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)

Angels - the new god?

I was browsing the religious section of my local library this afternoon and was amazed at the number of books on angels. Perhaps I shouldn't have been - there is plenty of evidence around that angels are the new god, from angel workshops to cute little statuettes of angels in people's homes. It seems there is an angel for every occasion - a bit like saints - and you can read about how to harness their power for your own benefit. Sadly even Christians are being taken in by all this - I personally have encountered Christians who pray to angels, invoke their help and have a special guardian angel whom they regard as a mascot. They obviously haven't read Hebrews recently, otherwise they would know that angels are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation, but that salvation comes through faith in Christ, who is far above the angels. (Hebrews 1)

Nowhere in Scripture does it tell us to pray to angels - quite the opposite. In Colossians 2:18 we are warned against those who worship angels and praying to angels instead of to God is, I believe, idolatry. It is God who commands the angels, not us (Psalm 91:11). We are commanded to pray to God, in the name of His Son and to make all our requests known to God, not to angels. If God decides to answer our prayers by sending an angel, that is his prerogative. Personally I'd rather he used other means, as encounters with angels in Scripture usually left the person concerned terrified! Angels are not cute, cuddly beings - they are awesome messengers and mighty warriors. They are also always male, not female, so the female angel which Todd Bentley claimed to have seen floating along was not Biblical.

It seems to me that people become interested in angels because they want to believe that someone is looking after them but they don't want to have to deal with a righteous God. They are not interested in repenting of their sin and worship of angels doesn't require them to. All is sweetness and light and love. It is a false gospel. Christians who have a wrong image of God as stern, harsh and unapproachable sometimes find that angels are much easier to believe in and pray to but the real answer is to gain a right understanding of God as a loving heavenly Father through reading His Word. Worship of angels will only lead one deeper into deception. Remember that Satan can appear as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14).

As Christians, we should be grateful for the ministry and protection of angels but we should not seek to contact them. Our relationship is with God the Father, through his Son Jesus Christ our Saviour and the Holy Spirit is our comforter, who reveals Jesus to us (John 16:14) and helps us to pray as we ought (Rom 8:26).

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)

Why what we believe matters

What we believe matters because it affects our actions.

• If we believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, we will not prepare ourselves for the tribulation.
• If we believe that Roman Catholicism is a Christian religion we will not evangelise Roman Catholics.
• If we believe that, as Christians, we cannot fall away, we will be complacent about deception and sin.
• If we believe in the power of positive thinking we will end up trying to pray a 2 deg rise in temperature from below freezing to above freezing. (I am not kidding - I have seen this being tried! It didn't work.)
• If we believe that the Bible is not absolute but has to be interpreted in the light of modern day thinking, we will accept homosexual marriage and female ministers.
• If we believe that we have to conquer the world as Christians before Christ returns then we will become militant and will try to impose Christianity on others rather than winning them to Christ.
• If we believe that we need to overcome the principalities and powers over a geographical area before we can evangelise, we will spend more time in so-called strategic spiritual warfare than we do in witnessing to the unsaved.

There are so many subtle deceptions coming into the church in these last days. The only way to avoid them is to know the Word. When tempted, Jesus answered Satan with 'it is written' - we should do the same. We need to be so familiar with the Bible - old and new testaments - that we can recognise a false teaching when we hear or see one. We need to check that what we believe is actually the truth because it is not only a matter of life and death - it is a matter of eternal salvation or eternal damnation.

'Take heed that ye be not deceived' Luke 21:8 KJV

Why I don't believe Roman Catholicism is a Christian religion

A friend was shocked when she read my earlier post On the road to Rome?. Coming from a CofS background, she had accepted the ecumenical teaching now prevalent in that denomination. Since there may be many others like her, I feel I ought to give some explanation for why I do not consider Roman Catholicism to be a true Christian faith. For a start, Roman Catholicism is not about faith - it is a religion of works, such as penances, praying the rosary and regular attendance at Mass. This is in direct contradiction to the Bible, which states that 'by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God' (Ephesians 2:8 KJV). The Bible also clearly states that Christ is the head of the church, not the Pope, as it says in Colossians 1:18 'And he (Christ) is the head of the body, the church'.

Roman Catholicism places priests between God and man whereas the Bible tells us that 'there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ' (1 Timothy 2:5). Scripture also tells us that 'there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12 NIV) however there are those in the RC church who would elevate Mary to the position of co-redeemer with Christ. Pope Benedict XVI is, at the moment, refusing to agree to this request, although some would say that this might change.

The Council of Trent, which is still in force, anathematised (cursed) any who believed that salvation was through faith alone, in Christ alone. Instead justification was declared to be offered upon the basis of faith and good works. It also upheld the use of icons in worship, which is in direct contradiction to the second commandment, upheld the doctrine of purgatory (which has no scriptural justification whatsoever) and the practice of praying to the saints, which contradicts Jesus' teaching on how to pray, namely to the Father.

If you are still not convinced, have a look at this article from a former Roman Catholic, now Baptist pastor. Many people in these days have forgotten what the reformation was about, however there are some who would still remind us and Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries is one of them. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries is another. I thank God for them.

PS. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that Roman Catholicism is not, in my opinion, a Christian faith. It is not for me to say whether individual Roman Catholics are Christian or not - only God ultimately knows what is in someone's heart.

Rightly handling the Word

I don't think any Christian would disagree that Bible study is important, both individual and in a group, however I am coming to see that the way in which we study the Bible is also important, particularly given the recent rise in alternative methods such as Lectio Divina. I am not going to comment on that particular method here, but would encourage anyone who is interested to follow this link. Instead I want to concentrate on an increasingly common way of doing Bible study, particularly in groups, where those involved are encouraged not just to read the passage and understand it but to try and think their way into the emotions of the characters, including the writer of the passage. It is meant to be a way of making the scriptures come alive, and it can be quite successful in doing that, however it can also be fraught with dangers, the main one being that we read our own emotions into the story.

Feelings are not ignored in the Bible - one only has to read the Psalms to see that - however many of the stories in the Bible tell of what people did, rather than what they felt. The type of study mentioned above seeks to fill in this gap, however I can't help but wonder if we are really meant to do that. If God wanted us to know how individuals felt, would he not have said so? When we read emotions into a passage primarily concerned with actions, are we not adding to scripture? In Jeremiah 17:9 we read that 'The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.' however in the next verse we find that 'I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.' (NIV - emphasis mine.) So our emotions (which come from the heart) are not to be trusted but God rewards us according to what we do, rather than feel, which is a relief, to me anyway.

It seems to me that the rise in popularity of this kind of Bible study is linked to the general rise of Romanticism in the church - the elevation of imagination to the status of revelation, the elevation of experience over obedience, the elevation of emotion over action. Christianity ultimately is a decision, not a feeling. It is not of works but true faith manifests itself in works i.e. actions. Perhaps that is why so many Bible stories are about actions, not feelings.

121 speak with forked tongue?

Well, the Church of Scotland has got its knickers in a twist and no mistake. Just before the end of the Scottish Government's consultation, it finally came out and said that the laws on marriage should not be changed to allow same-sex marriage. That must have taken some soul-searching on the part of 121 (George Street – HQ of the church). Given that we already have at least one minister who has been openly living with a same-sex partner in a CofS manse, what this latest pronouncement means is that the CofS has ditched the requirement that sex should be kept only for within marriage. To put it another way, by upholding one part of Scripture, the CofS has effectively denied another. Forked tongue indeed. It will be interesting to see how they slither their way out of this one.....