LINKS!
Because I’m not spending much time online, this is basically a “BYOL”…bring your own LINKS!.
What caught your eye online?
Driscoll’s heir apparent…and already in trouble.
Does ISIS represent true Islam?
20 countries where Christianity is growing fastest…
Bible reading destroys the church…
Faithful unto death…what we can learn from Polycarp.
Another Pew Report on religion and politics…
Rachel Evans on the culture that enabled Driscoll…
Wenatchee the Hatchet does brilliant work on the Mars Hill story…
The way that the Ignite “pastor” spoke to the female bartender was disgusting.
I’m guessing that I feel the same way about that Ignite pastor, along with the Westboro Baptist bigots, as many Muslims feel about ISIS.
Could not resist posting this link about Rick Joyner at age 65 riding 640 miles in one day on his motorcycle, much of it in the rain:
http://www.morningstartv.com/prophetic-perspective-current-events/god-control-0
Exactly, Nonnie!!!
The Ignite guy – the typical independent church owner. It’s in their theology of aloneness.
From the Pew Report – I like question #4 – “For the first time in a Pew Research survey, we asked Americans whether they think businesses that provide wedding services, such as catering or flowers, should be allowed to refuse services to same-sex couples for religious reasons. There was an even split on this question, with 47% saying that businesses should be allowed to refuse services related to same-sex weddings and 49% saying they should be required to provide services as they would to all other customers.”
I heard the best response to this that should totally eliminate the problem. A guy hung a sign in his bakery that said something to the effect;
“We gladly make cakes for same sex marriages… all proceeds will go to Focus on the Family.”
You know the homosexuals don’t want to support them – so they won’t even ask..
Every once in a while RHE only gets one eye roll from me. The link here was one such post.
But really, Thockmorton and Wenattchee have been rocking the MD zone.
Bible reading destroys the church.
Paul T. Penley, PhD
I have to ask two questions about this author and his thesis; what church is he talking about and why is he concerned about 34,000 chutches?
Personally I would rather take the risk than to censor people from the recorded words of God and the story of His people.
Ok one more question for the Doctor; why does he believe his interpretations are more accurate? That would have been a better article, but of course few would have read it.
Responding to number 9.
My church, (well not now my church), ever since 1967, has not allowed nor encouraged real usage of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Oh they teach will on them and pretend that they are for them but the truth is that they actually discourage anyone with gifting in the Lord to “leave and perhaps start your own church.”
No young people are allowed to be gifted, only the old original “old-timers.”
And as you can guess the church became very stagnant, oh sure they teach some good basic Bible lessons but…
Ugg!
We had to start going as a group out into the desert to have the freedom needed to explore the usage of the gifts and to be able to see them function in the gathering of the Christians.
We had a blast and can honestly say that if you want to explore the gifts of the Holy Spirit you might have to get outside of the confining “Church – walls” and take it to the streets…
Polycarp was the man!
Oh man…lol…wrong place…for comment…LOL
MLD “Itās in their theology of aloneness.” That is one of the most profound phrases I have ever read here, it sums it up clearly and concise. Listening to that “pastor” it was like if you really need Christ you are a wimp and are a disgusting piece of human filth. I know I may be wrong but I find it awful and very disgusting to talk to women / wives like this man does.
As for the city I live in they were arguing about affordable housing and want to build huge appartment type high density housing. The rents for a two bedroom 2500 sqft in the higher rents is now going for 11K + and that is just for rent. There are even some ideas being floated to eminent domain single family homes established residential along major corridors of travel and building very high density housing retail. There is also the idea of going after cemeteries because the land is only for “…emotional use and serve no functional purpose..” Some of these developers are extremely aggressive. Some help from some people I have talked with Alex and Michael about where they live rents weather jobs etc, I hate where I live to be honest, they have ruined this city, a very few made major bank, which justifies them doing so but its time to leave. thanks
ISIS is a violent group of thugs part of me thinks they kill one of us we kill 10,000 of them or more and far more brutal than they do. That is not the right approach of course but I hate just how brutal they have been even more so to fellow muslims.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/return-to-africas-witch-children/
I remember sending this to several big name preachers to see of they would do some discussion concerning what was going on when this was happening. Not one did, at the same time though they produced an average of 3 to 5 posts / sermons on SSM. Kids being killed after being accused of being a witch, which is rank, disgusting, pathetic superstition, there is no such thing as a witch, especially a kid.
Brian,
Deut 18:10
Exodus 22:18
The bible does make mention of witches.
But what is happening in Africa is insane.
Salem comes to mind.
BYOL – A link on the dark(er) side of homosexual marriage. Consistent with the experience of several people I know and/or minister to. (From our friend, Derek)
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/09/13692/?utm_content=buffer46382&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Sad, Steve.
From the same site:
Pro same sex marriage Christians are just like the “world”
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/08/13667/
Who cares if ISIS represents “true” Islam? It is a facet of Islam, which has been at work in the world ever since the Demon, disguising himself as the angel Gabriel, hissed the Koran into the ears of Mohammed 1400 years ago. The first things the followers of Mohammed did, once they got organized, was to begin their conquest of the known world. The only reason they didn’t conquer Europe at that time is thanks to the efforts of the Byzantine Empire in the East and the Merovingian kings in the West. But since Europe has adopted “niceness” as their main theology instead of genuine Christianity, they are allowing followers of Islam to overrun their countries in the name of tolerance. So what the Muslims could not accomplish by means of force in the West they are accomplishing by taking advantage of western foolishness.
An Iraqi bishop recently wrote the following:
āOur sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future,ā said Archbishop Amel Shimoun Nona in an interview by Corriere della Sera. āI lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.ā
The archbishopās interview was reported by the blog Rorate Caeli.
Nona, whose Eastern Rite church is under the authority of Pope Francis, now lives in Erbil, in Kurdistan, Iraq.
The archbishop warned:
“Please, try to understand us. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. Also you are in danger. You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home.”
It’s eerie to visit the web sites of some of these Iraqi churches and realize nobody is there anymore….
Xenia makes tragic sense with this post… Liberal western sensibilities are going to be the seed bed of Islamic swords. They are going to take advantage of naive liberal hearts until they gain the momentum to strangle the host.
But we must be careful not to assume all Arabs are Muslims.
The most numerous ethnic group of Middle Eastern peopleāthose identifying as āArabsāāhas a presence of about 1.7 million people in America. Of those, 63 percent are Christians.
– taken from an excellent First Things article…
http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/09/wearen
… on the invisibility of Holy Land Christians, especially by folks like Senator Ted Cruz, who seems to have confused Christians with the nation of Israel.
I think that ISIS represents true Islam. They may not represent the average Muslim, because just like most Christians, Muslims (especially in America) don’t understand their own religion, what should be taught and what it stands for … instead choosing to believe Islam is all kumbaya bs.
with that said, I still oppose our efforts in this war.
This simple link explains a lot about “true Islam” – its all about the numbers.
Here’s a link of someone’s thoughts regarding the link Steve shared on the dark side of homosexual marriage. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/09/has-gay-marriage-harmed-this-writer-and-her-children.html
j2 – I recognize there could be plenty more to the story as to the custody discussion, living arrangements and so forth. I’m sure this abandoned wife is not putting her former husband’s story in the most positive light possible.
But sorry, my turn to laugh was when the patheos author said that if gay marriage was legal all along this guy would never have had to hide who he was.
This isn’t 1940 and she was not a fish wife. He had marital sexual relations with his wife, a female, produced children with her and then decided he wanted sex with men with the full applause of the majority of society today.
Have we really gotten to the point where we cut the homosexual every possible bit of slack that they can do no wrong.
Instead of this guy avoiding women, being in a homosexual relationship outside of marriage (before it was legal), or just playing the male homosexual field,
somehow our horrible, oppressive, Bible-thumpin society FORCED this guy to marry a woman, produce children with her, then abandon her.
And as I wrote before, I could cite plenty of similar personal examples directly related to the ministry I have, but of course I will not here in a public forum…
Raise up a cry Steve
***But sorry, my turn to laugh was when the patheos author said that if gay marriage was legal all along this guy would never have had to hide who he was. ***
For what it’s worth, I did not agree with that hypothesis. I did, however, agree with the idea that the harms she presented were the harms of divorce and not uniquely the harms of the acceptance of homosexual behavior or homosexual marriage. While the environment she presented her children as being exposed to while in their father’s care does not seem a healthy one, it seems no worse than the environments many children of divorced heterosexual parents are exposed to, as evidenced by the numerous children who have been abused and killed by the new boyfriends of their heterosexual mothers.
Finally Muslims are calling out ans standing up to the extremists who misrepresent their religion!
http://www.dawn.com/news/1134043/with-their-feet-and-a-tweet-europes-muslims-stand-up-to-is
http://lettertobaghdadi.com/index.php
My POV which may well be wrong, Absolutism in all its forms in the temporal realm given we have nuclear, biological weapons may well be a species ender. Nothing gets some people off like killing a whole bunch of folks for what ever tribal deity they are worshiping. I mean no offense. If God is all powerful etc. He can do His own killing he dont need our help. This also goes for state absolutism like communism etc. We live in a world of probabilities not absolutes, we may framework our world view in absolutes but none of us, and I mean none of us live in that world we just cant. And that may well be the most absolute statement I have ever made here.
Is there really a time since 1300 or so, where we can honestly accuse Christians for killing a whole bunch of people for their deity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_martyrs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism
“I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said “Stop! don’t do it!” “Why shouldn’t I?” he said. I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!” He said, “Like what?” I said, “Well…are you religious or atheist?” He said, “Religious.” I said, “Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?” He said, “Christian.” I said, “Me too! Are you catholic or protestant?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?” He said, “Baptist!” I said,”Wow! Me too! Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?” He said, “Baptist church of god!” I said, “Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?” He said,”Reformed Baptist church of god!” I said, “Me too! Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?” He said, “Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!” I said, “Die, heretic scum”, and pushed him off.”
— Emo Phillips
http://www.changingthefaceofchristianity.com/christian-advice-column/christians-killed-more-people-than-anyone/
Just as Islam has its radicals who do heinous things that the majority of Muslims would never consider ā so do does Christianity have its radicals who do heinous things that the majority of Christians would never consider. And thatās your ātrump cardā against the alleged argument.
An ideal example to illustrate this is found in Mark 9:38-40. Jesusā disciples were complaining to Him that theyād observed a man ministering and driving out demons in Jesusā name. The disciples thought he should be stopped, because he was not one of them (Jesusā disciples) and Jesus had not commissioned him or given him the authority to do what he was doing. But Jesus said, āDo not stop him,ā Jesus said. āNo one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.ā Clearly, the people who persecuted the men that were translating the Bible into English had overlooked this Scripture passage!
After the American Civil War of 1861ā1865, members of the Protestant-led[59] Ku Klux Klan (KKK) organization began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burnings, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping. They targeted African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.
Klan members had an explicitly Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in part on a “religious foundation” in Christianity.[60] The goals of the KKK included, from an early time onward, an intent to “reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible”, and they believed that “Jesus was the first Klansman.”[61] From 1915 Klansmen conducted cross-burnings not only to intimidate targets, but also to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the ritual of lighting crosses was steeped in Christian symbolism, including saying prayers and singing Christian hymns.[62] Within Christianity the Klan directed hostilities against Catholics. Modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, detecting a “war” which allegedly aims to destroy “western Christian civilization.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism#United_States
Hmmm, probably another reason we should not be involved in this action against ISIS. I don’t think we would have put up with Saudi Arabia invading and bombing the USA because we couldn’t control the KKK.
though our faith is not perfect we have a long tradition of calling out those who misrepresent Jesus.
In this time of instantaneous communication and the ability to think for ourselves Islam is at a tipping point for good if only its people would rise up and say #notinmyname
we are doing a fine job in controlling the Klan, shunning and shaming Westboro Baptist and in our own way each of us standing against the things which are contrary to Jesus.
PhxP has been one of the loudest voices in challenging the abuses and extremists in our own faith
we’ve much to be thankful for and the fact that each and every person here might not agree with each other, it’s a beautiful thing that we read, think and engage
I was speaking when the Klan had a footing in this country 1920s – 1960s. Would a foreign nation have been justified in bombing us?
Islam is a false religion and it’s Moooslim followers are all followers of the devil. Learn to live with it.
Islam is at a tipping point for good if only its people would rise up and say “I denounce Islam and Mohammed and embrace Jesus Christ.”
So Christians just have better press, then?
because we will always have to coexist and live together on this planet, any positive advance toward us mutual respect is awesome
no, christians have had a better track record of self examination, repentance and reform.
I do not respect Islam. I hate it. Individual Muslims, them I can love.
Yes, I agree with Xenia’s 46. Love individual Muslims, but Islam is from the father of lies.
Hi Nonnie! š
Concerning repentance, one interesting belief is that Christians should repent of sins committed by ancestors or predecessors within the same culture.
Was listening to C. Peter Wagner, one of my personal faves, talk about a trip to Japan where he felt strongly led to repent before his Japanese audience of what was done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That led to a lot of weeping all around as you can imagine.
He clarified that he was not at all saying that it was a wrong military decision. He was expressing his grief – and perhaps also repentance but I am not sure how that works – over the effect.
I have heard several speak of the need for modern-day USA believers to repent of what was done to Native Americans and slaves.
Interesting theology.
MLD, you are so insensitive. You probably still refer to the Washington RxxSkxxx.
PP Vet, there are billboards in Russia now that have a picture of Tsar Nicholas II (who as we know, was murdered with his family in 1919 by the Bolsheviks) and the caption, “Master, forgive us.”
http://tinyurl.com/qeozqsz
It was 1918, not 1919.
PP Vet – I do indeed still refer to the Rxx Skxxx
However, I am offended by both the baseball and football teams that knock my heritage of coming from large people. How they get off with mascot names of Giants, I will never understand.
And what of that team in Minnesota that mocks my twin nieces?
http://nakedpastor.com/2014/09/tony-jones-on-mark-driscoll-what-came-first-the-thug-or-the-theology/#comments
The comment thread on that one is very interesting.