Carlton Pearson, who used to be a top notch word-of-faith preacher with a 6000 member church has lost his church (members and building). This happened after he started preaching an inclusive gospel in which he declared all people will go to heaven.
I wish this would be the route of all heretical churches, but alas, we live in a sinful world! If only they would repent of their gross sin and return to the truth of the gospel!
For those who have Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, you can find the MP3 series by Wayne based on this Systematic Theology, here.
Paul Tripp gives us food for thought on the words we use.
Related to my earlier post on Ray Boltz coming 'out,' declaring that he is gay, visit the formers:
"a place of fellowship for those who have found healing from same-sex attraction -- or are on that journey -- and their supporters."
It is a
"haven where you will find encouragement and where we can share thoughts, testimonies and concerns. As iron sharpens iron, let us strengthen and edify one another as we face the day-to-day challenges of living in a world that is growing increasingly hostile to those who stand on the truth of God's Word, which says that homosexual acts are sinful."
A new online journal has seen the light:
"New Covenant Journal is devoted to proclaiming the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ and the New Covenant in His blood. Its ambition is to express how Jesus Christ is the story of sacred Scripture, and how His sovereignty and grace should shape our beliefs and behaviors. Specifically, we desire to persuade Christians that what has come to be called New Covenant Theology (NCT) is the best way to understand the Scriptures (indeed, the way the Bible interprets itself)."
You can visit the New Covenant Journal here.
An article on 12 September in the Washington Blade, an LGBT newspaper, revealed that Ray Boltz, singer of Christian hits such as 'Thank you,' 'Watch the Lamb' and many more is gay. Boltz's divorce from his wife was finalised earlier this year.
Boltz, in the article said that he does not "want to be a poster boy for gay Christians." I have one question on that statement. Would we ever talk of being poster boys for fornicating Christians, or perhaps for adulterous Christians?
Go figure!
HT: Justin Taylor
Update:
Tim Challies has written a very good short commentary on this issue. He writes:
"There are essentially two ways that humans can understand the world. The first way is the way we all understand the world until the Holy Spirit intervenes in our lives and gives us new eyes to see. This worldview is I-centered. I am the center of my own universe and the arbiter of all truth. I may not vocalize things in just this way and may not even think them quite like this, but it is ultimately what I believe. I believe that I am capable of looking at the world and understanding the way it works—who God is, who I am, the relationship between us, and so on.
"The other way of seeing the world is God-centered. Here I acknowledge God as the center of all that exists and the arbiter of all truth. Everything that is true and everything that is knowable has its source in Him. Thus I can only interpret the world properly by rightly acknowledging God. This is, obviously, the biblical worldview. It is God who tells me who He is, God who tells me who I am and God who declares the terms of the relationship between us."
Read more about what Tim wrote here.
Stephen J. Nichols wrote a book called "Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ." The book opens up American, and indeed Western, Christianity, and shows that even while it runs very wide across American society, it actually is only an inch deep.
Collin Hansen wrote a review of the book here.
As a foretaste, here is an excerpt from the review:
"'Today's American evangelicals may be quick to speak of their love for Jesus, even wearing their devotion on their sleeve, literally in the case of WWJD bracelets,' Nichols writes. 'But they may not be so quick to articulate an orthodox view of the object of their devotion. Their devotion is commendable, but the lack of a rigorous theology behind it means that a generation of contemporary evangelicals is living off of borrowed capital.'
"Nichols's declension narrative begins with kind words for the Puritans. He shows how Jonathan Edwards, the Connecticut pastor who preached 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' in 1741, paired deep devotion to Jesus Christ with meticulous theology. He introduces readers to Edward Taylor, another Puritan pastor serving on the colonial American frontier. In between raids by neighboring Native Americans, Taylor wrote breathtaking poetry extolling his love for Christ in rich theological language. As Nichols's story unfolds, Westminster Theological Seminary founder J. Gresham Machen emerges as another hero who defended the historic creeds as they testified to Jesus."
R.C. Sproul has also written an article about the condition of the modern church in America, and of course the whole of the western church.
Sproul wrote:
"I've often wondered if Luther were alive today and came to our culture and looked, not at the liberal church community, but at evangelical churches, what would he have to say? Of course I can't answer that question with any kind of definitive authority, but my guess is this: If Martin Luther lived today and picked up his pen to write, the book he would write in our time would be entitled The Pelagian Captivity of the Evangelical Church.
"Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation-sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia-Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of sola fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone."
You can read Sproul's article, "The Pelagian Captivity of the Church" here.
Babies and toddlers can sometimes be so cute. Yet, sometimes, there hides something deeper, underneath all the cuteness, in situations like the one below.
What seems cute, may actually be more of a commentary of how things stand, than have anything to do with a baby's cuteness.
Kids learn from adults, and if this kid learnt from the preachers at this church, then I can just imagine what is being preached there. Lots of shouting and emoting, but probably no real content.
Anyhow, depending on who watches the video, it could either be cute and funny, or tragic.
The Lakeland Revival has been going for a while with Todd Bentley at the helm.
Well, it seems that all is not well in paradise, so to speak! Todd and his wife are having marital problems and are separating.
From an article by Marsha West:
"What did Fresh Fire Ministries know and when did they know it? I'm talking about Todd Bentley's marriage, which is in shambles. According to the statement posted on the Fresh Fire website it would appear that the board of directors have known for quite sometime:
"'Undoubtedly the pressures and the burden of the Outpouring, which approaches 144 days on August 23rd, have helped to create an atmosphere of fatigue and stress that has exacerbated existing issues in their relationship (emphasis added). We wish to stress however, that the Outpouring is not 'to blame' for the current chain of events and that in effect we have no interest in blaming anyone, but rather we deeply covet your prayers for Todd and Shonnah and for Fresh Fire Ministries during this time.'"
Continue reading Marsha's article here.
Bill Randles has written a very probing PDF article on Todd Bentley and the "revival."
"What we are seeing in the so-called Lakeland revival, did not come like 'a rushing mighty wind' out of heaven (cf. Acts 2:2). Rather it is the direct result of several 'streams' that have converged over the last twenty years. The roots of Todd Bentley's experienced based revival, are manifold. They include the Kansas City Prophets of the late 1980's and early nineties, John Wimber's Vineyard movement, South African Evangelist Rodney Howard Browne, the Toronto Blessing, and the subsequent Pensacola Revival which led directly to Lakeland Florida and Todd Bentley. A major common denominator, which runs through all of these streams, is an emphasis on an experience called spiritual drunkenness!
"There can be no denying that Bentley is a direct result of the so called Kansas City Prophets. He himself defers directly to two of these prophets openly, in spite of the moral collapses of both of them. Bentley calls a Bob Jones a mentor, and a seer. Jones had to leave the ministry after having to confess to using his prophetic office to disrobe women. But to Bentley, Jones is a spiritual father. It was Jones' teaching that encouraged false prophecies in the church by encouraging 'young prophets' that they need not be 100% accurate, and that it was a good thing that the accuracy was so low, otherwise there would be a whole lot of Ananias's and Saphirra's!"
Continue reading Bill's article here.
You can also read more about Todd and the Lakeland Revival expose here.
Finally, here is a humorous, yet sad account of what is going on at Lakeland.
Update:
28 Aug 2008 - Do we desperately need closure from Tod Bentley? Jan Markell thinks so! ( I do too!)
The book by William Young, The Shack, is selling like hot cake. Yet, is that a good thing?
Read this review by Gary Thomas.
For those that are keen apologists, here is your chance to join an apologetics blog and to put your brilliant thinking to work. However, you will have to read the requirements first.
Go to The Biblical Thinker Blog and see if you will fit in!
At Theological Word of the Day, they have a phrase called Illegitimate Totality Transfer.
The meaning is given as:
"In biblical interpretation, this refers to the illegitimate transfer of a word’s total possible meaning, with all its variations and nuances, and forcing them all into a particular context. For example, if one were to do a word study on the Greek word phile, one would find that it could mean “affection, friendship, love, or kiss.” The context must decide. The illegitimate totality transfer occurs when one forces all of these meanings into one passage, without consideration of which nuance best fits the context. This is a common interpretive fallacy."
This even appears in Bible translations. A specific translation comes to mind... the Amplified Bible. I have another name for it... the Multiple Choice Bible.
Interesting study on the relation between marriage and church attendance:
"Brad Wilcox, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, said the biggest factor driving the decline in church attendance is delayed marriage.
"'Marriage is a gateway into family life, and family life, in turn, is often a gateway into church attendance,' he said. 'The longer people postpone marriage, the less likely they are to attend church at a given age, and also the less likely they are to attend church down the road.'"
Continue reading Devon Williams' article, "As Marriage Declines, Church Attendance Falls", here.
Carlton Pearson, who used to be a top notch word-of-faith preacher with a 6000 member church has lost his church (members and building). This happened after he started preaching an inclusive gospel in which he declared all people will go to heaven.
An article on 12 September in the Washington Blade, an LGBT newspaper, revealed that Ray Boltz, singer of Christian hits such as 'Thank you,' 'Watch the Lamb' and many more is gay. Boltz's divorce from his wife was finalised earlier this year.
The Lakeland Revival has been going for a while with Todd Bentley at the helm.
