Category Archives: Pop Christianity

Apologetics, Heresy, Pop Christianity, Theology

2 Peter’s Response to Rob Bell

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This is what I consider to be a properly customized form of 2 Peter chapter 2 for the recent clarity that has come to the Christian community about the destructive heresy that Rob Bell has began to teach in public and in writing. Take these words to heart and pray that Rob Bell might somehow escape from his folly and the destruction that is promised to all false teachers in the Church:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

This false teacher among you is Rob Bell! He is like an irrational animal, a creature of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which he is ignorant. He will be destroyed in the very destruction that he denies will come upon the ungodly, suffering wrong as the wage for his wrongdoing. He counts it a pleasure to revel in public and in online videos about how joyous it is to question what has been clearly revealed in the Scriptures. He is a blot and blemish, reveling in his deceptions, even while he administers the Supper in his own mega-church. He has eyes full of pastoral unfaithfulness, an insatiable wolf among sheep. He entices unsteady souls with his teaching, his videos, and his books. He has a heart trained in greed. An accursed child indeed! Forsaking the right way, he has gone the wrong way. He has followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, failing to listen to God’s clear message! In the end, Balaam had to be rebuked for his own transgression by a dumb ass that spoke with human voice to restrain the prophet’s madness!

Rob Bell is a waterless spring. He is a mist driven by a storm. For him the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, he entices by sensual passions of their own flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. He promises them freedom, even in their unbelief, but he himself is a slave of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after a person has escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for Rob Bell never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to him. What the true proverb says has happened to him: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the pig, after washing itself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Apologetics, Culture, Culture News, Current Events, Eschatology, Pop Christianity

LOST: Lots Of Secular Thinking

Well, I’m pleased to say that LOST, the ABC TV series, is finally over. And, as much as I enjoyed it, I was really hoping for a better series finale than the one the writers decided on. In the end, the writers decided to give us all a crummy commentary on “life after death” according to a pluralistic, pagan worldview that does not believe in immortality or resurrection or anything consistent with the hope of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. Now, I wasn’t expecting them to give a Christian message… I was hoping that they would simply NOT give a commentary on ‘life after death.’ It was an utterly horrible and unorignal conglomeration of secular and pagan thinking about how, when you die, you get to be with your loved one’s and relive the best parts of your life until you find out that you are actually dead and get to ‘let go’ or ‘move on’ to something else… Let’s just walk into the bright light of oblivion and cry our eyes out!

Well, if you have any thoughts, I would love to hear them. I really would have loved for the ending of LOST to be about an alternate universe that was created, in which they were able to live their lives together in happineness – this would have at least carried the idea of some kind of ‘new creation’ that came out of their actions on the Island. Yes, I know that’s not a complete Christian message, and as I said before – I didn’t expect it to be. I simply hoped that the writers would say that they created a new world, instead of deciding to cater to people’s curiosity about ‘life after death’ and what that migh be like if there is no God and our redemption is left up to ourselves working together… The fictional world of LOST did not require such an ending in order to be special or good. It was just unnecessary.

Let me hear your thoughts if you watched the series finale.

Culture, Pop Christianity, Prayer Requests, Theology, Videos

Osteen on Larry King Live

This is a very interesting interview. I encourage you to watch it and consider what the Osteens are saying. I think this interview goes to show that Joel Osteen is such a simple person and that he really does need to be trained better in the ways of God. I just do not understand why he will not take the time to learn more and to be more articulate about doctrinal and theological issues. I encourage all of you to pray for he and his wife. They have such a large influence. It would be amazing to see them change and begin influencing their own audience towards a more faithfully doctrinal Christianity.

The video below shows the Osteens addressing issue ranging from the Obama’s job performance and faith, to the topic of gay marriage, to talking about a new bible with their notes in it, to the topic of a post Christian world and a quote by Al Mohler, Jr.

Please let me know what you think.

Apologetics, Culture, Current Events, Debate, Denominations, Politics, Pop Christianity, Reforming

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

Michael Spencer has a very provocative article that was published in the March 10th edition of the Christian Science Monitor. I encourage you all to read it. Here is an important excerpt:

WHY IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to “do good” is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

[Continue Reading…]

Apologetics, Atheism, Evangelism, False Religion, Pop Christianity, Reforming, Videos

Penn on Christian Evangelism and Hating People

Penn, from The Penn and Teller magic show, posted a video log on a recent experience he had with a Christian businessman after one of his shows. It is very telling and absolutely spot on. I encourage you to listen to it and see how you stand up in light of Penn’s analysis.

Note: Penn is a very loud and outspoken atheist and believes that much of “religion” is bad for the world. This video is simply amazing in light of what I’ve heard him say before about Christianity and other world religions.

Penn says:

I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, and you think, ‘Well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward’… How much do you have to hate somebody not to proselytize?

[HT: Ed Stetzer]

Books, Culture, Evangelism, Pop Christianity, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Evangellyfish

Doug Wilson has finished writing a satire related modern day Church culture and their pastors. I encourage you to visit the book’s web site. All of the material is available by chapter in blog format for free. So you can read the whole thing online if you want. Here is the link to the first chapter of the book. Here is some information about the book:

John Mitchell is the pastor of a small, modestly successful Reformed Baptist church in a city in the Midwest. Chad Lester is one of the most successful pastors in North America, and he is the leading light at Camel Creek Community Church in the same city. He is, speaking in theological terms, a dirt bag. And yet, his quasi-secret sexual misbehavior leads only to church growth success followed by publishing success, followed in turn by ever more church growth. John Mitchell hates everything that Lester stands for and yet, unbeknownst to him, envy of Lester’s success has him secretly by the throat. He thinks of it as indignation, or righteous concern, or something, but the real issue is that he is peeved that Lester appears to be blessed by God for being a creep, and he, Mitchell, struggles in obscurity for being faithful. But of course, Mitchell is faithful, and Lester is a creep, and the reader is not surprised that Mitchell can’t see it. None of us would if we were in his place.

When Lester is falsely accused of the one rotten thing he didn’t do, and his ministry starts to implode, John Mitchell is dragged into it much against his will, All this said, Evangellyfish is not really a dark comedy, but rather a medium brown comedy. In some sense, it is a satire on a world that defies satire.

Culture, Current Events, Debate, False Religion, Politics, Pop Christianity, Theology

Obama, Apostasy, and the American Dream

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Well, I can hardly believe that Obama did what he did tonight in his DNC acceptance speech… But with everything I’ve seen so far, I cannot say that I’m too surprised. For starters, I would like to point out two very important references that Obama made during and at the end of his acceptance speech. I quote from Collin Hansen over at the Christianity Today Live Blog regarding “Obama’s Code Language“:

Obama’s Code Language
Democratic nominee borrows from New Testament
By: Collin Hansen

I doubt any commentators will accuse Sen. Barack Obama of using religious code language in his acceptance speech. Yet two famous New Testament passages made an appearance. As is typical of civil religion today, God was replaced by the “American promise.”

“Instead, it is that American spirit – that American promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend,” Obama said, borrowing from 2 Corinthians 4:18.

Obama then concluded his remarks this way: “Let us keep that promise – that American promise – and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.”

This statement comes from Hebrews 10:23. But the context of this passage explains something far more beautiful than the American promise. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:19-22).

This is truly to most ironic part about the whole Speech. Though every thinking Christian should realize that Obama is promoting the idolatry of “the American Dream”, I would like to point out that, based on one of my previous posts, the subsequent verses of Hebrews chapter 10 that follow verse 23 apply directly to Barack Obama and his apostasy from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

The verse in Hebrews that he quoted was talking about holding fast to our confession of Christ as Lord and Messiah, not the American Dream! I wonder what people would think if he continued to quote the passage? I wonder if the speech write even bothered to read the context of the verse or if he just Googled it in from an online Bible and a vague memory he had about the wording of that particular sentence?

So, for those of you thinking about it now… here is the passage in full from verse 23 to verse 31:

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So, you decide now who you will vote for in the November election. These are just some crucial thoughts we need to be having as Christians who are citizens in this great land of freedom and liberty and justice for all. Does Obama’s speech convince you of something? Talk back to me about it in the comments.

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,
Glenn Jones