Nothing Is New In Actual Evangelism: Cleverness Is Bad in and for Evangelism

Inventiveness or cleverness does not turn out well in the Bible.  Many died for doing something that God's Word didn't say was wrong.  Silence is not permission.  You won't be alright for doing other than what God said, even if He didn't say it was wrong.  You can be in trouble for not doing what He did say at the time that you're doing something He didn't say, even if He didn't say it was wrong.

The chief biblical and historic distinctive of true churches is the Bible as the sole authority for faith and practice.  The sole authority itself says that scripture is sufficient.  By sufficient, the Bible is all you need.  Another term for "all you need" is "sole."  It is the only authority because it is all that you need.  The idea that you need to concoct something new and different than what the Bible teaches contradicts sufficiency and sole authority.

The Bible is also practical.  Practicality is practicing what the Bible says.  You can practice it.  You can fill up all your time doing what the Bible says.  There is enough in there to do and to keep you busy just doing what the Bible says.  There is enough time to do what the Bible says, not enough time to do what the Bible says and concoct something new and do it in addition to what it says.  You've got to choose either the Bible or new things.  Practicing what the Bible says will work.  It's also what sanctifies us.  We're not sanctified by our own opinions.

Very often a new strategy that is not in the Bible either changes the Bible or results in disobedience to the Bible.  To start, it's not in the Bible.  That really should be a problem, but very often, I notice, it isn't.  People have no problem with something not being in the Bible.  These same people will say the Bible is their sole authority.  Where it isn't in the Bible, the Bible is not the authority for that -- that is you or someone else (or a demon).  However, even besides the fact that it isn't in the Bible, which ought to be bad enough, new strategies not in the Bible undermine the Bible in many different ways. This post will not explain or describe how, but they do.  People ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking they need to supplement even the methods that scripture teaches.

In line with what I'm writing about, the Bible tells us all that we need to do about evangelism.  It has in it everything that we need to know to fulfill God's will in evangelism.  We don't need anything new for evangelism.

On a regular basis, I read new strategies or methods for evangelism.  As a result of these new strategies and methods alone, churches have changed in nature toward the worse.  Very often for what are perceived as short term gains, churches regress.  Even when they seem to improve in the short term, it's not good, because God isn't receiving the glory for something men concocted.

Very often, when someone comes up with a new strategy or method, I've noticed, he thanks the Lord for it.  Many say that God revealed it to them or gave the idea to them.  Then they talk about how well it has worked, what success they have seen.  I believe this is a form of continuationism, speaking about a new method as a new revelation from God.  Often the explained or perceived success is tied to God having given it to them.  The idea that God is revealing these new strategies or methods to them means that they have some kind of special unction or blessing with or from God.

If a new evangelism idea works, the inventor or "receiver" of the new method or strategy then might promote it in various ways, including at the conference.  This new innovation will transform or improve your church.  Your church will do better than before if you put the new idea into practice. "It's a good thing this man had this special connection to God to be given this great new idea that men had not yet received.  It's obviously working because God gave it to him.  You should get in on this working and see this success given by God."  Other men covet the success, and so, eager to imitate it, they attend and then enact the method.  More short term success begets even more short term success, validating the method.  This is how these methods spread.  "The new method is a key to success and you can have it too, if you use it."

What I've described in the previous paragraph has occurred again and again, now one generation after the next.  There isn't less of this activity today.  It's everywhere -- in evangelicalism, fundamentalism, and among independents.  It will keep going if we do not repudiate it everywhere we see it.

Nothing is new in actual evangelism.  Actual evangelism was settled with the completion of the New Testament.  It has everything that we need.

Lack of True Shepherding Instinct to Protect

When you read Jesus' description of himself as a Shepherd, the Shepherd, in John 10, you see the absolute, vital, and definitional characteristic to protect His sheep.  His sheep are in the fold of false shepherds or unqualified hirelings, one hundred percent susceptible to the intentions of wolves and thieves and robbers.  He leads them out.  His gives His life for His sheep.  On the other hand, the hireling flees.

I have something in common with Jesus in that I am a shepherd, a small ''s" version, an under-shepherd, but a shepherd nonetheless.  There is interest in the shepherding of the true, the best, the model Shepherd, Jesus.  Sure, He leads His sheep to pasture.  However, most characteristic of the Shepherding of Jesus in the classic shepherd passage of John 10 is His protection.  He separates His sheep unto safety away from the possibility of harm.  Before they can be taken or injured or killed, He brings them out of their vulnerability to a place of safety.  If the threat arises, He stands up to it, even giving His life.

The shepherds of modern church growth technique recruit wolves.  Jesus' sheep know His voice.  His voice is the test, the directive through the door and out of danger.  His voice is all about getting into safety.  2016 shepherding offers an allure that broadens the appeal to more than the protective voice.  It's not just hirelings asleep at the opening to the fold.  It's a multi-beastial invitation.  The walls are lowered for easier access either way.

The hireling is soft, a sort of metro-shepherd, who vanishes at the possibility of protecting.  He's got great excuses though.  Not only is he soft, but he's sentimental.  He doesn't take criticism well.  You can only be positive, which is akin to his philosophy of protection.  It's not really about protecting the sheep but about protecting his job or reputation or popularity.

The true shepherd would want only his sheep in the fold.  He's not about adding anything and everything that can breathe, as long as it possesses anything between two to four hooves or paws or appendages.  And they are only his sheep.  His fold isn't designed for whatever furry thing happens to come along.  He wants only his sheep.

In this age, it just isn't popular to be a protective shepherd.  A true shepherd doesn't mind a challenge to his safety practices, some quality control.  I'm noticing that men who call themselves true shepherd's don't want to be questioned.  Many times they claim autonomy.  This is my flock.  Is that what's really important?  That you have a flock?   That you're in charge of it or that you actually shepherd that flock?  I wonder about any man, who calls himself a shepherd, who has that position, and he can't handle a direct conversation from someone who does care about him, who actually loves him.  How could anyone expect that shepherd to deal with actual threats, when he can't handle evaluation from someone not on attack, who just replays the voice of the True Shepherd?

If you had a shepherd's conference, and the leaders of the conference couldn't listen to scriptural counsel, what can be expected of sheep under their care?  Are shepherds such a dainty lot today that they must be handled in such a delicate fashion?  Maybe its a hireling conference for hired hands posing as shepherds.  It's possible I'm referring to any number of pastor's conferences, but I'm talking about thin-skinned unaffiliateds too, who think their ideas and their voices of personal opinion read as genuine shepherd instruction.

Because acting shepherds won't endure any sort of appraisal, the quality of shepherding goes down. The protection of sheep depreciates.  Flocks weaken.  The next generation either shrinks, dies off, or finds itself in the fold of a false shepherd.

Keswick's History: Keswick Theology's Rise and Development in an Analysis and Critique of So Great Salvation by Stephen Barabas, part 2 of 5

Barabas also recognizes Asa Mahan, leader of the Oberlin perfectionism, as a Keswick antecedent.[1]  The Oberlin perfectionism of Asa Mahan and his mentor Charles Finney were indeed important to the rise of the Keswick system,[2] and were recognized by Keswick as essential historical background for the genesis of their doctrine.  Thus, in 1872 Mahan moved to England and “directly influenced the Keswick movement by his leadership in the Oxford and Brighton Conferences that immediately preceded the first Keswick Convention.”[3]  Mahan’s books were widely propagated in Higher Life circles, so that “Keswick writers . . . often mention or quote Asa Mahan . . . and Charles G. Finney.”[4]  Indeed, “none . . . of . . . the ‘conversational meetings’ at Oxford . . . . was of more interest than that . . . under the guidance of Asa Mahan,” who strongly taught orally the necessity of Christians receiving Spirit baptism, as he had already proclaimed in his book The Baptism of the Holy Ghost.[5]  As a consequence of Mahan’s “pressing upon” people, “[d]ay after day,” the necessity of Christians receiving Spirit baptism, “a[n] . . . experience we should not and must not be without,” “many . . . realised in his conversational meetings the baptism” and entered into Mahan’s experience.[6]  Likewise, at “the Brighton Convention (of which he was one of the conveners) Mahan directed a series of sectional meetings . . . crowded to overflowing . . . [e]ach afternoon,”[7] proclaiming post-conversion Spirit baptism.  He carried the message of the necessity of a post-conversion “Baptism of the Holy Ghost . . . to the Oxford (1874) and Brighton (1875) meetings from which the Keswick movements emerged . . . he spoke and led very popular seminars on the subject.”[8] His emphasis led many into his second blessing Baptism experience,[9] as Robert P. Smith and others led many to adopt the doctrine of the “physical thrills” of a post-conversion erotic Spirit baptism through the propagation of this doctrine at Oxford and elsewhere.  Indeed, as Mahan and Robert P. Smith explained, the “object of the . . . Meeting at Oxford . . . was to lead Christians to . . . [be] baptised with the Holy Ghost.”[10]  Furthermore, William “Boardman . . . link[ed] up with Mahan to conduct revivals in both America and Britain, and both were to have a direct influence on the spiritual and theological direction of the Keswick Conferences.”[11]

Mahan was “the major architect . . . of the controversial ‘Oberlin Perfectionism.’”[12]  In addition to teaching “the immediate attainment of entire sanctification by a special act of faith directed to this end,”[13] he denied the doctrine of original sin[14] and joined Finney, his mentor and colleague at Obelin College, in uniting perfectionism with many other heresies.[15]  Mahan’s development of the post-conversion crisis of sanctification and Spirit baptism contributed greatly to the “rise of modern Pentecostalism[.] . . . [I]t is not surprising that modern Pentecostalism should sprout in th[e] well prepared ground” of the heterodox Oberlin holiness and pneumatological doctrines powerfully promulgated by Mahan. Nor is one surprised that, through his influence, “there seem to be several instances of [tongues] . . . in holiness circles between 1870 and the outbreak of Pentecostalism in 1900.”[16]

Finney, whose theology helped to destroy the Second Great Awakening and hinder subsequent revival,[17] likewise taught at Oberlin a Pelagian view of sin while denying substitutionary atonement in favor of the governmental atonement heresy,[18] among other damnable heresies.  For Finney, the “atonement . . . was not a commercial transaction . . . [not] the payment of a debt . . . [but] was intended as a satisfaction of public justice.”[19]  He also wrote:

Moral depravity . . . cannot consist . . . in a sinful constitution . . . [or] an attribute of human nature . . . [m]oral depravity is not then to be accounted for by ascribing it to a nature or constitution sinful in itself.  To talk of a sinful nature, or sinful constitution, in the sense of physical sinfulness, is to ascribe sinfulness to the Creator, who is the author of nature. . . . What ground is there for the assertion that Adam’s nature became in itself sinful by the fall?  This is a groundless, not to say ridiculous, assumption, and an absurdity. . . . This doctrine is . . . an abomination alike to God and the human intellect.[20]

Furthermore, Finney’s denial of substitutionary atonement led him to reject justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ to teach salvation by personal obedience: “If [Christ] obeyed the law as our substitute, then why should our own return to personal obedience be insisted upon as a sine qua non of our salvation?”[21]  Finney plainly stated that the truth of justification by faith alone based on the imputed righteousness of Christ (Romans 3:19-28) was a different gospel from the one he believed and taught.  By rejecting the true gospel, Finney indicated that he was an accursed false teacher who suffered eternal damnation (Galatians 1:8-9).  In his Systematic Theology, Finney accurately summarized the true gospel and then plainly rejected it:

Those who hold that justification by imputed righteousness is a forensic proceeding, take a view of final or ultimate justification, according with their view of the transaction.  With them, faith receives an imputed righteousness, and a judicial justification.  The first act of faith, according to them, introduces the sinner into this relation, and obtains for him a perpetual justification.  They maintain that after this first act of faith it is impossible for the sinner to come into condemnation; that, being once justified, he is always thereafter justified, whatever he may do; indeed that he is never justified by grace, as to sins that are past, upon condition that he ceases to sin; that Christ’s righteousness is the ground, and that his own present obedience is not even a condition of his justification, so that, in fact, his own present or future obedience to the law of God is, in no case, and in no sense, a sine qua non[22] of his justification, present or ultimate. Now this is certainly another gospel from the one I am inculcating.  It is not a difference merely upon some speculative or theoretic point.  It is a point fundamental to the gospel and to salvation, if any one can be.  Let us therefore see which of these is the true gospel.  I object to this view of justification[.] . . . The doctrine of a literal imputation of Adam’s sin to all his posterity . . . [and] of the literal imputation of Christ’s righteousness or obedience to the elect, and the consequent perpetual justification of all that are converted from the first exercise of faith, whatever their subsequent life may be—I say I regard these dogmas as fabulous, and better befitting a romance than a system of theology.[23]

Finney called men to surrender to Christ because, as befit his doctrine of salvation by personal obedience and rejection of the eternal security of the believer, perfect consecration of life and his version of sinless perfection were an essential condition for entrance into heaven:

We shall see that perseverance in obedience to the end of life is also a condition of justification . . . present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and His service, is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God. . . .  [T]he penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full-hearted consecration continues.[24]

Mahan and Finney’s false gospel were intimately bound up with their perfectionism.  The perfectionist doctrine of sanctification promulgated by Finney and Mahan was very influential in the development of the Keswick theology, both through Mahan’s personal preaching and through the books of both men:

The links between Keswick and New School revivalism [Oberlin perfectionism] were many. Both Mahan and Boardman’s involvement in the Oxford and Brighton conferences helped unify the higher life aspirations arising from the “Oberlizing of England.”  Furthermore, the Reverend John Moore was close friends with Charles Finney, a relationship which no doubt had influence on his son, C. G. Moore, one of the early Keswick speakers.[25]

The rationale of Old School opposition to Finney and Mahan is noteworthy:

Old School advocates . . . opposed the “second blessing” heresy [of Finney and Mahan] because [they] believed it not only violated the . . . doctrine of depravity, but that it adopted the modernist reliance of human ability. The concern of Old School advocates was that New School proponents were being unduly influenced by German liberal theology, particularly in the elevation of humanist philosophy. . . . New School theology was not only influenced by the rational pragmatism of the nineteenth century, particularly in the new measure procedures, but . . . the emphasis upon human responsibility in [the] New School . . .was the direct result of modernist thought.[26]

Indeed, “[f]rom . . . the person and work of Charles Finney . . . the line is a straight one that leads through the holiness movement directly into Pentecostalism.”[27]  Such were Asa Mahan and Charles Finney, architects of the Oberlin perfectionism and antecedents to the Keswick theology.  Sadly, Stephen Barabas, with criminal neglect, suppresses, fails to warn of, and breathes not a whisper about the heresies of Keswick antecedents such as Thomas Upham and Asa Mahan, just as he entirely ignores the heresies, false gospel, and demonism associated with Hannah and Robert P. Smith.

See here for this entire study.

TDR

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[1]              Pg. 16, So Great Salvation, Barabas.

[2]              Compare A. T. Pierson’s recognition of Finney as a Higher Life antecedent and promulgator of the libertarian “liberty of the Human Will, in salvation and sanctification,” so that all effectual influences of the Holy Spirit on the human will, and compatibilist views of freedom, were rejected (pg. 10, Forward Movements of the Last Half Century, Pierson).

[3]              Pgs. 98-99, Let Go and Let God?  A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology, Andrew Naselli; pgs. 18-24, So Great Salvation, Barabas.

[4]              Pg. 251, Vision of the Disinherited:  The Making of American Pentecostalism, Robert Anderson. 

[5]              Compare pgs. 49, 81-83, 141-143, 192, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874. Chicago:  Revell, 1874.

[6]              Pg. 143, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874. Chicago:  Revell, 1874; cf. pgs. 176, 192, 215, 241, 278, 333, 341, 356, 360, 369, 371-372, 376, 381.

[7]              See “Asa Mahan and the Development of American Holiness Theology,” Donald Dayton.  Wesleyan Theological Journal 9:1 (Spring 1974): 60-69; cf. pg. 141, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874. Chicago: Revell, 1874 & pgs. 383-385, Record of the Convention for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness Held at Brighton, May 29^th to June 7^th, 1875. Brighton: W. J. Smith, 1875.

[8]              Pgs. 46-47, Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, ed. Synan.  Capitalization is retained from the original.

[9]              Pgs. 384-385, 457, 466-469,  Record of the Convention for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness Held at Brighton.

[10]             Pg. 19, Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, Held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874. Chicago: Revell, 1874.

[11]             “Wesleyan and Reformed Impulses in the Keswick and Pentecostal Movements,” Peter Althouse.  Pneuma Foundation.  http://www.pneumafoundation.org.

[12]             “Asa Mahan and the Development of American Holiness Theology,” Donald W. Dayton.  Wesleyan Theological Journal 9:1 (Spring 1974): 60-69.

[13]             Pg. 67, Perfectionism Vol. 2, Warfield.

[14]             Pg. 126, Perfectionism Vol. 2, Warfield.

[15]             Compare pgs. 1-218, Perfectionism, Vol. 2, Warfield.

[16]             “Asa Mahan and the Development of American Holiness Theology,” Donald W. Dayton.

[17]             See “Considerations on Revival in American History,” by Thomas Ross.  Elec. acc. http://faithsaves.net.

[18]             Compare pg. 102, the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Walter Elwell, ed., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1984, and pgs. 312-330, Lectures in Systematic Theology, Henry C. Thiessen, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949, for a statement and a refutation of the governmental theory.

[19]             Pgs. 219-222, Finney’s Systematic Theology, Charles Finney.

[20]             Pgs. 249-250, 261-263, Finney’s Systematic Theology, Charles Finney.

[21]             Pg. 218, Finney’s Systematic Theology, Charles Finney.

[22]             Latin for “an essential condition.”

[23]             Pgs. 369-371, Finney’s Systematic Theology, Charles Finney.

[24]             Pgs. 367, 369, Finney’s Systematic Theology, Charles Finney.

[25]             “Wesleyan and Reformed Impulses in the Keswick and Pentecostal Movements,” Peter Althouse.  Pneuma Foundation.  http://www.pneumafoundation.org.  Quotation marks from Althouse’s quote of Bundy have been removed.

[26]             “Wesleyan and Reformed Impulses in the Keswick and Pentecostal Movements,” Peter Althouse.  Pneuma Foundation.

[27]             Pg. 42, A Theology of the Holy Spirit, Bruner.

The Keswick-Continuationist Prayer Equivalent Everywhere in Christianity

For some of you, when I write "Keswick" or "continuationst," it doesn't mean much to you.  Some other related names are "Charismatic," "second-blessing," "revivalism," "higher life," "let-go-and-let-God," "Christian perfectionism."  I could add a general philosophical term, like mysticism, because that fits too.  Mysticism connects it with the Babylonian mystery religion found in Corinth and seen from the false teachers targeted by 1 and 2 Corinthians.  Other concepts then relate to the ones I've already listed, such as "power evangelism" and "name it and claim it."  Each of these terms overlaps with each of the others, but each also have a nuance of difference.

"This stuff," which is what I'm going to call the above stuff for this post, has spread all over Christianity to the point where it's become in certain ways indistinguishable from it.  People now just look at this stuff like it is normal for Christianity.  It's not considered unchristian anymore and even more christian than what is actually Christian.  It's everywhere, and if you point it out, you're often seen as unloving.  The feeling or the experience, some result that goes along with it, is seen as some kind of movement or power or baptism or filling or manifestation of the Holy Spirit.  Whole books have been written on and against this stuff, but as I see it, it's everywhere, even among those who say they dislike it.  It's that rampant.

One should not expect any of this stuff from those who call themselves or consider themselves reformed or Calvinist, but it's not true.  What or who is supposed to be the opposite of this stuff has itself or themselves appropriated it with and through its associations, music, techniques, methods, and strategies.  What got my attention came from something I got in my email inbox that contained material from a very well known conservative evangelical, reformed or Calvinistic group, which sells the Puritan hard drive, called, Still Water Revival Books.

The Charismatic movement or continuationism says that sign gifts are for today, those being tongues, healings, and miracles.  They have their "healings," their fraudulent healings, that are not the signs of Jesus and the Apostles.  They have their miracles, fantastic events that supposedly occur and maybe massive numbers of salvation, at least professions.  All of these tell them that they're of God and that the Holy Spirit is with them. Both Charismatics and non-Charismatics cannot both be right, and Charismatics are not right.  You can see that in scripture.  Still Water Revival Books referred to a sermon on prayer by Paul Washer, where he mentions George Mueller and J. Hudson Taylor, and they tell a story apparently about George Mueller.

So non-Charismatic, non-continuationists, the others, they don't have the sign gifts.  They don't believe it.  They don't have healings and miracles.  They don't.  But yet they do.  They as good as have them, their own version of them.  They do in numbers of different ways that I've been talking about here in several different posts over the last decade.  People need to recognize it.  They need to eschew this stuff, all forms of it, all of which is deceit.  They are as much the "seeking after signs" that are as wicked as anything in any form of this stuff.  They are "acceptable versions" of this stuff.

Jesus said that those who seek after this stuff are faithless.  Faithlessness fuels it.  It isn't faith or more power, but a lack of security.  This stuff provides a kind of authentication of Christianity to them, letting them know that what they have is real.  The Bible is real.  Christianity is real.  God is real. Jesus is real.  It's all real.  It's not helped along by this stuff.  The Bible is good enough.  It is sufficient.

In the title of the post, I've mentioned prayer, because that was what the email was about that I got in my inbox.  In the Charismatic movement, you have these "healers."  People being physically healed is a very powerful thought.  You see it in the Bible.  The Charismatics have their "healing."  It's not as though the non-charismatics do not have theirs.

The non-Charismatics, supposedly non-continuationists even, have praying for the sick, praying for someone with a brain tumor, praying for someone in surgery, all of that.  Theoretically in and with these prayers, like what is supposedly occurring in Charismatic healing, God is doing the healing.  Like the Charismatic healers, these prayers, even though they are said to be God, they won't result in someone getting a new leg who has lost his leg.  I'm saying they are very similar to Charismatic healing and they fill church prayer lists, minus things like blindness either way. The idea here is that someone prays and someone is healed.  It's quite a coup, an amazing offer, to propose the possibility that someone might be healed as a result of a prayer today.  It is very powerful to the one who anticipates a healing.  I consider this too to be a church growth method.  Everyone gets sick.  That's a big audience.

Healing is not all.  You will also read what are reported as miracles of prayer.  Here's what I read from Still Water Revival Books:

Once, while crossing the Atlantic on the SS Sardinian in August 1877, his ship ran into thick fog. He explained to the captain that he needed to be in Quebec by the following afternoon, but Captain Joseph E Dutton (later known as "Holy Joe") said that he was slowing the ship down for safety and Müller's appointment would have to be missed. Müller asked to use the chartroom to pray for the lifting of the fog. The captain followed him down, claiming it would be a waste of time. After Müller prayed, the captain started to pray, but Müller stopped him; partly because of the captain's unbelief, but mainly because he believed the prayer had already been answered. When the two men went back to the bridge, they found the fog had lifted. The captain became a Christian shortly afterwards. Müller's faith in God strengthened day by day and he spent hours in daily prayer and Bible reading -- indeed, it was his practice, in later years, to read through the entire Bible four times a year.

I would say to anyone, "Pray."  That's not all there is to it, however.  People need to look at what the Bible says about prayer.  A lot of what people think about prayer, they didn't get from the Bible. They read a story like above, and what are they supposed to think?  It isn't scripture.  What do they think about Mueller?  Mueller had special power.  He could accomplish things no normal human, no normal Christian, could.  He had a faith they don't have, and a power they don't have.  He got the second blessing that they covet.  He could get fog to lift right when he needed it.  How far could he go?  Could he he pray for the ship to move two or three times faster?  Could the ship fly?  Could Mueller fly?  Jesus walked on water.

What is it that holds people back?  They don't believe.  Don't believe what?   Do they not believe that God can lift fog?  Or do they not believe that they should pray for fog to be lifted?  Is not praying for fog to be lifted -- is that faithless?  Is fog lifting a basis of faith?  Should we agree that we should pray the same or that we're missing something if we don't?  Where is Mueller's faith in England today?  Why not?

I'm not saying that what I'm reporting about prayer is the worst of this stuff.  What I was reading from Still Water Revival Books and even from Paul Washer in his sermon on prayer was this stuff.  I am saying that it got my attention, because it reminded me that this type of thinking is everywhere in Christianity, including with the reformed and Calvinists.

Evangelical Mumbo Jumbo: Ziplines and Worship Wars

For regular readers, I've started on certain series, that I think I will finish, especially speaking of the one, French Protestants and the Waldenses: The Church and the Text of the New Testament (parts one and deux).  I've definitely not come to a conclusion there.  There are a lot of subjects I'm wanting to cover, based on reading I've done, but I'm going to go to a continuation of a dealing with some sessions from the recent Shepherd's Conference.

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In one session, Phil Johnson reported that one evangelical preacher tried to attract interest by starting his sermon with a zipline to the platform and in another he began with the following disclaimer:

This is the seminar titled, Young, Restless, But Not Reformed.  They've asked me to evaluate the New Calvinism, and if you read that title and came to the session thinking that I'm going to deliver a scathing critique, you might be disappointed.  And I also noticed that a lot of the books that deal with the New Calvinism, and I've read several of them -- almost all of them have quite a lot to say about music and worship styles -- and so if you're hoping that I'm going to say something either positive or critical about worship and music styles, I'm not.  I'll leave that to others.  I really have enough to say without firing a salvo into the worship wars, but most of what I'm going to say is in the affirmative.

Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, John MacArthur's radio program, gave two of the sessions at the 2016 Shepherd's Conference in Southern California.  His two addresses dealt with similar subject matter that concern him in evangelicalism.  In his previous general session, Johnson took the first five verses of 2 Corinthians 4 as a text, especially parking on v. 2, what he calls "a very potent one sentence manifesto in which defines how biblical preaching should be done."  He continues:

[T]here is a lot of really bad advice offered to pastors these days.  Preachers are constantly being told that they need to spice up their preaching.  You can't just explain the scriptures and expect people to obey, and just exhort them and rebuke them and -- you can't do that.  You have to add gimmicks and attention getters to your messages.  We actually have preachers nowadays who are so desperate to grab attention or impress young people that they will make their entrance into the pulpit on a zipline.  Seriously, look it up on youtube.  And it's not just one guy.  This is apparently a thing.  I don't know how much that costs either.  I didn't even consider it.  I imagine it's expensive.

I agree with Johnson's assessment about using a zipline on Sunday in church for a sermon.  Johnson charges the zipline gimmick with the violation of Paul's teaching, which says in the King James Version:

But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

He quotes the English Standard Version, which reads:

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

Johnson is sure enough to preach in this session that the Word of God is being subjugated to human cunning with these methods in preaching.  He next refers to the Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren:

Rick Warren was telling us, "You cannot start with a biblical text."  These were his words.  "You cannot start with a biblical text, expecting the unchurched to be fascinated by it.  You  must first capture their attention."  And today that approach is regarded as received wisdom.

Johnson refers to Rick Warren as a bad example with a bad reason.  In the same book, Warren though wrote about choice of music in a church plant:

The style of music you choose to use in your services will be one of the most critical (and controversial) decisions you make in the life of your church. It may also be the most influential factor in determining who your church reaches for Christ and whether or not your church grows. You must match your music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach.

You've got preaching and you've got worship.  Phil Johnson is sure, very, very sure, that ziplining preachers violate 2 Corinthians 4:2.  I don't see "zipline" in 2 Corinthians 4:2.  He won't say anything critical about music styles or fire salvos into worship wars.

In 2010, Phil Johnson wrote the following:

Let me say this plainly: It is a sin to impose on others any "spiritual" standard that has no biblical basis. When God gave the law to Israel, He told them, "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you" (Deuteronomy 4:2). And, "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it" (Deuteronomy 12:32). 

The same principle is repeated in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul was rebuking the Corinthians for their sectarianism, saying "I am of Paul"; "I am of Apollos," and so on. His rebuke to them includes these words in 1 Corinthians 4:6: "I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written." 

That is a good guideline for how we should exercise our Christian liberty: Don't go beyond what is written in Scripture. Don't make rules to impose on others; don't devise rituals and forms of worship that are not authorized; and don't speak on such matters where God has been silent. That's the whole principle of Sola Scriptura applied to Christian living. If we really believe Scripture is a sufficient rule for the Christian life, then we don't have to add anything to it.

Something Nathan Busenitz, on staff with Johnson, wrote at Pulpit Magazine in 2008 about music parallels what Johnson wrote in 2010:

The Bible does not prescribe a particular style of music as being solely acceptable to God, nor does it condemn any particular styles. But it does contain principles that we can apply to any situation and ascertain what course of action will please God. . . .  Some churches and Christian schools teach that any music with a drumbeat or electric guitar is worldly and sinful. We do not do so at Grace Church because the Bible tells us "not to exceed what is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6). We cannot add to the Scripture without subtracting from its effectiveness in our lives. If we elevate personal preference and man-made tradition to the level of God's Word (Mark 7:6-15), we risk entangling people in the bondage of legalism and diverting them from the true issues of sanctification (Romans 14:17).

I don't see "ziplines" in scripture and yet Johnson's application, according to him, does not violate sola scriptura.  In that case, he "does not "exceed what is written.'"  Take Busenitz's first sentence and use "preaching" instead of "music."

The Bible does not prescribe a particular style of preaching as being solely acceptable to God, nor does it condemn any particular styles.

Johnson and Busenitz both pervert the doctrine of sola scriptura.  The reason music can be judged is because of scripture.  Scripture does apply to music, sans lyrics.  Scripture does apply to style of preaching too.  Ziplines violate scripture, even though ziplines are not written in scripture.

Johnson sounds quite proud of himself for not firing a salvo into the worship wars and criticizing musical styles, but he squeezes every bit of rhetorical flourish and style to repudiate ziplines.  The impression one might take from the contrast is that worship is less important to Johnson and Busenitz than preaching.  They aren't very picky about the worship God hears, but very picky about the preaching people hear.  People take a high priority.

Here's my take.  Johnson defends John MacArthur's preaching.  I applaud that.  Johnson defends the musical styles of his church.  He contradicts himself in doing so, but the common ground here is his defense of himself.  To do so, he and Busentiz and his church twist sola scriptura, pervert the meaning of 1 Corinthians 4:6 in its context, greatly harm the discernment of Christians, and offend God with their worship.

Phil Johnson and others have learned something that Rick Warren did before he wrote the Purpose Driven Church:  music is very important to numerical growth of a church.  No salvos will be fired on music -- message to New Calvinists:  you're safe with us.  It's going to be risky, but they just have to cut down their ziplines and all will be well.  Rock and roll trap set stays; zipline goes.

Rock music violates numerous biblical passages.  This is not an arbitrary interpretation or application of God's Word.  God hates rock music.  He doesn't accept it as worship.

The experience of the rock music is the threshold through which victims enter the massive lie and fraud of the Charismatic movement.  It's like someone said in 2013:

I’m convinced that the contemporary style of charismatic music is the entry point for Charismatic theology into churches.

Whoever said that seems like someone could and should judge styles.  Later he said:

The contemporary evangelical church has very little interest in theology and doctrine, so you’re going to have a tough sell. It’s about style. And style is the Trojan Horse that lets Charismatics in the church. Because once you let the music in, the movement follows. It all of a sudden becomes common. We sound like the Charismatics, sing like they do, have the same emotional feelings that they have. It’s a small step from doing the same music to buying into the movement. So the tough thing is you’re going back to a church that is thinking like that. It’s hard to make sound doctrine the issue when style is much more the interest of the leaders of the church.

At the same time, he said:

I would go so far as to say that evangelical noncharismatic churches are using music that is unacceptable to draw people in. They’re using the music of the world to suck people in as if somehow people would get saved through the music. The two have no connection. This is so close to what’s in a normal evangelical environment that it’s a very small step to getting sucked in, because the style is the same.

Those quotes come from John MacArthur at the Strange Fire Conference.   The New Calvinists won't be judged for their music, even if it is a thoroughfare to Charismaticism, even if it is a pragmatic cunning, Finney-esque new measure, to lure people in to hear their Calvinistic expositional preaching.

You are who you worship.  Who you worship is how you worship.  People don't know God as seen that they think He's fine with rock music.  He isn't.   This continues the mumbo jumbo of evangelicals.  How cunning.

Islam in America: Violent and Bloodthirsty, or Peaceful?

My Experience With Islam in America

            Islam is supposedly a religion of peace.  American Muslims, at least, are supposedly peace loving, Americanized and Westernized people.  The vast numbers of Quranic commands to kill non-Muslims are supposedly irrelevant to these American followers of Allah who supposedly put the Constitution above the Quran.  Is it so?  There are certainly secular Muslims who care more about making money and living like rich people than about what the Quran says.  However, there is a vast and growing body of already extant evidence demonstrating that far, far too many Western Muslims, and majorities of Muslims in many nations worldwide, still believe the Quran and thus tend towards violence.  To that body of evidence may the following true story provide some further light.  The person involved in the record below will remain anonymous, and statements in the comment section speculating on the person involved will probably be deleted.  The story will be told in the first person.  It illustrates Islam in the American heartland.

The Testimony—What Muslims in America Are Doing

            Not that long ago I was in the Milwaukee area, on a public sidewalk, passing out The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible outside of a Muslim gathering at a particular mosque in the region.  Recognizing that “a soft answer turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1), I sought to be especially polite and kind to the Muslims there as they left the mosque in multitudes.  I was by no means doing anything to whip up the Muslims, as some foolish people in Christendom do at Muslim gatherings.  As I respectfully offered them the literature, some of them cursed at me.  One of them spat at me.  Some of them ripped it up.  (Some of them took it also, and I do not know what they did with it—hopefully they read it and God worked in their life toward them rejecting Allah and receiving Jehovah’s eternal Son, Jesus Christ.)  One of them told me that there were crazy people there and I might be in danger.  After a while, a sizable group of young Muslim men told me that they were going to kill me.  They were not kidding, either.  As they were approaching me, a private security vehicle with its lights flashing “just happened” to pull up, and it remained on the site the rest of the time I was passing out the Christian pamphlet.  The vehicle stayed there for about two hours while the young Muslim men circled around and around in a car to see if the security vehicle was still there or if they could act out their desire to do me serious bodily injury or send me to the grave.  This private security vehicle was God’s answer to my prayers, and the prayers of others, for protection before I went.  After about everyone had left the mosque, I left also.

            Politely passing out that pamphlet to those Muslims was the most dangerous evangelistic endeavor I have ever undertaken.  I have passed out tracts to gatherings of people of many different religions.  I have preached on the street and passed out literature to gatherings of militant sodomites, in front of drunks, and with various other rabble-rousers.  While sometimes these people have made threats (sodomites, for example, have burned tracts, said they would kill me, and done other similar things), none, I repeat, none of these evangelistic opportunities has been as dangerous as politely passing out pamphlets to Muslims in the American heartland.  This is my testimony to the character of Islam in America.

            Interestingly, I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) one time—perhaps a mistake in itself—and the radio station wanted people to call in to give their story of their encounters with Muslim neighbors.  Everything was supposed to be light, happy, and frothy.  I called and told the person vetting the calls what my story was.  Not surprisingly, I was not allowed on air.  It did not fit the P. C. fairy-tale narrative about Islam.
          We should use the freedoms that we have in the United States to boldly evangelize the Muslims that are here—we would not have that liberty in countries where they are the majority.  We should also ask God to protect us and take sensible steps to protect ourselves when we do so (e. g., have someone recording the evangelism on a camera, have someone ready to call 911, perhaps even wear bullet proof vests or other protection, although, based on Matthew 5:44, the example in Acts 7, etc. I do not believe it is best to carry weapons for self-defense when preaching the gospel, although carrying them for general protection is certainly Biblical, Luke 22:36-38.  If Stephen had used a concealed weapon in Acts 7 things would haven been not a little different!)  We should also consider what we are doing to our nation when we bring into our country and make citizens those who believe in the Quran.  Muslim immigration can be vastly limited by simply passing a law that states that countries with a high level of support for terrorism cannot send people here (with an exception for persecuted minorities such as Christians).  Islam does not even need to be mentioned in the law.  By passing such a law, those who believe in the anti-Biblical and anti-American system of Sharia can be kept out to a large extent, while those that are already here can be boldly evangelized.