Twitter updates - 26 July 2010

Founder of SATS debunks Brian McLaren heresy

Dr. Christopher Peppler

Dr. Christopher Peppler wrote a very thought provoking, yet straight analysis of Brian McLaren's heretical book "A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith."

Dr. Peppler takes each of the ten questions that McLaren posed in his book and analyses them for truth and clarity. Peppler shows that while McLaren may have clarity in certain cases, that clarity has nothing to do with Scriptural truth, or at least does not contain the primary nature of the truth of the Scriptures and the gospel. In this blog post by Dr. Peppler, it is also shown how McLaren sets up straw men, just to knock down what does not exist!

In his conclusion, Dr. Peppler writes:

"It is good to ask questions and to seek deep and satisfying answers. It is reasonable to agonise over a Christianity that has so often presented itself as harsh, loveless, and power mad. It is evidence of a tender heart to wonder how a loving God could consign the bulk of humanity to eternal conscious torment. But, it is neither good or reasonable to attempt to recast the biblical narrative, redefine the nature of the Bible, and reformulate the principles of interpretation in order to create answers that the seeker finds acceptable. This is what I think Brian has attempted to do."

To read Dr. Peppler's accurate assessment of McLaren's book read his blog post here.

Tree63 front-man throws in the cross, um, towel

Christian entertainment doesn't seem healthy, yet it also does. I know, it seems contradictory, and on the one hand it is, but on the other hand it isn't. There are Christian musicians, actors, painters, and others who see their art not only for the art itself, but for the purpose of glorifying God and spreading the gospel message. For them, there is no ceiling to reach because, how do you reach a ceiling in glorifying God?

There are others who experience dissatisfaction when they either cannot make headway in their respectful arts and become the next big thing, or they have made it to the top and found that their dissatisfaction remains, despite having "record deals, [being] on planes, tour buses, in green VIP rooms."

Of course, recently we saw Jennifer Knapp come "out" to reveal that she is a lesbian, and before that Ray Boltz dropped the bomb that he was gay!

Twitter updates - 19 July 2010

Evangelical gullibility fuels the flames of "fairy tales as truth"

It has happened to all of us. Some person with a so-called testimony akin to Paul's Damascus experience visits your church and tells you his story. The story is extremely well told, interspersed with tear-jerking sad stories and side-splitting funny anecdotes, with a smattering of heroics.

The person seems to be so nice that we just can't help ourselves liking and believing this person. If we don't believe him, then our subjective ideas of salvation to Christianity will not be confirmed. So, we believe, because it is so great that a satanist or a Muslim had come to Christ and now have such an awesome testimony for Christ! Surely, this is the person God had been waiting for to get those amazing in-roads among satanists and Muslims!

Men and women pastors, or not?

Have you ever thought whether women may be pastors in the church or not? Most modern Christians have.

Kevin deYoung, senior pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan, has written an analysis of chapter 12 (“Women, Men and God”) of John Stott's book, Issues Facing Christians Today (4^th Edition, Zondervan, 2006).

Kevin tackles the issue in Go Big or Go Home: Why Complemegalitarian Doesn’t Work, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

How to find a church

For those who are serious about what they are fed from the pulpit, it becomes a daunting task to find a church where the truth is preached unadulterated. Here in South Africa there is a proliferation of churches that merely skim the Scriptures and never get to the meat. They keep on feeding their people fast-food, and hence their people can no longer handle the true meat of the Scriptures.

So, looking for a church is not easy. Dan Phillips has written a blog post that helps us to search for a church. Unfortunately his post is written very much for the American scene, but there is much to gain from his post.

Love is perpendicular

Love isn't easy. Especially love to those that irritate us. One of my pet peeves here in South Africa is the way people drive, especially the taxis. They are just plain dangerous. I find this very irritating and I truly find it difficult in those situations to show love to people that drive without following the rules of the road and drive like maniacs.

As Christians, we are called to love one another, because this is how the world will know that we are His disciples (Jn 13:35).

The question is, what about those that are not Christians?

Profaning the gospel for the sake of 'contextualization'

Wanting to be relevant, the church has become sick beyond repair! That is, repair driven by the church itself.

Pastors, wanting to 'contextualize' the gospel have turned to profanity ('swear words') in their sermons. These contextualizers, or relevantizers, simply do not believe that the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." (Rom 1:16)

Phil Johnson writes about these types:

"See, I think this whole approach to ministry reflects a fatal lack of confidence in the power of the gospel itself. If we really believed the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, why would we think it necessary to dress the message in such shabby rags?"

Preachers such as these simply bring disrepute to the gospel of Jesus Christ and show what they truly put their trust in for the salvation of their hearers!

Providence Theological Seminary: New Covenant Theology based

Providence Theological Seminary was started specifically to educate pastors from a New Covenant Theology perspective, since there was no seminary that catered for NCT.

Providence Theological Seminary from Jerry Downs on Vimeo.

To learn more about New Covenant Theology (NCT), start with this introduction.

Help others see more of your blog

Being on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB) project certainly has its advantages. Every day there is something new to learn, and on other occasions it is a case of discovering that I have done at least some things right. We are now at day 8, and one of the ideas being brought forward is to link between your posts as a blogger. That way, readers of your blog can discover more about your blog without really doing a search.

The Biblical languages in life and ministry

Because this blog includes commentary on the modern church and how it relates to the Biblical pattern, I would like to highlight a blog post by Bill Mounce called "The Biblical Languages in Life and Ministry."

In his post, Dr. Mounce warns ministers especially not to use their knowledge of the Biblical languages from the pulpit in such a manner to seem like the "elite few" who have special knowledge that the people in the pew don't have. He also flips up the coin to the other side to reflect on the value of studying the original languages, which he then leaves us to do!

Tips on making your blog better [31DBBB]

I have been taking part in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project with Paul Steinbrueck. Today's lesson is called "31DBBB Day 6: Must-Read Tips and Tutorials for Bloggers." While the list of blogs to get these must-read tips from are quite exceptional, I am not so sure that all these tips are applicable in every situation. Which of course is an acceptable claim to make. There are very few rules that work in every environment they are tested in. If you are interested in seeing what tips are in the 31DBBB book for this lesson, I have created a Google Bookmark List for the links to these tips. I have divided the links into 5 broad categories: Blog Content, Design, Marketing Your Blog, Miscellaneous, Monetize.

Wazzat! - 2010-05-07

How many can remember this one?

• Comedy Central to launch anti-Christian cartoon series in fear of Muslims
• You may not wear your American flag t-shirt in America! Others may become upset!
• Anti-abortion sentiments in U.S. at a high
• Whoopi Goldberg whoops at death of the unborn
  

So, you've been encouraged to blog! Where to start [31DBBB]

Yesterday I gave you 9 Reasons (or more) why Christians should be blogging. Then, in your mind you thought, "Great, but where do I start?"

Well, the first thing you must do is visit Blogger, and register as a user. If you have a Google account of sorts (GMail, etc) then you will be able to register using your google account. Once you have set up your account and have sorted out your template, you will be able to publish your blog posts using email. Therefore, if you know how to email someone, you can become a blogger.

Before you sign up, you can first see how things are done at the the Blogger site. Here are some links to assist you: