On a recent visit back to my “home town” we visited the parish church we used to attend many years ago. Back then we went to Evensong every Sunday evening, and the church was always packed to over-flowing. It is true that we had an extremely popular Vicar, a wonderful orator whose sermons everyone appeared to enjoy, and he was certainly a strong draw-card.

I particularly loved the music, the full choir and swelling organ recitals, and the wonderful sung psalms in the old Gothic stone church with its oak beams and pews, and the beautiful stained glass windows. It was magic!

We decided to go again, for old time’s sake, since this Service had meant so much to us. They still have it every Sunday evening at 7.00 pm, but this time we were left feeling terribly sad. From a congregation in the past of well over 300, this time there were only 8 parishioners plus the 3 in our little group. The music and beauty of the church remained, but where did everyone go? Those 8 folk were all elderly, and were all who remained. This is such a beautiful Service, the 1662 revision of Archbishop Cranmer’s BCP (Book of Common Prayer) Evensong, that I feel very sad it now happens so infrequently and is so under-attended. Why, when it used to be so popular?

Running concurrently with Evensong was another Service, also beginning at 7.00 pm, and called “the Antioch Service”. I understand it was designed more for the younger folk who preferred contemporary music and a different type of worship altogether. It was lead by another member of the clergy and was held in the adjacent church hall. I did not get to see how many people attended that Service but did note that there were not that many cars parked around the church. It used to be hard to find a park within several blocks back in those “olden days” of 300+ in the congregation!

Not just the demise of Evensong saddens me, but that worship has moved away from singing the Psalms as was done so prominently in that form of Service. Psalms are such wonderful God-inspired prayers and are a real treasure that comes at great cost to ignore. If you wish to learn how to pray, commit to memory as many verses of the Psalms as you can and then draw on them in your prayer life to enrich it immeasurably. We are losing a lot that is of real value by abandoning the BCP and not raising younger folk to appreciate these liturgies, thus denying them the pleasure that can derive from that kind of worship.

Am I really becoming an old fogey? Oh horrors!

I have been offered a number of reasons for this demise and the abandoning of our choral tradition. One was the greater competition on a Sunday for church attendances, including more entertainment options and commitments to other activities. That meant church needed to be made “more relevant” and something new, far more creative and dynamic, had to be found. The choral tradition and the words of the BCP were considered to belong to a culturally elitist group (the elderly?) and no longer grounded and authentic as a form of worship for modern generations. The formal liturgies of the BCP were considered traditions that no longer sustained, evidenced obviously by the lack of attendees. Someone suggested that people didn’t like going out in cold winter evenings… er, but may do so if Bingo and Karaoke are on offer. To worship God corporately is a privilege (as well as a duty) and such a weak excuse is quite shameful. “Sorry God, I’d rather keep warm by my fire… even though Jesus suffered horrific torture and death on the cross for me.” So much for the measure of our faith these days. What wimps we’ve become if that is the case. I hope not!

But if the church offers Evensong and only a tiny handful of people turn up, is it sensible to continue offering that kind of Service? A very good question, and it is quite reasonable to say that something needs to change. But the next question… what is it that has to change? Is it the Worship Service… or is it the people, the church, the body of Christ? This is worth thinking about.

The BCP liturgies have been increasingly dropped by the church in the most recent generation as the church strives to appeal to youth (mainly) through their own secular culture. The youth are not being taught to love what already exists, but to develop their own separate way of doing things - and that is a modern trend that works against the continuation of previous forms of worship. The church is seeking after youth, rather than the youth believe they have any rightful business with the church that existed long before they were born. The church will pander to secular culture or argue that, not doing so, it will die. And people point to Evensong and the few elderly attenders to “prove” such a statement, calling it sentimental nostalgia rather than authentic worship. BCP Evensong lasted from the time of Archbishop Cranmer (the 16th century) until a generation ago, and now, within this one generation, it has gone down the gurgler. So now we flip-flop among a variety of experimental formats, searching for this something new, creative and dynamic. The church has to run after people to make them want to attend. Why, in this generation, have people stopped learning to love the worship of the church which many generations before have done?

I was not born liking the choral tradition, nor the BCP Evensong, but at the time I started going to church that was what was on offer. That was how we worshipped. Nobody thought that I, or any other young person, should object and insist on it being done some other way (in order to be enticed to attend). I simply learnt to like it, which after a while I did. But now that we apparently must change what had been established in order to entice people to come and worship, I am wondering where is the sense of privilege (let alone duty!) to do so. People have to be lured into coming. They have to “like” the worship, and have it done their own way - not learn an already accepted way of doing things. Scripture informs the BCP which is very rich in its presentation, and the music is not subversive of the Word - those sung psalms are embedded in my brain as the music soars in my soul. And now, in the space of one generation, this worship history is being abandoned and wiped out by a culturally modern replacement (if an evening service is being offered at all) devised by just anyone. It may well be their own best, which I don’t deny also has merit, but it comes at the cost of losing several centuries of glorious praise and exaltation far better than most of us can offer by ourselves.

I am also left wondering what else is going to be changed (in generations to come) because it is not liked, and I see it already happening where people don’t like to hear about sin, and the eternal consequences of sin, and about obedience and God’s holiness and their own lack of it, etc. Some will even veer towards Biblical revisionism to avoid it. And while I think of it, who remembers the 39 Articles (and the others that Cranmer first came up with) these days? Lose some of these things and we are losing part of the Anglican tradition that will indeed come at a cost.

I was also told that the language of the BCP was an obstacle for many, that it is Elizabethan English which people don’t use nor understand these days. After all, if I wanted to be truly authentic, I should be recommending that we worship in Hebrew or Greek (the languages of the Old and New Testaments) or even in Latin. No, I agree with Martin Luther… the written word of God needs to be heard in the vernacular, and our worship must be understood by the worshippers. Hebrew and Greek are entirely different languages, but Elizabethan English is no further removed from today’s English than is that which is used to txt like a teen. Didn’t we learn to read Shakespeare at school? The “Elizabethan English” of the BCP is very mildly such compared with Shakespeare. I can understand both ends of that language continuum well enough to appreciate the right doctrine that Cranmer was keen for his clergy to teach (and congregation to understand) and communicate effectively with my young son on the end of his cell phone. Is that so unusual? Perhaps it is.

For myself, the BCP is most certainly not “merely a set of nice sounding words which are sort of comforting in an unthinking kind of way” (as was also suggested to me) although I do understand that there is a danger of it becoming so for those who “rote learn” without being mindful of what they are saying, or don’t wish to understand the right doctrine which is embodied by the words spoken or sung. People are more impatient these days, wanting things instantly without applying effort to learn, and so we must bend to them rather than have them bend themselves. The church service itself is seen as the missional outreach, rather than the home of worship from which the church members then go outside the walls to spread the gospel and draw new believers into the pews. Discipleship is being done as part of worship, rather than as something else again and done by all the church outside those times of worship. However, I thought worship was directed towards God, the One whom we worship, ourselves offering ourselves to Him with praise, thanksgiving and prayers of supplication, and songs of joy, etc. But that, I know, is a narrow view of worship when it is expected that a church service itself must encompass other functions, such as mission.

Virtue Online (the Voice for Global Orthodox Anglicanism) very recently (25 May, 2010) posted an article by Robin Jordan concerning a booklet published by the Latimer Foundation on the subject of “Praying with Understanding: Explanations of Words and Passages in the Book of Common Prayer”… I quote a small excerpt here, but the whole article may be read here, or the booklet itself downloaded from here.

One of the greatest failures of the church in recent years has been the failure to teach. So much so, that lay people today are often crying out for teaching, but the clergy (whether through uncertainty, mistaken priorities or sheer overwork) are still not supplying the need.

The services which are used every Sunday are an obvious subject for teaching, yet it has often been taken for granted that people know why they use them and fully understand what they mean. Much, of course, can be learned about them simply by thoughtful use of them, but certain things cannot.

Then, when the church enters an era of revolution, as at present, it is possible for the revolutionaries to decry the traditional services as ‘unintelligible’, simply because they contain some things hard to understand, which nobody troubles to make clear.

. . . .

A hundred years after his work [Archbishop Cranmer's BCP] had been done, the 1662 revisers tell us in their ‘Preface’ that they had found certain words and phrases which had fallen out of use or changed their meaning in the meantime, and that they had therefore substituted others.

Today, three hundred years later again, it is not surprising if the same situation has arisen once more; and, in any revision carried out on the modest principles of the 1662 revisers, a sprinkling of words and phrases might well need to be changed for the same reasons. But that is all.

The number of such words and phrases is not great, and it would be no more necessary today, in the cause of intelligibility, to change the whole substance and style of the Prayer Book, than it was in the seventeenth century. The text, as the 1662 revisers left it, was essentially Cranmer’s text, and a modern revision carried out on the same principles would again leave us with a text that was quite recognisably Cranmer’s.

The ‘invisible mending’ would hardly show. It would not be in everyday speech, and would include some harmless antiquarianisms like ‘thou’, ‘thee’ and ‘thy’; but then the Prayer Book never was in everyday speech - rather, it was in a finer form of speech, which sometimes differed from everyday speech chiefly in being simpler and clearer.

An unusual way of speaking is quite a different thing from an unintelligible way of speaking, though today they are so regularly supposed the same. To change words and phrases which have fallen out of use or altered their meaning would remove all trace of unintelligibility, while leaving a nobly unique text which was still unmistakably Cranmer’s own.

In the meantime, such words and phrases can at least be explained. The clergy can, of course, explain them by word of mouth, and one of the aims of the present booklet is to show clergy how easily this teaching gap can be bridged. However, in parishes where this is not as yet being done, it may help to have the explanation available for laity also in brief written form.

No doubt the clergy are overworked (the ones I know certainly are!) but perhaps the rest of the church - we, the congregation - have a responsibility in terms of mission: sharing, teaching and discipling? But I guess it is human nature to reinvent the wheel, presuming that it is not quite round enough for a new generation, and anything more modern must always be better.

Oops, I’m sounding like an old fogey well before my time!

In my previous post I disputed the teaching of an Anglican clergyman, the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, USA.

The problem with this example of Anglican teaching is that the clergyman concerned has subjected Biblical truth to the disbelief of liberal theology and is offering a distortion of God’s revelation that we have from the Bible - a revisionist view.

This application of theological liberalism to God’s revelation is definitely not confined to Anglicans alone, but is present in many other “mainstream Christian” denominations as well. Liberalism in Christian theology is rife in certain parts of the world. I am not criticizing those Anglicans faithful to the truth of the Gospel, nor those parts of the global Anglican Communion which do indeed uphold the Apostolic faith as handed down from the early Church Fathers. There are faithful Anglicans as well as liberal Anglicans, and discerning the truth requires that we think very carefully about what is taught us by those whom we expect to have knowledge.

But what do I mean when I denounce certain teaching as distorted by the application of liberal theology, or religious liberalism? A brief summary of the Major Theological Propositions of Liberalism by M. James Sawyer, Th.M., Ph.D., followed by his Critique of those propostions can be found here. It is the application of these theological propositions to the specific revelation (Scripture) that God has given us, and the resultant revision of the time-honoured traditional understanding of this specific revelation, that has given us a new religion which uses the terminology of Christianity while refuting its original message.

For instance, it is not an uncommon view to hold by some that Jesus was limited by His cultural milieu, had unthinkingly absorbed some of it and needed correction by a Gentile woman who thus enlightened Him. That is how some interpret the story of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with Jesus to heal her daughter. That interpretation is simply not a description of the historical Jesus of the Gospels, or not as I understand Him to be. Consider that idea alongside the paper by Dr James Sawyer, I find it illustrates well the theological propositions of liberalism, or a secular intrusion into the story. That encounter of Jesus aside, Scripture reports elsewhere of Him as speaking to another woman, this time at Jacob’s well at a town called Sychar, and the conversation profoundly affected her:

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
(John 4:28-30)

To claim that Jesus would make an error of judgment concerning His calling is a gross distortion of the truth, and a denial of who He is. I believe it to be more an admission of unbelief on the part of the one who holds such a view.

I would hope that this example alerts others to the need to critically examine that which they are being taught in their churches, and to think it through with their Bibles in front of them. It is necessary to watch out for the influence of theological liberalism and the distortions that it causes. Liberalism is not Christianity, and if you are inclined towards believing that theological liberalism teaches the truth, then know for sure that you are not believing the Gospel of Christ.

Bibliography:

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

~ This book, first published in 1923, is a classic treatment of the age old controversy between Orthodox Christianity and Liberalism. Machen contrasts the errors of liberalism with the basic foundational truths of Biblical Christianity such as: Doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Christ, Salvation, and the Church. Machen’s book is scriptural, thought-provoking, well-reasoned, and relevent today. Your faith in the Bible and its basic doctrines will be strengthened. It is worth your time to read this important book. This book, which can be read online, is in the public domain.

The Rev. Canon J. Edwin Bacon Jr. is an Episcopal priest, the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, USA. He is described as a “supporter” of gays and lesbians, and of same-sex marriage. His recent pro-gay comments on the Oprah Winfrey show stunned even Oprah who has some rather way-out New Age beliefs of her own.

“Being gay is a gift from God,” Bacon declared in an episode that aired Jan. 7.

Appearing shocked, Winfrey responded, “Well, you are the first minister I’ve ever heard say, ‘Being gay is a gift from God,’ I can tell you that.”

The Christian Post

The Rev. Bacon clarified his meaning to Oprah a few days later by saying:

I meant exactly what I said. It is so important for every human being to understand that he or she is a gift from God, and particularly people who are marginalized and victimized in our culture. Gay and lesbian people are clearly outcasts in many areas of our life and it’s so important for them to understand that when God made them, God said you are good. That is a gift, that is a blessing, that is the original blessing with which every one of us is made by God and loved by God.

Well, you might think that an Anglican clergyman would know what he is talking about, but this one seems to be making it up as he goes along. These ideas need more than just a few squirts from the can of bs repellent… or else a disclaimer that they are not to be found in the Bible as stated.

Yep, God made us, His creatures. That is not under dispute. God also declared that His creation was good. But that declaration of pleasure in His workmanship came well before everything slid downhill when mankind disobeyed his Creator. Or so the Bible teaches. Contrary to how The Rev. Bacon tells the story, the Biblical version is that mankind messed up Big Time and we are no longer “good”. We are rotten at the core. No matter how hard we try, not one of us is righteous as God had originally made us, and so had first described us (and all His creation) to be good. The Rev. Bacon has muddled his timing in that respect.

Yes, we are a gift… children are definitely a gift from God to their parents, friends to each other, and so forth. But The Rev. Bacon has added his own little spin to that, a rather subtle spin that can have us thinking we are “good” because we are good gifts from Him. Be careful not to fall for that little confusion. We are not basically good. The Bible does not teach that. Instead, it teaches that we are all flawed beings, far from perfect, far from righteous, while still being gifts from God to each other.

Being gay (homosexual) is not a gift - not according to the Bible. Homosexual practice is described as sexual immorality, a sin, a behaviour of flawed individuals and just one more falling short in our efforts to glorify God. There are lists of gifts mentioned in Scripture, but absolutely nowhere is this human flaw included as one of them. The Rev. Bacon is making it up. This is man-made stuff, not genuine Biblical Christian teaching at all. This man might be a clergyman, but he is actually a false teacher, one listening to the political agendas of the day and bending Christian truth that cannot be bent and still remain truth.

Check this out: Jesus and Homosexuality

Christians are often slandered for quoting verses from Scripture, accused of taking them out of context to throw around rather like a silly bun fight. I can find plenty of Biblical references to back up this theologically sound Christian position from which I challenge the nonsense of The Rev. Bacon. However, it does get tedious when the false teacher has his feet firmly caught in the mire of liberal theology and usually spurns Biblical authority anyway. I have already done so many times before, in many posts to Judah’s Journal. The bottom line is that we can either accept Biblical wisdom and truth, or listen instead to secular humanism that is profoundly anti-Christian at its core. It definitely is the latter that the Rev. Bacon is teaching.

Today I picked up and began reading, for the first time, the 3-volume set entitled “The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathon Edwards” by Dr John H. Gerstner. That is almost 2,000 pages of information that will surely have my friends over on the British Anglican Mainstream Forum despair of me ever settling down as comfortable “pew fodder” in an Anglican church.

It is true that I am far closer to Geneva than I ever was to Rome, and will not be joining those upset enough by the current goings-on in Anglicanism to swim the Tiber and put their spiritual welfare in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI. Nope, I start too low down the candle and am with the Reformers far more than not.

This possibly dismays my young friend Turgy (Turgonian of Transitus Tiberis and Epigone’s Eloquence), a bright young Dutch student who has recently taken that leap of faith though not out of Anglicanism, and who is hoping I might find the same path as did Cardinal Newman. Turgy is patient, reminding me that the Cardinal certainly took his time. But as much as I appreciate my young friend’s ability to acquire and process knowledge, and his developing understanding of the whys and wherefores of many things, I’m afraid I shall be quite a disappointment to him as I am definitely heading down a different path from the one that both he and Cardinal Newman took. We will compare the scenery and wish each other well, but only if the destination has us meet one day (as I hope it does) will we be able to rest and share the whatevers of our respective journeys at the end of them.

Turgy, you are full of promise and I would equally hope you turn and set out for the Holy Land via Geneva too. Shall I be just as patient too? Whatever, my young friend… I do wish you well.

And I will continue with my 3-volume set and be informed by Dr Gerstner who has to say that…

“Had Edwards become a professional philospher he would occupy many pages in the history of philosophy. Had he become a professional biblical scholar it would be difficult to find his equal and impossible to find his superior. As it was he became a professional philosopher-theologian-evangelist and here he is sui generis.”

The Lambeth Conference wades on while Down Here I read what I can find to read, and none of it is looking very good. My own little hunch is that they have the wrong agenda. Rather than trying to find a way to hold together that which does not properly fit together, the discussions need to be on how to separate with the least amount of acrimony possible. In other words… it is over, in all but name.

OK, so I have just put myself in the category of the separationsts as opposed to the reformers (who think they can “convert” the other side over) or the new paradigm-ers (who want to create a new way of us all hanging out together, loosely connected but connected somehow all the same).

My experience of debate with those adhering to positions permeated by liberal theology is that, no matter how polite and congenial, we are diametrically opposed and unable to “give” in any meaningful manner on the fundamentals of our respective faiths. Yes, respective faiths… we do not hold to the same gospel. We might use the same words and terms, but we use them quite differently and talk past each other. We do not engage… because we cannot engage. A round peg does not fit the square hole. We simply wear each other out, and must end up “agreeing to disagree” for sanity’s sake. So I’m not hopeful of converting others to my position - the traditional one - when they do not want to be converted, and likewise they cannot do the same to me. I see the reformers position as something of a lost cause. If there is no en masse “Road to Damascus” experience, then we are totally stumped.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, despite what was reported that he said last week, according to his public writings, personally believes that while the ongoing innovative actions of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada (the ordination of a gay bishop, and the blessing of gay partnerships) are provocative and ecclesiologically irresponsible, they are not profane. This view makes it impossible for him to appreciate and understand why so much of Christendom, including a clear majority within the Anglican Communion, are so deeply scandalized by the revisionism coming from a highly politically active part of the Communion intent on sanctifying the gay lifestyle. The argument is over what is sacred, and what is not. To call sacred something that is profane is as much blasphemy as to call profane something that is sacred. It is about Biblical authority and Biblical truth. You do not compromise the truth when you know it is God’s truth, the Apostolic faith handed down to us. Secular humanism and cultural innovations absolutely do not change what is God’s truth, and no amount of revising the way Scripture is read can truly replace what is sacred with what is profane. No compromise is possible. Truth is truth.

The new paradigm? This is a weird one. Under a new paradigm, Anglicanism would become a global network, but remain locally distinctive, church or community-based, and centred on the biblical mission of evangelism and discipleship. Something holds it together loosely… the name “Anglican” perhaps. But we would have different faiths, preach and teach different gospels, and hope not to step on the toes of each other. Nope. Not for me.

So altogether, and with a heavy heart, I come out on the side of a breakup - a complete split into two separate churches. Unity cannot be held up as the supreme virtue when Truth is at stake. It is a superficial unity at best, the Visible Church being a mixed crop of both wheat and weeds. It is only within the Invisible Church where the saints are truly united, belonging (or having belonged) to many different churches down through the ages. That is where we have unity, and it is also where we have Truth.

Postscript: The Church Cannot Heal This Crisis of Betrayal ~ from The Most Rev Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Uganda.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has finally said it!

He would appear to have modified his previously held liberal position - although being known for his obtuseness one can never be sure exactly what he is saying at times - to that which is in line with traditional Biblical teaching. But these words certainly do look perfectly clear.

Dr Williams said: “I do not believe that sex outside marriage is as God purposes it.” And he said he remained “committed” to the Church’s official stance against gay sex, which aims to preserve Biblical norms.
Source

[A recent comment to that article has since cast a credibility shadow on the report, and unfortunately neither author provides a reference that can be followed up for context and validation. However that does not effect the rest of this journal entry.]

The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is head of the Church of England, is not the head of the Anglican Communion - not as the Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church - but he is looked towards as an influential leader in all affairs Anglican. The Anglican Communion itself, the family of Anglican/Episcopal churches, consists of an estimated 80 million Christians who are members of 44 regional and national member churches (that is: 34 provinces, 4 United Churches, and 6 other churches) spread around the globe in over 160 countries. Every ten years there is a meeting of the 800+ bishops and archbishops of the Anglican Communion held in England to discuss Anglican matters. The 2008 Lambeth Conference is happening right at this moment.

Back in 2003 The Episcopal Church in the USA consecrated an actively homosexual bishop. This action, along with the subsequent blessings of gay partnerships and the ordination of unrepentant gay priests, has lead to a huge rift in the Communion. The traditionalists (such as myself) know that Scripture teaches that sex outside marriage is sin, whereas those embracing liberal theologies hold to the more secular persuasion that homosexual practice is not immoral and God does not call it sin. Although all humans are sinners, an ordained clergyman must repent of sin and strive to lead a righteous life. Probably those who hold either position will be in agreement that it should be so of an ordained clergyman, but the disagreement concerns whether or not gay sex is a sin. Given that it occurs outside marriage, and marriage is regarded as that which can occur only between a man and a woman, it is hard to argue that it is not sinful - except that it would be said we could resolve the matter by changing our laws to allow “marriage” between same sex partners. But the issue goes far deeper than societal rites and sanctions. Societal rites and sanctions have absolutely no authority nor power to change God’s moral law. The traditional and orthodox exegeses of Scripture has always taught that same-sex sex is a sin. Those who dispute this are also denying the authority of Scripture as God’s holy word.

I very much like the words of another Anglican clergyman who has written the following…

Not quite right to say Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality.

When he talked about a man being united to his wife, he meant just that. He gave his disciples two options - either to be married or to be single. I could rehearse the detailed arguments many times before, but my point is this: there are a lot of assumptions out there which are commonly held and are blithely taken as read, and we need to read what the Bible (in any version) actually says.

Of course, the next argument when I point this kind of lazy thinking out is to accuse me of homophobia, as if a phobia is a failure to accept uncritically somebody else’s behaviour. This is neither a medical or a theological correct use of the term. And indeed it is out of a deep, deep love for the other person that I point out this kind of teaching, and comparison with rabid, right-wing fundamentalists is way wide of the mark.

Jesus spoke about the need to love, but he taught more about hell and judgement than any other person in the Bible. You have to decide how to reconcile these two facts, unless you want to chop out the parts of the gospels which mention the latter, and only include the former.

Love as defined by the Bible is deeply bound with the concept of God’s holiness, and unless we recover this doctrine of holiness, we will never understand the use of this term “love”.

Also, check out this very clear Biblical exposition on the situation here.

So often those who hold to the traditional Biblical view are labelled in a derogatory way - “homophobe” or “rabid, right-wing fundamentalist” being just two examples - but no amount of name calling has the power or authority to change God’s moral law either. This is the Apostolic Christian faith. Like it or lump it, but that’s what it is, and any challenge to that is one mounted against our Sovereign Creator, no less. I personally am not willing to take Him on, knowing already I will come out the loser. Anyone who does is far crazier than I.

And yes to the recovery of the doctrine of holiness. Jesus said that if we would love Him, we are to follow His commands. Unless our own righteousness surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees (who were already diligent observors of the law despite their unholy self-righteousness) we are not doing enough… hard words from our Lord.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20)

I shudder to think of what Bishop Gene Robinson is doing, and those who support and push the gay agenda. The finger is pointed at him as the one who is responsible for this huge rift in the Communion, but that is really unfair. He would never have been consecrated had the heresies that have allowed it not been driven out in the first place. But they are insidious and creep like a cancerous growth to distort Christian truth, and many are fooled in their own ignorance and disobedience.

A number of the comments to the TimesOnline report show just how Biblically and theologically illiterate so many folk are, in the same manner as somebody claiming that (a + b)² is equal to a² + b². There is little understanding of God’s covenants with His people, nor knowledge of Church history, nor appreciation that God is not subject to secular cultural innovations. Where does one even start to respond? And even if I did, how soon before their unbelief and disinclination to know have them crying out those tiresome words… homophobe, rabid rightwing fundamentalist …and more?

This statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury will not suddenly heal any rift, the whole thing being far greater than that, and the Anglican Communion groans on with its struggles.

Two things happened recently, separately, but on the same day. Coming together their impact was more pronounced than either would have been on their own.

The first thing was that I sought and received advice from a NZ Anglican organization concerning where I might find a “church home”, a place to belong and worship within the NZ Anglican province, but one that upheld the conservative, Biblically orthodox and traditional teachings of the early Church fathers, just as Anglicanism did at the time I was baptised and confirmed in that church.

The advice I received confirmed my own search. The NZ Anglican province has gone largely liberal in it’s theology, that is, inclined towards secular humanism, egalitarian feminism, revisionism, and an anthrocentric view of what is Christian belief. This has become an obstacle for me in finding a church where I fit with any sense of feeling at home.

The second thing is something that happened on an official Anglican forum, one with a “conservative” ethos. A member of the forum claimed his right to “call a spade, a spade” which is all very well… provided the spade really is indeed a spade. He and I do not agree on some important matters of theology. Being considerably more liberal in position than I, matters unfortunately became just a little heated. I don’t feel too comfortable about that.

But to change tack just a little…

In an article published recently in The Daily Telegraph of Sydney, Australia, the following was reported:

Reverend Sue Emeleus, a deacon at St George’s Church, Paddington, said Sydney Anglicans take a very literal view of passages in the Bible that forbid women to have leadership roles over men.

“But given the way Jesus listened to women went against all cultural mores at the time, I think he would do the same now in encouraging women to speak up and let their opinion be known,” she said.

Source

The interesting thing is that nowhere in Scripture justifies this idea that Jesus considered the opinions of women, or anyone for that matter, over and above the immutable will and word of God. In all things the words and ways of men were measured against the wisdom and truth that came from the Father - not the other way around. Jesus spoke to us that which He heard from the Father, and those were His teachings. (John 14)

I would say this is a human-centred speculation (anthrocentric), not an insight revealed by the Spirit of God. And as such, it gives an example of how liberal theology creeps in to separate us from Spiritual wisdom and contaminate one’s understanding of Biblical truth.

Puritan Lad, of Covenant Theology blog fame, links to an article headed Church of England to consider introducing “super-bishops” to avert crisis over women and asks the so simple and most sensible question:

Why not just obey the Scriptures to begin with?

Yes, why not indeed?

I could go on with so many examples of how abandoning the plain truth of Scripture has lead to such a mess in Anglicanism at present, but this will do for the time being.

And now back again on my previous tack…

It seems I don’t have a “home” in Anglican circles, or not for just now. There are other good people on that forum, ones who are faithful loyal servants of Christ, but a forum is not a church - not the visible church although its members may well be a part of the invisible church. I find it profoundly sad that Anglicanism is struggling the way it is due to the “enemy within”, the influence of liberal theology (and those priests and bishops who subscibe to it) that makes a mockery of true Christian belief and turns fruit totally rotten. Liberal theology is nothing short of disobedience and idolatry leading to unbelief. There seems very little that I can do personally but pray.

But there is considerable hope in some recent happenings, such as GAFCON (Global Anglican Future), and the true faith of the Global South and Southern Cone provinces of the Anglican Communion. They remain true to orthodoxy and are encouraging and supportive of those other faithful Anglicans in otherwise heterodox parishes and provinces elsewhere. So in spite of all the press to the contrary, it should be made known that there are still Anglicans faithful to the true gospel everywhere, often just “getting on with the job” in spite of the ecclesiastical politics going on around them. Good things are happening.

I was raised an Anglican, not a Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, or anything else, and while the Invisible Church has no denominational barriers and in that sense nor do I, I still wish to remain as one of the faithful in my own church inheritance… if that can be possible.

Archbishop Tutu is causing a stir!

Besides being a much loved personality held in high esteem by a great many, his words tend to carry extra weight being those of a Nobel Peace Laureate. Last month he said in a BBC interview that he is depressed by the Church’s “obsession” with the issue of gay priests, and believes that its Gospel message is being undermined by “extreme homophobia”.

His words were: “God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality.”

He said that the Anglican Church has seemed “extraordinarily homophobic” in its handling of the issue of ordination of gay priests, and that he had felt “saddened” and “ashamed” of his church at the time.

Asked if he still felt ashamed, his words were: “If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes. If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn’t worship that God.”

A phobia is a persistent, abnormal, irrational fear of something. Given that to be the case, calling someone a “homophobe” when it is understood that the prefix “homo” is to be expanded to mean either a homosexual person, or homosexuality, is to imply that they have a persistent, abnormal, irrational fear of homosexuality or a homosexual person.

However, it is often translated to mean a hatred of homosexuals or homosexuality, more so that a fear. And those who use that term to describe others are usually unwilling to separate sin from sinner, behaviour from the person per se. They refuse to accept that Christians can love the sinner (person) while deploring the sin (behaviour) and that hating the sin does not mean hating the person - not at all.

It could be argued that it is actually quite reasonable to have a fear of homosexual behaviour, and for a number of reasons. From the point of view of a Christian, such behaviour is a transgression against God and to commit sin is a serious thing - offending God is not a wise thing to do! Also from the point of view of a Christian, the consequences of sin are fearful, both eternally and in the here-and-now. There is a cost involved, a price required to be paid. For Christians the spiritual price is already paid, but we must “go and sin no more” and in health terms, the cost will still remain - huge costs! Therefore a fear of such behaviour, and the hatred of sin, is a quite reasonable and rational thing… provided it does not become a phobia with all the unhealthy aspects of phobias.

But the secular use of that term, when aimed in a loose and derogatory fashion at faithful Bible-believing Christians, is not usually meant in that way at all. There is nothing nicely refined in the meaning when it is hurled as an insult. It is deliberately meant to mislead and obfuscate, abuse and discredit.

So how is the beloved Archbishop Emeritus using that term? Well, I would say… completely out of order! And the following is what I mean:

There is an incredibly strong push from the politically powerful Gay Lobby to have homosexual behaviour considered “normal” behaviour, that it is just another form of sexual expression on par with heterosexual behaviour. They are succeeding in many quarters, but have smacked into a brick wall when it comes to the Church. Although many who subscribe to a more liberal theology will work hard to argue that God did not really mean to include same-sex sex as a sin, they have almost 2,000 years of traditional Christianity (plus a great many more thousands and thousands of years of Judaism before that) attesting to the meaning of Scripture on this point. The position of the Church, of all mainstream Christian churches, is that sex outside of marriage is a sin against God - both hetero and homo and anything else. This is the Scriptural truth. For more on this topic, see here.

Bishop Tutu makes the error of equating rejection of homosexual practice with racism, two things that are not moral equivalents. Skin colour is genetic, but for no want of trying, scientists have been completely unable to find a genetic basis for sexual orientation. Even presuming that one day they did, it is still behaviour that is sinful according to God’s Moral Law, just as one can say that the behaviour of alcoholism is sinful although there has already been a genetic predisposition established there. We all have sinful predispositions, but that does excuse us nor make our behaviour no longer sinful. On the other hand, skin colour is not a matter of morality. Bishop Tutu’s stance on this, siding with the fallacy that is propagated by the Gay Lobby and also the Inclusive Church (liberal Christians), has him the hero of those factions who object to the authority of Scripture, that want to (in essence) rewrite it to remove the damning words against their sexual immorality, and have the Church recant thousands of years of tradition and Biblical truth. And when the Church defends against this direct attack, he will side with those factions and call faithful Bible-believing Christians - homophobic! The Church presents the moral law of God - and if that must makes Him homophobic too, and if Bishop Tutu does not worship one such as that, then just what God does Bishop Tutu worship?

Sadly, Bishop Tutu has moved away from traditional Biblical Christianity and is showing his theology to be coloured liberal. He preaches a leaning towards universalism, the doctrine of inclusiveness taken beyond Christian boundaries. His speech at the World Council of Churches Convention in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2006) shows cause for concern.

Jesus — was quite serious when he said that God was our father and that we belonged all to one family, because in this family all, not some, are insiders. None is an outsider — Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, all belong, all are held in a divine embrace that will not let us go — all, for God has no enemies — I have said that God is not a Christian — Some people chewed me up for saying that, but I believe it. Some like to think that we Christians have the duty of protecting God. But I wish these people could meet the Dalai Lama. He is a holy person, incredible. We are the ones who keep trying to put limits on God, but God gives the incredible gift of grace.

A reporter asked Tutu if there are any limits to plurality and diversity when seeking unity. “God is the God of all,” replied Tutu. “We are too prone to excommunicate. God welcomes all of us.

Source

Yes indeed, God invites us all… but not all of us respond positively to Him, and not all take Him up on His offer of redemption. Only those who accept become the children of God. Not all… not at all. Bishop Tutu is confusing invitation with unconditional acceptance. God does not accept us unconditionally, although He does invites all to accept His plan for redemption and obedience thereafter. He welcomes us, but He has in mind to transform us, not keep us remaining the same. He also respects our integrity and if we choose not to accept, then He respects our wish to remain outside His Kingdom - we are responsible for our own excommunication. Bishop Tutu is expressing the beliefs of universalism, not of Biblical scholarship and Truth. The Dalai Lama is a holy man, but in not in Christianity. It was Jesus Himself who said “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) God welcomes us all, but on His own conditions, not ours. The grace He gives us is common grace, that is, common to all. Common grace is not saving grace, as Bishop Tutu would know but seems to have quite forgotten.

I listened to the recent BBC broadcast where Bishop Tutu expresses his views on homosexuality and the Church. I disagreed with him on many points. He is not preaching the full Gospel, only a partial gospel - a social gospel in fact, one of good works, not one of redemption and transformation. He tells only half the story, and by disputing the authority of Scripture he permits himself to pick-and-choose in a way that has caused error to creep into his beliefs. Accordingly, he now misjudges the church and because of his own status and influence, he is perpetrating mischief.

An excellant appraisal of this interview with Bishop Tutu has been written here by Dr Lisa Severine Nolland. An excerpt follows:

In broader terms, Desmond's biblical theology is fatally flawed. Though he claims he loves the Bible and especially the words of Jesus, in truth Desmond's theology is seriously compromised by a Pick-n-Mix approach. His bottom line seems to be the overwhelming love of God and the requisite to ‘do good' within a broader framework of ‘progressive' 60s Liberation Theology. Desmond preaches the ‘soft', human, God-has-low-standards-and-wears-his-heart-on-his-sleeve Jesus; the ‘hard' Jesus holds little appeal and is either ignored or rejected. Christ's teaching about the wrath and judgement of Almighty God on personal sin; individual choice pregnant with eternal consequence for good or for evil; holiness, righteousness, truth and morality; heaven and hell and so forth are filtered through the lens of Matthew 25 (‘I was hungry, and you fed me' etc.) - and very little remains. The ensuing void thus severely truncates the Christian Gospel on a good day and radically deconstructs it on a bad, as Bob Duncan notes.

Read here a particular view Bishop Tutu expresses and scroll down skimming the 100 comments to see what it has spawned. Do you see him defending Christian truth in this?

Here Bishop Tutu writes that “no religion is violent, thus by definition, Islam is not”. He explains that no religion teaches that murder and killing is right, so I must glean from such an opinion that he has never read the Qur’an or aHadith. And note the fallacy in his argument - that of constructing a definition and then attempting to validate something against it, rather than to take that something and look at its properties in order to validate or re-work the definition. Anyway, he is wrong, as neatly demonstrated by the writer of the final of the 31 comments. But again, look at the response he gets - the numbers all clinging to his every word as to one of great authority and unquestionable knowledge.

I’m sorry, Archbishop Tutu, but… I think you’ve lost the plot.

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. Matthew 15:21-28 (NIV)

I recently came across an interpretation of this passge (Matthew 15:21-28) which troubles me due to what it proclaims about Jesus. It is not an uncommon one as I have heard it a number of times. The interpretation concerned can be summed up as teaching the following ideas:

~ that there is no reason for Jesus to have the woman plead repeatedly with Him for her daughter’s healing
~ that this passage shows Jesus gaining a new insight into the inclusiveness of God, and thereby into his own role in showing that inclusion to others
~ that in growing up, Jesus had absorbed some of his cultural milieu and is acting out of that, acting without actually thinking it through completely
~ that it is the gentile woman with whom he is speaking who opens his mind to this new insight of inclusion
~ that he then realizes what she says is true, that being there is an abundance of God’s goodness for everyone, including non-Jews and other foreigners, who also qualify for a share in it
~ that Jesus is being taught an important lesson, and is humble enough to be taught, thus his greatness
~ that his subsequent healing of the woman’s daughter comes about due to his new commitment to this new insight

This interpretation does not present me with the same image of Jesus as taught to me by the rest of Scripture, nor is it, in my view, in tune with the Apostolic faith handed down the ages by the church fathers, confirmed by church councils in the early centuries of Christian history.

My reasons for this conclusion follow.

The Biblical evidence is compelling in its claim that Jesus is the Son of God - God incarnate.
We are told that He is the image of the invisible God ~ Colossians 1:15. He claims for Himself “I and the Father are one” ~ John 10:30.
The Nicene Creed states this as “being of one substance with the Father”.

Jesus was also born fully human - of flesh and blood - and subject to the same temptations and tribulations as all humankind but not giving in to them ~ Matthew 4:1-11. While being fully human, He remains of one substance with the Father (God), and somehow these two states are held in tension in the one person of Jesus Christ. He is considered the perfect human.

This may be hard to get one’s head around, but that is the conclusion reached by many great minds who have weighed the evidence and can see no better alternative. The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) proclaimed that there was “no confusion, no change, no division, no separation” undergone by Christ’s two natures within Him; they are united in Him yet also distinct from one another. That statement has remained the traditional and orthodox belief of those who accept the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

So back to the story of the Canaanite woman…

The interpretation that troubles me holds that there is no reason for Jesus to have the woman plead with Him for her daughter’s healing. But this view ignores the greater context in which this event occurred, and the knowledge that we have of God’s overall plan that involved Jesus.

In the very first place, the Jews were God’s chosen people, those through whom He would recover the situation brought about by mankind’s fall from grace when man disobeyed God and went his own way - which is what we all do. Not to go into the details right here, Jesus was to be the One who would bring redemption - first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles and all the rest of us up through the ages. The Canaanite woman was not a Jew, and thus her situation was not first call for Him. He tells her “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” and that is very clearly recorded so is certainly no mystery. This is the background to understanding the conversation between them.

It is important to realize that the Gospels are, beside an account of the “Good News”, a record of how Jesus taught His disciples. They had to learn God’s plan for His people, and the order and means by which it would come about. At that stage Jesus had not yet become the sacrifice that brought to fruition the plan of redemption. His work was among the Jews… until later. It was not until after His resurrection, and His appearance to Saul (the Apostle Paul) on the road to Damascus, that His work would be extended when Paul was appointed the Apostle to the Gentiles, and after the coming of the Holy Spirit that the disciples would begin their evangelistic missions.

But the woman persisted and kept calling upon Jesus. As her cries became more urgent, her faith grew with it. She had recognized Him, and she called Him her Lord. She humbled herself, acknowledging her own unworthiness in relation to Him. This is an essential part of the equation - we are not worthy on our own account, but only by His grace do we receive. Not of our own doing, but by He who shall have the glory.

This seemingly small matter of humility, the requirement that the woman persist in faith, must not be overlooked. Her answers were humble, made more so through her interaction with Jesus, and gave evidence of her great faith. Jesus commented thus, and as a result, He healed her daughter.

The interpretation ignores that point. It claims there is no reason for initially denying the woman’s request. However, I see four reasons - the three already mentioned (His purpose in relation to God’s plan, growing her faith, seeking her humility for God’s glory) plus another lesson for the disciples, that of refusing to act simply for the sake of expediency, for getting the woman off their backs so to speak. This was a teaching moment not to be missed.

And now the crunch! The interpretation claims that Jesus had absorbed some of his cultural milieu and is acting out of that, acting without actually thinking it through completely. It claims that Jesus is being taught an important lesson by the Gentile woman.

What does this say about who Jesus is? Jesus has become so human in this view that His perfect nature is now compromised such that He has become flawed like the rest of us. This interpretation has Jesus, the Son of God, succumbing to the cultural conditioning of the day, not thinking something through completely, thus making an error of judgement and requiring to be taught by us instead. What kind of Jesus is that? This comes dangerously close to the “kenosis theory” heresy.

The Kenosis theory states that Jesus gave up (emptied himself of) some of His divine attributes (omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence) while He was a man here on earth. It states that Christ did this voluntarily so that He could function as a man in order to fulfil the work of redemption. This view was first introduced in the late 1800s in Germany with Gottfried Thomasius (1802-75), a Lutheran theologian. The Kenosis theory is a dangerous doctrine because, if it were true, then it would mean that Jesus was not fully divine. And if Jesus was not fully divine, then His atoning work would not be sufficient to atone for the sins of the world. This would bring down the whole plan of redemption and Christianity would be gutted, made another worthless religious belief. If God stopped being God for one instant, the infinite suddenly stops being infinite, the immutable undergoes a mutation, and the universe comes to an end. Jesus certainly emptied Himself of something, as the Apostle Paul tells us (Philippians 2:6-9), but rather than that being His divine attributes, it was His divine perogatives - His glory and His privileges.

The correct doctrine is that of the Hypostatic Union which states that Jesus is both fully God and fully man (Col. 2:9) and did not give up any divine attributes as a man on earth. He was not “God changed into a man”, nor some mixture of God and man, nor was He man made divine. Jesus was able to see into the hearts of men and discern with great accuracy. He knew those who encountered Him before they even opened their mouths. He made no error of judgement and His perception did not need correction. This doctrinal statement from the Council of Chalcedon has not been rebutted by any Protestant reformer and is accepted universally within mainstream Christianity. It remains the understanding of Biblical truth.

In summary, this interpretation sounds revisionist, the product of liberal theology, were Jesus is being made more human than He is a member of the Godhead. He is being reconstructed to be more believable to those who suffer from disbelief. The intention may be to assist us to identify with Him, but in doing that, Scripture is being redefined to accommodate a lack of faith - and also a lack of knowledge of God. The temptation to worship Christ’s human nature is one of the most subtle and deceptive forms of idolatry. In this interpretation there is a neglect of context, both the immediate one whereby the disciples are being taught and the woman is attended to spiritually, and the over-reaching one whereby God’s plan of redemption is revealed. There is a bending of Scripture to satisfy another agenda altogether - the fashionable notion of “inclusiveness” which is actually contrary to what this event is about.

What saddens me greatly (about this skewed interpretation that I found) is that I have come across it now a number of times, and I don’t think it is at all helpful in teaching us the truth about Jesus.

In my Journal entry earlier this month, New heights of absurdity in Episcopalia, I wondered what Dr Redding’s bishop had to say about her outright heresy. I have long given up hoping that cases like hers are just an isolated example of straying from the Path, and so it was no real surprise to read later that her bishop, the Rt. Reverend Vincent Warner of Seattle, calls her declaration of being both a Christian and a Muslim to be exciting in terms of interfaith understanding.

Exciting? I often hear that word these days and am beginning to recognize it as one that postmodernists find so useful when they can no longer describe something in terms of truth and remain credible. In these exciting days when anything goes… everything mixes with everything else… and exciting new ideas capture the imagination… it is exciting to discover that the boundaries we thought existed need no longer reign us in. Our excitement knows no bounds!

Where Bible literacy has been abandoned, people are ill-prepared to recognize heresy and challenge the basis of it. Also, where people fail to use any skills of critical thinking, then again they do not recognize error. And beyond that some more, where there is ignorance of both the Bible and the essentials of critical thinking, deception has a very easy path.

To me there are glaringly obvious incompatible and irreconcilable beliefs being entertained when someone describes herself as both a Christian and a Muslim, to the extent that a well read and intelligent being is compartmentalizing and alternately denying basic facts to contain them simultaneously. But yet it doesn’t seem to be glaringly obvious to those who support this woman’s position, and I must therefore have grave doubts about either their understanding of, or their belief in, the propositional truths of Scripture …and that includes academics and supposedly learned theologians. It also brings me to question what is understood generally concerning critical thinking. Consider Aristotle and his law of non-contradiction…

“The theological beliefs are irreconcilable,” said Mahmoud Ayoub, professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Temple University in Philadelphia. Islam holds that God is one, unique, indivisible. “For Muslims to say Jesus is God would be blasphemy.”

Frank Spina, an Episcopal priest and also a professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Seattle Pacific University, puts it bluntly. “I just do not think this sort of thing works,” he said. “I think you have to give up what is essential to Christianity to make the moves that she has done. The essence of Christianity was not that Jesus was a great rabbi or even a great prophet, but that he is the very incarnation of the God that created the world…. Christianity stands or falls on who Jesus is.”
Source

Surely it is obvious that “Jesus is not God” (Muslim) and “Jesus is God” (Christian) does not work together? Are people not able to see that? Has postmodernism blinded folk that much?

But moving on a little…

This pluralism has sneaked in through the gate opened by the liberal theologians. It seems it is not uncommon these days to find clergy who are open to the beliefs of other faiths and ready to make claim for themselves to a mix of Christianity and other. It is in open defiance of our Christian God, but as Bishop Warner of Seattle is purported to have said… it is exciting in terms of interfaith understanding. Pluralism is certainly not possible if one holds to a traditional Biblical faith where a plain reading of Scripture does not involve interpretations bent towards a modern secular agenda. But liberal theology is not so much about Christian belief, but Christian unbelief instead.

Here is an interesting comment by Gerd Lüdemann, a prominent German theologian and Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, Germany - as reported by Dr Albert Mohler Jr, here:

{clip} Many church officials, Lüdemann claims, no longer believe in the creeds, but simply “interpret” the words into meaninglessness. Liberal theologians, he asserts, try to reformulate Christian doctrine into something they can believe, and still claim to be Christians. He now describes liberal theology as “contemptible.”

Looking back on the whole project of liberal theology, Lüdemann offered an amazing reflection: “I don’t think Christians know what they mean when they proclaim Jesus as Lord of the world. That is a massive claim. If you took that seriously, you would probably have to be a fundamentalist. If you can’t be a fundamentalist, then you should give up Christianity for the sake of honesty.”

Professor Lüdemann reveals much about the true state of modern liberal theology. One core doctrine after another has fallen by liberal denial—all in the name of salvaging the faith in the modern age. The game is now reaching its end stage. Having denied virtually every essential doctrine, the liberals are holding an empty bag. As Lüdemann suggests, they should give up their claim on Christianity for the sake of honesty.

Lüdemann himself is a non-believer, having become “post-Christian”. But interestingly, personal unbelief and honesty has not yet given him the inclination to step down from his positions of employment. He has given up his claim on Christianity by no longer calling himself one, but he remains a Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and a teacher of those who will study under him, supposedly students with a mind to one day becoming ordained Christian clergy.

I am almost at a loss for words. Of all the saddest things to come out of the Anglican Communion of late, the following story is more than enough to make one weep. When the truth claims of Christianity are disregarded to the extent that sound doctrine is swept right away by whatever silly notion and whim takes the fancy, then I guess anything can be believed. And so the Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding, a scholar in New Testament, can tell us that she is both a practising Muslim and an Episcopal priest. The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal The June 2007 issue of the Episcopal Voice carries the story on page 9, and it is now appearing on numerous other Christian blogs such as this one here.

To quote the Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding:

“We Christians, in struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus and the pattern of life he offers, describe him as the ‘only begotten son of God.' That's how wonderful he is to us. But that is not literal,” she [Redding] continues. “When we say Jesus is the only begotten one, we are saying he's unique in some way. Islam says the same thing. He's the only human aside from Adam who is directly created by God, and he's different from Adam because he has a human mother. So there's agreement—this person is unique in his relationship to God.” Christianity also says that we are all part of the household of God and in essence brothers and sisters of Jesus. Muslims take the figurative language of “only begotten,” make it concrete and contradict it: God “neither begets nor is begotten.” “I agree with both because I do want to say that Jesus is unique, and for me, Jesus is my spiritual master,” Redding says. “Muslims say Mohammed is the most perfect. Well, it depends on who you fall in love with. I fell in love with Jesus a long time ago and I'm still in love with Jesus but I'd like to think my relationship with Jesus has matured.”

When we say that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, we are saying He is unique but not simply just “in some way”. We actually know in what way. It is in the way that He is of the same substance as the Father, our Creator God. And being of the same substance He is indeed God - God, the Son; second Person of our three-in-one Godhead. (John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”) Not to acknowledge this uniqueness in this way is not to believe the truth claims of Christ.

What is more, it is not we who “struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus” have coined the term “only begotten son of God” in our supposed struggle, but He is called that in Scripture which is God’s holy written word, the revelation of God Himself, because He is indeed that - as God has revealed! (Matthew 16:15-17 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”)

Christianity does not say that we are all in essence brothers and sisters of Jesus, but only those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God are the children of God. (John 1:12,13 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. )

The Qu’ranic description of Allah is something quite different from the Biblical revelation of Yahweh. Pope Benedict found himself in hot water last year as a result of his lecture at Regensburg when he described how Christianity’s view is that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) whereas Islam’s view is that “God is absolutely transcendent.” He appeared to be saying that either the Islamic interpretation of God must be in error when used to justify patently irrational violence as divine, or else the god the Muslims worship is not God. The submission of man's rationality to irrational violent commands, Pope Benedict dared to suggest, is incompatible with who God must be. The Muslims, who insist that their Allah is the God of Abraham, were incensed and turned up the heat in their attempt to cook the Pope like a live lobster in a pot.

Furthermore, Muslims deny the deity of Jesus. To them He is just a prophet, the one they call ‘Isa. And the Qu’ranic accounts of their ‘Isa have significant contradictory differences (such as His crucifixion and resurrection which they deny, that He was begotten and not created - that is, being the Word through whom all Creation came into being) from the Gospel accounts of Christ. Unlike Yahweh, the Islamic Allah is not a father - he has no son.

Dr Redding believes that Jesus led her to Islam. Quoting from the interview with her…

She added that what Islam does is take Jesus out of the way of her relationship with God, “but it doesn't drop Jesus. I was following Jesus and he led me into Islam, and he didn't drop me off at the door. He's there, too.”

Yes, Islam does take Jesus out of the way of her relationship with God, and it does even more besides. Without Jesus and His redemption that restores our relationship to God, we are lost and no longer the children of God. (1 John 2:23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.) This is about the Sonship of Jesus, His unique relationship to the Father (”…of one Being with the Father through whom all things were made…” Nicene Creed) and our acknowledgement of His deity as part of the Godhead.

Jesus made an exclusive claim (John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”) and to suggest that He leads anyone to worship a false god, one that denies His deity and all that He did on the cross for our redemption, is quite staggering to me. I can only surmise that Dr Redding has been well and truly deceived by the Father of Lies, and in losing sight of the real Jesus, has followed Satan, the evil one, instead.

One simply cannot be both a Muslim and a Christian. Each requires incompatible allegiances. Their truth claims are contradictory and mutually exclusive. Both cannot be right together, and to claim to believe in both requires a dissociative mental state. Dr Redding has sought synergy rather than salvation, and in attempting to be a believer of both, she has become a true believer of neither.

The questions to be asked next: What is this woman doing being allowed to remain a priest in the Episcopal Church? Where is her bishop, and what is he saying about her outright heresy? If there was any reason to be defrocked, this is surely a big one. Oh, wait, the Episcopal Church has veered right off course, creating it’s own liberal revisionist religion. It really is the saddest thing about the Anglican Communion.

Some of us who are orthodox in our Christianity feel estranged from our local parishes where the clergy are preaching and promoting a liberal theology. Where that is the case, we are caught between a rock and a hard place. We may want to worship within the church denomination that has been our home and our custom, but do not want to be part of the heresy that is being promoted as true Christianity. Imagine the difficulty in sitting and listening to a sermon that you know is leading everyone up the garden path. As an example, I will point to one by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the USA. No, I am not one of her parishioners - and thank goodness for that! - but if you wish to see what I mean by a sermon that leads people right away from the truth, here is an excellant analysis of one by David Ould:
How Not to Read the Bible

Reading from one of my favourite authors, that being George MacDonald (1824 - 1905), in an edited version by Michael R. Phillips (Knowing the Heart of God), I came across the following from The Landlady’s Master (originally titled The Elect Lady):

“I seldom go to church,” said Andrew, reddening a little, but losing no sweetness from his smile.

“I have heard that. It is wrong of you not to be regular. Why don’t you go to church?”

Andrew was silent.

“I want you to tell me,” persisted Alexa, with a peremptoriness she had inherited from the schoolmaster. She had known Andrew too as a pupil of her father’s.

“If you insist, ma’am,” replied Andrew. “I not only learn nothing from Mr Smith, but I think that much of what he says is not true.”

“Still you ought to go for the sake of example.”

“Do wrong to make other people follow my example! How could that be right?”

“Wrong to go to church! What do you mean? Wrong to pray with your fellow Christians?”

“Perhaps the time may come when I shall be able to pray with them, even though the words they use seem addressed to a tyrant, not to the Father of Jesus Christ. But at present I cannot. I might endure to hear Mr Smith say evil things concerning God, but the evil things he says to God make me quite unable to pray, and I would feel like a hypocrite to attempt it in such a setting.”

“Whatever you may think of Mr Smith’s doctrines, it is presumptuous to set yourself up as too good to go to church.”

“My difficulties with the church have nothing to do with thinking myself good, ma’am, which I do not. But I must bear the reproach. I cannot consent to be a hypocrite in order to avoid being called one.”

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“It looks as if you thought yourself better than everybody else.”

“I consider myself better than no man. Besides, if it were such that we thought, then certainly he would not be one of the gathering… His presence cannot be proved; it can only be known. One thing for certain, if we are not keeping his commandments, he is not among us. But if he does meet us, it is not necessary to the joy of his presence that we should be able to prove that he is there. If a man has the company of the Lord, he will care little whether someone else does or does not believe that he has it.”

“Your way fosters division in the church.”

“Did the Lord come to send peace on earth? My way, as you call it, would make division, but division between those who call themselves his, and those who are his. It would bring together those that love him. Company would merge with company that they might look on the Lord together. I don’t believe Jesus cares much for what is called the visible church; but he cares with his very Godhead for those what do as he tells them; they are his Father’s friends; they are his elect by whom he will save the world. It is by those who obey, and by their obedience, that he will save those who do not obey, that is, will bring them to obey. It is one by one that the world will pass to his side. There is no saving of the masses. If a thousand be converted as once, it is still every single lonely man that is converted.”

“You would make a slow process of it.”

“It is slow, yet faster than any other. All God’s processes are slow. The works of God take time and cannot be rushed.”

I can just imagine the agony (for me) of sitting listening to a liberal version of “the truth” and wanting to leap up, waving my Bible, to call out “That is not so!” from the pews. What if I did, and what kind of stir would that make? Who am I to speak out in such a situation? My own conservative understanding of New Testament Scripture has it that I should not behave that way at all. But must I sit through such torment knowing in my heart of hearts that what is said is not the traditional Biblical Christianity handed down from the Apostles and the early Church Fathers? Where we have liberal clergy, we also have hollow and deceptive philosophy arising from basic principles of this world. And so like Andrew, just for the present time I stay away.

The content of Judah’s Journal is copyright. If you are NOT reading this on Judah’s Journal, then it has been copied from there and is re-published illegally - in other words, stolen. Those who would do that are common thieves and lack moral integrity. Judah’s Journal

There gets to be a point where, no matter what one says, the other clearly does not want to know. I have had that demonstrated to me often by my son, teenagers being so much smarter, better informed, more “with it” and certainly more wise to the world than a silly old Mum who has clearly “lost it” somewhere inside her assumed senile decay. My brain worked well enough when the little tyke was smaller than me, but now that I am smaller than him, it seems to have no knowledge of any worth at all - a kind of directly inverse relationship of sorts. The empty park bench here represents it very well, my son would expect you to believe. Certainly any useful information has long been leached out of it by the ravages of parenthood. Yes, there are usually perfectly good reasons such as these just mentioned to warrant not listening when one doesn’t wish to hear. And in the end, as youngsters reach adulthood, they must take responsibility for their own lives which includes the decisions they make, wise or not, and the consequences that those bring. The parent, wise or not, may or may not be heard, and thus the world moves on.

There has been a great deal happening in the world-wide Anglican Communion of late, and many reports published all over the internet. Did the Church avoid a split? Are the orthodox responsible for the schism? Will the Episcopal Church in America play ball - or simply reinterpret the rules instead? Will other provinces within the Communion play by the agreed set of rules as well? Is this as big as the Reformation itself? And who cares anyway?

Well, if you have no allegiance to the Anglican Church, then maybe it matters very little to you. The Bishops and Archbishops (the latter are called Primates, a term causing my thoughts to turn to that of monkeys!) have had meetings and talks and subcommittees and papers that were issued from them. They gave rise to documents and statements and covenants or proposed covenants and lots of words have been both spoken and written. Tempers flared, tears were shed, stands were taken, and the matter is ongoing. Since part of me, a kind of historic part, does have a little bit of allegiance still, I guess the outcome does matter to me especially as I want to see the traditional Biblical Christian truth upheld.

Did the Church avoid a split? I think they may have only postponed one.
Are the orthodox responsible for schism? Is belief really responsible for the separation of unbelief when the latter heads down a different path from it?
Will the Episcopal Church play ball? I think it will, but a different game by it’s own set of rules. And probably on a different playing field.
And the other provinces? We shall have to see. My crystal ball is cloudy from the tempestuous swirls of Thor and his dark omens.
The comparative rating with the Reformation? Well, in global Anglicanism, it certainly ranks quite close.
Who cares anyway? I believe God does.

So while the Primates have been busy in their upper house, a microcosm of these events have taken place on a certain forum which I have made mention of before. The dialogue has battled on, the subject that of religious liberalism, with all it’s both relevant and irrelevant tangents into the bargain. And this is where I come back to my title question… when is enough, enough?

The dialogue has tried the patience of many of us, probably from either side as well. We simply do not see eye-for-eye at all. No matter how painstakingly one can present a certain argument, if the other will not engage the points of debate, and for whatever reason does not believe - then they simply do not believe. I will admit that I have closed down to the arguments from liberal theology. Although the same Christian terminology is used, the meanings of words are tweaked and twisted; it is a different religion from that of traditional orthodox Biblical Christianity. I see the foundations of such unbelief to be firmly those of heresy. Why should I listen any more to heresy?

2 Corinthians 6: 14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

I have chosen which path to follow, and it is not in the direction signposted by liberalism. I have made a commitment, and in doing so there are options no longer open to me. That is one that isn’t. I have also realized that those walking the different path are closing off their options to follow the one that I am on. Since I believe I am on the right one, and that being on the right one matters eternally, I am naturally sad that they have decided to go the other way. Some have tried so hard to convince them otherwise, even showing them the map and pointing over and over to the directions given on it, but to no avail. Their ears and eyes are closed - just as they surely think that mine are too. How long does one persist while getting nowhere? If no approach at one’s disposal seems to work, then I guess it comes to that… enough really is enough. A decision was made, and the consequences will be theirs to savour.

The Apostle Paul cautioned the Thessalonians to “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil”. (1Thessalonians 5:21-22)

We are told that “The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”. (Acts 17:11)

A good Christian friend once told me that I could believe anything I like about Jesus, but unless it was true of the Jesus who is written about in the Bible, then I wasn’t dealing with the real Jesus who is the Son of God. Likewise, I can choose to believe anything I like about God but it will be utterly immaterial if it isn’t the actual truth about Him.

So what is Truth?

There are some things that Truth is not. It is not “that which coheres”, or “what works” (pragmatism), or “that which was intended”, or “what is comprehensive” or “what is existentially relevant” or “what feels good/natural” (subjectivism). There are rational and substantive arguments that hold their ground against all rebuttals to that which I have just written.

Instead, Truth is that which corresponds to reality. Factual truth is that which corresponds to the facts. This nature of truth is crucial to the Christian faith.

Traditional conservative Christianity is predicated on the position that truth is absolute. It’s source is the holy and righteous character of God.

However, a commonly found premise of current thought is that truth is relative - that something may be true for one person but not for all people. Or that it may be true at one time but not at another. According to the absolutist view, what is true for one person is true for all persons, times and places. Only the correspondence criterion - that truth corresponds to reality - provides the sole adequate definition of the nature of truth (the others describe tests for truth, perhaps, but not an explanation of the nature of truth).

This understanding of the nature of truth is fundamental to understanding our knowledge of God. I can believe anything I like about God, but unless I test my beliefs against what is written about Him in Scripture, then I am not verifying them in correspondence to the revealed truth about Him. If what I am believing is inconsistent with the revealed truth about God, then my claim is most certainly dubious.

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The Church of England has established a listening process - that we must listen to the experiences of gay people, and keep listening, and listening, and listening. While I have no problem at all with listening to folk, I get the feeling that this is a stalling process as well. It is a way of saying “well, maybe…” instead of pronouncing the truth: “God said NO”. All the while that folk are busy sensitively listening, the big powerful political machine of the gay lobby plunders on. And although I am now heartily sick of the big homosexuality issue, it is the issue constantly thrust in our faces by the political activists (supported by the human rights people) who want Christianity to change God’s rules and declare them no longer sinners.

VIGNETTE:
A priest of the Church of England has told how he had, for many years, assumed a traditional conservative Christian world view. Then he came across two lesbians living together in a loving sexual relationship. They were both Christians and upset that their lifestyle, which they believed to be hugely loving, was condemned by the conservative Christians who claimed Scripture taught it was sinful. As he described the caring nature of their relationship I could see how one could compare it with many other relationships where far less attention and concern for each other was evident, and have difficulty in claiming that it was not as caring and healing as the two involved insisted it was. As Christians they felt it was natural, and that God condoned their relationship, and had blessed them with a fruitful ministry to others. There were parts of their relationship that could be said to match that of any two people who cared greatly for each other - sisters perhaps, or brothers, or best friends of either gender - but this was also a sexual relationship, and their love spilled over into sexual expression and gratification. The question posed was… at what point was their relationship sinful, if it was sinful at all?

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One’s answer depends on the extent to which one adopts culturally influenced liberal leanings in understanding the truth regarding God’s moral law, or whether one adheres to the traditional conservative position instead. Those who take a plain reading of Scripture (the conservative position) will say that, when there is sexual involvement outside marriage, the relationship is sinful without any doubt. That applies to heterosexuality just as much as homosexuality. There is considerable apologia for this position, and a very good outline of it in relationship to homosexuality can be found in two papers, this one here and the other here, which I encourage all to read before going any further in the exploration of this vignette.

What I think has happened is this. In a “listening” or counselling role one of the absolutely essential things required of the listener or counselor is to remain objective. The professional counselor will certainly develop empathy and relate to the other on a number of levels, aware of feelings evoked, aware of sensitivities within oneself, unresolved personal issues, new thoughts and new understandings, the needs of the other, and appropriate helpful responses. All this is a normal part of the process and important to occur for a good helping relationship to develop. However, the over-riding important thing that must also occur is that the listener or counselor does not lose objectivity. For this reason, professional counselors and therapists will have clinical supervision to assist them to remain objective. In the case of a Christian counselor, the objectivity is centred in the truth of what is found in Scripture. The danger of listening is that of mistaking just what one is listening to - the voice of God, or the voice of something else. No matter what the belief is about God, unless it is verified by what has already been revealed about Him - that He has revealed about Himself and His will for us - then the belief cannot stand in contention as truth. Christianity is not based on relative truth, as already mentioned. No amount of twisting and distorting what is written in Scripture will change God’s holy character, the basis of His moral law and absolute truth. And the blessing that these people believe God has bestowed upon them can be no more than His “common grace” which He bestows on all of us, His generous love regardless of our sinful states. He is so patient with us, not wishing to lose any of us, but waits for our repentance and denial of self to truly become closer likenesses to Christ.

I believe this priest lost objectivity. He was convinced by a tale loaded with genuine distress, and relinquishing his hold on the truth embodied in the holy character of God and revealed by Him, was pulled over to the side of the other. I know he does not agree with me. We are at loggerheads. The plain reading of Scripture, and the apologia for my position as described in the paper linked to above, verifies the truth of this verdict. He is hard pressed to justify his position except by application of cultural liberal ideas about truth.

Mark Alexander, in his paper, addresses the Scriptural issues as follows…

Homosexual advocates make the principal argument that Scripture is ambiguous about sexual immorality. However, both the Old and New Testaments are abundantly clear on their condemnation of homosexual behavior.

In every authentic translation of the Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Old and New Testament Scriptures, homosexual acts are, indeed, explicitly condemned. However, as some have dubiously suggested that our U.S. Constitution is an elastic “living document,” likewise they suggest that Scripture is malleable and thus subject to the same practice of revisionist interpretation.

Homosexual advocates argue that citing Scripture’s condemnation of sin is isogetical (proof-texting) rather than exegetical. However, this essay does not turn to God’s word with the objective of finding verse that comports to a certain theological, social or political agenda, it returns to Scripture as the exegetical context for the Christian faith.

So convoluted has the debate become in some Western Christian denominations that a few have already approved the ordination of practicing homosexuals. Some have also come perilously close to recognizing homosexual “marriage,” resulting in intra-denominational schisms.

As regards the two positions being at loggerheads, The Very Rev. Dr Peter Moore presents this impasse so well, and while there is no rapprochement in sight, his advice is as follows:

As Christians we must approach the issue of homosexuality not with the secular criteria of rights, but with the Christian value of love. Of course we accept basic civil rights for homosexuals, as we do for all people. But that does not mean that they have a right in the Christian community to be accepted as they wish, despite their behavior. We do not define who we are to one another, or to God. God defines us, and we find our identity in God’s definition of us.
. . . . .
What we find is that true love forbids us to bless homosexual relationships. The church can never bless what God has not blessed. Rather our task is much more difficult and much more costly. We must labor alongside those with unruly emotions, who believe that sexual restraint and healing are impossible, and who put themselves and others at grave risk. We seek to do this with all the sensitivity of Our Lord himself; and we seek to do this by demonstrating, that it really is possible to live a new life in Christ.

For some homosexuals that will mean openness to healing and even marriage. For many others it will mean celibacy, either short term or long term. Those of us who desire to fulfill the Great Commandment will be active in trying to persuade our brothers and sisters, however much they may not want to be told it, that this is the way of real love, and true liberation.

And just in passing, there is another blog post from August that has relevance to what is written here: Sorry Elton

{clip} … This church movement, by denying the sins of sexual immorality, have closed the doors of many souls. They have removed the need to repent of sexual immorality by giving it recognition and status in the church.

Yes, the church is for sinners, but its mission is to teach about God’s love, and that what removes us from that love, namely sin. And that the only way we can be reconciled with that love is to repent, and turn away from our sin. Sin and the Holy Spirit cannot co-exist. Sin is the manifestation of evil and darkness, while the Holy Spirirt is the manifestation of love and light. It is one or the other. It is our sinful desire versus God’s desire.

And another relevant post on the blog of another online Christian friend: Of Apes and Men.

Those who take this plain reading of Scripture are most likely these days to be ridiculed and called all kinds of unpleasant names. One of those names will likely be “homophobe” which couldn’t be further from the truth. It is not loving (agape) to withhold the truth. If one sees from the river bank that a group of friends on a raft, having a great time, are unknowingly heading straight for extremely dangerous rapids where they will come to grief, then does one just smile and wave and withhold the truth - or issue a warning in the hope of averting disaster? Is it to be a spoil-sport, upsetting their fun, and hateful of them to point out the truth?

As already stated, in so many ways I am sick of this subject - but it is the one constantly thrown at us by the political activists who insist Christians remove the blot of sin from the homosexual’s copybook - as though we are God and can do that! But there are other sins that, whilst not subject to political agitation, are also in need of addressing. Hands up those who over-ate today, who told a lie or did something dishonest, who were lazy and selfish and rude and - especially for Christians - stole himself or herself back from God! We were bought for a price and no longer own ourselves, remember? And we are all sinners. Not one of us righteous. But the fact is, I don’t hear the Church telling us we are to remove gluttony and theft from God’s moral law and declassify it as sin. Or if it is saying no repentance is required, then it is hard pressed to claim to be Christian at all. The Gospel message most certainly includes repentance from sin. I’m afraid that is the difference, that these sexual sins are being regarded as holy, and that is why this subject keeps coming up - over and over again.

But the good news…

I recently withdrew from a Church of England forum due to the nature of the dialogue that is proceeding there at present. The discussions had previously been relatively harmonious as there was general agreement on the interpretation and authority of Scripture. Those who posted there mostly adhered to a plain interpretation of the Word of God, understanding that His revealed truth was imparted through the use of numerous literary styles in the Bible but that, for the most part, the essentials were not at all ambiguous. From time to time others appeared who held different points of view, and some enthusiastic discussions have taken place. Where there was genuine inquiry, humility in learning, respect shown each other, and an effort to listen, hear and understand, these differences among us were well tolerated and often spurred folk on to further study and learning. What was never helpful were those posts carrying ad hominem attacks, accusations, quibbling, prideful point scoring, and irrelevant petty squabbles.

The forum was in many ways a stronghold of conservative Biblical Christianity. It was a comfortable place to call “home” if one’s Christianity was based on that plain interpretation of Scripture. Those who had visited other Church forums where the theological background was clearly more “liberal” and culturally flavoured usually beat a hasty retreat and returned to tell how they were eaten alive by “inclusive” members unable to tolerate the conservative stance on what constitutes sin. Back on our “home” forum we could engage in discussions without being pounced upon, and free from the endlessly repetitive necessity to present our apologia.

Of late, many besides myself have stayed away. Some have made odd posts hoping to steer the conversation towards something more worthy with various reminders of our spiritual inheritance, but for the most part it is no longer a very pleasant place to visit. Far from encouraging me to return to the Church of England, the point made that the Church contains a broad range of views with the necessity that we all tolerate those of each other, has actually pushed me further away. Moral relativism is the way of the world, not the way of God. The range of views is too broad when Jesus is reported as saying:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
(Matthew 7:13,14)

The liberal intrusion that berates those beckoning towards the narrow gate has spoiled the forum for me - and no, it is not that my Christianity is fragile and cannot withstand the challenge, but that I am so tired of endlessly refuting accusations and presenting apologia to those who have no wish to listen nor respectfully accept the validity that it claims, or to properly engage with the content imparted. The beliefs I am referring to are entirely consistent with the various articles of faith within the Church of England, part of its doctrine shared with other mainstream denominations, Biblically supported, and have been held traditionally for centuries without change. Just now I need to walk away from these attacks on our Faith. The wolves have got in with the sheep and while the wolves believe in their disguise, consider themselves sheep and not wolves, the true sheep on that forum know the voice of their Shepherd and many are staying well clear of that pen.

However, having said that… I am not always enamoured by what I see posted by way of rebuttal. It is sad to see unfounded nonsense, bickering noise, ad hominem attacks and the like posted as some defence of the Truth. Debate needs to be respectful, rational, relevant and well researched. I have never been terribly keen on labels for people as my experience is such that people do not fit tidily into category boxes. Parts tend to hang out, the box not being completely the right shape. And so it is not all false teaching that I hear from the mouths of “liberals” as there are also beliefs we share in common. My greatest concern is where essential matters of Truth are distorted, not the little details that have minor importance. And we must take care to be sure we are hearing what the other really is saying - not just listening to our own prejudices projected on to the other instead.

I see two things in particular that, as components of culture, are wrecking havoc on the Christianity of the Gospel. One is the notion that we are basically good whereas in fact we are born sinners and naturally inclined towards evil, unable to measure up by our own efforts to the character of our holy God. The other is the notion that Truth is relative, whereas in fact it is absolute. Both these things are denied or skewed in some form or another by liberals. “Inclusivity” has become a Christian virtue to them, disregarding the actual exclusivity of the Christian faith, and repentance is no longer required - or not in all cases. It is my own belief that all certainly are invited, but that many exclude themselves by scorning repentance and the self denial (taking up one’s cross) required of discipleship. In speaking with others Jesus required of them their repentance, and the Holy Spirit then works within us to transform us into His likeness, a new self altogether that is holy and righteous - not the old sinful self trying hard to be something it can never ever be. We become new creations in Him, not our old sinful selves simply condoned. So liberals are indeed preaching and teaching something quite different from the Christianity that I know, and listening to those on the forum simply confirms that for me. It does more than confirm matters - it sickens me. Since moral relativism is their brief, they can parade inclusivity and look so virtuous, telling us to leave if we don’t like it, narrow-minded bigots that we are for expecting repentance of the “good” folk who believe they are Christians. But it is not our brief, so it cannot be our church if that is really what Anglicanism is about.

I have not left that forum as I like to keep my options open, and I will likely post there again when the wolves have got tired of tormenting the sheep and moved on. Meanwhile, I was delighted to read what my online friend, August, has written to his blog just lately - click here - and to know that I am not alone in being “left cold” by the unworthy behaviour on some Christian forums.

So often I find myself thinking how the real church, the real Body of Christ, is not any of the numerous Christian denominations as such. There are many true Christian believers both within and without the established or institutionalized churches - and there is much that constitutes the rest that, like chaff, will one day just be blown away.

Matthew 7: 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

I have often found the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to be insightful and inspiring, and the following (from The Cost of Discipleship, 1959) are certainly prophetic for the situation that exists today:

“The price we are having to pay to-day in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and the sacraments wholesale, we baptized, we confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and the unbelieving. We poured forth unending streams of grace. But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard…What happened to all those warning of Luther’s against preaching the gospel in such a manner as to make men rest secure in their ungodly living? Was there ever a more terrible or disastrous instance of the Christianizing of the world than this?

“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God.

“Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.”

See here for more excerpts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.

For too long the image of God as the God of love has been presented without the rest of His character. This was the heresy of Marcion back in the second century, but we hear the same thing repeated often enough today, that “God is love” - period! Our God of love is also a holy and righteous God, a God who requires obedience to His Will from His children - for their own good as well as His glory. We are loved by a holy and righteous God, but that is forgotten by those who create their own images of God via the heresies as popular today* as they have ever been.

The real church, the spiritual Body of Christ, must be holy as God is holy. That which conforms to the world and mankind’s philosophies does not comprise this spiritual body which must, by definition as Christ’s body, have the character of God.

The church can make itself as relevant to the 21st century as it wants, but that is not the spiritual church I am talking about here. Although Christians are in the world, we are not to be of the world. We are to be united with Him who is other-worldly and no follower of man’s philosophies, doctrines and dogma. The church can market itself to appeal to greater numbers, offering the dispensation of “cheap grace” as enticement, upholding the “rights” to self-seeking self indulgence, worldly self esteem and happiness for all - but this is not the holy and righteous Body of Christ wherein we are to die to self and follow our Lord in obedience to His commands. As un-politically correct as it is, the real church is actually exclusive, not inclusive. All are invited, but those who put their worldly idols before Him go ahead and exclude themselves. The father of lies offers the counterfeit version - the inclusive church where worldly idols take precedence over denying oneself to follow Him.

We cannot “remain faithful” to a church that teaches lies instead of God’s truth. We cannot allow our children to be raised in such a church. As sad as it is, those of us who remain the true believers must eventually separate from those heading off into the darkness. Many have tried hard to stop them going that way, off into the darkness, but if they are determined then there will be no stopping them. Orthodox Episcopalians or Anglicans may have no real choice left but to part company with those who prefer their own agendas to the lordship of Christ. Those others don’t see it, and so folk like myself will be accused of being self-righteous and judgemental for discerning that it is they, not us, who have chosen the darkness. As it is, I have not rejoined the Anglican Communion where I live as the Church of England in New Zealand is known to be largely at the liberal end of the spectrum, my own local parish heavily weighted with women priests and the teaching influenced by liberal theology. I do not have a church home in a physical sense just at present. But meanwhile, my consolation is that the true Body of Christ is a community that exists unconfined by walls of buildings anyway.

* Read Matt Kennedy’s The Presiding Bishop’s Top Five - Pelagiagism, Marcionism, Pluralism, Universalism, and Gnosticism.