tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62332040099057191562024-02-19T06:31:28.196-05:00Carl Shank ConsultingCarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-69150463820480101162022-11-24T10:06:00.000-05:002022-11-24T10:06:23.780-05:00Is There A Conspiracy Against Christians in America?<p> Today, Thanksgiving Day, many of those who seek to follow Jesus Christ and the Word of God are convinced there is a dangerous conspiracy against such followers and other conservative voices in this country. Certainly, former president Donald Trump and his followers believe that to be true. Modern news outlets are spouting "fake news." Elections are rigged. Washington is biased. The far left socialists are planning to take over this country. On and on it goes, fed by Facebook and other social media.</p><p>However, this is not a modern phenomenon. Many serious Christians for years have held to conspiracy theories and projections. From a dire projection of the Tribulation days cited in the book of Revelation, to various number theories about "666," to the evil happenings in our nation and world today, such people truly believe we are living in end times and dark days. They are hoping for a reprieve and praying that Jesus will come again -- the sooner the better. All that is happening politically and socially, they claim, point to such terrible times. And a number of them believe this darkness is being engineered by a secret government society seeking to overcome this country and, in fact, the whole world. After all, the Antichrist will rise up and take control of the media outlets and the freedom loving nations of the world. Perhaps he is already here at work.</p><p>In a more sophisticate vein, places like Hillsdale College and its newsletter, <i>Imprimis</i>, are publishing authors and speakers who are telling us that far left conspiracies abound and why they are growing and increasing in this country. Classic college and university institutions have been invaded by woke-inspired professors and administrators (Issue April/May 2022). The Department of Justice has become politicized (Issue August 2022). Inflation in America has been spawned by radical economists and pundits. And on and on it goes. The Constitution is being assaulted and overtaken by anti-God socialists and others, pretending that they are supporting human rights and American freedoms. Conservative think tanks are producing papers and court cases citing the effects of conspiratorial thinking in America.</p><p>Is there a conspiracy against Christians in America? Well, yes and no. It all depends on your view of freedom, government, the Bible and the reality of sin and evil spawned by a real Devil and his forces in this world. Most non-Christians I know do not have a secret agenda against Christians and Christian churches. To claim they all have been brainwashed by left wing media and woke-inspired institutions and policies may be over the top. There is indeed anti-Christian godlessness in the news rooms and governmental institutions in this country. They have an anti-God point of view and claim that conservative religion is harmful to American freedoms. To say that this is a thought out conspiracy against followers of Jesus may be saying too much. That people have been "brainwashed" by anti-Christian and anti-biblical media teachers, professors and outlets may be very hard to prove, at least not in the classic definition of brainwashing.</p><p>What we can say, I believe, is that there are indeed anti-God forces at work in the media and governmental institutions at all levels. Anti-biblical, yes, conspiratorial, not really. There is a blindness to God and biblical spirituality that is apparent. Most non-Christians do not even think these things through. There is also a growing degree of biblical illiteracy among many Christians, and this increases their lack of informed perception about what they hear and read. We should not be shocked by anti-Christian reports and influences on us. This has always been the case in Christendom in any age.</p><p>How should we respond to such forces? It does not help to try to pin conspiracy theories on most non-Christian social and media and institutional pundits. There may be a few who want to overthrow all biblical Christian teachings and churches in this country. They may even try to convince many that we as biblically minded believers should be silenced, fined and even jailed for our beliefs. Such a day may increasingly come upon us (this is not to say there are not instances of such happenings today). We need to be informed, perceptive and smart Christians, people who indeed understand the times and sinful forces around us, but seek to lovingly and patiently teach those who will listen God's Word and God's truth. Becoming more and more "closet" or "cocooned" Christians who read and study only what we agree with will not help our country. The Bible instructs us to "test" all things, to hold fast to what is good and not to repay evil for evil (1 Thessalonians 5:21, 22; Romans 12).</p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-19654929797202045862022-10-19T15:45:00.000-04:002022-10-19T15:45:19.940-04:00The Church In A Divided America<p> The Church in a Divided America. Recently, Barna Associates published a survey result called, "Does A Divided Public Look to Pastors for Guidance?" (<a href="https://www.barna.com/research/midterms-pastors-guidance/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Barna+Update%3A+Does+a+Divided+Public+Look+to+Pastors+for+Guidance%3F&utm_campaign=2022-10-19_Midterms+Briefing_BU">https://www.barna.com/research/midterms-pastors-guidance/</a>) (October 19, 2022). Unsurprisingly, Barna found that the majority of the American public look to government or themselves for guidance and answers to the current divided agendas. The American Christian public will seek guidance from pastors and other Christian leaders as well. There are always many ways to look at these survey results. Here are some of the ways I look at this.</p><p>The Church is not (and should not) be in the business of political infighting or resolution. The Church is charged by Jesus Christ with the proclamation and dissemination of the gospel message, that repentance and faith in Christ is the only way to really change and transform a heart or many hearts. Our mission and mandate is to respect and honor governmental leaders and institutions, but only to a point. We are not to become political allies or servants of a political party or parties. We are to keep the main thing the main thing in our witness and contact with the world. To go beyond biblical teaching and dissemination is not to be the purview of the Church.</p><p>Individual transformational change by the grace of God in Christ Jesus is the only final solution to infighting of any kind. The heart must be changed for the head to be different. We are to think God's thoughts <i>after</i> him--not before him, not in addition to him, not above him, not in place of him. For this to happen, the center of our being must be radically transformed, from the inside out. This has always been the message and mandate of Christian pastors and the church.</p><p>Do such changes make divisions disappear? Unfortunately no, due to remaining sin and selfishness in us. But such changes, when they are sincere and real, make divisions less divisive and less offensive and easier to navigate. I remember days when we could have town and church debates without heckling one another or fighting with one another or shooting one another. We respected one another. I am saying that we must regain respect and honor of one another, and such perspectives come from a heart wedded to Jesus and his Word. </p><p>The fact that most of the public see themselves as the ultimate solution to our divisions (40+ percent) betrays the source of those divisions. We want our way, and only our way to be the final solution. This cannot happen apart from the above transformative thinking that I have stated. We do not trust anyone except ourselves, and that is the root of all corporate problems in America. <i>We</i> cannot solve what <i>we</i> have created and what <i>we</i> sponsor and fight for. <i>We need Jesus</i>!</p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-7577016975167250612022-06-27T19:04:00.000-04:002022-06-27T19:04:52.091-04:00Roe vs Wade Reversal: A Pyrrhic Victory?<p> In 279 BC a warrior king, Pyrrhus, fought the Roman army at the Battle of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Asculum" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;" title="">Asculum</a>, winning a costly victory. Commenting on his victory, Pyrrhus stated,<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> It is from reports of this semi-legendary event that the term pyrrhic victory </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">originates.* It is a victory to be sure, but perhaps won at too great a cost to the victor. I wonder if the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court reversal isn't one of those victories for pro-life conservatives.</span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">I write this as a Christian conservative, a </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">pastor-theologian who has worked with and for pro-life groups and defended anti-abortion actions through the years. Yet, the hue and outcry against the Court's decision has made the seeming victory quite hollow and inconsequential, given that many states, including my own (PA), have sought to guarantee a woman's right to abortion on demand. We live in an increasingly fractured society moving toward increasing civil strife. While we pat ourselves on the back for a hard fought 50-year victory in the nation's highest court, we had better watch those same backs for the resounding flak from a decidedly godless </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">society and cultural order. This may prove to be a pyrrhic victory.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">Our problem with abortion and other societal ills we blame on progressive leftists is not about a single decision from a single court case. It is deeply rooted in an anti-Christian framework that keeps getting larger and bolder and more encompassing day by day and year by year. We are not, and never have been, a "Christian nation." Sorry that such a historical fact shakes us up. At best, we were founded by, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights, was written by Deists who were far less than biblical Christians following the lordship of Jesus Christ. They were Victorian moralists at best, and that is not Christianity. We applaud their commitment to principles such as the Ten Commandments, school prayer activities and so forth, but that was far from biblical faith and hope.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">The problem with our anti-Christian society is a problem of the heart. Our hearts are not aligned with God's truth because they are not infused with God's work of grace and new life. The debate about post-modernism and beyond is quite beside the point. We have chucked God's Word and thus God's truth with our own take on what is proper and not proper. Not only have we become situational ethicists, we have become rebellious overtakers of God's world, imposing our own standards, if there are any, and decrying any attempt to bring society back to submission to what God wants. We have remade God in our image, our likeness, and have defined him to be our projection of him.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">We do not want to look at the heart because we assume that at root we are "good" people. A few of us may prove to be bad, but that is due to mental illness or a harsh childhood. The Bible defines us as sinners, rebellious at the core, and seeking our own ways to run from God and his rule in our lives. We can and have debated the essence of the human soul, and one can trace the historical, philosophical, and theological argumentation to show how "clever" we have been to redefine good and evil and dispense with </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">sinful depravity. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">Consequently, in all arguments with abortionists, they choose to ignore and refuse to acknowledge the humanity of the unborn child--it's just a mass of tissue, at the control and desire of its carrier. A woman therefore has the inalienable right to terminate this blob of tissue wherever and whenever it is convenient. Every abortionist cites rape, incest and poverty as key ingredients to a woman's right to abortion. Few, if any, address the human child that is being murdered in the abortion procedure. And few talk about the woman who has an abortion simply because the child is "inconvenient" to her life and her career. The discussion is openly biased against a pro-life stance. Where are the protective rights of the unborn child?</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">At heart is the blatant denial of what true human freedom should cherish. Dumping the strictures of the moral code of the Bible means freedom without responsibility and accountability. We can do whatever we want, and the only guard to that freedom is what the majority of unbiblically minded people propose. We are horrified at mass shootings of children and comfortable with mass abortions of the unborn. Not only is that obviously one sided and unfair, it is criminally negligent.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">However, abortion proponents are not only not giving up. They are actively resisting and rebelling against the Court's decision and any state that seeks to enact laws protecting the unborn. And federal and state judges sympathetic to their cause are blocking the High Court's decision. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">What can be done now to avoid a Pyrrhic victory of pro-life rights? We need to ramp up pregnancy clinics that treat a woman and her unborn child as children of God, made in the image of God. We need to provide rape and incest and poverty victims with love and alternate solutions to their forced pregnancies. We need to proactively work to fill doctor's offices with pro-life medical caregivers. We need the Church to speak for pro-life against anti-God and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px;">anti-biblical sentiment and policies. This is not going to bring America "back to God." That is a failed and false dream. But it will show the resurrection hope that Jesus Christ brought to this world. And that is worth fighting for.</span></span></p><p>*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus</p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-29027118232913593022021-11-15T19:39:00.000-05:002021-11-15T19:39:18.302-05:00All Truth Is God’s Truth: A White Paper on Integrational Christianity<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I write a daily devotional, mostly for myself and a group of Christian leaders from various church backgrounds and missions. I am moving through Proverbs, chapter by chapter, selecting those thoughts that God especially points out to me for me. Today, I came to Proverbs 22 noting that there is a normal division between verses 1 – 16 and 17 – 29. “Have I not written thirty sayings for you, sayings of counsel and knowledge, teaching you to be honest and to speak the truth, so that you bring back truthful reports to those you serve?” (Prov. 22:20, 21)</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The “thirty sayings” according to most commentators are closely related to the</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Teaching of Amenemope, an Egyptian source of wisdom.</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">1</sup><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">This does not devalue the inspiration of the Word of God or the following thirty proverbs cited, but rather reveals God is not merely Lord of Israel but also the God of all nations in all time. God can use truth found in non-Christian contexts for his honor and glory and for the instruction of his people.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Many Christians fail to properly and thoroughly integrate God’s Word with truth found in their professions or work. They look at their profession, mostly in the scientific realms, as separate and distinct from biblical revelation and its authority over their work. They value God’s Word as only moral authority for proper Christian behavior, but not applicable to their science or their professional work. The Society of Christian Scholars is a worldwide group of dedicated Christians in the various professions of the world, especially academic professions.<sup>2</sup> They see an integrational Christianity where God’s created order and truths are fused and integrated with biblical truth and revelation. They see all truth as God’s truth, not separate truths for a divided life between faith and science or academia. Organizations such as CMDA (Christian Medical and Dental Association) has chapters all over the country with doctors and medical personnel seeking to wed Christianity with their medical professions.<sup>3</sup><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">When we say “all truth is God’s truth,” we do not mean that there is a neutral category of “truth” out there to be discovered and then brought under the authority of Scriptural revelation. What we mean is that any and all truth, no matter where it is found or uncovered or discovered, has already been revealed by the Creator God as part of his glorious creation. New “discoveries” are merely the unpacking or unveiling to our eyes and minds what God has already given to us in his created order. This is called by presuppositional Christian apologists “analogical” truth telling, where the Creator has given all truth to be used and discovered by us, his creatures.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">We have this kind of “unveiling” even in the history of redemption. The Apostle Paul says it this way — “Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the <b>mystery</b> hidden for long ages past.” And “No, we declare God’s wisdom, a <b>mystery</b> that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” (Romans 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:7) This “mystery” is not like a spy novel mystery or an unexplained phenomenon, but rather God’s progressive revelation of the gospel through the ages. Paul was the one who “discovered,” or rather “uncovered,” this mystery of progressive redemption by divine revelation. Even in our day, we “see only a reflection as in a mirror;<sup> </sup>then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12) What is “hidden” to us due to our sinful insights and human frailty will be made known at the Last Day, when Jesus comes again and reveals everything fully to us. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The fact that God can use Egyptian wisdom writings as part of the Scriptural record should both astound and humble us. Our work is God’s work. We are to do everything to the “glory of God,” 1 Corinthians 10:31 declares. This means so much more than merely doing a “good job,” or making a “useful discovery” or giving a medical treatment that heals a disease. It is not merely that we are to be morally upright in doing these things, but the things themselves should reflect and point people to the “weightiness” of God in this world.<sup>4</sup>Until and unless we as Christian doctors and scientists and IT people and garbage collectors see and integrate God’s truth into what we say and do and think and discover, we are not glorifying God. We are treating the faith as a separate and almost “hidden” part of our lives and our thoughts. That, according to Rousas Rushdoony, a former conservative Presbyterian Christian writer, is “intellectual schizophrenia,” not biblical integration.<sup>5</sup><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I am watching a rerun of the TV series JAG (Judge Advocate General Corps). One episode is about the court martial of a Gulf war commander, an outspoken Christian man, claiming that this war was a war against Satan inspired Islam.<sup>6</sup> He had made public comments to this effect in a sermon he gave in a Baptist church in Alexandria, VA as well as in chapel after 9/11. He was found innocent of the charges against him, but the prosecuting attorney and judge cited administrative misconduct on his part and that “religion” has no place in the military, especially by commanders to their units. And the prosecutor took his comments on Islam on and noted that JIHAD or “holy war” as practiced by Islamic extremists has no part in “regular” Islamic teaching and practice. The problem with this caricature of Islam is that the Koran does indeed contain “holy war” practices against Christians and non-Islamic combatants. This has been amply proved by a Brethren in Christ Ph.D. on the subject.<sup>7</sup><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The question of how biblical truth and faith can influence supposedly neutral subjects has been written on extensively, though not acknowledged by academics in the various fields. Rusdoony and his followers have provided biblically based writing on various subjects, like economics.<sup>8</sup> I have written a paper on biblically based mathematics, citing the underlying philosophy of number theory and arithmetical processes as foreign to the Scriptures and the revelation of God’s order in the universe.<sup>9</sup> 1 + 1 does indeed equal 2, not because of some assumed philosophy of science approach, but because God ordered it so. We can therefore trust our mathematics, for the most part, as accurately reflecting God’s universe and God’s standards of counting.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Does our work or profession indicate the calling and blessing and wisdom of God upon it? Many Christians would say so, but then deny that truth in the laboratory or hospital or computer room. The result of evolutionary based science, separated from God’s revelation, is to make a division of truth that has never existed. When we read the Psalms about created actions, like storms and hail and snow and vapors and so forth, this is not merely poetry and thus to be taken not literally. God in his profound wisdom and providence and involvement in this world creates and orders and determines the weather and its blessings or destructive power. Gravity works because God ordained and uses it to make things fall down and not up. He is the grand “why” of universal truth. Absenting ourselves from this revealed fact makes us agnostics rather than God-glorifying Christians.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">November 15, 2021<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b>Notes<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">1. This the generally agreed upon position by Derek Kidner in the Tyndale Commentary Series and by Roland Murphy in the Word Biblical Commentary Series on Proverbs. (Donald J. Wiseman, General Ed., <i>Proverbs</i>, Vol 17, <i>Tyndale Commentary Series</i>, Tyndale Press & InterVarsity Press, 1964. Roland E. Murphy, <i>Proverbs</i>, Vol. 22 of the <i>Word Biblical Commentary Series</i>, Thomas Nelson, 1998)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">2. Society of Christian Scholars. The Society of Christian Scholars equips Christian academics to have a missional and redemptive influence for Christ among their students, colleagues, institutions, and academic disciplines. <a href="https://scshub.net/" style="color: #954f72;">https://scshub.net/</a>. This is a membership driven organization open to all Christian academics globally.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">3. CMDA. This organization helps Christian healthcare students and professionals practice with ethical standards and share their faith as a part of patient treatment. <a href="https://cmda.org/" style="color: #954f72;">https://cmda.org/#</a> The author is a mentor and friend of Dr. Tom Grosh, the Northeast Director of CMDA.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">4. The term for “glory” or “glorious” indicates the “weightiness” or gravity of God. In the Old Testament, ‘Glory’ generally represents Heb. <i>kāḇôḏ</i>, with the root idea of ‘heaviness’ and so of ‘weight’ or ‘worthiness’. It is used of men to describe their wealth, splendour or reputation (though in the last sense <i>kāḇôḏ</i> is often rendered ‘honour’). The glory of Israel was not her armies but Yahweh (Je. 2:11). The word could also mean the self or soul (Gn. 49:6).<b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The most important concept is that of the glory of Yahweh. This denotes the revelation of God’s being, nature and presence to mankind.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">5. Rousas John Rushdoony<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">(April 25, 1916 – February 8, 2001) was an American<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinist" style="color: #954f72;" title="Calvinist"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Calvinist</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher" style="color: #954f72;" title="Philosopher"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">philosopher</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historian" style="color: #954f72;" title="Historian"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">historian</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">, and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology" style="color: #954f72;" title="Theology"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">theologian</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">. He was ordained into the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). He is credited as being the father of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Reconstructionism" style="color: #954f72;" title="Christian Reconstructionism"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Christian Reconstructionism</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">and an inspiration for the modern<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschool" style="color: #954f72;" title="Homeschool"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Christian homeschool</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">movement.</span><sup> </sup><span style="background-color: white;"> His followers and critics have argued that his thought exerts considerable influence on the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical" style="color: #954f72;" title="Evangelical"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">evangelical</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right" style="color: #954f72;" title="Christian right"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Christian right</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">6. JAG was a nationally rated TV series from 1995–2005, with ten seasons. This episode was from Season Nine, “Fighting Words,” aired on 30 April 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">7. Dr. Jay Smith. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Smith believes that although Western actions in the Islamic world can instigate Muslim discontent, it is the Islamic scriptures that encourage the violence. He also rues the fact that moderate Muslims are not able to challenge the radicals using scripture because he believes the radicals have the scriptural authority. </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Smith_(Christian_apologist)" style="color: #954f72;"><span style="background-color: white;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Smith_(Christian_apologist)</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">8. Dr. Gary North. </span><span style="background-color: white;">He is known for his advocacy of biblical or "radically libertarian" economics and also as a theorist of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology" style="color: #954f72;" title="Dominion Theology"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">dominionism</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theonomy" style="color: #954f72;" title="Theonomy"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">theonomy</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">. He supports the establishment and enforcement of Bible-based<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_law" style="color: #954f72;" title="Religious law"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">religious law</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">, a view which has put him in conflict with other libertarians.</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_North_(economist)" style="color: #954f72;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_North_(economist)</a>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">9. H. Carl Shank, “Why Does 1 + 1 = 2?” in <i>Arguing for God: A Monograph on Logic and the Christian Faith</i>, Lulu Press, 2018.<o:p></o:p></p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-44235220252824836882021-07-14T13:58:00.000-04:002021-07-14T13:58:59.665-04:00Sermons in the Modern Church<p>I have been corresponding with my son lately about sermons and how they should be preached in the modern church. My son is a pastor of a smaller typical evangelical church. I have been a pastor for over forty years, now semi-retired. This issue of the sermon came up as to how to preach to modern ears. We ended up agreeing for the most part, but disagreeing about style and sermon content. A bit of background is in order.</p><p>I have been trained in expositional preaching and teaching from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, with a 1973 M.Div and a 1979 Th.M in systematic theology along with post seminary course work at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts. My son has been trained at Bethel Seminary as well as mentored by leadership trainers from a large, mega-church in the area. We approach this area of the Sunday sermon differently. I have always maintained a thoroughly exegetical approach to the message, with taking a text of Scripture and going through it intentionally and carefully, noting the context, words, language issues and so forth. My son uses a broader sweep for a message and has been attracted to story-telling and other means for sermon delivery. We both agree that sermons must be biblically based, but the delivery is up for grabs because of the different audiences that hear sermons today, especially young adults and unchurched people.</p><p>I would maintain that the minister's job is to communicate God's Word contained in the Scriptures. To say that church people have "enough information," and all they need to do is to "act upon the years of sermons they have already had" is beside the point, I believe. God's Word is always fresh, always convicting, always modern and always relevant because it is God's inspired declaration that we are seeking to get across to people. People deserve to know what the text of Scripture says and means, without assuming that personal or group Bible studies will fill that gap. In fact, most Bible study periods are people sharing their own, sometimes misguided, insights to Bible passages and stories. This sharing of one's ignorance is no substitute for trained and careful declaration of Scripture. And the internet is even less helpful giving a variety of ideas and "takes" on modern topics and claiming biblical proofs for them.</p><p>I believe that congregations need to be able to go home after a sermon or teaching and able to open their Bibles to the message given and understand the passages referenced and tell their children and others the meaning and application. It has been claimed that people hear "differently" today than beforehand and learn better by story-telling and group interaction. Perhaps. But the issue in preaching a sermon is the declaration of the written Word of God to a person's mind and heart and conscience. Citing different learning styles and people not hearing the message because of their sinful desires does not diminish the job of the biblical preacher or teacher. He or she is to declare faithfully and fully the text of Scripture, not their own considered "relevant" ideas and topics and try to find biblical passages to line up with those ideas.</p><p>Moderns will claim that this often considered "outdated" method of preaching or teaching does not reach a modern audience. I would rather contend that moderns, especially younger moderns, are biblically illiterate and need the careful and faithful rendering of the text of Scripture and then apply it to their situations and needs. No one is saying that application is unimportant, but it must be application that is not merely timely and relevant, but true to the text of Scripture. </p><p>I have heard and preached hundreds of sermons to thousands of people in my career. My most gratifying comment to a message has been, "Thank you for helping me understand and live out this passage of the Bible." That is what we are called to do. That is our task in sermon delivery under God.</p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-52202886467769901372021-07-09T14:00:00.002-04:002021-07-09T14:00:17.195-04:001984 Again!<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> People thought that George Orwell's <i>1984 </i>book was fictitious and could never come true in a democracy. It was about the State taking over the minds of its citizens with what it called "doublethink." Orwell defined "doublethink" this way — "To know and to not know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them. to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy is impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy. To forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed and then promptly to forget it again, and, above all, to apply the same process to the process itself." It was a chilling proposal of what could happen in a democracy look-alike controlled by the Party.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I would maintain that we are moving toward doublethink in our construct of society today. And I am certainly not the only one who maintains this construct. In a lecture at the conservative Hillsdale College, Christopher Rufo, director of Battlefront, noted that "critical race theory" is fast becoming America's new institutional orthodoxy. (https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/critical-race-theory-fight/) While many Americans have possibly heard about such a theory, it is much more than just another way to look at race and equality in America. It is a Marxist-style political theory asserted by the radical left inserted into the discussion of racial equality that engages, I believe, in doublethink. Rufo sys that "<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Critical race theorists, masters of language construction, realize that “neo-Marxism” would be a hard sell. </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Equity</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">, on the other hand, sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">equality</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">. . . . </span></span><span face=""Droid Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">To them, equality represents “mere nondiscrimination” and provides “camouflage” for white supremacy, patriarchy, and oppression."</span></p><p><span face=""Droid Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">"Equity" in such a theory is simply reformulated Marxism, according to Rufo. But we are increasingly to understand "equity" as "equality" under law, a rethinking of the Constitution. And when someone tries to argue against "equity" they are simply arguing against our Constitutional guarantees. Rufo again says, "</span><span face=""Droid Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">An equity-based form of government would mean the end not only of private property, but also of individual rights, equality under the law, federalism, and freedom of speech. These would be replaced by race-based redistribution of wealth, group-based rights, active discrimination, and omnipotent bureaucratic authority."</span></p><p><span face=""Droid Sans", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">Lest we think this is a tempest in a teapot, Rufo goes on to say giving examples — "</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">When I say that critical race theory is becoming the operating ideology of our public institutions, it is not an exaggeration—from the universities to bureaucracies to k-12 school systems, critical race theory has permeated the collective intelligence and decision-making process of American government, with no sign of slowing down."</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Droid Sans, sans-serif;">So, here we go with doublethink —The 14th and 15th Amendments and Civil Rights Acts of 1954 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 = mere non-discrimination; </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Droid Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">camouflage for white supremacy and oppression. Rejection of these Constitutional laws = true equity and antiracism. "White male culture" = white supremacy and white privilege, even mass killings. The solution is to renounce white privilege and write letters of apology to people of color. White teachers are guilty of "spirit murder" against black children.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Droid Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Rufo says "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">Disagreement with their program becomes irrefutable evidence of a dissenter’s “white fragility,” “unconscious bias,” or “internalized white supremacy.” and instructors in this critical race theory when confronted with disagreement "should </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">adopt a patronizing tone and explain that participants who feel “defensiveness” or “anger” are reacting out of guilt and shame. Dissenters are instructed to remain silent, “lean into the discomfort,” and accept their “complicity in white supremacy.”</span> This is Orwell's doublethink in action today.</p><p>Modern media will dispute such findings as overreach and conservative fodder not worth challenging. The Party (radical Leftists) wants to control our minds, our language, our institutions, our children and our way of life. It is hard, however, to negate the facts and examples Rufo gives. He suggests conquering this "take over" with employing moral language built on moral principles, a grass roots rejection of critical race theory in all of its tentacles, and courage to stand and speak out against Orwellian doublethink. </p><p>Will you take a stand?</p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: "Droid Sans", sans-serif;"><br /></span></p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-45831299116415445902021-02-03T19:27:00.001-05:002021-02-03T19:27:20.507-05:00Newport, New England & Religious Toleration: Observations<p><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">In the midst of a pandemic, and working from home, I have had the opportunity to read through Lively Experiment LLC and Rockwell Stensrud’s well-written 560 page account of Newport, Rhode Island in their</span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">Newport: A Lively Experiment, 1639 – 1969</i><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">. Stensrud has done his history homework well and has covered the culture and history of this seaside town in great detail and with astute fairness. My wife and I had the enjoyment of visiting the town in 2019, with my special interest in the International Tennis Hall of Fame. We drove the streets and the seashore road dotted with the palatial homes of the rich and famous. This peeked my interest in Newport’s history and contributions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">What struck me, as a Christian theologian and church history buff, are the many references in Stensrud’s book to the religious history and characters of Newport. Most people know that Rhode Island, or “Rogues Island,” as it was called by other New England settlements of the period, was founded by Roger Williams, an exile from the Puritan colony of Massachusetts. He founded Providence and established the first Baptist church in the town. Stensrud’s description of the Puritans as seeking religious freedom in the new world “along the lines of John Calvin’s austere teachings. ‘They wanted to reduce Christianity to its most primitive form of four bare walls and the literal words of the Bible’” (17) is key to much of his comments on New England Puritanism — cold, harsh, stiff, solemn and cruel. He says, “The road to Newport began in Boston and Salem. The very harshness of their uncompromising elites forced those of a more liberal spiritual–and mercantile–persuasion to seek destinies free of the theocratic handcuffs of the Bay Colony.” (18)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">The author maintains that the Puritans were opposed to liberty of conscience, as for instance, citing the hanging of the Quaker Mary Dyer in Boston in 1660 as well as the Salem witch trials of the 1690s. (19) Stensrud claims that Williams “forged America’s first real attempt at secular government. The separation of church and state, and tolerance for conflicting religious beliefs, were the hallmarks of the community from the beginning, in 1636.” (21) Added to the religious strain of the times was the fervent teaching of the “spiritist,” Anne Hutchinson, who taught the “notion of ‘free justification by grace alone,’ of an ecstatic and overpowering intimacy with the divine.” This threatened the Puritan concept of living by the moral law of God (21-22). One of her sponsors, William Coddington, first governor of Newport, bought Aquidneck Island from the Indians through the efforts of Roger Williams. Joined later by the Hutchinson band and others, the town of Newport became an English colony, ruled not by biblical law but the laws of England until the American Revolution. Dr. John Clarke, also strongly influenced by Hutchinson, founded the second Baptist church in Newport in 1644, calling for a “rebaptism of all adults because people could only find true grace of their own free wills.” (41) Calling this “Anabaptism,” however, would be going too far technically and historically.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">Coddington, a royalist at heart, hungry for power and domination was less a champion of freedom of religion and much more a power-hungry leader who wanted to have his own way in Newport and surrounding areas. Later he would soften his overbearing lust for control and meekly submit to other forces around him. Dr. John Clarke, whom many see as the real hero of freedom, was the vision behind the town’s 1663 Charter, “the first enduring republican government in the new world, based on an individual’s right to choose his or her own faith freely without temporal control or punishment.” (57-58) Some say this Charter would influence the later American Bill of Rights. This Charter framed not merely the rights but the ongoing religious climate and boundaries of the town of Newport until the 1880s. Professor Sydney Ahlstrom noted that this Charter made religious liberty in this commonwealth not simply a degree of toleration but “a cardinal principle of its corporate existence and to maintain the separation of church and state on these grounds.” (69)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">With this infusion of religious liberty, English Quakers first arrived in Newport in 1657, becoming prominent citizens. As long as they obeyed the laws of England, they could freely associate and proselytize. The sad story of the Quaker Mary Dyer put to death in Boston on June 1, 1660, is hard for modern eyes to read. What is little told is that she was warned several times not to return to Puritan Boston or she would face severe penalties. She refused to listen and paid the price for her efforts by a death sentence. Some say this was her brave stand for religious freedom and tolerance. Others might say she was duly warned and given opportunities to change her beliefs or vacate Boston. Jewish immigrants also arrived in Newport with the famous Touro Synagogue completed in 1772. They formed their own clubs and freely associated with people from other religious persuasions. Roman Catholics had a much harder time being accepted, but they finally were welcomed as part of Newport society.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">Here we must stop and make an observation. Much of American Protestantism owes its theological foundations to the Puritans. While we shudder at the church/state complications and severity of early Puritan law, to discount them as hated monsters out to kill anyone who disagreed with their biblical stance is far too general and judgmental. Many modern writers have taken up the cry against Puritanism and catapulted it to a cry against any form of biblically defined Christianity. The Puritans generally followed the Westminster Confession and Catechisms in their definitions and descriptions of biblical theology. They most certainly did believe in justification by free grace, but they also saw a place for the law of God ruling the moral habits of society. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">The religious freedom and toleration that Newporters enjoyed and expected also produced Unitarianism under William Ellery Channing, a Newport native, who preached a faith based on “the inherent goodness of mankind, not a theology that stressed human depravity. In short, Channing humanized Protestantism.” (311) </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">“By 1810, the long-held authority of Boston and other New England Congregational churches was beginning to be challenged by a growing number of pastors who believed he hellfire and brimstone Calvinist orthodoxy was basically corrupt because there was no room in the theology to recognize mankind’s innate optimism or potential for good works. A revolution was in the wings.” (312) Channing is looked upon as the champion of the new America with his staunch antislavery and antiwar philosophy and a proponent of public education. “The characteristic New England mixture of individual self-culture and social reform owed much to Channing’s precept and example.” (313)</span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif;">Indeed. Newport has always been a haven for the elite rich and famous. She has had her dark days, to be sure, but her proud spirit of innovation and freedom of religion has framed her existence. Unitarianism begets Universalism and Universalism forgets and ignores and disputes any biblical authority, including Jesus’ own words about his being the “only way, truth and life to the Father” (John 14:6). Any way to God is valid and to be sought after by man’s essential goodness, it is believed and proffered. It does not matter how we even define “God.” Newport’s culture and religious openness have taken universal hold on the America of the twenty-first century. We can now have it all — endless enjoyment, promised riches, freedom from any religious or theological restraints. It is the New England playground, maybe even vaunted hope, of America.<o:p></o:p></span></p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-35863929583000449832021-01-26T10:29:00.000-05:002021-01-26T10:29:06.865-05:00Black Lives Matter & Rewriting History<p> 2020 has been a year of the roller coaster of events — the Donald Trump saga, the pandemic, George Floyd shooting and marches and the Black Lives Matter movement. A new President has offered to heal the nation and provide racial equity and justice. </p><p>However, we have torn down statues, defaced Civil War Confederacy sites, toppled Christopher Columbus statues, renamed streets and institutions, and have tried to rewrite history, claiming that Columbus had slaves, Thomas Jefferson had slaves, and in fact, most of the writers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights had slaves. For that, we are told they should be punished, and history should be rewritten to tell America how awful and terrible they really were. Roger Williams, the religious founder of Rhode Island owned slaves, yet christened what is today the town Providence and the liberties that few northeastern states then enjoyed. Confederate generals, like Stonewall Jackson, a true Christian believer, it is said should be castigated and thrown in the trash pile of history. Instead of learning from history, and all its mistakes and errors and missteps, we now trash history and rewrite history to sooth and satisfy guilty consciences and political correctness advocates.</p><p>Larry Arnn, president of conservative Hillsdale College in his article, <i>Orwell's 1984 and Today</i> (<a href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/orwells-1984-today/" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/orwells-1984-today/</a>) notes that, like in Orwell's <i>1984</i>, we have "Thought Police" roaming the halls of our newspapers and institutions of higher learning and even the halls of Congress itself to spy out "wrong" thinking and incorrect history and to put into our minds, and especially our children's minds, the "right" history. We want to forcefully change the past. We have discarded the law of contradiction that says we cannot change the past and that contradictory slogans, like those in Orwell's 1984, "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength," repeal what is and what was. Arnn writes — "American schoolchildren today learn two things about Thomas Jefferson: That he wrote the Declaration of Independence and that he was a slaveholder. This is a stunted and dishonest teaching about Jefferson." He goes on to note that what they do not learn is that Jefferson wanted the Northwest Territory to be eternally free of slavery. That he truly believed when he wrote that all men are created equal. </p><p>Yes, America forced out native Indians as we moved west and displaced native peoples for our own use and land grabs. Yes, Christian men and women owned slaves in the South. Yes, in World War Two, American Japanese peoples were sent to internment camps. Yes, Jim Crow laws abounded in many places in this country after the Civil War. This was all a travesty of human rights and just treatment for all peoples. To rewrite history, however, that it happened because people were evil, despotic thugs and that we should disown and separate ourselves from their writings and essays and speeches neglect fair and just reporting of all the facts about these men and women.</p><p>I am not an historian. I am a theologian and have written and spoken on historical theology. The present Black Lives Matter push reminds me of history trying to erase Who Jesus Christ really is and was. A number have tried to rewrite the New Testament of the Bible, trying to prove that Jesus was either not fully human or not fully God. They have fiddled with the text of the Bible, seeking to eliminate what Jesus said and did. All of these efforts have wilted in the clear record of religious and theological history. Jesus is and was fully man and fully God. To try to remake Jesus that is "acceptable" to modern ears has miserably failed, even with university secular professors constantly seeking to teach our young people differently about Jesus and Christianity. You either accept the Jesus of history or discard Him in favor of a fantasy Christ that soothes our sensibilities.</p><p>The Bible recognizes and deals with slavery. And the way it deals with slavery rankles many "Thought Police" today. What about slaves in the Apostle Paul's writings? “Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” (Titus 2:9, 10; 1 Timothy 6:1, 2) The obvious question that comes up in these contexts is, Why doesn’t Paul just outrightly denounce and condemn slavery? There are actually several reasons for such neglect.</p><p>First, to denounce slavery might mean promotion of a slave revolt, while saying nothing would mean supporting the staus-quo. It would also mean or indicate that it would be permissible for Christian slaves to disobey their masters. This was evidently one of the problems in the Ephesian church (Ephesians 6:5–9). Slavery in Paul’s day was not limited to racial inequality, but people became slaves due to being prisoners of war, condemned criminals, debtors, kidnapping, or those sold into slavery by their parents. Slavery was a complicated social ill of the times and not easily resolved socially or politically, let alone theologically and practically. Moreover, Paul’s main concern in these letters is the cause of the gospel “. . . so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.” (1 Timothy 6:1b)</p><p>While all people under Christ are free in Christ --“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) -- one’s freedom in Christ cannot be used as a cloak for treating, in this case, one’s masters disrespectfully. Freedom in Christ does not permit disregarding one’s station in life, disobedience to lawful orders, or treating nonChristian authorities with disdain (cf. Mark 10:43–45; 1 Corinthians 9:19; Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 6:5–9; Colossians 3:22–25). A more powerful and penetrating way to change and challenge inequality is to work from the grace of God from within outward. As Christian slaves gave their masters obedience and respect, and Christian masters gave fairness and kindness to their slaves, the institution could be changed from inside out. Real change begins in the heart and soul of a person, slave or free. </p><p>So, how would we rewrite this history except by deleting it from the Apostolic records? The Bible is not a political tool or a platform for any and every kind of movement declaring what we consider as unacceptable social norms. It is a record and declaration of the Gospel of Christ and the freedom, real inner freedom, it brings to those who bow before and under the rule of the Savior. While it has been, and continues to be, sadly and unfortunately used for political gain and movements, that is not it's intention.</p><p>The equality in Christ would become, in time, the force behind the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire under Wilberforce and the recognition of women as equal voters under Susan Anthony and others. The issues are vastly much more complicated than what the Black Lives Matter movement could ever imagine. Arnn writes, "The astounding thing, after all, is not that some of our Founders were slave-holders. There was a lot of slavery back then, as there has been for all of recorded time. The astounding thing--the miracle, even, one might say--is that these slave-holders founded a republic based on principles designed to abnegate slavery."</p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-57096306500002636332020-10-12T16:11:00.000-04:002020-10-12T16:11:57.355-04:00Do Churches and Ministries Really Want What God Wants?<p>Recently, a dear friend, an administrative assistant of a local church, who had been serving the church for over thirty years, was dismissed. No reason was given, except that the church leadership thought it was "time for a change." She had not only done nothing wrong, but she had gone the extra mile in church work during pastoral transitions, staff changes and building changes and stresses. She is hurting and suffering through another church related decision and change which may have nothing to do with what God really wants.</p><p>I say this with over forty years of ministry in different sized churches and a denominational leadership ministry in which I participated in many of those same kinds of decisions. We all claim to follow God's direction and leading, and some decisions are even "prayed over," but to be frightfully truthful and exceedingly honest, many of those decisions are human based business operational desires and mandates. Very little Scriptural evidence exists for such decisions. They are simply what some hot-shot "successful" pastoral or ministry leader touts or teaches as the best way to advance the "cause of the kingdom of Christ." Yet, I have often wondered if what we are advancing are our own little fiefdoms and not God's kingdom wants and revealed truths.</p><p>Many of these decisions, especially regarding staffing and church direction, are whims of an aggressive senior leader or leaders who want a "place" and a name in their denominational purview. Such a statement would be hotly debated by many, yet the question remains -- do we really want what God wants for our church or ministry? Unless we have heard from God specifically and particularly and clearly, we are left with impressions of what God may want. We claim to read the Bible and follow its directives, yet I would say in confession that most of us are woefully ignorant of the will of God revealed in the totality of Scripture. Some of us don't even care to check the Bible in an important decision and follow our own, often misguided personal preferences. Some of us even defend those preferences, doing what we want and hoping beyond hope that God is pleased with what we have decided. No matter who gets hurt and no matter who pays the price.</p><p>Quite some time ago I read the story of the pastor who wrote that famous hymn, "God Be With You Til We Meet Again." He and his wife had been called from their small country parish to a bigger, more visible and prestigious city church. As they were seated in their wagon with their moving goods, this song was sung by their small congregation and such love flowed that the pastor decided to stay and continue to minister to them. Success in a larger ministry and church no longer mattered. The lives and hopes and dreams of his people mattered. He reinstated himself under God as their shepherd.</p><p>John Maxwell and many others have said, "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." And that is true. We have to stop wanting what we want and start listening--really listening--to what God wants from us for our people. Yes, sometimes hard and difficult decisions have to be made. Yes, sometimes people need rebuked and will be unintentionally dismissed and hurt and disregarded. But those times are rare, and should be rare. We need to stop thinking about our "careers" and our "successes" and "wins" and start submitting--yes, submitting-- to what God really wants. That may mean personal oblivion for us in ministry and being okay with the place and assignment God has for us. We say it is all about the honor and glory of God. Well, we need to really mean it and proceed in that direction.</p>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-41016058335323320522020-08-04T10:39:00.002-04:002020-08-04T10:39:42.970-04:00Another Look At Black Lives Matter and Racial ReconciliationInstead of rehearsing what we all know about the Black Lives Matter movement and why it sprang up in our day, I want to admit several things as an older white, evangelical male and a retired pastor, now a church consultant. I took the plunge and submitted to a "racial reconciliation" course well-taught by a friend and a professor from Lancaster Bible College this summer. I learned much about our racial problems and dived into how to tackle them in our present tension-filled day.<div><br /></div><div>First, we must admit, if we are truthful and frightfully honest, that we live in a prejudiced society and systemic racism abounds in America today. Many would deny this or refuse to admit it and address it, but there are plenty of examples of institutional racism today, not merely against blacks, but Asians and American Indians and others. By refusing to address these issues and uncovering the racial biases in our society, we simply perpetuate racism and its ugly results. Being "color-blind" to racial injustice or refusing to know and address "white privilege" only adds fire to the Black Lives Matter movement and its consequences.</div><div><br /></div><div>I grew up in a home where racism was not talked about but practiced by my parents in their opinions of other races. While they would personally disavow such racism, my father used the "N" word freely, as well as "spics" and other pejoratives in speaking of blacks and Hispanics and Asians. As long as they kept "their place," we were okay with them. Later in life I ministered in a predominantly white church when a young white woman and black man came to me for marriage counseling and help. The woman's parents were shocked and upset that their daughter would think of union with a black man. They wanted me to stop the wedding and help their daughter come to her senses. This was obviously racist, but they insisted the "normalcy" of their request. </div><div><br /></div><div>I read an interesting and provocative summary of a speech given by Wilfred McClay, author of <i>Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story</i>, called "Rediscovering the Wisdom in American History" (<strong style="caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><a data-hs-link-id="0" href="https://info.hillsdale.edu/e2t/tc/VWqkYb47l_lFW426ngQ7S1q4GW8DFYQL4dk-jHN1FQ0tB3p_9LV1-WJV7CgX3QW2v9LRc7N-wMLW4v2Ffg8zhjs6W67GSdj5ZcFJ_W7B5Qsh8j_dNYW8mlfvf6xf73YW11PhRn8BGxSWW6nfJ4w4mJTjGW6DKhHG1x_tlZVHL_746gl7d-W1MZ59N12KbZHVBY5bg1qwGSHW2zHs3672RdYyW6lryfV7XL39gVK955g3FqQcRV5FKvy25W8zyW6k1lxN5YLQGfVxcjfw2yZJz9W15lzTq1Qf4s_W5c3Xcb2JJf3hW7CF2F32q_ZtbW10x26m6WKGkpW7ctCh62ZXvSKW5jq2X75d4J5mM7Tls0nZmgTW2vbTmT1GGWkZW5qp6dH1Mw7gfW3c_Wv518ZPNxVg2RlT800Dw93bWz1" rel=" noopener" target="_blank">https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/rediscovering-wisdom-american-history/</a>) </strong>In that speech he rehearsed the problem of racism and the Civil War (or War Between the States, if you come from the South). What he said and wrote was insightful -- <font face="inherit">"<span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">How, we wonder today, could such otherwise enlightened and exemplary men as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have owned slaves, a practice so contradictory to all they stood for? As I write in the book: </span></font><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">There is no easy answer to such questions. But surely a part of the answer is that each of us is born into a world that we did not make, and it is only with the greatest effort, and often at very great cost, that we are ever able to change that world for the better. Moral sensibilities are not static; they develop and deepen over time, and general moral progress is very slow. Part of the study of history involves a training of the imagination, learning to see historical actors as speaking and acting in their own times rather than ours; and learning to see even our heroes as an all-too-human mixture of admirable and unadmirable qualities, people like us who may, like us, be constrained by circumstances beyond their control. . . ."</span></div><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></div><div><font face="inherit"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">He goes on to say -- "</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">The ambivalences regarding slavery built into the structure of the Constitution were almost certainly unavoidable in the short term, in order to achieve an effective political union of the nation. What we need to understand is how the original compromise no longer became acceptable to increasing numbers of Americans, especially in one part of the Union, and why slavery, a ubiquitous institution in human history, came to be seen not merely as an unfortunate evil but as a sinful impediment to human progress, a stain upon a whole nation. We live today on the other side of a great transformation in moral sensibility, a transformation that was taking place but was not yet completed in the very years the United States was being formed."</span></font></div><div><font face="inherit"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><font color="#333333"><font face="inherit"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">The point is that solutions to incipient systemic racism are complicated and will take serious time and costly efforts. Marches only point to the depth of the problem and do not solve it. In fact, </span></font><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">they</span><font face="inherit"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"> may merely exacerbate the racial tensions now so apparent. We need policy change, not merely protests. Policy change comes in stages, slowly and </span></font><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">sometimes</span><font face="inherit"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"> imperceptibly. Elections help, but do not guarantee such change.</span></font></font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><font color="#333333"><font face="inherit"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></font></font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><font color="#333333"><font face="inherit"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">What has to change and be successfully addressed is the heart of people and the soul of a nation. God alone can change the heart and inform the emotions and mind to a better, more biblical model of transformation. The Gospel of Christ, submitting to Jesus as Lord and Savior, is not merely a religious point, but a moral transformative point. Conversion to Christ, real and deep conversion, as well as </span></font></font></span><font color="#333333"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">biblical instruction and implementation can transform racial inequality to racial justice and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">compatibility.</span></font></div><div><font color="#333333"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></font></div><div><font color="#333333"><span style="font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">The naysayers will claim that such transformation has not worked, and that churches have been often staging grounds for racism and inequality. I would simply point to the fact that many church goers are not really Christians. They name the Name but deny the implications of deep, heart change and transformation of thoughts, intents and motives. I say this as a pastor and denominational worker who has seen and preached to and taught thousands of Christian adherents and worked with dozens of churches of many sizes and stripes. Deep seated change </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">requires costly discipleship and rigorous study and application of Scriptural truth.</span></font></div><div><font color="#333333"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></font></div><div><font color="#333333"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 19.200000762939453px;">The question in my mind is, Are we willing to wade through the difficult and time-consuming task of policy change and discipling others? Are we willing to take a hard look at ourselves in he mirror of history and admit the wrongs and seek to correct the conscience of a nation?</span></font></div><div><font face="inherit"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></font></div><div><font face="inherit"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></font></div><p style="border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: 19.200000762939453px; line-height: 1.8em; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font face="inherit"><br /></font></p><div><br /></div>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-91267036102263877422020-04-14T11:34:00.000-04:002020-04-14T11:34:25.853-04:00Reflecting on Ernest Reisinger Biography by Geoff ThomasA newly released biography of the life and times of Ernest Reisinger has been written for Banner of Truth publishers by Pastor Geoff Thomas of Wales. Though written in 2002, it has recently caught my attention through friends at Banner of Truth and Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, PA. For the many who do not know Ernie Reisinger, or his history, Ernie was one of the founding fathers of Reformed Baptist history in the states, particularly in south central PA in Carlisle with the establishment of Grace Baptist Church.<br />
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Ernie was one of my early mentors and friends. He served for two years at a mission church of Grace Baptist Church in Mechanicsburg, PA, and I had the privilege of being a summer intern while a student at Westminster Theological Seminary in the early 1970s in Philadelphia. On a personal note, Ernie helped finance part of my education at Westminster and provided money to repair the transmission of an automobile we desperately needed in those years. The money was always "anonymously" given, but we knew where it came from. God used Ernie Reisinger in my life and formation as a minister of the gospel of God's grace. He could never sing very well, and those Sundays I led the small congregation in Mechanicsburg, he would "grunt" along behind me in leading worship hymns. He made a joyful "noise" to the Lord!<br />
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Ernie was always handing out books, especially Reformed Puritan literature, which he came to love and follow. The biography describes his business prowess in leading the Reisinger Brothers construction company and its many projects in those years, his friendship with the Irwin family in Carlisle and his massive influence in the establishment and theology of Grace Baptist Church. This church, like no other Baptist church in the area, held to the Reformed standards of theology and worship in the London (and then Philadelphia) confessions of faith, which followed much of the theology in the Westminster Standards (Confession of Faith and Catechisms). Ernie gained his theological knowledge as a layman, a very serious student of Scripture and theology. Wanting to be ordained as a legitimate professional pastor, he was so ordained by the Carlisle Church to minister in Mechanicsburg, at which place he stayed for two years.<br />
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I am not in the same place ecclesiastically in my present ministry assignments. In fact, I am a retired minister of the Brethren in Christ Church, a church that follows the Wesleyan-Arminian theological positions and its Anabaptist heritage. I have been a Reformed Baptist church planter, an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor and a Brethren in Christ pastor and church leader in my ministry history. I now work as a church health consultant in the Northeast for NCDAmerica out of Michigan. That is another story, but suffice to say, Ernie helped establish my Reformed roots but also soured my ecclesiastical associations with Reformed Baptists.<br />
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Like Ernie, I became enthralled with the Reformed faith and historic Puritanism as a student at Dickinson College while attending Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle. The minister then, Walter Chantry, took me and other students under his wing, and mentored us in the Reformed faith and life. Ernie was a historical part of that training and development. However, his theory of doctrinal purity and church purity became the foundation of Grace Baptist and other RB (Reformed Baptist) churches in the northeast. As stated in his biography, in Reisinger's pamphlet, <i>Doctrine and Devotion</i>, he wrote: "God must be worshipped in truth as well as in Spirit. Truth can be stated in real words, and when that is done there is Christian doctrine. To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus without knowing what Christ taught must be a vain quest. It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of sound doctrine in the Christian life. Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we are to have right living. As men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles, so sound Christian character does not grow out of unsound doctrine. The church that neglects to teach sound biblical doctrine weakens church membership. It works against true unity. It invites instability in its fellowship. It lessens conviction and puts the brakes on vital progress in the congregation."<br />
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This thinking and the application of it framed the basis of Grace Baptist Church. While many would rejoice over its stance for historic orthodoxy after the likes of Calvin and others, others would have a less than stellar opinion. Other Christians and other churches in the Carlisle area, just as rooted in the fundamentals of biblical authority and inspiration, but avowedly non-Calvinistic would label Grace Baptist as cold, severe, judgmental and downright mean to those who do not come up to their "standards" of faith and life. While I do believe there was much heart warmth and devotion in Ernie and the other elders of Grace Baptist, their refusal to sponsor Billy Graham Crusades and other evangelistic endeavors in that area placed them outside of regular evangelical thought and practice. And to some extent, they revelled in their separateness and distinctiveness. I know this to unfortunately be the case, having served a Brethren in Christ Church in the town in the 1990s.<br />
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Ernie was foremost an evangelist. He loved to preach and teach the gospel and reach out to many in that area and beyond with the Good News of Jesus. I loved his passion for souls and that passion rubbed off on me. However, I found that his passion for Calvinism almost matched his passion for souls, thinking that true religion can only be found in true doctrine. The many non-Calvinists who love the Lord are therefore not merely in error, but following a false God. So, the heritage of Ernie and Grace Baptist Church is also joined with this isolation from other serious Christians and churches. The impression that has often been given is, "we have the truth, and you must come to our side to find it."<br />
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The biography is just as much a biography of of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle as of Ernie Reisinger's life. I love the people my wife and I have known from Grace Baptist. I believe they are serious Christians who see Calvinism as the only way to think and live. I know they are earnest and passionate about that system of doctrine. But to judge others and almost make the claim that other Christians are almost "sub-Christians" is wrongheaded and damaging to the unity of the Church of Christ. The problem I have seen in Reformed circles, first as a Reformed Baptist and the as an Orthodox Presbyterian, is that such a faith becomes judgmental and cold-hearted to others in the Christian camp. It can become self-congratulating and self-consuming. It can blunt what Ernie spent much of his life in evangelizing others for the gospel of God's grace. It can forget about the love of God and replace that with the harshness of God's choice of those who believe. All of this I have also seen and witnessed in Reformed circles and churches.<br />
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I am still thoroughly Reformed in thought and doctrine, but much more open to other systems of Christian doctrine and life and thought. I believe when we all get to heaven we will have much to learn in how God has worked on this earth and among people. We may even be surprised that many of those we doctrinally fought against are there beside us praising God and singing with the angels. I do commend Geoff Thomas in his biography of Ernie Reisinger and praise God for the life of a great man of God.CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-88344268053279536802020-03-18T14:30:00.000-04:002020-03-18T14:30:37.146-04:00Reflecting On The Message of Simon & Garfunkel for TodayWith more and more people quarantined at home due to the spread of the coronavirus, I have had time to do some reflecting on the songs of Simon and Garfunkel from the 1960s. For me, a Baby Boomer, these were the stirring upheaval years of the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and folk artists like Simon and Garfunkel. To modern ears these mournful, folksy, haunting songs have little of the brashness and harshness of modern popular music. What they do contain, however, are reflective songs of a changing America and a changing society. They signaled a major shift from the swoon songs of the 1950s and the post-war dance songs that my parents enjoyed. What do they tell us for today's world and society?<br />
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They tell us that separation and aloneness can be both a boon and a sadness for people. Isolation can protect us, but leave us sad and lonely, prone to no one caring or even knowing our state — listen to "I Am A Rock" and "A Most Peculiar Man" —<br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I've built walls</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A fortress deep and mighty</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">That none may penetrate</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">It's laughter and it's loving I disdain</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I am a rock</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I am an island</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">I have my books</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And my poetry to protect me</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I am shielded in my armor</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Hiding in my room, safe within my womb</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I touch no one and no one touches me</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I am a rock</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I am an island</span></div>
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br />
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">And a rock feels no pain</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And an island never cries.</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
He was a most peculiar man.</div>
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">He lived all alone within a house,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Within a room, within himself,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">A most peculiar man.</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">He had no friends, he seldom spoke</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And no one in turn ever spoke to him,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">'Cause he wasn't friendly and he didn't care</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And he wasn't like them.</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Oh, no! he was a most peculiar man.</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">He died last Saturday.</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">He turned on the gas and he went to sleep</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">With the windows closed so he'd never wake up</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">To his silent world and his tiny room;</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And Mrs. Riordan says he has a brother somewhere</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Who should be notified soon.</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And all the people said, "What a shame that he's dead,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">But wasn't he a most peculiar man?"</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;">They also tell us that class separation and a desire to be "top dog" and admired by all can end in bitterness and suicide — "Richard Cory"</span></span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge"><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">With political connections to spread his wealth around.</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Born into society, a banker's only child,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge">But I work in his factory</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And I curse the life I'm living</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And I curse my poverty</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And I wish that I could be,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Oh, I wish that I could be,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Oh, I wish that I could be</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Richard Cory.</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge"><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;">They haunt us with the desire to be "homeward bound" and feel rest from the frantic pace of work, popularity and busyness —</span></span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge"><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">I'm sittin' in the railway station</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Got a ticket to my destination</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">On a tour of one-night stands</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">My suitcase and guitar in hand</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And every stop is neatly planned</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">For a poet and a one-man band</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge"><span jsname="YS01Ge">Tonight I'll sing my songs again</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I'll play the game and pretend</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">But all my words come back to me</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">In shades of mediocrity</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Like emptiness in harmony</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I need someone to comfort me</span></span></div>
<div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">Homeward bound</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I wish I was</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Homeward bound</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Home where my thought's escapin'</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Home where my music's playin'</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Home where my love lies waitin'</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Silently for me</span></div>
<div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;">And finally they tell us that we all need to be like "bridges over troubled waters" for one another —</span></span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge"><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge">When you're weary, feeling small</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">When tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them all (all)</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And friends just can't be found</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Like a bridge over troubled water</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I will lay me down</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Like a bridge over troubled water</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I will lay me down</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge">When you're down and out</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">When you're on the street</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">When evening falls so hard</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I will comfort you (ooo)</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I'll take your part, oh, when darkness comes</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And pain is all around</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Like a bridge over troubled water</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I will lay me down</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Like a bridge over troubled water</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I will lay me down</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: small;">So take some of this "time out" and listen </span></span>carefully to the messages that meant so much in the 1960s and beyond.</div>
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CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-79256707969094144512020-03-05T12:22:00.000-05:002020-03-05T12:22:51.007-05:00Rights, the Constitution, and the Partisan DivideIn a recent issue of <i>Imprimis</i> newsletter put out by Hillsdale College, a privately funded conservative school, Christopher Caldwell talks about "The Roots of Our Partisan Divide." (<a class="" href="https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/roots-partisan-divide/" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/roots-partisan-divide/</a>) In that speech and from his book, <i>The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties</i>, Caldwell, among others, traces the roots of the extreme political and social divide in America between the progressive left and the conservative right back to the vestiges of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Passed by Congress to seek to address the segregation of the Jim Crow southern states, it was slowly expanded to outlaw discrimination in every sector of society and every walk of public and private life. He notes, "They did so by giving birth to what was, in effect, a second constitution, which would eventually cause Americans to peel off into two different and incompatible constitutional cultures." This was done by taking a "lot of decisions that had been made in the democratic parts of American government and relocate them to the bureaucracy or the judiciary." Consequently, while Americans never voted for bilingual education, the office of civil rights simply established it. Sexism cases for women's rights have exploded to this day with the #metoo movement. Hate crimes are now against every form of anti-lesbian or homosexual or transgender speech or actions or legislation.<br />
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"Let's say you are a progressive gay man in a gay marriage with two adopted children. The civil rights version of the country means everything to you . . . Quite likely, your whole moral idea of yourself depends on it too. . .. You are on the side of the glorious marchers of Birmingham, and they are on the side of Bull Connor. To you, the other party is a party of bigots." "Gender fluidity" taught in the first grade in public schools cannot be defeated or even complained against. You are designated as a bigot, a hate monger. "To you, the other party is a party of totalitarians." So, indeed, the sky may be falling in the future for this American republic. Whether we agree with Caldwell or not, it is fairly evident there is a great divide in this country that never existed, even during the decade of the 1960s.<br />
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I went to college in the 1960s. We had sit-ins, marches, the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) who marched beside my ROTC cadet corp placing roses in the gun barrels that we carried. The Vietnam War was moving ahead, and truth be told, well-heeled students in colleges got deferments while garage mechanics out of high school were drafted. A two-tiered society resulted. The war was most unpopular and my wartime friends who came back from Nam were booed and hated or dismissed for their efforts. Many of them suffered PTSD effects. It took many years and much pain to honor these wounded veterans. However, that revolution of the sixties took place against a background of morality rooted in the Judea-Christian codes of the Bible. Little did we know then that "civil rights" meant a dismissal of those codes and the substitution of it for individual rights individually defined.<br />
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I trace this great divide today to spiritual and religious reasons. Leonard Sweet said way back in 2009 that we are living in a "cut flower society," where the flower of religious activity may exist, but there is no longer any rooting in the Scriptures or in any Judaeo-Christian law code. Young adults now dismiss any absolute truths, favoring whatever "truth" may seem to be in their favor for the moment. Thus, Bernie Sanders' promise of free education and universal health care especially for those with higher educational or health debts is most appealing. It doesn't matter how we pay for it, since the government becomes our mother and father, entitling us to these human freedoms and benefits. This is pure socialism and may indeed move into pure communism or Marxism as the anti-God trends travel down the road. Then we will be without God and without freedom rooted in a God-centered framework of morality. Individual freedom of whatever sort will be substituted for responsible social freedoms. And the sky will indeed fall.<br />
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<br />CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-17478311369862620752020-02-20T11:24:00.000-05:002020-02-20T11:24:48.005-05:00Pro, Anti, Reluctant Trump Voters -- Is That All there Is?Two recent articles that attempt to explain why evangelical Christians would vote for President Trump in the 2020 elections have caught my attention -- Andrew Walker's "Understanding Why Religious Conservatives Would Vote for Trump" and John Fea's response in "The Problem with the Reluctant Trump Voter: A Response to Andrew Walker's National Review Essay." Walker is from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Fea is from Messiah College. They are from different theological stripes, and see most every issue from those stripes. One is apparently a "reluctant Trump" voter and the latter is an anti-Trump voter. The arguments seem to be focused on the person of Trump and his morality (or lack thereof) and the extent of progressivism in the Democratic Party among the candidates now running. How about "in spite of" Trump voting?<br />
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I did not cast my vote in the 2016 election for Trump. Neither did I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Nor did I cast my vote for any Green Party candidate or any other write-ins. People would say I am a "disengaged" voter, that I wasted an opportunity to exercise my freedom as an American voter. Perhaps. I am also a white, evangelical male, who attends an Anabaptist-Wesleyan church (Brethren in Christ) but who has also been an orthodox Presbyterian as well as a Reformed Baptist in my personal and ministerial career. It wasn't that I could not make up my theological mind, but rather that I sought to follow God's direction in my life and ministry through the years, and that direction led me to seemingly diverse theological and ministerial positions as well as training. So, it would not be surprising to say that I disagree with Walker as well as with Fea on a number of points.<br />
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I seek to be a biblical Christian. That means that I do not blindly follow the Religious Right or the Moral Majority or the Anabaptist counter cultural "upside down" kingdom model either. I vote, when I vote, on informed moral, cosmological or world-and-life viewpoint grounds. I am first of all a citizen of heaven through allegiance to Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. I am an "alien" to the citizenry of any world order, including America. I love my country, no doubt, but I am not dependent on my country and its political woes or suppositions to determine my destiny. I obey my governmental leaders according to the precepts of Romans 13 in the Bible. I am not blind to their prideful, often ostentatious, lies and subterfuges and moral misgivings.<br />
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As with other evangelical believers, I believe abortion on demand is a horrific tragedy and a Holocaust of mega-proportions. But I also believe and know that no Supreme Court decision, nor a pro-life President, nor a Republican Congress can ultimately stop the practice or the inane thinking that the child in the womb is not a person in his or her own right. I remember the Christian Jimmy Carter as President as one of the most moral, yet probably most ineffective, President we ever had. Where are the Abraham Lincoln's of today? I have been part of an activist pro-life group in upstate New York when I pastored a church in Schenectady, NY, but also sought to pray for and discuss the issues with the Planned Parenthood president, a move that my pro-life brothers and sisters saw as tyranny of the worst sort. All people everywhere need the Lord, no matter their party or abortion affiliations.<br />
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So, I guess I am an "in spite of" Christian in America. Will I vote for Donald Trump in 2020? That will be up to prayerful direction sought from God and the Bible, not from the political ranker from either party. The bigger issue is not how moral or immoral a candidate for President is, but rather does his or her worldview comport with a biblically defined and crafted viewpoint? If neither does, then neither gets my vote. Many would disagree with me or say I am "compromised" in my thinking. So be it. The larger question always for me is the biblical salvation status of Donald Trump or the Democratic contenders for that party. At the end of the day, that is what will really matter, and should matter to us all.CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-34235861781136353722020-02-15T09:40:00.000-05:002020-02-15T09:40:07.008-05:00The Partisan Divide and Its Recovery<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am a subscriber to <i>Imprimis</i>, a conservative newsletter published by Hillsdale College, a privately funded college with traditional Christian values and insights. In the latest issue of <i>Imprimis</i>, <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-size: 16px;">Christopher Caldwell,</span><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; font-size: 16px;"> </strong><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #383838; font-size: 14px;">Senior Fellow, The Claremont Institute </span></span><span style="color: #383838;">Author, </span><i style="color: #383838;">The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties</i><span style="color: #383838;">, talks about the deepening partisan divide in this country (See https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/). In that article, Caldwell says that "</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">American society today is divided by party and by ideology in a way it has perhaps not been since the Civil War." He then goes on to point to "strands" that have produced such a divide, including the Vietnam War, role of women, and the "emergency" Civil Rights Law of 1964 that has gone way off the original mark and is now used for every divide between Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, Christian and non-Christian that we see today. For me to even quote or refer to <i>Imprimis</i> puts me in the "bigot" category, </span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">seemingly unable to carry on a civil discussion with people of opposing viewpoints.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333;">I must, however, take exception to this caricature (or even reality to some). In my ongoing role as a retired pastor and a current church health consultant (for NCDAmerica), I am fully aware of several realities in this partisan divide that Caldwell and other conservatives portray. It is always easier to critique and analyze the problems rather than to do the hard work of curing or alleviating the problems. It is not that I disagree with the analysis, but I am reminded of taking a graduate course in a highly recognized seminary where I raised the theological question -- "If our understanding of the Bible is so 'air tight' why don't those on the other side ever deal with these arguments?" The answer from our professor was simple--"They never read our journals, never digest our books and never engage with us in any way." That is part of our problem today, isn't it? We don't really read or talk with one another, especially on opposing sides of the aisle. Caldwell and others like him are hardly ever read, and when they are read, they are dismissed as bigots, hate mongers, and so forth. So, my first point is, Why can't we honestly read one another? Why can't we really "hear" one another, not merely listen? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;">I am a Baby Boomer, a child of the late 1940s, a teenager of the 1960s, having seen America transform from the values of the 1950s to the radical ideas and concepts and precepts of the 1960s and later years. I have ministered through the raucous 1970s, the "me" generation of the 1980s, the economic tensions of the 1990s and the "new age" of the 2000s. I have spoken to and with people from every generation in those years. While perspectives and assumptions have radically changed, people hardly ever change. Fears of the 1960s are fears of the 2000s. Technological advancements have separated, not united us, and the beast we have launched with the internet of the 1970s has become all consuming and threatens to devour its children. It is not that we should go backwards, but are we really prepared to go forwards? The greatest needs of economic and job security, fairness, safety for us and our children, peace at home and abroad are still there, still behind all the rhetoric. It is not a matter of "civil rights," but rather a matter of human rights, of Constitutional rights, of being able to live and speak and exist freely <i>as a society</i>, not merely as isolated individuals.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, here's a radical thought--get to know and listen to your neighbors, especially the ones who disagree with you, but have the same needs as you do. Engage in civil discussion, even </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">when it seems hopelessly insane to do so. Reject the anger, vitriol, hatred, narrowness that often defines people. Agree to disagree. Prove that you are no bigot, no hate monger, but rather a follower of Jesus Christ who believes in his principles. Take the admonition of Paul to Timothy seriously -- </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-size: 13px;">Refuse to get involved in inane discussions; they always end up in fights. </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-size: 13px;">God’s servant must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool, </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-size: 13px;">working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey. You never know how or when God might sober them up with a change of heart and a turning to the truth, </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-size: 13px;">enabling them to escape the Devil’s trap, where they are caught and held captive, forced to run his errands." (</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-size: 13px;"> 2 </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-size: x-small;">Timothy 2:23-26. The Message)</span></span><br />
CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-70798713735807091952019-12-28T10:55:00.001-05:002019-12-28T10:55:04.515-05:00Why Some Churches Make It and Others Don't: Observations from a Church Consultant<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
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“And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles… . Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” (Acts 8.1, 4) A small church in our town, decreasing in numbers, was assigned to a larger church in the same denomination as a “satellite” of that larger church. Another small church in a nearby town fights for survival. A starter church in upstate New York wonders if it will make it. And a church in a nearby city is on the verge of closing its doors. These are usually the types of churches and ministries that I as a church consultant get called in to analyze, help and offer coaching advice. And there are thousands of them across the country. Instead of asking the question of what went wrong with these ministries, the better question is how does the Word of God and the gospel of God spread successfully and fruitfully? I find some principles here in Acts.</div>
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Churches and ministries get too content where they are doing what they do. It is not that the church in Jerusalem was sinning against God, or not witnessing for God, or going the wrong way with God. They had become “cocooned” in the city, growing and even prospering in their cloistered environment. The gospel of Christ was shut up to that place and was not being spread about, as the resurrected Jesus had told the early apostles — “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.“ (Acts1.8) Acts 8:1 became the fulfillment of Acts 1:8. In general, God many times has to “force” churches or ministries to break out of their comfort zones for the spread of his Word.</div>
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Persecution grows the Church of God. There are a number of downsides to persecution, no doubt, but the great upside is that God often uses persecution, even violent persecution, to spread and grow his church. Spurgeon once said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” What persecuted ministries and churches need to see is the future for what they are suffering. God’s cause is often advanced through tragedy and trouble in one place so that his Word and gospel can thrive in another place. While many churches and ministries in trouble want to shore up the walls and try to survive, they rather need to look beyond themselves to what God really wants for a region, a city, a nation or the world. What is God really saying? That Is the question that they must really answer and honestly answer. This is hard but necessary.</div>
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Taking risks for God always costs. But they are necessary risks for the spread of the gospel. The leader Stephen was stoned to death because he took a risk in preaching the truth to jealous Jews wanting to destroy followers of the Way. Philip and others took a risk by spreading the gospel message to places that the Jews had regarded as “forbidden” territories, as “unclean” places filled with “sinners.” The message of the Cross is for ALL people everywhere, not just the receptive, the trained, the “clean” and the “deserving.” This is why God’s Word must go to prisons and prisoners, not merely those locked up, but those caught up in the prison houses of their addictions and fears and deviant lifestyles. Not everyone of these will be saved, no doubt, but God’s destiny and plan for the gospel will be secured. The hard question for the churches and ministries cited in the opening paragraph is, Are you willing to die so that others may succeed with the Word of God and the gospel of his grace?</div>
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There is no magic church growth pill. In working with over 130 churches of various sizes and denominational backgrounds and in different places, the conclusion I have reached is that there is no one "formula" for growth and church health. Some churches simply seem to have the right "mix" of people, place, vision and calling from God to succeed. Others do not. It is not that the others are sinning against God or making grievous errors in judgment or goal setting or vision casting. The right "mix" simply is not there. And, that does not necessarily mean they have failed or come short of what God wants for them. Most of the time the sense and definition of "church" forbids real growth and healthy change. Sometimes the way the church started and gathered people forbids their continual growth. Every church has its imperfections and needs, no doubt, but there are a lot of congregations where the "mix" of people and agendas and hopes and dreams simply do not favor healthy church growth. And I believe sometimes God has a certain calling and place and ministry for a church that prohibits what we would cite as "normal" growth and development patterns. There is no magic pill for church growth and development.</div>
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The Church in Acts grew and prospered, but not every local congregation had the same story of growth and health. Take a hard look at the churches cited in the opening chapters of Revelation. Most of these congregations did in fact disappear from the church scene. Indeed, they had different needs and problems and challenges to overcome. Many did not make it. That never means the Church (capital "C") has failed in its mission from God. The main or central question for your church or ministry is, What does God want from us? Taking a hard and close and biblically satisfying look at that question will tell you how to proceed from where you are now.</div>
CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-25938811455992161402019-09-30T20:06:00.001-04:002019-09-30T20:06:37.663-04:00Three Decades Ago, America Lost Its Religion. Why? — A RESPONSE"Three Decades Ago, America Lost Its Religion. Why?" is a recent (Sep 26, 2019) Atlantic article written by staff writer Derek Thompson on the rise of the "nones" (non-affiliated religious people) since the 1990s. He cites a sociology and religion professor, Christian Smith, from the University of Notre Dame for the reasons for this upward tick in this sector of society and religion. Professor Smith has come up with several reasons for the rise, with the three main ones being <span style="font-family: "Lyon Text", Georgia, serif;">three historical events: the association of the Republican Party with the Christian right, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Lyon Text", Georgia, serif;">Many "nones" are young adults </span><span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">disenchanted with the identification of organized, evangelical religion with the Republican Party. "</span><span style="font-family: "Lyon Text", Georgia, serif;">Smith said it’s possible that young liberals and loosely affiliated Christians first registered their aversion to the Christian right in the early 1990s, after a decade of observing its powerful role in conservative politics." Additionally, the ending of the Cold War with atheistic </span><span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">Communism, adding fuel to the "nones" declaration of being unaffiliated with organized, evangelical Christianity and the Church. Finally, the attacks of 9/11 by radicalized Islamic terrorists made all fundamentalist religion suspect to the "nones." These and a few other incentives gave spectacular rise to the "nones" since the 1990s.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">I find, however, this analysis wanting and shallow. It fails to recognize the inherently destructive tendencies of secular humanism in our American and Western European societies, societies that have discarded biblical religion and its standards for no religion and the moral decay of ethical standards. Abortion, same-sex marriage, the rise of the LGBTQ community, the rejection of ordained authority and the skepticism of the institutional Church have added fuel to the "nones" insistence of being "spiritual" but not institutionally religious. They have thrown out "the baby with the bathwater," so to speak. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">To the post-modern, post-truth age, there is no absolute truth, no binding ethics, no unwavering morality that cannot be challenged and then discarded. This has been well documented by Christian theologians and philosophers for decades now. We live, as Leonard Sweet would say, in a "cut-flower society," with no rooting and only a dim residue of Christian values and morés. This drives the heart throb of many "nones." They can therefore be "spiritual" without being biblical. They can own God without knowing the biblical God. They can practice in-house religion without attending the community of religion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">The deeper problem has always been a failure of the conservative, evangelical Christian Church to offer a thoroughly thought out and biblically supported Christ centered world and life view on everything--from work to politics, from school to play. We have lost the truth that all vocations are God-callings to be served for God and under God's Word. Work has lost its foundational Christian ethos. Colleges have lost their Christian roots, opting for the secularism of an anti-God academic snobbery. Consequently, the "nones" have seen the Church fail them at defining and describing what real biblical Christianity is all about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">"Nones" cannot be reached by contemporary, hiphop music and Christian-light messages aimed to secure their interest in the Church once again. Many are finding their way back to solid, orthodox liturgy and biblical exposition where the Bible is studied, analyzed, explained and applied to their lives. The "old ways" are proving to be the "good ways" back to God and the Bible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">I know these factors to be true from having a forty plus year experience as a pastor and a church health consultant for the latter twenty of those years. Working with many churches, large and small, and many different kinds of people professing faith in Christ, including young adults, I have found the above factors to be more of an explanation than Smith has given in his analysis of the "nones."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Lyon Text, Georgia, serif;">However, there is always hope to recover the "nones." Real authentic Christianity preached and practiced in our churches will help. Ridding ourselves of cultural Christianity and the hypocrisy that it spawns will also help. This is more than staffing food kitchens or providing homeless shelters where they are needed. This is good, but not enough to capture the "nones." We must once again offer captivating, encompassing Christ centered Christianity for them, wherever they call "church." The way ahead is hard, but truly worthwhile, especially for a generation that want to know God, the real, authentic God of the Bible.</span>CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-60751296341671160182018-01-10T12:56:00.000-05:002018-01-10T12:56:21.489-05:00Blurring the LinesDuring the week of July 5, 2017, President Donald Trump make an impassioned speech to the Polish people in the historic Krasinski Square, in the heart of Warsaw, Poland. Among other things, the President said, "The people of Poland, the people of America, and the people of Europe still cry out, 'We want God.'" (Quoted in <i>God and Donald Trump</i>, by Stephen E. Strang, p. 142) All we heard from the liberal Washington Post was that this was a "dark and provocative address with nationalist overtones." It is no secret that most of the national media and TV and movie people "hate" Donald Trump. They are still smarting from an election they want to call rigged by the Russians and refuse to give evangelical conservatives the voice they deserve on national politics, policies and platforms. From their point of view, we are all bigots, homophobes, hate-mongers and out of step with most of America. What is more disturbing to me, however, is that many church-going, decent, fair minded American people believe the same thing about evangelical, Bible-believing Christians. What is going on?<br />
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What is going on is a massive seismic shift in traditional, Bible-based values. The authority of Scriptures has been so eroded, denied and ignored over the past several decades that it has been relegated to a past, pre-enlightenment era of thinking and doing. The obvious traditional definition of marriage, for instance, between one man and one woman is being systematically replaced by same-sex marriage partnerships and alliances. And we are told that all of this is fair, just, needed and reflective of America of today. Anything less, or "biblical," is out of step, old fashioned, and inimical to true freedom and discovery. And current and coming hate-speech legislation will make it a crime to publicly speak against anti-biblical practices and habits. High level, Supreme Court cases are being brought to bear against Bible-centered businesses and business practices. Either we go with the flow, or we will be forced out of business, out of our neighborhoods and even out of our churches. If you don't believe me, watch and learn. But, why is this happening, and can't people see it?<br />
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The answers are more complicated than a straight "yes" or "no." There are national, state and local influences that are determined to excise any biblical references or allusions to right and wrong. This is an intentional, deterministic anti-God league of people and powers that desire to denigrate and deny any God-oriented witness and safeguards to the fabric of society and life in general. This is planned, promoted and deviously initiated in our schools, courts and political arenas. It is all done under the guise of love and fairness to all without prejudice. But what is done is very prejudicial to those who believe and want to live out biblical values and priorities. This is a first obvious line of attack.<br />
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A second line of attack is promulgated by people who think they are correcting the ship of fairness. They have seen fundamentalist organizations and churches and Christian ministries who have operated out of meanness, narrowness and a spirit of being always against something and someone. They have witnessed Planned Parenthood center marches, tracts and even bombings. They have seen blood-red hatred in the eyes of zealots and fanatics who identify themselves with Bible-believing faith stances. They merely want to do the right thing and be protective of people of different belief systems and faith stances, or no faith stance at all. They want a society where all is love and warmth and personal freedom. Anything that limits absolute personal freedom is to be discarded and legislated against. They believe they are doing society a favor.<br />
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A third line of anti-biblical thinking and action is undertaken by those who are confused by a society seemingly divided into opposites. They want nice people with nice stories and non-confrontational agendas to go to school with and be their neighbors, grocery and gasoline clerks and helpers. Whatever they can do to foster a "gentler, kinder America" is what they want. Instead of the rule of law, they want a rule of love and tolerance. So, when the national news media generates a story of children raising money for a local Planned Parenthood or a gay couple who has fallen on hard times, this is Oh, so nice and lovely. This is what we should be doing, they think, especially against those Christians who want to cause division and disruption. Live and let live is their motto. These folks, unfortunately, have forgotten the old story of the frog in the kettle, who while sitting in a slowly increasingly heated kettle was eventually boiled to death. Our society is being boiled to death.<br />
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The solution is and always has been justice with love, or love with justice. As a theologian I have had to deal over the years with the false dichotomy of a God of wrath versus a God of love, or an angry God of the Old Testament versus the gentle God of love of the New. This is a false division of Scripture and a flagrant misreading of the nature and character of God. We have a just and righteous God of love. The same God who revealed himself to Moses and the ancient nation of Israel has not changed or been replaced by a new God -- <span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">love and faithfulness, </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">keeping steadfast love for thousands,</span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><i> </i></span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">who will by no means clear the guilty, </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro";">visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6, 7) </span>Ignoring or seeking to replace or recast this God means doing away with Him. We can have the rule of law with the blessings of love and fairness and kindness. It is not and never has been, either/or.<br />
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<br />CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-37966747429724696372017-10-31T10:23:00.000-04:002017-10-31T10:23:49.709-04:00Reformation in Our DayReformation in our day. This month marks a big deal in the history of the Protestant Reformation in Europe, namely its 500th Anniversary. A number of writers and bloggers and Facebook fans have posted Reformation type articles and reminders. This may be seen as another addition, though I hope it stirs some to positive and enduring action for the next 500 years, if God so wills.<br /><br />Reformation must begin in the Church and in God's people, Christ-followers by name and brand. Quite some time ago, the apologist Francis Schaeffer posited that we stand before a "watching world," and that if our behaviors do not radically change, there would be nothing inviting for unbelievers to transfer their allegiances. Many others have followed suit, and we have had "radical" Christianity preached and taught from many pulpits and in many quarters. Yet, the culture and world remain essentially unchanged and unchallenged, not so much by our words, as by our actions and attitudes. The Apostle Peter wrote, "For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" (1 Peter 4:17) Pontification about what should be done, or not done, without transformed lives doing what should be done, or not done, does little to change or challenge the current atmosphere. We gain nothing by shouting louder than our opponents, or arguing with them better, or writing more books about the truth. Our post-post-Christian (not a typo) world has seen Christians and their churches come and go with very little cultural transformation or impact. I know this because as semi-retired from active pastoral ministry, I have coached and mentored numbers of churches and Christian leaders and followers, and have found the same judgment about Christianity's impact from them.<br /><br />We must get back to Reformation basics--Scripture Alone, Christ Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone, God's glory Alone. Saying these phrases, even in their Latin formulations, does not mean we actually follow them. Scripture Alone, but we have "added" to the Scriptures by our own admission, not in adding actual verses to the Bible, but in summarizing and tweaking them to fit our conceptions of leadership, or fellowship, or Christian theology and philosophy. Anybody can make the Bible say anything they want it to say. What has happened to serious study of the Scriptures, to contextual and careful biblical exposition and development? Many churches do not even bother to reference a verse or two in their Sunday morning presentations, and these are self-proclaimed Bible churches. We have used and re-used the word relevancy so much that it has become our new Bible.<br /><br />Christ Alone has become stories about Jesus, rather than the solid teachings of Jesus, both positive and negative in our world. We love John 3:16--"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life,"--but we stay away from John 3:36 -- "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." We especially abhor Romans 1, and ignore its stern warnings about sexual immorality of various sorts and people making their own gods to follow and worship. Until we get away from the "nice" Jesus, the "innocuous" Jesus, the "harmless" Jesus, we shall never know Christ Alone. And it is Christ Alone that can and will save us, not a mishmash of Jesus plus other "good" religions. The Cross and the Resurrection must frame our stories and sermons and writings. Christ must once again become the center point of what we teach and believe and follow.<div>
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Grace Alone and Faith Alone have been substituted by doing the best we can to please God. Sad to say, but many Christians and Christian churches have substituted a form of "works" plus faith for the successful and Spirit filled believer. The rules have overcome salvation by grace through faith alone. I am teaching a course on the Letter to the Romans in a Bible based church, only to hear class members bemoan the fact that they have never heard this teaching in the church's public ministry. That is not to say that it was never there, but it has been eclipsed by other "relevant" topics over the years. The sovereignty of God's grace rarely gets a hearing in today's larger churches. And if so, it is shuttled to the side in an obscure small group or sparsely attended class. We need to return to Grace Alone and Faith Alone to have Reformation in our day.</div>
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God's Glory Alone is an unknown quantity in our day as well. Many do not even know what it means to "glorify God" in everything we say and do and think. It is a mystical, airy thing floating in the theological stratosphere with no earthly relevance. To glorify God means to have the "weightiness" of God's Word, God's character, God's values informing and impacting our own. It means a world-and-life viewpoint that informs and transforms our work, our play, our schooling, and our lives. Barna Associates have pointed out in survey after survey that over 90% of modern day Christians have little to no idea of a wholistic, 9-5, Sunday to Saturday, 24/7 faith life in Christ. People are not taught to glorify God, and when told to do so, have no idea what that means to the Christian truck driver, or waitress, or stockbroker, or politician, or schoolteacher. We have divorced faith from real life in so many ways that Sunday rarely bleeds over into Monday through Saturday. </div>
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So, on this 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, let us commit ourselves to real reformation, in our schools, our businesses, our recreation and our lives. Let us bravely and courageously adhere to and follow those brave Reformers, many of whom gave their lives for the Scripture Alone, Christ Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone and to God's Glory Alone. May the next 500 years find us faithful to a true Reformation.</div>
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CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-92078193166497098182017-05-17T11:30:00.000-04:002017-05-17T11:30:59.896-04:00What About Trump?What about President Trump? I have delayed offering my little piece of comments until he was past his 100 days in office and until we could see a pattern emerging. I am no politician and do not write for a political cause or party or platform. I am not part of a political think tank and resist being identified or pigeon-holed, though I am certain this post will be seen that way. I write out of a conservative, evangelical Christian perspective, though have many friends on all sides of the political perspectives. Another thing is that I did not vote for Mr. Trump, nor for Hillary Clinton, in the last Presidential election for personal, convictional reasons, rather than a particular political point of view. So, what about President Trump?<br />
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People either love or hate the President. There are many on the left who simply despise the President. This is obvious and tragic, I believe. They are out to get Mr. Trump impeached for criminal activity of some sort. This has been plainly intimated by many on the political left. And this no doubt applies to some conservative Christians. Believers should read and re-read Romans 13 in the Bible for how we should be acting toward and thinking about officials of the state. They are due our honor, obedience and service. After all, the Apostle was speaking of the Roman Empire and its Caesars. As far as I know, the President has not asked us to violate any biblical mandates. In fact, he has worked to uphold some biblical perspectives and premises. Whether or not we agree or disagree with Mr. Trump, he is the President and is due our respect.<br />
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President Trump is anti-Establishment. I went to college in the 1960s. Remember those days? Anti-establishtarianism was rampant and strident in those days, certainly on my college campus and across the nation. The moral standards of the 1950s were being attacked and challenged. Anti-establishment people have always faced ridicule and fearful rhetoric by establishment types. My guess is that many older people on the left today marched, smoked whatever, and rallied against the moral order of earlier days and years. They should understand and even appreciate the anti-establishment stance of this President. Or, have we forgotten our sit-ins and rallies and work to shed the rules of the establishment then?<br />
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President Trump is a maverick. His Tweets and actions prove it. He is not suave, sophisticated, patient, or "presidential," whatever images that evokes. He is caustic, impetuous, anti-media and likes to shake things up. But this is the man we elected to be the President. Some may challenge that statement and contend that the election was somehow rigged by the Russians, and that the people were deceived or duped into electing a "bad apple." But he was elected, none the less, by our system of government. But we don't know how to deal with mavericks in the Washington establishment, do we? We therefore get frustrated, angry, upset and put out by this President. What did you expect?! If you think we are a Christian, moral nation, wake up! We have been increasingly secularized since the 1960s, and our biblical values and moral codes have been, and are being, trashed by many. If we expect the President to act "like a Christian," we have been living in a time capsule or are just naive.<br />
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What, then, should we be saying and doing about our President? We should be praying for him and all the government officials at all levels, whether they are politically right or left or moderate or extreme. That's what my Bible tells me to do. Are you praying, I mean really praying, for President Trump? That God would so direct his actions and words and Tweets and decisions so that, as the Apostle says, we "may lead a peaceful and quite life, godly and dignified in every way" (1 Timothy 2:1, 2). This doesn't mean we give up or give in to bad decisions or incorrect judgments, but it does mean we depend upon God at the end of the day to judge righteously and well. I am not tying my wagon to the President or Congress for that matter. But I sincerely plead with God for their lives and decisions.CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-36857479354242952152015-11-28T12:02:00.000-05:002015-11-28T12:02:13.021-05:00Church Growth 101: Some Things Work And Many Do NotAfter forty years in active pastoral ministry, and seventeen years as a church health consultant and coach, having worked with larger and smaller churches, I have a church growth observation, especially for those starting out in church ministry. Some things work for church growth, while many do not. I have used most every evangelistic method ever produced over the years. A few have produced some church growth results. Most have not. The latest and greatest church growth program produces the same continuum of results. Churches can be event oriented, seeker targeted, seeker sensitive, assimilation driven places that see little significant growth. Most churches in America are a few hundred in worship attendance, if that. So, what's the problem and, more importantly, what is the solution?<br />
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There are numerous reasons why churches do not grow. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with location, except in a few depressed areas of the country. It also has little to do with decent, biblical teaching and preaching. In fact, church health statistics (from Natural Church Development, churchsmart.com) would say that churches with the most educated pastoral staff show the smallest growth overall. Some of this is due, no doubt, to a disdain for numbers among some pastors and denominations. They minister to the "chosen" people of God, the committed core of Christendom, and are out for church purity and distancing from the secular world. I am not making fun of these places of ministry, just observing them. But what about those churches and ministries really trying to grow and reach a larger audience for Christ and the gospel?<br />
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A misplaced dependence on methods or programming or events. This would be a first reason, I believe, for lack of church growth. People are not attracted, in the long run and to regular church attendance and involvement, because of programming and events. Slick and cool graphics and websites and presentations and catchy videos and production elements in services and other church venues do not, by and large, grow churches. I have been to a number of smaller churches where the very latest and best in technology is used, much to no avail in church growth results. Hundreds and even a few thousand can attend a weekend event at a church or ministry with little or no church growth happening. It's just a big production or event, and that is all. Some churches spend a lot of money on these elements supposedly to produce more people in the pews or chairs of the worship venue, and the result is just more money spent.<br />
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Attention to demographics and younger people is not the secret formula for church growth. Let's just read the latest George Barna statistics and do what his organization, or a similar organization, advises, and our church will grow. Not really. Most of the time you will simply displace the older generation paying for these ministry venues. Perhaps if we follow the latest Saddleback forty-day ministry and group programming, we will grow. Despite Rick Warren's glowing claims, many churches do not grow in the long run with such programming. In fact, I have coached churches which have tried every church-wide programming tool known to Saddleback, with little or even negative results. Warren would claim that they did not follow the "rules," but that is not true. If such "proven" methods do not work, then what does?<br />
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First, church growth is a God-ordained thing. God grows His Church, His way, with His timing, and His purposes. I do not believe that in the long run you can biblically grow a church, any church. God has to grant His blessing and anointing for such growth to occur. Otherwise, it will either not happen or it will be like a shooting star, a flame that burns itself out. Ask those who have seen their churches mushroom and grow. Most, if truthful, would have to say that the bottom line for such growth is that God has blessed them.<br />
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Then, it has to be the right people at the right place and the right time for growth to occur. Don't expect a highly charismatic preacher to grow your church. Don't depend on an awesome and gifted church staff to do the same. With God's sovereign blessing and timing, average pastors with less than stellar staff can grow a church. I read a leadership article quite some time ago about one of the largest and growing churches in America. The pastor frankly admitted he did not know why his church grew and continues to grow. He talked about just watching God work around him and many, many people came to his church and stayed and became involved. Andy Stanley might say his systems and expectations were the real reason for growth. I don't buy that. As important as they are, strong leadership, great systems, and high expectations still don't guarantee church growth.<br />
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Am I therefore pessimistic about church growth? No, just doggedly realistic and seasoned about the topic and discussions. Can your church grow? I don't know. It may or may not numerically grow. It may grow to a point and then plateau or subside. It might mushroom and grow beyond your wildest dreams or goals or vision. The key thing I do know is to seek God's will and God's blessing upon your ministry and your church. Do the right things at the right time and with the right people in place. While this will not guarantee church growth, it will be what is right to do. And, isn't that what God really expects of us?CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-40995641799022499642015-08-08T12:49:00.001-04:002015-08-08T12:49:24.753-04:00Lessons In 40 Years in Ministry: What Do You Learn After the First 20 Years?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman";">Lessons After 40
Years in Ministry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman";">(What Do You Learn
After the First 20 Years?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman";">Carl Shank<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman";">INTRO<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman";">Having read Brian
Croft’s </span><span style="font-family: "Avenir Oblique";">20 Lessons from 20
Years in Ministry*</span><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman";">, I took off
from his lessons, agreeing with many, adding to some, and developing others.
The original Croft lessons are labeled (BC). Any developmental lessons to his I
have added are labeled (CS). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">1. God’s Word is sufficient to build Christ’s Church (BC), but systems
matter (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">One of the major lessons in church health I have learned after being a
church health consultant since 1998 has been that church systems either hamper
or help to build the church. God’s Word provides the foundational building blocks
and sustains the church, but outdated or understaffed or wrongly staffed
systems can throttle a church and actually destroy it or limit its
effectiveness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">2. The Gospel is powerful enough to change lives (BC & CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Here I fully agree with Brian. There are and have been decent support
group materials and programs and retreats that have helped, no doubt. But I
have found that faithful teaching and preaching and application of God’s Word
is totally sufficient to build good marriages and solve the most intricate and
difficult personal problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">3. An effective pastor is one who feels deeply (BC), and who thinks
clearly about people and issues (CS). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Authenticity of emotion speaks volumes to a younger audience looking for
reality in their leaders and in their churches. But we must not let emotion
override or replace clarity of thinking and planning and calculating. Authentic
emotions plus clear thinking gives effectiveness in leadership and ministry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">4. Hang onto your family (BC & CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I could not agree more. I began ministry in the days when ministry was
all consuming and took time away from family and needed time with kids and
spouse. That was a mistake I have regretted with my first child, and have been
trying to make it up to him through the years. Family always comes first after
God, and ministry is further down on the list of priorities. It is so hard to
regain a spouse’s love and trust if you put ministry commitments over your
family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">5. Don’t underestimate the value of older members (BC), but understand
their limits in growing a church in the modern age (CS). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The older I get, the more I see the wisdom and need of older members in
a ministry and a church. However, not all older people think kingdom directed
thoughts, and some actually want to practice nostalgic church patterns and
programs which do not work anymore, especially for a younger generation. I have
learned to avoid those older members stuck in their ways which do not advance
God’s work and God’s kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">6. Pursue being wanted, not needed (BC & CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">John Maxwell has well said, “people don’t care about how much you know,
until they know how much you care.” Every leader and minister is expendable. We
need to let go of our egos and our self-proclaimed expertise as ministry goes
on. There is always someone better than you are in everything. The sooner we
realize this, the better and more effective and blessed our ministry becomes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">7. Don’t neglect your soul (BC & CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Good pastors and church leaders first care for their own spiritual
condition and health before attempting to care for the souls of others. To do
the latter without the former is at best worthless and at worst hypocrisy. You
cannot lead where you have not been in the spiritual realm. Self-discipline,
self-control, exercising the fruits of the Spirit are crucial to a healthy and
lasting ministry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">8. Faithfulness is worth the harshest of criticisms (BC), as long
as we understand faithfulness is not the same thing as theological or
ecclesiological narrowness or denominational pride (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Like Brian, I have had to make some very hard decisions in ministry and
leadership. But I have seen the “faithfulness card” played too often by narrow
and bigoted ministers and leaders who claim to follow God just to push their
own agendas on people. Good people have been dismissed from churches and
ministries because they have disagreed with the leadership. Or they have been
silenced or shuttled to the sidelines. We need to make sure our faithfulness to
God is really what God wants, not what we think God wants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">9. Authentic brokenness is better than unique giftedness (BC), but this
again depends on the type and place of ministry and leadership (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I value and champion authenticity and humility in ministry and
leadership. But I also value skills and wisdom in ministry and leadership.
Congregations and ministries value authentic brokenness in their leaders, but
they still want strength and wisdom and giftedness in their leaders. And they
don’t want or value excuses that seem to come from humbleness. They want
leaders to lead and with the skill sets to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">10. Training men for pastoral ministry is an unspeakable joy (BC), as
well as mentoring other leaders in ministry (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I have had the privilege in forty years of ministry to mentor and train
and help develop dozens of ministers and other church leaders. This is an
absolute joy and fulfillment of ministry. One of my sons is entering
professional ministry, and I have had the privilege to see him develop and grow
and become a friend of mine, as well as a son, and ask for advice and help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">11. The burden to care for souls is too great for one person (BC &
CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Amen to this reflection! Care-giving needs to be shared by many gifted
people within a ministry or congregation, and not expected only from the senior
leader. I have seen a “ranching type” of care giving approach reap vast
benefits for the whole of a congregation’s needs and wants. The senior leader
trains and organizes and even oversees other caregivers who use their skills
and gifts to care for others. This works in smaller as well as larger churches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">12. Pastors will give an account for every soul under their care (BC
& CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Hebrews 13:17 keeps me humble and often brings me up short in my care
for others and ministry to them. I agree with Brian that it is those difficult
souls that take the most out of you, but God has given them to you to love and
perhaps rebuke and challenge. And there will always be difficult people. I have
learned that people are basically the same everywhere, and that the ministry
grass is not at all greener on the other side of the tracks or fence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">13. The most crucial pastoral quality might be patience (BC), or at
least taking the long view of ministry (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Pastors require many godly qualities, but patience may be the most
important because of how it affects other qualities. Patience helps prevent
pastors from overreacting. It helps them make decisions and evaluate
their church with a long-term perspective and plan in view. We grow
in discernment and wisdom when we’re patient, but these qualities
are typically absent when we ramrod our agendas through (BC).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">14. Be content-driven with music (BC), and flexible with the worship
needs of people (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I agree that biblical truth must inform all of our worship, including
worship music. That music must also match the communication needs of the people
coming to services. And that means often a balance between old and newer forms
and formulations of musical styles. Forcing a group of people into a style that
does not speak to their worship needs is counterproductive and can be
unnecessarily divisive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">15. Learn what not to do (BC) in ministry programming as well as
personal priorities (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I believe more clearly now than ever that ministry is like a funnel, big
at the inception end and small at the concluding end. We try many things, some
good, some not so good, some neutral and some a waste of time in ministry
programming and personal achievements. Failure is always an option in ministry
programming, so long as it accords with Scripture and seeks to advance the kingdom
of God in a certain area.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">15a. Not everyone can do everything (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The pastor or minister who thinks he or she can do it all is sadly
deceived or mistaken. We all have gifts that differ and gifts that God has distributed
to us that are usually different from gifts He distributes to others. We cannot
and must not do it all. I have learned through the years that less stress and
more productivity in ministry comes from focusing on what you were made to do
rather than trying to do what others tell you to do or what you pridefully
think you can do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">16. Prayer changes me the most (BC & CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I have learned through the years, especially the last twenty years that
prayer walks, prayer retreats, taking weekly time off for sustained prayer
really do work miracles and solve problems in ministry and churches. The busier
you are, the more prayer is needed. I have learned that talking to God and
especially listening to God prevents many church catastrophes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">17. Choose battles wisely (BC), and know you cannot win them all (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">We need to pick and choose what we fight for and campaign for in
ministry and church leadership. Not everything really matters. And, I have
learned to lose graciously as well as win graciously. We will not and cannot
please everybody, and if one tries to do so, he or she will end up immensely
frustrated and may leave ministry altogether.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">18. Expect suffering (BC), and plenty of it (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Ministries that matter and lives that matter to God go through plenty of
suffering. Nothing really important comes without a great deal of pain and
travail. Some of this pain may be brought on by tough decisions, and some of it
will come simply through the travails of life and ministry itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">19. Numbers are not a helpful gauge for determining church health
(BC), but they must be figured into church effectiveness (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">While nickels and noses are not really the barometer for church wide
health and vitality, they should be considered as normal outcomes for effective
ministry. As a church health consultant, I fully agree with Brian’s note here,
but ministries that attract no one or drive people away in the name of health
or so-called biblical purity are misdirected. Healthy churches do indeed grow
in numbers and nickels. Not usually into mega-churches or vast campuses but
growth in all areas will be noted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">20. Jesus is always enough (BC), and the gospel is always the
bottom line and the main thing (CS).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Our worth is not measured by how successful or influential or powerful
our ministry has been. Character is always the bottom line here, and character
is developed by closeness to Jesus Christ and His gospel. Churches that matter
make the gospel the main thing, because at the end of the day, it is the main
thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">*Editors’ note: The article by Brian Croft originally
appeared at </span><a href="http://practicalshepherding.com/article/20-lessons-in-20-years-of-pastoral-ministry/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Practical
Shepherding</span></a><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Brian Croft is senior
pastor of </span><a href="http://auburndalebaptist.com/index.html"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Auburndale Baptist
Church</span></a><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> in Louisville, Kentucky. He is also the author of </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Visit-Sick-Ministering-Illness-Masters/dp/1846251435/?tag=thegospcoal-20"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Visit the Sick:
Ministering God’s Grace in Times of Illness</span></a><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> and </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Test-Train-Affirm-Send-Ministry/dp/1846251974/?tag=thegospcoal-20"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Test, Train, Affirm,
and Send Into Ministry: Recovering the Local Church’s Responsibility to the
External Call</span></a><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">. Brian blogs regularly at </span><a href="http://practicalshepherding.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Practical Shepherding</span></a><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Carl Shank is an executive pastor and church health
consultant at Pequea Church in Lancaster County, PA. He has been in the
ministry since 1973 and a consultant with ChurchSmart, Inc since 1998. He can
be reached at carlshankconsulting.com or email at<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="mailto:carl@carlshankconsulting.com"><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">carl@carlshankconsulting.com</span></a><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">.
</span><span style="font-family: "Avenir Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-25683598294821459852015-06-27T09:54:00.000-04:002015-06-27T09:54:20.260-04:00The Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Decision and the ChurchA lot of people, from all sides, are responding to the Supreme Court decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land. The claim is that this is what the majority of Americans want and desire. After all, recent polls show the majority favoring such a decision for homosexuals. The ploy by that community of people and their supporters is that everyone will want to be a part of history, and not left behind in such history breaking ground. And that includes the church.<br />
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Indeed, many Christian churches have given in to the rhetoric, the poor exegesis of biblical texts and contexts, and the "niceness" of those seeking homosexual affirmation and same-sex unions. My prediction stands that the Christian church, including many evangelical churches, will welcome and affirm homosexual people and same-sex couples as a "normal" part of their services and ministries in the not too far future. We will find openly gay people serving in all parts and roles of ministry in our churches. The LGBT community will be fully accepted in the church of Jesus Christ. We will become rainbow-colored churches. This is a tragedy and an open welcome for God's judgment upon the church.<br />
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I am an older evangelical pastor, who happens to believe that biblical truth never goes out of style and that there is always right and wrong in all things. The homosexual community will simply wait us out, no doubt, until we die off, and then they can make their presence and influence known in our churches. My son is studying for the ministry, and he and his kids will find a vastly different (and diverse) church in which to minister God's truth and gospel. But before I go the way of all flesh, let me just say a few things about this turn of events.<br />
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First, truth is non-negotiable. No matter what the post-Christian world says, truth is absolute, for all time and for all cultures and communities. Certainly, truth must be joined with grace and graciousness for all people in all circumstances. But that graciousness must not compromise or dilute truth, especially biblical truth. God does not operate on a majority opinion, nor on Supreme Court decisions. And the truth of the matter about homosexuality and its tentacles is that it is wrong-headed and sinful. No matter how much we want to re-interpret the plain texts of the Bible on this subject, the preponderance of truth is that openly gay choices and lifestyles are wrong.<br />
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Second, same-sex marriage and homosexuality are choices made, not genetically forced upon us so that we can do nothing about them. A lot of talk is made about homosexual desires and how people cannot help being what they are. This supposedly is a defense of openly gay choices and people. However, we all operate by <i>choices</i>. And those choices can be good or bad or neutral. I can choose to smoke or not smoke. Nicotine habits can be broken. Homosexual choices can be broken. To claim I have to be what I was made to be negates the "new birth" and "new creation" that God does in a person's life and choices. We all do what we <i>want</i> to do--just admit this about gay people and same-sex unions.<br />
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Third, we live and operate in an increasingly post-Christian and irreligious America. Everybody agrees with this. It's not a thesis or supposition anymore. It is a fact. We have trashed our Christian and biblically based value systems for a humanistic and me-centered lifestyle. Therefore, the Court simply recognized what is true about American culture and values and societal trends. Again, let's just admit this. However, admission of this cultural shift and trend does not make it right or acceptable in our churches. We still need to proclaim and teach biblical truth and standards and the gospel to a dying world.<br />
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Finally, life will get worse, not better, for a Christ-follower and a church committed to the truth of Scripture. Such thinking coincides with a Scriptural model of the end times. The letters of the New Testament talk about deception in the last days, and how people will call truth evil and hold to deceptive and false practices. Christ-followers are called to stand their ground. It will be a battle for the hearts and minds of cultures and communities. I predict a day when churches not accepting openly gay people and couples will lose their government privileges. They will be fined for not marrying same-sex couples. Not just dismissed, but openly challenged. Remember the words of Paul the Apostle, "having done all, to stand firm." (Ephesians 6:13)CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-68453032534903249862015-05-05T10:29:00.000-04:002015-05-05T10:29:42.761-04:00Principled RelationshipsI recently read an email devotional from a man I admire and respect, and have used many of his devotionals in my own life and work. However, I have had to disagree with the following devotional. Here it is:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #660000; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #860615;">Stop Living By Christian Principles</span></span></strong><br /><strong style="font-size: 10pt;">TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2 by <a href="http://msg4svc.net/cerkt/625779/88/291584/413942/0/S/0/0/jgla.html" target="_blank">Os Hillman</a></strong><br />Monday, May 04 2015<br /><br /><i>..."having a form of godliness but denying its power"</i> (2 Tim 3:5).</div>
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God never called you to live by Christian principles. He calls you to live in relationship with the living God, Jesus Christ. One of the weaknesses of the Church today is that we teach people principles without the relationship. </div>
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The western church is big on ten step programs, "how-to" methods and acrostics to illustrate memorable ideas. There is a place for establishing principles to change negative behavior. However, we are not called to have a relationship with principles, but a living God.</div>
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Living by principles is the equivalent to living by the law in the Old Testament. It is rooted in the Greek system of learning and is dependent upon our strength instead of being led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Principle-based living is powerless living. This makes our Christian experience a religion instead of a relationship. "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law" (Gal 5:18). </div>
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We read about principle-based followers in the book of Acts, "The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people" (Acts 5:12-14). There was a group of followers who liked being taught but never entered the game.</div>
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The prophet Jeremiah tells us about the nature of God and His desire for every believer. </div>
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This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24).</div>
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Friend, have you been guilty of living a life based on principles instead of knowing the One who authored the principles? Invite Jesus to be Lord over your life and begin to spend time with Him every day. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you through every moment of your day.</div>
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I fully agree with the problem of "religion vs relationship," and the need of personally knowing Christ with a vital relationship. What I have a problem with is the trashing of Christian "principles" as if something is wrong with living a principled life.<br />
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The Old Testament principles were established as a means of loving and obeying a covenant keeping God. The introductory statement to the ten commandments in Exodus 20 reads: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." God begins the commandments with a statement of redemption and deliverance. The commands are meant to flow from and follow redemption, not to be a substitute for them. It may be true that Israel missed this flow and legalistically followed the commands without savoring and living out the reality of a redemptive covenant relationship with God. And they did not do this well, as we know. But this does not invalidate those principles, which, by the way, Jesus Himself followed and obeyed.<br />
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Our own law code is founded on biblical principles, not a Greek-based system of learning. I am glad we are a society resting on principles, not on some kind of experiential, illusive, feeling-oriented relational reality. It is true our American and Western societies have departed greatly from those biblically based principles. That is to our detriment and maybe future destruction.<br />
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I am also thankful that many non-Christians I know live "principled" lives. My own deceased father, while never knowing Christ personally and relationally, lived on Christian principles taught to him by his grandparents and other family members. Therefore, he did not steal or murder or covet another woman apart from my mom. He even kept the sabbath. Not out of a relationship with Christ, but out of principled living.<br />
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So, I am opting for what I call a "principled relationship." I love Jesus and abide by biblical principles. Both are important and necessary. Why would we want it another way?CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6233204009905719156.post-21454299310465123512014-05-22T15:45:00.000-04:002014-05-22T15:45:19.526-04:00The Coming Evangelical DivisionThere is an evangelical division coming! This division has wide ranging consequences and can influence everything from ecclesiology to fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures. It is a division that can wreck havoc with how churches evangelize and grow and receive new members. It is a new division in the sense that the modern church has not seen it take this shape and form ever. What is this division? It is the division between those who follow the Scriptures concerning the homosexuality and same-sex marriage issues and those who "accommodate" the Bible to include members of the LGBT community into their churches and ministries.<br />
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"Accommodation" of the Scriptures is quite serious. It is where theological modernism finds its roots since it plays with direct teachings of the Bible and makes them appear not so direct and plain and applicable. It "enculturates" the teachings of the Bible in these sexual and marriage issues and relegates them to the past or roots them in ancient controversies and challenges to Christian moral teaching. Thus, Paul's very plain warnings against homosexual behavior in Romans 1 are re-read and to be understood in a context of sexual license in the ancient Near East. It is the same thing in the Old Testament when homosexuality is outrightly condemned. Only here the rebuttal comes in many "accepted" evangelical forms--"that's the OT and does not apply to us today," or "that is just for the Jewish people a long time ago," or "the love and teachings of Jesus have eliminated and overcome such harsh teaching." So, homosexuality is fine as long as people "love" one another and why not same sex unions, since Jesus did not really ban them.<br />
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The other not-so-Bible based side of this accommodation comes from well-meaning, seeker oriented churches who are trying to attract and capture the unchurched, especially the younger unchurched. Since post-modern people make up their own rules of interpretation and truth, we can apply that to the Bible and it's passages on marriage and sexual orientation. We can accept them "as they are" and HOPE that they, in time, "come around" to embrace biblical Christianity, whatever that may mean. After all, we need to love them for Jesus' sake, and love knows no criticism when it comes to church attendance, church participation and even ministry. We don't want to offend people. We want people to like us and our ministries. This kind of thinking follows the pattern of "light," topically based sermons, geared to the modern, younger mindset. It is always non-judgmental, non-defining, and non-controversial. It tends to be positive, uplifting, easy to follow and relevant to today's millennials. Old concepts and terms like "sin," and "wrath" and "hell" and "judgment" and a slew of others are avoided at all costs.<br />
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The excuse used, of course, is that the modern mindset can't or won't understand or pay any attention to biblical terms and teaching. So, we need to "update" the Bible and its teachings to "accommodate" this new generation and their thinking. Many of these churches are large, overflowing with crowds of people mostly illiterate in Bible knowledge. But that's o.k. We will hopefully "get to that" in small groups and classes. Really?? I have yet to see that happen widely and pervasively.<br />
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The other side will be those evangelicals who take Scripture and its interpretation and proclamation seriously. These churches and ministries preach and teach the Scriptures, usually in an expositional fashion, seeking to explain and apply passages of the Bible to the modern mindset. Actually, there are some large churches around who practice this manner of ministry. The Bible declares that one man plus one woman equals marriage and that is for a lifetime. Homosexuality is not merely looked down upon but preached against and LGBT people, while welcome, are told honestly and upfront where the church and its teaching stand. Rather than trying to deceive or trick people into the church, these ministries seek to counsel and work with homosexuals so that they forsake that practice and mindset. While many charge these ministries as being harsh and irrelevant, they practice tough love and true biblical understanding and application.<br />
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These churches differ from the former often in language, style of teaching, core values and concepts and goals and ministry vision. They, too, want to reach the post-modern, younger, unchurched generation, but with revealed truth and light from the Word of God rigorously taught and applied and lived out in discipleship.<br />
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On which side of the divide will you fall?CarlBIChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14752702145397560548noreply@blogger.com