ANGLICAN ANGST: Somehow I knew this was coming!

The once late great Anglican Church takes another blow for its heresy, apostasy, and debauchery ... only this time it is from one of its own, one who is known as a mountain of theological righteousness ... J. I. Packer.

One of the world's most famous evangelical theologians quit the Anglican Church of Canada this week because he believes many of its bishops are "arguably heretical" for adhering to "poisonous liberalism."

James (J.I.) Packer, whom Time magazine recently named as one of the planet's 25 most influential evangelicals, said he hesitated before using the harsh terms to describe the Anglican bishops, but believed he must do so in the name of truth.

Vancouver-based Packer, who has sold more than four million copies of his many books, said he and 10 other B.C. Anglican clergy left the national denomination this week to operate under the authority of a South American Anglican archbishop because they felt they were being "starved out and worn down." [HT: Black Kettle]

I can only, and sadly, grieve over this event ... it truly marks a turning point for the coming split between conservative and heretical Anglicans.

One must read the Vancouver Sun blog post to see the true depth of the depravity of Canadian clergy. Another sad day for the Body of Christ.

Anglican, Canada, Christianity,
Heresy, Packer, Religion

EVIL: Must the Bride fall in order to rise again?

I write this post under a deep conviction that the Bride of Christ, as she is manifested in the West, is horribly ill and perhaps terminally so!

****

It is strange to realize you're a soul-brother with a man you don't know; especially on a controversial subject like evil. But that seems to be the case. Theodore Dalrymple admits to a fascination with books dealing with "evil." I too am fascinated with this subject ... even before becoming a believer.

Recently, Dalrymple read a book by Phillip Cole [a philosopher], The Myth of Evil, and was impressed with some, but not all, of Cole's arguments. The author's principle point is that the word evil is useless in a civilized society.

[Cole] uses as an example the notorious and brutal murder of the two year-old James Bulger by two ten year-old children, John Venables and Robert Thomson. Both of the culprits came from highly disturbed and indeed sordid backgrounds, in which there was a lot of violence, emotional instability, excessive drinking, etc. The statistical connection between such a background and violent criminal behaviour is clear; but what the two boys did was nevertheless exceptional (murder by children, even from the worst circumstances is very rare).

In Dalrymple's words ...

[Cole] argues for the uselessness, indeed the harmfulness ... , of the concept of evil. And I confess that, though I have sometimes had a strong sense of being in the presence of evil, I have had some slight difficulty with the meaning of the concept myself. What exactly does it mean? Can we, ought we, or must we, do without it, philosophically, ethically, psychologically and sociologically?

Notice the absence of the spiritual realm.

Cole argues that the concept is redundant both as a description and as an explanation of human conduct. In fact, he says, its main use or function, when stripped of its unsustainable pretensions to describe or explain anything, is to frighten populations into acquiescence to the extension of power over them by ruling elites whose legitimacy might otherwise be called into question. For it is not common values or characteristics that unite political entities such as states in the modern world, he says, but common enemies, who are either wholly imaginary or whose power and malevolence are much exaggerated.

It is true that fear, as a concept and a reality in Scripture is used to elicit our acquiescence to the person and power of God. Yet, only the fool would suggest He uses it to avoid questions concerning His legitimacy.

Indeed, [Cole] continues, the concept of evil is responsible for much harm ... in the world. The reason for this is clear. When we say of someone that he is evil, we are saying that he is a being of a quite distinct category from ourselves, such that normal ethical limits and restraints do not apply in the way that we must deal with him. For evil is the ultimate – well, evil, and must be destroyed by any means possible. Without the concept of evil, then, we would be much less likely to treat people evilly.

I detect a hint of Reagan and Bush bashing in Cole's argument above; remember the "evil empire" and "the axis of evil," respectively?

Of course authentic believers know the question of evil was answered by God Himself long ago:

Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. [Genesis 2:9]

After analyzing Cole's forensic weaknesses, Dalrymple offered the following penetrating thought ...

... on the larger point on [the Bulger] case, Dr Cole is surely right: to have dismissed them as irredeemably evil, or possessed by evil, would have been mistaken and cruel, as is proved by the fact that the children subsequently turned out well, much better in fact than they would have done had they never committed the murder, for they received intense and humane attention thereafter.

Herein is nurture and justification for the Age of Accountability doctrine.

As the writer of a book on the case, Blake Morrison, put it (I quote from memory), ‘It was a pity they had to murder James Bulger to get an education.’ I don’t think I have read a more succinct and damning indictment of a society and its educational system than that, and no doubt it does not apply only to Liverpool, England. [New English Review]

This is such an excellent metaphor for the Good News. I might paraphrase Morrison's words in this way: "It is a pity we had to murder Jesus of Nazareth to get understanding." But it is true ... isn't it? What would man have learned about evil had not the ultimate innocent died?

Like Dalrymple, I don’t think we can find "a more succinct and damning indictment" of man and his systems than that.

Likewise,

Dr Cole extends the lessons of [the Bulger] case to all human evil ... . Venables and Thompson were redeemable precisely because those who looked after them thought they were redeemable and did not consider them as evil by essence; by extension, everyone else who commits evil is redeemable, though perhaps with more difficulty.

Sinners all (Romans 3:23), we "were all redeemable precisely because [God made us] redeemable " and considered evil as "evil by essence." I believe Dalrymple inadvertently tells us an eternal truth: "by extension, everyone ... who commits evil is redeemable, though perhaps with more difficulty."

Is that not what God put in man at his creation ... His own image? Thus the concept of "evil by essence" must be mitigated with the Imago Dei.

Christianity, Church,
Evil, Redemption, Religion

CHURCH: The Late Great Body of Christ!

Recent survey results show a pitiful and putrefactive body of "christians" in the good ol' USA ... a kilometer wide and and a millimeter deep.

One thing is clear, as Billy Graham is given credit for saying,

"on Sunday mornings, the church is the richest mission field on earth."

Like Bambi, the people in our churches are some of the loveliest in the world, truly a joy to know. Yet again, like Bambi, when looking out of their darkness into the bright light of the Word of God, they stare, open-eyed, unblinking, not knowing whether to fight or flee.

Ironically, the pew people (plumbers, housewives, lawyers, mechanics, clerks, the unemployed, the dysfunctional, school teachers, and high-school dropouts) truly believe they know more about pastoring than pastors ... and they also believe it is their job in life to tell us.

How would it be if we dropped in on them, during the day, and waxed on about what they are doing and the way they are doing it?

Pastors were not to be their people's friends, they are to be their shepherds; they are to preach the Word, in season and out!

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew. Billy Graham

All these visitation and relational programs are nothing but worldly human waste. The clergy is not better than the laity but they sure as h___ weren't intended to be tied up in an interpersonal touchy-feely wasteland.

Face it my peers, bringing the mulch of the world into the garden of God has produce weeds, not fruit! On any given Sunday morning, over half the people listening to you are lost ... LOST!!! What good is your new series on parenting to them? What good does it do to proclaim a "green" series them? What good does it do to preach the Ten Commandments to them? They need to know the meaning of the bronze serpent on the staff before they can comprehend the Manna from heaven.

What they need, and are not getting, is a message concerning their being "sinners in the hands of an angry God." [For a sad commentary see Yale's intro to this great message.]

Apostates, Christianity,
Church, Religion, Sinners

END TIMES: Convergence of the unrelated!

Two unrelated stories got me thinking:

first, the revelation that, in a Pew Forum survey, nearly 60% of those who indicated an evangelical worldview believed there are many roads that lead to heaven and,

second, an offer to sell an original, first edition copy of George Orwell's seminal ditty "nineteen eighty-four" with an accompanying quote, "He loved Big Brother."

How thought provoking that quote is in light of the sad condition of the Bride of Christ. Everywhere I turn, people are open to and looking for authentic Christianity ... but the visible church (including me) has done its best to conceal the real thing from the unsaved masses.

I'm not surprised the people (searching for real truth) love Big Brother and buy into his lies. Bottom-line, however, the church, like Peter, will soon hear the cock crow for her virtual denial of Christ.

Big Brother, Bride of Christ,
Christianity, Church, Religion

LEADERSHIP: Which reminds me!

DECLARATION ONE: The CRIB has lost all respect for our national leadership and desires to move its CRIB HQ to another planet where we will see them again no more!

DECLARATION TWO: We are on the verge of losing all respect for global church leadership, except for Anglican leaders in Africa and Australia, only we can't expedite the Second Coming!

America, Anglican,
Christianity, Leadership

INDECENCY: When the Bride Fails

Today's appellate ruling reveals the failure of the Body of Christ. Follow my logic ...

1. Public indecency is a secular issue.
2. A citizen's freedom of speech, as we know it, is a political issue.
3. Both indecency and free speech fluctuate at the whim of the people.
4. Christians have freedom of speech and behavior [1 Corinthians 10:23] but moderate their speech [Ephesians 4:29] and actions [Romans 8:13] in obedience to God [Romans 12:1-2].
5. As Bob Carlise says in his powerful gospel song We Are the People, "We are the people, and the way we make a change is only by the way we live our lives; we are the people of the Light!"
6. If the public degenerates to the point of embarrassment, it's not the fault of sinners ... YOU CAN'T MAKE PIGS ACT LIKE SHEEP ...
7. It's the fault of the Bride of Christ; we are chartered with the responsibility to impact the general public "by the way we live our lives" [Matthew 5:13-14].
8. It's also prophetic of the approach of the last days [Romans 1:27; 2 Peter 3:3; Jude 1:18].
9. The finger of blame points directly at an apostate Church.
   

WaPo succinctly describes the decision ...

A federal appeals court tossed out an indecency ruling against Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network yesterday and broadly questioned whether the Federal Communications Commission has the right to police the airwaves for offensive language.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York ruled that the FCC went too far in issuing a 2006 decision against Fox Broadcasting for separate incidents in 2002 and 2003 after singer Cher and celebrity Nicole Richie each uttered an expletive on live television.

The reason for this decision is the people's moral demise; in God's administration of things [Romans 13:1-5] it falls to His people to keep a nation and her people in line by being salt and light.

BLOGGERS BLOGGING:

Chickaboomer
Cheat Seeking Missiles
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Rob Hyndman
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Body of Christ, Bride of Christ, Christianity,
Courts, FCC, First Amendment, Free Speech, Indecency