Tag Archives: the world

November 17, 2011

Let’s Presuppose A Few Things

By Pooka

Courthouse

Part 3. The first two in this line of thoughts on covenants, community and our relationships are here: Anti-Covenant and Individualism  and I Might Just Need To Be A We

At first, this may appear to be more of a formal apology for Covenant Theology, but bear with me. Also, I’m quite sure this has all been said before, so I can’t claim any originality here. That’s safer anyway since any time we deny the last 2,000 years of church history, we’re claiming that our current religion is the only one that is Christian throughout all history. Scary thought, eh? And what I’m about to discuss reaches back just a bit farther than Tertullian or Irenaeus or even Pentecost. Maybe a few thousand years past that. This is long, but I hope it has good returns. And I hope I’ve portrayed this accurately and understandably.

This doctrine of covenants is not pure theology. It’s not a tight, air-less doctrine that we can take or leave and not be deeply affected by the ramifications of the choice. It is hugely important. Once the barrier of modern presupposition is torn down, the other conflicts will start to resolve themselves fairly easily. That’s my own experience, at least.

Let me make the claim about this presupposition thing. There’s all sorts of discussion about presuppositional hermeneutics and theology. And it is absolutely correct to presuppose there are presuppositions required in the study of the Word. Which presupposition, or assumption if you will, is correct is vital, of course. And here’s the basic premise: The Bible is not speaking in the context of the 21st Century, modernity, the Reformation or even back in the days of Augustine. The Bible’s context is the Biblical eras. Get that and you’re on your way to 1st base.

Next, the Bible itself is filled with assumptions. Do you know the importance of Boaz heading out to the city gate when he’s checking on the status of Ruth’s availability? The Bible doesn’t add a footnote or aside comment to plumb the depths of this significant event. It assumes the reader knows what’s going on. The history and cultural importance of what’s going on at the city gate amongst the elders of the community is far more than what some consider just a civil affairs court setting.  Lot’s story was another one with that gate thing going on. But let’s put all that in the back of our minds. We’ve got to go deeper to make better sense of this.

The Bible assumes Covenant Theology. Really. No joke. It assumes the stuff I’ve been writing about in the last few days. We’ve heard all the debate over baptism, the Lord’s Table and Israel’s future so many times. There are conflicts that are so persistent they’ve lasted hundreds of years. I think they’re more heated today than ever. And it’s because, primarily, we have lost the sense of community and covenantal relationships that are assumed in the Bible.

Look at this language:

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off–for all whom the Lord our God will call.

When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

And then look at this list: And Your Children and Household

Everybody wonders or fights over these sorts of passages. The Covenant guys extrapolate a connection to things like baptism of infants and the Baptist guys extrapolate the non-existence of infants. All sorts of ideas come up to try to explain this. Sometimes, I wonder if some of the Covenant guys are just as disrespectful of the text as the Baptists when trying to explain their position through use of household and your children. Does the Bible explain what is meant by these sorts of terms? No, not any more than with the gate-court thing in Ruth or Genesis.

Here’s why it’s confusing in the New Testament: When these terms are used, they’re repetition of Old Testament Language. And no, that’s not to “bring” the Old Testament way of thinking back to these Jews of the first century. It was to remind them of the significance of events past that correlate to current events. In all that was changing around in the New Covenant, there was going to be some conflict. Pharisaical law, gentile inclusion, realized forgiveness and justification, missionary trips, diaspora – all these things were new and scary and confusing. People needed to, get this, hear that everything hadn’t just stopped or fundamentally altered!

Peter and his fellow apostles were using this language because the Jews understood it. This means that we cannot presuppose our own 21st century opinion, which is grounded not in the Scriptures but in modern, pagan, non-covenantal thinking. We must look at this language as the Jews did. That’s why we don’t get an explanation in the Bible about what gate-courts, households and your children mean. And that’s why we don’t get a greater development of what the Table and Baptism mean right out of the text. It’s in there, absolutely, but in a, wait for it… presupposition.

I’ll say it again. This is all so hard because we aren’t looking in the right place. The Bible started out its narrative in the context of covenants – relational, promise-keeping, life-sharing, trust-bearing covenants. We are the ones who have changed over the millennia, not the Bible and not at the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ whose birthday celebration we are fast approaching. We have lost the perspective the Jews had.

I’m not calling for a return to Judaism or tossing our technology so we can wear robes to tear each time we’re cut to the heart. I’m not interested in raking dust for a few measly rows of fava beans and wheat sheaves. I like my Pollo Loco too much and I’d much rather have easy access to the last 2,000 years of theology right here on my infernal machines. I’m calling for us to look at Scripture in the historical, cultural frame in which it’s set. No helicopters in Revelation. No civil affairs court for the young moabitess. No ditching of infants until they’re old enough to say they believe.

Side comment: Refusing baptism of our kids is telling them that they are no different from the other kids across the block (the ones who have Wiccan parents right over there). We’re destroying their identity in a Christian family! No sacraments = no sense of being in the family of God.

A few weeks ago, I put up a little bit about how painful it must have been to be one of the convicted Pharisees at Peters Big Sermon at Pentecost (I should rename the post “Cut To The Heart Thrice“). Think about this:

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Those Pharisees were almost certainly thinking of what they had done to their families! When Peter said this (emphasis mine):

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

We know what happened:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Now look again at Peter’s response:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

That’s reaching all the way back to things like:

They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.

The OT said this in Deuteronomy 12:

Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

Here’s what changed when Christ fulfilled the Law, died in our place and rose again: I’ll grossly paraphrase this:

Be careful to believe this good news I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.

Nowhere is the concept of covenants, community and our relationships altered in the New Testament. It’s ratified by simply not changing the language.

End of story? We have to look at the Bible and realize that our presuppositions that make us unwilling to include our children in sacraments, unwilling to include them in worship are modern insertions to the Scriptures. Also, equally important are the concepts of family solidarity, congregation solidarity, discipline, submission, faithfulness and loyalty to our heads, elders and rulers. These things are assumed to be normal in the Scripture even more than they are overtly commanded. Dropping the concept of covenantal theology kills more than just National Israel’s future and sprinkling babies. It can kill our faith, folks – by confusing the message and hiding the promises God has made to us (and our children).

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

November 15, 2011

I Might Just Need To Be A We

By Pooka

Calvin not Hobbes

In the last post, Anti-Covenant and Individualism, I was trying to start my line of though by expressing my impression of the extreme difficulty we have in communicating the idea of covenant baptism in general. I believe it is difficult because there is so little framework in our modern culture with which to understand it. We’ve lost the concept of covenants and commitments. Everything has to be spelled out on paper and even then there’s always somebody ready to weasel a way out of (or into) something in the relationship.

In fact, I was listening to Albert Mohler’s Thinking In Public today: Believing Without Belonging? A Conversation With Sociologist Grace Davie. The discussion ranged around quite a bit but hit on what I’m pondering here. I think it’s well worth a listen.

Yesterday, I was ultimately lamenting how our one-istic, individualist culture seems to have separated us from what God set up as the standard pattern for human relationship. That being family, church, Him. We’re so unrelated to each other nowadays that it’s really hard to come together under a single creed. I do believe that the confessional Reformed folk have the best understanding and therefore the closest stance on being united in relationship. I mean, we believe it, strive to inculcate it and act it out. But the culture, 7 days a week, fights tooth and nail for us to return (right after church on Sunday) to our covenantal relationship to computers, food, drink, cars, idle silliness, community service and everything else. We don’t look back, as we’re doing our mundane things, at our relationships with family, church and God to connect and assess value.

I certainly understand and embrace the beautiful assertion (I believe Calvin and others have said it too) that God is our Father and Church is our mother. It’s just that I don’t, in my own experience, value that hugely important pair of facts enough – and if I’m in sorry shape here, I’m willing to bet there are plenty of others as well. Not because we don’t want to, but in many ways because we can’t – the code has been obfuscated or even deleted to the extent that we just don’t get it. The concept is opposed from the start. Even the Biblical family is under attack (and in many cases demolished) as a valid relationship.

I think I begin to see the challenge our loving pastors face – they are fighting to reintroduce the concept of covenant relationships and rework our thinking so that our responses are in the right place. They know our belief is made deeper because of what we see, hear, touch and taste in preaching, the Table and baptism. They also know that to appreciate and embrace these things, we need to chew hard on the idea that we’re not just I, me, personally or “this is just me, but…”

Parting thought,

“If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.” — Claude McKay

What if it’s more like: If a man is not faithful to his identity in Christ, he cannot be loyal to anything but himself?

We are saved by grace through faith and enter into a relationship with God as our Father, Christ as our Savior, brother, priest, king, prophet. But we are not alone. We are, individually, grafted into a group. A family. Into a whole that is our mother, the church. Thinking like a child would, our identity is there. I am a child of God and I belong in His church. I don’t do church or go to church. I am in it. With the others. Never alone. You’re never alone when you’re in Him.

9 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

November 1, 2011

Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why 3

By Pooka

I’m not sure if this is the last installment of this little series. “You have a nice day” sounds suspiciously like Bilbo’s final use of “Good Morning” toward Gandalf in the beginning of The Hobbit. In light of this potential end to our relationship, I tried to tie up what was said and make some clear statements one more time. It’s been thought provoking and worthwhile to me, engaging in this conversation. I hope others have found it equally valuable.

Continuing on, I would like to repost the continuing conversation that started with Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why. The 2nd part of this series is Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why 2.

The original forum from which all this comes is Mormons ARE Christians: Here’s Why.

WhatAboutThis says:

No bitterness or resentfulness here. Whichever church you belong to has some curious beliefs? Boy are you going to be surprised some day.

The restoration of the church was not a bottom-up affair. It was Top-down. The 14 year old uneducated Joseph Smith didn’t go looking for heavenly visitors or to restore the church. It came to him.

We make no claim to be a church that “repairs” all the shortcoming of those that already existed at the time. People outside our church seem to always want to compare us with some traditional view. We have no such attachments or need no traditional pedigree. In fact, largely, we don’t even know what the other churches do or did or for that matter where they came from except in the broadest sense. It’s just not important to the path we’re on.

In our church we don’t talk about other churches, discuss them, refer to them or have lessons about them. We don’t have seminars like the evangelicals, invite sensationalist videos or presentations featuring former disaffected Methodists or Baptists. ALL of that is totally foreign to us and we’re mystified why the traditionals even care enough about it to spend time and money on it?!?!

These people have too much time on their hands or someone is making money from it.

We don’t seek legitimacy by squaring ourselves with other faith’s teachings or history. It really doesn’t make any difference to us if the Pope likes us or approves of us or not. I’m not trying to be disrespectful but its just not part of our calculus…it’s a non-issue.

What does make a difference however retaining a remission of sins by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and administering relief to the poor and that is something that is done most effectively in cooperation with other faith’s efforts in those areas, regardless of what their doctrines are. We give tens of millions of dollars to Catholic Charities and many others if they are already set up in an area. Rather than duplicating efforts, we augment their work. There is no competition or glory to be had by one-upping another group.

I agree that the Gospel is the good news but after you’ve accepted it, there is a lot to be done as mentioned above and that’s where the to-do list comes in.

And by the way, I think that most angelic visits are private. Moses went to the burning bush alone. Jacob’s wrestle, Abrahams dreams and angelic education took place privately. When these things take place there is an issue of sacredness of space and normally a “crowd” is not compatible with that.

This is an interesting comment you made. “I hold the truth and I want you to hear it. Please listen.” In some ways that doesn’t sound too different from us except we really do have the truth, no joking. The difference is the way that it’s approached. The pronouncement by pastor jeffress and other traditionals who comment on this blog typically doesn’t sound like “…please listen…”

So the notion of debate and argument over points of doctrine again is foreign to us…”fisticuffs”…how melodramatic. Here are some Brass tacks…It doesn’t matter that people from other faiths don’t agree with me…so what. I am not diminished by their having a different point of view. We present correct doctrine and invite and if a person feels prompted to go forward, then we procede. If they don’t the Spirit may work on them and they may see things differently sooner or later. Our church isn’t on trial here. The people of the world are. We don’t seek permission, approval or legitimacy from anyone or church.

This thing I do know, that God is our Father and He loves us dearly as a perfect father would love his children. I am grateful for all that He has said and for all that He wants to tell me. I long for that and receive it openly when it comes.

I’m afraid you’ll have to go fishing for converts in a different pond.

You have a nice day.

_______________________________

Pooka says:

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go fishing for converts in a different pond.”

What drew me to this article in the first place, and to comment, was more a desire to offer an apologetic for why the orthodox, Gospel-believing church does not recognize the COJCOLDS as a Christian church. I would love to see someone consider what I’ve said here and respond in true faith, but that is not my job. Fishing belongs to the Great Fisherman, Jesus.

“feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and administering relief to the poor and that is something that is done most effectively in cooperation with other faith’s efforts in those areas, regardless of what their doctrines are.”
“I agree that the Gospel is the good news but after you’ve accepted it, there is a lot to be done as mentioned above and that’s where the to-do list comes in.”

This is noble, welcomed by just about anyone I can think of, and just what men should do. That said, it bears nothing on “remission of sins.” This is an entirely different gospel from the one Jesus preached. Smith, along with plenty of others from Christian and non-Christian backgrounds all miss this in the Bible. In fact, every man has made this error, namely that we can earn God’s favor through what we do. Even if done in His name, our deeds completely fail to get us anywhere.

“Here are some Brass tacks…It doesn’t matter that people from other faiths don’t agree with me…so what. I am not diminished by their having a different point of view. We present correct doctrine and invite and if a person feels prompted to go forward, then we procede.”

It seems to matter, as far as I perceive. The persistence of LDS people in asserting their Christianity isn’t exactly hard to miss. It’s all over. Asserting that LDS have correct doctrine is important to you just as my assertion of the same is to me. So I respectfully would like to observe that, though you posit to be inclusive, you’ve made a statement that says you have the truth.

The Christians also, those who understand just what you said about inviting and waiting for a response, do not feel “diminished” by others’ differences in “point of view.” Christians offer Christ’s Gospel just as He directed them to in the Bible. And when we are not received, we “shake the dust off” and get out of town.

“We don’t seek legitimacy by squaring ourselves with other faith’s teachings or history. It really doesn’t make any difference to us if the Pope likes us or approves of us or not. I’m not trying to be disrespectful but its just not part of our calculus…it’s a non-issue.”

The reason we “talk about other churches” and square ourselves with other faiths’ teachings and history in our Christian circles, vice LDS and others who do not, is because we have the truth – and that our belief in that truth is exclusive. We do not perceive another way to a right relationship with God. In wishing to offer the Bible’s accurate judgement of men and portrayal of God and His work to redeem His creation, we consult and converse in and out of Christian circles in order to reach out clearly and in the context of other faiths.

Why study another religion’s aspects if you believe there are other avenues? Why study another religion’s points of divergence if you, like the mass of world religions believe that righteousness before God is achievable by the works of men? I understand your position, I believe, and I was there. As a witch for 10 years, I didn’t need to worry about what you or the Christians believed – they were headed on the same “path” to perfection that I was, just using different terms.

At least, until God’s Word started talking about Christ being The Gate to salvation from a Holy and Just God. So either God had to change or I did. It’s hopefully obvious who listened to whom.

“No bitterness or resentfulness here. Whichever church you belong to has some curious beliefs? Boy are you going to be surprised some day.”

Our beliefs are not entirely curious, at least not to Christians, though there are quite a few Christians who lean more toward your LDS themes – and it saddens us just as much as thinking of the wonderfully moral image of the LDS church. Don’t get me wrong, if Christians want a picture of what good behavior and responsibility look like, we can’t do much better than observing you and your church (that’s not sarcasm but honest appraisal). Our beliefs in the orthodox, Gospel-believing church are in line with the apostolic traditions of the 1st century. Before the Nicene Council, rather, in line with the councils of Acts! So our beliefs curious to those who have been lied to about how Nicea “fixed” the Bible with corrupted teachings and to those who have denied the Scriptures of the Old Testament too – which have endured in Jewish culture for many, many centuries before Christ walked among us.

Perhaps I will be surprised one day, and so you should pity me and my ilk for our wasted lives, believing that God came and saved us when we could not save ourselves. We are the most pitiable of men who depend on a Savior if that Savior didn’t live a perfect life, die for the sins of men and then rise from the dead so that we can live eternally.

But may I turn the table. What if you were surprised one day? Surprised that everybody but us exclusive bigots happened to “luck out” and stumble upon the Real Story?

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me…” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Grace and Peace
Soli Deo Gloria

Again, let me recommend this blog: Progressing Pilgrims Anonymous for more detailed examination of the differences between LDS and Christianity.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

October 31, 2011

Putting On and Taking Off the Mantle – Brother to Pastor and Back Again

By Pooka

I’ve been mulling a theme around for a few months now. It may go back as far as last year while we were attending the membership classes. This week, largely due to our Sunday school studies on worship, the unique role of Pastor hit me with enough that I want to explore some of my thoughts.

So I’m thinking about the unique situation in which we find ourselves each Lord’s Day with our brother and minister standing in the pulpit, proclaiming God’s Word. There, he is not Mr. Tallman or Brian or brother; rather he is God’s minister, acting in the role of a herald. For that period of the worship service, the minutes in which he calls us to worship, repentance, proclaims us forgiven, teaches the Word and baptizes and serves the Table, then blesses us and commissions us to go out into the world, he’s not the personality we know and love between the services.

It must be a real challenge for our pastor to switch gears from The Voice back to our brother. I’ve tried to envision what it’s like to come down from the pulpit at the end of the service and suddenly be interfacing with the people back on their level (no punning intended). We come up and thank him for his good preaching or comment on something he said in the sermon – or even tougher, come up with something entirely unrelated – selfish even that simply drops the entire last hour’s reverence. Perhaps it’s just as simple as this, that he takes a deep breath, shrugs and comes back into regular life. I mean, there’s no good thing to append to a properly run service – the interaction is complete (I know this sounds rather cold, but I mean it in a sense that’s reaching out to the hard thing our hearts have to sort of cross through). So when all’s done, there’s a truth here that all’s done.

Is it hard? Is it painful to step down and suddenly have this mixed up relationship that is a half-life of reverence for the minister and then a renewed Second Kingdom relationship with a brother we can turn to for comradeship, guidance and regular Christian interaction? There are times when I think I grasp a little of it – specially after the longer and more involved services we’ve attended. I’m thinking of those that include the additional components of new membership, baptism or the Supper.

When we get our things together and start the shuffle out of the sanctuary, occasionally I’ll end up on a path that passes by where the pastor has been “captured” by some of us up at the front. I’ve been one of the praise or off-topic folk plenty of times – though I admit at those times I haven’t thought much of what I was doing. But this week in particular, I was thinking, how do I talk to this guy? Do I compliment his preaching or a comment he made? Do I thank him in a general sort of way and just move on? Or maybe ask him about something that’s been bugging me for a while that I’m pretty sure could be wedged into context with the sermon (if I try hard)?

Now, I don’t want to create the sense that I’m griping or even raising the bar on reverence either in general or specifically toward the Office of the Minister. I do think that my perception of our pastor while he’s in the pulpit is growing more toward a sense that he’s not BST for that hour on Sunday morning. Though he is not suddenly transformed into some other thing, like an angel, maybe or into an apostle type, he’s not “just a man” at the same time, though he is just a man. I just wonder at the transition – and the dynamic that follows until we’ve really left for home. It’s remarkable.

Perhaps this can be read in Acts where the apostles are going about the business of picking the replacement for Judas and then contrasted with Peter’s sermon. Mundane (sort of) and then high and holy, magnifying God through the preaching of the Scriptures, probably illuminates the differences pretty well. But where’s the switch? Maybe later in Acts where Paul and Barnabas are preaching and reasoning and then suddenly they must shake off their “mantles of royalty” very abruptly to beat down the mob of would-be worshippers who are ready to sacrifice to these two who appear to be gods.

These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you. – Titus 2:15

Martin Luther served well to elucidate the high and serious position of the man in the pulpit in his Galatians commentary. Chapter 1 opened up right into the position of the minister.

“Every minister should make much of his calling and impress upon others the fact that he has been delegated by God to preach the Gospel. As the ambassador of a government is honored for his office and not for his private person, so the minister of Christ should exalt his office in order to gain authority among men. This is not vain glory, but needful glorying.”

“We exalt our calling, not to gain glory among men, or money, or satisfaction, or favor, but because people need to be assured that the words we speak are the words of God. This is no sinful pride. It is holy pride.”

There’s meat to all this. It’s not just a scholarly look into the philosophy or details of the Pastor’s phases of life. This is relevant to our view of worship in general. It presents a line, or boundary to our gathering that separates the church on Sunday morning from the church on Monday morning. There’s more than a functional gathering, more than something clinical to our practice.

I’ve occasionally visited a site that leads me to think about these things, and a couple of entries stand out: Pastoral Narcotic and Sabbath Preparation.

When Tolkien’s hobbits come home from Rivendell, they leave a sanctuary that is sort of transcendent-immanent, otherworldly with a far deeper connection to life and death, meaning and lore. And they cross the vale, the Bruinen Ford, heading west toward home, they start to see the familiar, commonplace world where carts kick up dust, taverns ply their meals and drink and people go about their days. And for Bilbo in the Hobbit and the Four Friends in the Return of the King, homecoming is somehow dimmer (at least that’s how I read it).

So our worship might be in turn: brighter and breathless, waiting for the sun to rise and elated when the Word is released to our ears and eyes and mouths. Though it means things may dim and lose their luster, once we’ve received our benediction,  perhaps it is good this way so that we are newly made and met each Sunday, out of the clay if only for a short while. It should increase our longing for the final Worship, which will not fade but will endure for all time.

I find that this growing sense of the immensity and value of the Worship time we have is something I want dearly for others. I want to see the Lord draw them from the water into a newness that they can savor. I think that this otherworldliness of our sanctuary on Sunday is more important than many of us are able (or willing) to consider easily. I don’t want to totally go mystical or sacramental on this – it’s not magical or miraculous in some occult or secret fashion. It’s secret to the degree that those who are not in Christ have no sense of or access to it. At best it must be a peripheral suspicion or inkling that something else is going on behind the obvious.

As with Rivendell, there is a mystical-ness to just being there, that does not follow once the Ford is crossed. The lore remains, in the minds of the departing as it remains in the Last Homely House. But for us, it remains in the gathered People of God, accessible when we are united in our worship on the Lord’s Day – we return to it each week. It is not passing, but enduring until a fulfillment which comes wonderfully and suddenly. I speak of an immediate time because it’s never very far off, the not yet of our Lord’s kingdom. Never far and we must live that way. Which is why the Lord’s day, the sacraments and the Word are not less frequently found than next Sunday.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in The Faith

October 28, 2011

Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why 2

By Pooka

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004-2.jpg/220px-Salt_Lake_Temple,_Utah_-_Sept_2004-2.jpgContinuing on, I would like to repost the continuing conversation that started with Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why. There is a third entry in this series, Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why 3.

Let me recommend this blog: Progressing Pilgrims Anonymous for more detailed examination of the differences between LDS and Christianity.

The original forum from which all this comes is Mormons ARE Christians: Here’s Why.

  • WhatAboutThis says:

    One of our church’s statements of basic belief states that we believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it has been translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. Also, we believe all that God has revealed, all the He does now reveal and the He will yet reveal many great and important thing pertaining to the kingdom of God.

    I’m sure that you understand that for us, the Bible a foundational book of scripture but clearly there are others. Any version of the Bible that currently exists had been through too many ungodly interpretive hands over the centuries to qualify as God’s only doctrinal link to man and to accurately deliver everything that God intended for His children to have. I recently read that our current Bibles are made up of over 1,500 documents and not one of them is an original. They are copies of interpretations of translations.

    The Nicene Creed is still being interpreted and ecumenically debated 1,500+ years later. There is a 1975 version and a 1977 version that the Catholics are finally going to accept. I also understand that many of the traditional churches have their own slightly different versions of it. If churches want to use it a foundation of their faith, that’s fine, but we don’t use it at all.

    I’m not sure which church you attend but using the same basic creed and Bible has resulted in literally thousands of different religions in the world each with their own interpretation and views of those basic building blocks. Clearly the differences are significant enough to motivate men to start another new church…Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Church of Christ…etc.

    If a person wants to belong to those churches and become a follower of Jesus Christ and live a good Christian life, that’s not a bad thing. Every person can/must exercise their own personal agency and live with the consequences of their choices.

    Another one of our beliefs…we claim the privilege of worshipping almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience and allow all men the same privilege. Let them worship how, where of what they may. Apparently your church does not afford mankind those same privileges without a measure of disrespect, conflict and confrontation.

    Think about it…in Biblical times when God wanted to interact with His children, he literally talked to them…sometimes in a dream, in a burning bush, face to face etc. The scripture and other historical writing of that time like the Dead Sea Scroll are literally full of that interaction. It’s His normal way of doing things.

    Yet the traditionals’ view has taken a few simple words in the Bible uttered by Jesus…It is finished…and parlayed that into an interpretation that the heaven’s are closed, revelation has ceased, God no longer talks to His children and we are now separated from God. The traditionals have placed the whole hope of their salvation on an incomplete and imperfect book and block access to anything better than that that God might want to offer.

    Does that sound reasonable to you?

    In our faith we’re encouraged to constantly validate what leaders teach with inspiration and confirmation from God. I’ll ask God if what I have just been taught is correct and I get an answer. I think more church goers of all faiths should do that. And when/if they come to an understanding that what they just heard is not correct, irrespective of the tradition that’s been taught, they need to personally act on that inspiration. The asking should be an easy thing to do but surprisingly for many, it takes a lot of moral courage. It’s like asking God directly is a form of capitulation.

    I accord unto you and any other man the privilege to worship how and when he/you wish, and NO; I won’t be scanning your church’s blogs to perpetually post derogatory and confrontive comments about your erroneous doctrine.

    If God someday deigns to give you your own personal burning bush experience and communicate with you directly even if its in a manner that your church doesn’t teach, I’d advise you to temporarily suspend your disbelief long enough to accept the invitation and listen to Him very carefully and see what He has to say to you. It can happen.

    May God bless you.

_______________________________

  • Pooka says:

    The numerous divisions in the church are a result of either direct conflict over the Gospel and essential theological truth, ethnic/nationality issues including languages, social/political and any other number of influences.

    The origin of the LDS church falls in this place with the first: Gospel and Truth. They do not come from a strict, Gospel believing background. The belief that Scripture is incomplete and inaccurately translated underlines what Orthodox (traditionalist?) Christianity understands to be error, or false teaching.

    That being said, There is nothing in our books that says we are to deny you or any other belief system the right to worship as required by the belief system itself. Those who demand conformity are being just as rotten as described. The correct Christian approach should always be from a position of “I hold the truth and I want you to hear it. Please listen.”

    Not “I hold the truth and you better stop right now or else I will…” God is sovereign, not Christians. Christians have the right to discipline those who are in the Church, not those outside. The Gospel is to be proclaimed to the World, not implemented (which is actually impossible in any case since the Gospel is a message, not a to-do list).

    Manuscripts and everything else? So it’s complicated how everything came to be in Scripture. That is no more complicated than Smith having a visit from an angel (in his private moment, not in public) and translating the secret message to become the Book of Mormon. If we want to go to brass tacks, the historicity is more consistent between the myriad documents that comprise the original texts of the Bible and the Creeds of the Historic Church than the claims of the LDS church. But again, we’re willing to discuss this with you rather than come to fisticuffs over it.

    Finally, the claim that Christians are consistently the flagship for intolerance and bigotry, abusing liberty and rights in order to harm, belittle or repress other religions is only partly true. Yes, there is a history of religious persecution from the Christian Church. There is also the same from Communism, Atheism, Islam, ancient pagan religions, the Roman Empire, Catholics and just about every other major religion in history. This only proves that every man, to the man, is a sinner who puts his own evil ways before everyone else.

    I argue that tolerance and willingness to debate has largely swung opposite the historical trend in that Christians are being repressed and persecuted these days in most of our secular institutions, on the street and in their places of work. Since Christians claim to have the truth, we are branded as intolerant and suppressors of liberty. Funny how that works out when we consistently have a willingness to teach our truth, enter into dialogue with other men who do not hold our beliefs and include them in our lives. Yet to say “I’m a Bible-believing Christian” in, say a big College or at work tends to lead right into a scene that includes words like “bigot” or “persecutor.”

    Me? I am convicted that this forum, one where you can type and I can type, is what the whole religion discussion should be like. Respectful and willing to answer honestly rather than sling dirt and epithets at one another. If I cannot win you to the Truth of Christ in the Bible, so be it. It should not end in either of us becoming vicious or even resentful.

    Soli Deo Gloria

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

October 26, 2011

Mormons are NOT Christians: Here’s Why

By Pooka

I offer this in hopes that either it will serve someone else in a similar discussion or in hopes that if I erred somewhere or am not sufficiently accurate, that I may be corrected. I tried to communicate in peace and graciousness while maintaining the exclusivity of Christ and His Gospel. Hopefully it worked out in a way that preserved the Truth but combatted the Automated Bigoted Christian Defense System (ABCDS) which is apparently installed in every single newsblog in the entire world (at least that I’ve seen).

I don’t want anyone to think we’re complete idiots and haters (though the Bible says that’s just what not-in-Christ people are going to think of us). I want everyone to think honestly about what they believe first and foremost. It’s rotten all by itself to claim LDS is Christian when they deny the fundamental principles that comprise orthodox Christianity.

So here is a transcript of some dialogue in response to an article Mormons ARE Christians: Here’s Why

_______________________________

Pooka says:

October 25, 2011 at 1:36 pm

Look, we can agree that Mormons are “christians” in that they affirm the name. We have to come to terms with the fact that the christ being referred to here is not the Christ that is displayed for us in the 2,000+ year-old Scriptures we know as the Bible.

The Christ in Matthew through Revelation is The Son of God, sovereign, co-equal with God. He is not a great, inspired teacher or a created being. It is not possible for Him to be such, according to His own claims as recorded in the Bible. He’s either a nutcase, a demon-possessed heretic or the Real Deal God Incarnate.

He is not “a god.” He is THE God. Look again at the texts. Here is a well-written explanation of the truth about God (including Jesus) that has Scripture to back it up: Westminster Confession.

So I guess we can say LDS folks are christians, with a little c since they believe in a christ, but I can’t see how they believe in The Christ of The Bible.

_______________________________

WhatAboutThis says:

October 26, 2011 at 1:47 am

We seem to come to the same impasse repeatedly.

As long as Nicene Creed, the-Bible-or-nothing believing traditional Christian churches process this basic belief through those filters, there will never be more clarity.

Just because an incomplete and semi-accurate belief has been in-place and has become a “tradition” for centuries doesn’t make it any more correct.

If the only tools that the traditionals use to try to unravel the knowledge of God and His heavens are the Bible and centuries of ecumenical councils, they’ll never understand it correctly. They’re missing too much information and they block the conduit to receive the pieces they don’t have.

Because Mormons do not accept (nor even understand) that creed and do fully embrace, receive and are grateful for additional scripture and understanding, the impasse will always exist.

Traditionals don’t understand why we believe anything but the Bible and we don’t understand how they can build an entire religious structure and defend it so doggedly with such a limited view.

The creed and the Bible by themselves are incapable of delivering much of the knowledge and understand about God, his nature and disposition.

The Bible was never intended to be the “only” word or communication that God has with His children. Who would have the gall to suggest that our omnipotent God doesn’t have the ability or permission to teach and communicate with His children whenever He wants to?

The traditionals teach that He can’t, but the reality is that He can and does…frequently.

The curious thing is that the traditionals can’t countenance that another church believes something differently than they do. Why are they so defensive? Is it that threatening to them? Why do they feel so compelled to confront everyone and be so mean spirited?…and I appreciate that you’re not by the way…No other faiths do that to us and we don’t do it to anyone.

The traditionals will start a range-war within a national political party because of their extreme interpretation of the term “Christian” yet they routinely and openly persecute and label other churches in a decidedly un-Christ-like manner.

_______________________________

This one is long, but I want to answer as much as I can as clearly as possible.

The creed and the Bible by themselves are incapable of delivering much of the knowledge and understand about God, his nature and disposition.

Regrettably, the Bible makes the claim that it is sole source of knowledge and understanding of God, His nature and disposition. The creeds and confessions of the historic church, which reach all the way back to the 1st Century merely affirm this. The Bible does not allow for external revelation such as Smith’s pages, Mohammed’s prophecies or even the ancient Hindu Vedas.

If a LDS or any other “christ professing” faith group disregards this, they cannot claim orthodox religion. Denial of the Bible’s place as the only source of God’s revelation is to create an entirely different faith system. That’s unavoidable. One cannot call a portion of the Bible false and then affirm another.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. – 2 Timothy 3:16

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. - Revelation 22:18-19

Ergo, if you say you are Christian but deny any portion of what the Bible says about Christ, you are not Christian in the sense of the Bible. Pick a new name and stick with it. If you say you are Christian but affirm something the Bible doesn’t say about Christ, you are not Christian in the sense of the Bible. Pick a new name and stick with it.

The curious thing is that the traditionals can’t countenance that another church believes something differently than they do. Why are they so defensive? Is it that threatening to them? Why do they feel so compelled to confront everyone and be so mean spirited?…and I appreciate that you’re not by the way…No other faiths do that to us and we don’t do it to anyone.

The basic problem is that orthodox (true to the Bible) Christianity is exclusive. We cannot recognize another faith as the path to the right relationship with our creator. The Bible says this over and over. Since we believe this is true, we are defensive because religions, especially those that claim the name of Jesus Christ in a way that is not consistent with Scripture, threaten all men. Not Christianity, for Christ will preserve His people. We seek to convince men of the Real Truth about Christ and His life, death and resurrection – why He is so important. We are commanded in Scripture to defend these truths in order to reach those who will believe. You have these Scriptures in your copy of the Bible as well.

The traditionals will start a range-war within a national political party because of their extreme interpretation of the term “Christian” yet they routinely and openly persecute and label other churches in a decidedly un-Christ-like manner.

I cannot apologize for the posturing and language of the “traditionals” who start range-wars and persecutions. They largely do not represent the Faith of Jesus Christ, being politically motivated and more interested in a social gospel that puts good works up as the way for men to please God. That is entirely not the message found in the Bible. In fact, the Word condemns this sort of insanity for what it is: pharisaical god-ism.

I will not apologize for labelling other churches in accordance with what they are. Since the convictions of the orthodox church are that Christ is not all-inclusive and is demonstrably unwilling to admit anyone to the Father but through Himself, we must mark and label anyone who is not consistent with what the Bible says. If we’re convinced of this, you must be able to recognize the demand on our conscience.

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!  – Galatians 1:6-9

It’s not a war of offense that we wage, trying to hurt feelings and make ourselves better than you or any other. We maintain that all men are sinful and need a savior. We simply must keep the crucial difference between historic orthodox Christianity and those who do not believe similarly.

This, if you look at it honestly, is one of the key differences between Christianity and the other faith systems – we do not recognize another path to God. None work but this one. All the others call for men to do something that will please God enough to make a relationship and so everybody can get along just fine. Christianity says Jesus and only Jesus. Not loving to get closer to each other or anything else – all those awesome blessings are a result of salvation, not a means of salvation.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  – John 14:6

Soli Deo Gloria

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

October 24, 2011

Why My Kid Can’t Read Twilight Books

By Pooka
First, an analogy about analogies.

When you play baseball, a solid hit, square on the ball, will get the ball going somewhere. The ball is airborne, good to go. Except there are some problems still waiting before you can count a score. It’s easy to predict where a good solid hit is going. A fielder can be pretty sure about catching the ball. And you can be pretty sure that if the fielder catches it out of the air, you’re out. And while the ball is in the air, the rest of the field can arrange itself to optimize taking down the whole offense. Yes, the batter might get a home-run, but that’s not the only possibility.

A grounder has plenty of good and bad properties as well. Which is all just to say that analogies break down and don’t always work right, but they’re tools and need to be employed properly. And, on top of that so does any attempt to explain something.

So here is today’s quick thought.

Look. My problem is not that Harry Potter, or (even more) Twilight are bad to read. They sure have plenty to call bad and less that could be considered actually good. But so doAnne Rice, Louis L’Amour, Douglass Adams, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein and many more (just a perspective from my own library). You pick one and I’m sure I can find something wrong with it.

The problem is that a 10-year-old is not a critical reader. She is consuming what she reads in a manner that accepts what is presented. The book, for her, is formative. She doesn’t see it as a deposit of information to be considered. It should be fairly easy to figure out it’s worse if you back up a few years and have an early reader around 7 or 8 pick up Potter or Twilight.

If you’re going to impose a “world” on a child’s imagination, why-ever would you choose anything but the REAL WORLD? Or at least a representation of the REAL WORLD. So that means 1. Bible or 2. Bible. or 3. What I’m proposing: reading that at least has the necessary dichotomies and correct relations to minimize the corruption of the little brain that’s sucking up the information. If it’s a fantasy, is the good truly GOOD? Is the evil discernably EVIL? Is there a judgement on what to do about both? Are the characters portrayed as good actually morally decent? Are the situations clear or misleading? Is the child’s sense of right and wrong going to be blurred or distorted?

I’m not here advocating a legalistic or paranoid approach to what our children read. I’m not saying that (though it’s probably really good to prioritize) the Bible is the only thing a kid should read until they’re of age. Of age? That sounds a bit… maybe of a prejudiced, even legalistic concept, doesn’t it? No. I’m saying that, out of prudence and care for our children, unless we want to spend as much time combating their reading impression as they are reading the stuff, we should be very critical. Fight off the draw of a pagan worldview by delaying the exposure.

Now if, because of this we come to the conclusion that we’re “delaying the inevitable,” I must conclude we are wrong. Dead wrong. It’s not delaying the inevitable at all. By excluding some of the evil that our kids can consume, we are limiting the formative pagan information they consume. In 10 years, my now 20-year-old is not going to be anywhere near as susceptible to the lies. I’m not saying she won’t buy them; I’m saying she will be able (by God’s grace) to discern because she has a much more matured mind.

Look, read the books. Have a great time. Adults should have the necessary faculties to read Potter and stop at the entertainment part. They hopefully have enough sense to realize the authors’ attempt to portray her world as the real world and the characters as her version of good. The adults should be able to toss that falsehood or file away their “learned lesson” for future use in discernment. Try to get a kid to do that.

You’re not going to save the kid, you’re going to at best minimize some of the worst but it’s sure going to be better than letting them develop their own twisted worldview based on fiction that is so easily installed in their youth. GIGO is STILL a valid truth regarding the human mind.Gandalf v. Balrog

I can recommend additional reading at TruthxChange: The Muggles Protest

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

October 3, 2011

The New Occupy Movement

By Pooka

Just a question.

Does anybody have an opinion on this thing that may be colored by a proper Biblical perspective? It doesn’t jive with my sense of right.

It started with the Occupy Wallstreet thing, but apparently has spread all over the US. And it all got inspiration from the Arab Spring thing.

“Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.”

Here are links:

http://occupywallst.org/

http://www.occupytogether.org/events/west/california/occupy-san-diego/

Comments open…

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in special, The Faith

September 25, 2011

Going Back To Babel

By Pooka

The sermon today was on Genesis 10:1 through 11:26. The center of the passage in 11:1-9 pulls the preceding and following sections together into a tight story that is packed with valuable theology.

Further focusing in to 11:4-5 is where I was struck most.

“Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built.”

We’re always attempting to return to this passage. Always going back to Babel. Throughout history, it’s the same theme of making God in our image, becoming pagan over and over again. I remember saying almost the same thing as a witch.

“Let us come together, united in this worship that we’ve created for these gods we have created. Let us make a pact of faithful devotion to each other in this unity. In it we’ll find community and validation of our beliefs and practice that will protect us from others’ attempts to dissuade or stop us from our pursuit.”

Funny how men create for themselves the very thing God has made for us in His own commands and institutions. He made that unity for us in the garden. He again set that unity and community before us following the flood. He created it in Israel, that unity and insulation of the priests and tabernacle. Again with the kings, God capitulated to the desires of His people yet through this still provided that Name and Brotherhood that we have needed all along. Christ’s work provided a final setting for us in time where we are united together in Him. And this, of course, looks forward to our ultimate and perfected unity in the new Heaven and Earth.

In the meantime, it appears we will face the endless temptation to return to Babel. And we must look at the world around us and where we can find places in which Babel is rising again, when possible we must fight to disperse them. Liberalism appears to be a divisive thing that separates us and frees people to “worship as they truly believe” as individuals. This is but another unity of pagans, another Babel being built with the bricks of personal rights and feelings. Equity among the sexes and freedom of cultural, philosophical or sexual beliefs are obviously centers of unification for the masses. Even the obstinacy of conservatives is a tower that reaches to the heavens.

Do we most often look back on the stories of the Bible and quietly shudder in revulsion? Are we grateful like the pharisee casting furtive glances at the tax collector as he thanks God with all his heart that he is not like that man in the corner who beats at his chest in misery? Do we see the men of Babel as some deeply malignant shadows of humanity? Or do we see ourselves right there with the builders just as we perhaps see ourselves standing round the tree atop the Hill of the Skull unified in support of the dark festivities there?

There is one place for unity that is not pagan, that does not place man above God or place gods in place of God. That is in Christ’s Church, the church that believes and teaches the Holy Scriptures, the Gospel and strives to only unite under the Truth in Love. Of course, there I see the theme that the church does save, at least it certainly is the sustenance of salvation in Time. God brings us to faith in the Church and keeps us in the faith through the Church. And He unites us in His Son in His Church.

 

 

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

May 25, 2011

Of Dusty Footpaths and The Last Homely House

By Pooka

I’ve been thinking about old pubs, long hikes, greeting people on the road. Simplicity and true social interaction (as opposed to this electronic thing). A blog I am following has stirred this post and imagery up in my mind – called up stuff from almost 30 years of thinking and reading.

So I guess I still pine, sometimes, for an era I never saw, where it wasn’t buzz-buzz-buzz all the long day. When a man took a constitutional hike, had time to meet folks, didn’t quaff coffee en-route a 15-16 hour day that ended six hours into the next one. Sometimes I’ve been told, and even occasionally had a fleeting belief that such utopian silliness is just that, and there has never been such an age where things were simple, low-key and real.

Tolkien, Lewis, Herriot, Graham. They set the scene for me way way back and it never left. Just gets clouded over or burned out by the days in which I find myself. Ever think about just walking, for an hour or six, with just a friend, talking when it happened, or just breathing the air and taking in the land? Reading The Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, the Hobbit, The Trumpet of the Swan and a multitude of other books, mostly titles forgotten, contributed very early on to the building of a little corner in my mind that is quieter, lonesome and sort of at peace; entirely contradicting the normal routine of my days.

Not that I’m advocating monasticism or a mass retreat back to some golden age. There really are plenty of folk out there who are thick in the midst of the global glob, right where they belong. And there’s where many or maybe most should be. What’s to hurt if one guy who dreams about this stuff drops off the grid and lets the rest sort of spin around him. I suppose that would require a receptive environment (IOW unlike Sandy Eggo). Just being tangled up in my family and a local job, knowing the neighbors and having little, if any knowing of the guys a thousand miles away.

Doesn’t the world ever get just a little too big? Like you’re a little wood-chip floating on the surface of Lake Tahoe or something? Could there not be some guardians, last little homes on the edge of the wild? I can easily daydream of overgrown cottages, virtually invisible in the clutter of hay and weeds, all but forgotten. Except the quiet folk who inhabit those little places.

Quiet folk that simply are. They’re there in the world, yet not in everything. They hold opinions on what they need to and nothing more. They can tell you where the food is best or where to find a quiet day. They can  take you to the little church where a similar man maintains the homely place, preaching on Sunday and helping others the following six days. 1 Thessalonians 4, though not directly dealing with my theme, still serves to quench some of the intensity of my days, leading me back ’round to all these images.

”…But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”

But I think maybe sometimes we spread ourselves too thin. All over a city rather than a local circuit. We’re so commonly cruising the globe on an airship made of electrons where some might really need to be hiking a countryside that’s limited to how far a man can walk in a day. I get overwhelmed more often than not, with the immensity of all the world. 

Sometimes I’d like to think that, one day, people will think of me as a sort of fixture, a fitting part of a place, only knowing what’s worth knowing and maybe just a little center of homely peace. Surely quite unlike what I am right now.

Heinlein said specialization is for insects. I think that’s pretty much right, but it does break down at some point. You can spread yourself so thinly over a broad enough area (culture, society, issues, skillsets) that there is no longer any value in any one of them. I think I’ve done more “outside” my life than in it. And it’s become ingrained too – high speed/low drag, as we say in my occupation.

Tolkien leads me to wonder what more could I be to my little life-realm if it was all reigned back in and could be found on a map of the shire. Hobbits didn’t mess with the rest of the map unless they were, and few were, called to the outside. Funny thing is, I still don’t “feel” called. Though I’ve been here for so long. 

To think of what I could think of,
were my thoughts thought so much closer to home.
Instead of spread like a spider’s web
across the sea and stone.

5 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in More About, special

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.