The early 20th century’s Social Gospel was a cocktail of ideas achieved through the blending of Enlightenment philosophy and Socinian theology. The Enlightenment had promised an egalitarian society founded on human reason. The post-Reformation heresy known as Socinianism had proclaimed a human-centered salvation, also founded on reason. Together they proved to be a potent tonic for the relief of liberal anxiety over society’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

But not everyone was drinking it. Continue reading …

Apparently not their liberalism—a liberalism that in most cases has one foot planted in politics and the other in theology. As the politically-liberal blogosphere has followed in the footsteps of its older-media kin by granting the traditional obligatory coverage to the Easter holiday season, I’ve noticed that the positioning of these two feet has remained generally consistent with what I’ve come to expect from from the likes of Time and Newsweek down through the years, with one key difference: where the older media tried to at least feign a kind of critical “distance” from the subject of religion under the premise of journalistic objectivity, today’s bloggers do not appear so constrained. Their postmodernist impressment of Christian themes into the service of a liberal political agenda bears a striking resemblance to the nearly-identical modernist practice of 100 years ago. Continue reading …

Rob Bell has certainly ratcheted up the question of eternity in Christian and secular discussion with his book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived . Many know that when I was younger I was an atheist and came to faith once I realized that Jesus was an actual historical person, He was physically raised from the dead and the Bible is fundamentally true. As I viewed his interview with Martin Bashir: I was struck Rob Bell’s assortment of non-answers. Does it matter how we live? Perhaps. Is salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone? We aren’t sure. Rob Bell wonders about those who haven’t heard. His claim is that doctrine we have about salvation is “all speculation.” In other places he has said that he believes Christ is the only means by which we are saved but we may call on Him without knowing it. Does that mean we can reach Him by calling on Buddha? Bell, like any good politician, doesn’t commit himself one way of the other. Continue reading …

In fact, a lot of people have liked this book. And isn’t that all that matters? I mean, if you can write in a congenial autobiographical style that makes people feel good by telling them the kinds of things anyone would want to hear, if readers warm up to you the way kids would to a favorite uncle who intrigues them with views different from those of their parents, if you can effectively manipulate the emotional hooks in a story when truth and logic abandon you, does it really matter if your premises are faulty, your facts are few and far between, and the cover of your book is a tad misleading? So what if this book is less than the sum of its parts (much less, actually)! Why can’t we all just be open minded for a change, and if, in the process of opening our minds our brains fall out, so what? If God is bigger than our puny little brains, He shouldn’t care what’s in them, right? So let’s try putting the stuff Philip Gulley and James Mulholland have written in their book, If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person (San Francisco, CA, USA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003) into them and see what happens. Continue reading …

Would Jesus be involved in politics? What would Jesus say about the TEA Party? That is one of the questions we have been kicking around here as we are talking about the politically incorrect Jesus. Many groups have differing views on this and of course reasoning that to them makes sense. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach non-involvement. They point out that Jesus and his immediate disciples were not involved in politics and therefore, we should not be either. Some Christians and Christian groups hold a similar view. Political office is often seen as compromising with a corrupt system and includes the sorts of compromises they don’t believe Christians can make. Some, such as Islam, are of the view that their religion should take over the government and subject citizens to Sharia Law. They would argue that Jesus would support such a thing because he was a prophet who was a Muslim. They assert that Jesus is important in their religion and even agree that he is sinless. But then they also teach that all prophets are sinless. Of course, they also teach he is not God, was not crucified and therefore not resurrected. There are some Christian groups which hold to a similar view that it is our task to create a Theocracy which subjects society to the Old Testament Laws and regulations. Some, such as Barack Obama’s home church for 20 years, hold to views rooted in Black Liberation Theology as we pointed out in Barack and the Borg. Black Liberation Theology is essentially Marxism using Christian terminology and promotes Continue reading …

My wife, Joy, is ½ Danish. While working on our family genealogy, which she has online, a cousin who lives in Denmark contacted her. She and her family came to the states about a month ago and we had a wonderful time getting to know them. We had some interesting discussions because Denmark is a socialist liberal nation and has been since 1929. She has never known anything other than Socialism and is trying to understand the split in America as we grapple with the rising Socialism and claims for social justice as its outworking as opposed to capitalism and personal responsibility. This system worked in Denmark for about 50 years. As we talked she mentioned that it worked because it is largely a homogenous system in a relatively small population with a shared history and pride in their nation. They are having problems these days. An excellent article done in August of 2007 looks at the history of the experiment in Socialism and the result when new population doesn’t play by the same rules. Salute the Danish Flag! – It’s a Symbol of Western Freedom The article is long but well worth reading. A few paragraphs grabbed my attention immediately: Continue reading …

The Barna organizations latest poll, The Crisis of Confidence in the Church. The following paragraph states the issue:

“I’d encourage you to pause and think about the significance of losing people’s confidence. A leader can only sustain forward movement if he/she has the confidence of the people being led into battle. Now, if a church is simply providing a safe comfort station for hurting people, that’s one thing. But if a church is intent upon facilitating a moral and spiritual revolution, recognizing that doing so is a declaration of war on current cultural preferences and values, the loss of confidence is a devastating setback. And – strategically – such confidence cannot be restored by simply waiting for the tide to turn; church leaders must intentionally win back people’s confidence through visionary leadership, holy character, and guiding people in transformational ministry efforts.”

This past weekend before even seeing Barna’s report, this is also one of the main emphasis I was making. You might say it has even been a theme of mine for some time. The church is in a state of confusion and the result is many are not certain what it’s mission and responsibilities are in an increasingly pagan culture. Even reading the comments on Barna’s short article show the lack of biblical literacy on our calling. “B Crump” has a lengthy comment in which they decry the non-acceptance of them by the organized church. There is a lot of truth to that. There seems to be an almost natural attempt to cause everyone to conform to the group. Independence is not encouraged in many cases. If you happened to really be called as a missionary to your culture, you will likely be a round peg in a square hole in many churches. Working with people is messy and churches don’t like messy because it is, well, messy. The ministry of the church in the first century was mostly about training, equipping and comforting hurting people who had come to the faith from paganism. It was a time to be loved in spite of your differences and readied to get back out into the mission field. The Apostle Paul in Romans 14 reminds the Romans to accept one another in spite of their differences.

Some comments imply that Jesus cared not a fig for doctrine. He wasn’t a theologian according to one but we can hardly read the gospels Continue reading …