ELCA - Now This is Interesting

You must read this.

Woe to the ELCA!

This morning I received my copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and I was saddened by the news about the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). By a vote of 559-451 the ELCA voted in favor of allowing homosexuals in committed relationships to serve as clergy. Interestingly enough, the Post-Dispatch even calls this a "shift." Yes, indeed, it is a shift. And since it is a shift from the gospel, I call the ELCA to surrender its use of the word "Evangelical." And since it is a shift from the historic position of the church, then I call the ?LCA to surrender its use of the word "Church." And since it is a shift from the views of the great Reformer, Martin Luther, I call the ?L?A to surrender the term "Lutheran." And when all the shifting is complete, we only have A, which stands for America. Yes, the ELCA has compromised so much that it now looks exactly like the godless society it should seek to transform with the gospel. Well, congratulations, ELCA, you have become the world. Brothers, we should pray for the 451 who stood strong for Christ when the vote was cast to place the stamp of approval on sin. We should pray for the Lord to stand by them, encourage them, and strengthen. They will need such strength in the days to come.

Does God Love Everyone Equally?

A prevalent misconception in the evangelical church today is the teaching that God loves all people in the same way. Proponents of this view often quote the ever popular John 3:16, placing added emphasis on the universal term: "For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." However, does the term "world" or kosmos in the Greek mean "every single individual who ever lived, without exception" as most evangelicals claim? Let it first be noted that the term "kosmos" has at least seven distinguishable definitions within the New Testament. With that in mind, consider the words of the late scholar and teacher A.W. Pink:

Yet, if anyone will take a Concordance and read carefully the various passages in which the term "world" (as a translation of "kosmos") occurs, he will quickly perceive that to ascertain the precise meaning of, the word "world" in any given passage is not nearly so easy as is popularly supposed. The word "kosmos," and its English equivalent "world," is not used with a uniform significance in the New Testament. Very far from it. It is used in quite a number of different ways. -"The Meaning of 'KOSMOS' in John 3:16", A.W. Pink

Pink then proceeds to unpack those seven different meanings. Unlike most evangelicals today, Pink is actually concerned with being lexically faithful to the Greek in John 3:16. The problem with preachers in the church today is not so much that they are propagating straightforward lies (though in some cases they are), but that they are presenting an assortment of "half-truths." They are not preaching the "whole counsel of God" as Paul did in Ephesus (see Acts 20:27ff). God does have a general good will towards all his creation (Matthew 5:45; Luke 6:27-36). This is called common grace. However, God has a special, distinguishing love for the church (Ephesians 1:4ff; Romans 9:6ff). This is God's special grace. God has a salvific love for the ones he foreknew in eternity past. The distinction between this love and his general goodwill to all of creation is that it guarantees and secures the salvation of all the elect (Romans 8:29).

To which an objector may reply, "That's not fair! God cannot go about loving some and not loving others!" First, I will answer with a short, but needed response. God is obligated to no man but does whatever pleases him (Psalm 115:3, 135:6; Daniel 4:35; Romans 9:21, 11:34-36). The main problem with this kind of objection is that it presupposes that God is obligated to save sinners. However, God is not bound by any such stipulation. Instead, Ephesians tells us that it is because of God's rich mercy and unconstrained love that he chooses to save some (Eph. 2:4). Therefore, God has every right to love some and not others. This is the very logic behind Paul's analogy of the potter and the clay in Romans 9. A potter has every right to make some vessels for destruction and others for life, and so in the same way, God has every right to make some humans to be recipients of his saving love and others to be recipients of his damning wrath. Though some reject the notion that God has hatred towards any human, the Scripture clearly teaches otherwise (Psalm 5:5; Malachi 1:3; Romans 9:13).

It is interesting to note that the same evangelicals who object to God having a distinguishing love for his people whom he foreknew from eternity past (Ephesians 1:4ff; Romans 8:29, 9:6ff) have no objection to this kind of love existing among humans. After all, which of these evangelicals would ever claim to love criminals, strangers, or even their most friendly neighbors in the same manner that they love their own children? Such a practice if ever performed would be deemed neurotic, demented even and rightly so. Yet, if we are truly to be imitators of God as Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:1, then such a view of God as having only one kind of universal love would lead us to conclude that we should do the same. The thought itself borders on absurdity.

Praise God that he is no less than his creatures and he is capable of having a particular, distinguishing love for his own! Soli deo gloria!

When the Term "Protestant" Becomes a Misnomer

I have often remarked on this site on how the state of evangelicalism today comes down to the fact that the gospel has lost all specificity. No where is this more true than in the eccumenical movements to unite Protestants and Catholics such as the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document of 1994. As long as America's church has a vague, ambiguous understanding of the gospel, she will be prone to all kinds of counterfeit gospels. To most evangelicals today, someone is preaching the gospel if he names the name of Jesus. But all of the cults cloak their erroneous teachings in such psuedo-Christian language. What the church needs today more than anything is education. Evangelicals need to understand that the gospel is more than just, "God loves you and has a purpose for your life." The gospel contains two crucial doctrines: the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The denial of either of these doctrines results in a false gospel and the denial of the former directly leads to a denial of the latter (and this is to be expected if one does not believe in a Christ who is fully God). While Rome officially embraces the doctrine of the Trinity (we can only attribute this to the grace of God, that Rome is not totally abandoned to rank apostasy), she dogmatically denies the doctrine of justification by faith alone. If we are to truly bear the title "evangelical", we must not hesitate in decrying Rome's teachings as a false gospel. While most evangelicals would have no problem in identifying Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses as presenting a false gospel (after all, they're "cults"), those same people cannot detect equally flagrant misunderstandings of the gospel by the Roman church. However, if we really have a clear grasp of the gospel and its content, then we should have no difficulty in recognizing when people are deviating from its truth. If we do not want to wear the title "evangelical" hypocritically, then we must begin, foremost, by being Protestants. After all, the meaning of the term "evangelical" is one who heralds the gospel.

But lest anyone in our postmodern age of muddled meanings and redefinition of historical terms gets confused, I am referring to the original meaning of the term evangelical not the way it gets recklessly applied today. An evangelical is not one who kisses a lot of kids and has good PR. An evangelical is not one who is for right-winged, Republican, family values. An evangelical is not one who lobbies against abortion (though he ought to do this as well). An evangelical is not one who passes out tracts at the grocery store. An evangelical is one who bears the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. This is very important because this concept seems to have been lost in our day. Rather than defining proper "evangelicalism" by Scripture's standards, Christians define it by their own notion of moral conduct and sentimentality. If we were really to live consistent with the Bible's definition of an evangelist, we would not hesitate in debunking the false gospels rampant in the world today, because this is precisely what the evangelist Jesus Christ did. He mocked the legalism of the Pharisees. Yet today, most evangelicals will not mock Rome's teachings for fear of being labeled insensitive and cruel. However, Rome's abusive system of purgatory, sacraments, and Mass far outweigh any kind of legalism that Pharisees ever practiced in their day. What we must understand is that mocking a false belief system is not unloving. In our culture today, we have completely misunderstood what true love is. True love is not esteeming people's feelings as top priority. True love is esteeming people's eternal destination as top priority.

With that said, let's examine the veracity of what I stated earlier: that one must be a Protestant if one is to be an evangelical. In reality, the two are inseparable. What does the term "Protestant" mean historically? Well, it means exactly what it sounds like it means. A Protestant is one who protests something. While an objector might claim that evangelicals do not need to be protesting any teachings but merely promoting teachings, evangelicals down throughout the centuries have protested teachings. In fact, the main problem with this kind of claim is that it is a logical, self-contradiction. If I promote an idea, then by default I protest another idea. For example, if I promote pro-life movements, then I will protest abortion. Thus, on a very basic level all evangelicals must be protestors or, put in another way, Protestants. For if we promote the gospel, we protest that which is not the gospel. So, historically, what system of teaching were the original "Protestants" protesting? Well, any history student knows that it was the vices and abuses of the Roman church that the first Protestants protested. We often forget that when Martin Luther wrote his "95 Theses" in 1516, he was a monk. He wasn't seeking to establish a new church. On the contrary, he was seeking "reformation", hence the movement later being called "The Protestant Reformation." And the unavoidable fact of the matter is that the Protestants did reform, Rome didn't. The result of the Protestant Reformation was not a new religion but the restoration of true religion. What was this true religion? The true religion that was rediscovered during the Reformation was the doctrine of justification by faith alone. That doctrine is intrinsic to the gospel. Any system of teaching that denies it, obscures it, repudiates it must be protested by anyone who claims to be a harbinger of the gospel of Christ.

And yet still, the majority of Christians today would much rather wade in a cesspool of vague, ambiguous, unintelligble psuedo-evangelical fadism than stand up for the true gospel of Christ. Here's my advice to all you would-be-evangelical, I-don't-care-for-saying-the-term-Protestant-because-it's-divisive-and-the-Roman-Catholic-is-my-brother types: stop calling yourselves Protestants at all. And I don't just mean in your eccumenical gatherings either. I mean stop calling yourselves Protestants on surveys, stop calling yourselves Protestants amongst your other "Protestant" friends, and most of all, stop calling yourselves Protestant when you take compromising stands on vital doctrinal issues. Instead of specifying your denominational background, and by doing so help others identify your beliefs and traditions (and we all have traditions, whether or not you want to admit it), remain in your anonymous conglomeration of "Don't give me doctrine, just give me Jesus" types. In fact, I would recommend that you go so far as to paint over that awfully divise title in your sign: "Baptist." While you're at it, you might as well take out the term "church" as well, since that bears so many negative connotations of stuffy pews, boring hymns, and didactic preaching for many. Oh but don't stop with just that. It's probably wise if you remove the term "Christian" from your sign as well because we want Muslims and Hindus to feel welcome in our worship. "Neo-orthodox' might be a better term to write on there. After all, you never know when Bishop Spong might visit. :)