discernment – Page 17

Henry Ward Beecher, social justice, and Eben-melech the unknown hero

Posted on July 7, 2018July 8, 2018 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

Beecher was a minister, temperance promoter, abolitionist, social justice warrior, and the brother of famous novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe. He lived from 1813 to 1887. In his ministry, he developed a new oratorical style, in which he used humor, dialect, and slang, very rare for the time. Over his career, he developed a theology emphasizing God’s love above all else. He also grew interested in social reform.

You just know this won’t end well. Any man or women who does all of the three, it’s almost a death knell for his faith. The three again:

1. New approaches to preaching (or learning if you’re a layman)
2. Emphasizing God’s love only
3. Emphasis on social reform

Think of what is going on today with a sudden heavy emphasis on social justice and you’ll see the same trajectory in many ministers and parachurch ministries.

Beecher, as some people might not know, was also a tremendous womanizer. He had affairs with many women of his congregation and many women who were not in his congregation. One colleague quipped that on any given Sunday Beecher was preaching to 7 or 8 of his mistresses. Eventually, he endured a trial for adultery that made him the “most famous man in America”. It was called the trial of the century.

Be wary of ministers and organizations that claim to love Christ but primarily exist to promote a social gospel. Look for a clear biblical objective. Otherwise, avoid.

So, what is the Social Gospel? Wikipedia describes the Social Gospel:

The Social Gospel was a movement in North American Protestantism which applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. It was most prominent in the early-20th-century United States and Canada.

The novel Christy I’d reviewed in April focused on the social gospel work of some missionaries in the Appalachians. The novel was based on a real mission and real people. There was a huge push for social gospel work in missions then that began in the very late 1800s and reached its peak in the 1910s and began to wane after WWI.

The premise of the work was that if missionaries or lay-Christians in their everyday environments could show the love of God in doing good, rectifying deplorable conditions, it would spark an attraction to Jesus in the recipients of the benevolence. Moreover, if the hindrances to faith are removed, i.e. that if the recipients did not have to worry as much about their next meal or getting coal or firewood to stay alive, it would also spark an interest in Jesus.

Of course this is backward. Promoters of the movement tended to blame sin on societal structures rather than human nature. Martyn Lloyd-Jones famously said in his Studies on the Sermon on the Mount,

The terrible, tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man’s troubles are due to his environment, and that to change the man you have nothing to do but change his environment. That is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man fell.

But look at their efforts anyway!

Our purpose is “to gather a new generation of women, equip them with the tools to know God more deeply and live out their purposes and unleash a movement to promote healing and reconciliation around the world.” [If:Gathering]

“Our mission is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world“. [Sojourners].

There’s even Christian eco-justice.

“is a grassroots community of United Methodists who believe that a relationship with God’s creation and a ministry of caring for and healing the earth are integral to what it means to be a Christian.” [Caretakers of God’s Creation]

“heal the world”? “inspiring hope”? “healing the earth”? So vague. Again, if there is a social justice organization or a parachurch ministry that focuses on social justice, look for their clear and specific biblical objective. If they don’t have one, avoid it.

We are to help the poor and disadvantaged. No question, I’m not saying charitable mercy is never warranted. Of course it is, the Bible prescribes it. But notice I didn’t say ‘social justice’ but instead ‘charitable mercy.’

George Crawford at Grace Community Church, in the series Sundays in July, delivered a sermon today called “Probably the Greatest Old Testament Hero You Never Heard Of”. It’s wonderful because he addresses social justice through his exegesis of a nearly anonymous man in the Old Testament in an obscure passage, regarding the rescue of prophet Jeremiah. Crawford illustrates what real biblical justice is, and how heroes who pursue such justice should act and what they should do.

Mr Crawford himself was an attorney for a regulatory agency and an administrative judge for his career of 40 years. He is highly concerned with justice, but equally concerned any kind of justice done in Jesus’ name is approached biblically. He feels this passage is the best one in the Bible that addresses the issue of social justice. I recommend it.

Jeremiah 38:1-13, “Probably the Greatest Old Testament Hero You Never Heard Of”

Crawford’s main points in the sermon, which is very easy to listen to, revolve around what true social justice heroes are like, based on what the man Eben-melech in Jeremiah’s scene accomplished:

Heroes get over sins against them, and move on
Heroes have an accurate grasp of reality
Heroes will take action, boldly
Heroes take precise, specific action (There is no room in the faith for broad, general, overall passionate, unfocused, untargeted, mindless social justice).
Heroes are practical
Heroes act with mercy
Real concern for real biblical justice will focus on real and specific situations
Heroes act with prudent courage, recognizing the reality of danger but taking action anyway
Heroes are willing to forego credit in order to get the job done

Let’s go back to Beecher. “I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.” This quote that opened this essay is completely backwards, of course. It’s indicative of the backwardness of the plethora of “eco-social-racial-gender-sexual justice” organizations today. Beecher forsook God’s love whilst dwelling on it excessively, abused His grace, promoted ill-fated social causes and lost his first love (like those at Ephesus, Revelation 2:4). It happens every time.

Be wary of ministers, organizations, or parachurches that focus on God’s love to the exclusion of other attributes of God, and who set out in unfocused or non-specific manner to rectify social ills. Eben-melech got the job done because he was smart about it- he had a clear biblical objective. Unfocused zeal is not only unhelpful, it could be dangerous.

More to the point of Beecher’s quote, is that no one who is outside of Christ knows how to love. One can’t learn to love before one learns to worship. No one. That Beecher preached it thus is a tragic mistake. Our entire being is at enmity with God. Enmity means war, hatred, opposition. Only Jesus who is the source of Love, enables us to rightly love after we enter the faith. It is He we love, because we worship Him first.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. 1 John 5:1-3.

————————————-

Sin ensnares another high profile pastor

Posted on July 3, 2018 by elizabethprata

I’m very sorry to have to report this. Art Azurdia, elder at Trinity Church of Portland (OR) and frequent speaker at high-profile conferences such as The Shepherds’ Conference, has fallen.

He admitted to a sexually inappropriate relationship with a woman outside their church, and in fact admitted to a previous inappropriate sexual relationship also. The elders of Trinity Church, as biblically commanded, removed Art from leadership. Short statement below.

A Statement regarding Art Azurdia from the elders of Trinity Church of Portland
July 2, 2018 by Thomas Terry
Category: Trinity Church Announcement
On Sunday, June 24, the elders of Trinity Church of Portland received an accusation that Art Azurdia has been in a sexually immoral relationship with a woman from outside of Trinity Church. The elders of Trinity Church, after an initial investigation, confronted Art with the accusation. Art admitted to the immorality. He also admitted to a previous sexually immoral relationship. Based on these facts and the biblical qualifications required of an elder (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1), the elders have removed Art Azurdia as Senior Minister of Word and Worship at Trinity Church, as an elder, and from all pastoral ministry at Trinity Church. We grieve the shame this brings to the Gospel and the sorrow it brings to God’s people.

Sometimes when I get up in the morning and turn on Facebook and Twitter, I sigh because I know that it’s like putting your face into a buzz saw. Seeing posts like the one from Trinity hurts. I hurt for Art and for the woman and for their church and for all of us. The last sentence mentioning the shame to the Gospel and the grief it brings to God’s people is apt.

But as tempting as it is to turn turtle and ignore all that is going on, it’s important not to. Sin lurks. Sin crouches, waiting to have you, and me. We have to be vigilant, and unfortunate incidents like this remind us that it can and DOES happen every day to anyone.

We can’t ignore these things because it’s a call to action. Pray for YOUR pastor and elders and teachers. Often I am so fervent in praying for the right doctrine to enter my elders’ minds and come out in their teaching that I forget to pray for them morally too.

Paul warned Timothy,

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:16).

This sentence from the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary restating Calvin sums it up:

The two requisites of a good pastor: His teaching will be of no avail unless his own life accord with it; and his own purity of life is not enough unless he be diligent in teaching [Calvin]

We need Jesus every hour. All of us.

discernment, theology

Mass psychogenic illness or demonic possession? Anomaly or common? Diagnosis depends on worldview

Posted on June 28, 2018 by elizabethprata

demons

In 2012 I posted a series of essay tracking an unusual incident that occurred in LeRoy NY, where a number of teenage girls (and one boy) suddenly began twitching and shaking and involuntarily emitting other body movements for weeks, to the point where their sports an schooling were impacted. It sounded to me like a supernatural event, though many scientists and civic luminaries, even the famed environmental lawyer Erin Brockovich, attempted to narrow down the cause to a secular or scientific reason. They couldn’t.

In that essay series, I’d mentioned a similar historical incident and that was the Salem Witch Trials, where the ‘symptoms’ were similar.

In posting this Throwback, I’m including a new-to-me piece of information that a friend sent. The Dancing Plague of 1518 is strikingly similar to the above two, the LeRoy NY and Salem incidents. In 1518 Strasbourg, a women suddenly began shaking and dancing in the main street and never stopped. She kept it up for a week. Others began the same, some dancing until they dropped of sheer exhaustion or even died of heart attack or physical stress. The dancing was involuntary. Up to 400 people were affected and there were many deaths.

It is an extremely well documented incident, and no one at the time knew why it began or why it ended. Some scientists then and now surmised there was a toxic mold in the in the rye the people were eating, others today put it down to the same thing that the LeRoy and Salem incidents seemed to be: mass psychosis / mass hysteria. Sometimes it is called ‘conversion disorder.’ This medical epidemiologist said in the linked article just above,

According to medical epidemiologist Timothy Jones, an assistant clinical professor of preventative medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who also reported an incident of hysteria in Belgium following soft-drink consumption, “Outbreaks of psychogenic illness are likely to be more common than is currently appreciated, and many go unrecognized.”

It is more common than one would think. There are other historic and well-documented mass psychogenic illnesses, including a mass laughing hysteria in Tanzania then continued for 18 months, for example, among many others.

We tend to dismiss such incidents in today’s world, being modern and all that. But when we see sustained, documented cases for which there has been sought a scientific, medical, of civic reason to no avail, it would do well to remember that the evil supernatural is alive and well in the world. Though many origins and causes were proposed, the resulting diagnosis was the same as all the other incidents, mass psychogenic illness. When you see a diagnosis of mass psychogenic illness, the Christian could well be thinking “mass demonic possession”. Don’t dismiss the supernatural possibility. Though we don’t want to become ensnared in an unholy obsession, we do want to be realistic about what the Bible says about demonic activity.

The fact that this occurs more commonly than thought, that the symptoms are nearly identical over centuries and in places distant to each other and in societies widely disparate, made History honors thesis researcher Laura Hatchman at least, came to the conclusion that demonic possession cannot be ruled out “even to this very day.”

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8).

Now to the throwback essay, I wrote this in June 2012:

—————————————————–

On January of this year, I posted an essay which reported that students at a western NY high school in LeRoy NY had come down with…something. At that time, doctors, school officials, and parents were not sure what they were dealing with. A bunch of girls who attend the school suddenly started showing symptoms of Tourette’s Syndrome. They began twitching, having tics, involuntary movements, and for some, their schooling was impacted. They had to drop out of sports teams or drop out of school entirely.

Then a teacher at the school came down with it, and several other people, including a couple of boys. At that point it made national news. The school had conducted tests to determine if their location was a cause. The famed environmental lawyer Erin Brokovich came on the scene to determine if there was an environmental cause. Doctors were consulted. Everyone came up with empty hands.

One doctor dared to state that it was probably a condition known as “mass hysteria” but that diagnosis was resisted. They decided to simply call it Tourette’s. At that point I got interested. Mass Hysteria is a real diagnosis, and is one that is at root of another famed incident: the Salem Witch Trials.

Here are the two previous essays I posted on the Leroy NY mass hysteria incident.

January 20, 2012: “Outbreak of mass hysteria (or demon infestation) in Leroy NY”
January 28, 2012: “Update on LeRoy NY Tourette’s outbreak”

There is new news of the incident. They found no toxins anywhere, the girls were not on drugs, vaccines were ruled out, Tourette’s doesn’t have sudden onset (they finally admitted) and eventually a diagnosis of mass hysteria was declared unequivocally this week:

“Mass Hysteria Confirmed in NY School”
“A bizarre illness affecting nearly 20 students at a Western New York Junior-Senior High school now has an official diagnosis: mass hysteria.The students, almost all of them girls, and mostly friends, began experiencing involuntary jerks and tics. Sometimes their limbs, neck or face would suddenly spasm; other times they would twitch, grunt, or shout. It was strange and troubling behavior, made all the more scary because it had no clear cause.”

“Mass psychogenic disorder is a rare — but not unheard of — phenomenon. The disorder is usually characterized by the mysterious spread of a variety of symptoms without a discernible cause. It frequently occurs in isolated communities. Teenagers and girls are also frequent victims. Collective hysteria can spread when a fear exists of exposure to a disease, combined with a contained, stressful environment.”

This is very interesting to me because as I mentioned in the two essays I linked to above, the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s began in exactly this same way. Several teenage girls began manifesting symptoms remarkably like the girls in NY, and like wildfire, the ‘disease’ spread from house to house. The reasons for the hangings that resulted has multiple and complex reasons- cultural, religious, demonic, and societal. There was a feud going on between the merchants and the farmers. A growing town always fights over its direction (to develop or not to develop?) when they hit an important crossroads in its identity. The girls admitted to experimenting with voodoo with Tituba, their South American Indian maid who had been a slave in Barbados. Tituba had also made a witchcake containing dog urine and rye, which is fed to a dog in hopes of determining the person afflicting the sick.

Boredom, pride, and covetousness, and gossip can equally be said to blame for the Salem incident’s catalyst. And satan is behind all of those, not to mention the localized practices of voodoo, casting bones, and fortune telling some of the girls and Tituba admitted to!

As the year of the Witch Trials crescendoed and then ended with a whimper, the aftermath included church-wide repentance, and in particular, “On August 25, 1706, Ann Putnam Jr., one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village church, she publicly asked forgiveness. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice, but was being deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people…” (source)

Any time there is unexplained mass illness it needs to be looked at carefully by the officials whose duty it is to serve and protect the vulnerable in our society. However in this day and age, demonic influence is rarely discussed as a possible root cause of the problem. It was all right for the “backward Puritcanical Bible thumpers” to blame satan, but not today.

As I mentioned, the reasons that the Salem Witch Hysteria took off were complex, coming to the fore from a variety of factors. However, the Salem incident is listed today among the medical texts as a case of mass psychogenic illness. (source)

The same could well be true of the Leroy Mass Hysteria incident. There is one question I am sure was not asked amid the tests and diagnoses and reports that resulted in 6000 pages which concluded “We don’t know why this is happening”. Were the girls experimenting with tarot, palm reading, fortune telling or occult in any way? The answer would be very revealing.

Traci Leubner, one of the girls afflicted, said of the Leroy NY testing results, “It’s freaky, because they didn’t find anything. There wasn’t like a, ‘this is what happened’. It was kind of mysterious.” (source)

Please be in continued prayer for the Leroy NY girls and also for the vulnerable of our society everywhere. I long for the day when our children will be safe.

——————————-

Social Justice, the Global Church, and Controversies

Posted on June 25, 2018June 26, 2018 by elizabethprata

It has been dizzying this past 3 months in the evangelical wider world, and very worrying in the online evangelical world. The controversies have been deep and fervent. The lines between camps within visible Christianity have widened. Seemingly stable ministries have suddenly swerved hard.

There have been numerous events and controversies which reveal that we are less than unified over Christian foundational beliefs.

The April conference called MLK50 sparked a division in how we as Christians are to approach race discussions. TGC and GCC’s coupling for a west coast conference titled “Enduring Faithfulness” sparked a discussion about how far to delve into the culture and which topics are truly Gospel centered. Agreement was not reached and the two entities uncoupled. Beth Moore’s Letter to Brothers charged the global church with misogyny and threw gas in the cultural #MeToo movement, which in turn and inflamed the evangelical world’s discussion about the global church’s ‘treatment’ of women and their roles.

The ReVoice conference did the same for same-sex attraction and gay identity within Christianity. Paige Patterson was fired. The SBC messengers/members briefly seemed to flirt with the nomination of a woman, sparking a discussion about whether “women are called to positions of leadership” in church or para-churches. International Mission Board President David Platt delivered a 6-minute report to the SBC affirming Isa as Messiah and conversion through Muslim dreams. Popular actor Chris Pratt mentioned God and grace at an awards speech and the undiscerning Christian world joyfully affirmed it as Gospel, sparking a discussion about what the Gospel is and how many elements of it one needs in order to match the biblical message.

Todd Friel of Wretched Radio published a 23-minute excellent video talking about “The Gathering Storm: A Split in the Reformed World“.

In this 1-minute clip, Alistair Begg reminds us that the church’s mandate is not economic, social, or political. However the global church for so long now has been browbeat with the message that it is, that “people who should know better” have allowed its tendrils to creep into their minds and make inroads.

It has been a wild spring.

Nate Pickowitz is a New England pastor and author. Bio below. His wife Jessica wrote a wonderful study guide to the MacArthur/Mayhue tome Biblical Doctrine. This week Nate tweeted a series covering these issues in a gracious and insightful way. He said that “In truth, this thing has so many tendrils, it’s near impossible to wrap my brain around all that it is, but I’m trying.” I am too. I’ve ridden the roller coaster and in the end put my head in my hands wondering “What is happening?!?!”

I decided that still and always my personal call to action is the same as it’s always been. Share the Gospel. Remind people of what the Gospel is. Urge people to reject any different Gospel. Use social media to present these messages. Repeat.

Here is Nate’s message. Perhaps it will help you solidify some thoughts about all this.

—————–Nate Pickowitz—————–

I’ve got serious pastoral concerns about recent growing trends in Evangelicalism. In truth, it seems to fall under one complex, multi-faceted mechanism. Frankly, I’m not sure if using labels is helping or hurting.

We’re seeing terms like “social justice,” “Cultural Marxism,” “liberalism,” even “intersectionality.” Advocates of this movement flatly reject these terms (perhaps they don’t subscribe to all the tenets of them), but we’re certainly seeing a noticeable movement in full force.

In truth, this thing has so many tendrils, it’s near impossible to wrap my brain around all that it is, but I’m trying.

I believe that there are some advocates of this who are masquerading as Christians who are not. I also believe that there are genuine, regenerate Christians who are part of this as well.

However, my biggest concern has to do with the gospel itself. What is the gospel? The gospel is “good news”—it is the message of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross to save us from condemnation due to sin. And this work reconciles us, first to God, second to other believers.

So, “reconciliation” is key. Again, it is primarily about us and God, but when we are transferred into His kingdom, we are reconciled to every other blood-bought believer through the very same gospel.

However, Jesus never promises prosperity, societal prominence, earthly equity, an end to suffering, earthly utopia, freedom from insult & injustice, political success, or any other earthly temporal blessing.

We are seated with Christ “in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3); we live in the hope of an inheritance that is imperishable, not for earthly gains that are perishable.

With all that being said, there is certainly spiritual fruit that comes from the gospel; there are gospel effects. Regenerate Christians love others, serve others, give to others, seek to help strangers. This is all true.

But this movement seems to be seeking the effects of the gospel, and preaching them *as* gospel. Further, they make the effects non-negotiable mandates. As if to say, affirmative action is our primary Christian mission… except that, it’s not.

Preaching the gospel, making disciples, bearing witness to Christ by our testimony and lifestyle—those are all mandates of our mission. The social benefits are, to a smaller degree, the fruit & not the root.

However, this movement pushes back and is actively fighting for social fruit. And that’s where ‘intersectionality’ comes into play. This is the overarching tool of social justice.

By grouping people into nice, neat categories, they can be dealt with en masse, and coalitions of like-minded proponents can put pressure on others to force them to give them what they want.

This is, at its core, a version of Marxism—to see two classes (the haves & the have nots) warring against each other, with the ‘have not’ minority class attempting to overthrow the “privileged” majority class. But is that what Christ would have us do?

Are we social revolutionaries? Are we culture warriors? Are we supposed to be aggressively fighting to gain earthly benefits? While Bible verses are being used in various ways (ways foreign to the history of biblical interpretation), the scope of the Bible doesn’t support it.

At best, this social focus is a gospel distraction; at worst, it is a gospel distortion. I’m starting to believe that it is anti-gospel and anti-Christian.

Does it affect our churches? Absolutely, it does! The ministries, leaders, and resources being distributed are finding their way into the local church. Even small-town, senior citizen churchgoers have Facebook, and watch videos from online ministries.

We lament Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar videos, pushing prosperity gospel to our people. We ought to lament this as well. Because what is the net effect? Gospel confusion and gospel misrepresentation.

Anybody who does any level of biblical counseling knows that victimhood is the number one enemy of true repentance and spiritual growth. If I can blame someone else for my problems, then I can avoid responsibility.

I fear the social justice movement is creating an environment where Christians are seeing themselves as victims, and not as beneficiaries of divine grace.

Further, where are the exhortations toward forgiveness, forbearance, endurance, humility, and grace? When was the last time you heard a social justice leader expound on Jesus’ teaching to “turn the other cheek”?

I’m not saying that there aren’t problems. Yes, racism exists, injustice exists, hatred exists; because sin exists! But how do we deal with these sins? The same way we deal with any other sin.

Now, believers who have repented of sins may feel led to impact those they’ve wronged in a positive, social way. But is it the church’s job to mandate it? Or is it up to personal conviction? Shaming the Bride into action is not of Christ.

What is the way forward? To be honest, I’m not 100% certain of every single step. But I know that our mandate is to continue to preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, to call sinners to repentance, to preach God’s wrath & grace, and to love the Body.

And for what it’s worth, I reject all pejorative labels, classes, and categorizations. I’m not a “white Evangelical.” My name is Nate, and I’m a bondslave of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Addendum: This isn’t my “hot take”—I’ve been watching things for several months, reading articles & books, talking with dozens of pastors. While I’ve repented of unkind or hurtful engagement, I want to be faithful to stand for the things I’m convinced are biblically true.

———————end Nate Pickowitz———————

Back to me now.

Decades of biblical illiteracy, personal prophecies, heaven tourism, the New Apostolic Reformation, IHOP/Bethel and the Charismaniacs, false professions of faith/false converts, tolerance of sin have deeply damaged the evangelical stance on the sufficiency of scripture and many other doctrines. It has tarnished the Gospel witness of the church. But that is to be expected.

Though other churches existed at the time Jesus wrote to the 7 mentioned in Revelation, of the 7, only 2 received no condemnation. That means of this particular microcosm, 72% of the churches had a significant enough problem within it to cause Jesus to write and threaten their dissolution. This kind of percentage is normal. It is even magnanimous, I believe. Most of the global church is bloated with non-believers or with people who are so apathetic for Christ or so distorted in their thinking their witness is practically nil.

However, the good news is that Jesus always leaves a remnant. His people are true and beautiful and working for His glory. They are sprinkled all around the world like salt, seasoning their spheres with truth and the Good News of His name. People newly converted are growing. Missions are working. Good books are being written. Solid sermons are being broadcast. Lives are being changed. Minds are being transformed. It IS happening.

None of this is a surprise to Jesus. While it may unsettle us to see such devastating controversy, and while it may dismay us to see its tendrils creep into our churches, and while it may upset us to see those tendrils go ignored or concerns about them discarded, Jesus is brightly shining and His glory is being manifested in every heart who truly knows Him. The Savior is victorious and the Church is triumphant.

——————————-
Pastor Nate Pickowicz (B.A., Muhlenberg College, M.A., Trinity Theological Seminary) was raised in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, where he now lives with his wife, Jessica, and two children, Jack and Elizabeth. Before planting Harvest Bible Church, Nate worked in financial services until being called into ministry in 2009. He is the author of Reviving New England: The Key to Revitalizing Post-Christian America, and Why We’re Protestant: An Introduction to the Five Solas of the Reformation. He is also the general editor of The American Puritans Series.

discernment, Uncategorized

Chris Pratt’s MTV Awards speech: A False Gospel and an un-Christian life

Posted on June 20, 2018June 20, 2018 by elizabethprata

CNN called him “The ultimate good guy“. CBS called it a “Powerful speech.” The National Review called it “Spreading the Gospel“. FaithWire called it “A bold faith message“.

What is it? It is Jurassic Park actor Chris Pratt’s acceptance speech at the MTV Movie & TV awards held on June 18. Pratt was honored with the MTV Generation Award. “The MTV Generation Award is the successor to the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, though it is more serious than its predecessor. The recipient of the award is celebrated for great achievement in movies”, according to Wikipedia.

Wow. Those are some great accolades. I’m always eager for the Gospel to be shared, spread widely, and for people to come to know Jesus. I searched Google so I could hear this tremendous speech for myself! I listened, and I transcribed it. Here is the speech.

He opened with thank yous. Then said,

I speak to the next generation, I accept the responsibility as your elder. Listen up. This is what I call 9 rules of Chris Pratt, Generation Award Winner.

1. Breathe. If you don’t, you’ll suffocate.

2. You have a soul. Be careful with it.

3. Don’t be a turd. If you’re strong, be a protector, and if you’re smart, be a humble influencer. Strength and intelligence can be weapons so do not wield them against the weak. That makes you a bully. Be bigger than that.

4. When giving a dog medicine, put the medicine in a little piece of hamburger and they won’t even know they’re eating medicine.

5. It doesn’t matter what it is, earn it. Reach out to someone in pain, be of service. It feels good and it’s good for your soul.

6. God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do.
(He should have led with this one).

7. If you have to poop at a party, but you’re embarrassed because you’re going to stink up the bathroom, just do what I do. Lock the door, sit down, get all of the pee out first. And then, once all the pee is done, poop, flush, boom! You minimize the amount of time that the poop’s touching the air. Because if you poop first, it takes you longer to pee and then you’re peeing on top of it, stirring up the poop particles, create a cloud, goes out, then everyone at the party will know that you pooped. Just trust me, it’s science.

8. Learn to pray. It’s easy. It’s so good for your soul

9. And finally, number 9, Nobody is perfect. People will tell you that you are perfect just the way that you are, you are not! You are imperfect. You always will be, but there is a powerful force that designed you that way, and if you are willing to accept that, you will have grace. And grace is a gift. Like the freedom that we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else’s blood.
Do not forget that. Don’t take that for granted. God bless you please get home safely

——————————————
Let’s go through this speech point by point. Mr Pratt’s rules are in bold, my responses are below each point.

1. Breathe. If you don’t you’ll suffocate.

Um, ok

2. You have a soul. Be careful with it.

Is our soul ours to do with as we will? Mr Pratt made it seem like our soul is ours and not God’s to do with as He pleases. And, what is the state of that soul? What happens to the soul after death? Pratt never said.

Ezekiel 18:4 says, Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.

A cross-reference to the Ezekiel verse is this from Romans 6:23. Tragically, Mr Pratt only had to say it for his speech to inch closer to the biblical side:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christians need to be mindful of how we speak. Proverbs devotes a third of its sayings to right speech. The New Testament is full of commands about how we are to be set apart from the world and not to speak like the world. He has the microphone and the ear of thousands. He doesn’t need to use the world’s speech to make his point. He could have simply said ‘jerk’. The other part is good advice.

4. When giving a dog medicine, put the medicine in a little piece of hamburger and they won’t even know they’re eating medicine.

Non sequitur but OK.

5. It doesn’t matter what it is, earn it. Reach out to someone in pain, be of service. It feels good and it’s good for your soul.

Philanthropy for its own sake absent honoring Jesus and giving Him glory is all wind and vanity. The entire book of Ecclesiastes rebuts this statement, and Paul in Romans 2:6-10, and James 2:18. The good works that believers do are good for the soul (not every soul generically as Mr Pratt said) because they are evidence of the saving grace of Jesus, and are an obedient and worshipful response to that grace.

6. God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do.

It’s still a twisted version of who God is. And number 6, between the dog and the turd and the poop? We should not be such cultural doormats that we’re relieved when someone mentions anything about God. God wants the best for me? Did He want the best for Stephen, the first martyr? Is that our definition of ‘the best’? What is that ‘best’? And what do I have to do to get it? Pratt never said.

Sadly, Pratt’s is the commonly heard, shallow no-Gospel, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” chestnut. All this does is affirm people in their sin. The Gospel is both Law & Grace, Wrath and Forgiveness, Sin & Righteousness- and the blood of Christ and His resurrection. Half a Gospel is no Gospel. And what Mr Pratt preached is no Gospel. If he was really serious about God, and Jesus (whose name he never mentioned) you LEAD with it.

This entire section fails James 1, Ephesians 4:29, Colossians 4:6 and most of Proverbs. It demonstrates Matthew 15:11, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

8. Learn to pray. It’s easy. It’s so good for your soul.

It is NOT easy to pray. It is hard. It is an act of spiritual war to put your hands together and ignore satan’s efforts to stop you! Did you notice he never said who to pray to? And did you notice he said why we should pray? Because it is good for us. The truth is, one reason to pray is because it exalts God (Matthew 6:9), it is a way to serve God (Luke 2:36-38), and it obeys His command (Philippians 4:6-7). Also, we pray because it is good for others’ souls. (among other reasons).

Do not forget that. Don’t take that for granted. God bless you, please get home safely.

This last is the ANTI-gospel. He is telling people they are imperfect and need to accept that. If they do, a powerful force will deliver grace to them. This is the opposite of the Gospel.

It is our realization that we’re sinners in need of a savior to us who will deliver grace if we hate our sin and repent of it! Otherwise, accepting who we are as we are will send us to hell! That’s why it is the ANTI-gospel.

Nothing was said of sin. Our life and every breath is a treasonous act against God because we live, breathe and think only of sin, continually (Genesis 6:5). Further, why do I need grace if this powerful force already loves me and wants the best for me?

Any message urging us to accept our imperfections, grab the good life God has waiting for us, and some unnamed powerful force will give us an undefined grace is not a Gospel message.

And whose blood? Military blood like on D-Day? Jesus is now referred to as just “Somebody”?

As much as we want the Gospel to be believed by one and all, as much as we mourn for lost souls, we cannot accept any message which is not THE message.

Now, here is information on why Chris Pratt is not a Christian role model. I apologize if some of these are unsavory and gross. Mr Pratt should never be mentioned as someone to emulate.

CHRIS PRATT’S VERSION OF CHRISTIANITY

1. Conversion

It all began with Pratt waiting outside for his friends inside a grocery store…

And a guy named Henry came up and recognised something in me that needed to be saved. “Jesus told me to talk to you…” At that moment I was like, I think I have to go with this guy. He took me to church. [The guy at the grocery store] was like, “I stopped because Jesus told me to stop and talk to you. He said to tell you you’re destined for great things.” Pratt said, “I gave my soul to Jesus within, like, two days. Over the next few days I surprised my friends by declaring that I was going to change my life.’ …

That is not how we are saved. It doesn’t begin with extra-biblical revelation from some random guy, promising a good life. One does not become saved by declaring that under our power we will change our lives. This was not the Gospel. But it is his conversion story in every page I looked at.

Searching for “Christ Pratt” +”sin” yields literally zero results. Google asked me if I really meant to say “Chris Pratt son”. No search yields on the word repent either. I cannot find that Chris Pratt ever uttered those all-important words.

This conversion story is the typical one I found online

2. Divorce

Chris Pratt recently divorced his wife. He cited difficulties in juggling his movie career and children. She wanted more kids. He didn’t. So they split. This is not a biblical reason. Divorce is serious. (Matthew 19:1-12).

Putting your career over children to the point that you depart from your wife is sinful and a biblical failure.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (Ephesians 5:25)

As a matter of fact, his ex-wife Anna left her first husband for Chris, and the two lived together before they married. So Pratt is a fornicator, his marriage to Anna made her an adulteress, and he is an adulterer.

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (Matthew 5:32)

3. Lifestyle

Chris Pratt has a potty mouth. Here is a link to an article recounting an interview with Pratt, but do NOT click on it, there are so many awful words. Because it is an interview with Pratt, the swear words are his own. Even this link to an interview in the staid Wisconsin Gazette is full of f-words. Prior to the transcription part of the speech above, Pratt uttered some unsavory language on television. Pratt speaks coarsely, vulgarly, profanely, and constantly.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (James 3:10)

it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. (Matthew 15:11).

Other lifestyle issues:

–Pratt reads porn. Shares porn with women.
–Boasts to people about his sexual encounters.
–Drinks a lot, pantomimes in public drinking from breasts.
(source for above)
–Isn’t a member of any church that has been reported, but has attended Hillsong Church in LA, which is not a church because it is a prosperity gospel/word of faith church.

In this screen shot below, which I smudged, shows Pratt giving the finger. The 2-minute clip reveals Pratt using three strong swear words, and ending with the finger. It is from 2015.

pratt

Men of the faith (and us all) are supposed to be separate from the world, not look like the world, not speak like the world, not want what the world wants. From these evidences, and the fact that Pratt says he was converted at age 19 and is now 39 yet still persists in sin and sinning, means he is not a Christian (role model).

While we hope that Chris finds the true Gospel and lives it, really, please do not promote him in Christian circles in any way.

But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:11)

pratt dinos2

discernment, Uncategorized

Bad fruit is bad

Posted on June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 by elizabethprata

Yesterday I wrote about the wind, meaning, the Spirit, blowing where it will. I wrote of how we can’t see the wind at the time but we can see its effects. One of the effects of the wind’s (Spirit’s) effect is fruit. The changed heart will be producing good fruit. A bad heart produces only bad fruit. The unsaved who profess but do not possess Christ will produce bad fruit at some point. False teachers will produce bad fruit also.

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20 NASB)

Please notice the certainty in the lesson. Jesus said ‘You WILL know them’. Not that it will be uncertain, or foggy, or maybe, or perhaps. But you WILL.

Not all fruit is produced quickly. Different fruit trees bear fruit at different lengths of time. After planting, fig trees bear figs after 1-2 years. Apple trees take 3-5 years to produce fruit. Pear trees take about 4-6 years. The point is, not all false teachers will quickly show their true nature, but at some point, no matter how long it takes, they will produce the bad fruit Jesus spoke of. And then you will know them.

They wear sheep’s clothing. This means that outwardly false teachers will appear on the surface to be like the true sheep. Barnes’ Notes explains here,

Who come in sheep’s clothing – The sheep is an emblem of innocence, sincerity, and harmlessness. To come in sheep’s clothing is to assume the appearance of sanctity and innocence, when the heart is evil.

Ravening wolves – Rapacious; voraciously devouring; hungry even to rage. Applied to the false teachers, it means that they assumed the appearance of holiness in order that they might the more readily get the property of the people. They were full of extortion and excess. See Matthew 23:25.

I remember watching an art interpretation show some years back. I like Renaissance art and this episode featured Caravaggio and his famous painting of the Bacchus. I have seen the actual painting in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Here it is.

Caravaggio_-_Bacco_adolescente_-_Google_Art_Project

I wish I could go back and really appreciate the art now that my spiritual eyes have been opened. I remember standing in front of it at the Uffizi for a short moment, and saying to myself, “Pretty! I like fruit.” And then moving on. Outwardly the painting looked good.

Let’s not move on. Let’s look at this scene for a moment.

Bacchus is a god of wine and ecstasy. Starting at the top, Bacchus’ cheeks. His cheeks are ruddy, but not a healthy ruddy like David, from being out in the air and working hard. (1 Samuel 16:12). No, Bacchus’ cheeks are red from dissipation, from drunkenness and licentiousness and debauchery and overindulgence. His eyes are glazed and drowsy. He is half dressed, exposing skin, indicating sensuousness, but the mattress he is laying on is dirty. He is offering the viewer wine, a beverage that will make one take leave of senses. But his near nakedness is also indicating he is offering something more. His fingernails are dirty.

Now the fruit. Looking hard at the fruit, you notice that despite the lushness and the voluminous quantity, the fruit is overripe. It’s rotting. It’s bad. The apple has a worm. The pomegranate has burst open. The nectarine is rotten.

fruit

If you want an technical description of this bowl of disease, here it is

Exact in detail they include precise representations of disease symptoms, insect damage, and various abiotic defects. … The fruits include black, red, and white clusters of grapes; a bursting pomegranate; figs; a large green pear; three apples—one greenish and one red with a codling moth (Carpocapsa pomonella) entrance hole, a small, golden russet crab with two areas of rot, likely a form of Botrysphaeria; and a half-rotten quince. The basket contains two fig leaves both with a dorsal (abaxial) view and a grape leaf yellowing at the edge suggestive of potassium deficiency. The head of Bacchus is crowned with clusters of black and white grapes and senescing leaves, one of which is turning red, probably an indication of crown gall, induced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Source: Purdue Department of Landscape and Horticulture

Eww. The fruit of debauchery is rotten. The fruit is BAD. False teachers only offer bad fruit.

Do you want to eat the bad fruit? Bite into an apple with a moth worm inside? Consume sickly peaches dripping with its own rotted pus?

People often try to be charitable with false teachers. I understand wanting to be charitable, but there is a time and a place for charity. False teachers are evil. They are against Jesus. They are against you. They are against me.

Jesus said that there is good fruit and bad fruit. He didn’t say that there was fence fruit or sort of OK fruit or any fruit in the middle. The fruit teachers offer is either one or the other.

I learned my lesson with the art. Art takes a while to look at, examine, notice, and ponder. It’s the same with what teachers teach us. Good teachers and bad teachers offer us things. It takes time to look at, examine, notice, and ponder what they are offering. Once we discern the bad from the good, we are told to hold on to the good and leave off the bad.

but test everything; hold fast what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good. (Romans 12:9)

So there is no excuse for listening to someone generally and widely acknowledged to be a false teacher. A false teacher does not offer anything good. Their fruit is bad. You can’t follow them and expect them to produce one good fruit on the tree. Jesus said the tree is either all good or all bad.

Don’t eat of their fruit. Don’t quote them. Don’t buy their books. Don’t eat the meat and spit out the bones, which doesn’t even make sense because we are talking about fruit. When you are tempted to peek at a false teacher’s site/tweets/stream/Facebook/books, picture the debauched Bacchus with dirty fingernails on a dirty mattress offering you wormy rotted fruit.

Instead, we can imbibe of the sweet waters from the fountain of life and the pure bread from heaven.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light.
Psalm 36:7-9

—————————————-

The wind blows where it will

Posted on June 18, 2018 by elizabethprata

I was years and years upon the brink of hell—I mean in my own feeling. I was unhappy, I was desponding, I was despairing. I dreamed of hell. My life was full of sorrow and wretchedness, believing that I was lost. ~ Charles Spurgeon as a teenager

wind

Charles Spurgeon’s torments in wanting to be saved are well-known. Spurgeon knew he needed salvation because of his sins, but also knew he couldn’t decide to save himself. He needed the external specific call.

He didn’t just sit around and wait though. He read his Bible, he prayed, and he sought- resolving to visit every church in his district one at a time, repeatedly.

John Bunyan’s experience was similar. In his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, he was tormented by his sin and knew he needed Jesus. He read his Bible, tried various things, until he realized conversion is all of God, election. He wrote,

With this scripture I could not tell what to do: for I evidently saw, unless that the great God, of His infinite grace and bounty, had voluntarily chosen me to be a vessel of mercy, though I should desire, and long, and labour until my heart did break, no good could come of it. Therefore this would stick with me, How can you tell that you are elected? And what if you should not? How then?

O Lord, thought I, what if I should not indeed? It may be you are not, said the Tempter; it may be so indeed, thought I. Why then, said Satan, you had as good leave off, and strive no farther; for if indeed, you should not be elected and chosen of God, there is no talk of your being saved; For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth; but of God that showeth mercy.

By these things I was driven to my wits’ end,

But Bunyan didn’t leave off, and didn’t sit and wait for grace to drop into his lap as Spurgeon didn’t wait around for grace to fall into his lap. Though conversion is only from Jesus, the sinner can prepare, inquire, be active. Bunyan kept reading the scriptures, pleading, and praying.

At one point in his faith journey, Bunyan had been wracked with torment, and he laid down to rest and nap. He had a dream that he was trying to get thru a wall to go from the cold side of a great mountain into the sun on the other side. Eventually he found a passageway but it was exceedingly narrow. He got his head in, barely, and wriggled his body sideways, very narrow and could hardly get thru. He realized he had dreamed of the narrow gate. He wrote,

that none could enter into life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left that wicked world behind them; for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and sin.

But what now? Bunyan asked. What if one is not elected? And if one was elected, how would one know that salvation had come? Bunyan again-

Neither as yet could I attain to any comfortable persuasion that I had faith in Christ; but instead of having satisfaction here, I began to find my soul to be assaulted with fresh doubts about my future happiness, especially with such as these: Whether I was elected. But how if the day of grace should be past and gone? By these two temptations I was very much afflicted and disquieted, sometimes by one and sometimes by the other of them.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

We don’t know who will be saved or when. We can’t control the wind.

We can see its effects, though. Here is my favorite Paul Washer story. It’s 3 minutes and I think it will bless you. It seems to me to be a good example of the Wind moving in a soul. When one isn’t saved one can read the Bible and read it and read it, but it will not make sense because one cannot discern spiritual things, as the verse says-

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. (1 Corinthians 2:14).

But when the wind moves in a man’s soul, it moves so we can see the effect! Suddenly the scales fall and the Bible’s verses have extreme meaning!

The wind blows where it will…but keep praying for salvation for your dear lost ones, and keep looking for fruit in those who say they have felt the Spirit move in them. Tomorrow, more on fruit.

discernment, Uncategorized

Mailbag: Do people who commit suicide go to hell?

Posted on June 12, 2018 by elizabethprata

rope

Today’s question was Do people who commit suicide go to hell?

The query came on the heels of fashion designer and celebrity Kate Spade’s suicide on June 5, 2018 and celebrity chef, television personality, and author Anthony Bourdain’s apparent suicide on June 8. It was a devastating week for those two families, their work families, and the watching world. Once again people questioned why, if someone has it all, depression still creeps and suicide becomes a solution. The Christian knows it is the vanity of vanities to pursue all of life’s offerings without Christ, it only ever adds up to emptiness. One should read Ecclesiastes for wisdom on emptiness in life without Christ.

But the non-Christian world still reels in shock when they look to the pinnacle of success, see their idols up there, only to see them cast it all away and tumble.

David Leavitt, a freelance writer for CBS, Yahoo, and the Examiner, tweeted,

If you’re religious, then you believe there’s a special place in hell or purgatory for people like Anthony Bourdain who take their own lives.

His is a common view if one has been raised Catholic. They teach that to take one’s own life (and anyone helping to take a life) is in mortal sin. A mortal sin means you’ve now lost your salvation forever. They base their teaching not on the Bible, but on principles that the Christian can identify with nonetheless. For example, to take one’s life is to assert lordship over it, when it is God who gives and takes life. It is God who counts your days and sets the boundary line for when you step into eternity. Suicide also lets down the people you are connected to, either family by blood or church family by Jesus’ blood. We are each given the gift of the Holy Spirit to operate with in the gifts the Spirit in us has dispensed, and to take one’s life leaves a hole in the family fabric where God has installed you. Even the Christian can understand that suicide is a heavy sin.

But can we go so far as the Catholic to say that a Christian who takes his own life for sure will go to hell? No. Again, no. If a person is indeed saved by faith, they can never lose their salvation. The Spirit indwelling us is the secure guarantee of that. (Ephesians 1:14, 2 Corinthians 1:22).

We are careful with terms here, the original tweet said the religious believe there is a special place in hell for the successful suicide. Muslims actually believe jihadi suicide in Allah’s name gets you INTO heaven, so, not ‘religious’, but if one is Catholic, then they do believe there’s a special place in hell or purgatory for people like suicides.

Christians know than any person would be in hell only because they rejected the Gospel. The people in hell are the people who died in sin and not in Christ. The only unforgivable sin is rejecting the offer of salvation by Jesus. It stands to reason, though, that any other sin is possible for a Christian to still commit.

Can a truly Christian person even contemplate suicide, let alone successfully throw their life away? Perhaps, or perhaps not. It is not for me to say. I do believe that it’s possible there are many Christians struggling with depression. Charles Spurgeon famously struggled with depression, though he never attempted suicide.

Suicide is detailed in the Bible. Many people did kill themselves. Judas, King Saul, King Saul’s armor bearer, and many others. They were all men and they were all apostasizing or non-believers. No truly saved person is documented in the Bible as attempting or carrying out suicide, not even King David in the throes of his deepest depression. Jonah in fact, though seemingly depressed and unhappy, pleaded for his life in the belly of the whale.

Observations;
All of the biblical examples of successful suicide are men.
All of the biblical examples are dubious characters and none are personally praised for their actions.
All were spiritually bankrupt or went through a period of spiritual collapse before their suicide.
Many of the biblical examples were in pain and/or afraid before suicide.
Scripture generally presents these examples of suicide as a fitting end to a wicked and unrepentant life (cf. Judg. 9:56; 1 Ki. 16:19). (Source)

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote an enduring and classic Christian book called Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure. He and preached on spiritual depression also, here. The entire series of 24 sermons on spiritual depression is here.

I think suicidal deaths could be the group referred to in 1 Corinthians 3:15,

If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Here, Paul was teaching about the levels of rewards in heaven. Believers will appear before Christ to account for their lives, how they worked for His glory and in what level of obedience. Any person’s work that is not worthy will be burned up and works done in His name that glorify Him will be turned to gold and silver. (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

In verse 15, there will be people who will have all their works burned up. Will some of those people lose their rewards because they ended their own life, effectively supplanting God for their own will be done, to the uttermost? Perhaps, because in throwing their own life away, they thus became God of their own days. It may be also that in so doing, they threw away all their works done in His name, their rewards, too. What else could engender a complete loss of rewards? Even the thief on the cross made three good stabs at bearing fruit; confessing his guilt, proclaiming Jesus as Christ, and rebuking the other thief for his blasphemies. It may well be that 1 Corinthians refers to some people who ended their life and thus, though salvation is eternal, they lost their reward in heaven.

David Murray with 7 Questions about Suicide and Christians, and many other good and helpful resources on that page.

The recent suicides are truly sad. It is written in the news reports that Bourdain was seeking help but had ignored his doctor’s advice. However, it is also reported that Kate Spade was doing everything right, heeding doctor advice, calling and checking in with her family. She still went through with it.

The ultimate tragedy and one that is unalterable, is that if a non-believer seeks suicide as a solution to their pain or despair, they wake up the next second in worse pain, unimaginable pain, and one that they can never escape. Not because they committed suicide, but because they had rejected Christ. Their hopelessness will go on and on.

In the Christian, depression is real, spiritual depression is real. One never knows what is going on in the mind of another. But we do have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16). The best we can do is encourage each other, come along side to help and love. We are not alone, we are tied with a threefold cord of scarlet to the King of eternal life. Cling to that.

discernment, Uncategorized

Christian feminism coming home to roost: Retrospective from 6 years ago

Posted on June 9, 2018 by elizabethprata

Today in evangelical circles we are dealing with an unthinkable situation: serious discussions of the possibility of a female President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it’s Beth Moore of all people. I don’t think it will actually happen, but the trail has been blazed. The tweets have been sent. News articles have been written. The discussions have been significant. The possibility has been raised and not rejected. Next time the discussions will go further. That is the nature of sin.

We are reading news articles like this:
The Case for Electing Beth Moore President of the SBC

and seeing tweets like this:

russell moore

And we wonder, how did we get here? Slowly, incrementally, just as all sin happens. Sin has been tolerated, and once the camel has his nose under the tent, soon he enters fully.

Back in 2012 I wrote about how this creeping feminism would affect and harm the greater body. I said that the constant scenes of forward living women preaching and teaching men, being CEO of their own ~~corporations~~ ministries, globe-trotting, leaving children at home, and living lives that in the secular world are be called feminist, will come to roost.

Well, it has.

What you read below is an edited re-post of what I wrote in 2012. I pray that God has mercy on the young women who see the Christian feminists and become confused as to their roles. I pray that He is forbearing and patient a while longer, so the Bible teachers who live these Christian feminist lives would come to repentance. I pray He has mercy on the husbands who allow it. God did give the metaphorical Jezebel time to repent, and her daughters too, in Revelation 2 letter to the church at Thyatira. But He also threatened to strike her and her followers dead if they did not, and to repay those who tolerated her according to their deeds. Sin of whatever nature is serious, as when it is in the form of tolerating a false prophetess!

_____________________________

There are some celebrity woman Bible teachers today who say that they live a life of biblical womanhood but their lives show something different- and it’s equal to the secular feminists. Let’s take a look at what the new Christian feminism is.

“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” was the feminist motto of the 1970s. The implication was that women didn’t ‘need’ a man at all.

Readers of the blog already know that I am not a fan of feminism. I wrote an essay called “The Eternal Discontent of Feminists“, in which I looked at the hypocritical standard secular feminists themselves apply to other women who are perceived as not doing feminism right. That, more than anything, lets us know that feminism is not about equal rights for women, it is about satan’s sowing of discontent among women and causing a division away from the Godly roles He has set up.

Feminism has encroached into Christianity. I think most people are still slumbering because I haven’t seen a hue and cry against it. Granted, it is subtle, especially in the women who claim to be evangelical in words but actually live a feminist life.

Source

There are now a number of popular Bible teachers/preachers who travel widely, filling arenas, marketing their books, selling their products, and leaving the husband at home to take care of the kids. These women have assumed the lead role in the marriage and are the main breadwinner, and/or the husband is the helpmeet, usually having set aside his career to work in his wife’s ~~corporation~~ ministry. While these women call what they are doing “ministry,” I call it “feminism”.

As with so much in evangelical Christianity, the waters are increasingly muddied on what should be clear. What is biblical womanhood? In today’s world is it the Bible preaching, sometimes ordained woman, traveling cross country, her husband at home helping with the kids, often having quit his job to help his famous wife perform her ministry?

Or it is a woman with a terribly flawed view of the Bible who sits in a tent when she has per period as a practice for what it was like to be a woman of the Bible for one year?

Or it is a new feminist who is open to women being ordained, to preaching, and/or to acceptance of gays into leadership positions while touting the rising up of women from subjugated roles?

There is something in between. It’s women who claim to be submitted Christian wives who just happen to teach the Bible but really are feminists living a life Gloria Steinem would envy. They are a new crop of what I’ll call Christian secret feminists. They live a feminist life inside of Christianity but call it ministry.

One woman who has much to answer for about this new role is Beth Moore. She was the one who broke new ground in how far a woman could go in attaining celebrity status, in workplace and homelife gender reversals, in being the main and sustained breadwinner of the family, and pr/teaching in a church and in the world. Mrs Moore, while speaking conservative values cloaked in all the right Christianese, lives a very forward life. You will see more details on this below.

A spiritual daughter of Mrs Moore in this generation of new Christian secret feminists is Christine Caine. Mrs Caine’s language is less cloaked in her declarations of what women can or should see as their roles in Christian home and work life. Mrs Caine is an ordained minister and part of Hillsong Church in Australia.

For example, in an interview reassuring Pastor’s wives that despite Caine’s visible usurpation of the traditional husband-wife roles, that their stay-at-home role is still viable: “Predominantly I might teach a little bit and I step out into what would be the more classic leadership gift, so a lot of people say ‘I’m not that, so therefore I must not have a role to play…'”

It is no wonder that woman are confused when they see leaders or peers taking on the ‘classic leadership gift’. And that is one way they cloak their rebellion in Christianese: it is not a role or a job, it is a ‘gift’.

Christine continues in the interview by acknowledging that there are “women who are gentle and loving and nurturing”, and there are other “women who come along side and do a bit more “non-gentle prodding help people go to the next level.” But that in “no way diminishes your role.”

Really? Sure it does. It sets up women to be discontent. By justifying herself in the leadership role as a gift from God (and who can argue with that?) and acknowledging that there are ‘levels’ and women need to get to, but at the same time saying it is important to stay at home and be nurturing…she has completely confused any listener as to the clear guidelines of the notion of what Biblical womanhood is. She says one thing (and not too clearly, either) and does another.

Jennie Allen is founder of of If:Gathering and one of the youngest of the feminist-living ladies on this list. IF is a tax exempt corporation, and shows founder Jennie as President and CEO, working 40/hours week, with husband Zac as board chair working 10 hours week. Allen is quoted in Christianity Today article as saying, “We’ve been slow to step into our giftedness or strengths. For a long time, that wasn’t an option,” said Allen.”

Discernment tip: one way to detect if a person is in the Word is to see if what they say and what they do match up over time. If what they say and what they do are different, run away.

Mrs Caine’s reassurances use a neat scriptural twist. The way satan works with any woman’s objection to women taking on home or ministry leadership roles is to acknowledge that the women feel weak or unsure in them, but to get around it by assuring them that all they need to do is have courage to step out and let Jesus work through their weakness, citing 2 Corinthians 12:9. Or simply as Jennie Allen encourages, ‘just do it because the time is now’.

In that same interview, Mrs Caine said, “The only way I was able to continue in my role is that my senior pastor’s wife stepped into her role and chose not to be threatened or intimidated because the giftings were different.”

Oh, I get it. Women are now complementarians to each other. It’s the height of irony that again, unwittingly, Mrs Caine acknowledges that these new ‘roles’ set up discontent and that she is glad that in her situation at least, the pastor’s wife wasn’t jealous of her fabulous gift of leadership. A good portion of the middle of the interview is Caine’s description of how women are to be complementarian of each other in church settings. One takes the wifely nurturing role so that the younger ones coming up can step out, so to speak.

Now, female support between and among ministries is a good thing, and it is biblically commanded. (Titus 2:4) but the description in Titus is for elder women to teach the younger is in their biblically defined helpmeet role, not to be a helpmeet to other women who usurp into classic male roles. It is another twist of using the Bible to justify what is not proper.

Priscilla Shirer is another of these new Christian secret feminists whose life is more forward than their spiritual mothers. I’ve posted this before but it bears repeating:

“This NY Times article notes that “Priscilla Shirer’s marriage appears to be just the sort of enlightened partnership that would make feminists cheer.”

The article describes what makes the liberal and secular newspaper and their readership, cheer. Mr Shirer, who quit his job to serve his wife’s organization ministry, spends much of the day negotiating Priscilla’s speaking invitations and her book contracts. In the afternoon it’s often Mr Shirer who collects the boys from school. Back home, Priscilla and Jerry divide chores and child care equally.

“Jerry quit his job to run his wife’s ministry. Priscilla now accepts about 20 out of some 300 speaking invitations each year, and she publishes a stream of Bible studies, workbooks and corresponding DVDs intended for women to read and watch with their girlfriends from church. Jerry does his share of housework and child care so that Priscilla can study and write. He travels with his wife everywhere. Whenever possible, they take their sons along on her speaking trips, but they often deposit the boys with Jerry’s mother,”‘ states the article.

If you delete the name Priscilla Shirer and substitute Gloria Steinem, and change the word ministry to job you have a description of a life that any feminist would be proud of.

By now Beth Moore is one of the elders in this realm. Moore has been “on the ministry circuit” for 15 years. Thus, her rebellious example has been long in view for many women who have watched her since they were an impressionable teen. So is Sheryl Brady and Joyce Meyer. Those women were the trailblazers for women in male leadership ministry. Newcomers arriving on the scene such as Priscilla Shirer or Christine Caine, and the younger Rachel Held Evans and Jennie Allen, have learned from the best of the Christian secret feminists. For example:

Beth Moore said to Christianity Today in 2010 that her man demanded a regular home life so she only travels every other Friday and comes right back home the next day.

“We walk the dogs together and eat out together all the time and lie on the floor with pillows and watch TV,” Moore says. “My man demanded attention and he got it, and my man demanded a normal home life and he got it.”

Aww, isn’t that nice. But it’s disingenuous in the extreme. The reality is that Mrs Moore is not only gone from home at least 20 times per year on her Living Proof tours, which is a lot if you have kids and a husband. Mrs Moore appears weekly on the Life Today television show, travels for weeks on book tours, where she expounds on the burning question all women in America are apparently asking, “How can women find validation without a man’s affirmation?” and which her book So Long, Insecurity apparently attempts to answer.

She also spends extended private time for weeks in a cabin by herself in Wyoming to write (as stated in the preface to “When Godly People Do Ungodly Things”). She is the President of her own company that in 2011 brought in 4.1 million dollars, with an excess after expenses of 1.3M, stated working hours of 40/week. If you think all she does is lay around on pillows gazing adoringly at her man then all I can say is look at what she does, not what she says. Beth Moore is a Christian secret feminist because for years she has lived that way, no matter what blather she tells Christianity Today.

It is no wonder women are confused when they see Beth Moore telling us that you can have it all, and still be a Christian woman, if you call it ministry. Enjoli.

Rachel Held Evans “is one of the better known Christian writers in mainline and progressive circles these days. Her new book examines what it would mean to live life as a woman according to the Biblical laws for a year. It’s in the vein of books like AJ Jacobs’ “The Year of Living Biblically” and other “human guinea pig” projects. The book is funny, thoughtful and empowering for women seeking to understand where they fit within a faith that has largely been controlled by men for centuries” writes Patheos.

Ms Evans says she is an accidental feminist, writing on her blog, “Most of all, if these critics knew me, they would know that it isn’t feminism that inspires me to advocate gender equality in the Church and in the world; it is the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

That seems to be another approach to justifying Christian feminism, “it was an accident”, or “God surprised me with this ministry” as Priscilla Shirer says, as if stating that since it was all out of their hands they are not nor will be morally and spiritually culpable on the Lord’s day of Judgment. I can assure Mrs Evans that Jesus did not deliver the Gospel by His blood so she could use it to promote a different role for women than He has already ordained.

We have looked at some of today’s most popular Christian secret and open feminists, the old guard and the new pups coming up. I offered you some examples from their own statements of how their lives in reality more match the secular world’s view of a strong feminist woman rather than the biblical helpmeet.

The old saying from the 70s, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” was the feminist motto. Now the only difference for today’s Christian secret feminist is the logo on her purse.

Christian feminists part 2
Christian feminists Part 3

discernment, Uncategorized

A Comment to the Snowflake Society

Posted on June 5, 2018June 9, 2018 by elizabethprata

snowflakes

I’m over the victim culture.

Really over it.

I don’t doubt that there are real cases of abuse and intimidation and oppression out there. There always have been. What’s different is that due to the current ‘intersectionality’ culture, everyone feels like they have a victim story to tell, and that it’s all valid and without scrutiny, thank you.

Do I know what I’m talking about? Yes. I’m personally familiar with various abuses.

But you know what? Because I am not a snowflake, I don’t focus on any of that. It happened, it’s real, it hurt me or my family members, but it’s in the past. You move on. I am a new creature, a new creation, with a bright future to look forward to. I have a Father who will not disown me, who understands me because He made me, a church family, riches in heaven, fruit of the Spirit growing every day. I have a sweet life in Christ, and being a victim is not a part of that.
Some of the things I read women claiming is misogyny or oppression or abuse, just isn’t. It isn’t ladies! People like Beth Moore don’t help when she writes about her experiences of being “ignored” or “made fun of at team meetings”, “dismissed and ridiculed and talked down to”. Ladies, being talked down to is not abuse, it’s not misogyny, it’s not oppression. When someone “disrespects” you it isn’t necessarily “because of gender”, and even if it is, so what? No need to make a federal case. Ladies, just get on with things. It’s inconceivable that someone with the (sad) amount of influence Beth Moore has in our evangelical world would make a federal case of ‘being disrespected’.

Christian women in other parts of the world are being persecuted to such an extent that to be ‘ignored’ would be a blessing. One woman pseudo-named Maryam for safety purposes talks of her father being put in jail for complaining to police about the Muslims that block his store, and the threats of acid attacks on her sisters, and the Muslim gang of men that tried to stone her as she walked down the street.

One thinks of the Christian women that have come before us in history, like Amelia E. Barr in the 1800s, who with her husband emigrated to the US from England, lost the business opportunity they emigrated to, moved to Texas where her husband and 4 of her sons died of yellow fever. She was left alone to raise her daughters, and she worked tirelessly to do so- successfully, Barr had no time to whine about not being heard at team meetings. As a matter of fact, she said this:

“In my life I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me.”

As I discussed these things with some younger women on Twitter, the longest conversation I’ve had on Twitter for the last ten years, none of them got it. As a matter of fact, one woman posted the Wonder Woman gif (not this one but similar.)

wonder woman

I replied that they’re funny, thinking they’re all warrior princesses, while no one is making the armor, cleaning up after Wonder gal, or cooking her meals. Everyone is a warrior princess. No one is a servant. In today’s cultural language of “I’m empowered, because I recovered from my abuse” stances, being a servant (slave, gasp!) without an abuse story is distasteful and frowned upon. We’re all chiefs, no one is a bottle washer.

Amelia Barr was a warrior princess. So was Susannah Spurgeon, Katy Von Bora, Gladys Aylward, Susanna Wesley. They got on with things. They got things done. They didn’t have time to write whiny blogs and post gifs of Wonder Woman. I don’t mean to be mean, or dismissive, but I do mean to exhort our ladies for greater strength and restraint in touting one’s self, even when speaking of the negative that needs (does it really?) to be told.

I read this of the Apostle Paul’s constant thankfulness. Here was a man who really was abused, oppressed, and hated. He endured so much for the sake of the Gospel. And yet he never called himself a warrior prince, he never set out to grab empowerment from telling his story, never boasted except in Christ. John MacArthur Romans Commentary:

During his second Roman imprisonment, he may have spent time in the wretched Mamertine prison. If so, we can be sure he was thankful even there, although the city sewer system ran through the prison. I was told on a visit there that when the cells were filled to capacity, the sewage gates were opened and all the inmates would drown in the filthy water, making way for a new batch of prisoners. But Paul’s thankfulness didn’t rise or fall on his earthly circumstances but on the richness of his fellowship with the Lord.

Even if Paul was never incarcerated at Mamertine prison, you know for sure other Christians were, and more thanlikely died that way.

Do you know what Christian women do? They persevere. They endure to the end. They forgive. They know that love covers a multitude of sins. If there’s abuse like physical beating, we go to a shelter. If there is rape or harassment or stalking, we go to the police. But not every slight is abuse. Not every want that’s denied is oppression. What we do is as Jimmy Buffett sang.

“Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”

Let’s stop gazing at the lint in our bellies and thinking it is the thorn in our side. The American-female empowerment through abuse-story telling culture has to stop. Women, Sisters, breathe in, breathe out, (tell the authorities if necessary) and move on.