Linkathon!
The young and secular are least vaccinated, not evangelicals…
IOS apps for spiritual formation…
Brian Houston of Hillsong charged with covering sexual abuse…
Class action suit filed against RZIM…
With this much rot, there’s no choice but to deconstruct…
Becoming a better social media neighbor…
An Unvaccinated Pastor Battling COVID Is Now Begging Others to āLearn From My Storyā…
Why one ancient mega church pastor wants you to get the vaccine…
The early fathers on Romans 9…
It takes faith to resist the attention economy…
In progress…
As an artist on the side, I will be interested in reading the āWhen Rome Policed Artā link.
Deconstruction has received a bad rap in much of the Evangelical church because of some well-known Christians who are deconstructing and now, according to some peopleās standards, have committed apostasy. This will be an interesting read as well. I have been deconstructing for some time, and havenāt lost faith.
Take that you so-called evangelical gate-keepers!!!!
That deconstruction link is gold…
‘Deconstruction of one’s faith’ has been around as long as Christianity has! I went through a period of loss and questioning of my faith around 1O years ago. During this time I read the Book of Job over and over again. Job was ‘deconstructing’ his faith just as I was. I began my journey of deconstructing by questioning God, just as Job did, but eventually I began to question my own understanding of God and the church who gave me an inadequate and warped understanding of God. I changed churches, and my faith is now less brittle, and deeper than ever. I have learned to embrace the mystery of God rather than fear it.
The deconstruction article was interesting.
āIt will begin with what the Bible tells the church in Revelation 2:4-5: First, considering how far we have strayed from our first love, then repenting of this and returning to our first love ā Jesus.ā
I like the application of Revelation. This is the primary purpose of Revelation – encouraging the churches in these last days.
āWe must make Jesus the head of his bride again. We can no longer put the church ā its name, its reputation, its money, its salaries, its staff, its programs, its numbers ā before Christ himself.ā
That would take a house cleaning, because typically institutions do not voluntarily concede power.
āA reconstruction built on the bones of orthodox doctrines as old as the church herself, on the Word of God, the person of Christ revealed in that Word, and sealed by the work of the Holy Spirit will not only remove the rot but will render unto us something solid, fresh and good.ā
This one made me laugh. I donāt know if the author even knows what she is writing here. If her church body is/was the SBC, then it was never founded on the āorthodox doctrines as old as the church herself ā in the first place. On the other hand, if this happened, it would be a miracle on par (or greater) with the 16th Century Reformation.
https://www.cato.org/blog/14-most-common-arguments-against-immigration-why-theyre-wrong
That is an interesting article on immigration, Michael! Thank you! The first point about immigrants to taking the jobs Americans don’t want to do is definitely true. My parents lived in the Marshall Islands in Micronesia for 20 years. The Marshallese natives were quite primitive ( Their king had 9 wives). Our government has leased their islands for inter ballistic missile radar stations, military bases, and also for testing atomic bombs there at one time. It’s a U.S. Trust Territory. The rising oceans are causing their island nation to disappear as the seas rise. We were just in Hawaii and my daughter says that even there the Micronesians are looked down on. The U.S. has allowed them to migrate here because we have Army bases and defense programs on various islands there, and because the atomic testing there has resulted in many of their islands becoming uninhabitable. My youngest daughter lives in Arkansas, and interestingly, there is a large population of Marshallese Pacific Islander immigrants living in Arkansas! There is a poultry slaughter house there, and no Americans want to work at a slaughter house, so the Marshallese have created a community there supporting themselves doing a job no one else wants to do. She says there is even a Marshallese language radio station nearby! My own grandfather was a Swedish immigrant who supported himself by fishing the frigid waters of the Missippi River in Iowa. No Americans wanted that job,either! In winter they harvested ice from the river for ice boxes to supplement what they made fishing on the Mississippi! My father ( 94 years old) remembers helping with both the fishing and the ice harvesting – his father pulled him out of school to help with the work. My father ended up a M.I.T. mathematician working on inter ballistic missile defense. America needs workers to take many of the jobs that are hard to fill. We end up being stronger in the long run!
BoC,
Thank you…just trying to get info out there to break the narrative…
Interesting article about immigration except #13… regarding Russia, specifically. That will be a very different country in our kids’ lifetimes, far sadder even than now.
The unvaccinated pastor begging others to get the COVID shot, unfortunately, is just the tip of the iceberg WRT vaccinations and real world reality.
Congressman Suing Pelosi Over Mask Fines Gets COVID
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet
A Texas GOP leader railed against vaccines and masks. Then he died of covid.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/s/nation/2021/08/05/texas-gop-leader-antimask-antivax-dies-covid/
Politicizing this vaccination has led to countless unnecessary deaths and unbelievable unneessary suffering. From the get-go, we should’ve been fighting covid-19 — not each other.
Very sad.
Shane Vander Hart: “Evangelicalism is not just white, not Republican, and not monolithic. It is defined by the good news of Jesus Christ as revealed in scripture.”
i think i can say amen to that definition….. š
Nice quote, Em!
Thank you, BoC
Taken from the first link in this list
An American kingdom…
If I where to make up some new doctrines, my first would be called The Doctrine of Entropy. But not too far behind would be a doctrine attempting to discribe the Beast and other related concepts of the Eschaton.
The WaPo article is describing what I believe to be the assembling of the Beast in the latter centuries of the Church age. The number of its name is an extremely simple riddle meaning Eido. So simple, it escaped notice for twenty centuries.
The Beast is discribed in various snapshots from various angles. An observer is not likely to include the aspects time, afterlife and the World above. The descriptions offer only tiny segments that are separated by time and location.
The article discribes people seaking contact with spirits. The type of doctrines being developed will result in violent conflict in the afterlife. They are being conditioned to seek power and dominion. They are also being conditioned to determine for themselves what is the knowledge of good and evil.
Entropy – good doctrine as everything certainly does seem to be going downhill to oblivion
“The article discribes people seaking contact with spirits. The type of doctrines being developed will result in violent conflict in the afterlife. They are being conditioned to seek power and dominion. They are also being conditioned to determine for themselves what is the knowledge of good and evil.”
violent conflict in the afterlife? ? ?
however, seeking spirit contact certainly does set things up for Satan to reveal himself to unbelievers…. or even shallow Believers? not sure
An American Kingdom
“It was an hour and a half into the 11 a.m. service of a church that represents a rapidly growing kind of Christianity in the United States, one whose goal includes bringing under the authority of a biblical God every facet of life, from schools to city halls to Washington”
First, let us note that this is not new. The peasant war in Germany was fomented by “prophets” who preached an ideal Christian commonwealth in the 16th century. Whether there were even earlier manifestations of this heresy, I don’t know.
However, let us also note that this new movement, described in the article, does not in any way, shape or form, actually desire to bring our society under “the authority of the biblical God.”
Can you imagine a society (of sinners, Christian and pagan) built on the laws of the Sermon on the Mount? Could a society survive by forgiving murderers, pedophiles, rapists, drug dealers, human trafficers, and thieves? Does the church in the article teach that people should love their enemies, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile and sell what they have and give to the poor?
So, no, the preacher of that church is lying out of his a** (or he’s just plain stupid). What’s worse is he is breaking the commandment against taking the name of the Lord in vain.
Jesus never, never told his disciples to bring any nation under the law of God. His only commission is to make disciples of himself of all nations, baptizing the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all he has commanded. Do we have the authority to add to the commission of Christ? Is Jesus king or are we? Does Christ know best or do we?
Jesus flat out told Pilate His kingdom was not of this world. His kingdom was not a military threat to Rome. His kingdom does not come by force or coercion or at the ballot box. It comes through the word of the cross, through preaching.
Will we ever learn?
My favorite link this week…
https://mereorthodoxy.com/southern-guilt-southern-gospel/
Re: An American Kingdom:
What a mercy it is that these people cannot bring their plans to fruition.
It would be as brutal a dictatorship as any we’ve seen.
Sadly, we are staring in the face another power grab, another, godless dictatorship…. Or so it seems to me
Michael’s link @11:40
“The churches were respected…..”
Are those days gone for good?
Actually, because the insurrection failed, we narrowly avoided a dictatorship.
We have an empty suit at the moment…but that scares me less…
“āThe churches were respectedā¦..ā
Are those days gone for good?”
The damage done will take a generation to repair…at least.
We will not see anything but carnage in our lifetimes.
Is a godless dictatorship the occurrence of a governmental decision that one subjectively disagrees with?
Don’t understand the question, Jean…… ?
A godless dictatorship is disagreeable – subjectively and objectively
https://religionnews.com/2021/08/07/americas-revival-christian-nationalism-greg-locke-mike-lindell-joshua-feuerstein-trump-conspiracy-theories/
Michael, I donāt think Iāve ever written this here, but that article appears to me to say that the anti-Christ is taking control of American churches. I canāt think of a greater abomination and blasphemy.
It is the anti-christ spirit and a great delusion…
I appreciated the article on Leaving the Orthodox Church. It is familiar framework as other articles written by people who leave evangelicalism/megachurchism/Catholicism/Non-denominationalism/Pentecostalism/Sessionism/etc. And on and on it goes.
I had read from some of the early fathers and other writers within the Orthodox faith. Interesting works, some informed my dissertation. I am drawn to their perspective on soteriology and the work of the Incarnation as healing humanity. It was the smugness of a few, including an orthodox priest that caused me to finally set aside any idea of becoming a part of that church. I can get all the smugness I can handle within Evangelicalism. That being said, there are many things about Orthodoxy that I really liked.
If American Christianity is that much in bed with Nationalism, Trump, Conspiracy theories, etc, well then I am not sure what to say other than ICHABOD (did I use that reference correctly?). Maybe the late Rachel Held Evans was a prophet in some ways in ditching Evangelicalsm so publicly.
The longer Evangelicals and Pentecostals (see Charisma News for how deep they are in the pit as well) persist in this trend, the harder and more tragic the fall will be.
Oh and for those here that will claim I am a liberal for saying thatā¦lifelong conservative here.
I don’t see a way out for American Evangelicalism. The masses are not connected to historical teachings of the first centuries. So, no ballast effect there.
The average person can not, or will not consider doctrine beyond sound bite level or slogans. So, no help from Scripture. The Mass is now adrift.
If we go back to an earlier era of eschatolical ferment, we can identify Dispensationism emerging as a reaction to many decades of social, religious, political and international change.
I visualize the current state of Evangelism as a firestorm generating its own draft, or a nuclear pile with in chain reaction. It no longer needs outside stimuli to maintain a state of ferment. That ferment will become eschatolicaly violent.
Specifically regarding President Trump, he is arguably a King in the Kingdom of God. He differs from messianic figures of past religious movements, in that he is amoral / adoctrinal.
It is s pure power play of dominion over the Earth. Free power. There is no cost, as with messianic figures of the past, only benefits. Compare this to a recent Messiah, Bill Gothard.
Yes, you recieved supernatural benefit under the Umbrella of Protection, but vast rules had to be kept. It was a transactional relationship with God, through Gothard. But now comes power decoupled from any transaction fees.
Was listening to the late Adrian Rogers this morning. His sermon topic was the written Word of God. I don’t know the year, but he observed that churches, then, were being pressured to entertain – not preach or teach……
Em,
Love Adrian Rogers…solid Bible teacher