fundamentalism by blunt instrument
Some of us may need to ease off a bit….
They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
This from the New York Times. It must be true, then. Here’s the link: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.
PC World is also reporting on this. Blogging to an Early Grave?
Be warned!
A good day for us today, with a full Sunday school. Two families who are somewhat sporadic both came today, which expanded our ranks. We work and pray for spiritual stability and consistency here!
Here are the summaries:
Our subject turns now to the reason the gospel is the power of God unto salvation: because in it (in the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed – not God’s righteousness as such, but the righteousness that is from God through Christ. God’s righteousness is a massive mountain of truth, an impossible barrier for sinful man, but that barrier melts away when righteousness from God comes to us by faith.
We begin a brief interruption of our Basic Theology series to look at the topic of Christian fellowship as taught in the Bible. This topic is largely misunderstood today, reduced to a bare notion of social interaction (coffee, lunch, potluck dinners). While the social interaction is a great blessing of church life, it flows from our fellowship, it doesn’t define it.
Note: this message was prompted by a discussion at a friend’s blog, EX vilis CATHEDRA “Together for What?” by Champ Thornton.
We continue our series in Leviticus for our Communion service. Our passage covers the fifth and last type of sacrifice prescribed in Leviticus. This is what the KJV calls a ‘trespass offering’. There are several unique features to this offering, but the main idea is that the sinner has defrauded God (or man AND God) and must not only be atoned for but also make restitution. The NT Christian has had his debt of sin paid, but his relationship with God still demands reparation, restitution, or compensation be made to restore the losses our sins have caused to our human relationships. Thank God that in Christ we are enabled to put such things right.
~~~
I trust that your Lord’s Day was a spiritual blessing to you as well, hearing faithful preaching of the rich word of God.
Running the risk of additional misunderstanding, I note today another emergence of the “d” word. It is used in a CT LiveBlog article, “The Politics of Proselytization“. The article comes to no conclusion, but is hopeful, apparently, that somehow everyone can get along. The issue is illustrated by the offense some have taken over a Good Friday prayer by the Pope:
Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men…Almighty and everlasting God, you who want all men to be saved and to reach the awareness of the truth, graciously grant that, with the fullness of peoples entering into your church, all Israel may be saved.
We don’t agree with the Pope, or dialogue with him either, but we do agree with this prayer. Apparently the Pope hasn’t figured out dialog either, since he regularly gets himself into un-PC imbroglios like this.
But CT is all about dialog. It is, after all, their word. So we learn from the article that Richard Mouw is all for dialogue (no surprise) but
Continuing my church history notes from 28 years ago…
Two of the prominent men of the neo-evangelical movement were John Carnell and Carl Henry. My notes at this point say “both from fundamental background.”
Henry was the first editor of Christianity Today, and was
at the time trying to make conservative evangelical orthodox Christianity rationally acceptable.
AIn 1947, Henry articulated something I have headed in my notes as the “NEEDS OF CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICALISM”
The Associated Baptist Press attempts to define the allegedly undefinable! Read all about it in “Fundamentalism & militancy: Defining ‘fundamentalism’“
“They were trying to find the boundaries of authentic Christianity,”
says one commentator.
Secret recording suggests firings timed to avoid furor
“This situation is going to get worse. There won’t be resolution until (university officials) lay out something more specific about where they stand.”
According to the news article part of the controversy is debate over inspiration and the emerging church. The article makes it sound like things are unraveling rather quickly.
We report this with no joy, it is obviously a matter of great concern to all the Christians involved.
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Our latest sermons are up on our church website. For audio, follow the links over there.
Why does Paul mention ‘to the Jew first’ in his theme verse of Romans? How does this add new information to his great central theme? If it is just a matter of history, as some commentators suggest, why is it significant here? The reason is startling at first, but a great glory in contemplation of the privileges into which all believers enter when they receive the truth of the gospel.
More from my 1980 Church History class notes:
The old modernist movement came to be known as ‘classic liberalism’ (as opposed to a lesser known ‘new liberalism’ that emerged after WWI). The following is a brief outline describing them.
[The roots in Darwinism and Higher Criticism are, I think, fairly well known. The philosophical background in immanental subjectivism is probably less known and understood. To understand modernism, I think one would do well to grasp especially the influence of the three men mentioned here.]
Douglas Todd is the very fine religion writer for the Vancouver Sun newspaper. By that I don’t mean he is a believer, he may be, I just have no idea. I mean that he is an excellent writer with a keen eye for trends in religion. He now has a blog on the Vancouver Sun site. Today’s entry is an eye-opener in some ways … not that it surprises me, but rather confirms what I have long sensed. The post is entitled “Secularism is the new default position – almost everywhere“. A few snippets:
Fittingly, British Columbia, gets a good dose of attention. The study repeats what many already know about B.C.; that it’s arguably the most “secular” region in North America. That 36 per cent of British Columbians have “no religion,” and another 21 per cent say they’re affiliated with a religion, but virtually never attend.
No surprises here, but perhaps outsiders might be surprised to know it. There is a ready antagonism to the gospel that surrounds us when we witness.
More…
Dipping again into my Church History notes, I come to a section headed “History of Neo-Evangelicalism & the Ecumenical Movement”
The section starts with this:
Satan’s method is to counterfeit the truth, not contend with it. Therefore he produces deceptive bodies.
~~~
It is interesting to consider these two notes that go with the quotation/note I made under the title to the lecture. Liberalism/Modernism was, if I may call it, honest unbelief. While it propagated many lies, it propagated honest lies. Out and out lies. Bald-faced lies. In my next note in the church history series, I’ll cover it more specifically.
But liberalism (now sometimes called ‘classic liberalism’) became much less of a thread to Bible-believing Christianity than these two subsequent challenges. These two were greater deceptions.
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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