Adapt Church to Culture?

Well, but mustn’t the churches adapt Christianity to suit the ideas of our time? No, they must not. Our ideas are killing us spiritually. When your child swallows poison, you don’t sit around thinking of ways to adapt his constitution to a poisonous diet. You give him an emetic.

Joy Davidman (aka Mrs. C.S. Lewis, cited by Megan Basham, Shepherds For Sale, pg.XI

What a False Church Looks Like

The following was posted on Facebook by Bethel Church and Christianity (a site exposing the false teaching of Bethel).

Not Bethel, likely Prestonwood Baptist (don’t be fooled by their use of the word Baptist). Just one more example of how the false church exhibits its falseness.

While this event is marketed as a community outreach, it is not a free event. Tickets range from $19-$59 per seat. 

The gospel does not require a sideshow, band, lights and a flying Santa to be accepted. The gospel needs to be simply shared and the Holy Sprit does the work of opening eyes, ears, hearts and minds to the truth. 

More Odds and Ends

A good exegetical analysis of Hebrews vs Roman Catholic Eucharist Theology.  Part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Do not take Scripture out of context, nor allow anyone else to do so.

A Biblical Understanding of Race.

Should those teaching false doctrine be contacted before the saints can be warned? (Matthew 18:15). NO.

How Do We Explain the Depraved Thinking in Our Nation? Excellent commentary.

A good apologetic examination of someone’s attack on Scripture.

The Lutheran Church (LCMS) is courting apostasy.

Purgatory: The First of Many Reasons Why I Could Never Be Catholic

A Response to Shiny Happy People. This is in reference to Amazon Prime Video’s series on the Dugger Family. Some interesting thoughts about the situation, IBLP and Bill Gothard.

Regardless of what your church or books you read tell you, there are no more apostles! They existed only in the 1st century.

Why Hymns Matter.

A good apologetic for a culture wrapped up in sexual identity.

The Bible and Homosexuality. An excellent 6 1/2-minute video.

Creation care?

If your church is movie time, flee it. Here’s another example.

To Flee or Not to Flee: Is it Biblical to Flee Blue States?  Yes it is.

When you compromise Genesis, you can decide homosexuality is okay.

More problems with The Gospel Coalition.

The greed fostered by this “church” is unreal; it makes God into a puppet who can be controlled by how much money you donate!. To begin with, Christians do not tithe!!! That was an O.T. rule for Israel only, and it wasn’t just on income. Churches who use the word “tithe” instead of “gifts” or “offerings” (e.g.) are helping to foster this nonsense. 

And Satan laughs.

Consumer Christianity

 

Apologetics Miscellany

Life has kept me very occupied outside of home so researching things, writing articles or even collection links for sharing has become difficult to accomplish. I’ve gotten so little accomplished around home this summer that I’m not looking forward to fall since I really need to get some work done in the garden! This is all to say that this post has a fairly large collection of stories to visit, so let’s get started.

Here’s a very interesting article about today’s political culture vs God.

Cessationism vs. Continuationism

Does the Bible Mandate Nice Language When Condemning Evil?

Michael Jennings claims to be a pastor, yet he’s suing a city for hurting his feelings. Rather than cooperate with police when asked for an ID, he whined that he wasn’t doing anything wrong and refused to show ID. The problem was that he was in someone else’s yard and the police were trying to verify his story about being a neighbor. Of course to him, a black man, they must be racists. Well, I looked to see what his church was and discovered it is another one of those apostate places associated with the LEFTIST Episcopal Church. No wonder he didn’t behave as a Christian pastor!!!!

This is what the seeker-sensitive/market-driven “church” has devolved into.

National Baptist Convention must be full of apostates.

Nate Collins and the “Revoice” conference are thumbing their noses at God’s design for human sexuality.

Scott Sauls and Tim Keller—two peas in a pod?

More bad teachings by Tim Keller.

The Shifting Sands of Watchtower Salvation.

How Matt Chandler’s Elders Violated Scripture.

Ever since “Purpose Driven” nonsense first came out I have been warning people to stay away from anything by Rick Warren. Well, “the proof is in the pudding.”  He’s rancid with his teachings.

Miranda Nelson—SIGH! I find it difficult to understand how people can allow themselves to be suckered into such blasphemous nonsense.

If you need more proof that the United Methodist Church is apostate….

Kat Kerr is about as nutty as it gets. She’s a great pawn of Satan’s but she’s no prophet. How can people seriously follow her!?!

A cult I was unfamiliar with: The Christian Family Fellowship. There are too many of these groups to keep up with!

More on the fraudulent Jesus of The Chosen.

The spiritually dangerous teachings of Andrew Wommack.

One Good, Lots of Bad

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the warnings of false teachings, here is an article that should help anyone dealing with pro-abortion arguments against the Bible. It gives good references to how the early church understood God’s view of abortion all the way to current church doctrines, as well as two solid biblical passages proving that what is in the womb (i.e., the fetus) is a fully human being.

On to the warnings:

“The Chosen” should not be watched or promoted by Christians. The series does nothing to help the faith but does indeed bring harm to it. 

Justin Peters Exposes False Teachers and “Hearing from God.” Excellent demonstration of how horrid these false teachers are.

Hutterites — a little known cult.

Pitiful Pride.  Not only is their sexual behavior and ideology sinful, but also their pride in it is a sin!

Christine Caine is about as bad as they get.

Heidi Baker is still going strong, and still going to hell. She is a dangerous false teacher.

Democrats don’t care about Christian doctrine, let alone Roman Catholic doctrine. The RCC is weak and is just “discussing” whether to excommunicate President Biden and his lackeys, but their doctrine says they MUST! IF the RCC excommunicated Democrats who support abortion and all the perverse sexual ideology of the LGBTQxyz+ agenda, then there’d be few Democrats promoting it or fewer Democrats claiming to be Catholic. Either way it’s a win-win for the Church.

Research: Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive, Market Driven.

If your church is singing “worship” songs about “microaggressions” and “systemic racism,” you know you are worshipping man and not God. The guilty party here is Matt Chandler and his Village Church.

A very good summation of the false teachings of heretic Steven Furtick. And a wee bit more.

Christianity Today Astray is going full “woke.”

This current Pope proves over and over that the papacy does not speak for God. This one is very pro-“gay.”

Interesting find from Midwest Christian Outreach. Current news in England tells about someone growing up in Bill Gothard’s cult. Ya just don’t hear much about him any more.

How can anyone still support Andy Stanley as a pastor/teacher?!?

Bethel church “pastors”, just keep teaching the things of demons.

Fun with Kenneth Copeland.

Only the Word Can Build Christians

We can tell inspiring stories, sing beautiful or peppy music, fill our calendars full of social events, professionalize our program and provide small groups for every conceivable interest, but if the Scripture is not diligently, systematically and correctly taught, Christ’s people will not be equipped and the body will not be built up, period.  There are no exceptions to this mandate. The church must proclaim the word of truth -- it must be the utmost priority.  Congregations which focus on techniques, programs and entertainment, at the expense of the centrality of the Word, may build large followings but they will not build the church of God. Programs, drama and entertainment may amuse, soothe, inspire and stir the emotions, but they will not build Christians. Only the Word can do that.

Gary E. Gilley, This Little Church Stayed Home: A faithful church in deceptive times, pg.58

The Church Has Jettisoned Her Message

For two decades [as of 2006] the church-growth experts have told us that if we are to attract the unchurched, we must change the way we “do church.” We must offer them new “settings and experiences.” We must meet their perceived felt-needs. We must do away with biblical exposition and focus on stories. We must eliminate dogma and become relevant. We must do away with hymns and major on contemporary music. We must remove our Christian symbols and traditions and behave more professionally and secularly. We must train our pastors to be CEOs rather than shepherds. When we have done all of this, we have been assured, we will attract the masses. Now, after two decades of church leaders buying and implementing everything that the market-driven gurus have offered, we find far fewer people attending church services (of any kind). Their methodologies have failed, yet Barna encourages us to keep it up. If we can just change enough, if we can just offer the right experiences and become more creative, surely we will ultimately break through. …

While the evangelical church has been chasing the every changing fads and whims of our society, she has jettisoned her unique message. At the same time that the church has forgotten her purpose, she has also been infiltrated by a wide range of diluting and corrupting influences that have changed the very core of her being.

Gary E. Gilley, This Little Church Stayed Home: A faithful church in deceptive times, pg. 12-13

Playtime in the Church

Children’s ministries have for years focused on playtime and coloring; teens have been treated like large children who need to be entertained with contemporary music and a multitude of games and activities; adults are not to be bored with biblical exposition and theology. These practices stem from the late sixties, when the rebellious and spoiled baby-boomers…began to reshape everything (including the church) in their own image. Two generations of Christians have come and are moving through the church, many of whom have never experienced what a biblical church should be. So far removed are many Christians from the New Testament paradigm that many do not know that anything else exists or ever existed.

Gary E. Gilley with Jay Wegter, This Little Church Had None: A Church in Search of the Truth, by pg.222

We Don't Need Relevant Churches

Today, there is so much talk about how to make our church services more culturally relevant, especially to the unconverted. However effective this might be in drawing "seekers," it was not so in the early church. Their services equipped the saints to be witnesses wherever they found themselves. The church meeting collectively on Sunday will not win the world, nor will more seminars on church growth; rather, what we need are more equipped individuals who share their faith in hospitals, banks, factories, warehouses, office buildings, and neighborhoods.

Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness, pg.272

When Worship Becomes Entertainment

The ubiquitous culture of consumerism and materialism has seduced many evangelicals into a ministry mode driven by marketing rather than mission. To an ever greater extent, evangelicals are accommodating themselves to moral compromise in the name of lifestyle and choice. Authentic biblical worship is often supplanted by the entertainment culture as issues of performance and taste displace the simplicity and God-centeredness of true worship. Our churches are worldly in lifestyle, worship, and piety. We have seen the worship of God too often made into a human-centered entertainment event.

Al Mohler, Jr. (1996). Cited by Dan Lucarini, Why I Left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement, pg.63

Come As You Are?

The “Come as you are, God accepts you where you are at” doctrine is closely aligned with the tolerance movement that is popular in our secular society. … this is laying the foundations for some serious religious disillusionment down the road. The real test of any Christian teaching, however, is not either its short-term or long-term consequences, but whether or not it is found in the Word of Go.  How does this doctrine stand tup to that test?

Is there any biblical truth behind “come as you are”? It certainly reflects the biblical principle that to God “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation; we cannot make ourselves clean enough to be acceptable to God. But does that also mean we can stay as we are?

John Makujina, a scholar who assiduously researched the CCM movement, has stated that, 

Whereas many conservatives preached what amounts to “Clean yourself up before you receive Christ,” the Jesus movement [where CCM began] said more biblical, “Come as you are.’ The problem however was that come as you are more often meant “remain as you are,” at least as far as music, language, clothing, and social habits are concerned. 

The only biblical justification I have heard for this doctrine is the story in John 8 concerning the woman caught in adultery. But we cannot forget that after the Pharisees left, Jesus said to the woman, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” Jesus did not accept her as she was—he commanded her to change. Neither does Jesus accept us as we are. When we become his disciples, he expects us to sin no more, to show a change in our affections from idols to him, and for us to turn from the loss of the world and love him.

There is no biblical proof of a God who accepts anyone for “who he is.” God is not interested in our self-esteem or our filthy rags. Examine the evidence and judge for yourself. … Jesus did not accept a sinner’s sin.  He preached repentance from sin to everyone, not just to the Pharisees. …

The New Testament clearly teaches that genuine conversion produces a changed—and changing—life. … The honest “seeker” must conclude that this “come as you are” teaching of God’s unconditional acceptance is at best misleading. We cannot come to God just as we are, with our sin unconfessed or ignored or draped all over us, and still expect his acceptance. We cannot drag our favourite worldly music, dress and language into the church, and expect a blessing! That is wishful thinking with no basis in Scripture. Nor would we want “unchurched seekers” to believe they can hang on to their sins and still be accepted by God. …

Acceptance doctrine is so pervasive in some fellowships that Christians are no longer allowed to question another Christian’s behaviour or personal preferences. If you confront another in love, you will be accused of judging them. If you dare quote chapter and verse from the Bible, you will be called a Pharisee. If a church has any practices that step on the toes anyone’s personal preferences, then it is considered to be a legalistic church. …

In this new Church of Acceptance, showing tolerance for worldly affections and behaviours is far more important than exercising biblical discernment. A person is simply not allowed to question another’s personal preference, and if he does, then he must produce a specific Bible verse to back it up.

Dan Lucarini, Why I Left the Contemporary Christian Music Movement, pg.38-41

Music In the Assembly

Two weeks ago (the last time we were at the assembly at which we currently worship) we walked into the auditorium to hear, very loud, some female CCM singer’s recording blaring.  I couldn’t understand what her virtual screaming was about, but I can tell you it is totally inappropriate for churches to do this!! For the next 20 minutes, until the service began, my wife and I wore earplugs (she keeps them in her purse because this assembly continues to have their band microphoned totally unnecessarily) and people were practically yelling at each other in conversation. It is unconscionable that any pastor or music leader would subject their congregation to this.  But this is the second time we’ve encountered such nonsense since we began attending in early 2015 (but we’ve missed many Sundays, so who knows….?)

Today one of the songs we sang (new to me) was certainly not designed for congregational singing, due to the difficult tune and the bridges for the band. While the lyrics were okay, it was definitely designed for performing, and therefore should not have been used, let alone with the loud band.

Another song, new to this assembly (because the song leader sang the first verse first for us to learn it) was another performance song, albeit with an easier tune.

Church leaders are driving away older members of their congregations while appealing to the younger generation who have been raised with loud music (and most of them are becoming hard-of-hearing). This is so very wrong. If anyone in your assembly needs ear plugs, then your are WRONG in what you are doing.

Too much of a spectator mentality has entered the assembly.  Many modern songs promote the band and song leader while the singing in the assembly is either drowned out, or that many don’t even know the songs. Then when there is “special music” with soloists or small groups (and sometimes even the choirs) the “audience” applauds them when they finish, as if they were there for a concert performance.  This applauding nonsense often takes place in our assembly when the pianist plays for the offertory. Does she play well? Certainly, but she was not playing to entertain!

The spectator mentality entered the Church through the seeker-sensitive and market-driven ideology which has betrayed Christ by focusing on non-believers.  Many new buildings are constructed with the auditorium resembling a concert hall, with stadium seating, huge stages, massive amounts of stage lighting, etc. This is a horrid ideology!

Whereas the leadership and overall teaching at this assembly is good, we have begun to attend only every other week due to the volume and caliber of the music.  If things don’t change (and I have complained about the volume, obviously to no avail, and the last time they had the canned music for pre-service I commented about it to the music leader, who laughed me off), we may have to start an impossible search for a solid, non-legalistic, fundamental assembly out of town (already searched in town).

Pastors and “worship” leaders: is this really what you want your assembly known for?  Is this ideology really worth having members leave?

Is It Really Satire? Hard to Tell

Market-Driven/Seeker-Sensitive is NOT Biblical

A church fed on excitement is no New Testament church at all.  The desire for surface stimulation is a sure mark of the fallen nature, the very thing Christ died to deliver us from.

A.W. Tozer

Discernment When “Church Shopping”

This past Sunday, while out to lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant in a nearby small town, we saw a sticker on a car which said, “Infuse Church.”  Of course the words weren’t posted that way — they were in a block sort of with letters going across and down so you actually had to look at it and think about what it said.  Curiosity got the best of me and I have now looked them up on the Internet.  WOW.

When you are looking for a church at which to worship, it would do you good to look at their Internet site to see just what they have to say about themselves.  Sometimes they don’t say enough to tell you really anything about them except perhaps a generic doctrinal statement.  Other times you can get some real red flags!  Our local “Infuse Church” is one of those “red flag” assemblies which should be avoided.  Let’s take a look.

On the home page we find “What to Expect.”  

“we promise joining us on Sunday will be a fun and enjoyable experience”. Really? That’s what the assembly is for, to have a “fun and enjoyable experience”?!? While we may have some enjoyable experiences during fellowshipping, fun and enjoyment is not the purpose of the assembly.

“Come dressed to impress or shorts and a t-shirt, whatever is comfortable.”  While there is nothing inherently wrong about not being dressed more formally for assembling with other believers, especially when there are people who can’t afford good clothing, tradition has led to being dressed as if you are going before an important person — i.e. coming before the Lord in worship should make one want to appear respectful, not slovenly; and it’s not about trying to impress any one..  Any “church” which suggests slovenly appearance is acceptable is one to avoid, in my book.

“Be Ready For… To Laugh and have a good time.” Again, this sounds like they are more interested in partying than they are about learning about doctrine or the Bible.

“Be Ready for…some breakfast and coffee.”  When an assembly we previously attended began spending their income on breakfasts, that was one of the things which really bothered us.  There is no excuse for people to come to church looking to be fed before the service, looking for donations to buy them their meals, etc.  This is nothing but more party atmosphere.

“Be Ready For… Good Music.”  By that they mean a raucous band with “contemporary” music and songs usually devoid of much doctrine and usually all about feeling good.

Look at the video and you will see that you can expect a “relevant” service. “Relevant” is a buzz-word often associated with the emergent movement. Then you see the concert atmosphere of a service.  And just what is “Outlandish Love”?!?

Now click on “Who Are We?” Several red flags appear:

Husband and wife “pastors.”  Obviously of the liberal bent, totally ignoring Paul’s teaching about only men being elders in the assembly.

“Infuse is a new church with a motto of Imperfect People, Outlandish Love, and Real Faith.”  Very emergent sounding. “We believe the church is a place for imperfect people…” Um, no, the assembly is for “imperfect” Christians only.  While non-believing “imperfect” people may show up, they are not the purpose of the assembly.

Scroll down to “Our Vision” and you see:

“To make churches that unchurched people love to attend.”

Who are “unchurched people”? Usually this refers to unbelievers, but I may be wrong here.  We NEVER are to make our assemblies attractive to non-believers.  They also say that “church should be a place where all people love to attend”— HELLO! “Church” should NEVER be a place unbelievers love to attend; if they really love it there, then they aren’t being confronted with sin.

Under “What We Believe” I see a few not-so-clear/confusing things, but one thing stands out under “Church,” which says a purpose of the church is to “serve the world in order to fulfill the last command of Jesus.”  This sounds like the social gospel; nowhere in Scripture are we told to “serve the world.”  Jesus last command was to go and make disciples, not “serve the world.”

Click the next button, “Engage With Us” and find that there are lots of programs, but not much explanation. Scrolling down you’ll find “Ownership (Infuse 101)” and learn that they don’t have a membership, rather they have “Ownership.”  Sounds pretty “relevant,” doesn’t it?

Then we look at “Giving.”  Interesting response to questions about tithing: they are correct that the Christian doesn’t tithe, but then they tell you that you MUST give a percentage that raises with income!  Not everyone is able to do so, especially on the lower income scales.  The church has no business telling people what to give except that they are not to give “grudgingly or under compulsion” (2 Corinthians 9:7), yet this assembly is compelling them give a certain way.

With all this, do I really need to listen to any message?  No.  There may be good messages but the foundation of this assembly is sand.  It is “fun” focused, programs focused, seeker-sensitive, with an unbiblical leadership.

These are things you look for when seeking an assembly at which to worship.  Use discernment.