Without Saving Faith, All Moral Virtues Are But SPLENDID SINS

Without saving faith, all moral virtues are but splendid sins!

Unbelief nullifies everything!
It is the dead fly in the ointment!
It is the poison in the pot!

All the moral virtues,
all the benevolence of philanthropy,
all the kindness of unselfish sympathy,
all the talents of genius,
all the bravery of patriotism
--give no title to Divine acceptance, for
"without faith it is impossible to please God." (Heb. 11:6)

C.H. Spurgeon

Finding America in Romans Chapter One

In this must-see video, James White speaks with great eloquence and power on the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the United States, and finds America in the year 2008 to be right smack dab in the middle of...Romans chapter one:



Spread the word.

Willow Creek and Brian McLaren: Serpent-Sensitive

Willow Creek Church pioneered the "seeker-sensitive" approach to what it calls Christianity. Brian McLaren (who is uncertain about almost every Christian doctrine except that "everything must change") was recently a featured speaker at Willow Creek. McLaren has accused believers who hold to the Second Coming of creating "violence and coercion."

But Willow Creek and McLaren are wrong. Professor Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary reasons correctly that their denials of the Christian faith will actually lead to MORE violence, not less:

"Even though McLaren claims to want world peace, his own view is actually the one that leads to violence, Moore said.

"When a Christian understands that he does not fight for his own honor, but that justice will be done by God, either through union with Christ and His cross or at the judgment itself, the Christian is freed then to trust God, not his sword or his gun or his fists or his tongue," he said. "It is McLaren's vision of a life that consists only of the justice achieved in this era that leads to violence and Darwinian struggle to see that a pound of flesh is exacted...If human beings do not expect a Messiah in the skies, they will expect to elect one or anoint one or biochemically engineer one. And, do not be deceived, such pseudo-Messiahs always eventually have a sword."

Amen! Professor Moore explains McLaren and Willow Creek are really "serpent-sensitive," not seeker-sensitive:

"When McLaren questions the existence of hell and the hope of the second coming, he is not a 'new kind of Christian.' Such things are neither new nor Christian.

"They are instead a repetition of the voice of a snake in a long-ago garden: 'Has God said?' and 'You shall not surely die.' It is tragic that one of the world's most renowned evangelical churches would highlight this kind of Serpent-sensitive worship."

Amen, and amen! Thank you, Dr. Moore, for so incisively and courageously exposing this heresy.


(HT: Slice of Laodicea)

Doug Pagitt: Just Making Stuff Up

Here is an amazing, appalling and frankly horrifying interview of John Armstrong's friend, emerging church leader Doug Pagitt, by Todd Friedl of Way of the Master Radio. Link to it here.

Doug Pagitt is just making stuff up about the Christian faith and trying to make it sound like Christianity. It isn't even close.

Since John Armstrong claims to be his friend, there is certainly a fair question whether John Armstrong thinks it is OK to just make stuff up, too.

Who is John Armstrong And What Does He Really Believe?

Hmmm. It appears my exchange with John Armstrong questioning his dislike for "propositional truth" hit a nerve.

See his post titled, "Propositional" Truth, "Objective Truth," and the Debate About What We Know and How We Know It" today (8/17/07) at

http://johnharmstrong.typepad.com/john_h_armstrong_/

Fighting At the Point of the Enemy's Attack

A welcome reminder from Martin Luther that, unless we are fighting for truth at the very point it is being attacked, we are not fighting at all:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."

Who is John Armstrong Part II

John Armstrong's position on "propositional truth" is skewed to say the very least.

As a point of departure in examining this very important issue, here is my post in response to Dr. Armstrong's 8/4/07 posting under his entry, "How Important is Propositional Truth?"

I wrote:

"The first paragraph of the last post deserves some further scrutiny.

First: I defy you to identify any meaningful distinction between sentence no. 1 ("I am not denying propositional truth") and sentence no. 2 ("ultimate truth cannot be reduced to propositions").

Certainly, we are talking about "ultimate truth" when we discuss propositions such as, "Jesus is the truth." How could it possibly be otherwise? Are you saying there is some type of truth that can be propositional in nature but that is somehow non-ultimate? And what is your basis for condescendingly referring to "reducing" ultimate truth to propositions?

Second: Your third sentence ("If Christ is the Truth then we cannot reduce truth to statements of logic or propositions") is patently false and unsupportable.

When you say, "If Christ is the Truth," are you denying that He is the Truth as John 14:6 clearly states?

Where is there any Scriptural support for your statement? Certainly any attempt to support this statement would have to, at a minimum, reckon with John 1:1 ("In the beginning was the Word"). This text gives no indication that the author is the least bit reluctant to "reduce" truth to propositional form, even matters of ultimate truth.

Further, any attempt to support your statement scripturally would also need to address passages such as Romans 8:32, Luke 11:13 and many, many others in which logic, propositions and arguments are made time and time again."

There is so very much more to be said in response to these statements and others by Dr. Armstrong . . .

The Emerging Church -- Al Qaeda's Natural Ally?

Frank Pastore's column here asks a very important question -- is the "emerging church" weakening the Christian faith in the United States to the point that our nation is open to conquest by radical Islam?

Says Pastore:

If the world is to be saved from Muslim conquest, it will be America who does it. And if America is to be saved, only conservatism can do it. And if conservatism is to be saved, it will be those Bible-believing patriots who do it–those conservative, evangelical Christians who are the bedrock of the American way of life...

A post-Christian, post-modern, secular-socialist America will be no match for a radical Islam fueled by petro-dollars and threatening the use of nuclear weapons.

But an America where the church is strong, resolute, and courageous? That’s a different thing altogether.

Which is why al Qaeda supports the emergent church.

If the "emergent church" is in fact weakening our moral and spiritual fiber, and our will to fight, is that effect intended, or unintended?

Who Is John Armstrong?

Lighthouse Trails Research blog has an excellent story on John Armstrong's latest flirtation with the emerging church. It reveals the agenda behind those whom Armstrong is now courting.

Here is my letter to Lighthouse Trails commending their story and sharing my own experience with Armstrong:

Thank you for publishing yesterday’s article on John Armstrong. Having sat under this man’s teaching several years ago, I can testify to how he has radically changed. The response given recently by a member of the board of directors of Armstrong’s organization to John MacArthur’s critique of him in MacArthur’s book The Truth Wars is one of many pieces of evidence for Armstrong’s departure from orthodoxy. The response was completely over the top. It heaped abuse on MacArthur but utterly failed to answer the charges against Armstrong in any substantive way.

For example, the writer attempted to mount a defense of Armstrong by claiming that Armstrong can recite the Apostle’s Creed without reservation. Reciting the Apostle’s Creed is hardly a test of orthodoxy; many outright heretics throughout the history of the Church have claimed to believe it. The real question is, what meaning does John Armstrong ascribe to the words of the Apostle’s Creed when he recites it? Does he believe those words have actual, concrete referents, or doesn’t he? We are no closer to an answer after reading the “response” given on Armstrong’s behalf.

The fact is that John Armstrong appears to believe it is not possible to know clearly what the Bible teaches as truth – in other words, he denies the doctrine of the clarity (perspicacity) of Scripture. He believes it is arrogant to say that the Bible teaches specific, understandable truths. He may claim he does not, but that is not only the letter but the spirit and practical effect of his latest writings. His recent switching of his ordination credentials to the Reformed Church in America – the denomination I grew up in – is simply part and parcel of his attempt to make it appear as though he is still “reformed” in his theology – after all, the name of his new denomination has the word “Reformed” in it. Of course, those who know that denomination realize the RCA, like so many others, has gone far off the track of Biblical orthodoxy in recent decades and his now openly embracing New Age false religion, mystical spirituality, and other heresies.

I find it especially painful and troublesome that Armstrong has somehow convinced the respected elder statesman of that denomination, I. John Hesselink, to put his stamp of approval on Armstrong. One can only believe that Dr. Hesselink, who is now well advanced in years, simply is no longer able to recognize the dangers posed to the Church by Armstrong and the like.

The same, however, cannot be said for Wheaton College. How Wheaton can have this man on its faculty teaching “spiritual formation” is simply beyond comprehension – unless Wheaton, too, is abandoning Biblical Christianity and opting instead for a cultured distaste of “the arrogance of certainty” and for the emerging church.

Please keep up your good work. The common person in the pew is simply no match for the verbal tap-dancing of men like John Armstrong. There is an appalling and almost a total lack of discernment in these matters.

The Church desperately needs to be warned of the false teachers that are everywhere – inside the Church, not outside. I am sad to say that I fear John Armstrong is among them. May God keep all of us in Him.