tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post7483721061728910766..comments2023-12-22T08:29:29.230-08:00Comments on WHAT IS TRUTH: Separation with the Gospel as an Essential: Imagination of and about Jesus Dipping Below a Saving QualityKent Brandenburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-76491353326477217462017-08-30T09:14:50.975-07:002017-08-30T09:14:50.975-07:00Take a look at the outrage from the "progress...Take a look at the outrage from the "progressive Christian left" about the recent Nashville Statement. These people are genuinely outraged. But, they're only outraged because they're not really Christians at all. <br /><br />One more plug for the book I mentioned earlier, "the Old Testament is Dying." The author mentioned that as languages die, they become "pigeonized" and the speakers become increasingly less able to carry on intelligent conversation in the mother tongue. You see this with, for example, immigrant children and grandchildren of people who came to America from abroad. They might speak "some" of the mother language, but it becomes increasingly simple, and eventually it may die out in the family.<br /><br />The author used another linguistic analogy to explain the increasingly biblical illiteracy among professing "Christians." He mentioned that, eventually, a pigeonized language can morph, transform and grow into a completely different language a "creole." It retains some vocabulary and familiarity with the original mother tongue, but it is now completely different. It shrunk to "baby talk" (e.g. "pigeon"), then it grew and expanded in a completely different direction, but retained some vague and basic elements of the pigeon is was derived from. <br /><br />This, the author declared, is how prosperity gospel preachers, and militant atheists read the Bible. They retain some "common vocabulary," but it's meaning has completely changed. It isn't the same language at all, even though they use some of the same words. <br /><br />This is what we see in contemporary Western "Christianity," to some extent. This is why Jesus is a chimera people can make in their own image. This is why "progressive Christianity" can shriek in terror and be genuinely outraged about a biblical stand for human sexuality and identity (e.g. the Nashville Statement). It's because these people are often not Christians at all, despite their vocabulary or their appeals to biblical texts. They actually don't know the Bible, and cannot "speak it" fluently. This is obvious by their speech, and their desperate attempts to find biblical warrant for their positions. <br /><br />the solution, of course, is to actually preach and teach the Bible in a systematic, deep and meaningful way to Christians - and encourage them to actually read and comprehend all the Bible. This is how to retain a "language" (i.e. Christianity) before it dies. <br /><br />Long post (my apologies), but I thought it helped explain your points about the false Jesus' running around today. Tyler Robbinshttps://eccentricfundamentalist.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-45977313291136336392017-08-28T11:32:32.292-07:002017-08-28T11:32:32.292-07:00Tyler,
I essentially agree with everything that y...Tyler,<br /><br />I essentially agree with everything that you wrote in your comment. I am writing about "both" as the answer of your first paragraph, but putting an emphasis on (1) of the three. Sometimes people have all the right statements that make up orthodox Christology and still have the wrong Christ, and this factor contributes more than the doctrinal statement. Jesus is the Lascivious Jesus or the Buddy Jesus, an unrecognizable Jesus. Their imaginations are formed according to their own lust, and Jesus conforms to their imagination rather than Jesus conforming their imagination. This is the root of their apostasy.<br /><br />I agree with the next two paragraphs, and they do relate to what I've written above too. People can't listen to linear thought. It's the Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death.<br /><br />Thanks for the comment.Kent Brandenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13419354741455959191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20213892.post-47527341269180257012017-08-28T10:54:03.470-07:002017-08-28T10:54:03.470-07:00Are you referring to (1) the misconception that Je...Are you referring to (1) the misconception that Jesus is a cosmic butler who exists to serve and affirm people the way they already are, or (2) a denial of the orthodox facts about who Jesus is and what He has done for us, or (3) both? <br /><br />I agree that many churches , fundamental and evangelical, play games with Jesus. He becomes an affirming chimera, ready to be deployed to support any argument for liberty and non-judgmentalism. Many of these people haven't read Psalm 2, 110 or the latter chapters of Revelation. An angel is going to call the birds of the air to come and feast on the dead bodies of all who oppose the real Christ and His real Gospel, when He returns. This is a sobering fact. We should live in light of that. <br /><br />I just finished reading an interesting book entitled "The Old Testament is Dying." The author, Brent Strawn, used a linguistic analogy to explain the sad shape the OT is in. He mentioned that, as a language dies, speakers become less and less fluent, until eventually they only speak a pigeonized form of it that is, in effect, another language - or far removed from the original. He said this is where most Christians are at with the OT; they retain some familiar stories and moral principles, but they can't "speak the language" at all, because they don't know it. They haven't read it. This is why the destruction of the nations in the Promised Land are such an embarrassment to them, along with the NT conception of hell as eternal, conscious torment. <br /><br />I think we see the same problem, to a lesser extent, with the NT. People have pigeonized the Bible, and are ignorant of its entire contents. This is why Jesus is all love, and no judgment. They don't have the "complete language," they have a fragment of it. They're not fluent in God's Word; they're broken speakers. This is why their "Jesus" is often not the real Jesus, and their "Gospel," too. Tyler Robbinshttps://eccentricfundamentalist.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com