The Message of Christ
December 29, 2004
I don’t really like to throw stones. I am generally–whatever you might think of my postings–a guy who really, really tries to see the point of view of other people. I don’t like judgmentalism–and I don’t mean to be judgmental. I try to give every person the benefit of the doubt; I consider myself a peacemaker, one who has had some success at bringing people together who were convinced that they were at odds.
I also don’t like to be negative all the time, to rant and rave about this wrong and that wrong and…well, you get the idea.
At the same time, there’s this thing called “discernment” that is sorely lacking, it seems to me, in evangelical Christianity. The examples I’ve seen recently are downright depressing. We must speak the truth in love…the truth in love. Err on either side of that equation very far, and you’ve really missed the boat. It is with all of the above thoughts in mind that I make this post.
The first time I ever paid attention to Joel Osteen, who apparently now pastors America’s largest church (Lakewood Church, Houston, ca. 30,000 in regular attendance), I was very taken by what he said in prefacing his message. Taken directly from Lakewood’s website, Joel’s words each week are:
This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive. I will never be the same. I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of the Word of God. I will never be the same. Never, never, never. I will never be the same. In Jesus name. Amen.
I like that. It sounds good, like the kind of thing that I’d like to get our folks to memorize and repeat each week. I believe that it is true. What I do not believe, though, is that Joel Osteen, as engaging a young man as he appears to be, is a preacher of the Christian gospel. Further, if Lakewood Church is willing to tolerate this being preached from its pulpit, then we have to conclude that Lakewood Church is not a Christian church. I believe that we have to call a “spade” a “spade”, and while I have no idea as to Joel’s own personal stance before God, and wouldn’t begin to presume to judge it, it is completely fair to consider his words, and to judge them against the standard of God’s Word.
I picked up a copy of his new book in a bookstore yesterday and skimmed for a good period of time through its chapters. I do not know what he preaches on a weekly basis–though I have heard him on occasion–but in my significant skimming of the book, one thing is abundantly clear: the message of Joel Osteen’s book is categorically not the Christian message. It is nothing but positive thinking, self-help, Schullerism. There is nothing there about the gospel of Jesus Christ which saves hellbound sinners from an eternity separate from God. The fact of man’s state, Christ’s provision through His atoning death on the cross, the resurrection…it’s just not there.
At what point do we stand up and say these things? At what point do we demand accountability from those who encourage this type of damnable nonsense? Max Lucado and John Maxwell, among others, write commendations on the back cover. Shame on them, shame on them. Their own credibility is damaged by their willingness to endorse this stuff. There is a Pastors’ Wives conference in Orlando this coming month, and Mr. Osteen and his wife are included in the mix along with a hodgepodge of mostly evangelical folks. It’s probably honestly asking too much for some of the great pastors and wives who are taking part in this conference to refuse to take part because of the Osteens’ participation–but maybe it’s not! Every year, Bob Schuller hosts his Pastors’ Conference, and every year, Bill Hybels leads the contingent of evangelicals out there to speak for him. I like Bill; I think he’s done pretty good things. But I have to ask, what is he thinking? At what point do we stand up and say, “no, this is not the message of the gospel, and we will not gloss over that fact because these people are ‘nice people’ or because they rank at the top of the ‘largest churches in America’, or because they support Republican candidates, or what have you?”
And we wonder why the church is losing influence in the culture. I repudiate a lot of the stifling legalism of my earlier days, when I made my home for a time among folks who concerned themselves with petty trivialities in the name of “separation”. But for goodness’ sake, at what point do we stand up and say, “enough is enough”? The purity of the gospel of Jesus is at stake, and I refuse to pretend that all is well when it is not.
The Passing of a Legend
December 26, 2004
This day after Christmas was a day of tragedy, as we got the news of the thousands who have perished in the tsunami in Indonesia and India and parts unknown. I was traveling a good bit of the day, and still don’t have the full story by any means. Our hearts and prayers go out to the many, and we pray that God’s grace would somehow shine through in a situation such as this.
Another, albeit smaller, human “tragedy” was found out today, but it was one which touched me in some personal ways. Reggie White, one of the greatest men (as well as best players) to ever put on an NFL uniform, was found dead, apparently of a respiratory condition related to his sleep apnia. One death, as compared with thousands, seems small indeed, of course. Yet, Reggie was a personal hero of mine.
I began watching Reggie’s career when he was a senior at Howard High School in Chattanooga. I was a freshman at Tennessee Temple, a small independent Baptist school in the heart of Chattanooga. The accolades he was receiving nationally portended a great college and professional career, and Reggie did not disappoint, first becoming an All-American for the Volunteers of UT, and then to a brief career with the Memphis Showboats of the long-forgotten USFL, then on to the Philadelphia Eagles, a great run with the Packers, a one-year retirement followed by a brief swan song with the Carolina Panthers. I don’t know if Reggie was in a class by himself as a defensive linemen, but whatever class he was in, it didn’t take long to call roll! I have collected his football cards for several years now–cards of defensive linemen don’t go for nearly as much money as their proportional worth on the football field.
But more than this, Reggie was a committed, unashamed, Christian man, a preacher of the gospel of Jesus who was not afraid to speak up for his Lord. He received some ridicule for so doing, particularly from the liberal media who couldn’t “get” his deep faith. He was a man with feet of clay like the rest of us; certainly, he’d be the first to admit that here or there, he’d like to have a play back, a word back, a deed back. Who wouldn’t? But Reggie was the real deal.
Fast forward to 2000. I attended the first Pastors’ Conference put on by Alistair Begg at Parkside Church in Cleveland. Wonderful conference in its own right, made all the more special by the presence, not as a hero, not as a football player, not as a speaker of any kind, but merely as a fellow learner, of none other than Reggie White, there to hear from a fine Bible expositor and hone his own skills. What a thrill to get a chance to speak with Reggie, to introduce myself, to tell him of my respect for him, to tell him that I’d been watching his life for a long time. He was warm, genuine, filled with an obvious Christlike spirit, and when I told him that I had graduated from Tennessee Temple, he told me that it was two students from Temple who had led him to faith in Christ in the first place. I was pretty proud of my alma mater on that occasion, needless to say!
If this faith in Christ that we hold is true, then tonight, Reggie spends his first evening of the rest of his…eternity…in the presence of Jesus, seeing face-to-face the Savior Whom he had committed his life to so many years ago in Chattanooga. Thanks, Reggie, for the memories, for the testimony, for the lives you’ve touched…including mine.
The Immorality of Socialist Insecurity
December 23, 2004
JT at Between Two Worlds raises a good question about the morality of Social Security. I agree with him. Plainly stated, our current Socialist Insecurity system involves this scenario: the government, without your permission and ostensibly for your own good, forcibly confiscates a percentage of your income. It does so because it judges you, apparently, incapable of caring for yourself in your old age. Then, if you happen to live to be 65 years of age, the government will parcel it back to you after it has accumulated a pathetic rate of interest over the many years you paid into the system. It will not be enough, of course, to enable you to live very well–in fairness, it was not designed to be a person’s sole means of support in retirement. As JT says, this amounts to theft, particularly if you don’t live to be 65, because then the government keeps it.
Exactly what, again, is so special about this system that makes us want to keep it so badly? Ergo this quote: “those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither.”
Radley Balko makes the argument as pertains to young workers. Let’s hope the young heed his warning and rise up to put a stop to this insanity (assuring that those who have paid in do get their benefits, of course).
Baseball Hall of Fame Balloting
December 22, 2004
Awhile back I posted on who I thought should and should not go into the Hall of Fame. ESPN has an article on the subject, a roundtable with a lot of baseball guys. It’s worth a look if you’re interested in such things. I’ve refined my thinking, by the way, and in the poll (there’s a link to it on the page), I voted for 7 players:
Wade Boggs
Ryne Sandberg
Goose Gossage
Bruce Sutter
Andre Dawson (had a change of heart)
Bert Blyleven
Jim Rice
Emerging Cooperation among Pastors
December 20, 2004
I posted awhile back about the tragedy of the divorce epidemic, and suggested that I might follow up with a post about what to do when people flee one church and come to another (having divorced or committed some dastardly deed). Here is that post.
I hope that in the emerging church, there will be a greater spirit of cooperation and kingdom-mindedness than has existed in the modern church. One of the ways that I propose this take shape–not only in the EC, but why not starting now, in whatever flavor of church one’s might be–is for pastors to work together to take on the epidemic of church-hopping. This would happen if we did a better job of communicating with one another. Personal testimony: I have been pastoring here in Mercer for nearly 12 years now (some days it feels like just a little while, and other days, it feels like forever…). I have seen hundreds of people come–and many other hundreds go. Early on in our church’s history, right about the time we got into our current building, we had an influx of people, a huge influx, to the degree that we tripled or quadrupled in attendance in about a year. Many of these were college students, but many weren’t. I was thrilled–whoopee, we were growing!–and while we’d lose a family here or there, we’d gain many more than we lost. Recently, we’ve lost a good many folks, and while we’ve gained some as well, we’re down a bit from where we were. I find myself somewhat embittered at times, thinking, “how could these folks have so little loyalty? Are they in it for Jesus, or just for themselves? When they sing ‘The Heart of Worship’, and get to the ‘it’s all about You, it’s all about You’ part, it it really all about Him or is it mostly about them? Do they have even the slightest concept of what a church is supposed to be, of how we ought to commit ourselves to each other through thick and thin? Or is it all about who’s got the ‘best show in town’ this week/month/year?” Those are the things I wonder. Even had one lady come here occasionally who said that she would wake up on Sunday morning and attend the church that God told her to attend that day. I’m not exactly sure what she was actually doing, but I guarantee you that that wasn’t it.
And then I realize that, back when things were really hopping around here, back when we had new families joining our midst by the truckload, I never asked those questions. I never had those complaints. I never worried too much about other churches in the area, about how the loss of some of these good families might hurt them. I’ve been here long enough to come to the sad realization that we do have an awful lot of folks who, when it comes right down to it, are in it for themselves (that is not, by the way, meant to tar nearly every person who has left this church. There are some folks who have had perfectly good reasons for leaving which I both accept and agree with. Our church is not the church for everybody, I realize, and there are some folks who have left for very good reasons.). For awhile, we were the newest game in town; we were the “hot item”; we had it going on. Now, apparently, we’re not, at least not to enough of a degree. Now, it is bothersome; then, I didn’t much think about how other pastors felt. Because now the shoe is on the other foot in some respects.
What to do? And what ought the EC to do? I suggest that pastors do a much better job of inter-church communication. I need to sit down and write to my evangelical pastor brethren and tell them that I am sorry that I wasn’t keen to the losses that they might have felt when their people left to come to my church. I need to tell them that I am going to make it tougher for folks to join my church from other area churches in the future, not that it can’t happen, but that they need to demonstrate a good reason why they’re leaving the other church, and demonstrate that they’ve made a good effort to rectify the situation there. I need to tell them that I’m going to call them if I someone leaves our church with a problem, thinking that they can run away from accountability here and “wash it all clean” in a new church–and ask them to call me about people they hear might be attending here under the same conditions (I’ve actually done that–exactly twice in 12 years). I think that EC pastors ought to get into people’s faces about the church-hopping that is going on, and insist on accountability, and not take the cavalier attitude that I and others have taken about such matters.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve never courted church-hoppers, never really meant to encourage it; I just haven’t done as much as I should to prevent it. Now it’s biting me some, and finally, dummy me is “getting it”. I hope that emerging pastors will have more of a kingdom mindset than many modern pastors seem to.
A Great Book Recommendation
December 19, 2004
This week, I read a great book, entitled Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air, by Francis Beckwith and Greg Koukl. I had the privilege of conversing with Greg a few weeks back, and this was the impetus I needed to finally read this book which had adorned my shelf for a couple of years. It is a great (and easy!) read and explains the morass of moral relativism. Our culture is awash in this plague, but the authors explain why we as believers ought not fear taking it on head-on. The book explains moral relativism, shows its intellectual bankruptcy, and tells us how we can counteract it. I cannot resist one quote, from p. 155:
“People are drowning in a sea of moral relativism. Relativism destroys the conscience. It produces people without scruples, because it provides no moral impulse to improve. This is why we don’t teach relativism to our children. In fact, we labor to teach them the opposite.
“Ultimately, relativism is self-centered and egoistic. ‘Doing our own thing’ is fine for us, but we don’t want others to be relativists; we expect them to treat us decently.
“Relativism is also dangerous. At Auschwitz, Hitler declared, ‘I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality…We will train young people before whom the world will tremble.’”
The next time someone says, “that’s fine for you, but don’t push your morality on me”, try hard not to think of Hitler Youth…:sad:
Picking our Battles
December 16, 2004
According to Agape Press, “The National Clergy Council has called for a boycott of Target retail stores. The NCC is asking its 5,000 Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Protestant clergy members and 30,000 lay delegates across the U.S. to use their influence to persuade their communities to suspend holiday shopping at Target stores and instead spend their money in places where Salvation Army bell ringers and their red kettles are welcome.” The article goes on to state that “Within the NCC, the boycott is being called ‘Operation Teach-Scrooge-A-Lesson.’”
Has it really come to this? I mean, has it really come to this? Look, I think that Target made, at the very least, a huge P.R. gaffe in deciding to uninvite the bell ringers. You’ve got to wonder who came up with this idea, and whether or not he/she is in the unemployment line by now. It is truly hard to envision what good could possibly have come of this decision that would offset the awful press that Target is receiving right now. Speculation has run rampant as to Target’s motives; I’ve heard it suggested that the homosexual lobby is trying to get even with the Salvation Army, that Target is concerned about people being harassed (yeah, those awful, vengeful, obtrusive bell ringers), that the threat of lawsuits prompts the decision (one’s mind can run on endlessly on that one!). Frankly, who knows? All in all, Target isn’t coming off too well in this little fiasco.
That said, c’mon, folks, do we honestly believe that it is a profitable expenditure of our time as pastors and churches to go on the warpath against Target for this reason? The truth of the matter is that all kinds of corporations do all kinds of egregious things all the time, most of them far more vile than Target’s Scroogeian tactics. Wal-Mart uses (many would say “exploits”) Third World labor so that we can have our CD-changers and twinkly lights at everyday low prices. KMart owns Waldenbooks, we all learned a few years ago, and Waldenbooks sells porn magazines, so let’s not shop KMart. The list goes on.
What I wonder sometimes is if we aren’t picking some of the wrong battles and letting more important ones go unfought. Is it the church’s business, really, to spend time and effort doing this kind of thing? If you subscribe, as I do, to at least the basic tenets of the Purpose-Driven template for ministry, under which of the five basic purposes does “encouraging people not to buy from Target because Target is acting like Scrooge” fall? And what effect does it have on a watching world to see us get all wrapped around the axle about such things? I mean, when thousands of Christians got all up in arms about Judge Roy Moore’s treatment–sorry, but it says here that it was largely self-inflicted–did we come off as principled defenders of freedom, or just angry kooks?
So I’ll just sit this one out; that’ll be me, on the sidelines, trying to be faithful to Jesus–regardless of what Target decides to do.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
