The church is the people

Sadly, recent events regarding St George's Tron in Glasgow (the church where I was christened by Rev Tom Allan) clearly demonstrate the Church of Scotland's determination to continue its dog in the manger attitude towards congregations which wish to secede. Presumably they hope to send out a clear message to the likes of Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, which has recently undergone a similar refurbishment paid for in large part by the congregation. I can only hope that Holyrood, Gilcomston and others send a clear message back to 121 - get back to the Bible or we're off. It is not now just a matter of the denomination's stance on homosexuality which is the problem - it is also the petty, spiteful way in which Presbyteries are acting towards congregations who reject the way the denomination is heading and who want to remain faithful to God's word. Rev David Robertson of the Free Church challenges us, both inside and outside the Church of Scotland, not to sit on the fence. I stand with my brothers and sisters who have been evicted from the Tron and I pray that their witness in Glasgow city centre will continue. The church is the people, not the building.

Here is the church
Here's the steeple
Open the doors
Look - no people!
(from an old children's action rhyme - adapted to suit Glasgow Presbytery)

How to avoid being deceived

Deception has always threatened the church. Jesus warned about it. Paul wrote several of his letters to counter it, Peter and John had strong words to say about it. It is nothing new, however the scale of deception assaulting the church at the moment seems to be far more than at any other time in history, save the early days of the church when they did not have the Gospels and Epistles. That, together with other global events, indicates to me that we are in the last days. The main reason I decided to start writing this blog was to counter, in some small way, the deceptions I find creeping into the church in Scotland. I do not expect anyone to just accept what I say here as gospel - I expect them to go away and search the scriptures to see if what I say is true. I also expect them to do some background reading, which is why I provide links to other websites in many of my articles.

This blog is aimed at mature christians. If you are a new christian my advice to you would be to concentrate on reading the Bible. Read a decent translation, not a paraphrase like The Message or the Living Bible. Don't skip any of it, because you need to get the big picture. Go to a church where they preach from the Bible. Go to a good Bible study group if you can. Then, when you've read the Bible, you can use it to measure what I say. If you are a mature christian and you have not read all of the Bible, go away and read it all. You need to get the big picture. How can you use the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God if you haven't read it all?

I cannot hope to cover all the deceptions of the enemy in  this blog, however if you really know the Word of God, you will be able to recognise deception when you see it and that is vitally important. In the words of Jesus "Watch out that no-one deceives you." (Matthew 24:4 NIV)

Where do you draw the line?

In this age of increasing deception and compromise, I am wondering where one should draw the line when it comes to fellowshipping with people who do not hold exactly the same views as me. I don't think I am alone in wondering this and so I want to explore the issue in this post, and am taking the unusual step of opening it for comments so that others can contribute to the discussion if they wish.

As I have already said, I am an Arminian Baptist. I have described Arminianism elsewhere on this blog and I believe in adult, or believer's, baptism, not the christening of infants. At the moment I attend a Presbyterian church which is Calvinist and practises infant baptism. So you would be right in deducing that I don't see these things as deal-breakers when it comes to christian fellowship. Maybe some people would. However, if my church were to start holding joint services of worship with Our Lady of Lourdes RC church round the corner I would be out of there like a shot. A line would have been crossed because I don't believe that we share the same gospel with the Roman Catholic church.

If a minister were to preach something contrary to the Word of God as expressed in Scripture, I would leave that church. It is dangerous to sit and listen to heresy - eventually you will start to believe it. If a church leader were to start advocating things which are extra-biblical, such as lectio divina, visions of angels, centering prayer, Toronto-blessing type manifestations, I would also leave. These things are not founded in the Bible and can lead one into deception. You'll notice I'm talking about what the minister or leader is doing. That is because they set the direction of the church. I would be concerned if a member of the congregation had unbiblical views but it would not be a leaving issue for me unless it infected the whole congregation.

What else would cause me to leave a church? The use of The Message as the primary version of the Bible. Participation in the Purpose Driven Church program. Promotion of extra-biblical revelation and experiential christianity. A female leader. A leadership which is above criticism. Attempts to unduly control and influence my life in areas where the church has no authority eg telling me what job to take, what house to live in, who to marry. (Those are the signs of a cult, not a church.) Undue pressure to give financially to the church. I'm sure I could think of a few more things given time and I'll maybe expand on some of the above in later posts, again given time!

One particularly pressing issue for many in Scotland at the moment is the fact that, while their church is fine and their minister is sound, the denomination to which they belong is going off the rails. That is a difficult one. Do you (or should you) belong to the local church or do you belong to the denomination? Should you leave a good church just because the denomination is bad? I don't know the answer to that and, I suspect, many others don't either. It needs to be a matter for much prayer and, ultimately, the conscience of the individual. I personally am not loyal to any particular denomination and so look for the best church locally.

Ultimately the issue is not whether I agree with the minister/church/denomination. It's whether they agree with the Word of God as set forth in the Bible. When Paul and his companions arrived in Berea with the gospel, the Bereans "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11b NIV) We need to be like that and not like the Corinthians who "put up with a different gospel" to the one Paul preached "easily enough". (2 Corinthians 11:4b NIV)

You couldn't make it up

If someone had told me 30 years ago that the line between christianity and science fiction would become blurred, I would not have believed it. Back then, sci-fi was about Star Wars, Blade Runner, Dune and Close Encounters of the Third Kind while christianity was the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Not any more. Now we have books like Nephilim Stargates by Thomas Horn which attempts to marry Bible stories with mythology and modern science (and human women with fallen angels/aliens from outer space) and christians are just lapping it all up. Somehow the Bible isn't enough any more - it's boring. Extra-terrestrials and UFOs and Watchers from beyond the world are much more exciting, as are conspiracy theories and mutant trans-humans. Just type 'nephilim' into google or Amazon and you will see what I mean. (The Daniel Project movie which I reviewed in an earlier post also includes mentions of communication from beyond our world and the Nephilim.)

Don't get me wrong - I think that there are things going on in labs around the world that christians should be concerned about because man always has a tendency to play god. Embryo research is one of them, however I don't believe we are about to see any mutant humans or resurrected Nephilim. Such theories are based, in my opinion, on extremely suspect interpretation of a few verses in Genesis, bolstered by non-biblical texts and a good dose of unsanctified imagination! Herescope does a good job of debunking a lot of what Horn has to say. The sad thing is that far more christians will read Horn's books than read Herescope.

Another interesting marriage happening now is that of quantum physics and new age spirituality. I studied quantum mechanics at university. It is a way of describing the behaviour of sub-atomic particles, just as classical mechanics describes the behaviour of larger things such as cars and planes. Now, however, we have 'quantum spirituality'. I'm not exactly sure what it is but it appears in books as diverse as Soul Tsunami by Leonard Sweet and The Shack by William Young. It seems to mean that 'God is in everything' or, in other words, panentheism. This is not biblical - according to the Bible, God created everything and He sustains everything but He is not IN everything.

I also came across fractals a few years ago when a fellow computer programmer showed them to me. There's nothing special about them - they are just a pictorial representation of a mathematical formula - however they are now being endowed with spiritual significance. According to Jean Huston, a New Age advocate of human potential, “Fractals show a holistic hidden order behind things, a harmony in which everything affects everything else, and, above all, an endless variety of interwoven patterns.” They are being used to support the non-Biblical theory that order evolved out of chaos. There is a hidden order behind things - He is called God and He is a person, not an impersonal force. Again, Herescope has some very good articles on both fractals and quantum spirituality and the flawed theology of The Shack.

When people stop believing in the God of the Bible, they will believe in anything, including aliens, ghosts, messages from outer space and superhumans. Sadly, it now seems that some christians have also started to abandon the Word of God and believe in such things. Science fiction is just that - fiction. It should not be confused with the Truth.

Dog in the manger

As I said in an earlier post, a denomination is not a denomination when members do not feel that they can freely worship in all churches belonging to that denomination. That is certainly the case now with the Church of Scotland, given that some members still hold to the Bible as being not only the Word of God but our rule for living, while others have decided that they know better than the Bible and can dispense with some (all?) of its teachings. The CofS is now too broad a church to continue in its present form, which is why some congregations and ministers have already left and others are considering doing so. It would be good if the split could happen amicably however it would seem that 121 (George Street - HQ of the CofS) is determined to make it as difficult as possible. They are desperate to hold on to church buildings and manses, with the result that they are going to end up with a lot of empty buildings with no congregations or ministers and no money for the upkeep of said buildings. We have already seen the transformation of empty churches in Edinburgh into pubs and clubs and carpet warehouses over the years. Sadly, it seems that we are going to see a lot more of the same if the CofS continues with its present dog-in-the-manger attitude. It will be a pretty poor witness if Gilcomston South in Aberdeen ends up turning into a pub through the intransigence and pettiness of 121. And does 121 really think that they are going to be able to keep High Hilton going now that the minister, associate minister and a large part of the congregation have left?

The church is the people, not the building, and God will build His church in Scotland regardless of what the leadership of the CofS does, however they will still have to answer for their actions.

'Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows' Galations 6:7 (NIV)