Subversive Christian Unity

Glum Christianity is false religion. Sour, suspicious, fearful of small religious errors yet committing colossal uncharity, it is nothing our Lord has called us to. A certain amount of Roman Catholicism shows itself to be false worship because it is colored by fear not joy. You see grim Catholics laboring along with mechanistic ideas of religious observance, fearful of making mistakes. But perfect love casts out fear and the Holy Spirit wants to make us joyous. He wants us free and happy so that we can serve others spontaneously, and cooperatively, and sometimes in original ways that do not fit into our stereotypical patterns. We cannot be original if we are afraid. It is also a problem that afflicts parts the Protestant world. Roman Catholicism has had that heavy spirit within it at least since the late medieval era and some kinds of Protestantism brought it with them when they split off. The lack of freedom it brings makes unity impossible with those of other churches, because ...

We are nearly a thousand years on from the East-West Orthodox schism, and coming up on five hundred years since the North-South Protestant schism. Ever since, and for all this time, the theologians have been working on arguments against unity not for it. They have strengthened their positions, circled their wagons and dug foxholes. You can never trust a theologian with anything important. He will forget what he is about, set his teacup down somewhere, forget where he put it, and go off and hatch a controversy. Think about it and you will see why he is not very useful for the work of peacemaking. His job description is to create and defend arguments. Well, we have been arguing now for a thousand years, often over the selfsame questions with which we began. If you are seeking a peacemaker, do not look among the men who specialize in arguments .

We are living in an era full of boastful, self-righteous evil, it's not the kind of thing you can argue with rationally--as it is irrational — Kendal Black (@KendalBlack) October 16, 2014

It is a very old trick of the devil to charge God with sins of omission. Where was God, that he allowed this or that bad thing to happen? Why did God allow you to be hurt or disappointed, if he watches over you? Or, more crassly, why didn't you get what you prayed and prayed for? Is God...even there? More that one person has ended his walk toward faith this way: "I prayed and I told God what he needed to do, and he didn't do it, so it must be there is no God." The devil and all the demons have a good horselaugh, slapping each others' backs and hooting, when a mortal says that. The oldest demonic lie of which we have any record is, though, " Did God really say ...?" The devil never tires of that one. If he can undermine people's confidence in the truth and authority of God's word, all sorts of devilish things begin to happen. The bad repercussions may go on for a very long time, once the habit of rejecting God's moral judgment and preferr...

The entrance exam for membership in God's kingdom has only a single question on it, and that question is true/false. Is Jesus who he says he is? (Or more formally:  Is Jesus who and what is claimed, in the New Testament and in the testimony of the historic church?) Answer yes and you are in. Your life after that will include some trials and troubles to show whether you really meant it, but those who answer "true" and do so truly are the Christians the Bible talks about. There are some people who answer "false." These days Christianity has many detractors who attempt to critique it. They have the facts of the faith before them but reject it. Little need be said of them; they will cease to trouble us by and by. Where we are going they cannot follow. There are some also who say no out of indifference to the subject matter; they hear about it, they shrug and think the matter silly, and take no interest. How, they ask, are they to credit claims made about unseen...

If the gospel is indeed once given for all (Jude 1:3), then we do not have the option to adjust what it says to suit us better. If a thing is the truth, it is true whatever you think of it. If you have trouble with what it says, welcome to the club, for parts of the gospel are challenging to all of us. We may not all be challenged by the same parts, but all of us have to make some concessions and accept changes in ourselves as we become Christ's followers. If that were not true, there would be no reason for moral teachings to be given to us, because we would already be Christlike. That is a point that seems useful to emphasize--that we all need to change in the face of unchanging truth. There are many in today's church world who see it differently, apparently not believing in immutability as a characteristic of divine truth. I think their error is very great, and extremely dangerous to them. It is also destructive to unity among Christians. If you have one group that accep...

This idea of an apolitical clergy could have big implications in the quest for Christian unity. While browsing among the Tubers, I came across these fellows saying some things that are similar to what I said in my previous post . It is agreeable to see my observations corroborated. Moreover, one of them goes beyond that to outline a case that clergy should not be political players, on either side of this or that issue. That makes sense to me: The laity can and should have their political voices, but is it really proper for clergy to become involved, as if to place a religious mantle upon the cause du jour? He thinks the clergy should keep hands off when it comes to politics. It's an interesting idea, and quite novel in present day American politics. This idea of an apolitical clergy could have big implications in the quest for Christian unity. If the idea is that you hear of spiritual and timeless truths in the church, and if you want to pursue the passing fancies of ...

If you have a higher belief than Christianity, and you certainly do if you will bend Christianity to fit it, what do you need church for? America's Christian left, and similar movements elsewhere, want to adjust Christianity to conform it more closely to the dictates of political correctness, socialism, pacifism, environmentalism or the cause du jour. Of course if you do that you make the gospel less than what it truly is. The leftists see it as an improvement, though. That is the motivation when, for example, Christianity's traditional and biblically rooted aversion to homosexual conduct is set aside. I use that example simply because it is a hot topic at the moment. Other examples can easily be thought of and more will be along next week, as the left reimagines Christianity into something more in line with their ideas and preferences. After all, if one deeply feels the tenets of leftism to be true, one will feel that the gospel ought to be in agreement. They have the m...

The great J.I. Packer takes on the difference between the primary, essential doctrines of the faith and secondary issues on which faithful Christians may disagree. I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about the difference between essentials and nonessentials , and I was glad to find something about that so clearly and concisely stated. The context of his remarks is the schism between liberal and traditional Anglicans, and the snippet posted here is a part of a longer discussion about that. The rest of the discussion can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_vm4UucJOTP8l4rR_Oi6Iw

There is some question, on the face of the evidence, whether God reestablished the Jews in Israel in 1948, or whether it was the British. I bring this up because some Christians are treating the formation of modern Israel as an article of faith: that the return of the Jews to their homeland in the 20th century was the prophesied return and, therefore, a major a milepost in end times prophetic history as it unfolds. The problem is that someone who thinks that, without any doubt or reservation as to the rightness of his own judgment, will be devastated if the present nation of Israel gets thrown off its patch of ground. They will think prophecy itself has failed, not their understanding of it. Their faith will be shaken and  will crumble around them. After all, if you can't believe the Bible... What they have done is create an understanding of prophecy that has, built into itself, a catastrophic single point of failure. If Israel falls, so does their whole reading of t...