Even though all the facts point to him being a degenerate demagogue, several high profile Christian leaders have endorsed Donald J. Trump. A significant percentage of self identified Christian voters support him. But a growing number of Christians agree with my opening description of Trump. So, a major Christian magazine had an editorial pleading for believers to not allow Trump to divide the Body of Christ. Somehow, at this point, I smell the activity of that "ancient serpent, the devil and Satan". The question is: how many more deep fractures can the Body of Christ in this country endure? If Trump becomes the Enemy's tool to create another deep division it will be the fourth in my lifetime.
I gave much thought to what should be considered the first division. Many would say it was the liberal/fundamentalist conflict in the first third of the twentieth century. But this was essentially a division of believers from unbelievers. Even though the word 'fundamentalist' eventually became associated with obscurantism and love of conflict, the men who wrote "The Fundamentals" (1910) were sober, rational and gracious individuals. Limiting this to my lifetime I say the first major division was the Fundamentalist/Evangelical division of the late 1950's. The Fundamentalists said: "Even though you are a brother/sister in Christ, if you associate with people who may be theological liberals, I will not associate with you". This was something like the accusation against Jesus that "he eats and drinks with sinners". This division resulted in Fundamentalist leaders calling Billy Graham "the forerunner of the antichrist". This division still runs very deep.
The second division began with the publication of "The Genesis Flood" in 1961. Those believing in "young earth/flood geology" divided from believers who take Genesis as history but seek to interpret it consistently with all branches of scientific discovery. This division also runs very deep but the hostility is largely found in the first group whereas the second group says, "let's discuss these things and not hurl accusations at each other".
The third major division of believers in my lifetime came about very gradually but was clearly visible by the end of the 1980's. It continues unabated today. It is not well understood by either side. It is called by various names: contemporary music; praise music; etc. Some say it is only about the music and not the words. But others point out the strong objection many have to the overuse of repetition. This is usually a division between older and younger believers. The same folks who consider themselves more Fundamentalist than Evangelical, and "young earth/flood geology", are usually the ones who "use only hymnals", and eschew any hint of rock beat in music. Many wise believers are working to heal this division by attempting some blend of music in their churches. But doing this successfully requires a knowledge of both music and Christian music history that few have.
Now, will Donald J. Trump become a fourth major and lasting division between believers? If he does we will see again how utterly cunning the Enemy really is. The reader of this blog can probably detect my position on each of the first three historical divisions just described. I have ministered to individuals and churches on both sides of those divisions. I know where each side is coming from because I was once on "the other side" of each of those. I believe the Holy Spirit led me to change and, with His help, become more gracious. But widespread Christian endorsement of someone like Trump may be unprecedented in American Christianity. It is evidence that this country is under a judgment of God. We call it 'Judicial Blindness'. My goal: do not make it too hard for those fellow believers, who are absolutely wrong headed in this matter, to repent. I have repented of more than a few attitudes and remember with gratitude those who did not make my change of mind too difficult.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Thursday, February 25, 2016
A QUIZ SHOW AND A PREDICTION
"And now will contestant number three tell us a little about herself." "I'm married to my wonderful husband _____. We've been together ten years and been married four and a half years." I switched to another station before I almost vomited. So am I really old fashioned and puritanical? It would be more accurate to say that I cannot bear the pain of watching people destroy themselves and destroy this country. If there are no moral absolutes about marriage and sexual behavior then it can never be said that anything is absolutely wrong. It can only be said that something is distasteful or repugnant or unpleasant or whatever. But it cannot be said that something is finally and absolutely wrong because there is no recognition of any moral Law! And it has all happened within my lifetime.
We now have two cultures; two societies. One of them recognizes absolute truth and morality and rationally applies that truth to all of life. To the other group everything is relative to experience and circumstances. The first group is actually not all that large because many professing Christians are in the second group. Being a Christian is, for them, not a whole lot different from the idealistic drug trips of the sixties; something outside of reason but it makes you feel like there is meaning to life. How else can you explain the thousands of 'Christians' who are voting in the Republican primary elections for an unrepentant serial adulterer?
Right about now is when someone will point back to the 1950's and say that there was plenty of sin in this country then. True, but with one huge difference: More than ninety percent of the country at least paid lip service to the absolute moral Laws of the Creator. Although many did not act consistently they at least acknowledged the moral laws and thus there was a standard to which one could appeal when trying to right a wrong. Take the example of the early civil rights movement. Segregation and the horrible treatment of people of color was, perhaps, the overriding evil of that era. The group led by Martin Luther King Jr. called itself The Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The appeal was to the Biblical moral standard that millions of white Americans said they recognized. Today there is no such standard recognized by which to decide what is actually evil. As a matter of fact, the moral laws themselves are now considered evil. Everything has been turned on its head.
Will a majority ever hold to that standard again in this country? The answer is in the hands of believers in Christ and whether or not they will pray and live by and under the authority of the Lord of lords. History has precedents of very depraved cultures being transformed. No example is more vivid than England in the 1700's during the time of John Wesley and the early Methodists. People have not changed and God has not changed. Technology only makes our era look radically different but the hearts of people are the same as throughout history and the Grace of God is as powerful as ever. Several million fervently praying and consistently living believers will be heard by God and things will happen. The Soviet Union collapsed by 1990 and shortly afterward you could pray and teach the Bible in the schools of Russia.
With confidence I predict that the death of Justice Scalia is only the first of the upheavals and calamities that we will see this year as God sovereignly shows this wicked nation Who is really in charge. He is about to shake all nations so that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. In the meantime, if you know the Lord, please be both joyful and very sober. From eternity we will look back on this moment of time and be glad that we were both.
We now have two cultures; two societies. One of them recognizes absolute truth and morality and rationally applies that truth to all of life. To the other group everything is relative to experience and circumstances. The first group is actually not all that large because many professing Christians are in the second group. Being a Christian is, for them, not a whole lot different from the idealistic drug trips of the sixties; something outside of reason but it makes you feel like there is meaning to life. How else can you explain the thousands of 'Christians' who are voting in the Republican primary elections for an unrepentant serial adulterer?
Right about now is when someone will point back to the 1950's and say that there was plenty of sin in this country then. True, but with one huge difference: More than ninety percent of the country at least paid lip service to the absolute moral Laws of the Creator. Although many did not act consistently they at least acknowledged the moral laws and thus there was a standard to which one could appeal when trying to right a wrong. Take the example of the early civil rights movement. Segregation and the horrible treatment of people of color was, perhaps, the overriding evil of that era. The group led by Martin Luther King Jr. called itself The Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The appeal was to the Biblical moral standard that millions of white Americans said they recognized. Today there is no such standard recognized by which to decide what is actually evil. As a matter of fact, the moral laws themselves are now considered evil. Everything has been turned on its head.
Will a majority ever hold to that standard again in this country? The answer is in the hands of believers in Christ and whether or not they will pray and live by and under the authority of the Lord of lords. History has precedents of very depraved cultures being transformed. No example is more vivid than England in the 1700's during the time of John Wesley and the early Methodists. People have not changed and God has not changed. Technology only makes our era look radically different but the hearts of people are the same as throughout history and the Grace of God is as powerful as ever. Several million fervently praying and consistently living believers will be heard by God and things will happen. The Soviet Union collapsed by 1990 and shortly afterward you could pray and teach the Bible in the schools of Russia.
With confidence I predict that the death of Justice Scalia is only the first of the upheavals and calamities that we will see this year as God sovereignly shows this wicked nation Who is really in charge. He is about to shake all nations so that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. In the meantime, if you know the Lord, please be both joyful and very sober. From eternity we will look back on this moment of time and be glad that we were both.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
UPDATE ON THE EVOLUTION DEBATE
You will rarely see it in print but the full title of Darwin's work published in 1859 was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. He actually proposed two ideas. One is called microevolution, meaning very small and very gradual changes in species over time. When that concept is extrapolated to account for all living things it is called macroevolution. The concept of macroevolution was refined during the twentieth century and called neo (new) Darwinism. Few people outside the science of biology are aware that neo Darwinism is all but totally discarded as a workable theory. Darwin's concept of gradualism has been found to be inadequate and the reigning concept in evolutionary thought now is called extended evolutionary synthesis. This is a rather vague phrase meaning: we do not agree on how evolution happened but we are sure that it did happen and we are exploring several possibilities to explain how.
But let us pause and review some responses of Christians over the last 150 years to Darwinism. Most responses have not been credible and therefore not God-honoring. There have been too many instances of ridicule, misrepresentation, and quotations taken out of context. Things hit a low point during what was called the "Scopes monkey trial" in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. There is evidence that sad spectacle was promoted by commercial interests who wanted to bring visitors and lots of cash into the area. A more credible response to Darwinism from a biblical standpoint was the book After Its Kind published in the 1950's. The year 1961 saw the publication of The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris. They proposed two concepts. First, they argued that the entire cosmos including life on the earth was only a few thousand years old and had an appearance of age. Second, they argued that the flood of Noah's time was global and created all, or nearly all, the earth's strata thus further adding to the apparent age. In spite of the fact that most Christians who are practicing scientists and most qualified biblical scholars rejected both ideas these two concepts quickly became what has been called the new orthodoxy of fundamentalism. It is usually called young earth creationism.
Before we say more about Christian opinion on these matters let us pick up the thread of evolutionary thought. Evidence regarding evolution has increasingly come to rest upon the results of studying the human genome (DNA). The head of the human genome project was Francis Collins who professes to be an Evangelical Christian. He, however, was so convinced that DNA showed common descent of all living things, including humans, from a common ancestor that he founded an organization called Biologos. This is an organization of scientists who profess to be Evangelical Christians but are convinced of common descent (evolution). They call their view evolutionary creation. They recognize only two creative acts of God: the original creation moment in which God, as it were, programmed (like a computer) all matter to develop (evolve) into the cosmos and life on the earth. Second, they believe that God endowed a highly evolved creature with a soul and that was the first human.
Francis Collins has written that he does not believe Genesis to be historical. Nor does he believe Job or Jonah to be historical. They are viewed as allegory or metaphor. The overwhelming majority of Evangelical Christians, including many in the sciences, cannot accept either the science or the theology of the Biologos group. As much as anything, those in the Biologos group are motivated by a fear of being accused of the God of the gaps. That phrase means using God as an explanation when you cannot come up with a natural explanation. This is viewed as kind of an unpardonable scientific sin. However, there is an inconsistency here, They accept two creative acts of God (that we mentioned above). So, how can they logically admit God at two crucial points and still not be depending on a God of the gaps?
Are thoughtful Christians left now with just these two rather extreme positions of young earth creationism and evolutionary creation? Do we have a third option that is both scientifically credible and one that takes Scripture seriously? When I asked a Christian man who is a professor in the physical sciences at a branch of The Ohio State University about this he unhesitatingly answered Reasons To Believe and their website reasons.org.
A large number of papers by competent Christian scholars supporting their positions can be found at godandscience.org.
There is a very great need at this moment for Christians to calmly discuss these things without throwing verbal rocks at each other. The test of Godly wisdom is that it is (among other things) peace loving, gentle, approachable, and full of tolerant thoughts . . . ." James 3:17 (Phillips)
But let us pause and review some responses of Christians over the last 150 years to Darwinism. Most responses have not been credible and therefore not God-honoring. There have been too many instances of ridicule, misrepresentation, and quotations taken out of context. Things hit a low point during what was called the "Scopes monkey trial" in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. There is evidence that sad spectacle was promoted by commercial interests who wanted to bring visitors and lots of cash into the area. A more credible response to Darwinism from a biblical standpoint was the book After Its Kind published in the 1950's. The year 1961 saw the publication of The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris. They proposed two concepts. First, they argued that the entire cosmos including life on the earth was only a few thousand years old and had an appearance of age. Second, they argued that the flood of Noah's time was global and created all, or nearly all, the earth's strata thus further adding to the apparent age. In spite of the fact that most Christians who are practicing scientists and most qualified biblical scholars rejected both ideas these two concepts quickly became what has been called the new orthodoxy of fundamentalism. It is usually called young earth creationism.
Before we say more about Christian opinion on these matters let us pick up the thread of evolutionary thought. Evidence regarding evolution has increasingly come to rest upon the results of studying the human genome (DNA). The head of the human genome project was Francis Collins who professes to be an Evangelical Christian. He, however, was so convinced that DNA showed common descent of all living things, including humans, from a common ancestor that he founded an organization called Biologos. This is an organization of scientists who profess to be Evangelical Christians but are convinced of common descent (evolution). They call their view evolutionary creation. They recognize only two creative acts of God: the original creation moment in which God, as it were, programmed (like a computer) all matter to develop (evolve) into the cosmos and life on the earth. Second, they believe that God endowed a highly evolved creature with a soul and that was the first human.
Francis Collins has written that he does not believe Genesis to be historical. Nor does he believe Job or Jonah to be historical. They are viewed as allegory or metaphor. The overwhelming majority of Evangelical Christians, including many in the sciences, cannot accept either the science or the theology of the Biologos group. As much as anything, those in the Biologos group are motivated by a fear of being accused of the God of the gaps. That phrase means using God as an explanation when you cannot come up with a natural explanation. This is viewed as kind of an unpardonable scientific sin. However, there is an inconsistency here, They accept two creative acts of God (that we mentioned above). So, how can they logically admit God at two crucial points and still not be depending on a God of the gaps?
Are thoughtful Christians left now with just these two rather extreme positions of young earth creationism and evolutionary creation? Do we have a third option that is both scientifically credible and one that takes Scripture seriously? When I asked a Christian man who is a professor in the physical sciences at a branch of The Ohio State University about this he unhesitatingly answered Reasons To Believe and their website reasons.org.
A large number of papers by competent Christian scholars supporting their positions can be found at godandscience.org.
There is a very great need at this moment for Christians to calmly discuss these things without throwing verbal rocks at each other. The test of Godly wisdom is that it is (among other things) peace loving, gentle, approachable, and full of tolerant thoughts . . . ." James 3:17 (Phillips)
Sunday, February 7, 2016
A STRIKE AT SIXTY
Since it would be difficult to find someone still living who had an active part I now feel safe in talking about it. I say "safe" because the big Westinghouse strike of 1955-'56 may have been the most bitterly fought and costly in the history of Mansfield, Ohio. The Westinghouse Corporation was founded 130 years ago by the inventor of the air brake. It grew into one of the country's largest manufacturers of home appliances. The Westinghouse plant in Mansfield, Ohio opened in 1918 and steadily expanded to cover more than two city blocks. Today all that remains amid the rubble is one building known as the Mansfield Commerce Center. But how much history shouts to us from that rubble!
My father dropped out of school during the Great Depression when he was only 14 years old. I believe he might have found school to be a happier experience if he had some of the good help available today to young people who struggle with school. About a year after marrying my mother, when they were both 19, my dad took a job with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as the economy began to pick up. He was working at that job when I was born but as the economy expanded during World War II he found better pay by working at the Mansfield Westinghouse plant in wartime production. He was exempt from the draft because of an injury from a fall that would eventually almost take his life.
When the war ended in 1945 there was a serious housing shortage in the U.S. with millions of young men leaving the military, marrying, and starting families. All those new homes being built needed things like electric stoves, refrigerators, toasters, irons (to press clothing), washers, and dryers. Westinghouse in Mansfield expanded to around 8500 employees in those post war years; a number almost too large to comprehend today when one thinks how few manufacturing jobs exist in all of Richland County. Westinghouse TV ads were filmed in Mansfield and featured the popular TV personality Betty Furness. As she opened a refrigerator door she would say, "You can be sure . . . if it's Westinghouse". The Westinghouse "home of tomorrow" was built in the Woodland area. At Christmas time Westinghouse would rent the entire Madison theater just to show cartoons and give treats to the hundreds of children of employees. But in retrospect we can see that Westinghouse management lacked foresight in at least two ways. Their manufacturing plant needed modernization and their relationship with Electrical Workers Union #711 in Mansfield could have been better. Other industries proved that both of these were possible; difficult maybe but possible.
The first major step in the decline of the Mansfield plant came in 1954 when the refrigerator line was moved to another city. The next year, in the autumn of 1955, the union called a strike. Thus, the title of this blog: "A Strike At Sixty" (years after it happened). Anyone who reads my blogs regularly knows that I don't write history for mere entertainment. I am heading somewhere with this. At first the strike was great fun for me as a 13 year old. On Saturdays that winter my dad would take me to Mansfield with him and I would hang out at the union hall, eat, and watch TV in their upstairs lounge. I recall a huge poster above the food serving counter with a quotation from Jack London, the early 20th century writer who, among other things, was a socialist. That long quotation described what terrible people "scabs" were. One line in particular comes to mind: "the scab has a corkscrew soul", whatever that meant. More about "scabs" in a moment. The union gave each striker vouchers for necessities and we would buy groceries with those vouchers at Mansfield's first supermarket, the A & P on Bowman Street, now long since closed.
Public school teachers were typically conservative Republicans in those days (believe it or not) and mine was not happy when I handed him a union voucher for my lunches. One day he heard me repeat something from the Jack London quote about "scabs" and he replied: "but are they really scabs?" I told my uncle who also was on strike and he said: "they are scabs". In the following years I would discover how wrong the union was in this use of that word. Those few workers who, for conscience or other reasons, would not go out on strike were dishonestly vilified by the union. I saw with my own eyes how they were yelled at and threatened as they crossed the picket lines. A "scab" by definition is actually someone who is hired to take the place of a striking worker, not a worker who refuses to strike. Refusing to strike may, depending on the situation, be praiseworthy or blameworthy but it hardly fits Jack London's description of a "scab". One critic said it reads like "barbed wire over sandpaper". (I can see you rushing to Google when you finish this just to read it for yourself!)
My dad and his brother were greatly offended at church one Sunday that winter of '55 - '56 when a guest speaker implied that this strike was not something a Christian should do. My father was man enough in later years to admit "I was wrong". The ungodliness of that strike was seen on the front page of the Mansfield News Journal in such scenes as overturned cars, not to mention what was yelled at workers crossing the picket lines. My dad also confessed that union leaders misled the workers and that the strike gained nothing and caused much loss. There were indeed times in history when working conditions were so cruel and unsafe that strikes were more than justified. This was not one of them.
Sixty years ago this spring that terrible episode in Mansfield history came to an end with no winners. My dad went on working at Westinghouse 22 more years and ten years after he retired Westinghouse in Mansfield, after a slow but steady decline, closed its doors for good. Compared to the late 1940's Mansfield today is a ghost town. Westinghouse, General Motors, Tappan, Ohio Brass, Mansfield Tire and others are all gone and manufacturing jobs are scarce. Other cities, chiefly in the South, have had a far different history. But Mansfield is a symbol of the U.S. as a whole in its economic and spiritual decline. In the midst of this it remains as true as ever that for the child of God "the best days are indeed ahead". When we look at several thriving evangelical churches we can truthfully say that Mansfield has done much better spiritually than economically. Many are praying that will be true of the entire U.S. So, here we are, sixty years after the big strike!
How can something that seems like "just yesterday" to me seem to you like "ancient history"? Just wait; you'll see.
My father dropped out of school during the Great Depression when he was only 14 years old. I believe he might have found school to be a happier experience if he had some of the good help available today to young people who struggle with school. About a year after marrying my mother, when they were both 19, my dad took a job with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as the economy began to pick up. He was working at that job when I was born but as the economy expanded during World War II he found better pay by working at the Mansfield Westinghouse plant in wartime production. He was exempt from the draft because of an injury from a fall that would eventually almost take his life.
When the war ended in 1945 there was a serious housing shortage in the U.S. with millions of young men leaving the military, marrying, and starting families. All those new homes being built needed things like electric stoves, refrigerators, toasters, irons (to press clothing), washers, and dryers. Westinghouse in Mansfield expanded to around 8500 employees in those post war years; a number almost too large to comprehend today when one thinks how few manufacturing jobs exist in all of Richland County. Westinghouse TV ads were filmed in Mansfield and featured the popular TV personality Betty Furness. As she opened a refrigerator door she would say, "You can be sure . . . if it's Westinghouse". The Westinghouse "home of tomorrow" was built in the Woodland area. At Christmas time Westinghouse would rent the entire Madison theater just to show cartoons and give treats to the hundreds of children of employees. But in retrospect we can see that Westinghouse management lacked foresight in at least two ways. Their manufacturing plant needed modernization and their relationship with Electrical Workers Union #711 in Mansfield could have been better. Other industries proved that both of these were possible; difficult maybe but possible.
The first major step in the decline of the Mansfield plant came in 1954 when the refrigerator line was moved to another city. The next year, in the autumn of 1955, the union called a strike. Thus, the title of this blog: "A Strike At Sixty" (years after it happened). Anyone who reads my blogs regularly knows that I don't write history for mere entertainment. I am heading somewhere with this. At first the strike was great fun for me as a 13 year old. On Saturdays that winter my dad would take me to Mansfield with him and I would hang out at the union hall, eat, and watch TV in their upstairs lounge. I recall a huge poster above the food serving counter with a quotation from Jack London, the early 20th century writer who, among other things, was a socialist. That long quotation described what terrible people "scabs" were. One line in particular comes to mind: "the scab has a corkscrew soul", whatever that meant. More about "scabs" in a moment. The union gave each striker vouchers for necessities and we would buy groceries with those vouchers at Mansfield's first supermarket, the A & P on Bowman Street, now long since closed.
Public school teachers were typically conservative Republicans in those days (believe it or not) and mine was not happy when I handed him a union voucher for my lunches. One day he heard me repeat something from the Jack London quote about "scabs" and he replied: "but are they really scabs?" I told my uncle who also was on strike and he said: "they are scabs". In the following years I would discover how wrong the union was in this use of that word. Those few workers who, for conscience or other reasons, would not go out on strike were dishonestly vilified by the union. I saw with my own eyes how they were yelled at and threatened as they crossed the picket lines. A "scab" by definition is actually someone who is hired to take the place of a striking worker, not a worker who refuses to strike. Refusing to strike may, depending on the situation, be praiseworthy or blameworthy but it hardly fits Jack London's description of a "scab". One critic said it reads like "barbed wire over sandpaper". (I can see you rushing to Google when you finish this just to read it for yourself!)
My dad and his brother were greatly offended at church one Sunday that winter of '55 - '56 when a guest speaker implied that this strike was not something a Christian should do. My father was man enough in later years to admit "I was wrong". The ungodliness of that strike was seen on the front page of the Mansfield News Journal in such scenes as overturned cars, not to mention what was yelled at workers crossing the picket lines. My dad also confessed that union leaders misled the workers and that the strike gained nothing and caused much loss. There were indeed times in history when working conditions were so cruel and unsafe that strikes were more than justified. This was not one of them.
Sixty years ago this spring that terrible episode in Mansfield history came to an end with no winners. My dad went on working at Westinghouse 22 more years and ten years after he retired Westinghouse in Mansfield, after a slow but steady decline, closed its doors for good. Compared to the late 1940's Mansfield today is a ghost town. Westinghouse, General Motors, Tappan, Ohio Brass, Mansfield Tire and others are all gone and manufacturing jobs are scarce. Other cities, chiefly in the South, have had a far different history. But Mansfield is a symbol of the U.S. as a whole in its economic and spiritual decline. In the midst of this it remains as true as ever that for the child of God "the best days are indeed ahead". When we look at several thriving evangelical churches we can truthfully say that Mansfield has done much better spiritually than economically. Many are praying that will be true of the entire U.S. So, here we are, sixty years after the big strike!
How can something that seems like "just yesterday" to me seem to you like "ancient history"? Just wait; you'll see.
Monday, February 1, 2016
USING THE "C" WORD
"They're nothing but a cult." We have all heard it and probably said it at some time about some group. The basic meaning of the word is not as bad as we think. It simply means a particular religious group as distinguished from other religious groups. Biblical scholars sometimes use the word "cultus" of the religious system of ancient Israel as distinguished from its pagan neighbors. The second meaning of the word is more sinister: a religious movement built around devotion to an individual and that individual's teachings.
In being careful what I say about people and what I accuse them of I'm especially careful about the word "cult". It carries a very sinister meaning in our culture at this moment of history. I have come to distinguish between two uses of the word. A movement can either be a sociological cult or a theological cult and some movements combine both features. By sociological I mean control over the lives of the members whether the group claims to be Christian or not. These groups place much more emphasis on control and conformity that on theological ideas. This is the most sinister meaning of the word cult and is the reason why I am careful to denote what I mean if I do use the word.
A cult in the theological sense claims to be truly Christian but redefines the essential concepts of what Jude in his short epistle called "the Faith once for all entrusted to the saints". (v. 3) The Apostle Paul defined a theological cult in II Corinthians 11:4 as some person or group that presents a "different Jesus, a different Spirit and a different Gospel" from what he and the other apostles presented. A theological cult may have good morals, not try to control its members and be outwardly very respectable. Mormonism comes to mind in this regard.
When Mitt Romney was running for President his campaign asked a prominent Christian organization to remove Mormonism from its list of cults. This would be justified if the group explained that they did not view Mormonism as a sociological cult but that its doctrines of God, Christ and other essentials were not the doctrines of historic Christianity. The word we use for this is heterodox as distinguished from orthodox which means "correct" or "true".
There is a form of the word 'cult' that you may not find in the dictionary but that I use regularly. That is the adjective cultish. This word can be used of a number of movements and groups in Christianity that are not at all cults in either of the two meanings I have given. If you hear a group saying in so many words, even if they do not use these exact words, "we are right and just about everyone else is wrong", then we can truthfully describe them, not as a cult, but cultish. This is one of the works of the flesh/sinful nature that Paul describes in Galatians 5:19-21. The last word in vs. 20 is factions (NIV). Paul used the word aireseis from which we derive the word heresy. But the word Paul used had the meaning of a sect, a party, a faction and a dissension. It neatly summed up the attitude that we alone are right and everyone else is either wrong or not quite as right as we are!
I have witnessed this attitude in several individuals and groups through the years. I am sure I even slipped into it at times in my younger days. This is what I mean by cultish. It is a poisonous attitude and will halt the gracious working of the Spirit of God in any church or denomination. Historically it is seen in movements that start out by declaring that all or nearly all of Christianity has "got it wrong" and "we are going to start over and get it right". This was how Mormonism started and at the same time it was the attitude in the movement that called (and still calls) itself The Restoration Movement. Both of these movements began by repudiating all the historic creeds of Christianity. One leader in the second movement even went over to the Mormons.
In its initial form this attitude does not claim that other groups are really not Christian at all. They instead feel that all other Christian groups have one or more significant errors and that they have corrected the errors. I have seen the attitude of cultishness in some leaders in smaller denominations who place a huge emphasis on secondary matters. Their favorite pronoun is "our", as in "our doctrinal distinctives".
In the last decade I have grown increasingly concerned about this attitude, sometimes in friends of mine, that promotes putting believers back under significant portions of the Law given through Moses. This includes Sabbath observance, the feasts, the dietary regulations, etc. But, significantly, this movement explains away the warning of Paul that once you start down this road you are "obligated to obey the whole Law." (Gal. 5:3) If you the reader have been caught up in this movement you should be deeply troubled by both the cultishness (not cult) of this movement and the absolutely atrocious handling of Scripture that explains away the most explicit teachings of the New Testament. I am confident you will receive this in the right spirit. "Now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision of the Law." (Gal. 3:25)
I want to be clear that I am not speaking here of authentic Messianic Jews. They have a perfect liberty in Jesus the Messiah to adopt outward Jewish features as a way of witnessing to their fellow Jews. Nor am I speaking against non-Jewish believers who may adopt some of these outward characteristics to win their Jewish friends to Jesus the Messiah. I am speaking about those who, for example, deny the explicit New Testament teaching that the early believers met on the first day of the week because Jesus' resurrection had filled that day with new meaning. I am speaking about their misuse of quotations by Roman Catholic leaders who falsely boasted that the Church of Rome changed the day of worship. I am speaking about their refusal to recognize that the only one of the Ten Commandments that is not repeated in the New Testament epistles as binding on believers today is the Sabbath commandment.
I am speaking of those who say we are obligated to do those things that the Apostles in Acts 15 clearly stated we are not obligated to do. "Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" (Acts 15:10)
In being careful what I say about people and what I accuse them of I'm especially careful about the word "cult". It carries a very sinister meaning in our culture at this moment of history. I have come to distinguish between two uses of the word. A movement can either be a sociological cult or a theological cult and some movements combine both features. By sociological I mean control over the lives of the members whether the group claims to be Christian or not. These groups place much more emphasis on control and conformity that on theological ideas. This is the most sinister meaning of the word cult and is the reason why I am careful to denote what I mean if I do use the word.
A cult in the theological sense claims to be truly Christian but redefines the essential concepts of what Jude in his short epistle called "the Faith once for all entrusted to the saints". (v. 3) The Apostle Paul defined a theological cult in II Corinthians 11:4 as some person or group that presents a "different Jesus, a different Spirit and a different Gospel" from what he and the other apostles presented. A theological cult may have good morals, not try to control its members and be outwardly very respectable. Mormonism comes to mind in this regard.
When Mitt Romney was running for President his campaign asked a prominent Christian organization to remove Mormonism from its list of cults. This would be justified if the group explained that they did not view Mormonism as a sociological cult but that its doctrines of God, Christ and other essentials were not the doctrines of historic Christianity. The word we use for this is heterodox as distinguished from orthodox which means "correct" or "true".
There is a form of the word 'cult' that you may not find in the dictionary but that I use regularly. That is the adjective cultish. This word can be used of a number of movements and groups in Christianity that are not at all cults in either of the two meanings I have given. If you hear a group saying in so many words, even if they do not use these exact words, "we are right and just about everyone else is wrong", then we can truthfully describe them, not as a cult, but cultish. This is one of the works of the flesh/sinful nature that Paul describes in Galatians 5:19-21. The last word in vs. 20 is factions (NIV). Paul used the word aireseis from which we derive the word heresy. But the word Paul used had the meaning of a sect, a party, a faction and a dissension. It neatly summed up the attitude that we alone are right and everyone else is either wrong or not quite as right as we are!
I have witnessed this attitude in several individuals and groups through the years. I am sure I even slipped into it at times in my younger days. This is what I mean by cultish. It is a poisonous attitude and will halt the gracious working of the Spirit of God in any church or denomination. Historically it is seen in movements that start out by declaring that all or nearly all of Christianity has "got it wrong" and "we are going to start over and get it right". This was how Mormonism started and at the same time it was the attitude in the movement that called (and still calls) itself The Restoration Movement. Both of these movements began by repudiating all the historic creeds of Christianity. One leader in the second movement even went over to the Mormons.
In its initial form this attitude does not claim that other groups are really not Christian at all. They instead feel that all other Christian groups have one or more significant errors and that they have corrected the errors. I have seen the attitude of cultishness in some leaders in smaller denominations who place a huge emphasis on secondary matters. Their favorite pronoun is "our", as in "our doctrinal distinctives".
In the last decade I have grown increasingly concerned about this attitude, sometimes in friends of mine, that promotes putting believers back under significant portions of the Law given through Moses. This includes Sabbath observance, the feasts, the dietary regulations, etc. But, significantly, this movement explains away the warning of Paul that once you start down this road you are "obligated to obey the whole Law." (Gal. 5:3) If you the reader have been caught up in this movement you should be deeply troubled by both the cultishness (not cult) of this movement and the absolutely atrocious handling of Scripture that explains away the most explicit teachings of the New Testament. I am confident you will receive this in the right spirit. "Now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision of the Law." (Gal. 3:25)
I want to be clear that I am not speaking here of authentic Messianic Jews. They have a perfect liberty in Jesus the Messiah to adopt outward Jewish features as a way of witnessing to their fellow Jews. Nor am I speaking against non-Jewish believers who may adopt some of these outward characteristics to win their Jewish friends to Jesus the Messiah. I am speaking about those who, for example, deny the explicit New Testament teaching that the early believers met on the first day of the week because Jesus' resurrection had filled that day with new meaning. I am speaking about their misuse of quotations by Roman Catholic leaders who falsely boasted that the Church of Rome changed the day of worship. I am speaking about their refusal to recognize that the only one of the Ten Commandments that is not repeated in the New Testament epistles as binding on believers today is the Sabbath commandment.
I am speaking of those who say we are obligated to do those things that the Apostles in Acts 15 clearly stated we are not obligated to do. "Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" (Acts 15:10)
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