Repentance Defended Against Antinomian Heresy: A Brief Defense of the Indubitable Biblical Fact that Repentance is a Change of Mind that Always Results in a Change of Action, part 1

For approximately the first two-thousand years of Baptist history, Baptist churches—the churches established by the Lord Jesus Christ—have defended the fact that when a lost sinner repents and is born again, a change of action will necessarily follow.  The fact that repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of action is the historic Baptist position. There are no Baptist confessional statements that deny that repentance will result in a change of action or that positively affirm that repentance is only a change of mind that may or may not result in a change of action.  The idea that repentance is only a change of mind that may or may not result in a change of action is a new and different gospel (Galatians 1:8-9) from the one that has been preached by Baptists throughout the course of the church age, for it is a different gospel from the one taught in the Bible.

The historic Baptist doctrine that repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of action will be referenced below as the RAC (Repentance Always results in Change) position, and the new position that repentance is a change of mind that may not result in a change of action will be referenced below as the RNC (Repentance does Not always result in Change) position.

Old Testament Evidence Affirms the RAC

Briefly, the verbs shub[i] and nacham[ii] are used in the Old Testament for the concept of repentance.  Nacham emphasizes the emotional aspect of repentance, conveying the idea of “to be sorry, to come to regret something,”[iii] and is found with reference to human repentance in texts such as Job 42:6:  “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”  Shub means “to turn back . . . turn back to God . . . turning around . . . be converted . . . turn away from, abandon . . . a course of action . . . to desist . . . from doing wrong.”[iv]  It is a very common verb, appearing in passages such as the following representative texts:

Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent (shub, Qal[v]), and turn yourselves (shub, Hiphil) from your idols; and turn away (shub, Hiphil) your faces from all your abominations. . . . But if the wicked will turn (shub, Qal) from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. . . . Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return (shub, Qal) from his ways, and live? . . . Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent (shub, Qal), and turn yourselves (shub, Hiphil) from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit:[vi] for why will ye die, O house of Israel? . . . Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn (shub, Qal) from it; if he do not turn (shub, Qal) from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. . . . Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn (shub, Qal) from his way and live: turn (shub, Qal) ye, turn (shub, Qal) ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 14:6; 18:21, 23, 30-31; 33:9, 11)

It is obvious that the RAC is the Old Testament doctrine of repentance—and the gospel is received in the same manner in both the Old and New Testament (Hebrews 11:1-2; Romans 4).  The RNC finds no support from the first three-fourths of the Word of God.

New Testament Lexical Evidence Affirms the RAC

One Greek verb for repentance is metamelomai, meaning “to have regrets about something . . . be very sorry, regret . . . to change one’s mind.”[vii]  Metamelomai bears some similarities to the Old Testament verb nacham.  The Greek verb appears in New Testament texts such as:  “He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went” (Matthew 21:29).[viii]  The central words for the New Testament doctrine of repentance, however, are the verb metanoeo and the noun metanoia.

The standard New Testament Greek lexicon BDAG[ix] lists all verses with metanoeo in the New Testament[x] under the definition “feel remorse, repent, be converted,” including the mention of repentance “of . . . immorality . . . of . . . sins . . . repent and turn away.”

The Louw-Nida Greek lexicon defines metanoeo and metanoia as:  “[T]o change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness — ‘to repent, to change one’s way, repentance.’ . . . Though in English a focal component of repent is the sorrow or contrition that a person experiences because of sin, the emphasis in metanoeo and metanoia seems to be more specifically the total change, both in thought and behavior, with respect to how one should both think and act. Whether the focus is upon attitude or behavior varies somewhat in different contexts. . . . Though it would be possible to classify metanoeo and metanoia in [the category of words for] [t]hink[ing], the focal semantic feature of these terms is clearly behavioral rather than intellectual.”[xi]

Thayer’s Greek lexicon defines metanoeo as:  “to change one’s mind, i.e. to repent (to feel sorry that one has done this or that . . . used especially of those who, conscious of their sins and with manifest tokens of sorrow, are intent on obtaining God’s pardon . . . to change one’s mind for the better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins . . . [leading to] conduct worthy of a heart changed and abhorring sin.”  Metanoia is defined as:  “a change of mind: as it appears in one who repents of a purpose he has formed or of something he has done . . . especially the change of mind of those who have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds, and have determined to enter upon a better course of life, so that it embraces both a recognition of sin and sorrow for it and hearty amendment, the tokens and effects of which are good deeds. . . that change of mind by which we turn from, desist from, etc. . . . used . . . of the improved spiritual state resulting from deep sorrow for sin.”

The Theological Lexicon of the New Testament affirms:  “In the NT, metanoeō and metanoia . . . form an essential part of the kerygma [preaching] lexicon, urging ‘conversion’ to Christianity. There is no longer any question of distinguishing between change of thoughts, of heart, of actions. The change is that of the soul, of the whole person (the new creature), who is purified of stains and whose life is transformed, metamorphosed.”^[xii]

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament affirms concerning the New Testament usage of metanoeo and metanoia:  “Metanoeo . . . [is] radical conversion, a transformation of nature, a definitive turning from evil, a resolute turning to God in total obedience . . . [i]t affects the whole man, first and basically the centre of personal life, then logically his conduct at all times and in all situations, his thoughts, words and acts.”[xiii]

Christendom continued to speak of repentance as a change of mind that results in a change of life.  The standard Patristic Greek Lexicon edited by G. W. H. Lampe,[xiv] despite large pages of references to repentance (metanoia, metanoeo) in the patristic writers, never gives a single reference where repentance refers to a change of mind that does not result in a change of action, while it provides overwhelming evidence for the historic Baptist doctrine of repentance in vast numbers of passages in the writers of the early centuries of church history.[xv]

The lexica provide overwhelming evidence in favor of the RAC and against the RNC.  Were the RNC true, all standard lexica would have to be in error.

--TDR

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[i] The verb appears 1,075 times in 956 verses, listed here in the order they are found in the Hebrew Bible:  Gen 3:19; 8:3, 7, 9, 12; 14:7, 16–17; 15:16; 16:9; 18:10, 14, 33; 20:7, 14; 21:32; 22:5, 19; 24:5–6, 8; 26:18; 27:44–45; 28:15, 21; 29:3; 30:31; 31:3, 13, 55; 32:6, 9; 33:16; 37:14, 22, 29–30; 38:22, 29; 40:13, 21; 41:13; 42:24–25, 28, 37; 43:2, 10, 12–13, 18, 21; 44:8, 13, 25; 48:21; 50:5, 14–15; Ex 4:7, 18–21; 5:22; 10:8; 13:17; 14:2, 26–28; 15:19; 19:8; 21:34; 22:26; 23:4; 24:14; 32:12, 27, 31; 33:11; 34:31, 35; Lev 6:4; 13:16; 14:39, 43; 22:13; 25:10, 13, 27–28, 41, 51–52; 26:26; 27:24; Num 5:7–8; 8:25; 10:36; 11:4; 13:25–26; 14:3–4, 36, 43; 16:50; 17:10; 18:9; 22:8, 34; 23:5–6, 16, 20; 24:25; 25:4, 11; 32:15, 18, 22; 33:7; 35:25, 28, 32; Deut 1:22, 25, 45; 3:20; 4:30, 39; 5:30; 13:17; 17:16; 20:5–8; 22:1–2; 23:13–14; 24:4, 13, 19; 28:31, 60, 68; 30:1–3, 8–10; 32:41, 43; Josh 1:15; 2:16, 22–23; 4:18; 5:2; 6:14; 7:3, 26; 8:21, 24, 26; 10:15, 21, 38, 43; 11:10; 14:7; 18:8; 19:12, 27, 29, 34; 20:6; 22:8–9, 16, 18, 23, 29, 32; 23:12; 24:20; Judg 2:19; 3:19; 5:29; 6:18; 7:3, 15; 8:9, 13, 33; 9:56–57; 11:8–9, 13, 31, 35, 39; 14:8; 15:19; 17:3–4; 18:26; 19:3, 7; 20:48; 21:14, 23; 1 Sam 1:19; 3:5–6; 5:3, 11; 6:3–4, 7–8, 16–17, 21; 7:3, 14; 9:5; 12:3; 14:27; 15:11, 25–26, 30–31; 17:15, 30, 53, 57; 18:2, 6; 23:23, 28; 24:1; 25:12, 21, 39; 26:21, 23, 25; 27:9; 29:4, 7, 11; 30:12, 19; 2 Sam 1:1, 22; 2:26, 30; 3:11, 16, 26–27; 6:20; 8:3, 13; 9:7; 10:5, 14; 11:4, 15; 12:23, 31; 14:13, 21; 15:8, 19–20, 25, 27, 29, 34; 16:3, 8, 12; 17:3, 20; 18:16; 19:10–12, 14–15, 37, 39, 43; 20:22; 22:21, 25, 38; 23:10; 24:13; 1 Kings 2:16–17, 20, 30, 32–33, 41, 44; 8:33–35, 47–48; 9:6; 12:5–6, 9, 12, 16, 20–21, 24, 26–27; 13:4, 6, 9–10, 16–20, 22–23, 26, 29, 33; 14:28; 17:21–22; 18:43; 19:6–7, 15, 20–21; 20:5, 9, 34; 22:17, 26, 28, 33; 2 Kings 1:5–6, 11, 13; 2:13, 18, 25; 3:4, 27; 4:22, 31, 35, 38; 5:10, 14–15; 7:8, 15; 8:3, 6, 29; 9:15, 18, 20, 36; 13:25; 14:14, 22, 25, 28; 15:20; 16:6; 17:3, 13; 18:14, 24; 19:7–9, 28, 33, 36; 20:5, 9–11; 21:3; 22:9, 20; 23:20, 25–26; 24:1; Is 1:25–27; 5:25; 6:10, 13; 9:12–13, 17, 21; 10:4, 21–22; 12:1; 14:27; 19:22; 21:12; 23:17; 28:6; 29:17; 31:6; 35:10; 36:9; 37:7–8, 29, 34, 37; 38:8; 41:28; 42:22; 43:13; 44:19, 22, 25; 45:23; 46:8; 47:10; 49:5–6; 51:11; 52:8; 55:7, 10–11; 58:12–13; 59:20; 63:17; 66:15; Jer 2:24, 35; 3:1, 7, 10, 12, 14, 19, 22; 4:1, 8, 28; 5:3; 6:9; 8:4–6; 11:10; 12:15; 14:3; 15:7, 19; 16:15; 18:4, 8, 11, 20; 22:10–11, 27; 23:3, 14, 20, 22; 24:6–7; 25:5; 26:3; 27:16, 22; 28:3–4, 6; 29:10, 14; 30:3, 10, 18, 24; 31:8, 16–19, 21, 23; 32:37, 40, 44; 33:7, 11, 26; 34:11, 15–16, 22; 35:15; 36:3, 7, 28; 37:7–8, 20; 38:26; 40:5, 12; 41:14, 16; 42:10, 12; 43:5; 44:5, 14, 28; 46:16, 27; 48:47; 49:6, 39; 50:6, 9, 19; Ezek 1:14; 3:19–20; 7:13; 8:6, 13, 15, 17; 9:11; 13:22; 14:6; 16:53, 55; 18:7–8, 12, 17, 21, 23–24, 26–28, 30, 32; 20:22; 21:5, 30; 27:15; 29:14; 33:9, 11–12, 14–15, 18–19; 34:4, 16; 35:7, 9; 38:4, 8, 12; 39:2, 25, 27; 44:1; 46:9, 17; 47:1, 6–7; Hos 2:7, 9; 3:5; 4:9; 5:4, 15–6:1; 6:11; 7:10, 16; 8:13; 9:3; 11:5, 9; 12:2, 6, 9, 14; 14:1–2, 4, 7; Joel 2:12–14; 3:1, 4, 7; Amos 1:3, 6, 8–9, 11, 13; 2:1, 4, 6; 4:6, 8–11; 9:14; Obad 1:15; Jonah 1:13; 3:8–10; Mic 1:7; 2:8; 5:3; 7:19; Nah 2:2; Hab 2:1; Zeph 2:7; 3:20; Zech 1:3–4, 6, 16; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1; 7:14; 8:3, 15; 9:8, 12; 10:6, 9–10; 13:7; Mal 1:4; 2:6; 3:7, 18; 4:6; Psa 6:4, 10; 7:7, 12, 16; 9:3, 17; 14:7; 18:20, 24, 37; 19:7; 22:27; 23:3, 6; 28:4; 35:13, 17; 44:10; 51:12–13; 53:6; 54:5; 56:9; 59:6, 14; 60:0–1; 68:22; 69:4; 70:3; 71:20; 72:10; 73:10; 74:11, 21; 78:34, 38–39, 41; 79:12; 80:3, 7, 14, 19; 81:14; 85:1, 3–4, 6, 8; 89:43; 90:3, 13; 94:2, 15, 23; 104:9, 29; 106:23; 116:7, 12; 119:59, 79; 126:1, 4; 132:10–11; 146:4; Job 1:21; 6:29; 7:7, 10; 9:12–13, 18; 10:9, 16, 21; 11:10; 13:22; 14:13; 15:13, 22; 16:22; 17:10; 20:2, 10, 18; 22:23; 23:13; 30:23; 31:14; 32:14; 33:5, 25–26, 30, 32; 34:15; 35:4; 36:7, 10; 39:4, 12, 22; 40:4; 42:10; Prov 1:23; 2:19; 3:28; 12:14; 15:1; 17:13; 18:13; 19:24; 20:26; 22:21; 24:12, 18, 26, 29; 25:10, 13; 26:11, 15–16, 27; 27:11; 29:8; 30:30; Ruth 1:6–8, 10–12, 15–16, 21–22; 2:6; 4:3, 15; Song 6:13; Eccl 1:6–7; 3:20; 4:1, 7; 5:15; 9:11; 12:2, 7; Lam 1:8, 11, 13, 16, 19; 2:3, 8, 14; 3:3, 21, 40, 64; 5:21; Esth 2:14; 4:13, 15; 6:12; 7:8; 8:5, 8; 9:25; Dan 9:13, 16, 25; 10:20; 11:9–10, 13, 18–19, 28–30; Ezra 2:1; 6:21; 9:14; 10:14; Neh 1:9; 2:6, 15, 20; 4:4, 12, 15; 5:11–12; 6:4; 7:6; 8:17; 9:17, 26, 28–29, 35; 13:9; 1 Chr 19:5; 20:3; 21:12, 20, 27; 2 Chr 6:23–26, 37–38, 42; 7:14, 19; 10:2, 5–6, 9, 12, 16; 11:1, 4; 12:11–12; 14:15; 15:4; 18:16, 25–27, 32; 19:1, 4, 8; 20:27; 22:6; 24:11, 19; 25:10, 13, 24; 26:2; 27:5; 28:11, 15; 29:10; 30:6, 8–9; 31:1; 32:21, 25; 33:3, 13; 34:7, 9, 16, 28; 36:13.

[ii] The verb appears 108 times in 100 verses, listed here in the order they are found in the Hebrew Bible:  Gen 5:29; 6:6–7; 24:67; 27:42; 37:35; 38:12; 50:21; Ex 13:17; 32:12, 14; Num 23:19; Deut 32:36; Judg 2:18; 21:6, 15; 1 Sam 15:11, 29, 35; 2 Sam 10:2–3; 12:24; 13:39; 24:16; Is 1:24; 12:1; 22:4; 40:1; 49:13; 51:3, 12, 19; 52:9; 54:11; 57:6; 61:2; 66:13; Jer 4:28; 8:6; 15:6; 16:7; 18:8, 10; 20:16; 26:3, 13, 19; 31:13, 15, 19; 42:10; Ezek 5:13; 14:22–23; 16:54; 24:14; 31:16; 32:31; Joel 2:13–14; Amos 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:9–10; 4:2; Nah 3:7; Zech 1:17; 8:14; 10:2; Psa 23:4; 69:20; 71:21; 77:2; 86:17; 90:13; 106:45; 110:4; 119:52, 76, 82; 135:14; Job 2:11; 7:13; 16:2; 21:34; 29:25; 42:6, 11; Ruth 2:13; Eccl 4:1; Lam 1:2, 9, 16–17, 21; 2:13; 1 Chr 7:22; 19:2–3; 21:15.

[iii] The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, L Koeher, W. Baumgartner, M. Richardson, J. J. Stamm.  New York:  Brill, 1999.

[iv] The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, L Koeher, W. Baumgartner, M. Richardson, J. J. Stamm.  New York:  Brill, 1999.

[v] Speaking simply, the Qal is the basic Hebrew verb stem, while the Hiphil is often causative.

[vi] Exhortations such as this one make it clear that Ezekiel is calling unconverted Israelites to salvation, not simply calling backsliders among the true people of God to live up to their privileges;  Ezekiel calls the Israelites to enter into the promises of the New Covenant of a new heart and a new spirit.  Compare Isaiah 65:2, which does not just contextually refer to idolatrous and unconverted Israelites (65:2-7), but is employed by Paul of the unregenerate Jews who reject the gospel (Romans 10:21), in contrast with those Gentiles who believe it (Isaiah 65:1; Romans 10:20).  It is clearly erroneous to assume that every passage in which the Lord addresses His chosen nation refers to those who truly belong to Him because Israel was, in a national sense, the people of God.  Rather, texts warning sinning Israel frequently refer to the unconverted, rather than merely to those who are not properly obedient (cf. Romans 9).

[vii] A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian Literature (3rd ed.), W. Arndt, F. Danker, & W. Bauer. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

[viii] The complete list of New Testament references is:  Matt 21:29, 32; 27:3; 2 Cor 7:8; Heb 7:21.

[ix] A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian Literature (3rd ed.), W. Arndt, F. Danker, & W. Bauer. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

[x] The kind of shallow abuse of lexica that is sadly characteristic of “Baptist” advocates of the RNC heresy could appear were a RNC to note BDAG definition 1 for metanoeo, “change one’s mind,” and the fact that, while metanoia is defined as “repentance, turning about, conversion,” the words “primarily a change of mind” are also present in the lexicon.  The RNC, assuming that the lexical definition of the word as “change of mind” proves that the word means only a change of mind, and a particular kind of change of mind, one that may result in nothing, could then pretend to have support from BDAG for the RNC position.  Such a conclusion represents an extreme misreading of the lexicon, for:  1.) The lexicon places none—not a single one—of the 34 New Testament uses of metanoeo underneath the definition in question.  It gives no indication that this is a use that is found in the New Testament at all.  2.) References listed under definition #1 in BDAG in extrabiblical Greek, whether to the Shepherd of Hermas, Diodorus Siculus, Appian, Josephus, and so on, actually refer to a change of mind that results in a change of action—the RAC position—as is evident if one actually looks at the passages.  The RNC needs to demonstrate that at least one of the texts referenced in BDAG actually is a clear instance of its doctrine—which has not been done.

The RNC could also appeal to the Liddell-Scott lexicon of classical or pre-Koiné Greek for alleged evidence, noting the definition in the lexicon of “perceive afterwards or too late.”  Here again the entire lack of any evidence for this meaning in the New Testament must be ignored.  It is also noteworthy that, with one exception, the listed examples of this definition are from the Greek of the 5^th century B. C. (Epicharmus, Democritus).  Similarly, the examples for “change one’s mind or purpose,” which, in any case, suit the RAC position, as one who changes his purpose will actually act differently, are all from the 5^th or 4^th century B. C., while the definition “repent,” which the lexicon presents as that of the “NT,” and which includes a good number of examples from Koiné Greek that is contemporary with the New Testament, is certainly an affirmation of the RAC position.  Liddell-Scott defines metanoia as “change of mind or heart, repentance, regret,” placing the New Testament examples in this category, and categorizing the meaning “afterthought, correction” as one restricted to rhetoric and cited as present only in an extrabiblical rhetorical treatise.  The history of the development of metanoeo and metanoia is traced in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Kittel;  cf. also Metanoew and metamelei in Greek Literature until 100 A. D., Including Discussion of Their Cognates and of their Hebrew Equivalents, Effie Freeman Thompson, pgs. 358-377 of Historical and Linguistic Studies in Literature Related to the New Testament Issued Under the Direction of the Department of Biblical and Patristic Greek, 2^nd series, vol. 1.  Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago, 1908.  Thompson, who made a “[d]iligent search . . . for all the intsances of the words under consideration, with a view to including all the works of all the known authors in each period” (pg. 353), noted that metanoeo and metanoia moved away from a purely intellectual sense that was present, although not exclusively so, in early Greek.  In relation to Greek that is contemporary with the New Testament, he notes:  “[In] non-Jewish post-Aristotelian writers to about 100 A. D. . . . passages continaing metanoeo show that . . . there is no instance of . . . purely intellectual action. The change is that of feeling or will . . . In the Old Testament Apocrypha and other Jewish writings to about 100 A. D. . . . metanoia means change of purpose . . . this change is (a) moral; (b) from worse to better; (c) internal; (d) necessarily accompanied by change of conduct” (pgs. 362, 368-9).  Philo is cited as affirming:  “[T]he man has lost his reason who, by speaking falsely of the truth, says that he has changed his purpose (metanenohke¿nai [a form of metanoeo, “to repent,” in this tense and sentence, “says that he has repented”] when he is still doing wrong” (pg. 369)—the RAC exactly.  In contemporary “Palestinian writers, there is no instance of the intellectual simply; but there are abundant instances of both the emotional and volitional action” (pg. 375).  Coming to the New Testament usage, Thompson writes:  “An examination of the instances of metanoeo shows that . . . the verb is always used of a change of purpose which the context clearly indicates to be moral . . . this change is from evil to good purpose . . . is never used when the reference is to change of opinion merely . . . is always internal, and . . . results in external conduct . . . metanoia reveal[s] a meaning analogous to that of the verb . . . mwtanoia does not strictly include outward conduct or reform of life . . . [but] this is the product of metanoia . . . lupe [sorrow] is not inherent in metanoia, but . . . it produces the latter[.] . . . The New Testament writers in no instance employ [repentance] to express the action solely of either the intellect or of the sensibility, but use it exclusively to indicate the action of the will” (pgs. 372-373).  Thompson concludes:  “In the New Testament, metanoeo and metanoia . . . are never used to indicate merely intellectual action. . . . [T]hey are always used to express volitional action . . . the change of purpose . . . from evil to good. . . . [T]hey always express internal change . . . [and] they require change in the outward expression of life as a necessary consequent . . . [t]he fullest content [is] found in the . . . radical change in the primary choice by which the whole soul is turned away from evil to good” (pgs. 376-377).  The RAC is obviously validated by a historical study of the development of the meaning of metanoeo and metanoia, while the RNC is obliterated.

[xi] Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament:  Based on Semantic Domains.  J. P. Louw & E. A. Nida.  New York:  United Bible Societies, 1996.

^[xii] Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, C. Spicq & J. D. Ernest.  Peabody, MA:  Hendrickson, 1994.

[xiii] Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich. Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 1964.  TDNT provides a detailed diachronic study of the words in addition to a synchronic study of the New Testament evidence.

[xiv] A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. G. W. H. Lampe.  Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 2007.

[xv] The RNC could seek to abuse Lampe in the same way as BDAG by simply quoting Lampe’s definition A for metanoeo, “change of mind,” and definition A for metanoia, “change of mind, afterthought,” and then reading the RNC definition of  a “change of mind” into the lexicon.  Were a RNC to actually look at the texts referenced by Lampe in his definition, he would discover that they all refer to a change of mind that results in a change of action—that is, the RAC position.  For example, under metanoeo definition A Lampe refers to the Martyrdom of Polycarp 9:2; 11:2 and the Shepherd of Hermas 15:3;  the Shepherd speaks of people who repent “and return again to their evil desires”—an obvious change of action—while the references in the Martyrdom of Polycarp record a call by a Roman official to Polycarp to repent of his Christianity, renounce Christ, and worship Caesar—a very radical change of action.  Overwhelming evidence in the usage of early church history establishes the RAC position, while not a single instance of metanoeo or metanoia out of the hundreds of passages referenced by Lampe establishes the RNC position.

The Worldview of Romney and Ryan and the 2012 Presidential Election

Romney and Ryan are the first non-Protestant combination Presidential and Vice-Presidential ticket in the history of American elections.  America has been characteristically a Baptist/Protestant country, much of which stems from what was left in Europe.  This flies in the face of a national history-long trend.  I actually don't think that President Obama and Vice President Biden are Protestant and Catholic, but some kind of quasi-humanism/religious liberalism, but the President claims to be Protestant.

Both Romney and Ryan come from a top-down hierarchical religious structure that belies their states rights, power to the people, economic freedom paradigm.  In modern colloquial terms, what's up with that?  Why are we so sure now that the Mormon president or the Pope won't be telling our candidates what to do, say in the vein of that for what John F. Kennedy had to answer for in the 1960 presidential election?  I've been thinking about this recently and let me give you my take.  I think I'm right, but I'm open to your thoughts.

I believe there are two parts to my answer.  The first relates to the nature of Mormonism and Catholicism.  The other deals with the actual system of belief of Romney and Ryan.

The Nature of Mormonism and Catholicism

Mormonism and Catholicism are morphing religions.  A good example is the revelation of monogamy from polygamy shortly after the Supreme Court ruled polygamy illegal.  These are not people of the book.  When you talk to a Mormon, he's not convinced because of superior evidence in his written authority---that's a net minus for a Mormon.  He depends on his burning in the bosom for final approval.  And then things keep changing.  When I talk to Mormons, they nearly unanimously desire acceptance as a main-stream Christian, even if their doctrine clashes dramatically with historic Christianity.  Their acceptance seems to be bigger than their doctrine.

Catholicism reads similar to Mormonism, except longer and smaller.   Catholicism has changed over the centuries incrementally.  Catholicism can change the religion on a dime when the pope speaks ex cathedra.  I can count on less than two hands (out of thousands and thousands) how many Catholics I've met who agree with everything in the church.  They're very eclectic in their acceptance of their own doctrine.  You can see by how Catholics vote that they aren't a homogeneous group.

These aren't your mother's Mormonism and Catholicism.  These groups have changed to something more mainstream.  They don't pose any difficulty to a Romney and Ryan view of government any more.

Mormonism matches up well with a type of Americanism.  In Mormonism, Jesus takes a special trip to America, so God has some special plan for America in the religion.  With Mormonism, America got Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and Utah and Salt Lake City ("Zion"), so God was really placing a special emphasis on America that fits nicely with the American exceptionalism of Romney.  It might seem strange that Romney is hobnobbing with Netanyahu of Israel, but those represent the two places where Jesus visited,.

The Actual System of Belief of Romney and Ryan

I think that Romney and especially Ryan have superimposed their religious beliefs with another system of Americanism.  There are a couple of books written on Americanism, one by Ayn Rand.  Ryan has both espoused Rand as the one who had the greatest influence on his economics and rejected Rand's objectivism as an atheistic philosophy.  Americanism, especially as Romney and Ryan are concerned, is more than objectivism.  Ryan talks a lot about the individual rights given by God.  This clashes with historical Roman Catholicism and is more in tune with Baptists (soul liberty) and Protestantism (Luther's individualism).  Ryan's system combines Rand's objectivism and his Roman Catholic belief in God that has its home in his Americanism.

Some have written about Ryan's being the first "generation X" candidate.  He represents the concerns of those who stocked shelves after graduating from college without a job and with no guarantee or even hope of receiving the benefits of Social Security to which they are paying.   Romney's choice of Ryan instantly elevated his standing with generation X.  Ryan feels their pain.  In one sense, he's their candidate.  What I'm saying here is that part of Ryan's objectivism is his generation X realism.   The facts show that generation won't get anything when they are done paying into the system.   Many refuse to accept the dreamy hope and change they're being sold, despite its political correctness.

The worldviews of Romney and Ryan overlap enough for them to work together.  Their views find much more common ground with most Christians than Obama's and Biden's.  Their principles mirror far more of the Bible than that of their counterparts.

Romney and Ryan both have a God.  He isn't the historic Christian God, but they both believe he's at least the god of America, and they believe in America and what it means and what they think it has stood for.  There is no way that belief will sustain this country, but many believe that it is superior to an anti-American belief that sees fairness and hope in the decline and demise of the United States.

Lure Them In, pt. 4

Part One   Part Two   Part Three


Jesus used a fishing metaphor to describe evangelism.  In Matthew 4:19, He said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."  I've noticed that people then take that analogy and go further with it than what Jesus does.  They talk about "findin' good fishin' spots," "spots where they're bitin'."  They also talk about the lures that you need in order to catch the fish.  These are examples of reading something into the text.  There is no authority from Matthew 4:19 for applying these different points to evangelism.  The reason Jesus used a fishing analogy was because He was talking to fishermen and He wanted them to change professions---fishing for fish to fishing for men.  This was not a prompt or a cue for extrapolating all sorts of different practices out of the fishing analogy.

One modern fishing term, not found in Scripture, is the "lure."  The Bible does not teach luring people either into salvation or into the church, and yet this is now a primary method for this occurring.  It has made the practice of churches what 2 Peter 2:3 describes of apostates, that is, they "make merchandise of you."

My wife attended a soccer team meeting last night and she introduced herself to another woman, and this woman got very exciting in describing the church she was now attending, called "The Rock."  She chirped, "You walk in and it's just like a rock concert!"  This was the first thing she said to explain what her church was.  She was thrilled, saying this without guile and with total enthusiasm.  Then she said that she attended on "Saturday night so that she would not have to blow her Sundays."  She would never go to church on Sunday again after this.  My wife listened and then answered that she had heard about these kinds of churches---that's all---no actual criticism, but the woman could tell that my wife wasn't giving her approval.  So immediately the woman said, totally unrelated, "Oh, I haven't seen those bracelets in years" (an Italian charm bracelet my wife was wearing).  My wife answered, "Yeah, I still have mine."  She responded, "Oh, I still have mine too; I just never wear it."  She went for an immediate insult.

I expect that some of you reading would know that your church is nothing like what this woman was describing, but this is where we are at today in people's explanation for their satisfaction with church.  Many times their chief criteria could or should be categorized as worldly or fleshly lures.  One revivalist pastor I know instructs his people to get visitors into their amazing building, because that will be the thing that keeps them there.  The building is a church growth tool.  I think we all know this, that people have expectations of the building, so buildings are designed with this in mind.  Joining a church has similarities to a gym or club membership.  People also look to the youth program, the children's program, the choir, the activity groups, the technology, etc.

Not long ago a blog I read linked to a post in which the author laid out "10 ways to ensure I'll never revisit your church."  What this guy wrote really does represent what people see as successful for churches.  He said that we are exploring how to help people stick, and that these will guarantee that people won't come back.  The only one of the ten that virged on something biblical was 'sharing the gospel or challenging someone spiritually,' which still sounds nothing like how Scripture regulates a congregation of saints.  Sure, if an unsaved person were to visit, he or she should be approached with the gospel---not necessarily in the sermon---but by someone in the congregation who wants to find out about the visitor's spiritual condition.  And this was number 7.  The other nine were superficial, self-serving, and inane.  These shouldn't be strategies for church growth.

THE CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL OR TRADITIONAL FUNDAMENTALIST LURES

Today's conservative evangelicals and traditional fundamentalists have a lot in common.  There has actually been some crossover here.  I've read about evangelicals going fundamentalist and even more so fundamentalists have left to conservative evangelicalism.  You find the two "camps" spending more time together and expressing appreciation for one another.  Thankfully, these two groups are not so notorious in their strategies for luring people in.  They have been among those who have criticized those in the extreme forms of luring.  However, they also use lures.

Shouldn't I just leave the above two groups alone?  They're not so bad after all.  If we are going to get rid of the luring, the making merchandise of people, we should do it based on principle.  So if it is wrong to do, it is always wrong to do.  Doing it a little bit, a lesser extent than other evangelicals and revivalists, justifies what they do.  If we're going to criticize others for doing it, then it would seem that we would want to be sure that we ourselves are not doing it at all.  If we don't believe in it, why would we continue doing it ourselves?

Conservative evangelicals and traditional fundamentalists have some lures in common.  Not everyone of them overlap in every area, but there is some common ground.  One way that churches lure people in is through various groups in the church with their activities---youth group to singles group to young couples group.  The youth group has regular youth activities designed for youth, the singles group has regular singles activities designed for singles, and the young couples group has regular young couples activities designed for young couples.  I'm not talking about something spontaneous here in which people who know each in the church get together with one another---the church itself is planning the fun, the outings, the regular functions.  Neither am I talking about the church potluck in which the church gets together for a meal or an occastional special event.  I'm talking about a definite program to hold a carnal interest in the church.

People can have fun on their own without the church's help.  They need help with obeying the Bible and living for Christ.  You see nothing like this type of strategy in the New Testament.

What has been common in churches with youth groups is that when the kids get out of the youth group their attention wains, and they drop out.  Churches designed the singles group as a more mature version of the youth group.  The couples group customized this concept even more.  Church members can graduate between groups and then always have that particular interest or desire fed.

I've written a few other times about the type of acceptable conservative evangelical or fundamentalist lures (here and here).  The carnal methodology is seen in the lures especially to a youth culture, preying on their fleshly interests (about which I've also written here and here, among other places).  The churches have features of entertainment to which unsaved are invited for the purposes of evangelism.  This becomes their own church growth technique, something scaled down from what one would experience with Warren and Hybels, but a thin slice of the same thing offered occasionally.

Like its counterpart mainstream evangelicalism, conservative evangelicalism have remained quiet on cultural and social issues, essentially a failure to apply the exegesis of Scripture.  This has been a big part of the growth of evangelicalism and is now being imitated in traditional fundamentalism.  I recently read a post in an online journal that decried this trend.  Certain, especially older, traditional fundamentalists see a major slippage and are concerned.  Meanwhile their own groups are allowed to offer a barely watered down version of worldliness that undermines the concern.

These churches know if they say anything specific about certain cultural issues (dress, music, dating, etc.), they will either fail to attract new people or lose the people they have.   Certain well-known southern California conservative evangelicals picked up a lot of people from the Jesus movement of the sixties and then failed to differentitate biblical Christianity from it, even calling a true, biblical revival.   Christian rock traces to the Charismatic and the Jesus movements.  The conservative evangelicals did not expose this false practice, and were able to accept hundreds, even thousands, of new members out of it, leaving and allowing the horrible influence on Christianity.  This is still eating away at evangelicalism and now on fundamentalism.  Part of the church growth strategy of conservative evangelicals and now traditional fundamentalists is what they will not say in application of Scripture on cultural and social issues in order to lure and then keep their crowd of people.

People attending church today often look nothing different from someone going on a picnic or to a ballgame.  They dress in their shorts, their jeans, their best t-shirt.  Church has become about people.  This has been encouraged by the evangelicals and now fundamentalists, who say little to nothing about it.  The reverence and respect for God is disappearing and people often don't know Who He is anymore.

You might wonder why, when you are faithful to preach the gospel to a lost world, why so few are willing to listen.  One major reason is that they have been desensitized to God and the Bible and church by churches themselves.  Church isn't about God and the Bible to most.  It's about gratifying impulses of the flesh.  People's expectations of the Lord and of church have changed based upon our own influence.  We have trained the world to expect carnality as akin to true conversion through the means we have lured the world to church.

Representative Quotations from the Earliest Christian Writings— Are These Men Trinitarians or Arians?

This is a continuation of part 4 here.  The entire study, under the title Did the Trinity Come from Paganism? is available here and here.

The allegation that Trinitarianism was invented in A. D. 325 at the Council of Nicea, or even later, is a historical monstrosity. William G. T. Shedd writes:

“[T]he following particulars . . . which cannot be invalidated . . . prove conclusively that . . . [the] Ante-Nicene Fathers . . . held the same Trinitarianism with the Nicene and Post-Nicene divines.  1.) The Ante-Nicene Fathers employed the word God in the strict sense of signifying the Divine substance, and applied it to the Son in this sense.  2.) They admitted but one substance to be strictly Divine, and rejected with abhorrence the notion of inferior and secondary divinities.  3.) The confined worship to the one true God, and yet worshipped the Son.  4.) The attributed eternity, omnipotence, and uncreatedness to the Son, and held him to be the Creator and Preserver of the universe.  5.) Had the Ante-Nicene Fathers held that the Son was different from the Father in respect to substance, eternity, omnipotence, uncreatedness, [etc.], they would certainly have specified this difference in the Sabellian controversy;  for this would have proved beyond all dispute that the Son and Father are not one Person or Hypostasis.  But they never did” (pg. 153, William G. T. Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 1, book III:2:3, elec. acc. AGES Digital Software).

 Nevertheless, despite the facts, the Watchtower makes the following astonishing affirmation:

If the Trinity is not a Biblical teaching, how did it become a doctrine of Christendom? Many think that it was formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. That is not totally correct, however. The Council of Nicaea . . . did not establish the Trinity . . . [n]one of the bishops at Nicaea promoted a Trinity[.] . . . If a Trinity had been a clear Bible truth, should they not have proposed it at that time? . . . [At] the Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E. . . . [for] the first time, Christendom’s Trinity began to come into focus. Yet, even after the Council of Constantinople, the Trinity did not become a widely accepted creed. . . . It was only in later centuries that the Trinity was formulated into set creeds” (Should You Believe in the Trinity? pgs. 7-9).

The doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were equally God (contra Arianism), and yet were distinct Persons (contra Sabellianism), was believed and confessed by Christians from the time of the composition of the New Testament onwards.  There are no Arian statements such as “the Son of God was created out of nothing” or “the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force.”  While this composition is not a detailed history of doctrine or of ancient Christiandom, and thus does not attempt to evaluate the whole of what any of the following writers believed, the following ten quotations (which could have been greatly multiplied) from contemporaries of the apostle John and those only decades after him—and far, far before the Council of Nicea—make it painfully obvious just how wrong such Arian and Sabellian corruptions of history are:

Deity of the Son
Ignatius (died c. A. D. 100)	“I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who made you so wise”[i] (Smyrnaeans 1:1)
Ignatius (died c. A. D. 100)	“Jesus Christ our God”[ii] (Ephesians 1:1)
Clement (c. A. D. 100-150)[iii]	“Brethren, we ought to conceive of Jesus Christ as of God, as the judge of the living and the dead.” (2 Clement 1:1)[iv]
Justin Martyr (c. A. D. 100-165)	“Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts . . . reference is made . . . to Christ . . . [in] the Psalm[s] of David . . . [as] the God of Jacob . . . the Lord of hosts . . . the King of glory” (Dialogue with Trypho, 36)[v]
Justin Martyr (c. A. D. 100-165)	He existed formerly as Son of the Maker of all things, being God, and was born a man by the Virgin. (Dialogue with Trypho, 48)[vi]
Justin Martyr (c. A. D. 100-165)	Now the Word of God is His Son[.] . . . From the writings of Moses also this will be manifest; for thus it is written in them, “And the [Messenger/Angel] of God spoke to Moses, in a flame of fire out of the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of your fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth My people.” . . . [P]roving that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels; but now, by the will of God, having become man for the human race . . . [T]hey who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now  . . . having . . . become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on Him, He endured both to be set at nought and to suffer, that by dying and rising again He might conquer death. (Apology of Justin 1:63)[vii]
Martyrdom of Polycarp (c. A. D. 150)	[To] the Lord Jesus Christ . . . be the glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 22:3; cf. 14:3)[viii]
Epistle to Diognatus (2nd century)	On the contrary, the omnipotent Creator of all, the invisible God himself, established among men the truth and the holy, incomprehensible word from heaven. . . not, as one might imagine, by sending to men some subordinate, or angel or ruler or one of those who manage earthly matters, or one of those entrusted with the administration of things in heaven, but the Designer and Creator of the universe himself, by whom he created the heavens, by whom he enclosed the sea within its proper bounds, whose mysteries all the elements faithfully observe, from whom the sun has received the measure of the daily courses to keep, whom the moon obeys as he commands it to shine by night, whom the stars obey as they follow the course of the moon, by whom all things have been ordered and determined and placed in subjection, including the heavens and the things in the heavens, the earth and the things in the earth, the sea and the things in the sea, fire, air, abyss, the things in the heights, the things in the depths, the things in between—this one he sent to them! . . . [H]e sent him in gentleness and meekness, as a king might send his son who is a king; he sent him as God; he sent him as a man to men. (Epistle to Diognetus 7:2,4)[ix]
Athenagoras (2nd century)	Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists? (Plea for Christians, 10)[x]
Irenaeus (c. A. D. 120-203)	Therefore neither would the Lord, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the apostles, have ever named as God, definitely and absolutely, him who was not God, unless he were truly God; nor would they have named any one in his own person Lord, except God the Father ruling over all, and His Son[.] . . . Since, therefore, the Father is truly Lord, and the Son truly Lord, the Holy Spirit has fitly designated them by the title of Lord. [When] the Scripture says, “Then the Lord [Jehovah] rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven” [Genesis 19:24] . . . it here points out that the Son, who had also been talking with Abraham, had received power to judge the Sodomites for their wickedness. And this [text following] does declare the same truth: “Thy throne, O God; is for ever and ever; the scepter of Your kingdom is a right scepter. You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You.” For the Spirit designates both [of them] by the name, of God — both Him who is anointed as Son, and Him who does anoint, that is, the Father. . . . Therefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, “I AM That I AM And thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you;”  and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God. (Against Heresies, III:6:1-2)

The Trinitarian can agree with the earliest writers of Christianity:  “[W]e confess . . . the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues . . . [and] both Him, and the Son . . . and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore,[xi] knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught” (Justin Martyr, Apology 1:6).[xii] The Arian and Sabellian cannot so confess, or so worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one true God.

While the testimonies above focused on the Deity of Christ, rather than the Deity of the Spirit, it should be noted that “no apologetic writer of the second century spoke of the Spirit of God as one of the creatures” (pg. 49, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, Henry Barclay Swete. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1966 (reprint of 1912 ed).), but they did make statements such as “we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence, — the Father, the Son, the Spirit” (Athenagoras, Plea for Christians 24).  The affirmation that the Father, Son, and Spirit are united in essence (or, more literally, equal or one in power) requires that they are the one true God.

The Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has been believed in and adored by Christians for the entirety of church history.

-TDR

Note:  To read the Greek in the endnotes, you will need the Helena Greek font, which will be on your computer if you download a trial version of Accordance here.

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[i][i] Doxa¿zw ∆Ihsouvn Cristo\n to\n qeo\n to\n ou¢twß uJma◊ß sofi÷santa.

[ii]             ∆Ihsouv Cristouv touv qeouv hJmw◊n.

[iii] If one wishes to maintain (as is likely) that 2 Clement was not written by that Clement of Rome who flourished c. A. D. 90-100, was the third pastor of the church at Rome, and composed 1 Clement, nevertheless “the controversies with which the writer deals are those of the early part of the 2^nd century[.] . . . Internal evidence . . . assigns to the work a date not later than the 2nd century, and probably the first half of it” (“Clemens Romanus,” A Dictionary of Early Christian Biography, Henry Wace. elec. acc. Accordance Bible Software).  “[If not by Clement of Rome himself, then it] appears to have been delivered about [A. D.] 140–50” (“Clement of Rome,” The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, gen. ed. J. D. Douglas.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1974. Elec. acc. Accordance Bible Software).

[iv] ∆Adelfoi÷, ou¢twß dei√ hJma◊ß fronei√n peri« ∆Ihsouv Cristouv, wJß peri« qeouv, wJß peri« kritouv zw¿ntwn kai« nekrw◊n.

[v] kai« Qeo\ß kai« Ku/rioß tw◊n duna¿mewn oJ Cristo\ß . . . ei˙ß to\n Cristo\n ei˙rhvsqai . . . ⁄Esti de« yalmo\ß touv Dabi«d ou∞toß . . . Qeouv ∆Iakw¿b . . . Ku/rioß tw◊n duna¿mewn . . . Ku/rioß tw◊n duna¿mewn . . . oJ Basileu\ß thvß do/xhß.

[vi] prou¨phvrcen Ui˚o\ß touv Poihtouv tw◊n o¢lwn, Qeo\ß w‡n, kai« gege÷nnhtai a‡nqrwpoß dia» thvß Parqe÷nou.

[vii] ÔO Lo/goß de« touv Qeouv e˙stin oJ Ui˚o\ß aujtouv[.] . . . Kai« e˙k tw◊n touv Mwse÷wß de« suggramma¿twn fanero\n touvto genh/setai. Le÷lektai de« e˙n aujtoi√ß ou¢twß: “Kai« e˙la¿lhse Mwu¨sei√ a‡ggeloß Qeouv e˙n flogi« puro\ß e˙k thvß ba¿tou, kai« ei•pen: ∆Egw¿ ei˙mi oJ w‡n, Qeo\ß ∆Abraa¿m, Qeo\ß ∆Isaa¿k, Qeo\ß ∆Iakw¿b, oJ Qeo\ß tw◊n pate÷rwn sou. ka¿telqe ei˙ß Ai¶gupton, kai« e˙xa¿gage to\n lao/n mou.” . . . ∆All∆ ei˙ß aÓpo/deixin gego/nasin oiºde oi˚ lo/goi, o¢ti Ui˚o\ß Qeouv kai« aÓpo/stoloß ∆Ihsouvß oJ Cristo/ß e˙sti, pro/teron Lo/goß w‡n, kai« e˙n i˙de÷aˆ puro\ß pote« fanei÷ß, pote« de« kai« e˙n ei˙ko/ni aÓswma¿twˆ: nuvn de÷, dia» qelh/matoß Qeouv uJpe«r touv aÓnqrwpei÷ou ge÷nouß a‡nqrwpoß geno/menoß[.] . . . Oi˚ ga»r to\n Ui˚o\n Pate÷ra fa¿skonteß ei•nai e˙le÷gcontai mh/te to\n Pate÷ra e˙pista¿menoi, mhq∆ o¢ti e˙sti«n Ui˚o\ß twˆ◊ Patri« tw◊n o¢lwn ginw¿skonteß: o§ß kai« Lo/goß prwto/tokoß w·n touv Qeouv, kai« Qeo\ß uJpa¿rcei. Kai« pro/teron dia» thvß touv puro\ß morfhvß kai« ei˙ko/noß aÓswma¿tou twˆ◊ Mwu¨sei√ kai« toi√ß e˚te÷roiß profh/taiß e˙fa¿nh: nuvn d∆ . . . dia» parqe÷nou a‡nqrwpoß geno/menoß kata» th\n touv Patro\ß boulh/n, uJpe«r swthri÷aß tw◊n pisteuo/ntwn aujtwˆ◊, kai« e˙xouqenhqhvnai kai« paqei√n uJpe÷meinen, iºna aÓpoqanw»n kai« aÓnasta»ß nikh/shØ to\n qa¿naton. It should be noted that the references by Justin to Christ as ⁄Aggeloß refers to Him as the Messenger or Angel of Jehovah, the Old Testament Person who is so far from being a created being that He is Jehovah Himself. This is apparent to anyone who reads the context of Justin’s declarations.

[viii] oJ ku/rioß ∆Ihsouvß Cristo\ß . . . w—ˆ hJ do/xa su\n patri kai« aJgi÷wˆ pneu/mati ei˙ß tou\ß ai˙w◊naß tw◊n ai˙w¿nwn, aÓmh/n.

[ix] Diog. 7:2 aÓll∆ aujto\ß aÓlhqw◊ß oJ pantokra¿twr kai« pantokti÷sthß kai« aÓo/ratoß qeo/ß, aujto\ß aÓp∆ oujranw◊n th\n aÓlh÷qeian kai« to\n lo/gon to\n a‚gion kai« aÓperino/hton aÓnqrw¿poiß e˙ni÷druse . . . ouj kaqa¿per a‡n tiß ei˙ka¿seien aÓnqrw¿poiß uJphre÷thn tina» pe÷myaß h£ a‡ggelon h£ a‡rconta h£ tina tw◊n diepo/ntwn ta» e˙pi÷geia h£ tina tw◊n pepisteume÷nwn ta»ß e˙n oujranoi√ß dioikh/seiß, aÓll∆ aujto\n to\n tecni÷thn kai« dhmiourgo\n tw◊n o¢lwn, w—ˆ tou\ß oujranou\ß e¶ktisen, w—ˆ th\n qa¿lassan i˙di÷oiß o¢roiß e˙ne÷kleisen, ou∞ ta» musth/ria pistw◊ß pa¿nta fula¿ssei ta» stoicei√a, par∆ ou∞ ta» me÷tra tw◊n thvß hJme÷raß dro/mwn h¢lioß ei¶lhfe fula¿ssein, w—ˆ peiqarcei√ selh/nh nukti« fai÷nein keleu/onti, w—ˆ peiqarcei√ ta» a‡stra twˆ◊ thvß selh/nhß aÓkolouqouvnta dro/mwˆ, w—ˆ pa¿nta diate÷taktai kai« diw¿ristai kai« uJpote÷taktai, oujranoi« kai« ta» e˙n oujranoi√ß, ghv kai« ta» e˙n thØv ghØv, qa¿lassa kai« ta» e˙n thØv qala¿sshØ, puvr, aÓh/r, a‡bussoß, ta» e˙n u¢yesi, ta» e˙n ba¿qesi, ta» e˙n twˆ◊ metaxu/: touvton pro\ß aujtou\ß aÓpe÷steilen. . . . e˙n e˙pieikei÷aˆ kai« prauŒthti wJß basileu\ß pe÷mpwn ui˚o\n basile÷a e¶pemyen, wJß qeo\n e¶pemyen, wJß a‡nqrwpon pro\ß aÓnqrw¿pouß e¶pemyen, wJß swˆ¿zwn e¶pemyen, wJß pei÷qwn, ouj biazo/menoß: bi÷a ga»r ouj pro/sesti twˆ◊ qewˆ◊.

[x] Ti÷ß ou™n oujk a·n aÓporh/sai, le÷gontaß Qeo\n Pate÷ra kai« Ui˚o\n Qeo\n kai« Pneuvma a‚gion, deiknu/ntaß aujtw◊n kai« th\n e˙n thØv e˚nw¿sei du/namin kai« th\n e˙n thØv ta¿xei diai÷resin, aÓkou/saß aÓqe÷ouß kaloume÷nouß;

[xi] Note also the composition “The Worship of the Son of God in Scripture and the Earliest Christianity” at http://sites.google.com/site/faithalonesaves/salvation

[xii] oJmologouvmen . . . patro\ß dikaiosu/nhß kai« swfrosu/nhß, kai« tw◊n a‡llwn aÓretw◊n. . . kai« to\n . . . Ui˚o\n . . . kai« to\n . . . Pneuvma¿ te to\ profhtiko\n sebo/meqa, kai« proskunouvmen, lo/gwˆ kai« aÓlhqei÷aˆ timw◊nteß, kai« panti« boulome÷nwˆ maqei√n, wJß e˙dida¿cqhmen, aÓfqo/nwß paradido/nteß.

The Hyles-Schaap Fallacies

Because of the size, scope of influence, and history of First Baptist Church in Hammond, IN (FBC), the recent sinful acts by Jack Schaap generated a lot of reaction.  The responses are an interesting window into people's understanding of the Bible and God's work.  Several tried to make a tie between Hyles-Schaap and all independent, fundamental Baptist churches, broadbrushing all of these churches in the image of FBC.  The evaluations have been varied, that among them I have read:  a result of congregationalism versus presbyterianism, caused by legalism, a product of too many rules, typical of a KJV-only church (as if a particular Bible version condones his behavior), and others.  A few people make some tenuous connections between one pet issue or another at Hyles and what it produced in the public humiliation of Schaap.  Some of their points are fantasy and others are possible but a big stretch.  Like I've heard and said, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

Let's start with the fact that Hyles and Schaap and that whole branch of so-called "fundamental Baptists" are absolute crazy kooks, disconnected from scriptural reality, and that their myriad of problems have mainly to do with their made-up positions.  You can trace their lineage far, far back to something legitimate, but they went off the tracks long ago.  I know that because of their numeric success and the whole network that was built over several decades that it gives it the appearance of something substantive.  As well, there are all those who wouldn't break from them for whatever political or pragmatic reasons.  That's all a shame that they were being propped up by this gigantic religious infrastructure, giving them credibility.  However, the problem of Schaap, as I wrote in my Deconstructing Jack Schaap, was entirely proceeding from horribly bad doctrine, a  terrible skewing of Scripture over a prolonged period.

Schaap and Hyles are both google gold.  If you have one of their names in your essay, your traffic rises double or triple.  Others know this.  In addition, it can provide either some real, or perhaps more so an artificial, gravitas to come in with analysis.  I want to spend a little time here, before I move on, debunking some of what I'm reading about the cause of the Schaap incident.

I concur with Bobby Mitchell and his comment (also an email he sent to a number of people) that this wasn't the fall of Schaap.  If you considered this his fall, then you also thought that he had somewhere to fall from.  He already long left whatever pedestal there was, either doctrinally, practically, or spiritually.  A proper consequence of this, like Bobby wrote, should be to get ourselves way, way away from anything like FBC and its operation.  We shouldn't be close to it.  Nothing we're close to should be close to it.  We shouldn't be in the same solar system, let alone the same orbit.

The Strictness Fallacy

After I wrote part one, someone anonymous commented something he said I didn't need to publish.  I don't still have the comment, because I deleted it, but he started it with something like, "Hyles is Amish and you are Mennonite."  His opinion was that I (our church) is just a lighter version of Hyles, except more clear thinking (his words).  He instructed me to let myself go, relax, and look more outside the box.  I laughed when I read that.

There is more than one fallacy here, including that we are some kind of Hyles light.  Whoever anonymous was, I would guess that he and his church had more common with Hyles and its problems than we do.  However, the major fallacy, and it is a common one today in evangelicalism and fundamentalism, is that God's grace manifests itself mostly in our doing more of what we feel or want.  It is a akin to the position that Paul argues against this in Romans 6:1 and then Jude mentions "turning the grace of God into lasciviousness." God's grace doesn't turn into an occasion for the flesh or one of flaunting liberties.  Paul writes to Titus that it teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust.

God is holy, so His grace will tend toward separation and purity, not fleshliness and worldlinesss.  The freedom is freedom from sin and the dependence on and ties to this world.

It is possible to have lots of rules and standards and have it be flesh and Pharisaical.  However, some see their lack of rules and standards as some kind of badge of grace, but it is an addiction to fleshly and worldly things.  They aren't free.  In other words, there is left-wing flesh and right-wing flesh.  The problem is the flesh.  There is a problem with adding to Scripture and taking away from the Bible.  At our church, we don't require anything of anybody that isn't taught in the Bible.  The grace of God works toward obeying Scripture.

It's a fallacy that rules cause the Schaap sinning.  If you see a Hyles-Anderson girl, she looks nothing like an Amish girl.  Grace doesn't move from helpful rules.  Grace works toward staying pure.  For instance, you've got to apply "flee fornication."  Job made a way to stay pure with women, he made a covenant with his eyes not to look.  He made a rule not to look.  We've got a lot of lascivousness and licentiousness in this world, and this indicates a lack of the grace of God, not more of it.

There are other fallacies, several of them, but I think I'm through on this topic.  Don't be taken by everything that everybody is saying about Schaap.  Be discerning.

Deconstructing Jack Schaap

Under the leadership of Jack Hyles, beginning in 1959 in Hammond, IN, First Baptist Church became the largest attended church in the world.  Before he died, he made sure his successor would be his son-in-law, husband of his daughter Cindy, Jack Schaap.  For that reason among others, it was world-wide news, especially religious, when Schaap got caught at having done the despicable.  Hyles and Schaap took a twisted brand of fake Christianity to new lows with a perversion of the gospel, several other doctrines, preaching, leadership, and church methods.  They were copied all over the United States and other countries because of their numeric success.

The exposure of Schaap's abhorrence has brought a stream of analysis and posturing on the internet, attempting to work his situation for a perceived advantage, so motivating me to comment now.  Take your pick on the cliche that describes how hard it is to figure out what occurred in Hammond---low hanging fruit, a high lob for an easy overhead slam, a slow pitch right in your wheelhouse.  It isn't complicated, so there is no need to make it so.

I think that the best description of what went on at First Baptist Church in Hammond (FBC) comes from the mouth of one of Hyles' daughters, who appears on a youtube video speaking about her childhood, in which she says that the institution operated "under the guise of an independent, fundamental, Baptist church."  Key word:  guise.  For anyone who wished to probe the least bit below the surface there, he would find it not to function as a church.  It was the "guise of a church."   I never visited FBC, but from the very first times I heard Hyles, I knew he was wrong.  The only thing that kept me from completely repudiating him then was that the leadership I was under did not.  Those men at Maranatha were in a position to understand and warn, but they did not.  It was not until after the most major and outlandish abuses that places like Maranatha tentatively drew away from Hyles and Hammond.  It was never while I was there.

The church, the true one, the only one, started in the earliest New Testament times over 2000 years ago.  Since then there have been good churches.  We have the Bible to judge whether a church is and has been regulated by Scripture.  We can judge whether something is biblical or not; we're not shut off from history to know that.

There is nothing wrong with independent and Baptist.   The idea of independent is obvious.   Baptist is a historical position.  There have always been churches that believed and practiced the Bible---separatist, congregational form of church government, soul liberty, believers baptism by immersion, no state church---and they were finally called Baptist.  Where the Hyles and Schaap movement goes awry is with the "fundamental" part of the description.  "Fundamental" represents its own movement, which has been tribal, political, and hierarchical.

Fundamentalists are not the only ones of what I'm describing.  Now you've got all sorts of movements that control people in their own and different ways.  They use various worldly and secular methods, not operating by faith, knowing how these means will sway their constituents. They make major decisions that relate to how to manipulate, even doing research into this like poll testing.  It is not all what people would describe as "right wing," but most of it is "left wing" today.  Much of it has turned church into a farce in the United States.  Some of the most guilty are those lining up to criticize Schaap, some of whom have their own giant skeletons in their closets, and yet are constantly pointing out in great detail those of others.  We should especially watch out for these who are quick to shine a bright light especially on the sexual activity---this is exactly what Schaap himself was doing in his speeches to his group before he got caught.  I've noticed a reveling in it that smacks of Pharisaical, self-righteousness.  It is well documented now that Schaap did this for a long time.  Others are doing to Schaap like he was doing to others.  There are strong similarities here between him and them.  You see a lot of what Schaap did all over evangelicalism today, including those who are well accepted by some of his harshest critics.

The major issue with Schaap and Hyles was that they preached a false gospel.  They preached a gospel that purposefully excluded biblical, true repentance and the Lordship of Christ.  This perversion is all over evangelicalism, not just among Baptists.  When people are unconverted, not born again, they can't live the Christian life. They can't stop from sinning.  They can't change their hearts.  All they can do then is paint on an impersonation of some skewed version of Christianity.  That's what they did at Hyles.  They were a false front city, attempting to appear like something legitimate, when they were a fraud.

The Hyles and Schaap preaching was characteristically unbiblical.  They used the Bible, but they were the actual authority with crazy interpretations and predominant story-telling.  Their sermons were propaganda, crowd control.

Hand-in-hand with Hyles and Schaap false gospel and this preaching that justified it or validated was their skewed understanding and presentation of sanctification.  You were judged as to whether you were a good Christian by extra-scriptural expectations.  It was a form of Keswick sanctification that was all part of the overall strategy to build the institution.  Actual church discipline didn't occur.  It was all about creating events and crisis to produce experiences that replaced the actual every day struggle that sanctification is.  But how would you expect so many unbelievers actually to be sanctified?  When they were not positionally sanctified, they couldn't be practically sanctified.

The root theological errors are the basis for the bad behavior.  This is the message you will see all over the New Testament from all the authors, especially from the Apostle Paul.  You have wrong doctrine and you will have wrong practice.  Hyles and Schaap started with a presupposition.  They wanted to get glory, to be great, to be successful, and be big, and then they developed a theology and practice that would fit into that.  It tore up biblical Christianity.  You still have this happening today all over evangelicalism and fundamentalism.  This is to what we need to point and separate from more than any other thing.

Did the Trinity Come from Paganism? part 4

This is a continuation of part 3.

Actually, unlike Trinitarianism, both Arian and Sabellian or modalistic theology resulted in large measure from the influence of pagan thought upon Christianity.  This fact is the affirmation of real historians quoted in context, rather than the creation of quotations slashed and burned from their contexts or from the assorted weirdos  cited by the Watchtower Society. “[The system of] Sabellius . . . sprung out of Judaizing and Gnostic tendencies which were indigenous to Egypt. . . . [A] pantheistic tendency [also characterizes] Sabellianism as a whole. . . . Kindred ideas are also found in Pythagoreanism.”[1]  “[O]pposition to the Incarnate Word, when he really appeared, seemed to have predisposed [modalists, here discussed under the label of Monarchians] to accept a heathen philosophy, and to represent the Logos as Philo did as the manifest God not personally distinct from the concealed Deity.  This error found its way into Christianity through the Gnostics, who were largely indepted to the Platonic school of Alexandria. . . . Sabellianism [in part is] found even in the later schools of gnostics, and the later Sabellianism approached to an emanation theory. . . . The leading tenet of the Monarchians [modalists] thus appears to have been introduced into Christianity principally through the Alexandrian Jews and the Gnostics.  It may also have been derived immediately from heathen philosophers. . . . [T]he Monarchians who identified the Son with the Father and admitted at most only a modal trinity, a threefold mode of revelation . . . proceeded, at least in part, from pantheistic preconceptions, and approached the ground of Gnostic docetism.”[2]  Modalism is a concept which mixes Christianity and paganism.

Similarly, “Arius . . . was following . . . a path inevitably traced for him by the Middle Platonist preconceptions he had inherited,”[3] since “the impact of Platonism reveals itself in . . . thoroughgoing subordinationism.”[4]  The Arian view of the incarnation of Christ “took as its premis[e] [a] Platonic conception.”[5]

Examining the history of ancient Christianity, one notes that no physical evidence exists of Arius, Sabellius, or the disciples of either of these heretics affirming and disperaging Trinitarian doctrine as derived from paganism, while testimony from ancient Christiandom affirms that modalist and Unitarian heretics derived their ideas from paganism.  The Trinitarian Tertullian spoke strongly against the adoption of pagan philosophy, mentioning that “Plato has been the caterer to all these heretics” and speaks of “doctrines which the heretics borrow from Plato.”[6]  He writes, “Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by [pagan] philosophy.”[7]  Specifically speaking against the Unitarian heresy, Athanasius declared, “when the unsound nature of their phrases had been exposed at that time, and they were henceforth open to the charge of irreligion, that they proceeded to borrow of the Greeks [pagan philosophy] . . . so unblushing are they in their irreligion, so obstinate in their blasphemies against the Lord. . . . they are contentious, as elsewhere, for unscriptural positions . . . [their language, namely, adopting the term “Unoriginate” for God over “Father,” is] of the Greeks who know not the Son.”[8]  Ambrose wrote, “Let us now see how far Arians and pagans do differ. . . . The pagans assert that their gods began to exist once upon a time; the Arians lyingly declare that Christ began to exist in the course of time. Have they not all dyed their impiety in the vats of philosophy?”[9]  The evidence from patristic writers affirms that the doctrines of Arianism, Sabellianism, and other heresies were influenced by paganism.  No extant ancient writer affirms that the Trinity was borrowed from pagan philosophy.  Who is more likely to be correct on the development of Trinitarian theology—those who lived in the first centuries of Christianity, or the wackos quoted by modern Arians and Sabellians who lived a millenium and a half after the end of the ancient church period?

Indeed, even the pagans testified that the Christians believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was God.  For example, the Roman official Pliny the Younger wrote to the the Roman emperor Trajan c. A. D. 112: “I ask them if they are Christians. If they admit this, I ask them the question again a second and third time, threatening them with the death sentence if they persist. . . . But they declared that their only crime or error was that they used to meet regularly before daybreak on an appointed day, and to sing a hymn to Christ as to God, and to bind themselves by an oath not to commit any crime, but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery or breach of trust, and not to deny a deposit when this was required” (Pliny, Letters 10.96, in The Letters of Pliny, 2 vols., trans. William Melmoth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1915, 2:403ff.).

Anti-Trinitiarian affirmations that the Trinity is derived from paganism are radically anti-historical--just as they are radically anti-Biblical.

-TDR

---

[1] “Sabellius” in the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, John McClintock & James Strong, vol. 9. Rio, WI: AGES Digital Software Library, 2006, elec. acc.

Of course, this affirmation does not deny that Arius or Sabellius, added particular twists of their own to their pagan patrimony (so that, e. g., the article just quoted while affirming Sabellius’ pagan heritage, can also speak of his “originality.”)

[2] “Monarchianism,” Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, McClintock & Strong, vol. 6.

[3] pg. 231, Early Christian Doctrines, J. N. D. Kelly.  San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1978 (5^th rev. ed).

[4] pg. 131, Early Christian Doctrines, Kelly.  The quote specifically speaks of the theology of the heretic and (less radical, but still) Arian precursor, Origin.

[5] pg. 281, Early Christian Doctrines, Kelly.  Other heretics also adopted a Platonized view of the incarnation.

[6] Chapter 23, A Treatise on the Soul. (Church Fathers — The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. elec. acc. Accordance Bible Software, ver. 1.1.  This is the edition employed for quotations from patristic writers unless otherwise specified.).  It would be very strange for Tertullian to condemn various heretics for deriving their doctrines from Plato if he himself derived his Trinitarianism from Plato.

[7]             Chapter 7, The Prescription Against Heretics.

[8] Defence of the Nicene Definition (De Decretis), 28, 31.

[9]             Exposition of the Christian Faith, Ambrose. Book 1:13:85.

Lure Them In, pt. 3

Part One.   Part Two.

Let's say you had a church that was doing everything that the Bible teaches a church to do, and even does all of them well with real affection toward God.   Great expositional, biblical preaching.  Widespread, regular, and bold evangelism.  Giving.  Obedient.  Qualified leaders.  Practices scriptural discipline.  Discipleship.  Unsaved people are still not interested in that church.  They are even more disinterested than before, most of the time.  Churches know that, hence the lures of different kinds to attract visitors.

God actually wants people interested in Him.  That's the point.  And He wants them interested in Who He actually is, not a version of Him that has been modified to be likable to someone who wouldn't like Him otherwise.  To allow people to be interested in God actually, in God really, the God of the Bible, then a church needs to expose the actual and real Him.  To be saved, they do have to receive the one and true God.  Unbelievers can't receive the modified version of God and be saved.  He does have to be the real Him.

Potential church visitors don't really like godly things.   Some are interested, for sure, but if they had been, churches would go ahead and offer them the things that they are supposed to like.  The truth is, the churches themselves don't like spiritual things in many cases, sort of like an animal that doesn't like his medicine.  They get it to slip down like Mark Driscoll, with comedy.  It's explained as giftedness, but it really is a comedic ability and dynamic that is entertaining.  You can get your church, your medicine, like candy.  You candy-coat it with worldly things, to cover for that which is offensive to the world.

Churches who don't offer God because the world doesn't like Him are in fact ashamed of God, of Jesus Christ.  Even when a church offers friendship, a fun time, neat people, great music, a fantastic building, and things that are less than some promotion, they are not offering God, because God isn't good enough for those people.  The church is like a teenager who walks several feet behind his/her parents so that others won't know he/she's associated with them.  All of it is a form of bait and switch.  The bait is whatever isn't God that the world might like and the switch is God.  God as "bait" won't lure the world.

In fact, God, the Word of God, the Bible, Jesus, all of those, can attract the world, but only supernaturally, in a way that doesn't make sense, humanly speaking.  What 1 Corinthians says is that all of those are foolishness to the lost.  So how do they work?  They work in an unexplainable way, the way that in the end gives glory to God.  God expects it that way so He does get the glory.   In many cases, the gospel message won't attract, but will repel.  People don't like how it feels to be a repellent.  They would rather not, so they go ahead and lure.

REGULAR EVANGELICAL LURES

As I grew up, Jack Hyles in the Chicago area was the poster boy for church lures.  He seemed to have invented the revivalist, fundamentalist brand of lures.  Perhaps, however, he was just in a line of this type of strategy going back to D. L. Moody.  In the same trajectory of the Chicago church experience was Bill Hybels (Willow Creek Community Church) and his revolutionizing of the seeker-sensitive movement.  At Wikipedia, it reads as "sociological awareness of the target population."

The point of being seeker sensitive is to be sensitive to the likes and dislikes of the unsaved people whom these churches are targeting for church attendance.  For instance, the seekers don't like long prayers, so in a seeker service, you don't pray long, because they'll get bored or fall asleep.  You find the mood of a meeting that is most desirous of a seeker and then go about creating that mood.  Unsaved people want an informal and relaxed atmosphere, so the church cultivates that atmosphere through various means.  Seekers are the unsaved people.  Seekers don't like hymns or hymnbooks.  The seeker wants answers to his questions, self-help in essence, not bible teaching or doctrine.  A seeker prefers music performed not participation in congregational singing.  A seeker wants to feel special, so make him feel special.

The regular evangelical churches, which almost all utilize some form of seeker philosophy and methodology, say to identify your target and define the event.  The target determines the musical style, lyric content, presentation, length of service, and “stage look” of the event.  Talking about God and doctrine and preaching are not the means of church growth.  This is how I differentiate between promotion and marketing, which are technically the same, but I use them to categorize the two different means.  However, regular evangelical churches have decided to market themselves to seekers, unsaved people, as a means of church growth.

These regular evangelical churches ruin people, because they replace the right understanding of a church with their faulty model.  It also affects the gospel, because everything starts with the pampering of self when Jesus requires denial of self.  Even after they decide to stay in the church and even accept Jesus, they have stopped asking what is unscriptural about the various practices.  They like it.  It works.  Their kids like it.  It's big.  It's easier to get along with the world and worldly friends, and keep the worldly things that you like. The Jesus of the Bible is replaced with a different version of Jesus, for sure.  God isn't glorified.  Most of the people don't know Who He is.

In a very difficult area for the gospel, we have three large versions of these types of churches that are competing for the same audience with their lures.  They would all admit that they are filled with unbelieving people.  If they want people to be involved, they have to present it like left-winged agnostics promote their own community service opportunities.  You give back.  You pay it forward.  You don't want to live selfish, because that will just make you feel bad.  If you are going to fully thrive and be a happy, productive person, you should choose one of the causes the church offers and be a participant.  Those kinds of things.  All of this works, and these churches really congratulate themselves for how well they've done at figuring out church growth.

More to Come