to my family the grace of Christ. On a very personal note I got to see my Grandfather, whom I assumed was dead. I was able to introduce him to his great grand-daughters and was also able to say good bye (he has cancer and Alzheimer’s and was given only about 2 months to live). Which was a wonderful gift from God in my eyes. Plus all of the caricatures that I had of my family were shattered during the night. In my humanness I would never have expected God to be able to reconcile my family. Sure I still have room to grow and certainly the healing in my family has a long way to go but God is good and able to “work all things to good for those who love Christ”.

Maybe God is calling all of us to that higher ground. Lets not let pride, humanness, or team politics get in the way of that calling.

Grace and Peace to all.

Remember in scripture where it tells us that God will provide holy men to feed the lowly spiritual peons. And that when the spiritual peons are spiritually hungry, they are to go to the holy man, the one who can truly fill them up. But, if the spiritual peaons are not getting spiritually fed (whatever that means), then it is the fault of the holy man. mmm… that passage really spoke to me.

I find it really hard to believe that people still believe this stuff. I mean, that should have flown at the window when Luther presented the biblical idea of the priesthood of beleivers. When most people say that they are not getting fed, it usually doesn’t mean that their souls are suffering due to what is happening at church. It usually means that they just want more theology taught to them from a hired holy man, to hide the fact that they really don’t have an actual relationship with the living God. Really what we have created is a spiritual consumer culture. I come. I get fed. I leave. If my spiritual life isn’t vibrant, it must be because the man who has the seminary degree isn’t feeding me right.

I am absolutely disgusted with what we have created — an obese community of beleivers. We have so much knowledge of God, so many resources available to us, and so many freedoms to pursue our faith… but we still cry out “FEED ME!” to those who have studied the exegesis of Hebrew and Greek texts (and I graduate on Friday with one of those degrees, so I can say that). AS if they have some magic spiritual food that will make everyone full. What we need is pastors who don’t see it as their job to feed people. We need pastors who make a living out of making people HUNGRY enough for God, that they go on a relentless pursuit of Him.

And for the last time… where in scripture does it say that exegetical preaching is going to save the world?

by the way, if you haven’t checked out this blog, you absolutely MUST!

In a recent post by “the editor” was titled “Rick Warren’s Methods are causing Decline in SBC.”

I thought to myself, “wow, that is amazing! I would really enjoy reading the research to show that Rick Warren is single handedly taking down the Souther Baptist Convention. I mean, we know that the SBC (and every other denomination) is in decline right now, and we finally have the answer! Grab your pitch forks, torches and keyboards!”

Alas, I was disappointed. The article only held a quote from Paige Patterson that said this

Weak preaching and cultural adaptability are just two of many reasons Southern Baptists give to explain the decline of membership and baptisms.

Really? I mean, REALLY? This guy is the president of my convention!?! Every summer I make my way through East Texas, visiting family members that live in small towns in the beautiful backwoods of the lone-star-state. And, every Sunday I attend First Baptist in whatever city I happen to be in. Sadly, I have watched these churched decline dramatically in the past 20 years of my life. And it is the same all over the US. But guess what — these church have about as strong of biblical preaching as you can hear, and their pews are about as counter cultural as you can get. Yet they are all still in decline!

So, we can say that it’s the new preaching and the new seating that has us in decline –yeah, that’s it (committees mumble “here here” and “ho hum” in agreement). Or we can look that logical reasons. Maybe we could address the fact that we love our turn of the century cultural practices more than we love people. Maybe we could address the fact that being a Christian means that we live in a safe and sound bubble of Christian music, Christian radio, Christian coffee shops, and Christian diet programs, rather than engage the world. Maybe we could address the fact that “mission” is a word that only happens by a few in foreign lands. Or we could blame it one the preaching and pews (as if we didn’t have enough of it). Just a a thought for the morning.