FREEMASONRY: A timely reminder of a real threat from a day gone by!

Christianity Today's offering on Freemasonry is pertinent and timely for this blogger/observer ... ironically, I just put up a copy of a hundred-year-old address on the subject by the son of the Johnathon Blanchard mentioned below, Charles A. Blanchard.

Click over to The SHEEP'S CRIB - Inspiration to read the most pointed refutation of Freemasonry I've come across ... and that by a former 33rd degree Mason.

In CT's TIDINGS column they bring us ...

"The Freemasonry Threat - Faint echoes remind evangelicals of a nearly forgotten foe" by Ted Olsen; a timely reminder of things past ...
Family Life Church loves their new building ... except for one thing: The walls still bear symbols of its past as a Masonic temple. The suburban Chicago Daily Herald reported that Elgin officials barred the markings' removal because they "contribute to the overall character of the building, its history." The church argued the symbols conflict with Christian belief, but the government said the church can only cover them up, not remove them.

Family Life Church's effort echoes a long fight in Kenya's Presbyterian Church of East Africa over eradicating Masonic symbols in colonial-era churches and government buildings. "These symbols and artifacts must be removed and destroyed," PCEA head David Githii explained to The Nation as at least 30 stained-glass windows and other items were removed from Nairobi's St. Andrews Church. "They are anti-Christ." Githii sent demolition squads to other PCEA churches around the country ... .

Yes, there are still Freemasons, including a reported 1.8 million members in the United States. And if the unconfirmed anecdotes ct editors hear regularly are to believed, Masonic cliques still wield power in several places.

But membership is half what it was 50 years ago. It's hard to believe that Freemasons and similar secret societies were one of the top three social ills targeted by evangelicals of the mid-1800s, along with slavery and alcohol. In 1868, several prominent evangelicals, including revivalist Charles Grandison Finney and Wheaton College founder Jonathan Blanchard, created the National Christian Association (NCA) to warn believers that "all secret societies [are] deistical, antagonistic to Christianity, [and] tend to loosen moral ties."

Now Freemasonry is nearly forgotten, and the Christian campaign against "secretism" had little to do with the decline. ... The tough question is when to listen to William Wilberforce and when to listen to Gamaliel (Acts 5:38): "Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail."

Once you read Blanchard's charges you might want to reread Wilberforce.

Christianity, Christianity Today,
Cults, Freemasons, PCEA, Wheaton

APOLOGETICS: Like leaving the kids in the car on a hot summer day!

A Christian Post piece warns we might be committing an equally unthinkable crime against our young ...

Churches are producing atheists by not answering the questions of young people and explaining why they believe in the Bible ... .

So says Anthony Horvath ...

... formerly an atheist himself after years of Christian education, pointed out that renowned atheists such as Richard Dawkins were raised in the Church but have become some of the fiercest attackers of God.

He further noted, “Books like Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ and Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ do not become best sellers in a society that understands what Christianity is all about.”

Billy Graham, years ago, said something to the effect that the largest mission field in the world meets Sunday mornings in your local church [my loose paraphrase]. I've been saying for three years now that the Church is sick and getting sicker.

Anthony Horvath, Apologetics, Atheism, Christianity

EVOLUTION: You can't have it both ways!

Olansky, at World Magazine, says as much. If you use Behe as your creationist darling one day, you can't reject him the next day when he says something you don't like!

Behe's insistence that key mutations in the history of life must have been nonrandom, and that the universe is clearly designed for life, will infuriate Darwinian materialists.

But he will also displease creationists, for he argues that "the evidence for common descent seems compelling." Modern DNA sequencing, he contends, shows that many creatures have common ancestors, and that God did not create man from dust.

But fear not brethren, science is populated with the same people who have told us coffee would kill us one day and not the next.

Behe's emphasis on "irreducible complexity" explained why chance mutations could not be the driving engine of macroevolutionary change. He showed how the complexity of organs and organisms means that not one mutation but dozens would have to kick in all at once, an event as improbable as would be the production by complete chance of a spring-driven mousetrap.

Please don't think Behe must agree with our apologists on every point in order to be a grand asset to their arguments.
HT: WorldMag Blog

BLOGGERS BLOGGING:

Be Bold, Be Gentle

Apologetics, Behe, Christianity,
Creationists, Darwinism, Evolution

CATHOLICS: And Their Claim to Ecclesiastical Supremacy!

Al Mohler writes in response to Pope Benedict XVI's recent (but not the first) declaration that the Church of Rome trumps all other claims to true-Churchdom ...

Aren't you offended? That is the question many Evangelicals are being asked in the wake of a recent document released by the Vatican. The document declares that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church -- or, in words the Vatican would prefer to use, the only institutional form in which the Church of Christ subsists.

He answers for himself and others of us ...

No, I am not offended.

He continues to offer rational reasons why non-Catholic Christians (especially Protestants) should not be offended.

1. This is not an issue for emotion; taking offense in this sense is an emotion.
2. This should not come as a surprise to the well-informed believer.
3. This presents us with an ecclesiological opportunity.

There is more here.

HT: David Virtue's Virtue Online

Al Mohler, Apologetics, Benedict XVI,
Catholicism, Christianity

GOD: Here to Stay!

Fox News' Greg Gutfeld says,

whether you like it or not, God is here to stay. He's not going anywhere. And, He is a He. If God were a woman, we wouldn't have pornography or at least, good pornography, like Barely Legal.

Still, you can't go anywhere these days without stepping in an atheist.

Watch Greg's Greg-alogue for the whole story; Gutfeld hosts "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld" weekdays at 2 a.m. ET.

Apologetics, Christianity, Fox News,
Greg Gutfeld, Red Eye