Author Archives: Dan C.

Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke

Posted by Dan C. on

By Nury Vittachi | July 6th 2014

Metaphysical thought processes are more deeply wired than hitherto suspected

WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.

Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.

While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone.

This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since we are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas”.

INTERNAL MONOLOGUES

Scientists have discovered that “invisible friends” are not something reserved for children. We all have them, and encounter them often in the form of interior monologues. As we experience events, we mentally tell a non-present listener about it.

The imagined listener may be a spouse, it may be Jesus or Buddha or it may be no one in particular. It’s just how the way the human mind processes facts. The identity, tangibility or existence of the listener is irrelevant.

“From childhood, people form enduring, stable and important relationships with fictional characters, imaginary friends, deceased relatives, unseen heroes and fantasized mates,” says Boyer of Washington University, himself an atheist. This feeling of having an awareness of another consciousness might simply be the way our natural operating system works.

PUZZLING RESPONSES

These findings may go a long way to explaining a series of puzzles in recent social science studies. In the United States, 38% of people who identified themselves as atheist or agnostic went on to claim to believe in a God or a Higher Power (Pew Forum, “Religion and the Unaffiliated”, 2012).

While the UK is often defined as an irreligious place, a recent survey by Theos, a think tank, found that very few people—only 13 per cent of adults—agreed with the statement “humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element”. For the vast majority of us, unseen realities are very present.

When researchers asked people whether they had taken part in esoteric spiritual practices such as having a Reiki session or having their aura read, the results were almost identical (between 38 and 40%) for people who defined themselves as religious, non-religious or atheist.

The implication is that we all believe in a not dissimilar range of tangible and intangible realities. Whether a particular brand of higher consciousness is included in that list (“I believe in God”, “I believe in some sort of higher force”, “I believe in no higher consciousness”) is little more than a detail.

EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSES

If a tendency to believe in the reality of an intangible network is so deeply wired into humanity, the implication is that it must have an evolutionary purpose. Social scientists have long believed that the emotional depth and complexity of the human mind means that mindful, self-aware people necessarily suffer from deep existential dread. Spiritual beliefs evolved over thousands of years as nature’s way to help us balance this out and go on functioning.

If a loved one dies, even many anti-religious people usually feel a need for a farewell ritual, complete with readings from old books and intoned declarations that are not unlike prayers. In war situations, commanders frequently comment that atheist soldiers pray far more than they think they do.

Statistics show that the majority of people who stop being part of organized religious groups don’t become committed atheists, but retain a mental model in which “The Universe” somehow has a purpose for humanity.

In the US, only 20 per cent of people have no religious affiliation, but of these, only one in ten say they are atheists. The majority are “nothing in particular” according to figures published in New Scientist.

FEELING OF CONNECTEDNESS

There are other, more socially-oriented evolutionary purposes, too. Religious communities grow faster, since people behave better (referring to the general majority over the millennia, as opposed to minority extremists highlighted by the media on any given day).

Why is this so? Religious folk attend weekly lectures on morality, read portions of respected books about the subject on a daily basis and regularly discuss the subject in groups, so it would be inevitable that some of this guidance sinks in.

There is also the notion that the presence of an invisible moralistic presence makes misdemeanors harder to commit. “People who think they are being watched tend to behave themselves and cooperate more,” says the New Scientist’s Lawton. “Societies that chanced on the idea of supernatural surveillance were likely to have been more successful than those that didn’t, further spreading religious ideas.”

This is not simply a matter of religious folk having a metaphorical angel on their shoulder, dispensing advice. It is far deeper than that—a sense of interconnectivity between all things. If I commit a sin, it is not an isolated event but will have appropriate repercussions. This idea is common to all large scale faith groups, whether it is called karma or simply God ensuring that you “reap what you sow”. 

NARRATIVE PRESENCE

These theories find confirmation from a very different academic discipline—the literature department. The present writer, based at the Creativity Lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design, has been looking at the manifestation of cosmic justice in fictional narratives—books, movies and games. It is clear that in almost all fictional worlds, God exists, whether the stories are written by people of a religious, atheist or indeterminate beliefs.

It’s not that a deity appears directly in tales. It is that the fundamental basis of stories appears to be the link between the moral decisions made by the protagonists and the same characters’ ultimate destiny. The payback is always appropriate to the choices made. An unnamed, unidentified mechanism ensures that this is so, and is a fundamental element of stories—perhaps the fundamental element of narratives.

In children’s stories, this can be very simple: the good guys win, the bad guys lose. In narratives for older readers, the ending is more complex, with some lose ends left dangling, and others ambiguous. Yet the ultimate appropriateness of the ending is rarely in doubt. If a tale ended with Harry Potter being tortured to death and the Dursley family dancing on his grave, the audience would be horrified, of course, but also puzzled: that’s not what happens in stories. Similarly, in a tragedy, we would be surprised if King Lear’s cruelty to Cordelia did not lead to his demise.

Indeed, it appears that stories exist to establish that there exists a mechanism or a person—cosmic destiny, karma, God, fate, Mother Nature—to make sure the right thing happens to the right person. Without this overarching moral mechanism, narratives become records of unrelated arbitrary events, and lose much of their entertainment value. In contrast, the stories which become universally popular appear to be carefully composed records of cosmic justice at work.

WELL-DEFINED PROCESS

In manuals for writers (see “Screenplay” by Syd Field, for example) this process is often defined in some detail. Would-be screenwriters are taught that during the build-up of the story, the villain can sin (take unfair advantages) to his or her heart’s content without punishment, but the heroic protagonist must be karmically punished for even the slightest deviation from the path of moral rectitude. The hero does eventually win the fight, not by being bigger or stronger, but because of the choices he makes.

This process is so well-established in narrative creation that the literati have even created a specific category for the minority of tales which fail to follow this pattern. They are known as “bleak” narratives. An example is A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry, in which the likable central characters suffer terrible fates while the horrible faceless villains triumph entirely unmolested.

While some bleak stories are well-received by critics, they rarely win mass popularity among readers or moviegoers. Stories without the appropriate outcome mechanism feel incomplete. The purveyor of cosmic justice is not just a cast member, but appears to be the hidden heart of the show.

ROOTS OF ATHEISM

But if a belief in cosmic justice is natural and deeply rooted, the question arises: where does atheism fit in? Albert Einstein, who had a life-long fascination with metaphysics, believed atheism came from a mistaken belief that harmful superstition and a general belief in religious or mystical experience were the same thing, missing the fact that evolution would discard unhelpful beliefs and foster the growth of helpful ones. He declared himself “not a ‘Freethinker’ in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition” (“Einstein on Peace”, page 510).

Similarly, Charles Darwin, in a meeting with a campaigner for atheism in September 1881, distanced himself from the views of his guest, finding them too “aggressive”. In the latter years of his life, he offered his premises for the use of the local church minister and changed his family schedule to enable his children to attend services.

SMALL DIFFERENCES

Of course these findings do not prove that it is impossible to stop believing in God. What they do indicate, quite powerfully, is that we may be fooling ourselves if we think that we are making the key decisions about what we believe, and if we think we know how deeply our views pervade our consciousnesses. It further suggests that the difference between the atheist and the non-atheist viewpoint is much smaller than probably either side perceives. Both groups have consciousnesses which create for themselves realities which include very similar tangible and intangible elements. It may simply be that their awareness levels and interpretations of certain surface details differ.

THE FUTURE

But as higher levels of education spread, will starry-eyed spirituality die out and cooler, drier atheism sweep the field, as some atheism campaigners suggest? Some specialists feel this is unlikely. “If godlessness flourishes where there is stability and prosperity, then climate change and environmental degradation could seriously slow the spread of atheism,” says Lawton in New Scientist.

On a more personal level, we all have loved ones who will die, and we all have a tendency to puzzle about what consciousness is, whether it is separate from the brain, and whether it can survive.  We will always have existential dread with us—at a personal or societal level. So the need for periods of contemplative calm in churches or temples or other places devoted to the ineffable and inexplicable will remain. They appear to be part of who we are as humans.

Furthermore, every time we read a book or watch a movie, we are reinforcing our default belief in the eventual triumph of karma. While there is certainly growth in the number of bleak narratives being produced, it is difficult to imagine them becoming the majority form of cultural entertainment. Most of us will skip Cormac McCarthy’s crushingly depressing “The Road” in favor of the newest Pixar movie.

POPULATION IMPLICATIONS

When looking at trends, there’s also population growth to consider. Western countries are moving away from the standard family model, and tend to obsess over topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these issues, in practice they are associated with shrinking populations.  Europeans (and the Japanese) are not having enough children to replace the adult generation, and are seeing their communities shrink on a daily basis.

Africans and South Asians, on the other hand, are generally religious and retain the traditional model of multi-child families—which may be old-fashioned from a Western point of view, but it’s a model powerfully sanctioned by the evolutionary urge to extend the gene pool.

“It’s clearly the case that the future will involve an increase in religious populations and a decrease in scepticism,” says Steve Jones, a professor in genetics at University College London, speaking at the Hay Festival in the UK recently.

This may appear as bad news for pro-atheism campaigners. But for the evolutionary life-force which may actually make the decisions, this may augur well for the continued existence of humanity. (An image of Richard Dawkins and his selfish gene having a testy argument over dinner springs to mind.)

In the meantime, it might be wise for religious folks to refrain from teasing atheist friends who accidentally say something about their souls. And it might be equally smart for the more militant of today’s atheists to stop teasing religious people at all.

We might all be a little more spiritual than we think.

Online Source

Do You Believe Jesus?

Posted by Dan C. on

What a silly question! Of course you do! What believer doesn’t?

Now that we’ve answered the silly question, consider the following words of Jesus:

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” “ – John 6:37-40

Without trying to explain away anything we find troubling in the above passage, what is Jesus saying?

1. There exists a group of people given by the Father to the Son.

2. All those given to the Son by the Father will come to the Son.

3. The Son will lose none of those who come to him, but will accomplish His mission on earth.

4. All who believe in the Son have eternal life and will be raised up on the last day.

Do you STILL believe Jesus?

200 Words: Denomination or Abomination?

Posted by Dan C. on

by Nathan Busenitz

Baptists, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. All three claim to believe in Jesus. Yet, only one of these groups can be rightly classified as a denomination rather than a false religion.
With that in mind, the question we are asking today might be stated as follows:

What are the marks of cult groups and apostate forms of Christianity that identify them as false religions—such that we can and should label them as heresies, rather than simply classifying them as different denominations?

Here is my attempt to answer that question in 200 words or less:

The New Testament articulates three fundamental doctrinal criteria by which false teachers (and false religions) can be identified:

1. A Wrong View of Salvation

False religions (whether they claim to be Christian or not) attempt to add good works to the gospel of grace (cf. Rom. 11:6). Rather than trusting in Christ alone for salvation, they seek to earn God’s favor through self-righteous works and human effort (cf. Acts 15:1–11; Gal. 1:6–9; Eph. 2:8–9; Php. 3:8–9; Titus 3:5–7).

2. A Wrong View of Scripture

False teachers distort, deny, and deliberately disobey the Scriptures (2 Pet. 2:1, 3:16). They add to or subtract from God’s revealed truth (cf. John 17:17; Rev. 22:18–19), looking to some other false authority for their beliefs (Mark 7:6–12; cf. 2 Cor. 10:5).

3. A Wrong View of the Savior

False religions twist the truth about Jesus Christ. They deny aspects of either His Person (e.g. His deity, humanity, eternality, uniqueness, etc.) or His work (e.g. His death, resurrection, ascension, etc.). Those who do not worship the true Christ are not truly Christian (John 4:24; cf. John 1:1, 14; 1 John 1:1; 2:22–23; 4:1–3; 2 John 7–11).

__________________

HT: Nathan Busenitz

Nathan serves on the pastoral staff of Grace Church and teaches theology at The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles.

Question: "What are the various theories on the atonement?"

Posted by Dan C. on

  – from GotQuestions.org

Answer: Throughout church history several different views or theories of the atonement, some true and some false, have been put forth at different times by different individuals or denominations. One of the reasons for this is that both the Old and New Testaments reveal many truths about Christ’s atonement, so it is hard, if not impossible, to find any single “theory” that fully encapsulates or explains the richness of this doctrine. Instead, what we discover as we study the Scriptures is a rich and multifaceted picture of the atonement as the Bible puts forth many interrelated truths concerning the redemption that Christ has accomplished. Another contributing factor to the many different theories of the atonement is that much of what we can learn about the atonement needs to be understood from the experience and perspective of God’s people under the Old Covenant sacrificial system. Since having a correct view of the atonement of Christ is a key to understanding much of the Bible, even a survey of the differing theories of atonement can be beneficial.

The atonement of Christ, its purpose and what it accomplished is so rich that volumes have been written about it, and this article will simply provide a brief overview of many of the theories that have been put forth at one time or another. In looking at the different views of the atonement, we must never lose sight of the fact that any view that does not recognize the sinfulness of man and substitutionary aspect of the atonement is deficient at best and heretical at worst.

Ransom to Satan: This view sees the atonement of Christ as a ransom that was paid to Satan to purchase man’s freedom from being enslaved to Satan. It is based on a belief that man’s spiritual condition is in bondage to Satan and that the meaning of Christ’s death was to secure God’s victory over Satan. This theory has little, if any, scriptural support and has had few supporters throughout church history. It is heretical in that it thinks of Satan, rather than God, as the one who required a payment be made for sin and thus completely ignores the demands of God’s justice as seen throughout Scripture. It also has a higher view of Satan than it should and views him as having more power than he really does. There is no scriptural support for the idea that sinners owe anything to Satan, but throughout Scripture we see that God is the One who requires a payment for sin.

Recapitulation Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as reversing the course of mankind from disobedience to obedience. It believes that Christ’s life recapitulated all the stages of human life and in doing so reversed the course of disobedience initiated by Adam. It cannot be supported scripturally.

Dramatic Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as securing the victory in a divine conflict between good and evil and winning man’s release from bondage to Satan. The meaning of Christ’s death was to ensure God’s victory over Satan and provides a way to redeem the world out of its bondage to evil.

Mystical Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as a triumph over His own sinful nature through the power of the Holy Spirit. Those who hold this view believe that knowledge of this will mystically influence man and awake his “god-consciousness”. They also believe that man’s spiritual condition is not the result of sin but simply a lack of “god-consciousness”. Clearly this is one of the most heretical of all these theories because to believe this, one must believe that Christ had a sin nature, while Scripture is clear that Jesus was the perfect god-man, sinless in every aspect of His nature (Hebrews 4:15).

Example Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as simply providing an example of faith and obedience to inspire man to be obedient to God. Those that hold this view believe that man is spiritually alive and that Christ’s life and atonement were simply an example of true faith and obedience and should serve as inspiration to men to live a similar life of faith and obedience. This and the moral influence theory are similar in that they both deny that God’s justice actually requires payment for sin and that Christ’s death on the cross was that payment. The main difference between the moral influence theory and the example theory is that the moral influence theory says that Christ’s death teaches us how much God loves us and the example theory says that Christ’s death teaches how to live. Of course it is certainly true that Christ is an example for us to follow, even in His death, but the example theory fails to recognize man’s true spiritual condition—dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1)—and that God’s justice requires payment for sin which man is in no way capable of doing.

Moral Influence Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as demonstrating God’s love which causes man’s heart to soften and repent. Those that hold this view believe that man is spiritually sick and in need of help and that man is moved to accept God’s forgiveness by seeing God’s love for man. They believe that the purpose and meaning of Christ’s death was to demonstrate God’s love toward man. While it is true that Christ’s atonement is the ultimate example of the love of God, this view is also heretical because it denies the true spiritual condition of man and denies that God actually requires a payment for sin. This view of Christ’s atonement leaves mankind without a true sacrifice or payment for sin.
Commercial Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as bringing infinite honor to God. This resulted in God giving Christ a reward which He did not need, and Christ passed that reward on to man. Those that hold this view believe that man’s spiritual condition is that of dishonoring God and so Christ’s death which brought infinite honor to God can be applied to sinners for salvation. This theory, like many of the others, denies the true spiritual state of unregenerate sinners and their need of a completely new nature, available only in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Governmental Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as demonstrating God’s high regard for His law and His attitude towards sin. It is through Christ’s death that God has a reason to forgive the sins of those who repent and accept Christ’s substitutionary death. Those that hold this view believe that man’s spiritual condition is as one who has violated God’s moral law and that the meaning of Christ’s death was to be a substitute for the penalty of sin. Because Christ paid the penalty for sin it is possible for God to legally forgive those who accept Christ as their substitute. This view falls short in that it does not teach that Christ actually paid the penalty of the actual sins of any people, but instead His suffering simply showed mankind that God’s laws were broken and that some penalty was paid.

Penal Substitution Theory: This view sees the atonement of Christ as being a vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice that satisfied the demands of God’s justice upon sin. In doing so Christ paid the penalty of man’s sin bringing forgiveness, imputing righteousness and reconciling man to God. Those that hold this view believe that every aspect of man, his mind, will and emotions have been corrupted by sin and that man is totally depraved and spiritually dead. This view holds that Christ’s death paid the penalty of sin for those whom God elects to save and that through repentance man can accept Christ’s substitution as payment for sin. This view of the atonement aligns most accurately to Scripture in its view of sin, the nature of man, and the results of the death of Christ on the cross.

Recommended Resources: The Moody Handbook of Theology by Paul Enns and Logos Bible Software.

Two other good articles can be found here and here.

__________________________

The above is dedicated to “Bones’, who has an aversion to the idea of  a wrathful God, as well as the penal substitution theory of the atonement.

Is Gay Marriage Destroying the United Methodist Church?

Posted by Dan C. on

That’s the title of an article in Christianity Today. Here is an excerpt from that article:

“Irreconcilable” disagreement over same-sex unions is once again prompting debate over splitting the historic United Methodist Church (UMC), one of America’s largest denominations.

“If we are one church, we cannot act as if we are two. If, in reality, we are two churches, it may not be wise to pretend any longer that we are one,” concludes a statement last month from 80 traditionalists from across the UMC, which has 7.7 million U.S. members. (An additional 4.4 million members are overseas.)

The statement says the UMC is facing a crisis in four areas because:

* Pastors have violated or said they are willing to violate the Book of Discipline ban on same-sex marriages. (The Book of Discipline is the church’s most authoritative guide.)

* Pastors and other leaders realize that there are no “meaningful consequences” for violating the Book of Discipline by officiating at a same-sex union. (In one instance, two clergy were given a “24-hour suspension without pay” for marrying gay couples.)

* More church leaders believe “significant parts of the Scriptures do not provide an accurate understanding of God’s heart and mind and may be discarded as uninspired and in error.”

* Among top leaders, “there are dramatic differences in how personal and social holiness is lived out and taught.”

Questions that come to mind:

  • Shouldn’t some differences be irreconcilable?
  • When does a ‘church’ cease being a true church of the living God?
  • Since when does what ‘more and more church leaders believe’ have any standing when what more of them believe clearly violates God’s design and plan for marriage?

The article didn’t leave out an opinion from the “grassroots” level (regular folks).

“At the grassroots, schism is unpopular. A June poll, commissioned by a UMC agency, indicates that rank and file UMC members are opposed to a church schism over homosexuality. “We found that regardless of a person’s position on homosexuality, members felt strongly that the church could offer a positive and different voice to the broader conversation occurring in society today,” said John Deuterman, president of Corporate Research, which conducted the survey for the UMC Communications agency.” (Emphasis mine)

I really don’t know what that is trying to say. The only ‘positive’ and ‘different’ (than society) voice ought to be the voice of Almighty God, who has spoken rather clearly in this matter.

 

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“They Will Go In and Out and Find Pasture.”

Posted by Dan C. on

That is a portion of John 10:9 which reads:

“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”

Very recently I was told that the ‘going in and out’ in the passage refers to the possibility of a believer (a sheep) losing salvation. Since I had never heard the argument for losing one’s salvation from that verse, I was puzzled. 

Here is what I think is the argument:

If the sheepfold represents the Kingdom of God, the “going and out” refers to going in and out of the Kingdom of God. If you choose to go in and out of the sheepfold, as sheep do in the normal course of being sheep, You are entering the Kingdom of God and leaving the Kingdom of God. in other words, The context of the passage has to do with sheep, sheepfolds, good shepherds, and wolves.

Does the sheepfold represent the Kingdom of God, and Jesus  the and only entrance into the Kingdom? Most certainly it does! That settled, what does it mean that the sheep who have entered through the proper door ‘going in and out’ mean?  Jesus’ immediate listeners would probably have known exactly what it means,, especially if they were shepherds.

One of the many commentaries I read concerning the ‘going in and out and finding pasture’ explained it this way:

“The fold will ever be open to him who enters by the Door. He will have perfect freedom to enter, whenever storm or danger or night approaches. He will lead out and find pasture for his flock. In the devotion of his service, and in communion with God, he will daily have an increasing knowledge of truths new and old, and the truths which he learns he will give as food for the souls of men.”

Another put it this way:

“and shall go in and out and find pasture—in, as to a place of safety and repose; out, as to "green pastures and still waters" (Ps 23:2) for nourishment and refreshing,”

I especially like the reference to the 23d Psalm. It’s perfect! Having read other commentaries, all of which confirmed my initial thoughts on the matter, I will be so bold to assert that whatever John 10:9 is about, it’s NOT about losing one’s salvation!

Have a great day and a great weekend!

Bad News and Good News

Posted by Dan C. on

The bad news:

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,  nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you.” – 1 Cor 6:9-11a

The good news:

“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” – 1 Cor 6:11b

Those were the words of the Apostle Paul to believers in the church in Corinth. The ‘bad news’ list of certain kinds of people probably could have been much longer, but Paul was making it very personal (“and such were some of you’) and setting the scene for the ‘good news’:

“But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” – 1 Cor 6:11b

Paul also told a ‘bad news’ ‘good news’ story to the believers in Ephesus, and even kicked it up a notch:

The bad news:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” – Eph 2:1-3

Our Corinthians passage speaks of unrighteousness in terms of specific sinful behavior patterns, but our Ephesians passage talks about our very nature as mortal, fallen human beings!

The good news:

 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—“ Eph 2:4-5

The message of the gospel doesn’t start with John 3:16, it ends with it.

Think about it………..especially if you have not received and believed the GOOD NEWS!

Family Integrated Churches

Posted by Dan C. on

Over at a certain blog from which I have been banned for daring to challenge the fact that they pretty much condemn and damn not only very real wrongs in the church, the individuals that are perceived as guilty without all the facts, as well as entire ‘movements’ such as homeschooling, anything close to Reformed theology, and yes, the Family Integrated Church movement, the latest rant is in fact against the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC). The NCFIC has a ‘Confession’ composed of ‘Articles’, and a ‘Wherefore we have resolved. . . .’ section based on the set of Articles, which can be read in their entirety here.

In the blog I mentioned above, I found this:

Below is one of the more troubling confessions in Article XI:

“We affirm that there is no scriptural pattern for comprehensive age segregated discipleship, and that age segregated practices are based on unbiblical, evolutionary and secular thinking which have invaded the church.”

Well, it’s true that there is no model / pattern for age segregated discipleship activities in the Bible. It is also true that the idea for ‘age segregated discipleship’ had to have come from somewhere. If it’s not patterned nor seen in scripture, It must have been developed in the mind(s) of mere mortal men. Either they just dreamed it up out of thin air or they used an existing model that existed in secular society. Therefore, the only issue I would have for the above affirmation is the phrase “have ‘invaded’ the church”. In my mind ‘invaded’ implies malicious intent, and I don’t think there was any ‘malicious’ intent in the minds of those who invented Sunday School and Children’s Church. I think they were trying to fill a gap that existed because children weren’t being raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord at home where parents have the biblical mandate to do so.

What troubles me is that the blog post author calls that Article a ‘troubling confession’, rather than examine it objectively. What follows is a bot of play-by-play about a particular Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) Pastor who signed the FCIC Confession and the Presbytery to which his church belongs. That is an issue between the Pastor and the Presbytery, not something broadcast to the world to ‘prove’ how horrible the FCIC is, which is exactly what is intended. Listen to the NFCIC basher’s conclusion:

The NCFIC, in its attempt to have the perfect church ideology, has marginalized other traditional churches which have Sunday schools, youth groups, college groups, etc. This is the same kind of methodology we see from high-controlling and abusive groups:

  • black and white thinking
  • our way is the right way
  • everybody else is wrong
  • our way is the biblical way
  • our way is the godly way

In this kind of high-controlling environment, if you differ from these views, they will likely question what else in your belief system is off kilter. They may even question your salvation if you get too many “wrong” answers.

I give kudos to OPC presbytery for keeping this destructive ideology away from their church groups. It will be interesting to watch Kevin Swanson (The OPC Pastor) maneuver around this when he has been one of the loudest voices in the Family-Integrated Church movement.

All the NFCIC is doing is trying to be what they consider more biblical. The Article discussed at the beginning of this blog post is no more ‘troubling’ than saying that you can’t find anything in the NT that tells us to ‘give our hearts to Jesus’ or that you can’t find altar calls in the NT either. If there is anything that might be termed abusive it’s the OPC demanding a choice be made between the OPC and the NFCIC, however the OPC gets to set OPC rules and guidelines, and Pastor faces a decision it seems.

Charging the NCFIC of being a high-controlling and abusive group is completely without foundation, spurious and rotten to the core. Professing Christian who make such false charges bring shame upon the label ‘Christian’, if not upon the Savior they claim.

The Reality of God’s Wrath

Posted by Dan C. on

There is a segment of the Christian church that will tell you that the wrathful God of the Old Testament somehow changed over time, and now that we are not under law but under grace, God is no longer a God of wrath, and is no longer angry at us humans. At this point I could get into a lengthy dissertation concerning the immutability (unchanging nature) of God, but I lest I generate a snooze fest, I will merely present a few passages of scripture that should settle the issue.

I post these passages for information purposes only, because the text is clear. There is no way out other than redefining terms or taking other passages of scripture out of their natural context and using them to assert God is now just all about love and some sort of cosmic sugar daddy who just wants to give us stuff and help us feel good about ourselves.

I dedicate this post to ‘Bones’ who tried to begin a lengthy debate to ‘prove’ that God is no longer a God of wrath, using passages of scripture taken out of context and very familiar to the folks who maintain what I call the gospel according to the ‘Beatles’. If you don’t get it, don’t worry about it.

First, here is a passage from Romans, Chapter 1 (written by the Apostle Paul) specifically concerning the wrath of God, that is part of an entire small section devoted to the wrath of God.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. – Rom 1:18

That passage was dealt with in some detail in this post. For the moment note the ‘present tense’ phrase – ‘is revealed’. The 20+ Bible versions, half dozen commentaries, and Greek lexicon(s) that I consulted all agree with the present tense. That alone could/should settle the issue, but apparently it doesn’t.

The next passage is from Ephesians, Chapter 2 and presents the natural condition of all of us mortals:

2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. – Eph 2:2-3

Either everyone born into this world is ‘by nature’ deserving of God’s wrath, or at some point in time things changed and all of a sudden everyone was born innocent and deserving of heaven when they exited the bitch canal.

The final two passages are from the Gospel of John, Chapter 3:

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. – v. 18

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. – v. 36

Note the ‘universality’ of both of those passages. All who believe in the Son are not now, nor will they be ‘condemned’, but all those who do not believe are ‘condemned already’ and living under of God’s ‘abiding’ wrath. They didn’t suddenly come under God’s wrath for consciously rejecting Christ, they are already under God’s wrath for their unbelief, and God’s wrath will remain on them as long as they remain in a state of unbelief.

I’m sure that some who read this will want to try all manner of argumentation to explain away God’s wrath, but please don’t try it here, unless you want to attempt to explain how the passages of scripture don’t mean what they clearly say. I will NOT engage in useless arguments over whose ‘opinion’ is right and whose is wrong. And if you want to try and say that passages about God’s love somehow ‘trump’ passages about his wrath, don’t even bother. Passages about God’s love as well as his wrath both mean what they say.