What's the Social Gospel? (case study: United Methodist Church)

It's not the Gospel, for one.

It is the reduction of "Christianity" to an outward faith devoid of almost anything Christian, let alone Biblical, except for the occasional references to a God or Christ in an attempt to infuse their agendas with strength. In that sense, it's no different from any worldly religion invented by greedy men to pursue their agendas with a "god says you must."

The United Methodist Church is running an ad campaign called 'rethink church.' It, and the site they redirect you to, is a perfect example of the social gospel.

See here:
http://rethinkchurch.org/learn-about-united-methodists
http://rethinkchurch.org/beliefs-into-action

On the second link, you'll see a dozen or so 'social justice campaigns,' and notice that nowhere in all of it is there anything hinting that people's eternal destiny is a concern, or even in mind.

Clicking the link to "spirituality," out of curiosity, I find this:

They briefly mention "anxiety, sadness, anger, shortcomings, guilt, shame" but don't connect it to sin and certainly don't tell about the remedy for sin, or how God sees sin or what He did for sinners. Nope. Instead they say that their goal is to 'find ways to connect with God' and find 'spiritual self expression.' 

We don't assume everyone's connection to God looks the same. Or should! We're reaching out to share God's love by meeting people where they are, and sharing our hearts in the process.

We welcome dialogue. We're respecting other people's beliefs and opinions about God, while maintaining our own practices and Wesleyan perspective.

We don't think church should just be for a certain kind of person. We think it's important for every person to have a place where they can express their spirituality.

The only thing they get right anywhere on this entire site is the tidbit that Church is not a building, it's a gathering of believers. But since the UMC doesn't identify what a believer is, their definition of church becomes functionally meaningless.

The Social Gospel denies and ignores sin and presumes to address physical difficulties, like hunger, housing, income, deforestation, etc as the greatest human ills and their sole focus.

It fails to save anybody. It accomplishes nothing more than making many people feel a little more comfortable on their economy-class flight to hell.

Further reading: http://www.gotquestions.org/social-gospel.html

~ Rak Chazak

"What About the Innocent People Who Have Never Heard the Gospel?"

"What about the innocent man in Africa who's never heard the Gospel?"

If you don't want to watch the video, *spoiler alert*, the answer's after the jump:

Texting Treatise: Different Responses to Temptation

Texting Treatise: Different Responses to Temptation

The first section contains the types of responses or non-responses to sin, where a person rejects the idea that they should be repentant about it.

Blindness

Lack of Awareness: unaware of what you are doing

Qualified Unawareness: aware of what you are doing, but think it is good. Unaware that it is sin

Incorrigibility

Apathy: aware it’s wrong but don’t care to change it

Minimization: aware it’s wrong but deny the severity of it

Defiance: aware of the wrongness and severity and willingly indulge it anyway without contrition

In this next section are different types of responses to sin that contain a measure of contrition (feeling sorry) or repentance (genuinely desiring to flee from or overcome the temptation). For the sake of making it seem more interesting, psychologically, I’ve arranged them in a potential ‘maturity scale’ that the hypothetical average sinner might progress through while dealing with recognized temptations to sin in their life.

Contrition

                Sub-set: Vain Heroics

Halfhearted Abstinence: an attempt to break from it, but not strong enough in conviction to persist. Likely followed by binging on the particular temptation (shopping, drinking, sexual activity, surfing channels/websites, abandoning healthy eating or exercise, etc) upon crashing

All or Nothing: can lead to longer sustained abstinence, but more often leads to more time in between attempts, because of the fear of failure. Successive failure leads to disillusionment with pure abstinence and leads to a variety of different attempts to deal with the issue:

                Sub-set: Allowances

Hesitation: failing with abstinence doesn’t immediately lead to abandoning that method, but can cause a person to rationalize not trying right now, while they’re waiting for the perfect moment to start. They tolerate giving in to the temptation because they tell themselves that they’re planning to try to abstain from it soon

Banking: sinning more in the short term to satisfy an imagined quota that your flesh desires, so that you can hope to have better success in your abstinence effort. This leads to an expectation of high indulgence, which produces a cycle of periodic abstinence followed by binging, which is worse than the initial ‘halfhearted abstinence’ program.

Putting it Out of Mind: not thinking about it, in the hopes that it was one’s focus on trying to deal with the temptation so strongly that led to the catastrophic failures in the past. When this inevitably fails, it is modified to

Tolerance: not keeping track, and letting yourself get away with indulgence in the hope that by not “banking” it, you’ll end up indulging in it less, and that by not trying to abstain all-or-nothing-wise, you won’t have a “crash.”

                Sub-set: Searching for Loopholes

Rhythm/Scheduling: when tolerance doesn’t end up diminishing your gratification of your sinful desires, and you catch yourself, you may try to “out-think” yourself, by intentionally planning to give in to the temptation at certain points, but insert periods of focused abstinence in between. It’s basically a modified “banking/all-or-nothing” approach with shorter periods of abstinence that make success more likely. When the periods are extended in the effort of “weaning” yourself off of a dependence on the indulgence, you reach the level of

Gradual Improvement: this can be reached with or without the “scheduling” stage; it’s basically an attempt to “play a long game” and start comfortably with a high tolerance for your indulgence, gradually decreasing how much of an allowance you’ll give yourself. This is basically a more intentional version of

Fatalism: aiming for less than perfection because you can’t get it. Whereas the “gradual improvement,” “scheduling” and “banking” approaches tolerate sin for the sake of trying to build some sort of spiritual immunity to it (doesn’t work, by the way), fatalism is the final resting place of many people (note that this scale does not have to be limited to Christians). They decide that they’ll accept a certain amount of giving in to temptation over a certain length of time, indefinitely, because they’ve decided that they’ll never have victory over it. Such thinking can lead a person from being contrite  to becoming incorrigible. However, some people may make a few further desperate steps to dealing with the issue of their temptation

The Sufficiency of Minimalism

Would you  be satisfied with a nearly deistic God? That's not saying He is, but considering how you'd react to a very minimally involved deity is an important thought exercise that can help you evaluate and strengthen your faith.

The Sufficiency of Minimalism

                What if God doesn’t intervene in earthly affairs? What if, after the conclusion of Acts, God neither acts through human nor supernatural agents of change, instead letting everything proceed according to physical laws and human decisions alone? What if every change in a person’s mind, from contrition to conversion to sanctification, is not the result of an active alteration of their mental substrate by the Holy Spirit, but merely a deterministic inevitability resulting from contemplating the truths of the Scriptures? What if God’s irresistible grace, as well as His sanctification, was accomplished not by an act of His in the present, but an act of His in the deep past, which continually effects salvation throughout all time, so that He is still the author of it all, despite no supernatural behavior on the individual or subatomic level?

                Would you still attribute every good thing to God? Would you still give Him the credit? Give Him the glory? Or would it cheapen your understanding of His goodness? Is your faith dependent on a belief in God supernaturally intervening to manipulate world events, subliminally, all of the time and everywhere? As if, perhaps, this is the only way that you can conceptualize Him being in control of everything, or deserving credit for the outcome? If your idea that God plays ‘cellular train conductor’ in people’s brains, or ‘atomic pool shark’ in the particles of earth and sky and sea, were challenged or undermined, would your faith fall apart? This is worth seriously considering.

                I’ll confess: my conception of God’s involvement does include the idea that He bumps this atom here, increasesthat action potential there, annihilates this positron here, raises the thermal energy of that molecule, breaks that peptide bond, induces magnetism in some metal somewhere, alters the velocity of some photon, pulls, shifts, breaks, combines, removes, replaces, diverts, and orchestrates an endless undetectable masterpiece of butterfly effects all over the world to minutely influence world events and accomplish personal and national histories without transgressing the boundary of personal autonomy that He intentionally limits Himself not to.

                But suppose this notion is incorrect? What if He doesn’t make a billion tiny interventions every second? What if He makes none? Or one every year, utilizing much more extended butterfly effects? Does my belief in God’s sovereignty and intimate care for human lives and world events rise and fall with this romantic view of Him as a maestro? No, it does not, and should not. It is my own idea, based on what I know about God’s power and wisdom, but my own idea, nonetheless. Him sovereignly ordaining everything that occurs does not need to mean that he flips a switch every time something happens. He could have planned it out a thousand years earlier, and being infinitely intelligent, perfectly predicted everything that would happen over that time period that led up to that moment. Or, He could have intervened the Planck-second immediately preceding. Whichever is the case, it changes nothing about the fact that it is entirely within His power to do either.

                In the interest of developing a satisfied faith in God, I’ve contemplated ideas like this from time to time, and considered that though God is probably very active—and must, on some level, be, because of His promise of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit to believers—I should be able to find contentment with the possibility that He’s minimally involved in human affairs, and much more is due to chance and human agency than even I believe.

                When it comes to the bedrock of my faith, I know from the witness of history that He really did come in our likeness to die for our sins in our stead, so that justice could be served and I can be free from His wrath and reconciled to Him as a forgiven, redeemed and beloved son. That is ALL that is necessary to come to an unshakable faith in Him. Everything else is a splendid, wonderful continuation of His grace toward us, sanctifying us from now until the day of His return. But even without this, I have everything I need in order to be accountable to Him, to believe in Him, and to trustingly persevere to be obedient from this point on until the future consummation, even if, hypothetically, my faith received no further encouragement whatsoever, and life was one big struggle to resist despair from constant flaming arrows and assorted spiritual anguish.

                This is being content with as little as possible. When you are content with the least, you will be ever more grateful, the more you receive. The sufficiency of minimalism is not something that should characterize your faith—as resisting more than the essential doctrines of Christianity—but is something that should support your faith, being something in the back of your mind that tells you that no matter how your faith might be shaken as you go along, no matter how much it may be attacked, and how strong the temptation to despair, you know with full confidence that the core of your belief is stronger still, and no matter how wrong everything else you believe may be, no matter how effective the attempts to destroy your faith, nothing will ever be able to change the root facts of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Death Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and on this hinges everything else, so hold on to it no matter what!

                The most minimal truth is the most sufficient. Contentedness with this leads to a lifetime of confidence and overflowing gratefulness at whatever more you receive from God than this knowledge, to strengthen your faith. And when we’re in eternity, and God reveals to us just what the extent of His interaction with physical reality was, we’ll have an endless number of reasons to be awed, thankful and filled with an attitude of worship toward Him for everything He did that we never knew while we walked in the valley.

~ Rak Chazak 

Further reading (very interesting): The Expansion of Space--A Dark Science. Keeping in mind the link above to electron-positron (anti-electron) annihilation, these two excerpts stood out: 

Vacuum energy comes from the spontaneous emission of virtual particle/anti-particle pairs that appear momentarily from small quanta of energy from the vacuum, sort of a quantum foamy stuff, and then these particle pairs self-annihilate releasing the same quanta of energy back into the vacuum. Its energy density is non-zero, in fact, if you estimate it from electron/anti-electron pairs filling a volume on the scale of their Compton wavelength you get an energy density about 48 magnitudes higher than the estimated average mass density of the universe. From this it follows that the matter content of the universe is only a tiny fraction of the total energy, when compared to the vacuum energy. The particular choice of the wavelength one uses for the cut-off energy in the calculation of its energy density has led to a figure as high as 10,120 times the average mass density of the universe.

....

The quantum vacuum impedes the progress of photons through space to the speed, c, and hence it introduces the first “clock” and the forward arrow of time. Empty space would have meant unimpeded photons with infinite speed.

This last sentence is intriguing because of its relevance to Dr. Jason Lisle's Anisotropic Synchrony Convention, a model he lays out where the one-way speed of light is postulated to be infinite, in order to explain why we can observe distant starlight in a young universe. This might be worth devoting a whole article to, itself, some time. 

The Purity Principle: A Biologist's Perspective on the Timing of God's Wrath and Salvation

This'll be a long post with lots of pictures, yay! Make sure to click "Read More" so you don't miss out! 

The Purity Principle

Thesis abstract: my observation and speculation that the reason the Fall happened before Adam and Eve had children, and that the Flood destroyed all of mankind except Noah’s family, is that God chose those times to avoid the far more complicated consequences of what would happen if only a part of mankind fell at once, or how to keep the Messianic Line undiluted from Adam to Christ. They appear to be decisions made mainly on the basis of demographics, with respect to their relation to sinfulness and its effects on the righteous who are living, keeping in mind God’s respect for the deterministic autonomy of man.

How can I say that with simple words? = Specific points in history have seen God’s intervention, I speculate, because of an implied, but (to my knowledge) inexplicit, goal of maintaining the spiritual purity of believers: first the patriarchs, then Israel, and then the Church.

Here’s my big idea: have you noticed, for instance, that every single person in Jesus’ lineage as given in Matthew and Luke (as far as can be told from Biblical background information on them) were saved? What are the chances of that? Now, there must certainly be unbelievers in His ancestry somewhere, BUT nevertheless the fact that there is at least one lineage containing an unbroken chain of belief in God, from father to son, from Adam to Christ, is a very conspicuous observation. And it begs analysis of why this might be the case.

I should clarify how I am using the word purity. You may have gotten the idea from the last paragraph, but let me dispel any possible misunderstanding. My notion of purity in this article concerns itself with spiritual genealogy. The physical lineage doesn’t matter; this isn’t promoting nationalism or ethnic divisions between people. In the context of Israel and the Church, Biblically, purity means you have believers inside and unbelievers outside. Let unrepentant ones in, and the passage “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” comes true. The idea is that unbelief is, from a demographic viewpoint, infectious. Leave it alone without a purge of some sort (does not need to be violent), and over time it has the tendency to totally corrupt everything. We see this in the example of Noah, whose culture had become so far removed from God (from the impurity of the God-believing Sethites intermarrying with pagan Cainites, which tainted the succeeding generations with the Cainite godlessness) that he was the ONLY man alive on earth who walked with God!—out of the millions or possibly billions of people alive at that point. As a student trained in biology, this makes me think of serial dilutions. 

Right-click on any of the following images to see them in a full size view.

Faithlessness, if tolerated by the faithful, and absent God’s intervention, has the effect of diluting faithfulness over time so that there is less and less faith on earth, by proportion of the total population, by every succeeding generation.

This is obviously a bad thing, and if God does not desire (as I believe the Bible gives us strong support to believe) for faithfulness to ever disappear completely from the earth, at any one time, then He would have to do something to protect the diminishing remaining faithful from the corrupting godlessness around them.

And this is, I believe, a supporting reason for God’s decisions in history to a) send the Flood, b) call Abraham out of Ur, c) the Israelite Exodus, d) the Zionistic theocratic laws for Israel that forbade intermarriage with foreigners, and ultimately why Jesus came at just the time that He did.

Naturally, the main reasons from a theological point of view, and a historical point of view, are different, more obvious, and more important. But every good thing done has more than one good reason for doing it, and I’m going to use the space after the jump to describe how God’s desire for the spiritual purity of the various people God has dealt with has, I believe, been a supporting reason for His decision making and His perfect timing.

Fox News is Not Your Friend (Hat-Tip to Wretched)

Subcaption: Voddie Baucham Cut off As Soon as He Mentions the Cross

Video after the jump.

Here's the link to the original podcast that inspired the article title for this piece:

http://www.wretchedradio.com/podcast.cfm?h=62C14A71AA2030A715E5A1720DABEFD2&page=86

And now the piece de resistance. Black conservative pastor taken on conservative television station to talk about black violence and racism, and perhaps you think the producers will let him spread his conservative Christian views?

Haha. Nope.

See, Fox News is conservative, but that does not equivocate to Biblical Christianity. Sure, as Todd points out in the intro to the podcast, there might be many Christians on the side of the Republican Party, but that does not make the GOP a Christian, let alone Bible-based platform, party, or movement. It's most fair to say that it's influenced by Christians, but it disdains us in much the same way that the Democratic Party disdains the Republican Party. It's merely a matter of degree. Both groups want national influence, and they are strongly motivated to cast themselves as pro-Christian or the true representation of Christian virtue, in different ways, in order to court the support of believers.

But the parties as a whole and the nation as a whole is not Christian, and to say that Christianity influences them is becoming a more and more misleading statement.

No, Fox News exists to make money by selling commercial time based on viewership. They do whatever they can to get more views, hence the nauseating sensationalism. Yes, they bring up valid journalistic pieces that other networks don't, but then they do the same as those other networks. CNN might have spent 200 hours covering Carnival cruise disasters a few years ago, but FNC has covered Benghazi and that soldier stuck in a Mexican prison in just the same manner. "Breaking News: Nothing New To Report in the Politically Charged Issue We Keep Telling You About Because We've Staked Our Quarterly Profits On It." Ugh, just quit it.

What Was Jesus' Sacrifice? Using Infinity to Contemplate the Gospel

Originally posted in response to a post on an ex-mormon website. The blogger has fallen for the common error of rejecting Christianity after leaving a cultic false religion for very valid reasons. Just because someone lied to you doesn't mean that truth doesn't exist. But on to the subject. The claim is that Jesus didn't really sacrifice anything when He died if He could take it back by coming back to life just a few days later. How do we address this challenge? My answer is below.

*     *     *     *

The mistake here is in thinking that physical death is the focus. That's not what the Bible teaches (Reformed, here, not a Mormon). 

Instead it teaches that death is not the cessation of 'life,' but the unnatural separation of a living being from the source of its life. Man-God, Man's body-Man's soul, God-God.

It was not in dying that Jesus did His miraculous deed. That was just the necessary finishing touch, a bit of a technical requirement.

But what He really sacrificed was His relationship to the Father. For 3 hours, He was spiritually separated from the Father and they were not in communion, as they have/are/will be in all other possible places in time and space from eternity past to eternity future.

A Little Joel Rosenberg to Start the Day

Joel is one of many stories like these that I have come across--some of the biggest power players in Christianity are not Gentiles, but Jews. Ray Comfort, perhaps the biggest influence on open-air evangelism in the whole world, is an ethnic Jew; as is Jonathan Sarfati, a prodigy by any human measure, who churns out an amazing variety, amount and quality of work for CMI in that ministry's young-earth creation apologetics capacity.

That's the field of preaching and the field of teaching, to name two spiritual gifts the New Testament mentions as being areas wherein Christians work for the Lord (the point is not to label; there's overlap of gifts and it's indicated that not all possible gifts are listed). The point of the gifts mentioned by Paul and Peter seem primarily to me to be in context of talking about the "Body of Christ." Christians as part of the invisible Church all have a role to play, and the purpose of mentioning gifting is, I think, to enlighten us that there are diversities of ways to serve the Lord. Ray Comfort could not do Jonathan Sarfati's job, and I doubt there's anyone quite like Ray Comfort in his singleminded zeal for evangelizing the lost. Their natural talents and inclinations are divinely given to equip them for the purpose God intended them to fulfill.

Then there's the gift of prophecy, which brings me to another Jewish Christian. No one is quite so heavily involved in current events and politics as he, while still not failing to keep himself and his ministry centered on the Gospel. It's incredibly easy to fall into a trap where Christianity is subsumed into your political activism, and well-intended people and organizations abound where this can be seen. But in every place that I've read Joel's words or heard him speak, he has not lost sight of his ultimate goal--which is not awareness of a political issue, or some larger agenda to influence mid-east relations (though that's in view, but not the endgame)--he knows that his aim is to spread the Gospel first, and that his position of influence in political spheres is an aid to that, not the other way around.

Joel Rosenberg recently addressed criticism of the new Left Behind movie. Mark, he didn't defend the movie--what happened is that it brought out a lot of professing christians who denounced it because allegedly the Rapture is an "unbiblical" doctrine. Here's his article:

http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/hollywood-tackles-the-end-times-with-left-behind-film-but-is-the-rapture-a-biblical-concept-or-a-fictional-plot-device/

Treatise: Confessions of a Smart Guy

Originally posted in late December 2012 in Journal Green. Names have been changed.

In Journal 8 earlier, I was writing about how I mistakenly overestimate people’s capacity to understand me (and in many cases in online arguments, the ability to think clearly and reason logically). I’m averse to thinking about this, because I realize I’ll have a tendency to be dismissive and “look down on” their intelligence. This is rather arrogant, since I’d be acting as if I’m so much smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable. But then, experience has repeatedly proven to me that I AM smarter than most people I encounter, and this makes things confusing for me. In theory, I realize acknowledging that you’re smarter or wiser than someone else/others isn’t inherently arrogant or presumptuous, if it happens to be true. So the danger then is in thinking highly of oneself for being smart. If I want to tell myself that I’m more intelligent than the vast majority of people out there, in order to make sense of reality (mind you), then I must do this in such a way that I do not think of myself as being better than others because of it. Pan out for a bit and consider that this is difficult or impossible to do if you don’t believe in God. If your universe is naturalistic and materialistic, what is your standard for determining if something is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or if one thing is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another? Your estimate of worth would likely be pragmatic or merit-based. Without God, if you are smarter than someone else, then clearly you are better than they are, at least in that one sense! This kind of reasoning is inevitable when you pay no heed to the Cross and what it means—in this context, what it means about human goodness and the question of what makes one thing ‘better’ than another.

Consider briefly some evidence to confirm my reasoning here. Men without the Spirit—or men denying the Spirit’s power—will inevitably reveal that they think they are better than you (if not you per se, then at least someone). Christlessness is arrogance, because the fruit of the Spirit is humility [note: I checked and this one is not directly mentioned by name in the Galatians 5 passage, but it certainly wouldn’t be inconsistent]. Atheist Libertarian Guy thinks he’s better than me because he has more money—was born into more privilege. Grumpy Old Man thinks he’s better than me because of his age and life experience (and strangeliest, his daughter’s accomplishments). Depraved Greek Orthodox Guy thinks he’s better than me because of his academic accomplishments and (supposed) intelligence (Grumpy also boasts of his two Master’s Degrees). These are the more obvious blokes of which I have recent memory. I posit that their desire to assert themselves as being better than me has its foundation in their lacking theological views. Both Grumpy and Depraved would claim to be christians, but assuredly believe in a works-based soteriology. Libertarian Jerk, not having the luxury of pretending to belong to the Church, naturally has only the works-based option open to him. But the Cross says that there are none who do good—none, then, who are good. We are all in the same bucket, believers and unbelievers alike. God the Father looks down from heaven and sees two kinds of people: bad people, and Jesus. That’s it! Being a Christian does not mean nor make (by definition) you a better person. It means you are better off.

Likewise, then, I can take this knowledge and apply it to my intellect. See, I only have this wonderful ability to think the way I do by the Grace of God. My intelligence is a gift from my Father. And salvation is also a gift from God. You can’t earn a gift, and receiving a gift is not because you’re better than those who did not receive it. A gift reflects on the character of the giver, not the recipient. And so, if all the things I have, salvation included, are free gifts from God, then in the same vein as of salvation, none of these gifts are an avenue for me to brag. They are not for me to think highly of myself, but of God. They are not occasion for me to boast, or to make my name great. What God has given, God can take away.

“Sleepy Hollow” on FOX: Spiritual Warfare? Review.

This needs little introduction. Below are three images, pictures I took from my handwritten Journal, this one “Journal Red,” (so named for the color of the binding). Setting the scene, this is from late December 2013, after having seen the episode of the Sleepy Hollow series where the typecast “creepy middle-aged man” from the Fringe television series [also not recommended television, let me add] makes a guest appearance as a “sin eater” whom Ichabod Crane seeks out for help.

Were you surprised? 

~ Rak Chazak

Always Worth Reposting: Charles Haddon Spurgeon on Calvinism

These are two quotations from different sermons (or parts of the same sermon, I can't recall for certain), separated by the ellipsis I inserted.

"The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again....... If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation."  What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor."—C. H. Spurgeon

~ Rak Chazak

Don't Say "I Don't Have A Problem With Gay People"

The people who say this are invariably those opposed to homosexual marriage, or homosexuality per se. Yet, since behavior and identity are closely intertwined among people in this part of society, it seems to them as if you really do have a problem with them, and are being a lying hypocrite.

                So, don’t say “I have no problem with gay people” because it makes you look like a hypocrite to them. They think that if you have no problem with them, you won’t have a problem with their homosexuality, because they personally identify with it, and don’t separate it like you do. So it’s unhelpful to allow them to conveniently write you off as a doublespeaking bigot. 

Let's put it the other way. There are some who will say that they have no problem with Christians, or that they value the First Amendment, but then turn and say that they don't think Christian faith and doctrine should influence government policy, and that "you can believe whatever you like, as long as you keep it to yourself." This is essentially the same experience that homosexuals have had with others telling them to "stay in the closet" and hide a part of who they are out of shame.

Why would we treat others the way we don't want to be treated? This is the opposite of the Golden Rule, which is that we should treat others the way we DO want to be treated, even if we are not treated that way. The fairness toward others is a witnessing tool. When people realize you're treating them kindly and that you're not obligated to (or even that they're not deserving of it), they are more apt to listen to you.

But saying that you don't have a problem with gay people is not a kindness. It is confusion. True kindness would be to say in unequivocal terms, "I believe homosexuality is a sin, but I do not hate you for who you are. Instead, I love you in spite of who you are, because that was what Jesus Christ did for me." Then go on to say that because you believe it's wrong, it would be unloving to encourage someone to do or be proud of what is wrong and harmful for them. True love shows itself in correction. When you demonstrate that you love them to the point of being hated and harassed for pleadingly showing them the way to be saved, you give the Holy Spirit an avenue to open their hearts to the Gospel. They'll see that you're not motivated by love of self but that you sincerely care. And some will still reject you. But at least they will not do so because you were an offense, but because the Gospel is what offended them.

~ Rak Chazak

Treatise: Third Wave Feminism's Irresponsibility Double-Standard

What follows are some excerpts of comments I made regarding sexism on a university post – since the things I said on there are examples of core beliefs I have, you can learn some things about me by reading them.

Here's the main idea. Third Wave Feminism wants women to be free to make their own decisions (great!) -- which normally might mean that they would be responsible for their own actions, correct? No, not according to the third wave feminist, who simultaneously will demand that a woman be utterly blameless--not responsible on any level whatsoever--for the consequences of her actions, or even her choice to perform those actions, irrespective of consequence! Here is a long analysis from me on this contradiction, followed by a response to a post by an angry 3WFeminist afterwards. The immediate context is a discussion about rape and 'victim-blaming.'

This post tackles sensitive subjects and uses frank vocabulary.

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“It’s worth considering that there are a number of us who are not personally invested in the sense that we know people who are deeply affected by depraved sexual behavior, nor are we people who perpetrate such behavior. I am neither a woman at risk for sexual assault nor am I the sort of guy who would ever consider violating a woman in the ways that have been described here (and don't take that to mean that there are ways I would violate a woman--the English language isn't clear enough to avoid this vagueness). So as a conclusion, for me to consider this issue, it is certainly an academic exercise. It is entirely intellectual, seeing as for me to understand another person's perspective I cannot sympathize, but must empathize, trying to imagine what it's like to be in their position and doing all sorts of mental analysis to consider their statements, and my position, from multiple different angles to ensure that it all makes sense, both to me and to them. Don't take my lack of personal involvement to mean that I don't care. But take it to mean that I can't intimately emotionally understand your exact feelings as it relates to this topic.”

“[someone I’m commenting sarcastically in response to had made the claim quoted]: "The Vagina Monologues is about ending violence against women..".. By offering, as one of the monologues, a tale where a woman was sexually abused as a child, and then when 13 (later edits change it to 16, because that makes it okay I guess) had lesbian sexual relationships with an older woman, and used to promote the idea "if it was rape, it was good rape," until popular pressure caused that to be edited out as well? Because perversion like this is thrown in whenever an event is held to ostensibly help women, I can not, neither have I been, nor do I suspect I ever will be, able to in good conscience recommend attendance to any woman I happen to interact with. It's junk. And besides being junk, it's freaky weird abusive filth, like 50 Shades of Grey where the woman is beaten by a 'lover' who was abused as a child, and Twilight, where a teenage girl is stalked by a boyfriend who breaks her car to prevent her from meeting her friends.”

“I'm disturbed that several individuals on this thread have indicated that their primary, or singular, outrage is because the said twitter page includes posts that concern homosexuality (either as the motivation for posting, or the object which is posted about). The absence of a comparable outrage over the posts that are not derogatory re: homosexuals, or casting homosexuals in a bad light, implies that the posters(on this forum) do not see the other negative posts as being as bad as the ones they are showing outrage over. Or if they are not as bad, at least the omission indicates that the poster does not think it matters as much, for a different reason. This concerns me more than the crude comments in the first place. The crude comments reveal a lack of basic decency, but the selective outrage reveals a lack of concern for other people.”

“Is accusing someone of being gay for not seeking heterosexual sex necessarily anti-gay or is it actually anti-straight? More to the point, is it more insulting to gays or to straight people who choose abstinence? Being the latter, this is far more of an insult to straight people who hold to a moral standard of sexuality more strict than that of "most people," than it is an insult to someone who is homosexual. It implies that there is no legitimate reason to not want to have sex with someone except if you're gay. It objectifies men, declaring that so long as there's an attractive female in front of you, you're expected to want to have sex with her, and expected to actually follow through if given the opportunity. It's way more insensitive toward straight guys than gay guys.”

“It's been this way since middle school/high school. It never bothered me to be called "gay" or "faggot" because I either didn't fit the stereotypical sexual or physically aggressive behavior that some other guys expressed. What concerned me was the assumption that because you didn't highly prioritize 'getting laid' or because you didn't respond to jerks by threatening them physically, that this made you effeminate. It really doesn't. Not by necessity. What it can mean instead is simple: it means you're restrained. You're like a Vulcan. The Vulcans of Star Trek never show emotions--but it's not because they don't have emotions. Instead, they're a historically very emotionally impulsive and aggressive race, who learned over time to suppress displaying those emotions. It's like that with guys. I have the same basic desires, turn-ons, temptations etc as other guys. I've just learned to be restrained, and to rule my emotions, rather than letting my emotions rule over me. And I'll hazard a guess that this is the case for most other guys that have self-control, as well.”

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“Second question for discussion: Yoga pants/leggings/underarmor/etc -- Tacky or acceptable attire? The person quoted in the video wants to excuse their ill behavior by saying "tight fitting clothing made me stare at butts," but the fact remains that since there are such people out there, dressing in a certain way does invite their negative reactions, no matter how unjustified. I think you can wear whatever you want, but you can't wear whatever you want and expect to be respected, if you're not respecting yourself by the clothes--rather, lack thereof--that you wear. Think about what the abovementioned fabrics do -- they fit tight to the skin, such that if you wear them without anything on top, you're essentially walking around in pantyhose. No one can see the color of your skin but that's the ONLY thing they can't see. Whoever dresses this way is essentially walking around naked.  I ask you -- is it appropriate to walk around naked in front of other people? Ignore the question of how other people react. That is a separate issue to whether you should be (un)dressed a certain way. Let's deal with the "it's comfortable" response. I retort, it's comfortable to go naked when it's warm outside. Is that what you'll be seeking to justify next? Just because something is comfortable does not make it acceptable to wear in front of other people. I'm a first-wave feminist. I believe women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law. What I don't agree with is second-wave feminism (that asserts that women should be treated unequally in the eyes of the law) and third-wave feminism (that asserts that women should be allowed to objectify themselves--and men--sexually, but that it's somehow wrong when men do it). I think that what is today called "feminism" is far from what the pro-women feminism of yesteryear was. What passes for feminism these days is a rush by women to degrade themselves so that there will be nothing left for men to degrade, as if this removes their "power over women." Naturally, irresponsible men love this and encourage it. "Sexual equality" is a ruse; it is not empowering to engage in sex without considering the consequences. It's not empowering to dress in ways that tempt males to contemplate your body sexually. It's what encourages the behavior that offends you so much. Can't you see that the whole movement of feminism is creating a culture where boys are taught that they have no responsibility to respect women's bodies, and they'll even be punished if they try to? What do you think happens as a result? Boys grow up taking what they can get from girls, knowing that they are free from responsibility, because feminism has, in its attempt to force a vision of equality, placed all responsibility on women, while simultaneously encouraging them to be utterly irresponsible. It's chaos. It's what results in the ludicrous scenario where girls try to dress as revealingly as possible but get upset when their attire provokes lustful thoughts and words from the boys around them. If you want to talk about a sexual double standard, this is it. You can't disrespect yourself and expect others to respect you. Note what I'm not saying: I'm not saying it's acceptable for people to disrespect you if you disrespect yourself. What I'm saying is that by not respecting yourself, you make it easier for disrespectful young men to be disrespectful of you as well. They can get away with it because you've undermined yourself and have no moral high ground on which to stand on to assert that their behavior is wrong. You are right that they are wrong--but people don't listen to hypocrites. 

Read carefully and you won't misunderstand what I'm saying here. Hopefully what I've written will make a few people inclined to respond with their thoughts.”

Someone responded, and I replied with this: “Briefly, my statements about the different waves of feminism are obviously my interpretations as they were relevant to the current topic of self-respect, and are by no means meant to be exhaustive definitions.  I tried to head off any misunderstanding of my words, but I think I'll have to try to explain myself again. Your quote in question is this one: 

"Telling a woman that it's her fault that men objectify her or harass her or whatever because of what she's wearing is a manifestation of victim blaming."

This is not what I was doing. Here's the relevant quote I made, and then I'll unpack it:  "You can't disrespect yourself and expect others to respect you. Note what I'm not saying: I'm not saying it's acceptable for people to disrespect you if you disrespect yourself. What I'm saying is that by not respecting yourself, you make it easier for disrespectful young men to be disrespectful of you as well. They can get away with it because you've undermined yourself and have no moral high ground on which to stand on to assert that their behavior is wrong. You are right that they are wrong--but people don't listen to hypocrites. " Here I specify that the woman is not responsible for the actions or thoughts of any man toward her.
Do I need to repeat that?

The woman is not responsible for the actions or thoughts of any man toward her.

It can therefore not be victim blaming. Because by definition, I am not blaming the woman for the behavior of the man.
What did I say, though? I said that the woman carries responsibility for herself (contrary to what 3WF promotes, as I mentioned earlier in that comment). She has responsibility for how she dresses and where she chooses to go. If you disagree, then you will find nothing wrong with a woman parading naked around a max-security all-male prison, and surely you will expect nothing to happen to her, and if it does, then she should not have been expected to know better, and none of it is a result of her actions. If, on the other hand, you find that this is clearly an unacceptable conclusion, then you must also acknowledge for the existence of caveats regarding your implied assertion that the woman is not responsible. And hence, I think you ought to agree that women have a responsibility to think about and make responsible decisions regarding what to wear and where to go.
You must interpret this in light of what I've already told you, i.e. that the woman is not responsible for the actions of the men around her. Otherwise you are not being charitable in entertaining my reasoning.

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So if men's actions toward her are not her fault, what do I mean by saying that the woman bears responsibility for herself? I simply mean that any intelligent woman knows that despite the fact that men should not behave a certain way, there are men who do behave that way, and to ignore this fact of reality is not doing anything to promote female equality. To ignore it would be stupid, and it puts women at risk and in danger. If you dive headfirst into a pool and break your neck, it is not your "fault" that the water was shallow. But you made the wrong decision in failing to recognize that it was shallow and alter your behavior to protect yourself. I'm not comparing men's decisions with laws of nature, as if men don't have a choice. The comparison is of the fact of the existence of men who will make these decisions to the fact of the existence of the shallow water in the pool. You can't deny that these men are out there. Wishful thinking about how they SHOULD behave does nothing to change the reality. Acting according to what you think SHOULD be the case rather than acting according to what you know to be true reality is moronic. I hope this is more clear. Women don't bear the responsibility for men's lustful thoughts. They do bear responsibility for knowingly tempting those thoughts. Tempting a man who is in control of himself will not result in an incident. Tempting a man who gives in to temptation because he lacks self control will. And every woman should be aware that the second type of man is 'out there,' and should be wise enough to not provoke them unnecessarily. Being attractive is not something you can help. Being a woman is not something you can help. Wearing clothes that reveal your figure, to an extent, is not something you can help. Wearing skin-tight articles of clothing that show everyone exactly what you look like naked is something that you are eminently in control over, and have a responsibility to consider carefully before deciding to do.

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‘I think focus needs to be shifted from women and what they're wearing to the men who think that women are inherently theirs to look at and objectify/deem "respectable" or not/etc.’

What I would like to propose is that the culture of 3WF has created these men. The solution to their existence, then, is not 3WF. It is the rejection of 3WF and a return to SENSIBLE agendas for the elevation of women's welfare that will produce the desired results. The sad problem is that 3WF's goals are inconsistent with the methods by which its followers seek to bring about those goals.  The focus should not be on the men who objectify women, nor the women who are objectified, but on the culture perpetuated by a movement that itself objectifies women and bizarrely believes that men ought somehow to remain unaffected by this.”

“For the sake of definitions, When I say the woman is not responsible for men's actions toward her, I use "responsible" to mean "at fault for." When I say the woman is responsible for how she dresses, I use "responsible" to mean "morally obligated to make correct choices in governing oneself." Hopefully this helps avoid any equivocation over the meaning of the word in this discussion.”

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Please also see a related blog post made earlier in 2013 about "Feminism, Male Privilege, and Rape Culture," in which I tie the solution (of the ills that 3WF rails against and perpetuates) into the Gospel.

~ Rak Chazak 

General Disinterest in Valentine's Day

A lot of criticism about this holiday can be generated and focus on a long list of different aspects. But I'm going to stick to my theme of criticism for the "Christmas" holiday and others like it, where the expectation is that people ought to give gifts to each other, and where the gifts are always implicitly material in nature, and criticize the very underlying premise of Valentine's Day.

http://singlechristian1.blogspot.com/2013/12/symbolism-in-christmas.html

"Giving items to one another is a thing that can be done year round, and is more joyous when done spontaneously, not as a requirement. When a special occasion comes around that offers reflection on the past and the future, I think memories are the important thing to create."

Here's the problem with the expectation of getting a gift. If you don't do something, it causes resentment. This is wrong. It's not what generosity and gifts is about! A person getting a gift is grateful and pleased with the giver. But if they're expecting to be given something, then the gift is no longer a gift, it's a payment--a debt owed to the person getting the "gift." This is why a person would get angry if they don't get a gift--they're experiencing the same emotion as they would if the giver was in their debt, and defaulted on their loan--if they made a late payment.

This is not what holidays should be about, or foster!

This is why I am so strongly against the idea that a specific day of the year should be set aside to give gifts to your family, or to be especially romantic with your significant other. Do we not love them on all the days of the year? Can we not be romantic all the time; is it really so much effort to be a generous lover? On some level, this concept applies to birthdays also. I'm a much bigger fan of using special dates as opportunities for reflection, or of making memories by doing something together (which can still be a sort of gift, I realize--there's nothing wrong with that), and of giving gifts spontaneously throughout the year, catching your loved ones by surprise and making them grateful, instead of resentful that you didn't give them what they expected, when they were expecting it.

A person who gets material objects of desire on certain days each year develops an expectant desire for them, and experiences bitterness when they don't get them. But if on your children's birthdays each year, you take them on an exciting adventure to a park or nature preserve they haven't been before, to explore God's creation and spend time together, even if this counts as a gift, think, what will they look forward to on those special days in years to come? Spending time with family and grasping the bigger picture of what makes another year of life so special: the fact that we are stewards of God's creation and He has blessed us with the double gifts of getting to enjoy His world, as well as being saved through His mercy via the Cross, for the enjoyment of a more perfect world for eternity to come. It makes a huge difference!

I refuse to participate in Valentine's Day. This is an easy thing to say for a guy who's never had occasion to spend money on a sweetheart, but having the time to think about it has led me to realize that it's not such an auspicious time of year after all. Romance is something you create on your own, and if you need help, you may be in trouble. And those who depend on cultural expectations to get things they desire may have their priorities wrong--desiring the 'gifts' more than the gift-giver. When you think about it, V Day and how you approach it is a perfect parallel to how you approach God and the Gospel. Do you desire Him, or do you just want a sugar daddy God who will give you things? It's very closely connected, on a spiritual level.

I therefore choose to not participate in expected gift exchanges or purchases of teddy bears, chocolate or flowers on Valentine's Day, because of what it symbolically demonstrates about the Gospel.

This is a preferential decision I've made, based on dogma I hold to. I wouldn't dogmatically require others to follow along with my preference. I plan to talk about this in an upcoming post.

After reading this, are you more or less inclined to participate in the cultural expectations surrounding February 14th?

~ Rak Chazak

Ray Comfort's The Way of The Master, As Told By CS Lewis

 I’ve been reading a few chapters a night out of Mere Christianity, a seminal work by CS Lewis that I’d heard much about and even quoted from but never yet read, which [my friend] gave me. What I didn’t realize was that most of the chapters were initially broadcast pieces that Lewis gave during WWII in Britain, and was actually asked to give by the BBC. Different times, dear reader. With The Battle of Britain in mind, I offer this fascinating excerpt out of Book one, chapter 5, “We Have Cause To Be Uneasy,” fascinating by virtue of the strong similarity it has to Ray Comfort’s The Way of the Master evangelism method, Ken Ham’s argument for Creation as the foundation to understand the Bible, and to a video clip I saw of Paul Washer explaining that the most terrifying truth about God is that He is good. Without further ado:

“For the trouble is that one part of you is on His side and really agrees with His disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation. You may want Him to make an exception in your own case, to let you off this one time, but you know at bottom that unless the power behind the world really and unalterably detests that sort of behavior, then He cannot be good.

            On the other hand, we know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. This is the terrible fix we are in.  If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger—according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way.

            Now my third point. When I chose to get to my real subject in this roundabout way, I was not trying to play any kind of trick on you. I had a different reason. My reason was that Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. 

                   When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God. It is an old story and if you want to go into it you will no doubt consult people who have more authority to talk about it than I have. All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts—to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts.

            I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. Most of us have got over the pre-war wishful thinking about international politics. It is time we did the same about religion.”

                        The doctor analogy is also one used frequently by Todd Friel, not highly surprising since he and Ray and Kirk Cameron are close friends on the theological stage. Todd’s response to a Rob Bell video parodied its introduction but then gave a parable followed by demonstrating the difference between the Bell/Friel approaches. Imagine four doctors. Doctor Woo tells everyone how cool and exciting the hospital is. Don’t you just want to check it out? Doctor Scare walks around telling everyone “yer gonna die!! yer gonna die!!” He lets people know they’re ill but doesn’t make them inclined to want to pursue a cure, if they even know how. Doctor Love wants everyone to know that the doctors love them, and come to the hospital so you can sleep on our nice comfortable beds, eat our great cafeteria food, and feel better about yourself. But Dr. Love doesn’t tell the people that all the while they’re carrying dangerous illnesses that will kill them if left untreated. Is that really love? I don’t recall if the fourth doctor was another example of a bad doctor or not, but the final example was I believe Doctor Reason. He treats people with dignity and respect, but tells them the truth that they have a deadly disease. But he doesn’t stop there—he tells the patient that he has a cure. When the patient knows he’s ill, he desires the cure, and receives it with gladness. All of these were metaphors for different approaches by different churches on how to preach the Gospel (or fail to) to the Lost of the world. Dr. Scare symbolizes hellfire preachers who fail to focus on anything but condemnation, leaving out love and grace and forgiveness. Dr. Love fails in the reverse way, not warning people about sin and judgment and failing to generate true converts as a result, just people who have a false sense of security. Dr. Woo represents celebrity preachers or preachers who use gimmicks and showiness to try to lure people in with flashy things that produce people who expect church to be entertaining for them. Dr. Reason represents the “Law-and-Gospel” approach promoted by Ray Comfort and all associated with him, that seeks to inform people of their NEED to be saved, before urging them to take the cure (repentance and faith), knowing that otherwise people simply won’t respond because the message doesn’t connect.

~ Rak Chazak

* Mere Christianity is published by HarperOne, a division of HarperCollins. The citation is taken from pages 30 through 32 of the copy that I have.

Journal Entry: Sputter and Fizzle

Friday, December 27, 2013

A man traveling with two other people waited alone in the restaurant while they went to the bathroom. He stood with his hand in his pockets behind the farthest band of the extendable tape and said, ask me any question you’ve always wanted to know the answer to. He seemed to be addressing both me and [Joe], who were both engaged in cleaning—me, trays; he, odd items and surfaces. I asked him to tell me how many minutes it would be before they would order. He kept trying to ask the question. He then said something like, what is your view/have you heard of the God question? I heard that as, “The God Question,” and endeavored to inject jocularity as I sometimes do in situations where people are being awkwardly confrontational, in order to distract them off their track, so I said that I thought he was talking about a book. He made some unclear statements to the tune of it being an important subject, this could be your only opportunity, are you sure that/what’s your choice?, both before and after I said that I wasn’t authorized to talk about subjects that could potentially offend people while in my capacity as an employee. He said that he was impossible to offend. He sorta just waited around while I was mostly silent thereafter, Joe looked at me confusedly, and the man made a few weak attempts at speaking, as I just mentioned. When [the manager] came to swap out my drawer and put Joe on, he left with the people who were with him. I think I know what he was doing. He seemed to be trying to start a witnessing encounter. He had what he thought was a decent “hook,” and he felt comfortable since the dining room was empty and he in all likelihood was simply passing through, so he felt bolder—not yet quite in his element, however, since his body language, distance from his addressees and fumbling obscurity were an obstacle to getting to the point. His engagement hinged on getting people to be both curious and ask and answer questions with him, but he seemed to not have counted on what he would do if that didn’t happen, or people didn’t engage. He didn’t have a plan B, and he left without leaving a clear Gospel presentation. Suppose he is saved—he just needs to refine his methods and aspire to be less mysterious and more direct with his introduction—and be prepared to make a point even when his hearers are unwilling to talk back. People at work or in a line are a great captive audience; he should expect to talk without them talking at all. Suppose he isn’t saved—it’s fantastic that he left discouraged and I hope he comes to the Truth. Personally, I’m suspicious that the former is true.

~ Rak Chazak 

Spurgeon on Calvin

I loved the short quote in this, the first time I heard it. It encouraged me, because I had been researching Calvinism and was unsure whether it had been believed through history, or was a recent invention. What had "big-name" pastors and preachers of the past said about it? Spurgeon was a name I'd heard mentioned positively in the theological circles I'd been crossing into. So this served to unify my understanding, and conclude that "these guys are on the same team. We are on the same team."

If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

The website I chose to use for the source text is Spurgeon.org. Please read the whole sermon, called "In Defense of Calvinism."

~ Rak Chazak

When Open-Air Preaching 'Clicked' for Me

Prologue

I was 11 when I started to take following God's commandments seriously. Not because I was wantonly disobedient before, but merely that the reason I was doing it changed. And to tell you the truth, I can't be completely sure I know the reason. I'm very hesitant to say that I wasn't saved before, lest I blaspheme and profess to say something about God that isn't true. But from a perspective of evaluating myself, I realized as I prayed last night, I don't think I can ever "know" that I was saved before, since the way to really know is to understand the theology of salvation, which I didn't have any incorrect ideas about, to my memory, but I certainly didn't have a complete understanding. So for the simplicity of language's sake, I think I can say that I know I've been saved, since somewhere between the beginning of 2011 and 2012, with confidence. That said,

Wake-up Call

It was even before I know that I was saved that I became "converted" to the belief that open-air preaching was not only useful, but important, and a necessity. I had lived most of my life having a basic understanding of God from whatever I'd gleaned from church and what I got from the books I'd read at my own leisure, which included Genesis, Exodus, Revelation and parts of Daniel. You know, the 'exciting stuff.' And though I had no shame in talking about God with others, as I can easily remember from my time in Boy Scouts, I never had the urge to evangelize--to go out and talk with people with the express intention of trying to explain Christianity to them, and if possible, convince them of its truth. This makes some degree of sense, considering that I didn't yet have the complete picture myself, whether it's the case that I had weak faith or vain faith. But I took for granted that Jesus was God and that the basic points of the Christian faith were totally understood by everyone in America, because of how widespread the influence of christianity is.

My wakeup call came in my second semester of college, when I passed by one of the street preachers. There was one guy who came regularly to my university, and another who traveled more widely and whom I know less about, and came less frequently. It was not the first time I'd seen a crowd gathered in a semi-circle around the speaker, but this time I wasn't in a rush and I took some time to listen. I can't remember to this day what exactly I heard, and I might be conflating several different moments into one, but I remember being utterly shocked at how ignorant the people challenging (heckling) the preacher were of basic Biblical facts. Further, my university had a very high minority population. There were substantial amounts of foreign nationals from Africa, the Middle East and the Orient, as well as students who descend from those regions and had been brought up in that culture in their home, but had grown up in America. One might expect a Saudi national at an American university on a royal scholarship to not be aware of Christian doctrine. But these were white, native-born American kids who couldn't tell right from left when it came to theology. And this was something I understood as soon as I saw it, even long before my 'awakening' in the spring of 2010. I was shocked. Shocked. 

That experience impressed upon me the belief that open-air preaching is an important service, getting the basic facts of the Gospel out there so that people can at least know what it is, in order to make an informed decision about it. Like the Bible says in Romans 10:14, "how can they hear without a preacher?" If it weren't for men like these, the message would be lost over time in the culture, because people simply don't look it up on their own. That is a lie. The only way they'll hear the truth is if someone annoys them with it when and where they don't want to hear it. 

The Preacher and the Preaching

After I began studying the Bible passionately a year later, I began to feel the effects of regeneration, I believe. A strong desire to share the amazing truth that I was learning took hold of me, and my feelings toward the street preacher went from affirmation to thankfulness and encouragement. I introduced myself to the preacher, who served the Mid-Atlantic region for the organization called "Open Air Campaigners." His name was Paul Adams, shown above, and would be very recognizable from a distance with his painting easel and the crowd that typically gathered in the middle of the day. I'm very happy to report that this preacher doesn't live up to his reputation among the students as the angry, loud, offensive bigot he supposedly is. It's funny, the cranks who make such comments confuse other students to the point where they're not sure they're talking about the same person! No, Paul's Gospel presentation is complete (not lacking anything essential), done in love, and just salty enough to not let people's consciences off scot-free. "If only" he didn't speak against people's favorite sins, they wouldn't be offended. But as 1 Corinthians 1:18 and 1 Peter 2:8 together say, "the Gospel is an offense to those who are perishing."

Another year later, after my initial immersion in studying Creation, Biblical Inerrancy, and then Islam, to cover all my theological bases, I had moved on to "meatier," more in-depth Christian theology. Throughout most of 2011, I eventually came to wrap my head around what is commonly called "Calvinism," but which is nothing more than the key parts of the Gospel, clearly emphasized in no uncertain terms. I also began to learn about pseudochristian sects and heresies, and came across the concept of false believers. This was early in the year and happens to coincide with the "P" part of TULIP (an acronym for the points of Calvinism): a video of Ray Comfort preaching on youtube called "true and false conversion." In it he asked  a young man if he "knew the Lord," when he was allegedly a believer. If he answers yes, he admits God exists, if he answers no, he admits he didn't know God. So any unbeliever who claims to have once been a believer, bottom line, never was. And that, I believe, is how I began to watch Way of the Master (Ray's ministry) videos and began watching their On the Box videos fairly regularly.

That was how I got to 'meet' the guys involved in their ministry, which at the time also included Tony Miano, who is now a freelancing preacher as well. I just wanted to bring this up to make the teensy-tiny observation that I think Tony and Paul are alike in a few ways. They:

* are sponsored by (and rooted in) the church they worship in to go out and preach

* have a similar testimony, in that they came to faith when they were a bit older. Paul was in the Marines(? if it was the Army, my mistake) and Tony was a Roman Catholic, but I'm not sure if they overlap here necessarily. But both were 'tough guys' whose regeneration produced highly noticeable changes in their character. 

* used to have a history of shouting and sounding angry, from which they've changed and now if you'd hear their typical open-air, they're some of the calmest, kindest, least-wrathful-sounding people there--the hecklers are the nasty ones.

I had a funny thought. That last bit made me think of Vulcans. From Star Trek--do you know that they had a reputation for always being highly in control of their emotions and never seemingly getting angry? But if I remember the backstory, Vulcans behaved that way because they were inherently VERY aggressive and angry people, and learned to 'stuff' their outbursts deep down over time and focus on logic over emotion. This isn't to imply that these guys are bursting with rage on the inside, haha! Just that from an observer's standpoint, they can take disrespect and aggressiveness from others with extreme calm and not return kind for kind. You can really see that particular fruit of the Spirit in each of them when they're in action.

It's from watching videos of Tony (and Ray Comfort and Todd Friel) online and from seeing Paul in person that I've come to believe from personal experience that open-air preaching, combined with tracting and the use of internet sites as tools to amplify your ability to reach people, is and is going to be the most effective way to evangelize the nation we live in. The mission field isn't in Africa. It's down the road from where you live, in America. It's time to hit the streets.

Some pictures of Paul preaching

 Heckler front and center

 A wide assortment of people turn out, gather around, and at the very least hear the Good News.

If you don't believe it works, then when you see the crowd it draws, and hear the questions that are asked, and the answers that are given, I almost guarantee you'll change your mind.

~ Rak Chazak