If There Were An Award For Such A Thing

In the category of "Most Dangerous Theological Nonsense In A Single News Story", we have a very solid contender with this story that was plastered all over Facebook yesterday: "Pope Francis makes two children saints who saw Virgin Mary 100 years ago".

The title alone is nonsense. Mary doesn't appear as an apparition in visions and if she did she wouldn't be the "Virgin" Mary as she clearly is shown in in the Bible to have had children after the birth of Jesus. Jorge Bergoglio, aka "Pope Francis", doesn't have the power or authority to declare anyone a saint. The Bible again is clear on this, all Christians are referred to as saints. You become a saint when you are born again, not when a neo-Marxist religious leader declares you are based on a phony vision.

The story itself is enough to make me actually nauseous. Not in a hyperbolic sense but in a literal sense because of the spiritual deadness that accompanies this story that so many people seem to think is just wonderful.

FATIMA, Portugal – Pope Francis added two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints Saturday, honoring young siblings whose reported visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the Portuguese farm town of Fatima into one of the world's most important Catholic shrines.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. A half-million people watched in the vast square in front of the shrine's basilica, the Vatican said, citing Portuguese authorities. Many had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

How many people bowed before a statue, a graven image, rubbing beads and repeating rote prayers to a human being? The Mary of Scripture would be horrified to see people showing such slavish devotion to her instead of her Son. For the Scripturally literate Christian the very idea of this is heart-breaking and tragic but unfortunately far from unexpected. Humans have long turn to idols in place of the true living God.

"It is amazing, it is like an answer to prayer because I felt that always they would be canonized," said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet "nice boys like Francisco." ''The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful I couldn't ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers," she said.

Praying to a dead shepherd boy, who may or may not have even been a Christian in the first place, a boy who died almost a century ago and thinking that he somehow has the power to grant prayer petitions? This boy, Francisco Marto, was 9 when he allegedly had "visions" and died when he was 11. Then I came across this and even I was stunned by the paganism on display (emphasis mine)

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe's Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn't start until after her 2005 death. 

At the end of the Mass, Francis was to offer a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts — hands, hearts, livers and limbs — into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.

Bringing a wax body part, presumably from a limb or organ you want healed, and throwing it into a fire while praying to Mary?! It is little wonder that so many Haitians are comfortable blending Voodoo and Catholicism because that is not really much different from sticking needles into a voodoo doll to hurt your enemies. Practices like this are right in line with things like transubstantiation, the practice of relics where people venerate body parts, items and even vials of preserved human blood and other pagan practices that go under the guise of "Christianity"

The parents of the boy who was allegedly miraculously healed, thus giving the seal of approval on the elevation of a"saint", said something similarly awful.

"We thank God for Lucas' cure and we know in all faith from our heart that this miracle was obtained with the help of the little shepherd children Francisco and Jacinta," Baptista told reporters earlier as the family broke their silence to reveal details of the case.

So we thank God for our son's healing but the miracle required the "help" of two deceased shephard children. I guess God can't do it alone and I guess Jesus is not a sufficient mediator, you need sub-mediators. That just does violence to everything we read in the New Testament.

I don't know what, if anything, these kids saw or didn't see other than being certain that they didn't see "the Virgin Mary". Satan was able to show visions even to the Christ (Luke 4:5) so simply claiming to have seen a vision doesn't carry much weight with me and especially having been formerly deceived by the successors to a charlatan who claimed to see visions which also contradicted or added to Scripture.

Exodus 20:4-5

Like the bogus "visions" reported by the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, I have no idea if these "visions" were the result of childhood imagination or mental/physical illness or were in fact visions of a demonic sort. The manner of their story does sound a lot like Joseph Smith's fanciful tale and even though they stuck to their story that proves nothing as Joseph Smith, David Koresh and other false teachers like Jim Jones stuck to their stories even when it meant their death. I am sure that both Smith and Reading the "revelations" of the "The Secrets of Fatima" they allegedly received even reads a lot to my eyes like the writings of Smith. I am not trying to create direct correlation between cultists like Smith, Koresh and Jones and these kids, just pointing out that claims of kooky visions are pretty common. The three "visions" themselves are an interesting story,

Lucia Santos recorded a vision of "hell" in the first vision which was revealed only in 1941 which seems odd to me, as was the second "vision", one which "predicted" that the first World War would end but if men were still offending God a worse one would "break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI". It turns out that this very specific "revelation" was right! World War One did end and a new World War broke out when "Pope Pius XI" was in charge from 1922-1939. I am certainly not suspicious at all that these details were revealed in 1941, years after the first World War ended and the second began. In fact if I were a more suspicious sort I might think it was oddly convenient that she disclosed these specific details only after the details were known. If I were able to prophesy about events that have already come to pass, my prophetic batting average would be 1.000. The third vision is a rambling "vision" of a "Pope" where he is described as:

"...the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God."

First, people don't "make their way to God" because of the blood of Roman clergy being sprinkled on them by angels, the only way people are reconciled to God is by the blood of Jesus Christ. His blood is sufficient. Second, the Vatican in the summer of 2000 announced it would "reveal" the "third vision" which is when the details were revealed to the world. In the announcement letter posted on the official Vatican website, "Cardinal" Angelo Sodano strongly implies that the vision is about the attempted assassination of Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Pope John Paul II, which coincidentally already had happened. Wojtyla apparently agreed:

After the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, it appeared evident to His Holiness that it was "a motherly hand which guided the bullet’s path", enabling the "dying Pope" to halt "at the threshold of death" (Pope John Paul II. Meditation with the Italian Bishops from the Policlinico Gemelli, Insegnamenti, vol XVII/1, 1994, p. 1061). On the occasion of a visit to Rome by the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided to give him the bullet which had remained in the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the Shrine. At the behest of the Bishop, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

Placing a bullet in the crown of a statue. That is just more, plain old simple primitive paganism. There are obvious issues with assigning this as a prophesy about an attempted assassination. First the "vision" speaks of "a group of soldiers". The would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Ağca, was alone and not a soldier. He didn't kill Wojtyla, he just wounded him whereas the "prophecy" claimed "he was killed". No other "Bishops, Priests, men and women religious..." etc. were killed although a few by-standers were hit by bullets. The would-be assassin used a pistol, not arrows. Vatican City where he was shot is not a "mountain", it sits at the highest point at 250' above sea-level. But other than that the "prophecy" was spot on! One would think that a prophecy that was revealed 19 years after an event would do a better job of predicting the event but this one seems more likely to be a fanciful "vision" that was forcibly interpreted by a "Cardinal" as applying to a historical event to give it credence. Apparently the "Pope Emeritus" Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict VXI, remarked at the time that "No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled". Ratzinger is probably my favorite recent "Pope" even though he is a heretic.

Modern Roman Catholicism as it is practiced in America is by and large a mostly innocuous, if damnably false, religion but the Catholicism of years past is a swamp of pagan mysticism dressed up in pseudo-Christian lingo. When all you know is St. John's Catholic Church down on the corner with parishioners that are neighbors, friends and family, holding carnivals and hosting weddings, it can seem like Rome is a little confusing and weird but otherwise is generally harmless. It is not.

My point here is not to "bash Catholics", many of which are family and friends, and my intent is not to score cheap laughs over the silly practices of Roman Catholics. I don't find them funny at all just as I don't find them innocent. They are deeply troubling, and I believe they need to be publicized, exposed and refuted because they are a barrier to people, many of whom are honestly seeking Christ but are instead being lured further and further away by false teachers and heresy that claims to be authentic Christianity based on having been around for a long time. Both Roman Catholicism and, from what I have seen, the "Orthodox" religion rely on mysticism, ignorance, co-opted paganism and claims that it is all OK because they make grandiose declarations of authority and have a reliance on their continued existence with tenuous and easily disprovable claims to an unbroken line of ecclesiastical succession. When people are rubbing beads and praying to statues or throwing wax body parts into a fire in the hopes of being healed, that is many things but it is not Christianity as described and practiced in the Scriptures. Those are just the most extreme examples seen in stories like the one I quoted above but the daily practices and rhythms of Roman religious life are just as troubling and dangerous. Claims of possessing the power and authority to transform a wafer into the body of our Lord and to present Him for sacrifice repeatedly on an altar is even worse than tossing wax body parts into a fire.

Despite the temptation to look the other way in the hopes of gaining allies in the struggle against secularism, the church must do the opposite and be more diligent than ever. We cannot pretend to share a faith with people who pray to statues and claim visions of apparitions and who claim to sacrifice Chris anew. Either the work of Christ on the cross was sufficient or it is not. Either Christ alone is the mediator between man and God or He is not. Either the Bible is correct about all Christians being saints or the Bible is wrong and Rome is right. These are not questions with gray areas or space for nuance. These are days when the church is being tried and tested and already too many have turned back from the way of the Cross. Keep your eyes open and on the Christ. Far too many wolves and false teachers are around for us to relax our diligence and chief among those wolves for 1700 years has been the man sitting on the seat of "Saint" Peter.

Happy Reformation Year And Why It Still Matters (And Matters Just As Much)

Happy Reformation Year!

2017 is the year which includes the date of the 500th anniversary of the "official" start of the Protestant Reformation on October 31st, 1517 with Martin Luther's nailing of the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. With that one seemingly innocous act, Martin Luther forever changed the course of Western and world civilization, in some ways for the worse but for the most part for the better. Those of us who cherish our salvation by faith through grace recognize the debt we owe to those God lifted up at great personal danger to shine the light of the truth through the oppressive spiritual darkness of the day.

While many Protestants and others celebrate or at least recognize October 31st as Reformation Day, this being the 500th anniversary year means a lot of additional attention will get paid throughout the year to Luther and what he started. It is of course worth noting that there were many other individual and group reformers who preceded Luther but they mostly ended up dead at the hands of the Roman leadership and their willing executioners and torturers in the state. Luther was notable in large measure because he managed to survive long enough to see the embers of reform burst into the flames, sometimes literally, of Reformation.

While I expect to talk a lot about the Reformation throughout the year, it seems fitting that my first post of the year focuses on the on-going need for Reformation. It is the erroneous belief in many parts of the evangelical/Protestant world that the need for Reformation is long past. We have moved beyond silly squabbles and instead have moved closer together, propelled by our common foe of secularism and our common defense of religious liberty against godless liberalism. When engaged in an existential fight like we are the enemy of my enemy is my friend. All well and good except the mission of the church is not to fight for religious liberty but to preach the Gospel, in season and out, when it is welcome and especially where it is not, making disciples and teaching them the commandments of Christ. We cannot do that with one hand while with the other we hold hands with those who deny that very Gospel.

I have friends and family who are Roman Catholic and this post, and all subsequent posts in 2017, are not intended to be an insult, simply a statement of what should be clear. I don't attend the Roman Mass not because it just isn't my cup of tea but because I believe what happens in the Mass and elsewhere in the Roman religious system runs counter to and is affront to the Gospel of Jesus Christ we see in Scripture. The vast chasm between Rome and the Protestant world was always very apparent until recently and it is neither loving nor honest to anyone to pretend that those differences have faded with time or are no longer important.

Case in point, Jorge Bergoglio, aka "Pope Francis" tweeted out this message to ring in the new year:

Let us entrust the new year to Mary, Mother of God, so that peace and mercy may grow throughout the world.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) January 1, 2017

Rather than putting together a response I am instead going to just reprint James White's response from a public Facebook post because he pretty much nails it (get it? nails it? 95 Theses?):

Why is the Reformation still important? Why is it proper for us to focus upon it this year in celebration of 500 years? Why do I pray that by the end of 2017 more and more of God's people will embrace the Reformation, and Reformed theology as a whole? Well, here is a tweet from the current Pope. He encourages Roman Catholics to "entrust the new year to Mary." Doing this, evidently, will result in "peace and mercy" growing throughout the world. And here I thought that could only happen as men and women bow the knee not to Mary, but to the Lord Jesus, in repentance and faith, trusting in His once-for-all work upon the cross as the perfect Savior. Rome's departure from the Gospel remains complete, and defiant. She continues to blaspheme the cross every time a man-made "priest" pretends to "re-present" the once-for-all sacrifice of Calvary upon a Roman altar. And she continues to enslave men with her endless gospel of sacraments and penances, which can never bring them peace. And in this tweet the Pope demonstrates once again the grossly idolatrous nature of modern Roman teaching concerning Mary.

How many non-Roman Catholics today understand why they do not bow the knee to Rome? In what is loosely called Evangelicalism, very few. One either has the wild-eyed bigotry of the Jack Chick variety anti-Catholicism, or the luke-warm "it's just a matter of taste" variety of synergistic Tiber-paddling that is so common today. May the number of those who knowingly, and out of a true commitment to sound biblical doctrine, reject Rome's pretensions, grow in this the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

The fawning, fan-boy fascination many "progressive" evangelicals have for Jorge Bergoglio is not surprising while it is still troubling but many who would consider themselves "conservative" have no clue what the differences are between Roman teaching and Scripture. When so many in the church have no idea why they don't attend Mass instead of going to what are most often silly and vacuous "worship services", there is clearly a lot of work to be done. Likewise tens of millions of people are still caught up in the Roman system and have never even heard the Gospel presented clearly and these people are in the same need for hearing the Gospel as poor peasants in 1517 who had been taught that buying an indulgence with the money they could scrape together instead of buying food for their children would somehow purchase favor with God.

Do not for a second think the Reformation is unimportant in 2017 or that we have outgrown the need for what are considered petty theological squabbles or that winning political and cultural victories is critical enough that we ought to make common cause with enemies of the Gospel. As Jorge Bergoglio's tweet proves, Rome is still selling a false gospel that cannot save and only serves to obscure the true Gospel and preserve a corrupt religious system. I think that if Luther could see the church today he would marvel at many things but I also think he would desperately want someone to walk up to our own equivalent of the church door in Wittenberg, take out a hammer and a nail and declare boldly that the Gospel is the one place that we will not, that we cannot, compromise for the sake of any other issue. In the end, only the Gospel of Jesus Christ really matters.

Trying to regulate Moloch worship in Michigan

There is legislation that has been introduced in Michigan to regulate the disposal of aborted babies, requiring either medical cremation or burial at the request of the mother. This was sparked by the recent discovery of large numbers of aborted babies in garbage bags in the dumpster behind an abortion mill, individually placed in plastic baggies, many with the mothers name attached to the baggie. Apparently the humane thing to do is require that these tiny victims are “properly” disposed of.

Following an investigation of the matter by the Michigan attorney general, which was recently completed, state Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, announced Wednesday he has co-sponsored legislation to require doctors and clinics to medically cremate an aborted fetus, or bury it if the parents request it. Failure to comply could be punished by three years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine.

"When I was notified of this, I was horrified," Jones said. "I couldn't believe it."

I understand what Representative Jones is trying to do and I appreciate his efforts. Having said that, it is naïve for people to think that abortion mills are treating aborted children as anything other than something to be disposed of as cheaply as possible. What is truly horrifying is not that aborted babies are tossed in a dumpster. The truly horrifying part is that women pay a “doctor” to kill the defenseless baby inside of them, babies that are entirely dependent on their mothers and yet those mothers choose to fix their “mistakes” by killing that child. In a world where worship of self-gratification is the highest religion, there are far too many “doctors” who are willing to sacrifice children on the altars of Choice and Lust and Profit.

These “doctors” are not doctors at all. They are not healers in any sense of the word. They are assassins with diplomas from a medical school. People hire assassins to kill someone else when they don’t have the nerve or the ability to do it themselves and that is all abortionists are, assassins pure and simple. We shouldn’t be nearly as worried about how aborted children are disposed of as we are about what would lead a woman to pay an assassin to murder her own child.

I have a better idea. Since they are labeling the baggies with these children in them anyway, instead of requiring the clinic to incinerate the remains, give them to the woman that the child came out of. That way she can exercise her “choice” in how to dispose of this child that she paid to have torn from her body. These clinics make it all so neat and tidy. Come in the front door pregnant, go out the front door not pregnant. Meanwhile, the child you came in with is unceremoniously discarded in a plastic bag in a dumpster in the alley. Start making women carry the fruits of their “choice” out in a clear plastic bag and let them see that the cost of that visit to an abortion mill is far greater than a few hundred dollars.

One of the most horrifying forms of idolatry in the Bible was when the Israelites adopted the pagan practice of offering children up as a fiery sacrifice to false gods like Moloch. America is not Israel under the Old Covenant and the gods being sacrificed to are not Moloch but the high priests of the cult of “choice” are every bit as bloodthirsty in slaying children to appease their gods. Perhaps they are worse because they are not motivated as much by a false religion as they are by simple greed. There is nothing that can make the disposal of these children “proper”, not burial and not cremation. They had their humanity stripped from them when their mothers offered them up to these assassins for a small fee. Regulating the disposal of their bodies only makes this horrible crime a little more respectable.

Making excuses

Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isa 66:1-2)

So I read a posting from R.C. Sproul yesterday, Building with Conviction, in which he defends the building of ornate "churches" by appealing to the Old Testament accounts of the building of the tabernacle.

In the final analysis, we ask, what happened to beauty? Modern churches tend to look like prefabricated warehouses, or they’re designed to be functional music halls so that the production of music may have center stage. In the Old Testament, the whole person was engaged in worship. The mind was engaged with the Word of God. The music of the choirs and the instruments mentioned in many of the psalms were part of the design of worship. There was an auditory beauty. There was a visual beauty. There was even an olfactory beauty with the sweet aroma of incense that was part of the experience of worship. All five senses, as well as the mind, were engaged in biblical worship. If we are to worship God fully in truth and in Spirit, we need to incorporate beauty among the gathering of His people wherever possible. This is the model that God followed when He designed the tabernacle, His dwelling place in Israel.

There’s nothing in redemptive history that would make beauty, goodness, or truth suddenly passé or insignificant. These elements, which point to God, are always and everywhere, in every time and in every nation, significant elements of godly worship.

Look at that one sentence again: If we are to worship God fully in truth and in Spirit, we need to incorporate beauty among the gathering of His people wherever possible. So in order to worship God, we must wherever possible have beautiful buildings or at least spend time, effort and money to beautify our buildings? If a local gathering of the church has the means to buy a pipe organ, hire a professional "worship leader" and build an expensive cathedral but chooses instead to meet in a rented school room and use their money to aid orphans and widows, they are not fully worshiping God in truth and in Spirit? Sproul is a careful writer so I can't chalk this up to carelessness.

That is not only not logical, it is eminently unbiblical. I say that cautiously given the academic prowess of Sproul, a man who has been of great benefit to me in his teaching in the past but who I find increasingly hard to understand. When you see the constant appeals for more and more money that go toward foolishness like ornate man-made temples in the name of "worship", I wonder where the focus is. Is it on the Gospel or is it on "my ministry"?

I should hope it is unnecessary to explain to Christians the difference between the tabernacle where God dwelt among His people under the old covenant administration and the utter lack of any buildings or edifices under the New Covenant. In fact, the witness of Scripture is that we, i.e. the Church, are the dwelling place of God and that we manifest His glory in our love for one another, a love that certainly doesn't require us to worship in finely appointed chambers. The early church apparently spent not one iota of time or effort to construct appropriate buildings with the proper atmosphere to "worship" in. In contrast with the early church, this appeal to what we see as beautiful to enhance our worship demonstrates an underlying lack of worship. If you think God is inadequate to worship as He is and that He needs our feeble efforts to create the proper atmosphere to worship Him in Spirit and truth, your reasoning is more akin to that of Roman Catholicism or mormonism where the buildings are designed to give the appearance that something uniquely holy is happening that can only happen there.

God neither needs nor seeks our weak and arrogant attempts at creating a beautiful dwelling place to worship Him. He has indwelt what is the least lovely and impressive possible edifices: His own redeemed people. Many of us aren't much to look at. We certainly are not awe inspiring nor magnificent but we have a glory greater than any cathedral or church because we are God's chosen people, His elect. That is where our glory is, in Him and Him alone. I would rather meet with a small group of Christians in a rented hall with plastic chairs or in the home of a believer than sit in a multi-million dollar monument to man's foolish pride. I would have thought someone like R.C. Sproul would understand that.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2:19-22)

The most talked about story of the day

What a sad commentary that the story of the giant fiberglass idol, er statue, that supposedly depicts Jesus burned down after a lightning strike is all over the news today. I saw this monstrosity and shook my head every time I went by when we lived in Cincinnati. What an enormous waste of money and effort and you can be sure it will be rebuilt at great expense and with great fanfare. They should leave the charred arms of the idol as they are as a monument to the pride and foolishness of man.

Idolatry and the Shroud of Turin

USA Today’s religion column never disappoints. This Monday morning we are graced with an editorial by David Farley, addressing why the Shroud of Turin is such a great thing even though it is almost certainly fake: Shroud of Turn is real enough. Here are some of sage words regarding the Shroud:

In a sense, whether or not it was the real flesh of Christ didn't matter. (Spoiler: It probably wasn't.) People believed it was authentic (including several popes who granted indulgences to those who came to venerate it). Which is why the hordes of pilgrims who will flock to Turin to pay heed to the shroud will be oblivious to the non-believers' cackles. If they accept the shroud as the real deal, then, in their minds, in their hearts, in their conceptions of heaven and the afterlife, it is the real thing. They will pray in front of it and it will give them happiness and relief.

And isn't that what we all want, for ourselves and for each other? Which is exactly why holy relics and the Shroud of Turin still matter in this world.

So the Shroud of Turin is OK because it makes you feel good? If you are a believer in Christ and reading that doesn’t make you physically ill, something is wrong. The fact that indulgences were granted to people for venerating a piece of cloth is reason enough for concern. The entire theology behind relics smacks of idolatry. Humans naturally believe what they see and given a chance will revert back to that behavior. Idolatry is not just an Old Testament problem but an example from the OT is instructive.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (Exodus 32:1)

The Israelites wanted something tangible to worship. They were impatient with waiting around, so they fashioned an idol to give them something to worship that they could see. The results were catastrophic and I believe that similar results will await those who place their faith in relics, including the Shroud of Turin.

Followers of Christ don’t need relics and idols to worship Him, nor should they be comforted in the least by scraps of cloth or shards of bone. It is called faith for a reason and as so many who rejected Christ during the Incarnation demonstrated, seeing is not believing. In His earthly ministry Christ demonstrably healed the sick, cured lepers, made the blind see and raised Lazarus from the dead and in spite of clear evidence, He was still crucified by those who had real, tangible evidence of who He was.

Far from worshippers of idols, every Christian post-ascension falls into this category:

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

We are blessed because by faith we have believed. We are not blessed by rituals or worse yet by the macabre relics of Rome. Is the Shroud of Turin authentic? I really doubt it. More importantly it is irrelevant. Our faith is in Christ alone, seated at the right hand of the Father. I am uninterested in burial shrouds and I am especially uninterested in knuckle bones from dead “saints”. Christians should eschew venerating bits of bone or searching for Noah’s Ark or the Ark of the Covenant. Our call, our mission is to proclaim Christ to the lost. All of this other stuff is nothing but a distraction from that call.

How is First Baptist Dallas different?

There is a lot of outrage building in the blogosphere about First Baptist Dallas and their new idol, um, church campus. Let’s set aside the specific outrage for a second and ask the deeper question:

What is the difference between First Baptist Dallas and many local churches?

The number of decimal places is different but how many millions do local churches spend to upgrade perfectly serviceable buildings for purely aesthetic reasons? Our neighbors are losing their jobs and their homes, Christians around the world are starving for the Word of God, missionaries are stuck in place for a lack of funding, orphans languish without homes and we spend untold sums of money to build, maintain and upgrade our buildings that we use for a couple of hours a week. Whenever a church spends unnecessary money on their building (and lets be honest, much of the spending in the local church is unnecessary) they are invoking the same spirit of worldliness, covetousness and pride as FBD. So what if the carpet is ugly or the lighting is not perfect? Ought we not focus on what is the true focus, our Lord, and not on what is merely a convenience, the meeting place? The local church meeting house is not a temple, not the “house of the Lord”. It is a place where we gather and that building is not the church. Our buildings should be about the last place we spend a bunch of money. It might do us some good to sacrifice a bit instead of demanding every creature comfort before we will deign to spend a few hours in "worship".

Does God need a $130 million edifice to be glorified?

I ran across a link tonight and nearly had a meltdown. I am naming names and pointing fingers and I do not apologize for it. First Baptist Dallas has decided to "honor" God by building a $130,000,000 "state of the art" church campus in Dallas.

As I look around downtown Dallas, I see spectacular temples of commerce, of culture and of government – many new, some restored to former glory, and all intended to stand for generations. The Kingdom of God needs a home to equal them – a spiritual oasis in the middle of downtown. - Dr. Robert Jeffress

Seriously. My God is glorious beyond all measure and His Kingdom is magnificent in such a way as to set all the wonders of the this world to shame.

From the press release:

In two special services this morning, Dr. Jeffress informed the congregation that already more than $62 million has been committed to this campaign. Mark Lovvorn, chair of the church’s Planning and Development Committee, further noted that the economic downturn has led to unprecedented potential savings in construction costs, citing research showing that for every dollar spent the church will receive up to $1.30 in value.

Oh that makes it OK. We are getting a good value because the economy is in the toilet. Some more:

“For more than 140 years, God has put First Baptist Church at the center of Dallas, the nation’s fastest-growing city in the heart of America,” Dr. Jeffress continued. “Jerry Jones recently unveiled a new $1.2 billion ‘temple to sport.’ In these tough economic times, why can’t we use our gifts to build a church building that provides a spiritual oasis and matches the splendor and majesty of God?”

A church building that matches the splendor and majesty of God? What sort of blasphemous statement is that? The thought that a building can even begin to match the splendor and majesty of God is a damnable heresy.

Is this what the Gospel ministry is about, building $130,000,000 church buildings in the midst of a time of economic crisis? Jesus didn't call us to try to outdo Jerry Jones, He called us to humility and servanthood. Do you think the hurting people of Dallas will read about "Christians" building this temple to wealth and see God glorified?

I am sure I am going to get aggrieved comments about "not judging". Before you do, here is my response:

Bull

Anyone who can defend this perversion of stewardship has a serious and sinful misunderstanding of the Kingdom of God and Christian ministry. Christ my King did not need or desire earthly riches because He has the cattle on a thousand hills and will reign over streets of gold. This building is an idol, pure and simple, an idol to greed and covetousness and worldliness and is unfit to wear the name of the King of Kings. This is a modern day Tower of Babel and the folly and pride of mankind is on full display.

A Two Million Ton Idol

I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal having to do with the history of the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica, The Splendor and the Scandal. Taking over 100 years to complete, this structure played an integral role in the Reformation because of the impact of the selling of indulgences to pay for it had on Martin Luther. I have to say that as an architectural and artistic structure, having never been there, St. Peter’s Basilica is by all accounts a magnificent accomplishment and a wonder. From the standpoint of a place to worship Christ? Quite the opposite. What a completely inappropriate place to allegedly worship Jesus Christ, our Lord who rode a colt into Jerusalem and dined with poor fisherman and other sinners around simple tables. That this place is viewed by so many people as a holy place speaks volumes about the extent of human self-delusion.

There is a quote in the article from historian Edward Gibbon that is a true statement for different reasons than the author of the article intended. He describes St. Peter’s Basilica as:

"The most glorious structure that ever has been applied to the use of religion."

That is exactly right. I can think of no other structure that epitomizes the empty ritual and formalism of man focused worship. St. Peter’s Basillica is like so many other man made edifices that know no denominational boundaries. They seek to create a “worshipful” atmosphere that is so foreign to the life of a Christian and yet so much a part of our culture. The architecture of cathedrals and churches across the world are designed to create and enhance a worship experience that is frankly a false one. The theatrics are more sophisticated but the emptiness is the same. Not much has changed in the thousands of years since the molding of the Golden Calf and nothing exemplifies that better than the white washed tomb of St. Peter’s Basilica built in large part with money stolen from simple people led astray by false shepherds who played upon their ignorance to fleece them.

In the Reformation, the Reformers took down the crucifix, replaced the altar with the pulpit and declared it to be good. The problems with Roman worship did not end with correcting the issues of justification and authority. They went to the very heart of what it means to be a Christian, how we should live in the world and with each other, how we worship our God. Those great men of old reformed the doctrine, reclaimed the Gospel but retained the Roman form of worship.

Christ is not found in palatial temples or massive cathedrals. He is not found in empty rituals or rote repetitions. He is found in the simple gathering of His people to pray, to open the Word, to break bread and be in fellowship together. Christ did not seek worldly acclaim or opulence when He sojourned among us. Why would His people seek to honor Him by exalting our own accomplishments, edifices and education?

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matt 23: 27-28)

No kissing the saint!

Spain: For sake of swine flu, don't kiss the saint

MADRID – Spain's Catholic Church has new advice for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela: Don't kiss the saint.

For centuries, pilgrims have visited one of Roman Catholicism's holiest shrines — the cathedral holding the purported remains of St. James the Apostle, Spain's patron saint. It was customary for them to hug a statue of St. James and even kiss it.

Now, thanks to fast-spreading swine flu, the church is urging the faithful not to pucker up. It has even removed the holy water that worshippers use to bless themselves in the cathedral in the cobblestone old quarter of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain's northwestern Galicia region.

I have a better idea. Don't kiss idols for the sake of your spiritual health, not out of concern for the swine flu. Plus it is just kind of creepy.

(It was strangely appropriate to see socialist thug and President Obama's new BFF Hugo Chavez kissing this idol)

The greatest source of idolatry in evangelicalism

If you listen to a sample of evangelical sermons, you are almost certain to come across at least one dealing with idolatry. Often these sermons will point to any number of idolatry culprits in the world: money, possessions, entertainment, pleasure. Ah how easy it is to stand behind a pulpit and give a mea culpa for our idolizing the television!

What is the essence of idolatry? Can something secular be truly idolatry? Or is idolatry something that of necessity has a spiritual context? When we look at idolatry, is it not a misrepresentation of the proper worship of God? We don’t see God’s wrath descending on the Israelites because they spent too much time playing Fantasy Chariot Racing. We see them altering the worship of God to suit themselves. Whether the sons of Aaron offering strange fire or the Israelites crafting a golden calf, idolatry has as its source a wrong view of the worship of God.

So again at the risk of having my “Reformed” secret decoder ring taken away, my assertion is that the source of the greatest idolatry among Christians is…

The local church

Please note an important caveat here. There is a difference between the local gathering of the church and the “local church” as we traditionally have known and practiced it. We have often blurred the line and exalted the local church above what is healthy or what is Biblical. Christ did not come to redeem the local church. He came to redeem His elect and as a result of our common salvation we gather together. The local gathering of the church plays a vital role in the life of the Christian and I don’t see that as a source of idolatry, but I am seeing signs of it in the expression of that gathering.

There seems to be a recent uptick in the number of people who are making assertions linking the local church with the Bride of Christ. Often these are accompanied by statements that amount to: “How can you say you love Jesus but don’t like His wife?” or “How can you love Jesus but say His bride is ugly?”. Let me be blunt:

The local church is not the Bride of Christ!

The local church may contain members of the Bride of Christ, of His Body, but Christ did not die to redeem the local church. Many, many people mistake the “local church” for the Bride of Christ, as if they are synonymous. They probably would reject that claim if you asked it in a straightforward way, but in practice that is how it looks especially among many of my reformed brothers.

Some of our most revered confessions blur this line in the same way. Take for example the following creedal statement:

The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

That sounds an awful lot like something you might coming from Rome and it actually is very similar. But that is not something from Rome, it is from chapter 25, section II of the Westminster Confession. You can’t overstate that last sentence, “out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation”. Does that strike you as a Biblical idea or a Roman one?

The great danger of idolatry in and of the local church is that it doesn’t seem in our eyes to be idolatry. Someone who spends too much time playing X-Box, like me, can pretty easily see the problem. The local church is above reproach in the eyes of many or most Christians. Critique of the local church, especially the Western model of organized religion with professional clergy distinct from the laity and heavily structured meetings, is tantamount to hating the Church.

Here are a couple of places where we have made more of the local church than is warranted or demonstrated in Scripture…

We have made an idol of the pastoral “office”. Think this is not true? Imagine a local church where the pastor has just resigned and suggesting that rather than form a pastor “search committee”, you recognize and raise up men within the existing congregation to serve as elders without pay instead of hiring a professional from outside of the congregation. How do you suppose that would be received? Like the Israelites, we desire men not to lead us but to rule over us. We revere them for their education and set them apart because of their seminary degree. We put their names on our signs and our vans. That is not entirely the fault of pastors, although I have met a few who were borderline megalomaniacs who seem to be in vocational ministry to exalt themselves. I think the blame lies in the pews, on men who are content to let one man do the hard work of ministry for minimal pay so that they are not called on to sacrifice of themselves.

We have made an idol of our buildings. Think this is not true? Suggest to someone in the midst of a building campaign that perhaps building a new facility is poor stewardship. The church in America owns billions in real estate, owes enormous sums in the form of loans and interest on those loans and shows an insatiable appetite to build bigger and better buildings. This is not a symptom of the seeker-sensitive model megachurches but is true of churches that most would consider highly orthodox. Is it wrong to have a building? Not at all. There are a lot of really ugly but functional buildings that serve as a great place for God’s people to gather. Is it wrong to build magnificent palaces and modern day temples? Absolutely.

We have made an idol of our church traditions. Think this is not true? Try suggesting that the local church replace its VBS and Sunday school with age-integrated worship.

We have made an idol of our rituals. Think this is not true? Try modifying the ritual observance of a local church like the Lord’s Supper. Instead of passing around oyster crackers and grape juice in little cups, say we are going to share a common loaf and a common cup and do so in the course of a full meal among believers. Or for a less traumatic change, suggest changing the order of service. Even something as simple as eliminating bulletins can cause apoplexy among some.

We have made idols of our distinctives. Commitment to social justice, commitment to expository preaching, devotion to this creed or that confession, association with this denomination and not that. There are whole ministries that seem to be devoted to proclaiming their doctrinal distinctives. We are this and not that, and often neither the this nor the that has much basis in Scripture.

These are some of the idols of our worship of the local church. Why do we have such a violent reaction to chnages like the ones I have listed above? It is not because they are supportable from Scripture. It is because they are what we know and are familair with and that is a pretty poor reason to do almost anything, especially something as important as the local gathering of God's people, His church.

What a wonderful blessing it is for the church to gather together for fellowship, love, edification, prayer! What a shame that we have taken that wonderful gift and crafted an idol of our own imagination to take its place.

Where are our priorities?

I have been sitting here all day just feeling empty inside thinking about the lack of Biblical priority in the church. That emptiness is turning into white hot anger.

Prepare for a rant…

I don’t have statistics in front of me, but I am confident that a huge percentage of the budget of an average church goes to pay for staff salaries and buildings. We expect pastors to spend upwards of 15-20 hours a week reading and then telling us about what they read and the average church gladly pays them to do that. We have meetings ad nauseum about this program or that, about the budget, about all manner of inane stuff. I recall very recently reading something on a church webpage (I won’t name the church) and I about went through the roof. This is copied directly from their “fast facts” about their "church":

■ Located on 140 acres with land and buildings of current net worth near over 50 million dollars
■ 3,000 parking spaces on about 30 acres
■ Worship Center has seating for over 5,500
■ Pipe organ has 118 ranks; 6,737 pipes
■ Annual budget over $17 million
■ Give approximately 1.5 million per year to missions, the largest contributor of any Southern Baptist Church in the U.S. (my note: that means that 8% of their $17,000,000 budget goes to "missions")
■ Membership—15,000
■ Average Sunday morning Bible study attendance: 3,800
■ Over 300 Bible study classes for all ages.
■ Approximately 7,000 in worship attendance on Sunday mornings in three worship services
■ About 140 full-time staff, plus about 215 part-time
■ 24 pastoral staff
■ Purchased former RC Cola bottling plant, adjacent land, Fall 2001; over $3 million given in two months

What kind of a twisted view of the Gospel ministry would make someone put a list like that out in public and think it reflected well on them? The same sort of mindset that would print up matching T-shirts for over 300 people to wear when getting “baptized” in a circus atmosphere. This is not some postmodern, seeker sensitive megachurch, it is a conservative Baptist church. Is that list supposed to make me want to go there on a Sunday morning? I read that list and wondered what exactly the object of their worship is. It certainly is not a sign of God's providence, it is a sign of idolatry.

Meanwhile….

There are missionaries sitting around the states who are not going to the world to bring people the Gospel of Jesus Christ because of a lack of funds. Cults like the mormons make missions a priority, meanwhile we can’t be bothered to talk to our neighbors about Christ. Before we spend one nickel on an unnecessary building project (and most building projects are unnecessary in my opinion) or hire one more staff member, we better make sure that every Biblically sound missionary who has raised their hand and said “send me” is on a plane to minister to lost people overseas or right here in the states. Let me go even further. I would challenge pastors to step down and the rest of the men to step up so that staff salaries could go to missionary work. We shouldn't have to pay men to do what the rest of us are called and capable, but too lazy, to do ourselves.

There are innumerable families who desperately want to adopt children but cannot because of red tape and exorbitant costs and there are on the other side innumerable children in horrible situations that are waiting for a family to adopt them. In my time in banking I can tell you without hesitation that many churches are sitting on enormous sums of money, saved up for a rainy day. They save this money because they have such huge fixed costs in the form of buildings and staff. The church in America is enslaved by money. I am just sick inside when on the one hand I think of the gleaming, brand new “churches” in every town in America and on the other hand all of the orphans waiting to be adopted by someone, anyone, who will love and care for them. They don’t want a blackberry or an x-box, they just want a roof over their head, food to eat and to live each day and not be in fear.

There are Christians all over the world that don’t have Bibles in their own language and cannot afford to buy one. They are starving for the Word of God and vulnerable to false teachers and we buy $125 calfskin study Bibles. I probably have more Bibles on my bookshelf than many churches in China have in the entire congregation. We put Bibles in the pews for people too lazy to bring their own Bible to church that sit unread all week long and our brothers and sisters risk life and limb to smuggle Bibles to those without.

There are widows who are lonely and waiting to be visited, but no one does because “that is the pastor’s job”. We subcontract ministry to one or a few men and expect them to minister to everyone else. See the above challenge to “step down and step up”.

If you are involved in a church that meets in an old building, or in a school, or someplace else, don’t give in to the prevailing worldview and go into debt to buy a building that will sit empty all week. Use what you have. If you want to plant a church, don’t wait for a paid minister to come to town, just open your home to the saints. It worked 2000 years ago, it still works today. If your congregation is sitting on $25,000 or $50,000 or more in the bank for a “rainy day”, ask yourself what you could be putting that money to use for that would advance the Gospel.

I am glad Christ cared more about sacrificing Himself so that we could be adopted into His family than He was about building glorious temples to Himself. I wish we had that same level of care for others around us.

Focus on a living God, not a dead man's bones

This is the epitome of empty religiosity...

Pope: Bone Fragments Found in Tomb Are Paul's

ROME — The first-ever scientific test on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seems to confirm" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.
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Benedict said archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul.

Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican's Paoline year, in honor of the apostle.

Seriously? So there are a couple of bone fragments in a tomb and carbon dating says they are from somewhere in the 1st or 2nd century. So we know they are bones, I assume human bones, and that they from a two hundred year period that coincides with the life and death of Paul. The “scientific tests” prove nothing other than these are old bones. The rest is left to tradition. The basilica was built by Constantine, who lived from 272 to 337 and became emperor in 306. Paul died around 65 A.D. So a couple of shards of bones are under a building that was erected at least 240 years after the death of Paul constitutes scientific proof to support a tradition that is irrelevant to Christians. Our focus is on a living Christ, not a dead man's bones.

Even if these are somehow the bones of Paul, which is incredibly doubtful, he would be mortified at the fuss made over them, with the fancy basilica erected over what are purported to be his bones. Paul’s mission was about the Risen Christ, not the bones of men long dead. What should we make of men who worship the worldly remains of dead men? You can try to duck around it by calling in “veneration” but it boils down to worship.

Paul’s legacy is not in a couple of shards of bone under an ornate edifice erected in Rome. Paul’s legacy to us are his inspired writings that teach us some of the great doctrines of God and show us a wonderful example of the servant leadership God’s people are called to. If you want to honor Paul, preach the Gospel. That is all the honor he would ever want.

Whither the Third Commandment?

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20: 4-6)

Read this from the Chicago Tribune and weep.

Melrose Park church to celebrate new crowns for statues made of donated gold, blessed by pope

When parishioners of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Roman Catholic Shrine in Melrose Park decided to create gold crowns for statues of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, they donated to the cause by reaching deep into their hearts and memories.

Joe Rosa gave his grandfather's wedding band. Corinne Principe wept as she slipped her own wedding ring off her finger. Antonio Godinez removed the big Jesus medallion he wore close to his heart and plopped it into a collection basket.

In all, 15 pounds of gold was given, including a dozen gold watches, several rings, bangle bracelets, earrings, chains and medals. Carrying out a religious tradition from Southern Italy, the donated gold was then melted down and molded into two new 14-karat gold crowns appraised at $75,000.

The self-sacrifice here in one way is very touching. Few possessions are more precious to an individual than their wedding band. The willingness to give up items that are precious to you is in many ways an admirable example of sacrificial living. But…

…to take the gold and make two crowns worth $75,000, fly them to Rome to be “blessed” by Joseph Ratzinger and then adorn them on statues is idoloatrous. Set aside for a moment the idea of a church spending $75,000 on something so vain and frivolous as golden crowns for statues. That is a huge issue but no more so than the sinful lavishness of many Protestant churches with obscenely ornate buildings, the latest in technology to impress people, large paid staffs, etc. The great issue here is that this is idolatry, nothing less. Look into the Bible and tell me how this veneration of statues of people is in keeping with the worship of God by His people? The statue of Christ is bad enough, but the statue of Mary? This veneration of a statue and praying to Mary and other saints is tragic. I am confident that when I pray, God’s will is always done and that I need no other intercessor but Jesus Christ, our great High Priest.

Humans naturally desire something tangible. The ancient Israelites did something very similar to this in Exodus:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. (Exodus 32: 1-6)

Sound similar at all? Idolatry is a heinous sin. Even for motivations that may seem pure to man, idolatry is replacing God as He has revealed Himself with something tangible that replaces Him. It is the creation set on its head, man creating God in our own image. Our God is not a God who appears bodily or that desires or permits us to create graven images.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Cor 4: 17-18)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrew 11: 1-3)

I pray that God will work in the hearts of these people who are crowning statues, parading them around town, praying to sinners. I pray that He will reveal Himself to them that they may have the assurance of life eternal through faith in Christ, not in prayers to sinners and idols. I pray that we who have been saved through His sovereign grace will not likewise fall into the temptation of idolatry, idolatry of our learning, or of human leaders, or of organizations, or of doctrines.

What a pretty building!

That is what many people think when they drive past a mormon temple. If they knew what was going on inside, in the secret mormon ceremonies hidden from outsiders, they would see that far from a temple to God it is an idolatrous perversion. A recent episode of the HBO show "Big Love" depicts part of what goes on inside the mormon temple.

I am not endorsing this show on HBO or HBO in general, but you will not see a view of what goes on inside the mormon temple in many other media portrayals. Give this clip from "Big Love" a few minutes of your time.

In the spirit of equal time, I have embedded a video from the mormon church describing why they build temples (without mentioning what goes on inside) Watch what the mormon church says about why they have temples.



Now compare what goes on in a mormon temple and what the Bible says about the temple. Do you see any similarity at all?

My wife and family and I went through this ceremony in Washington D.C. Looking back, I am horrified by what happened and what an affront to God this was. I am thankful that our God is a merciful God and that He did not strike me down for this idolatry, but instead showed me mercy by exposing the lie for what it was and showing me His Son.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. (Mat 23:27)

OK, I have a problem with this...

Fox News reports that Wal-Mart is selling a new line of action figures. OK. And the theme is Bible heroes. OK. And the description is as follows:

The toys, based on biblical stories, include a 3-inch figure of Daniel in the lion's den, a 12-inch talking Jesus doll and 13-inch Samson action figure.

A 12 inch talking Jesus doll? The company, One2believe, apparently thinks that a small talking plastic idolatrous representation of the Sovereign Lord of Creation, the Lamb of God, the Alpha and the Omega is an effective disciplining and evangelism tool. I guess that whole second Commandment is irrelevant in today's church. I don't really even like paintings that depict an artists rendition of what Christ looks like, much less an action figure that sends the message that Jesus is just another cool toy, on par with Optimus Prime and G.I. Joe. This goes beyond what some call "Jesus Junk" or schlock sold at Christian stores. Perhaps I am just an old fuddy duddy curmudgeon out of step with modern methods of Christian education, but to me this enters into virtual mockery of Christ.

Where is the reverence? Where is the gravity? The honor? The respect? The fear of the Lord?