Linkathon!
Polyamory is not ânext;â itâs here now, In the churches…
Inside the church that preaches âwives need to be led with a firm handâ
Anglican sect growing in America…
Southern Baptists say no to women pastora…but what does the bible say a pastor is?
New biography of Elizabeth Elliot is painfully honest…
This isn’t a “Christian” link, but it is from one of the few writers I trust on the drug wars…U.S. finally hits Chinese labs over fentanyl...
Quiet times don’t have to be boring…
AI and the future of the church…
Martin Luther King JR’s Christian apologetics…
Youth pastors grapple with new questions…
Open communion invites the devil to the table…
Interesting take on Mary Magdalene…
A good death for dying churches…
Five persons in a sub vs. five hundred refugees…
Transformed by the dog I never wanted…
Christians against Christian nationalism…
C.S. Lewis: A profile of his life…
Plague advice from Martin Luther…
A prayer meeting that lasted a hundred years…
Searching for a robust spirituality in a doonscrolling world…
Elisabeth Elliott-one of the reasons I became a missionary . When I first “met” in her in my 6th grade Sunday School class, she was a mythical figure who had overcome her bitterness toward the Auca (Waorani). Somewhere along the way I read “Shadow of the Almighty” and “Through Gates of Splendor.” I heard her speak at the ’76 Urbana Conference. Before I went to my overseas assignment, I was gifted with “These Strange Ashes” and “No Graven Image”-books about not achieving your dreams and failure on the mission field (I don’t recommend giving those books to any outgoing female missionary, by the way. Better to read them on the first home assignment).
The last two books really caught my attention. What, excactly, had I signed up for? My seven years on the field were short, difficult, and significant (although I found that out much later as I was able to communicate with the kids I taught and who they have grown up to be. God was busy doing things I was totally unaware of!). I always felt I left too early and wasn’t able to finish what I had started (due to a family tragedy), but time and Facebook tell a different tale.
Elisabeth E can be a hard person to fathom, but she continually communicated to me that God’s will is not easy to understand, missionary life can be very hard, but that very difficulty brings a joy that is without measure. I didn’t always agree with her, nor did I find her consistent, but she loved God and about that she was VERY consistent. I think if we looked at our Christians leaders through prisms, catching their many facets as a whole, vs. one lens, we would understand and appreciate them much better. They are human, after all.
As to Doug Wilson-Ugghhhh!
I confess that I’ve always found Elizabeth Elliot hard to take and Jim Elliot even more so….I’ll probably read this bio and see if I can get some balance.
Doug Wilson and his ilk are talking vermin.
Michael,
I’m working through a book at home called “Devotedly” by Valerie Elliot Shepherd, Elisabeth’s daughter. It has been rough going, but it does provide some perspective on both the times and the teaching, much of it along the lines of Keswick theology (in my view, over examining everything to make sure it really is God’s will, almost a “burning in the bosom” approach.) Getting that introspective about everything can really mess up your theology. i’ve always been if my desire goes in a certain direction supported by Scripture and God has opened a door for me to do it, I’m the first one through that door. (See “Decision Making and the Will of God” by Gary Friesen).
“God In the Rainforest” is an excellent read on what happened to the Waorani after the massacre and the return of Elliot and Saint. It’s well-written, well-researched, and honest about the struggles between the two women-great women of God who probably weren’t ever created to be under the same jungle tree. Yet, they did an amazing spiritual work among the Waoroni. I think you would like it.
Thanks for a great list of links this week!
Thank you, Linn!
Keswick theology is the root of many problems theologically…
ââŠtalking vermin.â Thatâs way too mild. Disgusting spawn of satan might also be too mild.
CK,
I was going to get more colorful, but those terms will do…
The parallels between Wilson’s ‘kirk’ and fundamentalist Islam are striking.
For the life of me I still cannot understand why people would willingly put themselves under a totalitarian and brutal dictatorship.
Doug Wilson’s church says it’s okay to rape wives and most Christians shudder as they recognize that this is textbook domestic violence. Yet many evangelical churches still insist that women submit to their husbands in all matters. This results in many kinds of abuse. The Calvary Chapel I attended for 30 years taught that a husband owned everything that belonged to a woman, and that the husband could do anything he wanted with his wive’s money and resources. I personally knew a woman at my Calvary Chapel church who inherited a large amount of money She put in her own private bank account, only to have her Christian husband force his own daughter to forge this woman’s signature so that he could remove all of his wife’s inheritance. This is illegal, of course. By the time she found out what het husband had done, her inheritance was gone. The church didn’t see his behavior as wrong. That same year, the year if the Great Recession, my husband and I sought marriage counseling at this same Calvary Chapel church in Vista .The counseling assistant pastor told me that my unemployment check, my Calif state Teachers’ pension I was receiving monthly, and any money I inherited from my wells to-do parents in the future all belonged to my husband – to do whatever he wanted with. ZRven if he lost or spent all of iwayhe said.That kind of marriage advice enables and condones financial abuse in marriages. There are many different kinds of abusive behavior in marriage. Financial abuse, psychologucal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse and more. Teaching married women that they have no rights at all in a marriage inevitably leads to abuse. When this same church told me I had no right to vote in elections in the way my conscious and my mind led me to, but instead, I had to vote however my husband told me to, I finally left Calvary Chapel and I never went back. Absolute power and control corrupts.
Janet Linn,BrideOfChrist,
Well said…I completely agree.
brideofChrist, AMEN, Women are not brain dead!
open communion? WORTH A READ AND PONEER…. imnsho
poneer? nope,, meant to say ‘ponder’
@Janet Linn,
I got roped into Calvary Chapel as a young Army vet back during the wind-down of Vietnam.
I endured 10 years of it before my conscience finally said ENOUGH.
Calvary Chapel is a cult, plain and simple.
Liked the piece on ML King’s apologetics.
I’m about 3/4 through a new King bio, first new one in 30 years. Numerous places in the book where it’obvious that his faith in God was the bedrock of his entire existence.
I have to politely disagree with you Muff. CalvaryChapel isnât a cult by any length or measure and doesnât fit the definition of a cult. Happy Independence Day.
Agree with Jimmy
Calvary does not fit the definition of a cult
There are things wrong with CC, but being a cult is not one of them
JimmyT and Officerhappy, i agree FWIW
Have you ever heard people talk about being âBorn Againâ? Not unlike the word âevangelicalâ. Unfortunately, the word âevangelical has come to mean something today other than what was originally intended. Itâ a term coined by Jesus himself, it was never a political party, or an ideology. So he gets to decide what it means. đ
Some CC’s are definitely cultic and some I do believe are full blown cults.
Michael
No doubt they are at least personality cults. But so are a lot of other ministries. But CC as a whole, is not a cult. Otherwise I never would have been a CC pastor
Officerhoppy,
I would suggest (and maybe even argue) that the church you began in was cultic in how it treated leadership and congregants.
Where does Jesus coin the word “evangelical” in the Scriptures?
There are definitely some cultic practices among CCâs. That being said, I thank God for men like Dave Rolph, Tom Stipe, Steve Hopkins and others who led with integrity.
One of the weirdest, most cult-like things I ever heard out of CC was something a pastor said at Chuck Smith’s funeral. I don’t remember who it was, not one of the big names. Maybe I misinterpreted what he said, but it seems he was claiming that Chuck, being so much better than everybody else, would get to enter heaven through the VIP entrance. Something like, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, but for some of the most honored saints, he will get out of his chair, stand up and say, “Come up here.”
Like I said, perhaps I remember wrong. If someone has access to the exact quote, maybe they could check. But it just seemed weird to me. I always believed that in heaven, we are all equal — miserable sinners washed in the blood and saved by grace. VIP entrance to heaven??
John in AZ – pure lunacy!