The Passing Fancy of Fad-Driven Faith


This gal just gets it. She hits the bullseye, then draws back her bow and splits the embedded arrow right down the middle. Harriet Baber, a journalist for the UK’s Guardian comments on the Crystal Cathedral’s recent filing for bankruptcy, then proceeds to pinpoint the failings of modern evangelicalism.  Here’s an excerpt:

So if you wonder why Americans are, anomalously, religious it is because we have evacuated religion of all content. There are of course theological doctrines on the books, which church members tick off, in the way that they agree to accept screenfuls of conditions for installing new software. But most have no serious interest in these theoretical matters. Whether signing on for a new therapy or self-help programme, trying out a new diet or a new church, they are looking for a bag of tricks, a collection of gimmicks and recipes that will get them the material prosperity, perfect health, beautiful bodies, ideal relationships and complete happiness to which they believe they are entitled.

Read the full article HERE.

HT: Crosstalk blog

Are Christians Still Under the Curse of the Law?


These Southern Baptist preachers seem to think so. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the new prosperity non-gospel.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/16530783

“Give and Live” – New Prosperity Gospel in the SBC from FBCJax Watchdog on Vimeo.

*** Sorry, the video wouldn’t embed.

This kind of thing isn’t new. My old pastor taught a tithe sermon once a year where he informed us that we were under a curse if we didn’t bring in a full 10% (off gross, of course).

In answer to the question proposed in the title: I give you Paul the apostle:

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:10-14 ESV)

Self-Righteous Indignation


I did something today that I usually don’t do.  I posted a comment on a Yahoo! article.  Lately, I’ve become fascinated with reading responses to various articles on world events – things that may have a religious connotation – either directly or indirectly.

For example, I read an article this morning on Yahoo! about the horrifying events unfolding in Indonesia concerning the perpetual volcanic eruptions that seem to be getting more violent, despite expectations to the contrary.  The comment section had grown to nearly 4,000 comments before I decided to enter the fray.  Of course, I didn’t read every single comment, but just enough to get a sampling of people’s opinions on the matter.  I was appalled (but not the least bit surprised) at the callousness of some commenters who looked down on the Indonesians as an inferior people.  The reasons for their inferiority varied: morons who built villages on the sides of an active volcano; Muslims who are facing divine judgment for their false religion; etc. etc.   Some were quite harsh and merciless in their appraisals.  The general consensus for all the negative reactions is this:

the Indonesians are just getting what they so richly deserve.

As I read through these comments, shaking my head at such self-righteous attitudes, a scripture popped into my head.  it comes from the Gospel of Luke.  In chapter 13 Jesus is thronged by thousands and in response he begins to instruct the people.  At one point: Continue reading →

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses – Part 4


Happy Reformation Day to all you Protestants out there who embrace the doctrine of justification through faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone according to the scriptures alone and for the glory of God alone.

Here is the last section of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses that set off a firestorm that continues to burn throughout the world today!

Ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda!

  • Let him be anathema and accursed who denies the apostolic character of the indulgences.
  • On the other hand, let him be blessed who is on his guard against the wantonness and license of the pardon-merchant’s words.
  • In the same way, the pope rightly excommunicates those who make any plans to the detriment of the trade in indulgences.
  • It is much more in keeping with his views to excommunicate those who use the pretext of indulgences to plot anything to the detriment of holy love and truth.
  • It is foolish to think that papal indulgences have so much power that they can absolve a man even if he has done the impossible and violated the mother of God.
  • We assert the contrary, and say that the pope’s pardons are not able to remove the least venial of sins as far as their guilt is concerned.
  • When it is said that not even St. Peter, if he were now pope, could grant a greater grace, it is blasphemy against St. Peter and the pope.
  • We assert the contrary, and say that he, and any pope whatever, possesses greater graces, viz., the gospel, spiritual powers, gifts of healing, etc., as is declared in I Corinthians 12 [:28].
  • It is blasphemy to say that the insignia of the cross with the papal arms are of equal value to the cross on which Christ died.
  • The bishops, curates, and theologians, who permit assertions of that kind to be made to the people without let or hindrance, will have to answer for it.
  • This unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult for learned men to guard the respect due to the pope against false accusations, or at least from the keen criticisms of the laity.
  • They ask, e.g.: Why does not the pope liberate everyone from purgatory for the sake of love (a most holy thing) and because of the supreme necessity of their souls? This would be morally the best of all reasons. Meanwhile he redeems innumerable souls for money, a most perishable thing, with which to build St. Peter’s church, a very minor purpose.
  • Again: Why should funeral and anniversary masses for the dead continue to be said? And why does not the pope repay, or permit to be repaid, the benefactions instituted for these purposes, since it is wrong to pray for those souls who are now redeemed?
  • Again: Surely this is a new sort of compassion, on the part of God and the pope, when an impious man, an enemy of God, is allowed to pay money to redeem a devout soul, a friend of God; while yet that devout and beloved soul is not allowed to be redeemed without payment, for love’s sake, and just because of its need of redemption.
  • Again: Why are the penitential canon laws, which in fact, if not in practice, have long been obsolete and dead in themselves,—why are they, to-day, still used in imposing fines in money, through the granting of indulgences, as if all the penitential canons were fully operative?
  • Again: since the pope’s income to-day is larger than that of the wealthiest of wealthy men, why does he not build this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of indigent believers?
  • Again: What does the pope remit or dispense to people who, by their perfect repentance, have a right to plenary remission or dispensation?
  • Again: Surely a greater good could be done to the church if the pope were to bestow these remissions and dispensations, not once, as now, but a hundred times a day, for the benefit of any believer whatever.
  • What the pope seeks by indulgences is not money, but rather the salvation of souls; why then does he suspend the letters and indulgences formerly conceded, and still as efficacious as ever?
  • These questions are serious matters of conscience to the laity. To suppress them by force alone, and not to refute them by giving reasons, is to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christian people unhappy.
  • If therefore, indulgences were preached in accordance with the spirit and mind of the pope, all these difficulties would be easily overcome, and indeed, cease to exist.
  • Away, then, with those prophets who say to Christ’s people, “Peace, peace,” where in there is no peace.
  • Hail, hail to all those prophets who say to Christ’s people, “The cross, the cross,” where there is no cross.
  • Christians should be exhorted to be zealous to follow Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hells.
  • And let them thus be more confident of entering heaven through many tribulations rather than through a false assurance of peace.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses – Part 3


  • Christians should be taught that they purchase indulgences voluntarily, and are not under obligation to do so.
  • Christians should be taught that, in granting indulgences, the pope has more need, and more desire, for devout prayer on his own behalf than for ready money.
  • Christians should be taught that the pope’s indulgences are useful only if one does not rely on them, but most harmful if one loses the fear of God through them.
  • Christians should be taught that, if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence-preachers, he would rather the church of St. Peter were reduced to ashes than be built with the skin, flesh, and bones of the sheep.
  • Christians should be taught that the pope would be willing, as he ought if necessity should arise, to sell the church of St. Peter, and give, too, his own money to many of those from whom the pardon-merchants conjure money.
  • It is vain to rely on salvation by letters of indulgence, even if the commissary, or indeed the pope himself, were to pledge his own soul for their validity.
  • Those are enemies of Christ and the pope who forbid the word of God to be preached at all in some churches, in order that indulgences may be preached in others.
  • The word of God suffers injury if, in the same sermon, an equal or longer time is devoted to indulgences than to that word.
  • The pope cannot help taking the view that if indulgences (very small matters) are celebrated by one bell, one pageant, or one ceremony, the gospel (a very great matter) should be preached to the accompaniment of a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.
  • The treasures of the church, out of which the pope dispenses indulgences, are not sufficiently spoken of or known among the people of Christ.
  • That these treasures are not temporal are clear from the fact that many of the merchants do not grant them freely, but only collect them.
  • Nor are they the merits of Christ and the saints, because, even apart from the pope, these merits are always working grace in the inner man, and working the cross, death, and hell in the outer man.
  • St. Laurence said that the poor were the treasures of the church, but he used the term in accordance with the custom of his own time.
  • We do not speak rashly in saying that the treasures of the church are the keys of the church, and are bestowed by the merits of Christ.
  • For it is clear that the power of the pope suffices, by itself, for the remission of penalties and reserved cases.
  • The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God.
  • It is right to regard this treasure as most odious, for it makes the first to be the last.
  • On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is most acceptable, for it makes the last to be the first.
  • Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets which, in former times, they used to fish for men of wealth.
  • The treasures of the indulgences are the nets which to-day they use to fish for the wealth of men.
  • The indulgences, which the merchants extol as the greatest of favours, are seen to be, in fact, a favourite means for money-getting.
  • Nevertheless, they are not to be compared with the grace of God and the compassion shown in the Cross.
  • Bishops and curates, in duty bound, must receive the commissaries of the papal indulgences with all reverence.
  • But they are under a much greater obligation to watch closely and attend carefully lest these men preach their own fancies instead of what the pope commissioned.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses – Part Two


Allow me to let theologian B.B. Warfield introduce the next group of Luther’s 95 protests against the Roman Catholic Church with his summary on their significance:

The significance of the Theses as a Reformation act emerges thus in this: that they are a bold, an astonishingly bold, and a powerful, an astonishingly powerful, assertion of the evangelical doctrine of salvation, embodied in a searching, well-compacted, and thoroughly wrought-out refutation of the sacerdotal conception, as the underlying foundation on which the edifice of the indulgence traffic was raised. This is what Walther Köhler means when he declares that we must recognize this as the fundamental idea of Luther’s Theses: “the emancipation of the believer from the tutelage of the ecclesiastical institute”; and adds, “Thus God advances for him into the foreground; He alone is Lord of death and life; and to the Church falls the modest role of agent of God on earth – only there and nowhere else.” “The most far-reaching consequences flowed from this,” he continues; “Luther smote the Pope on his crown and simply obliterated his high pretensions with reference to the salvation of souls in this world and the next, and in their place set God and the soul in a personal communion which in its whole intercourse bears the stamp of interiorness and spirituality.” Julius Köstlin puts the whole matter with his accustomed clearness and balance – though with a little wider reference than the Theses themselves – when he describes the advance in Luther’s testimony marked by the indulgence controversy thus: “As he had up to this time proclaimed salvation in Christ through faith, in opposition to all human merit, so he now proclaims it also in opposition to an external human ecclesiasticism and priesthood, whose acts are represented as conditioning the imparting of salvation itself, and as in and of themselves, even without faith, effecting salvation for those in whose interests they are performed.” Continue reading →

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses – Part 1


In honor of Reformation Day on Sunday, October 31st, I am posting Luther’s 95 Theses over the next four days.  I hope they will serve as a reminder of the significance of the Protestant Reformation that began with the hammer strike of this document to the Wittenburg church door in 1517.  Meditate on these words and please remember that at the time of this writing Luther is still a Roman Catholic monk of the Augustinian order. Continue reading →

Is Our Unbelief > God at Work in Us? – The Final Chapter


In this final post on the false teachings of Prosperity Pete I’m scrutinizing his outrageous claims about both man and God.

Quote: “Unbelief is more powerful than God in you.”

“some of you looked at me funny when I said ‘unbelief is more powerful than God in you’ – but I just read it to you.  God was present but he was limited because of unbelief.”

Scripture proof given: “How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78: 40-41).

Refutation:

Let’s zoom out for second and take a look at this Psalm of Asaph as a whole.  He sets out to show God’s faithfulness to unbelieving Israel throughout her inglorious history.  Despite continual unbelief and unfaithfulness God preserves his people by his sovereign hand.  At times he brings strong rebuke and chastens his people with judgment and wrath.  God then shows his love and compassion by bestowing upon Israel abundant blessings that are totally undeserved. Rather than teaching that man can trump God with his unbelief and thwart his will this Psalm does just the opposite.  It teaches the absolute sovereignty of God, that his providence extends over all human works and endeavors.  On top of that, the Hebrew word for ‘limit’ can be interpreted various ways.  Here are how some modern translations render it: Continue reading →

Is Our Unbelief > God at Work in Us? – Part 4


Here is the next post in this series exposing the false doctrines of a Word-Faith teacher who stopped by a local church just long enough to drop a full load of heresy on its unsuspecting congregants.  I’m astounded that it’s been necessary for me to write five long articles debunking a handful of Prosperity Pete’s teachings from one single sermon – and I’m only dealing with a few selected quotes.  If I determined to critique the entirety of the message my response would be novel-length. This is ludicrous! The doctrines I’ve defended should all be obvious to the discerning reader of God’s word.  This is common sense, foundational level stuff, folks!  But somebody has to do it. These teachers have ministries because they have followers, else they would have long since abandoned the occupation.  So onward I press.

Quote:  “Unbelief is more powerful than God in you.”

Truth:

What truth?  I don’t see any truth here, just one great damnable lie.

Falsehood:

Man’s disposition of failing to trust upon the Lord who created him somehow overrides God’s ability to govern him.  When put like this it sounds even more ludicrous.  This idea stems from a typical Word-Faith teaching on the essence of faith itself.   They have hijacked the term and completely redefined it. Faith isn’t an unshakable trust and tenacious clinging to God and all his promises.  No, faith is a force, an internal power inherent in all humanity that can make things that are not as though they are.  In other words, faith has creative power when spoken, just as creation came into existence when God spoke.  Continue reading →

Is Our Unbelief > God at Work in Us? – Part 3


Prosperity Pete has an unhealthy obsession with the sin of unbelief.  I’m almost convinced that he has a great affinity for it.  He certainly treats it with a tremendous amount of respect.  In his message I’m critiquing, he makes bold claims about the ‘power’ of our unbelief.  First, let’s look at this statement just bursting at the seams with false claims:

Quote: “There is only one sin – unbelief.  Everything else are lawless deeds.  There is only one sin that cannot be forgiven – the sin of unbelief.”

Truth:

Unbelief is a serious, grievous sin.

Falsehood:

Unbelief is the only sin.

No.  Not even close.  1 John 5:17 reads, “All wrongdoing is sin“.  The apostle John earlier in the same epistle states, “sin is transgression of the law.” (3:4)  Breaking God’s commands and doing evil of all kinds is sin.  Unbelief, too, is sin.  Not believing God certainly will lead one to transgress God’s laws, just as Adam and Eve chose to believe the serpent’s lie rather than God’s commands.  Unbelief may be at the root of every sin committed, for our natural disposition believes the seductive whispers of sin rather than the promises of the written word of God and the voice of conscience.  However, unbelief is not the sum total of all biblical sins.  Nowhere in either the Old or New Testament can this claim be substantiated.  Any want of conformity or transgression of God’s moral law is sin.  Violating any of the Ten Commandments is a sin.  If I look at a woman lustfully I’ve committed a sin. If I steal, lie or covet I’ve sinned. Continue reading →