I'll be back...

...sometime after I return to the U.S. and can keep the language straight on the blog.

Blogger keeps changing the language of my headers and the commands after I post even after I keep going back to reset the default language as English. I'm giving up on this place for a while until I can get to someplace where the servers speak English to blogger.

The second language is ok and all, if I used it more often, but it is a language that is only spoken by the local elite class, the school-children and/or official government publications. I have to stop and think about what was I doing and what I need to do in a new language when everything switches without notice. I'm not that good with that kind of jumping around yet.

I'll still be around and will keep things as up to date as I can in the meantime. Until then, you can find me here.

God bless

An Anglican Bishop Speaks to The Episcopal Church

A scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to the extravagantly broad and liberal theology which is so much in vogue at the present time. The tendency of modern thought is to reject dogmas, creeds, and every kind of bounds in religion. It is thought grand and wise to condemn no opinion whatsoever, and to pronounce all earnest and clever teachers to be trustworthy, however heterogeneous and mutually destructive their opinions may be. Everything, forsooth, is true and nothing is false! Everybody is right and nobody is wrong! Everybody is likely to be saved and nobody is to be lost! The atonement and substitution of Christ, the personality of the devil, the miraculous element in Scripture, the reality and eternity of future punishment, all these mighty foundation-stones are coolly tossed overboard, like lumber, in order to lighten the ship of Christianity and enable it to keep pace with modern science. Stand up for these verities, and you are called narrow, illiberal, old-fashioned and a theological fossil! Quote a text, and you are told that all truth is not confined to the pages of of an ancient Jewish book, and that free inquiry has found out many things since the book was completed! Now, I know nothing so likely to counteract this modern plague as constant clear statements about the nature, reality, vileness, power and guilt of sin. We must charge home into the consciences of these men of broad views, and demand a plain answer to some plain questions. We must ask them to lay their hands on their hearts, and tell us whether their favourite opinions comfort them in the day of sickness, in the hour of death, by the bedside of dying of dying parents, by the grave of a beloved wife or child. We must ask them whether a vague earnestness, without definite doctrine, gives them peace at seasons like these. We must challenge them to tell us whether they do not sometimes feel a gnawing ’something’ within, which all the free inquiry and philosophy and science in the world cannot satisfy. And then we must tell them that this gnawing ’something’ is the sense of sin, guilt and corruption, which they are leaving out in their calculations. And, above all, we must tell them that nothing will ever make them feel rest, but submission to the old doctrines of man’s ruin and Christ’s redemption and simple child-like faith in Jesus. –J.C. Ryle
Taken from Holiness, chapter 1

Rejecting dogmas, creeds and every kind of bounds in religion sounds so familiar until I realized that once again the good bishop is speaking across time to a people he didn’t know, about truths he definitely understood. And he understood the abandonment of those dogmas, creeds and all bounds in religion would have implications for the comfort that the Gospel brings to this world.

If the teaching of the scriptural view of sin is passe and abandoned, there is no Good News to offer this world. What need would there be for it? Good is only measured against that which is less good or bad. What comfort does Christ’s atoning death for our sins offer to religious people who find that humans are basically good and perfectable, though sometimes making mistakes on the way to perfection? What comfort is the crucifixion of Christ and His glorious resurrection if we are not all marked, stained, and soul-darkened wretches living bound in a marginally lit dungeon and in desperate need of freedom, light and cleansing?

I do not mean to pick on The Episcopal Church, but the example is, unfortunately, obvious. I pray that better teaching and leadership will come to her through the knowledge of the depths, heights, width and breadth of God’s loving kindness and grace. Listening to some of the teaching coming from The Episcopal Church in our day one would quickly come to the conclusion that Christ’s death was meaningless and of no consequence or comfort to our world today. Our sin is meaningless under such teaching.

That is eternally tragic.

Church Membership

Our congregation had a recent discussion about church membership during a quarterly business meeting. Discussion may be understating the case, it was fairly heated at points.

The presenting issue was presenting people to the church and then having the congregation vote on them for membership. A former pastor in the congregation pointed out that he has seen this happen several times in our midst and always wondered what basis this has in Scripture. He couldn’t find any and I have to agree with him.

So when it was brought up, I mentioned my agreement with his viewpoint so the whole congregation could know where I stood on the issue. My concern is setting our membership process up so that it looks like we have higher standards for joining the church than the broader church of Jesus Christ.

The issue for me is not having members recorded in a local church, but how they are brought in. If we could vote “No” to someone who is baptized and can give testimony to their faith in Jesus Christ and desire to be a member in this congregation, even with a letter of transfer from an overseas church, are we not setting ourselves up to be like the Pharisees in Matthew 23 who run to put burdens on the backs of converts?

This church is congregational in government and has four elders who spoke up as well to defend the practice. This had come up in a meeting with the elders a few days earlier and they were not happy. The defense of the practice of voting up or down on new members centers on statues, bylaws and governmental regulations for organizations. It was also pointed out that the missionaries who planted the church 35 years brought this with them when they came to the island and planted this church.

This will be an unhappy period in this congregation as it faces down what it means to be the church locally and a part of the wider Church, the body of Christ. There will be a lot of issues in play, including, are others in different churches and with different theologies from ours, actually people whom we will meet in heaven or not; as well as how to set standards for membership without losing the grace we have all received from Jesus Christ. It will also indirectly affect how leaders are developed within the congregation. This will be bigger than any of us imagines.

Pray for us.

J.C. Ryle on 21st Century Religion

I say, then, in the first place, that a scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to that vague, dim, misty, hazy kind of theology which is so painfully current in the present age. It is vain to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a vast quantity of so-called Christianity nowadays which you cannot declare positively unsound, but which, nevertheless, is not full measure, good weight and sixteen ounces to the pound. It is a Christianity in which there is undeniably 'something about Christ and something about grace and something about faith and something about repentance and something about holiness', but it is not the real 'thing as it is' in the Bible. Things are out of place and out of proportion. As old Latimer would have said, it is a kind of 'mingle-mangle', and does no good. It neither exercises influence on daily conduct, nor comforts in life, nor gives peace in death; and those who hold it often awake too late to find that they have got nothing solid under their feet. Now I believe the likliest way to cure and mend this defective kind of religion is to bring forward more prominently the old scriptural truth about the sinfulness of sin. People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven and live like pilgrims, until they really feel they are in danger of hell...Let us bring the law to the front and press it upon men's attention. let us expound the Ten Commandments and show the length and breadth and depth and height of their requirements. This is the way of our Lord in the sermon on the mount. we cannot do better than follow His plan. We may depend upon it, men will never come to Jesus and stay with Jesus and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whome the Spirit has convinced of sin. without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world. - J.C. Ryle
From Holiness, chapter 1

I sure wish they knew how to use the journalist's paragraph back then. Two-three sentences and then a new paragraph.

But I think the good bishop has put his finger right on the issue of Christianity at the beginning of the 21st century. We are so afraid of offending our friends and family, not to mention those who listen to us, that we have watered down the real issue in coming to faith in Christ.

Not that we should beat people over the heads with sin and dangle them over the flames of hell, but we should not be afraid to step and note sin when it happens and be willing to name it when we see it. It is hard to offer grace and mercy when the reason it is needed is belittled. Sin is real. Let's call it for what it is using the Bible's standards as our definitions.

Plagiarizing Sermons

Kendall at T1:9 offers us this great post on pastors plagiarizing other pastors messages. I posted the following comments as my intial response to the issue:

Solomon once wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. He might have been right.

I find it hard to believe that after 2000 years of preaching the Gospel that every preacher is saying something has never been said before. Or even required to do so.

I would argue contrary to popular perception in the pew, that the sermon probably has been preached somewhere else depending on the hermeneutic used, linguistic and cultural context and a few other factors. This would especially be so for preachers, priests, and pastors who tend to deliver expository sermons in such a way that they stick close to the outline of the text.

I would also argue as one of my own homilectical Old Testament profs said in seminary, sermon preparation is a lifetime of learning, influences and God-given experiences pouring out into a message for the congregation every week. It is not merely sitting down with the text, a commentary or two (or twenty) and crafting a message for that coming Sunday morning. All of the preacher’s life is in play in sermon development, including things the preacher may have read 15 years ago and barely remembers except for the life change wrought by the Holy Spirit in the words of another preacher.

That said, the preparation of a message that is entirely or mostly drawn from someone else’s material without attribution is sick. As others have pointed out here, just saying “One commentator/preacher said…” goes a long way. Rick Warren and Steve Sjogren have both promoted this mentality of lifting other’s (their’s especially) messages as if their congregational message would fit my congregation.

A few years ago I can remember a well-known pastor, preacher and author telling an audience of fellow pastors from all over the map of Christianity that there were only a few A-list preachers in the U.S. Thus the trend will be to use the messages of those A-list preachers, either via satellite video feed or in the delivery of their message by a local pastor. And he thought this was good.

There is an ego involved in this enterprise. The promotion of sermonic dependency does not create strong congregations, nor bold pastors who can lead their congregations through difficult times. They become what Ayn Rand, I believe, termed “second-handers.” People who live on second-handed experiences and thoughts and thus never truly live their lives.

We need pastors, preachers and priests who are transparent in the pulpit who can speak of their own wrestling with the text and life, even if not with the same style as a radio or TV preacher with a dozen books to their name. Congregations want authenticity from the pastor/preacher, which is why the trust level is broken when the reality of the plagiarism is discovered.

Lots of other good comments and discussion followed. None of this is to say that Sunday morning or any other service ought to be the Pastor’s Preaching Show. I’m a firm believer that the message and worship should not be about who is up front, but rather ought to be pointing to Christ in everything.

Pastors who plagiarize other pastors’ sermons are either insecure in their calling and standing before their congregation due to the inevitable comparisons to other well-known preachers; or they are insecure due to other factors, such as a need to be about growing the church, hitting homeruns with their messages every week, or the inevitable time crunch that comes with being a pastor in the 21st century. It could also be that they are lazy and prefer to do other things with their time.

It is a sad trend unfortunately that has been with us for a while as one of the commenters on the thread noted in mentioning Thomas Wingfold’s being outed as a plagiarizing pastor in George MacDonald’s The Curate’s Awakening (a great book BTW, I would highly recommend it). A book that was originally written in the 19th century. If it wasn’t new then, we shouldn’t think it is new today.

Just so everyone is aware: The original article that Kendall refers to is here.

Modern Christianity, Mega-Church, Community Crusades

It is easy to get crowds together for what are called ‘higher life’ and ‘consecration’ meetings. Anyone knows that, who has watched human nature and read descriptions of American camp-meetings and studied the curious phenomena of the ‘religious affections.’ Sensational and exciting addresses by strange preachers or by women, loud singing, hot rooms, crowded tents [arenas?], the constant sight of strong semi-religious feeling in the faces all around you for several days, late hours, long protracted meetings, public profession of experience - all this kind of thing is very interesting at the time and seems to do good. But is the good real, deeply-rooted, solid, lasting? That is the point. And I should like to ask a few questions about it.

Do those who attend these meetings become more holy, meek, unselfish, kind, good-tempered, self-denying and Christ-like at home? Do they become more content with their position in life, and more free from restless craving after something different from that which God has given them? Do fathers, mothers, husbands and other relatives and friends find them more pleasant and easy to live with? Can they enjoy a quiet Sunday and quiet means of grace without noise, heat and excitement? Above all, do they grow in charity, and especially in charity towards those who do not agree with them in every jot and tittle of their religion?

These are serious and searching questions and deserve serious consideration. I hope I am as anxious to promote real practical holiness in the land as anyone. I admire and willingly acknowledge the zeal and earnestness of many with whom I cannot co-operate who are trying to promote it. But I cannot withhold a growing suspicion that the great ‘mass-meetings’ of the present day, for the ostensible object of promoting the spiritual life, do not tend to promote private home religion, private Bible reading, private prayer, private usefulness and private walking with God. If they are of any real value, they ought to make people better husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and masters and mistresses and servants. But I should like to have clear proofs that they do. I only know it far easier to be a Christian among singing, praying, sympathizing Christians in a public room, than to be a consistent Christian in a quiet, retired, out-of-the-way, uncongenial home. The first position is one in which there is a deal of nature to help us: the second is one which cannot be well-filled without grace. –J.C. Ryle, Stradbroke, October 1879

You would think he lived a hundred years later with this statement and watched the rise of stadium events, mega-churches and TV and radio preachers. I cannot help but wonder if the past 120+ years haven’t proven him right. Can we honestly say that we are witnessing a more holy, and godly culture and world today than we did then? Have all these mega-churches, with their myriads and myriads of programs for every niche of Christendom created more godly people who are influencing their society around them or not?

Bishop Ryle is right. The need of the day is not more programming or better stadium and arena events for Christians, but a return to the basics of simply and consistently following Christ in their local church with a pastor they know and who knows them. There is nothing wrong with zealousness in following Jesus, but when the zeal doesn’t produce transformed and holy lives, then it is not merely wrong it is sinful.

Sunday Prayer

ALMIGHTY Father, who have given your only Son to be
for us both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of
godly life, give us grace that we may always receive with
thankfulness the immeasurable benefit of His sacrifice,
and also try day by day to follow in the blessed steps of
His most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.