BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Andrew Marin is a wolf...

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. (Acts 20:28-31)

In response to my warning against the heresies promoted by InterVarsity and its publishing house, InterVarsity Press, a man commented that he'd been involved with InterVarsity and now has a sodomite son who has found a church where he can be at home as a gay man. He went on to comment that he's read IVP's Love Is an Orientation by Andrew Marin and found it a "balm to (his) soul," so he recommended it to our readers.

Marin's book is preciously wrong and one day Marin and his publisher will give an answer for seducing many away from repentance for their bondage to sexual perversion. I responded to this man...

Go for the men and the women will follow...

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men (aner) of Athens...” - Acts 17:22a

Dad gave me a couple pithy exhortations my first year in the pastorate. They weren't original but they carried the weight of his authority and I've passed them on to other pastors. Here are four of them: "Don't use Pardeeville as a stepping stone." "A home-visiting pastor makes a church-going people." "Preach it down; then preach it back up, again." And, "Go for the men and the women will follow."

That last one was deleted from an article on men's ministry I did for Christianity Today's journal, Leadership, back in 1989. Shortly after buying the piece, Leadership's editor left for Focus on the Family. The new editor didn't like the article, so he cut more than half the text and ran it without sending it back to me for approval. Readers won't be surprised Dad's advice "go for the men" didn't make the cut.

Jesus calls twelve men as His Disciples and we're not supposed to notice? Poor Christianity Today. Poor readership. Poor leadership.

I think of Dad's advice all the time. Parachurch organizations and church planters each have their own marketing strategies. Here are a few...

Another (yawn) minced confession at the PCA's Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

"To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence." - G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Here we have a wedding ceremony of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhattan.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's right wearing a suit is a male pastor (Scott Sauls) who formerly held his credentials in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church--a Reformed denomination that approves of female pastors and elders.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's left wearing a minister's robe is a female pastor.

Wedding ceremonies not being sacramental among us Protestants, one might argue it doesn't matter much if female pastors co-officiate with male pastors...

Reformed blings invite heretic to wax eloquent...

Jesus said, "...whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. - Matthew 20:27, 28

One of Baylyblog's themes is the necessity of avoiding all the Evangelical and Reformed bling. There's gold in them thar hills and that's the point, dear brothers and sisters. Jim MacDonald and Mark Driscoll are out having Elephant Room conversations and want you to come pay them money to see how bright they are.

Except check out the man they've invited to join them and wax elephant for their customers.

He's a pastor who claims he's a Christian, but he's not...

"Turn him loose. He's no threat..."

Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:37)

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed to you by us... was not yes and no; but in him was yes. (2Corinthians 1:19)

An older pastor I respect is not opposed to women elders and pastors, yet I count him a close friend and listen to him carefully. Trained at Pittsburgh Seminary, he spent most of his life serving calls in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). Now though, like many of us, the PC(USA)'s promotion of sodomite pastors has led him to leave the denomination.

A few minutes ago, I received this e-mail from him in response to the video clip of Tim Keller being interviewed by Martin Bashir concerning the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Heaven, and Hell. He wrote...

A tsunami of precious equivocation...

It is the final sign of imbecility in a people that it calls cats dogs and describes the sun as the moon—and is very particular about the preciseness of these pseudonyms. To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence. - G. K. Chesterton

A number of people have forwarded this clip in the past two weeks and it's been hard to know what to do with it. Keller's interview is about as bad as it could be. When the interview hit cyberspace, Keller issued an apology for one or two things he said. But his unfaithfulness to Jesus Christ and the Word of God was no momentary oversight or accident. It was a tsunami of careful, precise, well-placed equivocation, so the apology only made things worse.

For years, now, the Redeemer pastor has demonstrated a heavily nuanced and timid support for orthodox Christian doctrine...

Update to "A minister with a scripture" post...

The blog of the Gospel Coalition men continues to show itself thin-skinned, circling its wagons and refusing to respond to readers. The "Minister with a scripture..." post has been updated with the latest. Scroll down to the bottom of that post to keep abreast...

(TB)

"A minister with a Scripture..."

A few days ago, Tim Keller used his own Gospel Coalition blog to issue an apology for this very bad interview he did back in 2008 in conjunction with the release of his The Reason for God. The matter came to light only now because the video of the interview was only just released by Veritas Forum. Keller's apology is good in that apologies generally are; but it's bad in that some aspects of the interview that are most unfaithful to Scripture aren't addressed by the apology.

Noting this, I submitted a comment under the Gospel Coalition's announcement of the apology. The comment appeared for a few minutes, then was removed. Five days ago I submitted a request to the Coalition's e-mail asking them to...

The deafening silence...

This piece, "The Deafening Silence" by Nathan Ed Schumacher, demonstrates that the silence of Emergent and R2K men in the face of the wickedness and oppression in our public square is of the same fabric. Fear of man is a principle that knows no boundaries. (TB)

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. - Matthew 5:14

He that is not with me is against me. - Matthew 12:30

Qui non improbat, approbat [He who does not disapprove, approves]

Causae ecclesiae publicus causis aequiparantur [The cause of the church is a public cause]

-Maxims of Law

When Obama started his latest war in Libya, I wasn’t surprised – but I did start looking for some reaction from those in official senior positions of Christian leadership...

I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about Number One...

Listen to the first minute or two and it's so clear what this video and at least two of these men are about. You'd have to be highly educated to miss it. Then the last minute or two, it surfaces again. As that patriarch of all things Evangelical, the late Vernon Grounds, said some years back, Evangelicals worship "the bitch goddess of success." Followers of Jesus Christ should have nothing to do with multi-site video venues.

And by the way, Mark Dever pulled in his horns after being whupped by the two alpha-males going two-on-one on him with fangs bared. Try to imagine the good doctor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, agreeing to be part of this exchange. I apologize for posting it, but some things have to be seen if they're going to be properly condemned. (TB, w/thanks)

Multiple Sites: Yea or Nay? Dever, Driscoll, and MacDonald Vote from Ben Peays on Vimeo.

DeYoung is "too kind" to Rob Bell...

A brother in Christ forwarded this letter he'd just sent to Pastor Kevin DeYoung responding to DeYoung's review of Rob Bell's recent book attacking the Biblical doctrine of Hell. It was an encouragment to me and the brother gave me permission to post in here for your encouragment, also. As far as I know, Pastor DeYoung has not responded. (TB)

* * *

Dear Pastor DeYoung,

I just read your excellent review, "God Is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School Is Still True: A Review of Love Wins by Rob Bell". I hadn't read Bell before, but I  recently read his Hell chapter and was shocked at how bad it was--not just in its theology, but, as you point out, its crude and sophistical use of Bible passages...

A festival of hirelings and wolves...

The Economist reports on the June 23-26 Wild Goose Festival that "explicitly pitched its appeal to artists and musicians, nonconformists, post-Christians, non-Christians, disaffected evangelicals and a liberal evangelical subset known as the 'emergent' church." Held in eastern North Carolina a couple weeks ago, here's the Economist's description...

Redeemer's bondage to cosmopolitan conceit...

“Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name..." - Genesis 11:4

...if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment... - 2 Peter 2:6-9

We make it a habit to say less than we know when we oppose ministries and their leaders here on Baylyblog. We don't want to overreach. This has been true of our criticisms of Redeemer Presbyterian Church and her pastor, especially.

Back in the early nineties we first started recommending Redeemer to souls moving to New York City, and by now we have close to two decades of listening to those men and women who have become a part of Redeemer's congregations.

Our second thoughts about Redeemer started seventeen years ago...

WORLD enters the Promised Land...

Father Bill Mouser submitted this excellent comment under the post, WORLD's schtick.... Reading the original post may be necessary to understand this comment. (TB)

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18:24, 25)

Imagine for a moment Joshua facing Israel as it's perched on the east side of the Jordan river, addressing that nation this way:

"For the longest time I’ve struggled to put my finger on just what I believe about homosexuality. Or, for that matter, about incest. Or, for crying out loud, Moloch worship. Forty years ago, after all that sturm und drang at the foot of Sinai, I think I would have come down pretty solid on the line of “absolutely not.”

"But, I’m not sure I can say that anymore. Wait a minute: It isn’t that I think homosexuality, or incest, or Moloch worship, or anything else Moses wrote in Leviticus 18, is OK and is something YHWH overlooks or agrees with. But it is that I’m understanding a little better that what is commanded of us Jews is simply not the same as what we should expect from those who inhabit the land YHWH has given to us...

Canned preacher, live musicians...

Driscoll is a popular pastor in the Pacific Northwest. He heads a group of multisite churches that regularly draw 10,000 parishioners a week across 10 locations. He preaches live at one location, and his sermons are sent out by video to the other locations the following week, when the services are held with live music...

Driscoll said the sermon this week will be pre-taped, in part so he can attend a baseball tournament his son is playing in. The message, he said, comes from the Gospel of Luke and is about Zacchaeus, a crooked tax collector who found redemption...

If the preacher's a digital image, why "live music?"

A year ago, Taylor and I were at a large church in Evansville, Indiana, where the preacher only showed up for the later services and used video to feed the early service flock. During the sermon, the large digital image hanging from the ceiling in front of us asked those present to raise their hands if...

Coming out of the bathhouse...

Here is a helpful and wise autobiographical account of one man's life of sexual perversion prior to repentance, along with a warning against the tactics of the sodomy lobby that are taking Emergents like Tony Campolo and Rob Bell by storm today. The article isn't for the faint of heart, but this piece does such a good job of smashing all the pro-sodomy propaganda to smithereens that every pastor and elder and deacon or deaconess should read it carefully.

Note particularly how gays and egalitarians share identical hermeneutical strategies. Following the sodomites' hermeneutical technique outlined below, for decades now egalitarians have checkmated the Pollyannas of the Evangelical Theological Society. Mr. Lee records how all the debates over the meaning of this or that Biblical verse or word have born the fruit of "the gay rights apologists (earning) a place at the table from which they will never be dislodged." This is precisely the way the egalitarians have won their battle, also. When kaphale and authentein have been parsed into oblivion, the egalitarians walk home chortling over their victory--and rightly so...

Rebellion is of a fabric...

The seers will be ashamed And the diviners will be embarrassed. Indeed, they will all cover their mouths Because there is no answer from God. (Micah 3:7)

We keep saying rebellion is of a fabric. Rebellion against God's Order of Creation is inextricably bound, as apples to the apple tree, to rebellion against God the Father Almighty. For different reasons, egalitarians and complementarians alike deny it, but time is exposing their shared deception.

The man who rebels against God's creation of Adam first, then Eve, is defying God just as the man who denies God made Eve, not Steve, for Adam is defying God. Which is to say this has never been a collegial debate over kephale or authentein...

Emergent vs. Islamic idolatry...

Good comment (number 7) by my son-in-law, Lucas Weeks, on the relative threat posed by Emergent idolaters versus Islamic idolaters.

(TB)

"But really, he's just not one of them..."

Here's an excellent summary of the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan by a fan of Scot McKnight and the Bishop of Durham. Don't miss the first comment.

(TB)

Whack-a-Bell Rob...

This by kind permission of Chris Carmichael of the Sacred Sandwich. Thanks for your good work, Chris.

Excellent comments...

Several excellent comments have been made here and you'll want to read them.

(TB)

Blah blah blah blah blah I blah blah would blah blah blah definitely say blah blah blah blah blah...

Once again, we have that paragon among unreforming preachers asked about his take on sex--this time homosexual marriage.

Lauren Green of FoxNews did the interview March 28, 2011, as part of the Justice Event hosted by Redeemer's Hope for New York, Diaconate, and Grace & Race ministries. The place was packed, bases were loaded, bottom of the ninth, the pitch floated in waist high...

Welcome to the machine...

No doubt readers have noticed I've been trying to take Doug's advice and "stop throwing rocks at the moon." He's so wise.

But occasionally I howl, and tonight you may hear me after some idiot sent me to JT's blog and I saw this ad. Twenty percent off? How can a man resist? Talk about preaching to my heart! And you pomos aren't scandalized!

Preaching has become a commodity and we consume it as if it were yogurt or socks.

Money, it's a hit...

(TB)

What is a "transformational breath facilitator"?

Vaun Swanson says Denver Seminary taught her to "determine for myself what the author (of Scripture) was intending to communicate to us..."

 Even the most complementarian of men will go to any length to avoid Scripture texts that speak of women being susceptible to deception. But then we get hit in the face with a stiff dose of women-together-doing-yikes! and it's hard not to wonder if it's time for someone to blow a clear note of warning...

InterVarsity hedges and obfuscates concerning their IU event promoting sodomy (part VIII)...

(Tim: this is eighth in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight] responding to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at an Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011. This post was written by Pastors Tim Bayly, Jacob Mentzel, and Lucas Weeks.)

"The decision to pay Campbell to speak at the event was made by a number of upper-level InterVarsity staff and, following the event, InterVarsity's staff workers who were present had no problem with what Campbell had said."

This Wednesday, April 6, 2011, InterVarsity e-mailed a statement to some of the individuals who had expressed concern over their recent presentation, "Jesus and the End of Homophobia," here at Indiana University. The statement was not published on any public forum.

According to InterVarsity Headquarters, the primary failure of their "Jesus and the End of Homophobia" event is that "some who trust InterVarsity" were led into "confusion" about InterVarsity's "position on the compatibility of ministry leadership and homosexual practice."

So what is InterVarsity's official position on homosexuality?

Who knows? Go to their web site and try to find it. With many others, we've searched and we couldn't find it anywhere. As we said to an InterVarsity vice president this past week, IV has carefully hidden its position behind its firewalls. This is the fear of the world's disapproval and shame of Jesus Christ that led IV into this predicament in the first place...

Rob Bell's Department of Silly Talks...

(Tim) Our brothers out in Moscow, Idaho, just released a short spoof of Rob Bell's Department of Silly Talks. Check it out.

Robbed Hell - C.A.S.T. Pearls Presents from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

Remove IV from your church's missions budget: Indiana University chapter of InterVarsity promotes sodomy (part I)...

(Tim: this is first in a series of posts [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven] responding to to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's promotion of sodomy at a Indiana University campus forum they sponsored the evening of Monday, March 28, 2011.)

Back when David's and my father and mother, Joe and Mary Lou Bayly, were living on Mass. Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they were InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's (IV) first staff workers in New England, it would have sickened them to know their children would live to see the day when IV was advocating sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ and His Word. That's what happened this week here at Indiana University.

IV brought in a longtime IV staff worker (he recently left IV staff) to speak against homophobia at a special attention-getting series of public meetings and that man promoted sodomy in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Church, His Word; and certainly in the name of that parachurch organization known in this country as IV. They're the sponsor of Urbana and they own the book marketer that does the best job of promoting the feminist heresy within the Evangelical world, InterVarsity Press.

Weird, isn't it? I mean, that an organization and its publishing arm would use the Name of Jesus to obliterate the meaning of sexuality in society, the home, and the Church concerning the relationship between the sexes would then go on to work to obliterate the meaning of sexuality also in the matter of how body parts go together? Check out the caption under the pic: the Indiana Daily Student got this one right.

Honestly, I thought IV would try to keep these two parts of Gods' Creation Order separate so the scandal of giving in on the second would not undercut the massive progress they've made in destroying the first. Do you think people might be on guard now that it's obvious its full-out sexual anarchy IV's committed to? Or do you think IV will be able to finesse the matter, claiming it's a one-off and purely accidental that in this particular chapter and speaker, feminism and sodomy are both promoted?

Yes, yes, of course. I know IV's leadership will claim that this is an anomaly...

Hide it under a bushel, yes! I'm gonna blur the lines...

(Tim, w/thanks to Tenile: One blogger produced a very, very rough transcript of Martin Bashir interviewing Rob Bell and I asked Tenile Victorsen if she'd give us a good one. Here it is. If you find an error, please let us know and we'll correct it. Interspersed in the text are a few comments of my own in black text between brackets, italicized.)

Bashir: One mega church pastor has ignited a theological firestorm by suggesting that our response to the Christian message in this life will not necessarily determine our eternal destiny. In his book Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell says that ultimately all people will be saved, even those who’ve rejected the claims of Christianity. He argues people will eventually be persuaded by God’s love, postmortem, in the life to come. [Note how straighforward Bashir is stating Bell's thesis. As we enter the murkiness of Bell's words, we must remind ourselves of this straighforward warning from God:  "...it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment..." (Hebrews 9:27)] Pastor Rob Bell joins us now. Good afternoon, sir. Before we come to talk about the book, just help us with this tragedy in Japan. Which of these is true? Either God is all-powerful but he doesn’t care about the people of Japan and, therefore, they’re suffering, or he does care about the people of Japan but he’s not all-powerful? Which one is it? [Do we really have to choose between these two, Mr. Bashir?]

Bell: I begin with the belief [Let the listener understand he means no offense to those with a different belief.] that God--when we shed a tear, God sheds a tear. [Hallmark card sentiment, but the scale of the senitment doesn't match the scale of the horror. Pastor Bell trivializes the massive death and destruction of the earthquakes and tsunamis, or the terrible suffering of the Japanese people. Just one tear? Whole cities destroyed and "a tear" for Pastor Bell and "a tear" for God?] So I begin with a divine being [Speaking to the Areopagus surrounded by the pantheon of gods, the Apostle Paul declares: “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth..." (Acts 17:24). Speaking to the world today in the midst of our pantheon of gods, Pastor Bell can't even bring himself to use the definite article to refer to his god. It's not "the God Who is there" but "a divine being."] who is profoundly [Adverbs weaken arguments but strengthen sentiment. Pastor Bell adores adverbs.] empathetic, compassionate and stands in solidarity with us. [Actually, God stands in solidarity only with those who, by faith, are "in Christ" and His Church. Concerning all others, the ax is at the root. Thus note how, by leaving "us" undefined, Pastor Bell denies the distinction between the Church and the world. This denial of distinctions is central to his false prophecies and is a defining prejudice of post-moderns--Pastor Bell's target audience.] Secondly, the dominant story [To speak of the work of redemption recorded in Scripture as a "story" reminds me of what everyone said when the planes took down the World Trade Center on 9/11: "It was just like the movies." The false images of movies helped our mind's eye to see...

"Important fantasies we can escape to..."

(Tim) With sincere apologies to all the wee ones and their mothers, I think Disneyworld is too similar to hip preachers with full-service video venues to take the children for a visit. Really, do you want Disney's moral and spiritual authority to accrue to our Evangelical/Emergent theme parks?

Taryn Simon is a photographer...

Wheaton's Rob Bell and Bilezikian's Bill Hybels; and a warning against idolatry...

(Tim: For days now, I've received more recommendations of this video clip than I can count. Thanks to all of you. In a little while I'll post more on it, but first this. NOTE: This post has been changed to correct my error in saying Pastor Bill Hybels went to Wheaton College. His mentor has been now-retired Wheaton Bible Prof. Gilbert Bilezikian, but that relationship began when Bilezikian was teaching at Trinity College--not Wheaton.)

On MSNBC, Martin Bashir does the nasty job the elders of Mars Hill Church apparently can't summon the courage or insight for. He takes Pastor Rob Bell by the scruff of the neck and peels his adverbs off his verbs and nouns long enough to expose the deceptions that make him so much money. Bell's nothing more than a peddler of emotive words and idolatrous images, but many are fooled. His toxins go down smoothly and Baylyblog's warned readers against this hireling time after time.

Pastor Bell's the product of Wheaton College. Take a look at the job Wheaton didn't. Or maybe did?

When I first entered the ministry, there was another gifted prophet prophesying against the parts of historic Christian faith he judged old and in the way. His name was Bill Hybels and he studied under Gilbert Bilezikian at Trinity College (now Trinity International University) just prior to Bilezikian moving to Wheaton's Bible Department. Christianity Today fawned over Pastor Hybels, too, and my church mailbox was filled with offers to "Rev. Timothy Bayly" promising if I sent my money to one of Pastor Hybels' corporate enterprises, some of his churchly success might rub off on my ministry. Then maybe I could afford a similar campus, staff, hairdo, glasses, and jet. Think of it--my own private jet! Then I could pick up and minister internationally. Maybe even galactically!

Pre-publication press works well for authors...

(Tim) Some time ago, I panned another bad book from Inter-Varsity Press--this one on sexuality. Yesterday, the author of the book commented here on Baylyblog saying she wanted to know what our readers thought of her book itself rather than its pre-publication press release.

Rob Bell's followers have whined about people coming to a judgment against Bell's heresies based on his pre-publication video clip, but this is crazymaking. Here's my response to the IVP author and it works with Rob Bell's video ad for Love Wins:

Authors control their book's pre-publication press releases (and video ads), as they also control their bios. Your press release was meant to get people to read your book, but it backfired--with us at least. When the release backfires and is a negative incentive, you did your job well. You told people what your book was about and where it stood and they made an informed decision that they would not send you royalty money and not waste valuable time reading...

Rob's hell: the Times gets it about right...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mick) The Gray Lady reports on the controversy surrounding Rob Bell's forthcoming book attacking the Bible's teaching on Hell:

Judging from an advance copy, (Bell's) 200-page book is unlikely to assuage Mr. Bell’s critics. In an elliptical style, he throws out probing questions about traditional biblical interpretations, mixing real-life stories with scripture. Much of the book is a sometimes obscure discussion of the meaning of heaven and hell that tears away at the standard ideas.

Then we have this expert witness aiding and abetting the enemy:

An excessive passion for running along forked roads...

To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence. -G. K. Chesterton

In this game he had acquired a great deal of muddled knowledge, more than one approximation and less than one certitude. An absence of energy, a curiosity that was too sharp to be crushed immediately, a lack of order in his ideas, a weakening of his spiritual boundaries, which were promptly twisted, an excessive passion for running along forked roads and wearying of the path as soon as he had started on it, mental indigestion demanding varied dishes, quickly tiring of the foods he desired, digesting almost all, but badly, was his state." -Joris-Karl Huysmans, Becalmed.

(Tim, w/thanks to Apprising Ministries, here's a transcript of Rob Bell's video, "Love Wins.")

Several years ago we had an art show at our church and people brought in all kinds of sculptures, and paintings, and we put them on display. And there was this one piece that had a quote from Gandhi in it; and lots of people found this piece compeling. They’d stop and sort of stare at it, and take it in, and reflect on it—but not everybody found it that compelling. Somewhere in the course of the art show somebody attached a hand-written note to the piece, and on the note they had written: “Reality Check—He’s In Hell.”

Gandhi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this, for sure; and felt the need to let the rest of us know? Will only a few, select, people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And, if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe...

Ringing Rob's bell...

(Tim, w/thanks to Brandon) Yes, we're already sick of Rob Bell's perversions but here's a post that does the job well. In fact, it's what Justin Taylor should have written in the first place.

No mincing and prancing and "I wonder" and "don't you think?" and "Maybe it's just me, but..." here. Just straightforward exposure of Rob Bells' betrayal of the Gospel and it's been done surgically. Read it.

One of its merits is that the author, Pastor Kevin DeYoung, did us all the service of transcribing Bell's blather, and here's the centerpiece...

Rob Bell's no servant of God; he's a peddler of postures hip and kool...

Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:43,44).

(Jesus said) "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:42-44).

(Jesus said) "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).

(Tim) We've warned against Rob Bell before here and here. That second link is a post titled, "Just one more savage wolf..." alluding to this warning to the Ephesian elders by the Apostle Paul:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. (Acts 20:28-31)

If possible, that savage wolf, Rob Bell, becomes bolder in his wickedness. Watch this video:

Art ministry today: cool and hip...

(Tim) Whether in the U.S. or Western Europe, Reformed hipsters have fallen in love with art. For communicating the Gospel, preaching is out and art is in--it's the great white hope. Draw the Gospel. Sculpt the Gospel. Paint the Gospel. Use words only if you must.

David Baker is a student here at ClearNote Pastors College who, with his wife Marta and their children, were raising support under the Presbyterian Church in America's Mission to the World when God led them to move to Bloomington and begin training for pastoral ministry. David's a painter and he'd been headed to Dublin, Ireland, where he planned to be a part of an MTW team there, and to focus on the arts community. Recently, David corresponded with another MTW missionary in a Western European country about the arts movement within MTW and the PCA.

* * *

Dear (John Doe),

I should give you a brief background and update on what we are doing. As you may know we were on the path to work in arts ministry in Dublin, Ireland with MTW. We took a 5-year leave-of-absence from MTW for education and because of some other issues that made it clear that the yoking with the Irish church was not a good one. I'm now a pastor in training at ClearNote Pastor's College in Bloomington, Indiana. I continue to make art and I participate in a local gallery. I love using God's gift of artistic talent to His glory. He gives us these gifts.

When we were working on support raising we spent time with various churches around the country and we got to hear and see a lot of what was going on in the the arts ministry movement.

The complementarian hermeneutic: Adam and Eve/Adam and Steve...

(Tim, w/thanks to Joseph) If you'd like to see into the future of churches that market themselves as Evangelical or hip and Reformed, this article gives a clear picture of how it will fall out next with sodomy. First we threw out God's Order of Creation concerning patriarchy and next we're going to throw out God's Order of Creation concerning heterosexuality. But the work will be hidden behind the high moral ground of past church reforms in slavery and male dominance, and the wreckers will be chattering on about love.

If we could deny the application of Adam first, then Eve, to anyone other than Christians, and only among Christians to tie-breaking votes at home, men preaching Sunday mornings, and women having voice but no vote in our elders meetings, the next step is only logical: we'll deny that God creating Eve (rather than Steve) for Adam bars practicing sodomites from church membership and we'll think it's progressive to refer to heterosexual marriage as "God's ideal" while approving monogamous sodomite unions as a worthy second-best. Outside the Christian home and Church, we'll seek to repeal laws against sodomy because, like patriarchy, heterosexuality is a private Christian truth.

Trimming God's Word and authority is a coherent strategy that moves on to the next project and giving away territory to Satan never causes him to be less aggressive on his next mission. Every last bit of territory we concede will serve him well as the staging ground for his next attack on God's Order of Creation.

Some complementarians have written about the inevitability of the feminist hermeneutic giving birth to the homosexualist hermeneutic. By this they only mean that the complete denial of Adam's headship over Eve will also result in the complete denial of God's gift of Eve to Adam and His limiting of sex to monogamous heterosexual marriage. They're right, as far as they go. But they fail to see the inevitability, also, of their own minimalistic complementarian hermeneutic giving birth to an equally minimalistic heterosexualist hermeneutic...

Reformed leaders, their personal truths and private perquisites...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mick) Excellent post by Doug Wilson. If you want to read him, don't bother; but if you don't want to read him, you simply must.

In passing, let me note here that, at the first meeting I attended of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood--the organization that gave us that mincing eight-syllable construction "complementarianism"--several of the more prominent council members shut down an attempt by a younger man to get CBMW to oppose women combatants in our armed forces.

It was clear the thought of CBMW making any statement about the application of God's Order of Creation outside the Christian home and church petrified them. Manhood and womanhood were private truths for the people of God, only.

It was much like the approach taken by Covenant Theological Seminary's resident ethicist David Jones who...

Letters to Paul, III: language in the Emergent Church...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul: The Atonement as Cosmic Child Abuse

Dear Paul: Leaders in the Emergent church like Brian McLaren and Steve Chalke have criticized the Bible’s teaching on the atonement. Of course, they don’t put it like that, but this is truly what they are doing. They say they’re criticizing one popular theory of the atonement and use that criticism to undercut the teaching of the Bible.

They say that the way the doctrine is traditionally formulated amounts to child abuse...

Letters to Paul, II: language in the Emergent Church...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul: Let’s Stop Trying to be More Holy than God

Dear Paul: Certain Christian leaders in America are spreading confusion on the doctrine of the atonement. They don’t like the way the Bible and the Christian tradition have put things about the death of Christ so they’re proposing “new models,” “a new way of thinking about the death of Christ,” “a new vision,” “an exciting proposal that retains the best of the old and recasts it with a fresh perspective.”

Notice the emotions that come from the way they express themselves. It all sounds so promising, so inviting, so reassuring. It makes you ready to reject the old and accept the new, not for any real reason, but just because of the words they use...

Redeemer Presbyterian Church's seminary in Dallas...

(Tim) Since we removed the comment feed, here, it's become difficult for readers to keep track of active discussions. Let me note here two discussions you may have missed that are developing under the comments below these two posts (as well as the two comments under this post which pertain to the first of the two posts, below:

Discipline, denominations, and blogs...

Abortion, "prophetic rhetoric," and "over the top condemnations"...

Letters to Paul (I): language in the Emergent Church...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul: Language in the Emergent Church

Dear Paul: I want to write a few letters to you about the atonement of Christ, criticizing several teachings that are coming from the west. But first I need to write one about language and communication styles.

A number of American Christian writers today have adopted a style that feels very inviting. They ask a lot of questions. They word their statements in a way that seems humble. They admit that they don’t have all the answers. They show an admirable hesitancy in making truth statements. They don’t rebuke people but want to leave us all feeling affirmed, one of the group, encouraged, like a fellow pilgrim on a journey...

A voice for the voiceless...

(Tim) Think about this. Ms. Carolyn Custis James is married to Frank James who for years served as president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. With this entree, Carolyn was uniquely positioned to introduce feminism into the world of Biblical (which is to say Reformed) faith. And this she has done and is doing.

Check out her blog and you'll see how sotto voce she is in her rebellion. She's only helping women to "ask why." She's only trying to get one half of the church to recognize there's another neglected half sitting quietly, waiting to be allowed "to serve." She's overwhelmed by global implications and suffering–-such as South Africa's apartheid and Rwanda's genocide.

She's feted by Westminster in Philadelphia, Park Cities in Dallas, her editor at Zondervan, and Campus Crusade everywhere. If you doubt it, just ask her; she'll tell you herself...

Tully's "ecstatic" about Gospel centrality...

(Tim) Tully tells us, "I’m ecstatic about the resurgence of gospel centrality taking place in the evangelical church."

Yes, yes; every day in every way the evangelical movement is getting better and better. We see it everywhere. It's stunning, really.

Imagine there's no judgment, it's easy if you try;

No One we must be fearing; above us only sky...

This endless mantra about Gospel centrality is really a master-scheme to rob God of the fruit He saved us to. And it's painfully clear that across hip Calvinist congregations, it subverts that sanctification without which no man will see God.

Lessons to Learn from Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement, IV...

(Lucas: This is the fourth in a series by David Wegener. Here are the first, second, and third.)

5. Possibility of the Atonement. God’s justice can be satisfied. If it is possible for God to be dishonored, for His majesty to be held in contempt, for His authority to be trampled upon, then it is possible for His justice to be satisfied, His majesty vindicated and His authority reverenced. “God is as capable of receiving satisfaction as injury” (577).

6. Desirability of the Atonement. God will incline to the satisfaction of His justice. He alone is infinitely worthy of His own love and esteem. If He loves Himself, then He must hate all opposition to His person. Therefore, He “will be disposed to repair the injury done to his honor” (577).

Mutiny in the church...

(Tim, w/thanks to Steve M.) Read this post by Carl Trueman. It's almost excellent.

Almost because, sadly, the salient point to make about it is that there are no specifics mentioned, no men and their errors exposed. Sadly, that neglect says more than the good words Trueman has written.

To warn against theological and ecclesiastical and confessional and Biblical rebellion without warning against any particular man is to gnaw with gums instead of chewing with teeth. Until you name names, it's only one more hypothetical construct.

It wouldn't surprise me if reformation 21 had a policy against questioning or warning against any particular man's faith or practice--particularly if that man sells lots of books and is cited more than anyone else by Reformed pastors, today.

"So that the land will not spew you out..."

(Tim) Responding to this article from Family Research Council commenting on President Barack Obama's use of his office of Commander in Chief to promote sodomy, a friend of mine who is a longtime IVCF staff worker in a metro area of the Eastern Seaboard sent this e-mail:

Friends, I’d be interested in your take on the first article here. I’m as strongly against homosexual activity as anyone but I’m not sure I see the logic of banning them from the military. Prohibiting any and all sexual contact among servicemen, yes. But can we ban someone’s desires in a public way?

I’m not sure this is as clear-cut as many conservatives make it out to be. Your thoughts?

To which I responded...

Lessons on the Atonement from Jonathan Edwards, III...

(Lucas: This is the third in a series by David Wegener. Here's the first and the second.)

3. Substitution is a Scriptural idea. Some examples:

• Paul, Moses and David each desired to suffer in the place of another or others (Rom 9:3, Ex 32:32, 2 Sam 18:33). They desired to serve as substitutes.
• When hands were laid on the head of the sacrifice, it signified the imputation of the guilt of sin to the sacrifice. The sacrifice was the substitute.
• When Nabal’s foolishness provoked David to wrath, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, took the place of a substitute/mediator between David and her husband. She pled with David that he consider the sin of Nabal to be her sin. “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt” (1 Sam 25:24). She refers to Nabal’s sin as her sin. She desired that David reckon Nabal’s sin to her account...

Lessons on the Atonement from Jonathan Edwards, II...

(Tim: second in a series by David Wegener) Building on his introduction in which he outlined the attack on the biblical doctrine of the Atonement common among Emergent and other heretics of our time, David Wegener here begins a series of posts summarizing Jonathan Edwards' writing on the Atonement. David teaches and is Academic Dean at the Theological College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia. Both Christ the Word in Toledo and Church of the Good Shepherd in Bloomington support David and his wife, Terri, in this work. If you're interested in corresponding with David, feel free to e-mail him. David and I commend his ministry highly and encourage our readers to add his work to your missions budget.

* * *

1. Satisfaction for sin is necessary and rational.

Satisfaction and God’s justice and proportionality. “Justice requires that sin be punished, because sin deserves punishment” (565). There must be a link between the heinousness of the crime and the degree of punishment. God is infinite. Sin against God is infinitely heinous. So God must punish sin with an infinite punishment. Sin is infinitely hateful to God and stirs up infinite abhorrence and indignation. Because of the infinite nature of the crime, repentance bears no proportion to it. “Therefore we are not forgiven on repentance” (566). God is the supreme ruler of all things. He must “maintain order and decorum in His kingdom, and to see to it that decency and righteousness take place in all cases” (566). Thus, that perfection of His nature called His justice disposes God to punish sin as it deserves...

Lessons on the Atonement from Jonathan Edwards, I...

(Tim: first in a series from David Wegener) Tucked away in my two-volume compilation of many of the works of Jonathan Edwards is a section titled, “Remarks on Important Theological Controversies.” I'll be summarizing one part of this section subtitlted “Of Satisfaction for Sin." But first, let me introduce exactly why Edward's essay is important.
 
In today’s theological climate, particularly through the influence of the Emergent church and the hipness of the Anabaptist movement, many are questioning the traditional Protestant doctrine of the Atonement; that is, the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement. On the Cross, did Christ really take our place? Was it really for our sins that He suffered and died? Did God really punish Christ in our stead?
 
Taking their cue from Feminist and Anabaptist theologians, Emergent church leaders consider the traditional Protestant doctrine of the Atonement to be cosmic child abuse. An angry Father has punished His Son for wrongs the Son did not commit. Isn’t that what we'd call child abuse? Isn’t our society trying to enact laws to prevent just this kind of thing? Is this the message we should preach from our pulpits? Does it really square with God's love or justice?