Posts
29 November 2010
NEW BOOK: DIE TROJAANSE PERD IN DIE NG KERK
A new book "Die Trojaanse Perd in die NG Kerk" has just been released (see link below). Amongst other things, it describes the encroachments of the Emerging Church in this denomination - in some ways it has been infected much more seriously than many other denominations. While the acceptance of other race groups is welcomed, since 1994 the NGK has radically softened its stance on morality and biblical truth. When the issue of Same-Sex Marriage was debated in parliament, the NGK parliamentary lobbyist supported state 'same-sex marriage', while not wanting to have it done by their church. He openly professed his view to be postmodern, while calling the Biblical view 'pre-modern'. Why the drastic shift in the NGK? My opinion (not those of the book authors) is three fold:
* Firstly, the NGK by previously aligning itself with other social and political structures attracted many who are not true Christians who joined simply because that was the socially acceptable thing to do at the time. These people have no sincere commitment to biblical truth and have shifted with the winds of culture to what is now 'politically correct'.
* Secondly, the church has handed its theological training over to secular universities, where it cannot control the appointment of lecturers and ensure they are biblical and this unbiblical teaching has been taught to their students.
* Thirdly, they appear to have ended up with a similar crisis of biblical confidence to the Presbyterian church in the Southern United States. Both churches have very similar Calvinist theology. The Southern Presbyterians failed to speak up against slavery until the Northern United States had militarily conquered the South. Then they suddenly shifted their position to 'anti-slavery' after the law changed, without properly explaining to their followers from the scriptures why they had made the shift. The result from their followers was a loss of confidence in the authority of the church. The Southern Presbyterians then tried various 'unity' efforts with the Northern Presbyterians to try to bolster their credibility. In doing so, they sadly compromised their theological principles in exchange for such 'unity' and opened the door to liberalism, which later over-ran their churches. It appears a similar dynamic has occurred within the NGK after the fall of apartheid.
There is a need for Bible believing Christians to speak up for Biblical truth. If you are in the NGK, this book can help equip you to do so.
Below is a summary of one of the chapters on the Emerging Church in the NGK. Please forward this email to your Afrikaans friends
http://www.glodiebybel.co.za/boeke-m/189-die-trojaanse-perd-in-die-ng-kerk.html
Philip Rosenthal
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Die aanslag op die Woord vanuit postmodernistiese denkwyses
Een van die hoofstukke in die boek “Die Trojaanse Perd in die NG Kerk – die kanker van Evolusie en Liberalisme” bekyk nuwe stroming wat tans nie net in die NG Kerk woed nie, maar in die meeste gereformeerde denominasies in Suid-Afrika, en ook op verskillende plekke in die wêreld.
Daar word gekyk na hoe die ommekeer in Skrifbeskouing ook nie Skrifkritiek en Skrifgebruik onaangetas gelaat het nie. Dit het tot gevolg dat Bybelwaarhede soos die opstanding van Christus, Sy maagdelike geboorte, Sy Godheid en selfs Sy plaasvervangende sterwe verloën word. Daar kan selfs gevra word: Is die hart van die evangelie nie uitgeruk nie? Die liberale aanslag het verdoemende gevolge op vele terreine.
In wese is die postmoderne teoloë se verstaan van die Skrif van so ‘n aard dat daar nie juis veel van die Evangelie oorbly nie. Die maagdelike geboorte van Christus én sy liggaamlike opstanding word verwerp. Die kruisdood word deur sommige geleerdes as ‘n wrede daad van die Vader uitgebeeld. ‘n Vader wat Sy Seun doodmaak vir die sondes van ander, moet gehaat word. Die Bybel word nie meer gesien as die ware, geïnspireerde en onfeilbare Woord van God nie, maar as ‘n versameling werke wat niks méér sê nie, as bloot wat mense in die verlede oor God geglo het.
Ernstige kommer word in hierdie boek uitgespreek oor die ongereformeerde rigting wat hierdie strominge ingaan en die traagheid om met leertug teen teoloë op te tree wat meelopers hiervan is. Van hierdie nuwe strominge wat onder die vergrootglas kom , is die Ontluikende Kerk “Emerging/Emergent Church”) en die “Nuwe Hervorming” . Enkele gedagtes word ook uitgespreek oor die Evangeliese Inisiatief (EI).
Die Ontluikende Kerk (Emerging Church)
Een van die mees resente strome van geestelike misleiding het byna ongemerk die Christelike Kerk wêreldwyd oorspoel. Hierdie uiters subtiele postmoderne “herverwoording” van die Evangelie staan bekend as die Ontluikende Kerk (Emerging Church), en is besig om in ‘n toenemende mate ‘n alles-omvattende paradigmaverskuiwing in elke faset van die Christendom teweeg te bring. Die Ontluikende Kerk-beweging met sy gepaardgaande teologiese rigting van postmodernisme, is bo alles ‘n aanslag op die Bybel. Die Ontluikende Kerk sluit aan by en eerbiedig die kultuur van die dag. Dit het min of meer sedert 2004 sterk na vore gekom en dit wil voorkom asof die rigting veral aanklank vind onder die jonger geslag.
Die Ontluikende Kerk is ‘n beweging of ‘n stroming eerder as ‘n gestruktureerde organisasie of kerkverband. Een van die filosofiese uitgangspunte van dié beweging is dat dit ‘n deug is om onseker te wees of twyfel te hê oor geloofsake! Ons kan dit ook beskryf as ‘n verheerliking van onsekerheid. Die vertrekpunt van die beweging is dus dat dit algeheel onmoontlik is om presies te verstaan wat die Bybel regtig leer en bedoel.
Brian McLaren, een van die bekendste ontluikendes, glo byvoorbeeld nie meer aan Christus as persoonlike Verlosser van sonde nie, maar as “Hervormer” van die wêreld – dus tipiese vryheidsteologie. Hy ontken ook Christus se wederkoms en God se toekomstige oordeel van die wêreld. Dit is jammer dat die bekende Bill Hybels van die makro gemeente Willow Creek in Chicago, homself assosieer met hom.
Van die ander name wat in hierdie verband genoem word, is Leonard Sweet, Rob Bell, Tony Jones en Erwin McManus. Kerkleiers in die NG Kerk wat stadig maar seker besig is om in te koop op hierdie subtiele misleiding is onder andere prof. Julian Müller, Nelus Niemand en Stephan Joubert.
Die mees ontstellende aspek van die Ontluikende-infiltrasie is dat hulle veral die Kerklike jeug van die wêreld in hulle visier het. Youth Specialties is ‘n multi-biljoen dollar Ontluikende-jeugorganisasie wat internasionaal opereer. In hul gratis kursusmateriaal, wat wêreldwyd deur jeugleiers en -predikante van hulle massiewe webtuiste afgelaai word, propageer hulle onder andere mistieke Oosterse meditasiepraktyke, homoseksualiteit en masturbasie.
Die leer van die “Nuwe Hervorming” (NH) – 'n radikale breuk met die Christelike geloof
Die Nuwe Hervorming wil doelbewus en radikaal breek met die Kerk- en teologiegeskiedenis van die verlede. Die ekumeniese en reformatoriese belydenisskrifte en die Kerklike dogmas, soos dit deur die eeue ontwikkel het, word verwerp.
Daar is binne die nuwe Godsleer van die Nuwe Hervorming geen ruimte meer vir gebed nie. Feitlik elke aspek van die Bybelse verlossingsleer word hervertolk: Die ontvangenis en geboorte van Christus, die wonders, sy kruisdood as soenoffer en die opstanding. Die uitdaging is, volgens die Nuwe Hervorming, om hierdie verhale as mites te verstaan en akkuraat oor die betekenis daarvan te praat “want die wyse waarop die evangelie die goeie boodskap aangaande Jesus verstaan en aanbied, is onversoenbaar met die moderne wêreldbeeld en Bybelwetenskap”.
Reaksies van die Evangeliese Inisiatief
Nadat ‘n DVD “Nuwe Strominge in die Teologie” van WTL Multimedia Produksies verskyn het, het die Evangeliese Inisiatief (EI) ontstaan. Sommige mense het beweer dat dit ‘n poging was om die “verwarring” wat by lidmate ontstaan het, te help opklaar. Die vraag is egter of dit gaan oor “verwarring” by die lidmate of oor “afwyking” by die leierskap van die Kerk. Dit is sekerlik duidelik dat baie ingeligte lidmate lankal reeds agtergekom het dat daar by die Kerkleiding ‘n radikale afwyking gekom het in hul teologiese benadering!
Dit het vir lidmate duidelik geword dat daar ‘n heeltemal nuwe benadering gekom het tot die Bybel as die Woord van God. Dit is so eenvoudig soos dit is. Lidmate het waardering vir die Skrifgetroue prediking by die byeenkoms van 13 Oktober 2007 wat onder leiding van die Evangeliese Inisiatief by Moreletapark gereël was. Hulle het ook waardering vir die getuienis wat dit uitgedra het ten opsigte van die waarheid wat vir ons erns is. Of die Algemene Sinode of die teologiese fakulteite egter hulle teologie rondom die Skrif en die hantering daarvan gaan omkeer, bly ‘n ope vraag. Sal predikante vanaf 2008 nog steeds opgelei word deur dieselfde dosente wat ons in die afgelope dekades leer ken het? Dink ook aan dosente van ander kerke wat byvoorbeeld by UP (en elders!) betrokke is!
Samevatting
Opsommend kan gesê word dat die postmodernisme ‘n reaksie is teen die noukeurig-gedefinieerde waarheid van die Bybel. Wat behoort ons antwoord te wees ten opsigte van hierdie aanslag op die duidelikheid van die Woord? Dit kan niks anders wees nie, as dat ons doelgerig en volhardend die Woord sal bly handhaaf en suiwer sal verkondig. God neem deur Sy Gees die verantwoordelikheid om deur die waarheid van Sy Woord, te doen wat Hom behaag. Só bring Hy Sy Goddelike plan soewerein tot uitvoer (Jes. 55:10-11).
----------------------------------------------------
If you are in the NGK, why not order your copy at:
http://www.glodiebybel.co.za/boeke-m/189-die-trojaanse-perd-in-die-ng-kerk.html
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
WHY DEFEND THE FLOCK AGAINST LIES ABOUT GOD?
WHY DEFEND THE FLOCK AGAINST LIES ABOUT GOD?
THE TOLERANT ATTITUDE OF OUR CULTURE INFLUENCES THE CHURCH
DOES THIS REALLY MATTER?
WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING ABOUT: CATEGORIES OF TRUTH
FOCUSING THE BATTLE
JESUS TEST OF A TRUE SHEPHERD
ISN’T IT UNLOVING TO FIGHT HERESY?
WHAT ABOUT FREE SPEECH?
THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH IN CHURCH HISTORY
FROM HISTORY TO TODAY
Should we tolerate Christians teaching whatever they want to or should churches set boundaries on what we will allow?
THE TOLERANT ATTITUDE OF OUR CULTURE INFLUENCES THE CHURCH
The attitude of our culture is to let people say just about whatever they want provided they don’t expect me to believe it. Christians influenced by postmodern culture will argue: Isn’t that’s free speech - our Constitutional right – a freedom people fought and died for. So are we in the church going to throw that away by dogmatically demanding that people can’t teach contrary to our church’s beliefs? Do we want to go back to the Middle ages where people were burned at the stake for what they believed? Do we want to be like the Taliban or some sect of narrow minded fundamentalist bigots? Or will we promote free thinking, enquiry, conversation and debate? If we try to silence teaching with which we disagree aren’t we being unloving? What harm do people do just by sharing their ideas – even if wrong? Surely we should give them space in the free market of ideas? Is it not okay to allow publication and preaching of incorrect teachings so long as the truth also gets a voice? That is what most of our culture says. But is that what we should practice - and what does the Bible say?
The biggest debate in the church today is not about what is true, but what teaching should be allowed. We believe a lot of different things. People in the same local church congregation often have different views on lots of things. There is even more diversity in the same denomination. People grow up in churches and adopt different beliefs to their parents. Should they be thrown out or silenced? Who should be allowed in the pulpit? Who should be allowed to publish in church magazines and newspapers? If we hear something with which we don’t agree in the pulpit should we keep quiet or object? And does this really all matter?
DOES THIS REALLY MATTER?
Yes it does matter. Why? Firstly because ideas have consequences. What people believe influences what they do – and people get ideas from teaching. In the most serious instances, false teaching can result in people going to hell. Secondly because false teaching spreads. It spreads especially fast when it tells people what they want to hear (1 Timothy 4:3). This is usually whatever is most popular with worldly culture at the time. Thirdly, because false teaching must be stopped first if we are to maintain moral discipline in the church. If people are allowed teach falsely on ethics, then we can’t later take disciplinary action against others who follow their teaching on those issues. Thus we have to control what is taught. But how much do we control it?
WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING ABOUT: CATEGORIES OF TRUTH
It is helpful to divide what we believe into three categories of truth. Firstly the essentials we need to believe and practice to be a Christian avoid risking our eternal salvation. Secondly, the distinctive beliefs of our church group, which make us who we are. Thirdly, other debatable matters. When someone comes with a teaching we don’t agree with, we must discern which category their teaching fits into before we decide how tolerant we will be. Sometimes an issue is not simple to place in one of these three categories. Then we must ask how that teaching affects other teachings and practices and what categories those fit into. The more significant issues a false teaching affects, the more significant it is.
When someone teaches something that undermines the essential truths of the gospel needed to be a Christian, then we have to be intolerant and fight them – otherwise people may go to hell as a consequence of the false teaching. When someone teaches against the distinctives of our church group, then they can’t be tolerated inside our church group, but we can still have Christian fellowship as a friend in another group. Local churches need statements of faith to define and make clear what teachings are non-negotiable for them. For example, for Baptists, believers baptism and congregational accountability of leadership are non-negotiable distinctives. People who don’t believe in these are brother Christians, but can’t join a Baptist church. It is not enough to just say ‘we believe the Bible’, because most erroneous cults also say that but interpret it differently. Other debatable issues, we have to tolerate differences of opinion even inside our local church.
But can’t things get really complicated in deciding where an issue fits? Yes, they do. That is why we have to think critically about the popular teachings of our day in the light of scripture. In New Testament times, there was a massive controversy over circumcision. At a superficial reading, the apostle seems inconsistent on this issue. In some instances he seems to be arguing that the issue doesn’t matter all that much, other times in favour and other times against. Was he just fickle? No. Paul wasn’t too concerned about the issue of circumcision itself, but rather how it affected the gospel. When, for example, people came to Galatia and taught that circumcision was necessary to be a Christian, then he came out strongly against them (Galatians 5:2 and Acts 15:1). In another situation, however Paul himself circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3) to avoid offending people. Paul was not wanting to fight about circumcision itself, but to protect the gospel. Today, similarly we have Christians who peacefully disagree on the issue of whether one should baptise children as infants or only when they are old enough to decide what they believe. But when people teach that one must be baptised in order to be saved, then such people we have to fight with, because that affects the gospel.
FOCUSING THE BATTLE
Since there is so much we could fight about – and arguing causes division and pain in the church - we need to focus most of our attention on the first category: defending the essentials where false belief or practice can put a person’s eternal salvation at risk. The Bible has very harsh words about these kinds of teachers. It calls them ‘false prophets’ and ‘wolves in sheeps clothing’ (Matthew 7:15; Acts 20:29; 2 Peter 2:1). We should never use such harsh labels casually against brother believers with whom we disagree in the second category (of denominational distinctives) or the third category (of debatable issues). Such wolves must be silenced (Titus 1:10-11) and disciplined by excommunication (1 Timothy 1:19-20) until they repent. We do not give them equal space in the pulpit or our magazines or web sites or lecture halls. It does not matter how nice they are, how many good works they have done, how many theological degrees they have, how popular or senior they are or how many friends they have. If their teaching or behaviour is undermining the gospel, then we have to be intolerant. If they repent, they may be accepted back, but otherwise not. Usually such false teachers will have found the protection of some group of deceived followers that protects them from any such discipline. In these cases, we have to simply speak up against them to warn people and to disassociate with them.
JESUS TEST OF A TRUE SHEPHERD
Now always there will be some nice Christians who will say that this is unloving and will criticise the pastor who does this. How do we answer this? Firstly, the word ‘pastor’ means ‘shepherd’. Part of the job of a shepherd is to defend the flock from wild animals that might harm them. It isn’t the nicest part of his job, but Jesus defines it as the test between a true shepherd and one who is just in it for worldly reward “JN 10:11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” The pastor who defends the flock will risk serious counter-attack. He might lose his job. He might lose his reputation. But he is a true genuine servant of God. We must not forget that Jesus crucifixion was triggered by his public attack earlier that week against the false Jewish religious leaders (Matthew 23). Sadly, today such people are a minority in church leadership which is the main reason the church is in such a mess.
Jesus introduces a third category who are neither wolves nor true shepherds. He calls them ‘hired hands’. They will not do anything scandalous or teach falsely themselves, but they will happily tolerate those who do. Such people often enter ministry full of zeal for the gospel, but somewhere along the line they lose focus and forget their mission for the gospel. Some just go into ministry with a vague desire to ‘spread the love of Jesus’ and help people. Maybe they never understood the requirement of a pastor/elder to defend the flock in the first place (Titus 1:9). Some maybe don’t understand the truth clearly enough to be able to defend it. Such people won’t risk their jobs or their denominational pensions or their reputations to defend the gospel. They want to be popular in the community and rationalize that being so helps them do their ministry work in contradiction to Jesus warning that we would be persecuted (Matthew 5:11-12). Sadly, they will often fight to defend the organisation and its power and hierarchy, but not to defend truth. Probably in the life of every Christian leader our loyalty to the truth of the gospel will be tested at least once – will we be true defenders of the gospel or will we be passive ‘hired hands’. The Lord in his sovereignty allows false teachers to test our loyalty to him (Deuteronomy 13:2-3). Will we pass the test?
The number of ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ within true biblical churches who teach things that undermine the essentials of salvation tends to be very small. This is because either the biblical denominations discipline and remove them or their teaching will spread and the biblical denomination will soon cease to be biblical. In the Western world in the last hundred years, such people have usually been called ‘liberals’. But the number of ‘hired hands’ who will tolerate such people is often very large. Such people often call themselves ‘moderates’. When challenged, they protest that they are doctrinally orthodox on every point – and they are. But they will happily leave the door open for the wolves to prey on the sheep. They are pacifists in the war of theology and our culture. This makes the fight complicated, because the true shepherd and those believers who support him – who are often called ‘conservatives’ are up against not only ‘liberal’ wolves – who cast doubt on the essentials of the gospel, but also often an army of ‘moderates’ who can’t discern wolves and think it is unloving to fight wolves. In church history, thus usually the main conflict has not been between wolves (liberals regarding the Bible) and shepherds (biblical conservatives), but between ‘hired hands’ (biblical moderates) and ‘shepherds’ (biblical conservatives).
Many such people are thankfully only temporarily led astray into siding with the wrong camp. Once challenged, they realise they need to side with truth. In the early church circumcision controversy, Peter and Barnabas caved in to pressure from the circumcision lobby and withdrew associating with Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-13), but when Paul challenged them, they sided properly with the gospel. They may have still believed the truth, but like so many compromising ‘moderates’, they failed to take a stand for truth when under pressure. Doctrinally they took the right side, but politically in their associations they took the wrong side. This shows that any of us can fall into this trap if we are not careful – and we may need others to point this out to us.
ISN’T IT UNLOVING TO FIGHT HERESY?
What of the argument that it is unloving to fight heresy? If we truly love someone, will we not fight to defend their reputation and stop someone else telling lies about them? So when someone teaches falsely about God – such as trying redefine the nature of God - then if we truly love God will we not fight for the truth about him. People who use this argument show they love men more than God. But do they even love men with the right type of love? When we allow false teachers to tell people the wrong way to get to heaven, is not the result people going to hell? Is that loving to the deceived people? If we really love homosexuals, will we stand by idly while false teachers tell them they can continue to sin and go to heaven? Many Post-modern heretical teaches portray a God so different from that of the Bible (for example that in the popular novel ‘The Shack’, that one has to ask whether they worship the same God or an idol of their own carving?
WHAT ABOUT FREE SPEECH?
As for the free speech argument, this is not an absolute. Speech is not totally free anywhere or society would degenerate into chaos. Those who publish lies about other people get sued for defamation. Those who advertise falsely get taken to the Advertising Standards Authority. In the case of God, liars have some freedom in civil society because the state is not competent to judge what is true about God. But a biblical church is competent to judge truth about God and must do so. Those who teach heresy need to be thrown out of the church or marginalised into false churches, but don’t go to jail.
THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH IN CHURCH HISTORY
In the fourth century AD, there was a debate on the issue of whether Jesus was in fact God. False teachers called Arians argued he was not God (similar to today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses). The Council of Nicaea declared that Jesus was God, drew up a nice statement of faith http://www.creeds.net/ancient/nicene.htm and all thought the battle was over. But it wasn’t. The battle raged on for another hundred years led by a man named Athanasius of Alexandria. He wasn’t satisfied just to win on paper. He wanted the Arians pushed out of the church. Most Christian leaders saw him as a troublemaker. So did the Roman emperors, who saw him as someone causing division and disturbing the peace. His opponents brought numerous slanderous allegations against Athanasius. Many attempts were made to arrest and kill him, he was brought trial on various occasions and he was forced into banishment or hiding five times for a total of seventeen years. The Roman emperors decreed that all Christian bishops must excommunicate Athanasius or face banishment themselves. Tragically almost all did so. Even the bishop of Rome, Liberius was banished for two years and then caved in to pressure to disassociate with Athanasius. So, excommunicated by almost every Christian leader in the known world, alone and in hiding, being hunted by the imperial army – moving from cave to cave in the Egyptian desert – with his friends and supporters being tortured to try to get them reveal his location - Athanasius wrote a book ‘On the incarnation’, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.html . It won the debate and Arians were pushed out of the church. It is a classic and still regarded by many as the best book ever written on the subject.
In the Nineteenth, century when theological liberalism first made its appearance in Britain, its most outspoken opponent was Charles Spurgeon – pastor, evangelist, the founder of the first mega-church and an ongoing favourite source of quotations for sermons. But most who quote him, don’t know Spurgeon’s passion to defend the gospel against liberalism – how he sacrificed his friends, his popularity and his membership of the Baptist Union in Britain to fight it. Faced with the problem of liberalism, the Baptist Union drew up a new Statement of faith to affirm its evangelical commitment. Although he agreed with the statement, he realised that it left too much ‘wriggle room’ for liberals to interpret it in such a way that they could also sign it – and wanted a statement that would exclude the liberals. Most didn’t see or understand his objections and he was defeated in a vote of 2000 to 7 at the Baptist Union General Assembly. Moderate Baptists said he had just become a grumpy old man and his actions were a result of his illness of gout. But Spurgeon was right, and the liberal wolves stayed in the Baptist Union and continued to spread their false teaching – sending it into spiritual decline. (The best book on this is ‘Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain H Murray).
In the 1920’s and 30’s when liberalism reached America, the man who stood most strongly against it was Gresham Machen, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary. At the time, Bible believers in the Presbyterian church were in the majority against the liberals, but sadly most of them were ‘moderates’ who sided politically with the liberals. Together, moderates and liberals signed the Auburn Affirmation promoting tolerance of liberal views. Upset by Machen’s divisive preaching against liberalism, when they heard Machen was to be promoted, the denominational authorities stepped to take over Princeton Seminary. In response, Machen founded Westminster Seminary, which continues the godly orthodox Biblical tradition that Princeton previously had. Machen, upset that church mission funds were being used to spread liberalism instead of the gospel, founded an Independent mission board to fund only true gospel based missions. At this, Machen and his supporters were brought to trial and expelled from the mainline Presbyterian Church in the USA. Many of those who expelled them were moderate Bible believers who simply thought that liberals should be tolerated as equals. Machen then founded the breakaway Orthodox Presbyterian Church. (The best book on Gresham Machen and his battle with liberalism is by Ned Stonehouse). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gresham_Machen
Mainline Presbyterianism continued to backslide into greater and greater error, while Westminster Seminary continued to produce a good crop of orthodox and influential Christian leaders. Just about every influential Christian leader promoting a Christian worldview in America is either a product of that seminary or has been influenced greatly by someone who is a graduate of that seminary. Students include Francis Schaeffer (worldviews), Gary North (economics), Wayne Mack (counselling). Lecturers include Cornelius van Til and Tim Keller. Those influenced by Schaeffer include Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson, Randall Terry, C. Everett Koop, Cal Thomas, and Tim and Beverly LaHaye; and scholars Os Guinness, Thomas Morris, Clark Pinnock, and Ronald Wells. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1997/march3/7t322a.html
Both Spurgeon and Machen died in their 50s mostly attributed to the extreme stress of the battles they fought against liberalism. Most couldn’t see the point of their fight, but their influence is lasting.
By the time liberalism had reached the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970s, it had morphed into a different form called Neo-Orthodoxy. But again the same categories arose. ‘Liberals’ questioned the truth of scripture; ‘Moderates’ thought scripture was true, but we should allow people to teach otherwise and ‘Conservatives’ who thought the truth of scripture was worth fighting for. Two conservative leaders, Paige Patterson, a small Bible College professor and Paul Pressler, a lawyer fought first to appoint a conservative leader of the Southern Baptist Convention and then to appoint biblical conservatives to lead the seminaries that trained the ministers. While they faced much opposition and abuse from liberals and moderates who tried to stop them, the result was, with the Lord’s help, a return of the denomination to a belief in the reliability of the Bible. Unlike the most of the American mainline denominations which continued to decline, the Southern Baptist Convention has continued to grow and send missionaries around the world. (The best book on this battle is ‘A hill to die on’ by Paul Pressler.
A summary can be downloaded at: http://www.paigepatterson.info/documents/anatomy_of_a_reformation.pdf
FROM HISTORY TO TODAY
In all these four major controversies of church history, the main battle was not between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ but between ‘moderates’ and ‘conservatives’. It was between Bible believers who wished to tolerate wolves and those who did not. Such conflict between true believers is much more painful than conflict between those who are Bible believers and those who are false. But unfortunately, when those who truly believe the Bible decide to defend wolves and attack true shepherds who fight wolves, then they cause such division. The division can’t be blamed on the conservatives who fight to defend the truth of the gospel.
The apostle John says “2JN 1:10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. 2JN 1:11 Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work”. Thus according to the Bible, helping ungodly teachers is sharing in their work, which is wicked. That includes allowing them pulpit time or magazine space or broadcast air time.
Jesus rebuked the church at Thyatira for allowing the false teacher Jezebel REV 2:20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
Today, in the Western world, our main problem is false Postmodern teachers who promote acceptance of homosexuality and other sexual compromises, who question truths such as eternal punishment, the fact that Jesus died in our place, and the virgin birth of Christ. We cannot give them space. If we truly love God, we must speak up against lies about God and protect the flock from wolves. We must silence those who teach falsely on matters that put peoples eternal salvation at risk, even if as with Athanasius of Alexandria (4th Century), Charles Spurgeon (19th Century), Gresham Machen (early 20th Century Presbyterian battle), Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler (late 20th century Baptist battle) before us, we are slandered, threatened and suffer for our stand.
THE TOLERANT ATTITUDE OF OUR CULTURE INFLUENCES THE CHURCH
DOES THIS REALLY MATTER?
WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING ABOUT: CATEGORIES OF TRUTH
FOCUSING THE BATTLE
JESUS TEST OF A TRUE SHEPHERD
ISN’T IT UNLOVING TO FIGHT HERESY?
WHAT ABOUT FREE SPEECH?
THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH IN CHURCH HISTORY
FROM HISTORY TO TODAY
Should we tolerate Christians teaching whatever they want to or should churches set boundaries on what we will allow?
THE TOLERANT ATTITUDE OF OUR CULTURE INFLUENCES THE CHURCH
The attitude of our culture is to let people say just about whatever they want provided they don’t expect me to believe it. Christians influenced by postmodern culture will argue: Isn’t that’s free speech - our Constitutional right – a freedom people fought and died for. So are we in the church going to throw that away by dogmatically demanding that people can’t teach contrary to our church’s beliefs? Do we want to go back to the Middle ages where people were burned at the stake for what they believed? Do we want to be like the Taliban or some sect of narrow minded fundamentalist bigots? Or will we promote free thinking, enquiry, conversation and debate? If we try to silence teaching with which we disagree aren’t we being unloving? What harm do people do just by sharing their ideas – even if wrong? Surely we should give them space in the free market of ideas? Is it not okay to allow publication and preaching of incorrect teachings so long as the truth also gets a voice? That is what most of our culture says. But is that what we should practice - and what does the Bible say?
The biggest debate in the church today is not about what is true, but what teaching should be allowed. We believe a lot of different things. People in the same local church congregation often have different views on lots of things. There is even more diversity in the same denomination. People grow up in churches and adopt different beliefs to their parents. Should they be thrown out or silenced? Who should be allowed in the pulpit? Who should be allowed to publish in church magazines and newspapers? If we hear something with which we don’t agree in the pulpit should we keep quiet or object? And does this really all matter?
DOES THIS REALLY MATTER?
Yes it does matter. Why? Firstly because ideas have consequences. What people believe influences what they do – and people get ideas from teaching. In the most serious instances, false teaching can result in people going to hell. Secondly because false teaching spreads. It spreads especially fast when it tells people what they want to hear (1 Timothy 4:3). This is usually whatever is most popular with worldly culture at the time. Thirdly, because false teaching must be stopped first if we are to maintain moral discipline in the church. If people are allowed teach falsely on ethics, then we can’t later take disciplinary action against others who follow their teaching on those issues. Thus we have to control what is taught. But how much do we control it?
WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING ABOUT: CATEGORIES OF TRUTH
It is helpful to divide what we believe into three categories of truth. Firstly the essentials we need to believe and practice to be a Christian avoid risking our eternal salvation. Secondly, the distinctive beliefs of our church group, which make us who we are. Thirdly, other debatable matters. When someone comes with a teaching we don’t agree with, we must discern which category their teaching fits into before we decide how tolerant we will be. Sometimes an issue is not simple to place in one of these three categories. Then we must ask how that teaching affects other teachings and practices and what categories those fit into. The more significant issues a false teaching affects, the more significant it is.
When someone teaches something that undermines the essential truths of the gospel needed to be a Christian, then we have to be intolerant and fight them – otherwise people may go to hell as a consequence of the false teaching. When someone teaches against the distinctives of our church group, then they can’t be tolerated inside our church group, but we can still have Christian fellowship as a friend in another group. Local churches need statements of faith to define and make clear what teachings are non-negotiable for them. For example, for Baptists, believers baptism and congregational accountability of leadership are non-negotiable distinctives. People who don’t believe in these are brother Christians, but can’t join a Baptist church. It is not enough to just say ‘we believe the Bible’, because most erroneous cults also say that but interpret it differently. Other debatable issues, we have to tolerate differences of opinion even inside our local church.
But can’t things get really complicated in deciding where an issue fits? Yes, they do. That is why we have to think critically about the popular teachings of our day in the light of scripture. In New Testament times, there was a massive controversy over circumcision. At a superficial reading, the apostle seems inconsistent on this issue. In some instances he seems to be arguing that the issue doesn’t matter all that much, other times in favour and other times against. Was he just fickle? No. Paul wasn’t too concerned about the issue of circumcision itself, but rather how it affected the gospel. When, for example, people came to Galatia and taught that circumcision was necessary to be a Christian, then he came out strongly against them (Galatians 5:2 and Acts 15:1). In another situation, however Paul himself circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3) to avoid offending people. Paul was not wanting to fight about circumcision itself, but to protect the gospel. Today, similarly we have Christians who peacefully disagree on the issue of whether one should baptise children as infants or only when they are old enough to decide what they believe. But when people teach that one must be baptised in order to be saved, then such people we have to fight with, because that affects the gospel.
FOCUSING THE BATTLE
Since there is so much we could fight about – and arguing causes division and pain in the church - we need to focus most of our attention on the first category: defending the essentials where false belief or practice can put a person’s eternal salvation at risk. The Bible has very harsh words about these kinds of teachers. It calls them ‘false prophets’ and ‘wolves in sheeps clothing’ (Matthew 7:15; Acts 20:29; 2 Peter 2:1). We should never use such harsh labels casually against brother believers with whom we disagree in the second category (of denominational distinctives) or the third category (of debatable issues). Such wolves must be silenced (Titus 1:10-11) and disciplined by excommunication (1 Timothy 1:19-20) until they repent. We do not give them equal space in the pulpit or our magazines or web sites or lecture halls. It does not matter how nice they are, how many good works they have done, how many theological degrees they have, how popular or senior they are or how many friends they have. If their teaching or behaviour is undermining the gospel, then we have to be intolerant. If they repent, they may be accepted back, but otherwise not. Usually such false teachers will have found the protection of some group of deceived followers that protects them from any such discipline. In these cases, we have to simply speak up against them to warn people and to disassociate with them.
JESUS TEST OF A TRUE SHEPHERD
Now always there will be some nice Christians who will say that this is unloving and will criticise the pastor who does this. How do we answer this? Firstly, the word ‘pastor’ means ‘shepherd’. Part of the job of a shepherd is to defend the flock from wild animals that might harm them. It isn’t the nicest part of his job, but Jesus defines it as the test between a true shepherd and one who is just in it for worldly reward “JN 10:11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” The pastor who defends the flock will risk serious counter-attack. He might lose his job. He might lose his reputation. But he is a true genuine servant of God. We must not forget that Jesus crucifixion was triggered by his public attack earlier that week against the false Jewish religious leaders (Matthew 23). Sadly, today such people are a minority in church leadership which is the main reason the church is in such a mess.
Jesus introduces a third category who are neither wolves nor true shepherds. He calls them ‘hired hands’. They will not do anything scandalous or teach falsely themselves, but they will happily tolerate those who do. Such people often enter ministry full of zeal for the gospel, but somewhere along the line they lose focus and forget their mission for the gospel. Some just go into ministry with a vague desire to ‘spread the love of Jesus’ and help people. Maybe they never understood the requirement of a pastor/elder to defend the flock in the first place (Titus 1:9). Some maybe don’t understand the truth clearly enough to be able to defend it. Such people won’t risk their jobs or their denominational pensions or their reputations to defend the gospel. They want to be popular in the community and rationalize that being so helps them do their ministry work in contradiction to Jesus warning that we would be persecuted (Matthew 5:11-12). Sadly, they will often fight to defend the organisation and its power and hierarchy, but not to defend truth. Probably in the life of every Christian leader our loyalty to the truth of the gospel will be tested at least once – will we be true defenders of the gospel or will we be passive ‘hired hands’. The Lord in his sovereignty allows false teachers to test our loyalty to him (Deuteronomy 13:2-3). Will we pass the test?
The number of ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ within true biblical churches who teach things that undermine the essentials of salvation tends to be very small. This is because either the biblical denominations discipline and remove them or their teaching will spread and the biblical denomination will soon cease to be biblical. In the Western world in the last hundred years, such people have usually been called ‘liberals’. But the number of ‘hired hands’ who will tolerate such people is often very large. Such people often call themselves ‘moderates’. When challenged, they protest that they are doctrinally orthodox on every point – and they are. But they will happily leave the door open for the wolves to prey on the sheep. They are pacifists in the war of theology and our culture. This makes the fight complicated, because the true shepherd and those believers who support him – who are often called ‘conservatives’ are up against not only ‘liberal’ wolves – who cast doubt on the essentials of the gospel, but also often an army of ‘moderates’ who can’t discern wolves and think it is unloving to fight wolves. In church history, thus usually the main conflict has not been between wolves (liberals regarding the Bible) and shepherds (biblical conservatives), but between ‘hired hands’ (biblical moderates) and ‘shepherds’ (biblical conservatives).
Many such people are thankfully only temporarily led astray into siding with the wrong camp. Once challenged, they realise they need to side with truth. In the early church circumcision controversy, Peter and Barnabas caved in to pressure from the circumcision lobby and withdrew associating with Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-13), but when Paul challenged them, they sided properly with the gospel. They may have still believed the truth, but like so many compromising ‘moderates’, they failed to take a stand for truth when under pressure. Doctrinally they took the right side, but politically in their associations they took the wrong side. This shows that any of us can fall into this trap if we are not careful – and we may need others to point this out to us.
ISN’T IT UNLOVING TO FIGHT HERESY?
What of the argument that it is unloving to fight heresy? If we truly love someone, will we not fight to defend their reputation and stop someone else telling lies about them? So when someone teaches falsely about God – such as trying redefine the nature of God - then if we truly love God will we not fight for the truth about him. People who use this argument show they love men more than God. But do they even love men with the right type of love? When we allow false teachers to tell people the wrong way to get to heaven, is not the result people going to hell? Is that loving to the deceived people? If we really love homosexuals, will we stand by idly while false teachers tell them they can continue to sin and go to heaven? Many Post-modern heretical teaches portray a God so different from that of the Bible (for example that in the popular novel ‘The Shack’, that one has to ask whether they worship the same God or an idol of their own carving?
WHAT ABOUT FREE SPEECH?
As for the free speech argument, this is not an absolute. Speech is not totally free anywhere or society would degenerate into chaos. Those who publish lies about other people get sued for defamation. Those who advertise falsely get taken to the Advertising Standards Authority. In the case of God, liars have some freedom in civil society because the state is not competent to judge what is true about God. But a biblical church is competent to judge truth about God and must do so. Those who teach heresy need to be thrown out of the church or marginalised into false churches, but don’t go to jail.
THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH IN CHURCH HISTORY
In the fourth century AD, there was a debate on the issue of whether Jesus was in fact God. False teachers called Arians argued he was not God (similar to today’s Jehovah’s Witnesses). The Council of Nicaea declared that Jesus was God, drew up a nice statement of faith http://www.creeds.net/ancient/nicene.htm and all thought the battle was over. But it wasn’t. The battle raged on for another hundred years led by a man named Athanasius of Alexandria. He wasn’t satisfied just to win on paper. He wanted the Arians pushed out of the church. Most Christian leaders saw him as a troublemaker. So did the Roman emperors, who saw him as someone causing division and disturbing the peace. His opponents brought numerous slanderous allegations against Athanasius. Many attempts were made to arrest and kill him, he was brought trial on various occasions and he was forced into banishment or hiding five times for a total of seventeen years. The Roman emperors decreed that all Christian bishops must excommunicate Athanasius or face banishment themselves. Tragically almost all did so. Even the bishop of Rome, Liberius was banished for two years and then caved in to pressure to disassociate with Athanasius. So, excommunicated by almost every Christian leader in the known world, alone and in hiding, being hunted by the imperial army – moving from cave to cave in the Egyptian desert – with his friends and supporters being tortured to try to get them reveal his location - Athanasius wrote a book ‘On the incarnation’, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.html . It won the debate and Arians were pushed out of the church. It is a classic and still regarded by many as the best book ever written on the subject.
In the Nineteenth, century when theological liberalism first made its appearance in Britain, its most outspoken opponent was Charles Spurgeon – pastor, evangelist, the founder of the first mega-church and an ongoing favourite source of quotations for sermons. But most who quote him, don’t know Spurgeon’s passion to defend the gospel against liberalism – how he sacrificed his friends, his popularity and his membership of the Baptist Union in Britain to fight it. Faced with the problem of liberalism, the Baptist Union drew up a new Statement of faith to affirm its evangelical commitment. Although he agreed with the statement, he realised that it left too much ‘wriggle room’ for liberals to interpret it in such a way that they could also sign it – and wanted a statement that would exclude the liberals. Most didn’t see or understand his objections and he was defeated in a vote of 2000 to 7 at the Baptist Union General Assembly. Moderate Baptists said he had just become a grumpy old man and his actions were a result of his illness of gout. But Spurgeon was right, and the liberal wolves stayed in the Baptist Union and continued to spread their false teaching – sending it into spiritual decline. (The best book on this is ‘Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain H Murray).
In the 1920’s and 30’s when liberalism reached America, the man who stood most strongly against it was Gresham Machen, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary. At the time, Bible believers in the Presbyterian church were in the majority against the liberals, but sadly most of them were ‘moderates’ who sided politically with the liberals. Together, moderates and liberals signed the Auburn Affirmation promoting tolerance of liberal views. Upset by Machen’s divisive preaching against liberalism, when they heard Machen was to be promoted, the denominational authorities stepped to take over Princeton Seminary. In response, Machen founded Westminster Seminary, which continues the godly orthodox Biblical tradition that Princeton previously had. Machen, upset that church mission funds were being used to spread liberalism instead of the gospel, founded an Independent mission board to fund only true gospel based missions. At this, Machen and his supporters were brought to trial and expelled from the mainline Presbyterian Church in the USA. Many of those who expelled them were moderate Bible believers who simply thought that liberals should be tolerated as equals. Machen then founded the breakaway Orthodox Presbyterian Church. (The best book on Gresham Machen and his battle with liberalism is by Ned Stonehouse). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gresham_Machen
Mainline Presbyterianism continued to backslide into greater and greater error, while Westminster Seminary continued to produce a good crop of orthodox and influential Christian leaders. Just about every influential Christian leader promoting a Christian worldview in America is either a product of that seminary or has been influenced greatly by someone who is a graduate of that seminary. Students include Francis Schaeffer (worldviews), Gary North (economics), Wayne Mack (counselling). Lecturers include Cornelius van Til and Tim Keller. Those influenced by Schaeffer include Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Chuck Colson, Randall Terry, C. Everett Koop, Cal Thomas, and Tim and Beverly LaHaye; and scholars Os Guinness, Thomas Morris, Clark Pinnock, and Ronald Wells. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1997/march3/7t322a.html
Both Spurgeon and Machen died in their 50s mostly attributed to the extreme stress of the battles they fought against liberalism. Most couldn’t see the point of their fight, but their influence is lasting.
By the time liberalism had reached the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970s, it had morphed into a different form called Neo-Orthodoxy. But again the same categories arose. ‘Liberals’ questioned the truth of scripture; ‘Moderates’ thought scripture was true, but we should allow people to teach otherwise and ‘Conservatives’ who thought the truth of scripture was worth fighting for. Two conservative leaders, Paige Patterson, a small Bible College professor and Paul Pressler, a lawyer fought first to appoint a conservative leader of the Southern Baptist Convention and then to appoint biblical conservatives to lead the seminaries that trained the ministers. While they faced much opposition and abuse from liberals and moderates who tried to stop them, the result was, with the Lord’s help, a return of the denomination to a belief in the reliability of the Bible. Unlike the most of the American mainline denominations which continued to decline, the Southern Baptist Convention has continued to grow and send missionaries around the world. (The best book on this battle is ‘A hill to die on’ by Paul Pressler.
A summary can be downloaded at: http://www.paigepatterson.info/documents/anatomy_of_a_reformation.pdf
FROM HISTORY TO TODAY
In all these four major controversies of church history, the main battle was not between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ but between ‘moderates’ and ‘conservatives’. It was between Bible believers who wished to tolerate wolves and those who did not. Such conflict between true believers is much more painful than conflict between those who are Bible believers and those who are false. But unfortunately, when those who truly believe the Bible decide to defend wolves and attack true shepherds who fight wolves, then they cause such division. The division can’t be blamed on the conservatives who fight to defend the truth of the gospel.
The apostle John says “2JN 1:10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. 2JN 1:11 Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work”. Thus according to the Bible, helping ungodly teachers is sharing in their work, which is wicked. That includes allowing them pulpit time or magazine space or broadcast air time.
Jesus rebuked the church at Thyatira for allowing the false teacher Jezebel REV 2:20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
Today, in the Western world, our main problem is false Postmodern teachers who promote acceptance of homosexuality and other sexual compromises, who question truths such as eternal punishment, the fact that Jesus died in our place, and the virgin birth of Christ. We cannot give them space. If we truly love God, we must speak up against lies about God and protect the flock from wolves. We must silence those who teach falsely on matters that put peoples eternal salvation at risk, even if as with Athanasius of Alexandria (4th Century), Charles Spurgeon (19th Century), Gresham Machen (early 20th Century Presbyterian battle), Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler (late 20th century Baptist battle) before us, we are slandered, threatened and suffer for our stand.
Monday, April 19, 2010
What things are disputable, and what must we fight for?
What things are disputable, and what must we fight for?
Postmodernists posing as Evangelical Christians have tried to open a debate on whether a Christian can be a homosexual. Some postmodernists advocate that a Christian can practice homosexuality. Some postmodernists such as Brian McLaren argue the church should, at least for the present, be silent on the issue. Other postmodernists don't believe a Christian can practice homosexuality, but argue that those who believe a Christian can practice homosexuality should be allowed to teach this. In other words, postmodernists in the church would like to shift the issue from the status of a 'serious heresy' to to be fought and silenced to a 'disputable issue', where we should be tolerant of others opinions in church. How tolerant should we be of such teaching? Dr Kevin Roy, pastor of Muldersdrift Union Church and former Principal of the Cape Town Baptist Seminary helps answer the question in the following article:
Philip Rosenthal
--------------------------------------------------------------------
What things are disputable, and what must we fight for?
By Dr Kevin Roy (First published in Baptists Today, Issue 4 2008)
The apostle Paul was a very liberal man in the area of legitimate differences between Christians. Whether to eat meat or not, whether one day is more holy than others, or not, his counsel was not to judge one another on such ‘disputable matters’, but rather respect one another. His own policy was to be a Jew to the Jews, a Greek to the Greeks, indeed, all things to all men, in order to win as many as possible. And he bent over backwards in order to promote peace and unity in the church, allowing a generous difference of opinion on secondary issues between believers. And we can follow his example in many areas today. Most of us have definite views about baptism, church government, the rapture, the millennium, election, predestination, tongues, prophecy – and that’s a short list – but we would not assign to hell those who differ from us. At least, I hope not. We recognize that many eminent servants of Christ who have been greatly blessed by God have differed on all these issues.
But Paul was fiercely inflexible when it came to the purity of the gospel and matters that affect our salvation. These are life and death issues, and must be fought for strenuously. To those who were seducing the Galatians from the gospel of grace and drawing them back into works religion he pronounced, “Let him be accursed.” And to emphasize his seriousness, he repeated, “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” Knowing that without genuine repentance there can be no salvation; Paul took an equally strict and inflexible view of moral issues. “No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of God. Let no-one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes upon those who are disobedient.” To the Corinthians Paul spelled out explicitly those breaches of the moral law that would exclude a person from the kingdom of God: sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexual practice, theft, greed, drunkenness, reviling, and swindling. Concerning these things there could be no toleration or debate. Those things that lead a person to eternal destruction are literally life and death issues. We must fight for people’s salvation and guard them against being deceived by plausible perversions of the truth.
Paul was not alone, of course, in this matter. All the apostles said the same thing. “No murderer has eternal life in him,” warned the apostle John. “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur,” he declared. Peter spoke of the destruction awaiting false prophets and false teachers who secretly introduce destructive heresies, and those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. The pattern in all the apostolic teaching is the same. Those teachings that lead a person away from the gospel of truth and into moral transgressions that bring destruction and condemnation must be resisted with all our might. People’s lives and eternal destiny depend on it.
It is clear from the above that all moral transgression is serious. But there is one sin that is warned against with almost monotonous regularity – sexual immorality. Perhaps because this is an area of special weakness for so many of us, and one in which we can be so easily deceived. Sexual sins condemned by God are clearly identified: fornication (sex outside the marriage bond), adultery (sex across the marriage line), homosexual acts (same gender sex), incest (sex with a close relation) and bestiality (sex with animals). In short, sex is the precious and sacred gift of God to be enjoyed within the marriage bond of a man and a woman. So sacred is this gift that the same word (know) is used for sex and the believer’s relationship with God.
For more than 3000 years there has been consensus in the above understanding of what constitutes sexual immorality. Today, that consensus is under serious attack, especially in the area of homosexual relations. It is argued that Scripture does not condemn homosexual relations if they are loving, monogamous (?) and lifelong. Only abusive homosexual relations, such as rape, pederasty and prostitution are condemned. Considerable ingenuity is used to reinterpret key biblical texts. Lev 18:22, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable,” is discounted on the grounds there are other OT texts forbidding clothes made of different materials, certain foods, planting different crops in one field and so on. This ignores the most basic rule of Bible interpretation, namely, that Christian believers under the New Covenant distinguish between moral laws, which are eternal and reaffirmed in the NT, and ceremonial and civil laws which apply only to the Old Covenant. Furthermore, Lev 18 does not only forbid same sex relations. It also condemns incest, adultery, child sacrifice, bestiality and concludes with the words, “do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.” Those who claim that Lev 18:22 is no more applicable today must logically argue the same for the rest of that chapter. (Please read Lev 18 for yourself.)
I mentioned that the moral law is expressly reaffirmed in the NT. This is certainly the case with the prohibition of same sex relations. In his opening chapter to the Romans Paul shows the universal sinfulness of human beings. Though they know God through creation, they turn aside to idolatry and folly. In judgement, God gives them over to shameful lusts. “Even their women exchanged the natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men.” It is claimed that ‘loving homosexual relations’ are not in view here, but what Paul had in mind was pederasty (sex with young boys). But Paul does not mention boys. He writes of men committing indecent acts with men. Similar ingenuity is used to claim that 1 Cor 6:9 does not have ‘loving, committed’ same sex relations in mind. But the word arsenokoitai comes from two words, arsen (male) and koite (lie) meaning ‘one who lies with a male.’ The allusion to Lev 18:22 is unavoidable. It is same sex relations that are here condemned, without any exceptions.
There can be no doubt that when the NT writers referred to sexual immorality they had a number of practices in mind, including same sex relationships. There is not even a hint, anywhere in the Bible, of a certain kind of homosexual relationship acceptable to God. Generations of Christian scholars and leaders would have been astonished at the very idea – the early church fathers, the Reformers of the 16th century, the 18th century Evangelical leaders. In fact, there is something rather arrogant in the idea that the whole church has got this one completely wrong for 2000 years. Only now, thanks to certain modern liberal scholars, do we know the truth.
Does this mean we must be nasty and hateful to homosexual offenders? On the contrary, we must love them sincerely and passionately. We must love them enough to warn them in the spirit of Ezek 33 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel. So you will hear a message from my mouth and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die,’ and you do not warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you, on your part, warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.” The apostle Paul could say, “I am free from the blood of all men,” because he had declared to them the whole counsel of God. Let us love our homosexual neighbours in the most sincere way possible and warn them not to be deceived into the way of death, but to turn into the way of life by genuine repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Postmodernists posing as Evangelical Christians have tried to open a debate on whether a Christian can be a homosexual. Some postmodernists advocate that a Christian can practice homosexuality. Some postmodernists such as Brian McLaren argue the church should, at least for the present, be silent on the issue. Other postmodernists don't believe a Christian can practice homosexuality, but argue that those who believe a Christian can practice homosexuality should be allowed to teach this. In other words, postmodernists in the church would like to shift the issue from the status of a 'serious heresy' to to be fought and silenced to a 'disputable issue', where we should be tolerant of others opinions in church. How tolerant should we be of such teaching? Dr Kevin Roy, pastor of Muldersdrift Union Church and former Principal of the Cape Town Baptist Seminary helps answer the question in the following article:
Philip Rosenthal
--------------------------------------------------------------------
What things are disputable, and what must we fight for?
By Dr Kevin Roy (First published in Baptists Today, Issue 4 2008)
The apostle Paul was a very liberal man in the area of legitimate differences between Christians. Whether to eat meat or not, whether one day is more holy than others, or not, his counsel was not to judge one another on such ‘disputable matters’, but rather respect one another. His own policy was to be a Jew to the Jews, a Greek to the Greeks, indeed, all things to all men, in order to win as many as possible. And he bent over backwards in order to promote peace and unity in the church, allowing a generous difference of opinion on secondary issues between believers. And we can follow his example in many areas today. Most of us have definite views about baptism, church government, the rapture, the millennium, election, predestination, tongues, prophecy – and that’s a short list – but we would not assign to hell those who differ from us. At least, I hope not. We recognize that many eminent servants of Christ who have been greatly blessed by God have differed on all these issues.
But Paul was fiercely inflexible when it came to the purity of the gospel and matters that affect our salvation. These are life and death issues, and must be fought for strenuously. To those who were seducing the Galatians from the gospel of grace and drawing them back into works religion he pronounced, “Let him be accursed.” And to emphasize his seriousness, he repeated, “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” Knowing that without genuine repentance there can be no salvation; Paul took an equally strict and inflexible view of moral issues. “No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of God. Let no-one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes upon those who are disobedient.” To the Corinthians Paul spelled out explicitly those breaches of the moral law that would exclude a person from the kingdom of God: sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexual practice, theft, greed, drunkenness, reviling, and swindling. Concerning these things there could be no toleration or debate. Those things that lead a person to eternal destruction are literally life and death issues. We must fight for people’s salvation and guard them against being deceived by plausible perversions of the truth.
Paul was not alone, of course, in this matter. All the apostles said the same thing. “No murderer has eternal life in him,” warned the apostle John. “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur,” he declared. Peter spoke of the destruction awaiting false prophets and false teachers who secretly introduce destructive heresies, and those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. The pattern in all the apostolic teaching is the same. Those teachings that lead a person away from the gospel of truth and into moral transgressions that bring destruction and condemnation must be resisted with all our might. People’s lives and eternal destiny depend on it.
It is clear from the above that all moral transgression is serious. But there is one sin that is warned against with almost monotonous regularity – sexual immorality. Perhaps because this is an area of special weakness for so many of us, and one in which we can be so easily deceived. Sexual sins condemned by God are clearly identified: fornication (sex outside the marriage bond), adultery (sex across the marriage line), homosexual acts (same gender sex), incest (sex with a close relation) and bestiality (sex with animals). In short, sex is the precious and sacred gift of God to be enjoyed within the marriage bond of a man and a woman. So sacred is this gift that the same word (know) is used for sex and the believer’s relationship with God.
For more than 3000 years there has been consensus in the above understanding of what constitutes sexual immorality. Today, that consensus is under serious attack, especially in the area of homosexual relations. It is argued that Scripture does not condemn homosexual relations if they are loving, monogamous (?) and lifelong. Only abusive homosexual relations, such as rape, pederasty and prostitution are condemned. Considerable ingenuity is used to reinterpret key biblical texts. Lev 18:22, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable,” is discounted on the grounds there are other OT texts forbidding clothes made of different materials, certain foods, planting different crops in one field and so on. This ignores the most basic rule of Bible interpretation, namely, that Christian believers under the New Covenant distinguish between moral laws, which are eternal and reaffirmed in the NT, and ceremonial and civil laws which apply only to the Old Covenant. Furthermore, Lev 18 does not only forbid same sex relations. It also condemns incest, adultery, child sacrifice, bestiality and concludes with the words, “do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.” Those who claim that Lev 18:22 is no more applicable today must logically argue the same for the rest of that chapter. (Please read Lev 18 for yourself.)
I mentioned that the moral law is expressly reaffirmed in the NT. This is certainly the case with the prohibition of same sex relations. In his opening chapter to the Romans Paul shows the universal sinfulness of human beings. Though they know God through creation, they turn aside to idolatry and folly. In judgement, God gives them over to shameful lusts. “Even their women exchanged the natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men.” It is claimed that ‘loving homosexual relations’ are not in view here, but what Paul had in mind was pederasty (sex with young boys). But Paul does not mention boys. He writes of men committing indecent acts with men. Similar ingenuity is used to claim that 1 Cor 6:9 does not have ‘loving, committed’ same sex relations in mind. But the word arsenokoitai comes from two words, arsen (male) and koite (lie) meaning ‘one who lies with a male.’ The allusion to Lev 18:22 is unavoidable. It is same sex relations that are here condemned, without any exceptions.
There can be no doubt that when the NT writers referred to sexual immorality they had a number of practices in mind, including same sex relationships. There is not even a hint, anywhere in the Bible, of a certain kind of homosexual relationship acceptable to God. Generations of Christian scholars and leaders would have been astonished at the very idea – the early church fathers, the Reformers of the 16th century, the 18th century Evangelical leaders. In fact, there is something rather arrogant in the idea that the whole church has got this one completely wrong for 2000 years. Only now, thanks to certain modern liberal scholars, do we know the truth.
Does this mean we must be nasty and hateful to homosexual offenders? On the contrary, we must love them sincerely and passionately. We must love them enough to warn them in the spirit of Ezek 33 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel. So you will hear a message from my mouth and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die,’ and you do not warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you, on your part, warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.” The apostle Paul could say, “I am free from the blood of all men,” because he had declared to them the whole counsel of God. Let us love our homosexual neighbours in the most sincere way possible and warn them not to be deceived into the way of death, but to turn into the way of life by genuine repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Friday, March 26, 2010
IS THE BIBLE ‘LOST IN TRANSLATION’?
26 March 2010
IS THE BIBLE ‘LOST IN TRANSLATION’?
We recently celebrated the victory of the pro-moral lobby in stopping the proposed DSTV porn channel. Indeed we should praise God for this. But there is a much bigger threat to sexual morality in South Africa which is behind our backs – the loss of faith in the Word of God on morality (especially sexuality). And that attack is coming from professing Christian leaders.
In our grandparents and parent’s generation, the question was whether the Bible is true. In our generation, the big debate is whether its meaning is clear. Two groups seemed to have sadly allied themselves in this attack on the clarity of scripture: Elitists and Postmodernists. Many evangelicals have incorporated Statements of Faith on the Truth of Scripture, but these defences are like the Maginot line, the line of earthen forts France constructed after the First World War to defend against another attack. They were broken in a day by panzer tanks. Most evangelical organisations stand defenceless against this new attack. And even Statements of Faith will not be enough alone because, these two groups will then question their clarity of meaning.
ELITISTS argue that ordinary people cannot be sure what the Bible means when they read it, so they need senior church authorities to interpret its meaning for them. And because ordinary people cannot interpret it for themselves, then they cannot hold church authorities accountable because those authorities decide what is right and wrong. Thus the senior authorities can never be wrong unless they admit being so themselves.
POSTMODERNISTS argue that since our culture is so different to the culture when the Bible was written and all words have embedded cultural meaning, then we cannot be sure that the meaning we give to the words are the same as the meaning the writer gave to the words. It is ‘lost in translation’. At best we are guessing. And if we are not sure what the Bible means, then we have no right to enforce our guesses on everyone else.
So these two groups look very different, but are natural allies - and they are not limited to any particular denomination. Included in the ‘ELITISTS’, are many of the most senior and visible public figures in Christianity in South Africa – including many who speak up publicly for morality. They would be unlikely to express their elitist and authoritarian views in public, but if anyone tries to challenge double standards in their ministries, that how they respond. And so for example, if one pushes them to expose and publicly rebuke a church sex sandal on the basis of 1 Timothy 5:20 (“Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.”), then such Elitists will ask who decides what this scripture means. To everyone else the meaning is obvious. Rebuke means Rebuke. Public means public. But to these Elitists, they are the only ones who can decide what it means. On this basis they can then avoid answering what it means and thus avoid obeying it. And they will then rather deal with the scandal quietly behind closed doors instead. Does this matter? Yes it does, and it matters even more than Porn on Television, because when sin is protected among senior leadership, their ungodly behaviour is contagious and spreads through the church. People copy what they do more than what they say. And the Holy Spirit, offended by such compromise, withdraws as he did in the days of Eli (1 Samuel 3). As another example, ELITISTS may give a public appearance of loyalty to scripture, but behind the scenes try to protect false teaching. And if any ordinary church member tries to challenge them, they get the same answer: None of your business – its confidential. Theological debates are for senior leaders only. Shut up and go away.
Most POSTMODERNISTS are younger and without senior positions in any organisational structure. Although few know it, their beliefs derive much from the linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. For example, when asked on their views on homosexuality, many will look at the obvious prohibitions (e.g. Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26-27), then they will try and argue that there were cultural issues involved that are no longer relevant. For example, they will argue the real sin problem at Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but lack of hospitality. Or they will argue that the Bible is not condemning all homosexuality but only homosexual abuse of minors. Now any ordinary Christian can just open their Bible, read the text and understand plainly what it means, but Postmodernists use intellectual cultural and linguistic gymnastics to try to distort this plain meaning. Others, less radical will still hold a view against homosexuality, but they anchor their belief in our modern Christian culture rather than the scripture. So then if the majority of Christian culture was to follow the radical postmodernists, these people would then follow behind them. They cannot defend truth from the Bible, because their minds are in a confused postmodern fog. Other more moderate postmodernists, will say that they believe the Bible says it is wrong but for the sake of ‘tolerance’ (a principal postmodern virtue), we should allow these people to preach and publish their false teaching alongside truth in Church and Christian publications. Thus they deny the duty Christ gives to good spiritual shepherds to protect the flock from wolves who lead people astray (John 10; Titus 1:9). Postmodernists will also tell us Christians cannot tell non-Christians to repent of their sexual sin, because that would be imposing our culture on them (contrary to Ezekiel 3:18).
Why are these two groups natural allies? Because if one takes the Post-modern assumption that the meaning of scripture is unclear on matters necessary for salvation and the Christian life, then how does one impose order in the Church? Will one not end up with chaos? Won’t it be like allowing people to choose whether to drive on the left hand side of the road or the right? Won’t we get lots of crashes and conflict? The only alternative is that order is imposed arbitrarily from an elite. And there is a church Elite which likes to do that job.
Further if we have an Elite which likes power and doesn’t want to be accountable to anyone below them, then how do they escape accountability to scripture quoted by ordinary members? Answer: By denying the obvious meaning of scripture. And how do they justify that? By borrowing the convenient postmodern argument that scripture is unclear.
Okay, so how do Orthodox Bible believing Christians defend our position on the Clarity of Scripture? Are there not many things that Bible believing theologians don’t agree on. Yes. That is true. The Bible doesn’t make all truths equally clear. Many truths in the Bible are for example veiled behind metaphors (Deuteronomy 29:29; Romans 11:33) and there are minor differences in meaning in individual texts between different Bible translations.
1. The things that are critically important to our moral life and salvation God has stated plainly and repeatedly in many different places in scripture. Furthermore, all of scripture fits together into an interlocking logical whole. Thus even if some translator was to misunderstand the meaning of the original language or culture in one verse, for the issues which are critically important, there are many other verses which will tell us the same thing.
2. Jesus has given the Holy Spirit to help ordinary believers who read the Bible with the intent to obey it, the supernatural help to understand it. He has not offered that to intellectuals who enjoy theological debates, but don’t want to obey it (Matthew 11:25; John 16:13).
3. The Law of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy follows the format of an ancient constitution imposed by a conquering King on a vassal king. In the ancient world, such treaties were always translated and the conquering King expected the vassal people to obey it even though they were reading a translation in a different language. Likewise, God knew the Bible would be translated into many languages and across many cultures. This is why for example the poetry of the Psalms sounds beautiful in every language. Postmodernists should not be allowed to hide behind the ‘lost in translation’ argument.
The Reformers put the Clarity of Scripture in this way in the Westminster Confession of Faith “VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”
http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
I argue that the attack on the clear meaning of scripture by ELITISTS and POSTMODERNISTS in the church is a bigger threat to sexual morality than is the spread of pornography on the internet and television. Against these evils, we have the powerful Word of God to fight back, but if we the church accept the devil’s lie that the meaning of scripture is unclear on basic issues of the Christian life, like sexual behaviour, then the devil has disarmed us. He has taken away our sword. We have no weapon to fight back. He will tempt us to try fight with some other worldly weapon like trying to make the Christian faith popular and acceptable. But these worldly weapons are useless toys in spiritual warfare. This was the mistake made by liberal and moderate moralists in the 1920s and 30s. They went on various crusades to clean up society by organising church unity pronouncements on various issues – for example supporting the prohibition on alcohol. They may have done a bit of good, but they lost the battle on scripture – and once this battle was lost, the church itself became corrupt, backslid with the culture and ceased to be salt and light in society. But the Bible is not ‘Lost in translation’ across different cultures and languages.
The Word of God is true and it’s meaning on issues of salvation and morality is clear across cultures and languages. And it is on the basis of this true and clear Word of God that we must spiritually protect ourselves and fearlessly call all men to repentance from sin and holiness of life.
IS THE BIBLE ‘LOST IN TRANSLATION’?
We recently celebrated the victory of the pro-moral lobby in stopping the proposed DSTV porn channel. Indeed we should praise God for this. But there is a much bigger threat to sexual morality in South Africa which is behind our backs – the loss of faith in the Word of God on morality (especially sexuality). And that attack is coming from professing Christian leaders.
In our grandparents and parent’s generation, the question was whether the Bible is true. In our generation, the big debate is whether its meaning is clear. Two groups seemed to have sadly allied themselves in this attack on the clarity of scripture: Elitists and Postmodernists. Many evangelicals have incorporated Statements of Faith on the Truth of Scripture, but these defences are like the Maginot line, the line of earthen forts France constructed after the First World War to defend against another attack. They were broken in a day by panzer tanks. Most evangelical organisations stand defenceless against this new attack. And even Statements of Faith will not be enough alone because, these two groups will then question their clarity of meaning.
ELITISTS argue that ordinary people cannot be sure what the Bible means when they read it, so they need senior church authorities to interpret its meaning for them. And because ordinary people cannot interpret it for themselves, then they cannot hold church authorities accountable because those authorities decide what is right and wrong. Thus the senior authorities can never be wrong unless they admit being so themselves.
POSTMODERNISTS argue that since our culture is so different to the culture when the Bible was written and all words have embedded cultural meaning, then we cannot be sure that the meaning we give to the words are the same as the meaning the writer gave to the words. It is ‘lost in translation’. At best we are guessing. And if we are not sure what the Bible means, then we have no right to enforce our guesses on everyone else.
So these two groups look very different, but are natural allies - and they are not limited to any particular denomination. Included in the ‘ELITISTS’, are many of the most senior and visible public figures in Christianity in South Africa – including many who speak up publicly for morality. They would be unlikely to express their elitist and authoritarian views in public, but if anyone tries to challenge double standards in their ministries, that how they respond. And so for example, if one pushes them to expose and publicly rebuke a church sex sandal on the basis of 1 Timothy 5:20 (“Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.”), then such Elitists will ask who decides what this scripture means. To everyone else the meaning is obvious. Rebuke means Rebuke. Public means public. But to these Elitists, they are the only ones who can decide what it means. On this basis they can then avoid answering what it means and thus avoid obeying it. And they will then rather deal with the scandal quietly behind closed doors instead. Does this matter? Yes it does, and it matters even more than Porn on Television, because when sin is protected among senior leadership, their ungodly behaviour is contagious and spreads through the church. People copy what they do more than what they say. And the Holy Spirit, offended by such compromise, withdraws as he did in the days of Eli (1 Samuel 3). As another example, ELITISTS may give a public appearance of loyalty to scripture, but behind the scenes try to protect false teaching. And if any ordinary church member tries to challenge them, they get the same answer: None of your business – its confidential. Theological debates are for senior leaders only. Shut up and go away.
Most POSTMODERNISTS are younger and without senior positions in any organisational structure. Although few know it, their beliefs derive much from the linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. For example, when asked on their views on homosexuality, many will look at the obvious prohibitions (e.g. Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26-27), then they will try and argue that there were cultural issues involved that are no longer relevant. For example, they will argue the real sin problem at Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but lack of hospitality. Or they will argue that the Bible is not condemning all homosexuality but only homosexual abuse of minors. Now any ordinary Christian can just open their Bible, read the text and understand plainly what it means, but Postmodernists use intellectual cultural and linguistic gymnastics to try to distort this plain meaning. Others, less radical will still hold a view against homosexuality, but they anchor their belief in our modern Christian culture rather than the scripture. So then if the majority of Christian culture was to follow the radical postmodernists, these people would then follow behind them. They cannot defend truth from the Bible, because their minds are in a confused postmodern fog. Other more moderate postmodernists, will say that they believe the Bible says it is wrong but for the sake of ‘tolerance’ (a principal postmodern virtue), we should allow these people to preach and publish their false teaching alongside truth in Church and Christian publications. Thus they deny the duty Christ gives to good spiritual shepherds to protect the flock from wolves who lead people astray (John 10; Titus 1:9). Postmodernists will also tell us Christians cannot tell non-Christians to repent of their sexual sin, because that would be imposing our culture on them (contrary to Ezekiel 3:18).
Why are these two groups natural allies? Because if one takes the Post-modern assumption that the meaning of scripture is unclear on matters necessary for salvation and the Christian life, then how does one impose order in the Church? Will one not end up with chaos? Won’t it be like allowing people to choose whether to drive on the left hand side of the road or the right? Won’t we get lots of crashes and conflict? The only alternative is that order is imposed arbitrarily from an elite. And there is a church Elite which likes to do that job.
Further if we have an Elite which likes power and doesn’t want to be accountable to anyone below them, then how do they escape accountability to scripture quoted by ordinary members? Answer: By denying the obvious meaning of scripture. And how do they justify that? By borrowing the convenient postmodern argument that scripture is unclear.
Okay, so how do Orthodox Bible believing Christians defend our position on the Clarity of Scripture? Are there not many things that Bible believing theologians don’t agree on. Yes. That is true. The Bible doesn’t make all truths equally clear. Many truths in the Bible are for example veiled behind metaphors (Deuteronomy 29:29; Romans 11:33) and there are minor differences in meaning in individual texts between different Bible translations.
1. The things that are critically important to our moral life and salvation God has stated plainly and repeatedly in many different places in scripture. Furthermore, all of scripture fits together into an interlocking logical whole. Thus even if some translator was to misunderstand the meaning of the original language or culture in one verse, for the issues which are critically important, there are many other verses which will tell us the same thing.
2. Jesus has given the Holy Spirit to help ordinary believers who read the Bible with the intent to obey it, the supernatural help to understand it. He has not offered that to intellectuals who enjoy theological debates, but don’t want to obey it (Matthew 11:25; John 16:13).
3. The Law of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy follows the format of an ancient constitution imposed by a conquering King on a vassal king. In the ancient world, such treaties were always translated and the conquering King expected the vassal people to obey it even though they were reading a translation in a different language. Likewise, God knew the Bible would be translated into many languages and across many cultures. This is why for example the poetry of the Psalms sounds beautiful in every language. Postmodernists should not be allowed to hide behind the ‘lost in translation’ argument.
The Reformers put the Clarity of Scripture in this way in the Westminster Confession of Faith “VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”
http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
I argue that the attack on the clear meaning of scripture by ELITISTS and POSTMODERNISTS in the church is a bigger threat to sexual morality than is the spread of pornography on the internet and television. Against these evils, we have the powerful Word of God to fight back, but if we the church accept the devil’s lie that the meaning of scripture is unclear on basic issues of the Christian life, like sexual behaviour, then the devil has disarmed us. He has taken away our sword. We have no weapon to fight back. He will tempt us to try fight with some other worldly weapon like trying to make the Christian faith popular and acceptable. But these worldly weapons are useless toys in spiritual warfare. This was the mistake made by liberal and moderate moralists in the 1920s and 30s. They went on various crusades to clean up society by organising church unity pronouncements on various issues – for example supporting the prohibition on alcohol. They may have done a bit of good, but they lost the battle on scripture – and once this battle was lost, the church itself became corrupt, backslid with the culture and ceased to be salt and light in society. But the Bible is not ‘Lost in translation’ across different cultures and languages.
The Word of God is true and it’s meaning on issues of salvation and morality is clear across cultures and languages. And it is on the basis of this true and clear Word of God that we must spiritually protect ourselves and fearlessly call all men to repentance from sin and holiness of life.
Friday, February 19, 2010
ARE YOU DOING YOUR PART IN THE CULTURE WAR?
ARE YOU DOING YOUR PART IN THE CULTURE WAR?
Most Christians think of our responsibility primarily as our personal relationship with God, our close relatives and our involvement in the local church. While these things are important, we have to consider our responsibility to the rest of society. Why? Firstly because, God is sovereign over all of life including the arts, media, government, education, business and healthcare. Secondly, because our lives, families and church can’t be isolated from these – either we influence them with Biblical virtues and truth or they influence us with worldly values and false beliefs.
Whether your children and grandchildren will grow up Christian depends not just on what you say, but also on what they hear at school and what they see on television. Whether we like it or not, we are in the middle of an ideological culture war in every institution in our society. If we ignore the war, we will just be blown around by the winds of popular culture – and might end up even helping the enemy without realising it.
The dominant ideology in the Western world right now is ‘Postmodernism’ – a belief that there is no absolute truth, therefore feelings and relationships are important, while truth and righteousness is not. In black Africa, animism is a powerful influence. In North Africa and the Middle East, Islam is dominant – and while seeks to spread south into Africa and North into Europe. The news media tends to only cover conflict where there is open bloodshed, but the major war is happening in peoples minds and what become socially acceptable in our culture. Wherever we lose the war, those cultural norms become enshrined in civil law and Christians will either have to compromise or suffer persecution. Evangelism will be curtailed, the Bible will be marginalised out of schools and replaced with ‘sex sin education’, we won’t be able to go anywhere without seeing public pornography on billboards or magazine covers. Certain professions, such as nursing will become impossible for Christians to practice, because of the requirement to assist with abortions. Some may say this sounds alarmist, but it is already the case in some Postmodern countries and the pressure of such persecution and anti-Christian influence has already advanced a long way in South Africa. To resist persecution, we therefore have no choice but to fight to defend our freedoms and for godly Christian influence. This influence is not however just a benefit to us Christians, but to the whole of society.
The culture war would be simple, if it was just the church versus the world, but it is much more complex. On the positive side, opinion polls in South Africa show the vast majority of all citizens supporting Christian rather than postmodern values. (See for example: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/HSRC_Review_Article-83.phtml ). On the negative side, many more educated South African Christians have been tragically influenced by postmodernism and while they may have personal faith in Christ, their thinking and actions actually help the wrong side. They have been deceived and their minds taken captive by unbiblical ideas.
In every generation, there is pressure for the believing community to accommodate worldly culture. In Old Testament times, the pressure was to accommodate idolatry and child sacrifice. In the ancient world and renaissance, the pressure was to accommodate the ideas of popular Greek philosophers. In African culture, it is to accommodate ancestor worship and superstitions. In Europe, Liberal Modernism, the idea of making Christianity more ‘scientific’ and denying the miraculous began in Germany in the 1850s. In two generations, it gutted and emptied the churches in that country and left a vacuum that allowed the rise of Nazi ideology in its place. The Western allies, who were mostly of Christian worldview at the time, won the military battle, but they lost the theological and ideological battle. Liberal Modernism spread from Germany first across the rest of Europe, then to England and then to America. Wherever liberalism went, churches thought they were advancing because they got the approval of popular culture, but in the next generation the churches emptied. Most of the old Protestant denominations went liberal and Biblical Christians were forced to form new denominations. But as the culture kept changing, liberalism like a computer virus had to keep changing to keep up with the times. As belief in ‘science’ as a solution to all the worlds problems waned, popular culture went on to new ideas like ‘political correctness’ and postmodernism. So the liberal theologians kept changing their message to keep up with the culture. The latest version, accommodating postmodernism calls itself ‘the emerging church’. The result of it, will however be the same as the old liberalism: compromised, but popular Christianity, which ceases to be salt and light in the world or convert unbelievers to Christ.
Cultural and ideological movements tend to follow a geographic pattern of spreading from Europe, to Britain, to America and then to South Africa and then north up Africa. They also tend to follow an academic pathway within the English speaking world of starting with top intellectuals at places like Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Princeton and then spreading from there to the top universities in other countries (e.g. Cape Town and Witwatersrand in South Africa) and then to the rest of the universities. They then spread from top academic works to more popular books, then on to film and finally to television. It also sadly tends to flow from these pagan universities into Christian theological faculties at the same universities, from where it flows to lesser universities theology departments, then to other Bible Colleges and from there if we don’t stop it to the pulpit of your local church.
Is this just an academic bloodless war? No. The loss of Biblical Christian influence, resulting in a loss of value for human life in Europe, led to its most bloody century in history with the First and Second world wars plus the carnage of Communism. Almost a million innocent babies murdered already in South Africa as a result of postmodern ideology in our government and hospitals. We have successfully fought off attempts to move to legalise euthanasia of the sick – but if we don’t fight hard – for how long. The war for the mind comes first – then if we lose real bloodshed follows.
How is the South African church doing in this culture war? Sadly not well. Most of the older denominations ministering to the middle class population have already been over-run by postmodern liberalism. They are in death phase. Many even tolerate homosexuals in the pulpit. People stay because of family loyalty but they win few new converts because few ministers still preach the true Gospel of Christ – and so they are likely to continue to shrink to insignificance. Some publicly supported legal abortion. The South African Council of Churches, acting without a mandate, supported the legalisation of Same-Sex Marriage, but few protested against this. Another kind of cultural liberalism is undermining the newer Charismatic churches – not one of liberal theology, but of tolerating ungodly behaviour in leadership, which is not disciplined and then gets copied in the pews. Sadly, the vast majority of Christians and local churches operate as if there was no culture war underway – they simply don’t fight – and that is why we are losing.
Many Christians say that they won’t do evil themselves, but neither will they speak up against the evil in the society around them. This strategy is a losing one. We are social beings. We don’t live in isolation. We are influenced and we influence. In the Old Testament the Israelites were commanded to drive out the pagan Canaanites (Joshua 23:12-13). When they failed to do so, they were corrupted by them and fell into idolatry. In the New Covenant, we don’t fight people, but we do fight ideas (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). The same will be true of us if we make peace with the pagan culture around us - we either fight it or are corrupted by it. We are in a war whether we like it or not and we must fight or lose the war.
Another question is whether we can actually win? Or are we just doomed to fail and accept defeat? We can draw hope from history, where many times Christians have repented of their backsliding and moved onto the offensive of social reform, such as the Evangelical Awakening in Britain led by men like John Wesley and William Wilberforce outlawed slavery. We can see how tiny Christian minorities with faith in God, like the new born Salvation Army led the fight to outlaw prostitution in Britain in the 1890s and then spread their campaign to win even as an even tinier minority in Japan! We can be encouraged by the victory of conservative evangelicals against liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention in American. Yes we can win!
A common question is why do we keep worrying about homosexuals, when they are such a minority? Surely there are more common and equally evil sins to worry about? The answer is because in the culture war, our most militant and well organised opponents of Christian virtues are the homosexual activist lobby. Such people are a tiny minority and even among homosexuals, the activists are an even tinier minority, but these people make up for their lack of numbers through good organisation, leadership and networking with other non-homosexuals and virulent hostility in the culture war against Christian values, for example in HIV-AIDS education, the law courts, political parties and attempts to infiltrate the church. Adulterers by comparison do not organise themselves and actively attack Christianity and family values or initiate lawsuits against Christians in this way. Homosexual lobby groups actions tend to influence the rest of heterosexual society, for example in the promotion of condoms rather than purity as a solution to HIV AIDS and in countries where marriage has been redefined to include same-sex marriage, heterosexual marriage has dropped as well. It is the area where there is the greatest cultural pressure to accept sin.
What can you do to help win this culture war? Firstly, think about how to protect yourself and your family and your church from evil in the surrounding culture. Think about how the worldly ideologies on television or at school may be influencing you and your family. Secondly, learn about the ideologies which are competing so that you can give a good defence. Thirdly, think about how your actions at work, church or in everyday interaction with people impact on the rest of society. Fourthly, pray for God to show you opportunities where you can make a difference.
Most Christians think of our responsibility primarily as our personal relationship with God, our close relatives and our involvement in the local church. While these things are important, we have to consider our responsibility to the rest of society. Why? Firstly because, God is sovereign over all of life including the arts, media, government, education, business and healthcare. Secondly, because our lives, families and church can’t be isolated from these – either we influence them with Biblical virtues and truth or they influence us with worldly values and false beliefs.
Whether your children and grandchildren will grow up Christian depends not just on what you say, but also on what they hear at school and what they see on television. Whether we like it or not, we are in the middle of an ideological culture war in every institution in our society. If we ignore the war, we will just be blown around by the winds of popular culture – and might end up even helping the enemy without realising it.
The dominant ideology in the Western world right now is ‘Postmodernism’ – a belief that there is no absolute truth, therefore feelings and relationships are important, while truth and righteousness is not. In black Africa, animism is a powerful influence. In North Africa and the Middle East, Islam is dominant – and while seeks to spread south into Africa and North into Europe. The news media tends to only cover conflict where there is open bloodshed, but the major war is happening in peoples minds and what become socially acceptable in our culture. Wherever we lose the war, those cultural norms become enshrined in civil law and Christians will either have to compromise or suffer persecution. Evangelism will be curtailed, the Bible will be marginalised out of schools and replaced with ‘sex sin education’, we won’t be able to go anywhere without seeing public pornography on billboards or magazine covers. Certain professions, such as nursing will become impossible for Christians to practice, because of the requirement to assist with abortions. Some may say this sounds alarmist, but it is already the case in some Postmodern countries and the pressure of such persecution and anti-Christian influence has already advanced a long way in South Africa. To resist persecution, we therefore have no choice but to fight to defend our freedoms and for godly Christian influence. This influence is not however just a benefit to us Christians, but to the whole of society.
The culture war would be simple, if it was just the church versus the world, but it is much more complex. On the positive side, opinion polls in South Africa show the vast majority of all citizens supporting Christian rather than postmodern values. (See for example: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/HSRC_Review_Article-83.phtml ). On the negative side, many more educated South African Christians have been tragically influenced by postmodernism and while they may have personal faith in Christ, their thinking and actions actually help the wrong side. They have been deceived and their minds taken captive by unbiblical ideas.
In every generation, there is pressure for the believing community to accommodate worldly culture. In Old Testament times, the pressure was to accommodate idolatry and child sacrifice. In the ancient world and renaissance, the pressure was to accommodate the ideas of popular Greek philosophers. In African culture, it is to accommodate ancestor worship and superstitions. In Europe, Liberal Modernism, the idea of making Christianity more ‘scientific’ and denying the miraculous began in Germany in the 1850s. In two generations, it gutted and emptied the churches in that country and left a vacuum that allowed the rise of Nazi ideology in its place. The Western allies, who were mostly of Christian worldview at the time, won the military battle, but they lost the theological and ideological battle. Liberal Modernism spread from Germany first across the rest of Europe, then to England and then to America. Wherever liberalism went, churches thought they were advancing because they got the approval of popular culture, but in the next generation the churches emptied. Most of the old Protestant denominations went liberal and Biblical Christians were forced to form new denominations. But as the culture kept changing, liberalism like a computer virus had to keep changing to keep up with the times. As belief in ‘science’ as a solution to all the worlds problems waned, popular culture went on to new ideas like ‘political correctness’ and postmodernism. So the liberal theologians kept changing their message to keep up with the culture. The latest version, accommodating postmodernism calls itself ‘the emerging church’. The result of it, will however be the same as the old liberalism: compromised, but popular Christianity, which ceases to be salt and light in the world or convert unbelievers to Christ.
Cultural and ideological movements tend to follow a geographic pattern of spreading from Europe, to Britain, to America and then to South Africa and then north up Africa. They also tend to follow an academic pathway within the English speaking world of starting with top intellectuals at places like Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Princeton and then spreading from there to the top universities in other countries (e.g. Cape Town and Witwatersrand in South Africa) and then to the rest of the universities. They then spread from top academic works to more popular books, then on to film and finally to television. It also sadly tends to flow from these pagan universities into Christian theological faculties at the same universities, from where it flows to lesser universities theology departments, then to other Bible Colleges and from there if we don’t stop it to the pulpit of your local church.
Is this just an academic bloodless war? No. The loss of Biblical Christian influence, resulting in a loss of value for human life in Europe, led to its most bloody century in history with the First and Second world wars plus the carnage of Communism. Almost a million innocent babies murdered already in South Africa as a result of postmodern ideology in our government and hospitals. We have successfully fought off attempts to move to legalise euthanasia of the sick – but if we don’t fight hard – for how long. The war for the mind comes first – then if we lose real bloodshed follows.
How is the South African church doing in this culture war? Sadly not well. Most of the older denominations ministering to the middle class population have already been over-run by postmodern liberalism. They are in death phase. Many even tolerate homosexuals in the pulpit. People stay because of family loyalty but they win few new converts because few ministers still preach the true Gospel of Christ – and so they are likely to continue to shrink to insignificance. Some publicly supported legal abortion. The South African Council of Churches, acting without a mandate, supported the legalisation of Same-Sex Marriage, but few protested against this. Another kind of cultural liberalism is undermining the newer Charismatic churches – not one of liberal theology, but of tolerating ungodly behaviour in leadership, which is not disciplined and then gets copied in the pews. Sadly, the vast majority of Christians and local churches operate as if there was no culture war underway – they simply don’t fight – and that is why we are losing.
Many Christians say that they won’t do evil themselves, but neither will they speak up against the evil in the society around them. This strategy is a losing one. We are social beings. We don’t live in isolation. We are influenced and we influence. In the Old Testament the Israelites were commanded to drive out the pagan Canaanites (Joshua 23:12-13). When they failed to do so, they were corrupted by them and fell into idolatry. In the New Covenant, we don’t fight people, but we do fight ideas (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). The same will be true of us if we make peace with the pagan culture around us - we either fight it or are corrupted by it. We are in a war whether we like it or not and we must fight or lose the war.
Another question is whether we can actually win? Or are we just doomed to fail and accept defeat? We can draw hope from history, where many times Christians have repented of their backsliding and moved onto the offensive of social reform, such as the Evangelical Awakening in Britain led by men like John Wesley and William Wilberforce outlawed slavery. We can see how tiny Christian minorities with faith in God, like the new born Salvation Army led the fight to outlaw prostitution in Britain in the 1890s and then spread their campaign to win even as an even tinier minority in Japan! We can be encouraged by the victory of conservative evangelicals against liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention in American. Yes we can win!
A common question is why do we keep worrying about homosexuals, when they are such a minority? Surely there are more common and equally evil sins to worry about? The answer is because in the culture war, our most militant and well organised opponents of Christian virtues are the homosexual activist lobby. Such people are a tiny minority and even among homosexuals, the activists are an even tinier minority, but these people make up for their lack of numbers through good organisation, leadership and networking with other non-homosexuals and virulent hostility in the culture war against Christian values, for example in HIV-AIDS education, the law courts, political parties and attempts to infiltrate the church. Adulterers by comparison do not organise themselves and actively attack Christianity and family values or initiate lawsuits against Christians in this way. Homosexual lobby groups actions tend to influence the rest of heterosexual society, for example in the promotion of condoms rather than purity as a solution to HIV AIDS and in countries where marriage has been redefined to include same-sex marriage, heterosexual marriage has dropped as well. It is the area where there is the greatest cultural pressure to accept sin.
What can you do to help win this culture war? Firstly, think about how to protect yourself and your family and your church from evil in the surrounding culture. Think about how the worldly ideologies on television or at school may be influencing you and your family. Secondly, learn about the ideologies which are competing so that you can give a good defence. Thirdly, think about how your actions at work, church or in everyday interaction with people impact on the rest of society. Fourthly, pray for God to show you opportunities where you can make a difference.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)