Why am I writing all these crazy things? It's a cri du coeur…….
I know the Theonomists scoff at this question, but they are wrong to do so because they read the Bible wrongly…seeing Christ through the lens of Moses. It's like looking through binoculars the wrong way making the object tiny in the distance…..
But the question is…….Where on the pages of the New Testament do you have a single command or notion from Paul, Christ, or anyone that to be citizens of the heavenly Kingdom we are to go out and either try and conquer the world through political and cultural means?
Calling for a Return to the Doctrinal Ideals and Kingdom Ethics of the First Reformation
Showing posts with label Why and How. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Why and How. Show all posts
13 July 2010
11 July 2010
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 8
The Truth is never Treason in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Once you leave Sacralism behind you start to see everything in a new light. You see the American Church for what it is….more or less apostate, Beast worshipping, and deluded. You see how Christians are generally not interested in the truth when it comes to news or history. And for most, they know far more about political issues and spend more time on the culture war than they do the Kingdom of God. Do they see the Kingdom?….I don't know.
Once you leave Sacralism behind you start to see everything in a new light. You see the American Church for what it is….more or less apostate, Beast worshipping, and deluded. You see how Christians are generally not interested in the truth when it comes to news or history. And for most, they know far more about political issues and spend more time on the culture war than they do the Kingdom of God. Do they see the Kingdom?….I don't know.
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Why and How
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 7
Ironies of History, Current Events, and Strong Delusion
So why do I prefer the label of Proto-protestantism? Because I don't wish to identify with many aspects of what happened during and as a result of the Reformation. I remember being rather proud of my Reformed heritage and talking with a couple of ex-Amish guys outside of a supermarket. We were talking a little theology and history. They know very well how their forebears were treated by the Protestants. And they know that they are excoriated within the Reformed Creeds. I remember feeling not so proud of my faction when I considered they murdered and waged war in the name of the Kingdom of Christ and sought to destroy the ancestors of these men. They did the very same things that the Roman Catholics had done to them and to the Underground. The Reformation has a Bestial political legacy as well.
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Why and How
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 6
Here's where I start bring it together and you're either going to sit up and really think hard about what I'm saying, or you will write me off.
What are the marks of the Church? Or is there but one Mark?
I read and studied more and began to come to the conclusion that perhaps the Middle Ages weren't so dark. Maybe there is some spiritual light there….but it wasn't within the bosom of Rome. It's not with Bernard of Clairvaux and other men we're supposed to admire. Doctrinally, the Underground, these Protestors before the name of Protestantism came about, they were kind of a mess, doctrinally all over the place. Much like today with one exception. These people were meeting and reading and praying under threat of fine, incarceration, torture, and possible death. I think if those conditions came about today, we might find a smaller percentage of Christians today than there were proto-protestants in the Middle Ages. That's a terrible indictment that I obviously cannot prove…but study it out yourself and see what you think.
What are the marks of the Church? Or is there but one Mark?
I read and studied more and began to come to the conclusion that perhaps the Middle Ages weren't so dark. Maybe there is some spiritual light there….but it wasn't within the bosom of Rome. It's not with Bernard of Clairvaux and other men we're supposed to admire. Doctrinally, the Underground, these Protestors before the name of Protestantism came about, they were kind of a mess, doctrinally all over the place. Much like today with one exception. These people were meeting and reading and praying under threat of fine, incarceration, torture, and possible death. I think if those conditions came about today, we might find a smaller percentage of Christians today than there were proto-protestants in the Middle Ages. That's a terrible indictment that I obviously cannot prove…but study it out yourself and see what you think.
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Why and How
10 July 2010
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 5
Sacralist Dominion and Worldview
Chuck Colson is the epitome, sort of the poster child in my mind of everything I think is wrong with conservative American Christianity. I'm not even counting Joel Osteen and people like that. I have listened to Colson's daily radio piece for years. It is amazing. I can only think of maybe once or twice that I have actually agreed with him.
We have very different worldviews. Why?
Chuck Colson is the epitome, sort of the poster child in my mind of everything I think is wrong with conservative American Christianity. I'm not even counting Joel Osteen and people like that. I have listened to Colson's daily radio piece for years. It is amazing. I can only think of maybe once or twice that I have actually agreed with him.
We have very different worldviews. Why?
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Why and How
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 4
Which Kingdom premise teaches Christians to be discerning, and which premise takes away their discernment?
How we are to view the world as a Pilgrim people and what happens when we don't?
We noted it during the 2008 Presidential election when the 'Reverend' Rick Warren hosted a debate between Obama and McCain. Warren asked some rather unique questions…here's an excerpt:
How we are to view the world as a Pilgrim people and what happens when we don't?
We noted it during the 2008 Presidential election when the 'Reverend' Rick Warren hosted a debate between Obama and McCain. Warren asked some rather unique questions…here's an excerpt:
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Why and How
08 July 2010
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 3
Is truth what we think and want to be right, or what we're trying to discern and know?
Why most Christian Worldview teaching is not Christian at all but a tool in the hands of the Sacralists…..
I couldn't believe that most of the people I talked to where basically coming right out and saying….they're not interested in finding out the truth. What they're interested in is the promotion of an agenda. They want to USE the news to support what's right. They want to CLAIM people and ideas in history so they rally them to their cause.
Why most Christian Worldview teaching is not Christian at all but a tool in the hands of the Sacralists…..
I couldn't believe that most of the people I talked to where basically coming right out and saying….they're not interested in finding out the truth. What they're interested in is the promotion of an agenda. They want to USE the news to support what's right. They want to CLAIM people and ideas in history so they rally them to their cause.
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Why and How
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part 2
Why is it so important for some to maintain medieval Roman Catholicism was the true church and why this issue still matters today….
Historically and doctrinally I had never been even remotely satisfied with what I considered to be rather incoherent and weak Institution-continuity based arguments regarding the church status of Medieval Catholicism. I would read Schaff, or Sketches in Church History, of RB Kuiper's The Church in History and would end up being frustrated. Here were people like the Waldensians and Hussites…but why are they glossed over? Shouldn't we be talking much more about them? Weren't they the obvious Christians during those times? Then I began to understand the ambivalent way in which they are viewed by Institutional and Culturally minded Christians…Christians who seem to identify the Church and Christianity with Western Civilization or in the more simplistic evangelical frame of American Politics.
Historically and doctrinally I had never been even remotely satisfied with what I considered to be rather incoherent and weak Institution-continuity based arguments regarding the church status of Medieval Catholicism. I would read Schaff, or Sketches in Church History, of RB Kuiper's The Church in History and would end up being frustrated. Here were people like the Waldensians and Hussites…but why are they glossed over? Shouldn't we be talking much more about them? Weren't they the obvious Christians during those times? Then I began to understand the ambivalent way in which they are viewed by Institutional and Culturally minded Christians…Christians who seem to identify the Church and Christianity with Western Civilization or in the more simplistic evangelical frame of American Politics.
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Why and How
Why am I talking about all this? How did I get here? Part I
Why am I criticizing the Reformation and calling myself a Proto-Protestant?
Something of an explanation…an account of my journey, where I'm coming from and why I'm saying all these strange things…..
I was raised politically conservative, taught to believe in Christian America, and accepted certain ideas and values as interchangeably Christian and American. Not until I was converted as a young adult and started reading my Bible did I begin to question these assumptions.
Becoming Reformed early I devoured Calvin, Puritans, and other Reformed writings, turned Hyper-Calvinist for awhile, following the normal course of ideological pendulum swings. Much of this formation occurred while in geographic isolation from Reformed congregations. I and the few others I knew of like mind were not able to interact much with other Reformed people…instead we had books. We had Calvin, Iain Murray, Lloyd-Jones etc…. Then coming into contact with certain ideas I began a process over the course of perhaps five years where I underwent a transformation that is secondary only to my conversion to Christianity. I had to re-think everything I had been taught as an American.
Something of an explanation…an account of my journey, where I'm coming from and why I'm saying all these strange things…..
I was raised politically conservative, taught to believe in Christian America, and accepted certain ideas and values as interchangeably Christian and American. Not until I was converted as a young adult and started reading my Bible did I begin to question these assumptions.
Becoming Reformed early I devoured Calvin, Puritans, and other Reformed writings, turned Hyper-Calvinist for awhile, following the normal course of ideological pendulum swings. Much of this formation occurred while in geographic isolation from Reformed congregations. I and the few others I knew of like mind were not able to interact much with other Reformed people…instead we had books. We had Calvin, Iain Murray, Lloyd-Jones etc…. Then coming into contact with certain ideas I began a process over the course of perhaps five years where I underwent a transformation that is secondary only to my conversion to Christianity. I had to re-think everything I had been taught as an American.
Labels:
Why and How
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