The Dismembering of America Part II

Here is an excellent clip by Brannon Howse that explains well who the Marxists among us are (yes, Martha, that includes B. Hussein Obama!), where they came from, and why they are evil. He begins with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."

How about somebody writing a book called, "Rules for Americans?"

BTW, they are in our churches, too:

Obama The Chief Apologist for Islam

Here is what our B. Hussein Obama said yesterday, in a speech from which the words "Muslim" and "terrorist" were carefully scrubbed:

"No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts..."

Now, as with everything else B. Hussein says, it must be carefully parsed. Read this statement again carefully. There are two things that stand out:

1. B. Hussein thinks he stands above all the world's religions. He alone, the Great One, is qualified to determine what a "faith" is and what it does or does not justify. It is as though he sees himself as the Chuck Norris of world religions.

2. THIS STATEMENT IS BLATANTLY FALSE!

There IS a religion that justifies murderous and craven acts, just like it justified the ones at Ft. Hood. IT'S CALLED ISLAM!

B. Hussein is not only an out-of-control pathological liar -- he is now the Chief Apologist for the religion of Islam.

Do you get it yet, America? Obama is whitewashing Islam so that we won't look at the truth in front of our eyes, right there in plain sight.

A Very Good Question

Sometimes it helps to ask the right question, say, about the Ft. Hood shooter, as Paul Proctor does today in his column, "The Iron Curtain:"

If the government can’t protect soldiers occupying their own country’s largest military base from a single terrorist with a handgun, how can it protect you and me from enemies and threats both foreign and domestic?

We Have No Right to God's Grace

“The point I am making is quite offensive to us today. It is that God hides himself from us that he cannot be had on our terms, and that he cannot be accessed from “below” through natural revelation. In the malls, and in much of life, we encounter nothing like this. We expect access. We expect to be able to get what we want, when we want it, and on our terms."

-- David Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant

HT: Of First Importance

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

What Lies Ahead: "Christianity Loves a Crumbling Empire"

This article by the Internet Monk is worth reading completely. I think it is mostly on-target. The evan-jelly-fish church in America is quite possibly in for a serious and rude awakening.

What is the answer? A return to solid, Biblical theology. In a word, think Biblically and act accordingly:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.

The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

The False Religion of Postmodernism is Literally Killing Us

Our new President, B. Hussein Obama is Exhibit A, as correctly pointed out by Chuck Colson:

The only way to explain it [the president's statement, "There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being"] is to understand the intellectual environment, called postmodernism, in which President Obama and his peers have been raised. Generations of Americans have now been taught that truth is subjective. You have your truth, I have mine. And, even worse, I can’t “inflict” my version of truth on you. The law of non-contradiction has been suspended.

So politicians . . . can take two completely opposing positions at the same time: like believing that no God condones the taking of innocent life and at the same time, condoning—even promoting—the taking of an innocent life.

The problem isn’t simply President Obama and his views on life; the problem is a postmodern culture which believes that truth is merely a matter of opinion, and that therefore the sanctity of innocent human life is simply an expression of one viewpoint among many.

I have argued for the last 20 years that postmodernism would lead to the unraveling of our society. The fact that so few noticed the contradiction in what the President said and the policies he pursues tells me that we’re far along in the unraveling process.

Indeed, postmodernism is not just unraveling our society, it is killing us. Literally.

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.

Hit It Stone Cold in the Face With the Truth

In my humble estimation, at least ninety percent of the people who claim to be Christian and say we must be "sensitive" to the "postmodern culture" have already compromised with it.

Thank God not everyone has. Here is how John MacArthur displays Christian sensitivity in preaching:

"In my own preaching, my objective is not to court the postmodern mind. My objective is to confront it—to hit it stone cold in the face with truth. It’s irrelevant to me how the person thinks. It’s only relevant to me how they need to think."

(HT: Pulpit Magazine)

If You Don't Believe Jesus is the Only Way, You Are Not a Christian

1. Moral relativism is the greatest evil of our day. It leads to massive confusion, despair, suicide, and countless power struggles. It is like a colorless, odorless gas which has escaped into the atmosphere of our culture, which we have breathed in without knowing it. To pick just one example, our legal system has become overrun with power struggles over such things as whether evolution or creation, or both, can be taught in public schools. The ultimate legal “issue behind the issue” in these fierce debates, as every lawyer knows, is who gets to decide. The same can be said for abortion, euthanasia, etc.

2. No one can believe such things as “my ideas [about ultimate issues of faith] are just as good as your ideas,” “no one can tell me what to believe,” “all religious are just different paths to the same god,” and the like, and believe at the same time in the Christ who said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) No one can believe in moral relativism and believe that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Many other scriptures could be piled upon these.

3. The organized Christian church should speak out with one voice against this evil, and even call it what it is, a heresy. From time to time through history, the Church has been called upon to draw the lines that distinguish the true Gospel from various false teachings that assail it. This is one such false teaching, yet it has been adopted, albeit perhaps unconsciously, by many who claim to name the name of Christ in our society.

The Church needs to speak clearly and with one voice, and proclaim to all such people: If this is what you truly believe, then whatever else you may be, you are not a Christian.

[The above are some thoughts on Moral Relativism, arising out of reading the chapter in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion on the doctrine of the Church, and the necessity for the people of God to hear the preaching of the Word as a congregation in order to avoid “lone ranger” Christians who by failing to attend such preaching fall into all kinds of error.]

Naming Names

Berit Kjos in a superb piece titled, "How To Resist the Pull of the Crowd" writes:

"Our anchor and foundation is God's unchanging Word...Postmodern leaders resist such truth. It doesn't fit the collective thinking of the new managed society. It clashes with the pluralistic vision of unity in diversity: all gods are equally valid. All lead to the same end.

Unlike noble visions and humanist idealism, God's actual Word can't be manipulated by today's clever facilitators. His unchanging truth is poison to the consensus process...As the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago,

"...the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things..." 2 Timothy 4:2-5."

This Scripture gives us three crucial facts about pagans in the last days:

1. They will follow many teachers;

2. They will not listen to God's truth;

3. They will turn instead to fables -- such as the myth that "all religions pray to the same god."

So, who are these false teachers? Who are these "postmodern leaders?"

It is time to name names. They include:

President Bush
Oprah Winfrey
Joel Osteen
Ravi Zacharias
James Dobson
Rick Warren
Robert Schuller
Billy Graham
John Armstrong

...and many others.

Each of these has stated or implied the myth that "all roads lead to the same god." Their public statements are thoroughly documented. Many of them are quoted or linked on this blog.

So what do we do about it?

Berit Kjos gives the only true answer:

"So how can we use truth to ward off contemporary myths, lies and distortions? We read, study, memorize and follow God's Word. It builds an unshakable foundation for our thoughts and values."

In other words, we put into practice the teaching of God's word in Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

We also follow the teaching of Scripture, "Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you..." II Cor. 6:17

Stop Reading This Post and READ THIS ARTICLE FROM MODERN REFORMATION MAGAZINE INSTEAD!

Here, from the pages of Modern Reformation magazine, written with great care and insight by Peter R. Jones, is an article that everyone naming the name of Christ needs to read -- now!

That means you, dear reader. Put down that mouse, or rather, pick up that mouse and direct your pointer here -- a brief excerpt to get you started appears below:

"We often use the term post-Christian to describe our present world, but perhaps fail to see its implications; namely, a serious repeat of the pre-Christian world that the early Christians faced-no general government support, but rather government intimidation, oppression and even persecution; no social encouragement, but rather deep suspicion and antagonism; no knowledge of the Bible and the Bible's worldview, but rather a deep commitment and acceptance of the pagan worldview; no "Big Man on Campus" Christianity, but rather the intimidation and ostracizing of Christian students by Big Brother Administration. From this perspective, the future looks ominous."

The children of the Sixties, and their biblical contemporaries, have sowed the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. The "new spirituality" is here, and it is not a pretty sight. Nevertheless, we must be as wise as serpents, and innocent as doves. ( Matthew 10:16 ESV)

(From "The New Spirituality: Dismantling and Reconstructing Reality," by Peter R. Jones, Modern Reformation, vol. 17, issue 3 (May/June 2008)

Elijah & The Prophets of Baal -- A Pomo Parody for John Armstrong and His Emergent Brethren

Elijah said to Ahab, "You have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and you have followed Baal. Although I don't agree with that decision, I can't condemn it. After all, no one has all the truth. I understand that Israel has some truth and so does the religion of Baal. We're all seekers of ultimate truth. Therefore, let us unite with the prophets of Baal. Now then send and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table. And let us all have a conversation."

(HT: Steve Camp)

There Are Only Two Religions In the World

Pastor John MacArthur reveals the truth about the "all roads lead to the same god" nonsense that is so widespread today:



(HT: Symphony of Scripture)

If You Don't Care About Truth, You Don't Care About God

John Piper with another gem of a quote from God's Passion for His Glory:

"Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God-centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God. What is false is anti-God. Indifference to the truth is indifference to the mind of God. Pretense is rebellion against reality, and what makes reality reality is God. Our concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God. And all this is rooted in God’s concern with God, or God’s passion for the glory of God."

Do you care about truth? Do I?

HT: CRN

The Canonization of Uncertainty

Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs puts his finger squarely on one of the major, if not the major problem with our neo-orthodox/postmodern friends like John Armstrong: they have established a new theology around the central premise that we really can't be certain about anything, and especially not anything we read in the Bible:

Uncertainty is the sole remaining cardinal virtue of postmodernism. The right to question anything and everything is likewise the only dogma postmodern orthodoxy accepts uncritically... In other words, Emerging religion has canonized doubt.

Amen!

Evan-jello-calism

...a perfect metaphor for modern "evangelicalism" -- the boundaries of the concept have now become so mushy and ambiguous the word has lost virtually all meaning.

But that doesn't stop all manner of people from throwing it around when they want to sound as if they are "Christian."

HT: Pulpit Magazine

Is This Uncanny, or What???

Listen to Dr. Francis Schaeffer, warning us nearly forty years ago of the dangers of neoorthdoxy! Now neoorthodoxy's stepchild, the emerging church, is doing exactly what Dr. Schaeffer predicted:

"Neoorthodoxy...uses words that have strong connotations, as they are rooted in the memory of the race -- words like resurrection, crucifixion, Christ, Jesus. These words give an illusion of communication. The importance of these words to the new theologians lies in the illusion of communication, plus the highly motivated reaction men have on the basis of the connotation of the words. That is the advantage of the new theology over secular existentialism and the modern secular mysticisms. One hears the word Jesus, one acts upon it, but the word is never defined. The use of such words is always in the area of the irrational, the non-logical. Being separated from history and the cosmos, they are divorced from possible verification by reason downstairs, and there is no certainty that there is anything upstairs." [emphasis added]

Even more uncanny is the fact that Dr. Schaeffer warned us about men such as John Armstrong for whom words no longer have any fixed or inherent meaning so that only "experience" is left:

"The evangelical Christian needs to be careful because some evangelicals have recently been asserting that what matters is not setting out to prove propositions [from Scripture, ed.]; what matters is an encounter with Jesus. . . . [emphasis added]

The Truth:

"I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou has magnified thy word above all thy name." (Psalm 138:2)

(HT Herescope)

Why It is Impossible to Dialogue With Pomos Like John Armstrong

Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs has a cogent and helpful explanation of why it is virtually useless to attempt to engage in "conversation" or to "dialogue" with people like John Armstrong who have abandoned truth in favor of endless speculations:

... it is well-nigh impossible to have an authentic, meaningful conversation with a devoted postmodernist and ever see anything genuinely resolved. The postmodernist by definition has no real hope or expectation of arriving at the truth of any matter. That's not the goal of the postmodernist exercise. It's not even a desirable objective. The only real point is to eliminate certitude altogether. This is done not by settling disputes, but by silencing or assimilating everyone who resists the unrestrained free flow of the postmodernist idea-exchange.

Hmm. Maybe that explains why John Armstrong has banned me from posting on his blog.

D'ya think?

Just Enough of God's Truth to Deceive the Unwary

"It is because so many untaught men, unregenerate men, now occupy the pulpits that "another gospel" (Gal. 1:6) is being so widely and generally disseminated. Multitudes who have neither "tasted that the Lord is gracious" nor have "the fear of the Lord" in them have, from various motives and considerations, invaded the sacred calling of the ministry, and out of the abundance of their corrupt hearts they speak.

Being blind themselves, they lead the blind into the ditch. Having no love for the Shepherd they have none for the sheep, being but "hirelings." They are themselves "of the world" and therefore "the world heareth them" (1 John 4:5), for they preach that which is acceptable unto fallen human nature, and as like attracts like, they gather around themselves a company of admirers who flatter and support them. They will bring in just enough of God’s Truth to deceive the unwary and give the appearance of orthodoxy to their message, but not sufficient of the Truth, especially the searching portions thereof, to render their hearers uncomfortable by destroying their false peace. They will name Christ but not preach Him, mention the Gospel but not expound it".

AW Pink

Sound like anyone you know?