Abandoning the Gospel for "World Peace" Part I

In this first of a series of posts, I will examine in depth the statements and claims in the recently released letter, "A Christian Response to 'A Common Word Between Us and You.'" I will refer to this as the "Christian Response" letter for simplicity.

In this letter, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, R0bert Schuller, Brian MacLaren, and numerous other "Christian leaders" attempt to achieve a "dialogue" based on what they claim is a "common ground" between Christianity and Islam.

Sounds great, right? Well, the problem is that in this letter, central Christian doctrines about the true nature of God, His wrath and His love, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the truth of the Gospel are ignored, shortchanged, or obscured.

So where's the outrage?

One of the most troubling things about this letter is the fact that Dr. Duane Litfin signed it as President of Wheaton College. I wonder if Dr. Litfin, who is a member of College Church in Wheaton and has been for a number of years, was present in the congregation on Sunday, January 16, 2002 when Kent Hughes, Senior Pastor of College Church, preached the sermon entitled, "Set Apart to Save: Pluralism."

Here is a key excerpt from that sermon:

...while the followers of Mohammed may display various levels of human goodness, which they do, and human evil, which they do, their religion itself rejects the divinity of Christ and His substitutionary atonement, and thus bases its theology on a wicked blasphemy. Such a view rides on evil, and such a view will be judged by God.

No one could possibly have walked away from this sermon thinking that Christians and Muslims worship "the same God." Yet, the letter Dr. Litfin signed reads from beginning to end as if, in fact, they do. (more on this point later)

But my first question is, what part of Pastor Hughes' sermon did Dr. Litfin not understand? Did he disagree and walk out? Or has he just changed his mind recently?

Should he not be disciplined by the elders of College Church?

Wheaton & Taylor Sell Out the Gospel for Sake of "World Peace"

In the category, "Who could've believed it?" we find Wheaton College and Taylor University, along with the purpose-driven pope Rick Warren, seeker-sensitive megachurcher Bill Hybels, emerging church guru/heretic Brian MacLaren, and numerous other liberal and neo-orthodox names, signing onto an unbelievable document that compromises the truth of the Gospel and fundamental doctrines about God and the deity of Jesus Christ, all for the sake of striving toward a "peace" with Islam that can never be:

"The Christian Post reported the following in a November 23rd article titled,

Christian Leaders Invite Muslims to Love God, Neighbors Together:

Christian leaders across denominational lines responded to the unprecedented open letter signed last month by 138 representative Muslim leaders with their own letter, calling on the two Abrahamic faiths to love God and neighbors together.

The key word here is 'together.'"

To read the complete text of the so-called "Christian response" to the Muslims letter, click here.

This "response" is so completely misguided and unscriptural that it practically begs for deconstruction -- which will follow in future posts.

For the time being, however, one must wonder, with regard to Wheaton College and its president, Dr. Duane Litfin, what were they thinking??? What was Taylor University thinking???

(HT: World Net Daily; Paul Proctor)

Making Stuff Up, In Spite of Your Confession

John Armstrong, thru his spokesman, claims that he really is orthodox; why, he even recites the Apostle's Creed!

Here is the short response to that notion:

"Men will always find a way to interpret confessional statements in accordance with their own preferred views and not those of the document in question. It should always be borne in mind that the affirmations of orthodoxy that a man makes will only be as good as the actual correspondence between his beliefs and the confessional statement he voluntarily subscribes to."

In other words, you can recite a creed, but still go right on making stuff up. How convenient. Maybe Dr. Armstrong recites the creed while saying to himself, "Words have no objective content...words have no objective content...words have no objective content..."

(HT: Against Heresies)

We Parents Need This Reminder from Pastor Spurgeon

Pastor Spurgeon reminds us that no Christian school teacher or Sunday School teacher can relieve the God-given responsibility laid upon us as parents to catechize our God-given children"

I trust you will never give up that excellent puritanical habit of catechising your children at home. Any father or mother who entirely gives up a child to the teaching of another has made a mistake. There is no teacher who wishes to absolve a parent from what he ought to do himself! He is an assistant, but he was never intended to be a substitute. Teach your children; bring up your old catechisms again, for they are after all blessed means of instruction, and the next generation shall outstrip those that have gone before it, for the reason why many of you are weak in the faith is this, you did not receive instruction in your youth in the great things of the gospel of Christ. If you had, you would have been so grounded, and settled, and firm in the faith, that nothing could by any means have moved you.

(HT Pyromaniacs)

Evan-jello-calism

...a perfect metaphor for modern "evangelicalism" -- the boundaries of the concept have now become so mushy and ambiguous the word has lost virtually all meaning.

But that doesn't stop all manner of people from throwing it around when they want to sound as if they are "Christian."

HT: Pulpit Magazine

Is This Uncanny, or What???

Listen to Dr. Francis Schaeffer, warning us nearly forty years ago of the dangers of neoorthdoxy! Now neoorthodoxy's stepchild, the emerging church, is doing exactly what Dr. Schaeffer predicted:

"Neoorthodoxy...uses words that have strong connotations, as they are rooted in the memory of the race -- words like resurrection, crucifixion, Christ, Jesus. These words give an illusion of communication. The importance of these words to the new theologians lies in the illusion of communication, plus the highly motivated reaction men have on the basis of the connotation of the words. That is the advantage of the new theology over secular existentialism and the modern secular mysticisms. One hears the word Jesus, one acts upon it, but the word is never defined. The use of such words is always in the area of the irrational, the non-logical. Being separated from history and the cosmos, they are divorced from possible verification by reason downstairs, and there is no certainty that there is anything upstairs." [emphasis added]

Even more uncanny is the fact that Dr. Schaeffer warned us about men such as John Armstrong for whom words no longer have any fixed or inherent meaning so that only "experience" is left:

"The evangelical Christian needs to be careful because some evangelicals have recently been asserting that what matters is not setting out to prove propositions [from Scripture, ed.]; what matters is an encounter with Jesus. . . . [emphasis added]

The Truth:

"I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou has magnified thy word above all thy name." (Psalm 138:2)

(HT Herescope)

Why It is Impossible to Dialogue With Pomos Like John Armstrong

Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs has a cogent and helpful explanation of why it is virtually useless to attempt to engage in "conversation" or to "dialogue" with people like John Armstrong who have abandoned truth in favor of endless speculations:

... it is well-nigh impossible to have an authentic, meaningful conversation with a devoted postmodernist and ever see anything genuinely resolved. The postmodernist by definition has no real hope or expectation of arriving at the truth of any matter. That's not the goal of the postmodernist exercise. It's not even a desirable objective. The only real point is to eliminate certitude altogether. This is done not by settling disputes, but by silencing or assimilating everyone who resists the unrestrained free flow of the postmodernist idea-exchange.

Hmm. Maybe that explains why John Armstrong has banned me from posting on his blog.

D'ya think?