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by on 3.29.08

rampant secularism

Douglas Todd is the very fine religion writer for the Vancouver Sun newspaper. By that I don’t mean he is a believer, he may be, I just have no idea. I mean that he is an excellent writer with a keen eye for trends in religion. He now has a blog on the Vancouver Sun site. Today’s entry is an eye-opener in some ways … not that it surprises me, but rather confirms what I have long sensed. The post is entitled “Secularism is the new default position – almost everywhere“. A few snippets:

Fittingly, British Columbia, gets a good dose of attention. The study repeats what many already know about B.C.; that it’s arguably the most “secular” region in North America. That 36 per cent of British Columbians have “no religion,” and another 21 per cent say they’re affiliated with a religion, but virtually never attend.

No surprises here, but perhaps outsiders might be surprised to know it. There is a ready antagonism to the gospel that surrounds us when we witness.

More…

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Filed Under: Canada, Ministry
by on 3.28.08

the ongoing pattern of deception

Dipping again into my Church History notes, I come to a section headed “History of Neo-Evangelicalism & the Ecumenical Movement”

The section starts with this:

Satan’s method is to counterfeit the truth, not contend with it. Therefore he produces deceptive bodies.

  1. Neo-Orthodoxy – deception in theology in the 1920s
  2. Neo-Evangelicalism – deception in practice in the 1950s

~~~

It is interesting to consider these two notes that go with the quotation/note I made under the title to the lecture. Liberalism/Modernism was, if I may call it, honest unbelief. While it propagated many lies, it propagated honest lies. Out and out lies. Bald-faced lies. In my next note in the church history series, I’ll cover it more specifically.

But liberalism (now sometimes called ‘classic liberalism’) became much less of a thread to Bible-believing Christianity than these two subsequent challenges. These two were greater deceptions.

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Filed Under: Church History, New Evangelicalism
by on 3.26.08

two random quotes from CH class

Here are two quotes from my 1980 Church History class. The section I am dealing with in recent posts are basically preliminary to a discussion of new evangelicalism vs. fundamentalism. Here are the quotes:

A schismatic spirit is one that insists upon total agreement on non-essentials as well as on the essentials.

and

Fundamentalist creeds do not include denominational distinctives.

Is there any correlation between these two ideas?

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Filed Under: Church History, Separation
by on 3.26.08

signs of the death of denominations

My next set of Church History notes is entitled ‘Denominations go bad when these appear’. I have in brackets [or people, or whatever] beside the title.

This list is a series of observations concerning marks of deterioration to the point of virtual death in denominations. As we look back through church history, the landscape is littered with failed churches and movements that often started well. One could say the grand-daddy of them all is the Catholic church. What could have started better? What could have failed so miserably? Likewise, the churches of the reformation have evidenced decline unto death [in their original forms], spawning reform movements of their own. The Anabaptist and independent traditions also have their share of decline and failure… an all too familiar theme. The Church is not so superior to Old Testament Israel, though with much better advantages.

Denominations, then, go bad when these appear…

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Filed Under: Church History
by on 3.25.08

the declension of good movements

More notes from my 1980 Church History class with Dr Panosian. This one is a series of steps a nation or a denomination might take in devolving downward. It sounds a lot like the Judges cycle, but it is more complicated than what you usually hear on that one.

The cycle begins with Bondage, which is broken by Spiritual Faith…

The whole list follows below:

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Filed Under: Church History
by on 3.25.08

vocab of compromise in use

In light of my post ‘the vocabulary of compromise’, it was interesting to see one of the words show up on a fundamentalist blog recently.

This is the post, the word shows up in the comments. I will tell you which word it is after the ‘more’ tag … can you pick it up before you look?

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Filed Under: Blogosphere, Church History, Fundamentalism
by on 3.24.08

resurrection sunday … and more

Do you know how the date for Resurrection Sunday is calculated? It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 20. You can find a more detailed explanation elsewhere on the web, but that sums it up.

As many other churches, we had visitors in our services this Sunday. One was returning for a second time. It was a great blessing to minister the word of God to these folks. We hope that some of them at least will respond in faith to the gospel.

In addition to our own sermon summaries, I have an ‘extra’ offering in this post. At the recent Northwest Regional meeting of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, the president of Maranatha Baptist Bible College, Chuck Phelps, was the keynote speaker. He gave us permission to broadcast one of his messages, on music, on our website. The link will appear below.

Now for the sermon summaries:

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Filed Under: Sermon Summaries
by on 3.24.08

the ant and the grasshopper – maple leaf version

A parable for my American friends…

The ant & the grasshopper … Classic Version!

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The End

The Maple Leaf Version (i.e., The Canadian Version) [with appropriate footnotes to explain things for my non-Canadian friends, eh?]

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

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Filed Under: Canada, Fun and games
by on 3.22.08

the vocabulary of compromise

Speaking of my education, I have long thought it might be interesting to reproduce some of my notes from Church History class while in seminary. The area of interest is my notes on fundamentalism and the new evangelical compromise. My professor for this class was Dr. Panosian, but my notes should be no reflection on him! Some of them are direct quotations, but I take full responsibility for any errors.

Dr. P was famous for lists. The first lecture notes I’ll blog for you is called ‘The Vocabulary of Compromise/Infidelity’. You’ll no doubt recognize some of these terms. My sub-header says “words that must be clearly defined for our own use”.

Here we go:

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Filed Under: Church History, Fundamentalism, New Evangelicalism, Separation
by on 3.22.08

are you a ‘born fundamentalist’?

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine. We were in school together. We sat in many of the same Bible classes. We learned ‘the second heavenly language’ [Greek] from the same teachers and know the same mnemonic devices for keeping our linguistic facts straight.

But we don’t remember everything the same way. He says that we were not systematically taught the fundamentalist philosophy in our classes and were less prepared to put our philosophy in practice than we should have been. I am surprised by his assertion, for it was in those same classes I learned my fundamentalist philosophy. I have never been intimidated by the need to justify (even to myself) why I take the positions I do.

On hearing this, I wondered why we who shared so much have such a different perception of our training.

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Filed Under: Fundamentalism
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