Church Consolidation: A Sign Of The Times?

Saw an article in my local newspaper and other than featuring a photo in which a friend is in the picture it might have been easy to brush over. The story deals with a church taking over the building of another church and is titled Carrying on church legacy. The gist is that a SBC church plant in 2003 is getting their own building while another church basically shuts down:

To put it in biblical terms, Fort Wayne’s St. Joe Community Church has stopped worshipping in tents.

The congregation, planted by the Southern Baptist denomination in 2003, has spent more than a decade of existence wandering from one location to another – in all, three schools and a movie theater, said its pastor, Greg Byman.

In February, Byman said, the 120-member congregation had its first chance to worship in an actual church building, Memorial Baptist Church at 2900 N. Anthony Blvd., after that congregation agreed to a location-sharing arrangement.

 Now, Byman says, Memorial has agreed to allow St. Joe to have the building all to itself. The two congregations will celebrate today with a 6 p.m. joint worship service with Memorial’s pastor, the Rev. Dave Mitchell, as St. Joe settles into its first permanent home.

This seems to be a quiet but growing trend. Another friend of ours is part of a fellowship that assumed the ownership of another church that was largely made up of older Christians. The future was grim for that group so rather than just having the last member to die turn off the lights and lock the doors, they gave it to a group with more young families and children. Many of the older members stayed on in the new church while others moved on to other fellowships in the area.

In the years to come this will become more pronounced. There are too many small fellowships and simply too few Christians in a land saturated with "churches". As members age and as younger couples seek the more customized religious experiences being offered by the production focused larger gatherings, the left over local fellowships will slowly wither and die. When the money flow slows to a trickle, I expect to see more clergy moving to bigger congregations or just giving up. Since the vast majority of Christians are conditioned to be completely reliant on those clergy, job openings will remain open and churches will struggle along with "pulpit supply" pastors. That is not a long-term sustainable solution so eventually they will just fold up or be absorbed into newer fellowships seeking that all-important permanent location.

Ultimately I expect the number of distinct congregations in America to plummet in the next 10 years. Look back 10 years ago and a lot of what we are dealing as the church was unthinkable. That trend is not going to slow down but rather accelerate. Eat your Wheaties church of the living Christ. It is going to be a rough go for the next decade unlike anything the church dwelling in America has experienced before and I expect a lot of chaff will be separated from the wheat.

A Great Idea In Theory But No So Easy In Practice.

Eric Carpenter raises an issue that a lot of people who are yearning for a simpler, more faithful expression of the church have encountered, namely that it is a lot easier to theorize about "simple church" than it is to practice it. He writes in his recent post,  Where Are All the Simple Church Folks?...

Where are all the simple church people? I know they are out there;many are seeking fellowship with other believers. And yet, they are difficult to find. 

More and more Christians are done with the institutional model of church. I'm one of those Dones. If you are reading this blog, chances are fairly good that you are a Done, too (or are at least considering it). For your sake I hope you have close fellowship with other believers because it can be very difficult to find. If the institution does one thing well, it's that it makes it obvious both when and where meetings are taking place.

I know precisely what Eric is saying. There are lots of people who read the New Testament, specifically what it says about the church, and compare it to the traditional church setting and see a huge disconnect. The insatiable appetite for money, the focus on self-preservation, the anonymity it provides (and encourages), the professionalization of elders, the muting and neutering of the "laity", the need in general for the term "laity" in the first place, the jealous guarding of the pulpit and the pulpit in general, the reliance on monologue sermons. On and on. Yet for many of us the sort of fellowship is hard to find or nigh impossible. In conversation here and elsewhere I have heard from a lot of people all over the country that want something simpler but they can't find it or start it. There are lots of great simple fellowships around and if you live near one it is great. If you don't, it can be awfully hard to interest others in a start-up.

I agree that part of it has to do with the overwhelming dominance of the institutional model. It is all a lot of people know and if the truth be known it is all they want. I used to work with a guy, a pretty smart and decent guy, who attended a very large church. I asked him once if it bothered him that he was essentially anonymous and nobody knew if he was there on a given Sunday or not and his response boiled down to this: he liked it that way. He liked to show up, get his church fix and then go about his business. A lot of people are just like that. The other issue, and one that is more troubling to me, is that the simple church/house church crowd is home to some pretty sketchy people. Not like shoplifting sketchy but dangerous teaching sketchy, even at (or especially at) the most visible and prominent level.

As I have written before, the longer I spend seeking out the house church ideal, the more concerned I have become with the entire movement. Like many "movements", the house church movement is full of wonderful Christians. It also has attracted a lot of people who have egos and agendas that put megachurch pastors to shame. Of even greater concern, many of them are pushing heterodox and dangerous doctrines. The only house church type group we found in driving distance was mostly led by women who seemed to see the gathering as a way to highlight themselves along with lots of squirrely "visions" and "revelations" that were never challenged from Scripture. If I have to choose between a particular format of a church and sound teaching, I will choose sound teaching 100% of the time. Better a rigid Reformed institutional church with paid clergy than a simple church that teaches error. If I am honest, it seems like the simple church ideal attracts a lot of great and sincere people but it also attracts a lot of perpetually aggrieved people with a chip on their shoulder, kind of like how the Reformed ideal seems to attract people who like to feel superior and live to argue with other people.

Like others I find myself having to choose between fellowship in what is most certainly somewhere along the spectrum of a less than Biblical manner or having little to no regular fellowship at all. I know others struggle with this. It is easy to be bitter and blame the "sheep" who trudge off to work all week to make money so they can trudge off to church on Sunday and give part of their earnings to ensure they can do it again next week. It is also true that a lack of meaningful fellowship is a slow poison to the Christians soul. No one who is a serious teacher among simple folks types advocates for a solitary existence for the Christian individual or family, although that accusation is often made. I worry that a lot of us are, to paraphrase the old aphorism, making the perfect the enemy of the good. On  the other hand I never would suggest that the church should just shrug our collectives shoulders and soldier on in the status quo. All of our traditions need constant refinement and reflection against the mirror of Scripture. So I don't know what this all means. For a variety of health related issues I am not in a place to start a fellowship. I also am seeing pretty clearly the damage that a lack of fellowship is having on my family and especially to my own spiritual health. We periodically attend a super-conservative Mennonite fellowship and while they do a lot of things I question, they also know us and love us and welcome us, albeit in a somewhat limited way.

So that is a lot of words to basically say I am stumped and not a little worn out.

(***addendum: Eric posted a follow-up piece you should also read: Wandering in Church Wasteland)

Machen On Public Education

I might lose my membership in the fundamentalist club for admitting this but I have never read J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism. I finally started reading it this afternoon (for a couple of reasons) and it is delivering as I expected it to. I am highlighting like crazy and I only got through one chapter. For example, you won't find a more prescient view than this...

A public school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought at least to be free.

J. Gresham Machen (0100-12-31 17:00:00-07:00). Christianity & Liberalism (Kindle Locations 235-242). Mark Walter / The Calvinist Cafe. Kindle Edition. 

Yeah, that sounds familiar and he wrote this almost 100 years ago. America circa 2015 is living proof of the rightness of what Machen is warning about. Between the enormous bureaucracy, the agenda driven university system where we get our public school teaches and the rabid defenders of the educational monopoly in the teacher's unions, there really is no better system for dumping complacent, materialism conditioned and planting the seeds of rejection of parental convictions than the compulsory and largely monopolistic public education system. Little wonder that advocates of those very notions are so interested in expanding this compulsory and "free" system to younger ages and older ages alike in programs like Head Start and in pushing for "free" universal government preschool and post-secondary education.

The broader issues Machen raises are critical to understanding where the church stands in our pluralistic and often mushy and muddled religious landscape in America. Expect to hear more from the good doctor in the days to come.

Digging Deeply Into The Text

When I say I love this new teaching series from John Piper, I don't mean I kinda like it. I mean I love it. A lot. Not just because it is currently dealing with some of the most powerful teaching in all of the Bible but because Piper gets beyond the superficial level reading of a text and breaks it down. We need so much of this. His analysis for Romans 9:22-23 is powerful. To quote Piper: 

“In all the Bible, there are no more weighty, or ultimate, or difficult words than Romans 9:22–23.”

Yep. 

These are some of the most disturbing, troubling, disquieting verses in all the Bible, especially the New Testament and they receive the treatment you would expect which is to generally avoid them. Problem is, you can't avoid them just like you can't avoid verses about enemy love and gender relations and judgement. They are in there and there are in there for a reason, namely preserved by the sovereign decree of God the Father and the unquenchable fire of the Holy Spirit to testify and teach the followers of the Son. We know nothing authoritatively about Christ that is not found in Scripture. Nothing. It is little shock that so many people are confused and teaching error so enthusiastically because they are more concerned about what they think than what God says. 

Watch this video with a humble heart and an open Bible. Drink deeply my brothers and sisters.

Speaking Of Being Unequally Yoked

Heading into the first Republican 17 ring circus debate there is this news story: Which presidential candidate leads among evangelicals? Right now, it’s Donald Trump.

What does The Donald have to say that would account for that sizable lead over the next closest choice for evangelicals? Perhaps it is his depth of theological knowledge which makes Mitt Romney seem almost orthodox:

Trump saw his campaign take off after broadly denouncing Mexicans who cross the border illegally, calling them rapists and drug dealers. He also drew attention for saying Sen. John McCain is not a war hero. In the same Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, where he made those comments, Trump was questioned about whether he asks God for forgiveness. 

 “I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so,” he said. “If I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”

Trump said he participates in Holy Communion.

“When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed,” he said, according to CNN. “I think in terms of ‘let’s go on and let’s make it right.’ ”

Or maybe they just like his hair.

I hope that is it.

At least he is honest and is saying what a lot of people believe, which is why America is such a fertile mission field if we but have the courage to tell people that the above has no relationship to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

:facepalm:

70 Years Since The World Unleashed The Worst Weapon Of Mass Destruction Ever

70 years ago on this day the world saw the first of two atomic bombs unleashed on a mostly civilian population in Hiroshima, Japan. A few days later we did it again to the city of Nagasaki, Japan. With those actions hundreds of thousands died or were maimed and the world changed forever. If you have a streak of the macabre you can look at your own city and see what it would look like if the Hiroshima bomb was dropped on it today. You can also see the original orders for the atomic bomb strikes. What struck me was that the military was thoughtful enough to schedule religious services for Catholics and Protestants to worship Jesus right before they flew off to incinerate women and children. I wonder if they sang "Jesus Loves The Little Children"?

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of state-sponsored terrorism. That sounds harsh and not at all right to American ears. After all, we stopped the Nazis and then we stopped Imperial Japan, stomping the Japanese so badly that they still officially don't have a military (good news though, we will spend ourselves our of existence to defend Japan so they don't have to). Terrorism is what them Arabs and other people with funny names do, not what America does. Not so fast my friend. One of the prime definitions of the word "terrorism" is: Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives. That is exactly what happened and it doesn't make much difference to the civilians being killed if the plane was a commercial flight flown into a building in New York or a B-29 dropping a bomb on Hiroshima. Keep in mind that in both Germany and Japan, the U.S. used mass firebombing of cities to break the will of the people. The difference of course was that the U.S. and our frienemies the Soviets were already closing in on Berlin while we firebombed the Germans while an invasion of Japan proper was still in the works. Thanks to the fact that Hitler was nuts and the Red Army and the U.S. army were rampaging toward Berlin, German surrender was rendered moot. The Japanese however were more recalcitrant and harder to get to, even though the atomic bombing were preceded by months of firebombing of Japanese cities, including a raid on Tokyo that might have killed outright more people than the Hiroshima bombing, although firebombs don't have the radiation impact that the atomic bombs did, burning people alive in their homes.

Very subtle

Over the years as I have come to a place of non-resistance, I have found the excuses we use as a people to defend our use of weapons of mass destruction and terror to be increasingly hollow. I have run into all sorts of arguments, from new ones like nuking Japan saved them from being invaded and occupied by the Soviets (so see, we did them a favor. Sorry about incinerating those kids.) to old ones like the atomic bombing forced Japan's surrender and saved countless U.S. lives. I have even been told that the civilians had it coming because they were helping the war effort. Of course American citizens were doing the same thing on a massive scale but you can bet we wouldn't feel the same if Hitler had the bomb and used it on New York City. What made it more palatable then and probably secretly now was the very effective propaganda that dehumanized the Japanese people, just like Nazi Germany dehumanized Jews and ironically how pro-abortion forces dehumanize babies today. Watch some of the propaganda films from that era. Even Bugs Bunny got in on the act (watch the videos from that era and you will see what I mean). The Japanese were easy to dehumanize, even more so that the Germans, because they were foreign looking. The Germans looked like Americans but  the Japanese were an "other". They were called "Japs", "Nips", "little yellow devils" and all sorts of other charming names and the hatred for them was palpable up until recently. My maternal grandparents were Democrats but hated the Japanese people decades after the war. The vitriolic way they spoke about the Japanese seemed normal to me at the time but it is kind of shocking now that my sweet little Grannie had a hatred burning for an entire people decades after the war ended. It used to be a good way to get beat up where I lived if you drove a Jap car in the Rust Belt where American cars were built by American union autoworkers. If you Google search World War 2 propaganda posters you get pictures like the one above with the oh so subtle message that those dirty Japs were coming to rape white American women (search the "Tokio Kid" series for some particularly revolting pictures). In most of the propaganda posters the Japanese are portrayed as evil, leering subhumans with exaggerated slanted eyes and huge buckteeth, sometimes with fangs thrown in to reinforce the message. That message was clear, Japs aren't really humans. They are "The Enemy" and whatever we need to do to defeat "The Enemy" is OK, whether that means food and fuel rationing for the war effort or sticking those dirty Japs in internment camps or nuking women and children. This same tactic was used in Vietnam to excuse the war crimes perpetrated against the Vietnamese people. They were just "zipperheads" or "Gooks". Not people cuz the U.S. doesn't do that. We still see this today. So sorry kids got killed in that drone strike, they are "collateral damage" but we killed a high value target. USA! The U.S. has been acting like the drunkest guy in the party since World War II ended with the atomic bombings, stumbling around looking for a fight and generally making a mess of things, all the while killing lots of civilians while saving lots of other civilians. Ya want to make an omelette ya gotta break a few eggs. #amiright?

Militarily you can justify the atomic bombings. After all the goal was to force Japan to surrender and save American lives. Civilians always have and always will die in war in disproportionate numbers. I would not have wanted to be a civilian family in Germany that had a visit from Soviet troops or Americans because the stories are out there and they are ugly, often as ugly as the atrocities commited by the Japanese and Germans (I don't count the Italians because they were really useless in the war). Like I said, the goal was achieved. The Japanese surrendered, we won, the world was saved, USA! I am not minimizing the facts like the simple playground excuse of "They started it" and the reality of invading Japan leading to a lot of lives being lost among military and civilian alike. The Japanese were brutal in war, from the Bataan Death March to the practice of using teen-aged girls from occupied areas as "comfort women", a clever euphemism for sex slaves. Although less well documented than the Holocaust, Japanese war crimes are nausea inducing. Make no mistake, I am absolutely saying that the world as a whole is better off because we won and they lost although it is a lot more complicated. World War II didn't happen in a historical vacuum, just like the War on Terror isn't the result (entirely) of events since 9/11. I am personally glad that we got the bomb before the Nazis did (and also that Hitler was unhinged enough to invade the USSR, splitting his forces and changing history). That doesn't change the reality that the United States used terrorism as a weapon to subdue the Japanese people and we do history and humanity no favors by pretending that it was anything other than an atrocity, even if it was a "necessary" one. There are still many lessons to be learned today from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and I don't mean the lesson of "Don't mess with the U.S.".

The bitter irony of the United States being the only nation to use an atomic weapon in war while scolding others for seeking to gain access to the same is not lost on me and becomes more grating every year. I really don't want Iran to gain access to a nuclear weapon but I also am not super keen on Israeli already having them, or India or Pakistan or France or even the good ole U.S. of A. since we actually used them. After the Iraq invasion and occupation came up empty on WMDs, we could have sent the inspectors to America because we have them all over the central part of the country in innocuous looking concrete bunkers in Wyoming and Nebraska.

The Japanese people still remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We need to remember them as well, not as an opportunity to pat ourselves on our collective backs but as a bitter reminder of the cost of war that perhaps will dissuade us or at least give us pause before we get into the seemingly inevitable next war. We seem to look back with nostalgia on  the days of World War II and have been trying to recreate that heady feeling by getting into war after war ever since. Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Countless smaller wars and a decades long Cold War where only the threat of mutually assured destruction kept the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. from lobbing nukes at one another.

We like to pray for God to "bless our troops" and thank Him for our freedom but we must remember: The "freedom" you enjoy was purchased with the currency of dead women and children. That is an uncomfortable truth but a truth nevertheless.

The lesser of two evils is still evil. Remember Pearl Harbor but also remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Dresden and countless other places. Remember the mother in Dresden burned alive alongside her baby in a carriage. Remember the dead in Hiroshima and those maimed so horrifically that I couldn't bring myself to post a picture of them. If you are also a Christian remember the words of Christ...

"But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. (Luke 6:27-29)

Joseph Smith And His Magic Seer Stone: A Rare Act Of Honesty Out Of Salt Lake City

Joseph Smith's magic seer stone

One of the deeply held tenets of mormonism is that the founder of their religion, Joseph Smith, was the "prophet of the restoration". Based on this belief and the alleged apostasy of all other Christians since the earliest days of the church, Smith claimed to be a prophet and seer divinely chosen to restore genuine Christianity in the form of the religion known as Mormonism. His signature feat was the "translation" of a book known as the Book of Mormon from a record inscribed on golden plates that purports to describe a Jewish civilization that existed in America in tandem with the events described in the Bible, culminating in a visit to this civilization by Christ. The account has proven problematic as the plates were never actually seen by anyone but Smith, there is no such language as "reformed Egyptian" which Smith claimed the plates were written in and there is no evidence of a proto-Jewish/Christian civilization anywhere in the Americas. Prospective converts to mormonism are asked to take Smith's claim on faith and "pray about the Book of Mormon". Compounding the problem for mormons are the wildly varying accounts Smith provided for this entire process, from being confused apparently by the number and identity of various divine visitors who told him where to find the conveniently located golden plates and the method he used for "translation". The story has changed a lot and one key facet, Smith's claim to have used a seer stone in a hat to translate the book of mormon, has been mostly hidden from mormon members. These members would often find out about this online and be quite disenchanted with the church for hiding the embarrassing truth.

What occurred recently is remarkable for its rarity. The mormon church revealed the existence of the seer stones and a picture of one called the "Chocolate Easter Egg" stone (see picture). Now the spin they are putting on this article for the October issue of Ensign Magazine, the mormon church's main periodical, would make even  the most experienced carnival ride aficionado barf in dizziness but it is a huge deal that they are finally being honest with the way that the "Book of Mormon" was alleged to be translated. It is quite a difference from the way it has always been portrayed in mormon literature. For example, the picture on the left shows (from the official mormon website) how it has often been portrayed. Notice that Smith and Oliver Cowdery (the scribe) are sitting at a table. Cowdery can clearly see the plates even though the evidence suggests that neither Cowdery or anyone else actually saw the plates.  There are no physical aids to translation, like a magic stone in a hat, rather it looks like Smith is reading directly from  the plates and Cowdery is writing what Smith "translated". Other renditions are different, some with the curtain, some with Smith wearing the breastplate and "Urim and Thummim". As Smith moved west and his following grew, his accounts of critical events changed quite dramatically.

I don't know about you but if I was visited by angelic visitors I would remember who they were and how many there were. Likewise if I translated a book claiming to be "another testament of Jesus Christ" and the most important event in the history of Christianity since the crucifixion, I would recall if I was reading it directly or via a stone in a hat to get the "revelation". Young Joseph Smith possessed a vivid imagination and the account of the first vision and the translation of the "Book of Mormon" bear all the marks of someone making it up as he went, in much the same way that he claimed to translate papyri that were later shown to say nothing at all what Smith claimed.

The easily debunked claims of virtually all of early mormonism are not really the point to this. What is the point is that the mormon leadership is finally admitting in public to issues like Joseph Smith "marrying" dozens of women, including some already married and others as young as 14 as well as his use of pagan and folk magic devices like the "seer stone" in a hat and the alleged "Urim and Thummim". This rare show of honesty in public is a stark contrast to the normally secretive mormon elite that hides most information very closely, only permitting carefully vetted documents out in public, and might be a sign of waving the white flag after realizing that in this day and age any inquisitive mormon or prospective convert can find plenty of evidence of shenanigans with the historical record. When the opening lines of thousands of young missionaries is shown to be malarkey, it is no wonder that mormons are leaving the church or becoming "inactive" in huge numbers.

Hopefully the foundations of this cultic religion will continue to crumble but as always my sincere and prayerful desire is that Christians are there to catch people when the house of cards that is mormonism collapses. As I have said on many occasions, it is not enough to prove mormonism false, a fairly easy task. It is critical that we also show them the real Jesus Christ. An active mormon, a mormon apostate or an atheist all have the same need for the redeeming power of the true Gospel.

For my testimony of being saved out of mormonism please see Our Journey Out Of Mormonism: Saved By Sovereign Grace.

For other, older blog posts from me on mormonism see The Fo-Mo Chronicles

Other valuable sources of information

Utah Lighthouse Ministry Sandra Tanner and her late husband Jerald, one of the originals and a vast repository of knowledge and research!

Mormonism Research Ministry Another treasure trove!

God Never Sinned

Mormon Coffee



Joseph Smith seer stones false prophet LDS mormon mormonism church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints.

At What Cost?

Peace within the church and unity of the brethren is not a "nice to have", it is a fundamental requirement, a non-negotiable commandment from Christ. Psalm 133:1 speaks of the joy when the brothers live in unity. We are commended to be one just as the Father and Son are one ( John 17:11-23 ) in Christ's prayers. Peter and Paul both urge us to work to a unity of Spirit, faith, knowledge and love (Ephesians 4:3; 4:13 , 1 Peter 3:8). I cannot help but believe that Christ is grieved over the divisions in His Church, especially since so much of what divides the church is due to disagreement on important but secondary questions. For example, I can drive to at least five different conservative Anabaptist local churches in less than 15 minutes that would look to the casual observer to be almost identical and yet they are distinct from one another and in some ways in competition for the same pool of members. It really bothers me that this is the case.

On the other hand, there is an awful lot of division that is unfortunate but also proper and necessary. The church in America is in the midst of a seismic event in the form of sexual ethics, especially the attempted normalization of homosexual behavior. The church has to address it and there really isn't a way to "live and let live" on this question. Either homosexuality is, as has been understood in the church for 2000 years, an aberrant and sinful behavior (assuming one identifies as homosexual based on taking action on urges rather than struggling with them in a celibate lifestyle) that must be repented of or it is a special category of specifically named sin that really isn't a sin at all. We are all sinners, even and especially those in the church, but for those with a new heart we cannot wallow in our sin and even celebrate it. You won't see, at least for now, "'Men Who Look At Women With Lust' Pride Parades". We either turn from sin to Christ and receive redemption or we remain under condemnation, turned away from Christ and embracing sin. There is no middle ground. If we had such a structure it would be a good time for a Council of Nicaea type moment so the church can go on record about this issue. Unfortunately, due in large part to the aforementioned division in the church, that is not feasible, leaving the issue up for debate from the level of large denominations to local churches and individual Christians.

I was reminded of this in a news story I saw recently relating to the Mennonite Church USA. By any measure the MC-USA represents the left-wing of the very diverse Mennonite community and is dealing with the homosexual normalization issue like the rest of the "progressive" wing of the American religious community. One regional conference, the North Central Conference of Mennonite Church USA, is stepping away from the MC USA. A representative of the very small (less than 400 total members in 10 churches), Fred Kanagy, said the following

“The NCC has come to recognize and identify ways in which MC USA has moved away from what we understand to be traditional, orthodox interpretations of Scripture from an Anabaptist perspective,” he wrote in an email. “ . . . The movement of many in MC USA in thinking, discernment and practice has created a separation, and the trajectory seems to indicate a widening divide, which we feel requires of us that we either change our convictions or change our affiliation.”

That is really the proper way of putting it. It is not the stodgy conservatives who are bringing disunity, it is those who are straying further from orthodoxy with each passing day. You might say, so what, it is only a few hundred people but they aren't the only ones. Also announcing their departure is the venerable and much larger Lancaster Conference with over 13,000 members , which according to the Mennonite World Review amounts to a loss of 14% of the total membership in MC USA. That is a major loss and I expect others to follow as Christians and local churches "vote with their feet".

This is not an unusual or rare problem. Many other "mainline" Protestant denominations have seen splits, especially in the Episcopal church in America which was the first to put forth a divorced (now twice divorced) open and unrepentant homosexual as "bishop". Individual Christians, local churches and groups of local churches alike have declared that the direction some have taken has led to an unequal yoking and they cannot maintain their affiliation. Rightly so. If we are not to associate with or even break bread with the unrepentant sinner that claims to be a Christian (1 Corinthians 5:9-13), we certainly cannot remain yoked with an entire group of people who " give approval to those who practice" sins such as homosexuality (Romans 1:32 and preceding verses).

There is a place for denominational unity I suppose but in many cases what we are seeing are local churches and individual Christians who are stepping away from denominational unity in order to remain in unity with the broader church. What seems to be occurring, as someone who identifies in many ways with Anabaptism but on the outside of the MC USA, is the same thing that happened in any number of "mainline" Protestant denominations. As their denomination moved further away from orthodoxy, they were forced to choose between unity with a denomination or unity with the broader church. In these cases they chose the more difficult and less popular route of choosing loyalty to the church universal, Biblical orthodoxy and Christ Himself rather than denominational ties. Rightly so. The path of following Jesus is pretty much never the smoother, easier path.

HT: Tim Challies

I generally have little use for denominations, even though they sometimes work powerfully for good. This issue of sexual morality is going to be one that more and more denominations are going to be forced to address. Even "conservative" denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America are going to have to deal with individual churches who flaunt their disobedience from Scripture and their challenge of the broader denominational norms. We are already seeing a lot of this. There are many Presbyterians and Baptists who differ on church governance and the question of baptism that nonetheless have far more in common with each other than they do with fellow Presbyterians or Baptists. I think we will continue to see the rise of cross-denominational, "para-church" cooperative efforts in the years to come, if for no other reason than simple survival.

Unity is critical and the church needs more unity and cooperation but that can never come at the expense of truth.

A Child Of Privilege

One of the favorite buzzwords of the day is "privilege ". Apparently it is a way to shame people who have had a better upbringing than others or at the same time it is a way to shame parents who actually parent their children, because you doing all you can to raise up kids who don't become a drag on society and instead contribute to it is something to be ashamed of. I am not in the college indoctrination sphere anymore but I still hear a lot about it.

I am absolutely a child of privilege. After all I am a white male. I also grew up in the home of a doctor so I never wanted for money or even understood what that meant. So yeah, count me among the privileged few. But the real reason that I was raised with "privilege " has very little to do with economics or race. The real privilege I grew up with was an intact family and a mother who taught me to read by reading to me at an early age. Even if my dad was a blue collar worker making a quarter of the money he did, the real privilege I enjoyed was having parents who were and still are married to each other and who did the little stuff that makes a big difference, again like reading to a child. It is not a stretch to say that the two things that have led to me being successful in my career are learning to love reading as a child and learning to speak in public while in the FFA during high school.

If I understand the statistics correctly, the single greatest contributing factor for a child growing up in poverty is being raised in a single parent household. The left in America sees income inequality as something you can fix with ludicrous and empty notions like raising the minimum wage or taking more money from earners and giving it to non-earners. In reality the best thing we could do to keep kids out of poverty is not more welfare or subsidized school lunches, instead it would be to stop incentivizing single parenthood. The greatest source of "privilege" in America is simply growing up in a traditional family. Not in every single case but overall that is an unavoidable truth.

Robert Tracinski, writing on this topic for The Federalist in his essay, Privilege Comes Dressed in Overalls and Looks Like Work, wrote:

This whole question is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, because I have two young kids. And I am working my tail off to give them as much “privilege” as humanly possible.

I want my kids to start their adult lives with a laundry list of advantages: I want them to be bright, literate, skilled, capable of self-discipline, athletic, with good taste and manners and grooming, maybe a little bit of money, and heck, even a few family connections—enough to get their feet in the doors of whatever careers they choose. I had some of these things, mostly a good education, and undoubtedly more than most people. I want my kids to have even more. Why? Because that’s my job as a parent: to give my kids the best start in life possible—and better than mine.

Well yeah, that would have been just common sense 20 years ago but in our days of "privilege shaming" and "microaggressions" and a whole litany of other excuses for bad behavior, it seems quaint and probably a bit threatening today.

If you are a parent, it is pretty much your job to give your kids the best possible upbringing. You shouldn't be made to feel ashamed of that, in fact you ought to be embarrassed if you don't try to give your kids every advantage in your reach. It doesn't have to be expensive. Read to your kids. Take them to the library and let them pick out books. Marry the person you want to have kids with and don't have kids until you do. Stay together. Make dinner on occasion. This is simple stuff but it has become all too uncommon. This country is careening headlong over the precipice and it really is less of an issue of economics as it is a moral issue. In other words our economic woes are the direct result of our moral woes and thus the resolution is not and cannot be primarily an economic solution. The cause of most of our problems can be traced back to the home and that is where the solution must focus. Simply shuffling around economics resources is never going to get us out of the mess we are in.

Read a book to your kid. You might just help save America.

Putting the Fun Back In Fundamentalism

By almost any measure I qualify as a fundamentalist. I am long on in-context literalness and short on "nuance". I am a six, 24-hour long days Creation account guy. I think when they Bible says that wives should cover their heads what it really means is....wives should cover their heads. Most every church fellowship we have associated with would be considered "conservative" and/or "fundamentalist", whether that is old fashioned Baptist fundamentalism (minus the KJV-only part) or more recently conservative, fundamentalist Anabaptist groups where we are often seen as "too liberal".  Having said all that, I was talking with my wife today and what struck me this weekend was that an awful lot of fundamentalism is not much fun. By not fun I mean the sermons and teaching are often kind of grim, full of admonition and admonishment but lacking in encouragement. Fed a steady diet of  "we aren't doing enough" and performance based sanctification, it is little wonder that while many fundamentalists are serious about their faith and willing to do just about anything for you, they are too often not really outwardly happy, joyful people.

This really ought not be. When you see the Bible as the literal revealed Word of God that gives us all we know authoritatively about Jesus Christ, what do you have to be grumpy about? We win in the end! In fact we have already won by virtue of being born-again and adopted into God's family for eternity, saved from an eternal judgement. For those who wear their doubt as a badge of honor I can see why you would fret but Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the uncertain for theirs may or may not be a Kingdom which may or may not be literal". But for those who can sing the hymn "Blessed Assurance" and mean it, we should be a joyful people. Yes we should be sober and serious about truth but we can be glad while we do it. I think we have a lot to be joyful about, we should show it as well as know it. We can be happy without being frivolous, giving praise of thanksgiving without a furrowed brow.

Fellow fundies, it is ok to smile. Remember Jesus loves you!

Still My Favorite

In 2008, during a time of spiritual turmoil, I attended Together for the Gospel. I don't really remember much from the talks, although they were excellent. What I do remember is the thunder of thousands of brothers in Christ singing. That comes from someone who hates and is very self-conscious when singing. My favorite hymn of that time was "And can it be that I should gain", a deeply theological and glorious hymn. This is what it sounded like when it was sung:



If you don't know the words, they are below:

1. And can it be that I should gain
   An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
   Died He for me, who caused His pain—
   For me, who Him to death pursued?
   Amazing love! How can it be,
   That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
   • Refrain:
     Amazing love! How can it be,
     That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
2. ’Tis myst’ry all: th’ Immortal dies:
   Who can explore His strange design?
   In vain the firstborn seraph tries
   To sound the depths of love divine.
   ’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
   Let angel minds inquire no more.
3. He left His Father’s throne above—
   So free, so infinite His grace—
   Emptied Himself of all but love,
   And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
   ’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
   For, O my God, it found out me!
4. Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
   Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
   Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray—
   I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
   My chains fell off, my heart was free,
   I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
5. No condemnation now I dread;
   Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
   Alive in Him, my living Head,
   And clothed in righteousness divine,
   Bold I approach th’ eternal throne,
   And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

A hymn should be great theology first, a good song second. Give it a play and glory in the redeeming and loving sacrifice of Christ Jesus the Lord.

Non-resistance In Light Of The Selling Of Human Beings Piecemeal

I write a fair bit about the genteel genocide that happens on a vast scale in America in the sterile offices of abortionists. I don't apologize for that. Just the opposite, the national horror and staining of our character that is abortion demands the church speak out. If I posted something about abortion every day of the year I would still count myself timid in the struggle for basic human dignity for the least of us.

This past week has introduced an entirely new level of gruesome brutality as undercover videos show representatives of the falsely named organization "Planned Parenthood" bartering for the left over pieces of human infants. While "comedians" cried crocodile tears over the death of a single lion, the media did their level best to ignore the whole topic but thanks to social media and a few outspoken voices, this topic will not go away. What makes these videos so chilling is not the brutal act of abortion. Everyone knows (but few will say) what happens when a woman enters an abortuary pregnant with a human child and leaves no longer pregnant. We hide the brutal carving, crushing and vacuuming of over a million children each year behind clever euphemisms and concepts like "choice" and "women's reproductive rights". It is murder for hire hiding in plain sight, little different from rail cars filled with Jews going away and never coming back. The Germans knew something was going on but no one talked about it. Likewise we avoid talking openly about abortion and certainly refuse to look at the results. No, what really makes the videos grotesque is how casual the representatives of history's greatest mass murderer are about the entire thing.

Casual brutality is far worse than other kinds of brutality. The brutality that is often on display in our popular culture and evening news is bad enough but when brutality is hidden behind shrugged shoulders and polite conversation there is something far more disquieting about it. We sort of get it when people who are unhinged are savage but when savagery happens in lovely offices with not so much as a moment of regret by people purporting to be "medical professionals", it is so much worse. When you compound this brutality with the half a billion the tax payers provide to these butchers and the reality that one political party, to quote George Will's brilliant column, has as a sacred cow the unlimited, anytime, anywhere, any age support for abortion...

The nonnegotiable tenet in today’s Democratic Party catechism is not opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline or support for a $15 minimum wage. These are evanescent fevers. As the decades roll by, the single unshakable commitment is opposition to any restriction on the right to inflict violence on pre-born babies. So today there is a limitless right to kill, and distribute fragments of, babies that intrauterine medicine can increasingly treat as patients.

...you are left with no choice but to act. But how in keeping with Biblical non-resistance?

What then ought a non-resistant Christian do in light of abortion, especially with the new revelations of Planned Parenthood harvesting the "non-crushed" parts of tiny human being for sale?

I have some serious moral qualms about the way the videos were gathered. Being false even in the defense of the helpless is something that bothers me. I also have absolutely zero faith that electing a sufficient number of Republicans would do anything to stop abortion. My understanding of the Biblical mandate to Christians is, in the King James vernacular, that we "resist not evil" (Matthew 5:39) and "overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). So what then? Shall we sit on the sidelines and think positive thoughts?

Of course not. Being non-resistant never has been intended to be inactive, just that we seek the way of the cross in fighting injustice rather than employing the coercive and violent methods of the world. We can and we must be outspoken, prophetic voices calling those who commit abortion and those who seek abortion out to repent. Even as grievous a sin as abortion is, it is not beyond the reach of the blood of Jesus. Even those who profit handsomely from infanticide and are enemies of God and a type of anti-Christ in doing so demand not our hatred but our love and our prayer. We also must continue to emasculate the false dilemma posed to pro-lifers that we only care about a child until they are born. The evidence that the opposite is true is overwhelming but we must continue to do more to show the love of Christ to women and men alike who have chosen life instead of death for their child. That means education and that might mean material support, both of which are provided in vast measure by the many crisis pregnancy centers operating around the country. For those who have had an abortion and now repent must be treated as brothers and sisters. None of us has a clean slate before we were born-again. Of course we must pray, often and fervently, for God to stop this barbarism because only God can change a human heart.

It often seems bleak and even hopeless but little by little I believe that the people of this country will roll back the legal abomination created out of thin air by the Supreme Court. We are limited in the tools God has given but those tools possess unlimited power if we only have the courage and humility to use them.