Fwd: The Old Gray Dog Ponders . . . Christian Theology, 101

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

 

If people don't like us, they don't like us,

but at least they heard the story.

Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart

 

How to make an Evangelical 

 

Ingredients:

3 parts Methodism

2 parts Finneyism

4 parts Anabaptism

1 part pietism

 

 

Combine all these ingredients and stir vigorously until the flavors

are virtually indistinguishable.

 

Add:

several dashes of Pelagius (or if you can't find any Pelagius, add a

large dose of Arminius)

a handful of Luther

a whiff of Calvin

disdain for tradition

American provincialism to taste

 

 

Simmer over an anti-intellectual flame until all traces of any

knowledge of Christian history have evaporated.

 

Stir in:

contemporary market research theory

a large chuck of P. T. Barnum

way too much obsession with the self

anti-authoritarianism au gratin

 

 

Place onto a bed of American inventive genius. Cook for 100 years or

so. Serve in an Elvis-shaped jello mold.

 

The Rev'd Charles A. Collins, Jr., S.B.R., M.Div.

Hospice Chaplain

 

 

            If we are to avoid serving our Christian witness in an "Elvis-shaped jello mold," we must understand the faith we proclaim.

 

 

    Christians are not called to be popular.  We are called to tell Christ's story.  We can't tell that story if we don't know how to tell it in terms people will understand.

 

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his Word, or beside it in matters of faith on worship. So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience; and the requiring an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.

Westminster Confession

 

 

 

We have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in churches and expect nothing better. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science, and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out. Little by little Christians these days are being brainwashed. One evidence is that increasing numbers of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe, but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition. Moral power has always accompanied definite beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God that lives and abides forever.

A. W. Tozer.

 

    There are a lot of terms and expressions we use every day without a clue as to where they came from.    

 

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water
temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to
be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:


Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in
May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they
were starting to smell . . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide
the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when
getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the
house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all th e other
sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all
the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose
someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the
Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood
underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the
cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it
rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall
off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This
posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings
could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a
sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy
beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.
Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would
get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on
floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added
more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start
slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.
Hence: a thresh hold.

 

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee
in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery.......if
you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"


But worse than that were the really poor  folk who couldn't even afford
to buy a pot...........they "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the
lowest of the low.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that
always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things
to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They
would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in
it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas
porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days
old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.
When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It
was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They
would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around
and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content
caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning
death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400
years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of
the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the
upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would
sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking
along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the
family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they
would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of
places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the
bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these
coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the
inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they
would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would
have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to
listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was
considered a dead ringer.

[I am grateful to my friend Charlotte Meyer for sharing this with me.  OGD]

 

 

 

    It is one thing not to know the origin of an idiom, but it is quite another to not understand the saving work of God in Christ Jesus.  We must know what we are talking about! In that spirit, I offer the following Theology for Dummies to help believers understand some common theological concepts. This understanding could do more than change your life; it could give you Hope and all the confidence that is yours in Christ, enough to revitalize your church by insuring that your leadership is Biblically qualified.

 

       The following theological terms can apply to believers in all Christian traditions, Protestant and Catholic.

 

Evangelical:  Emphasizing the basic tenets of the faith, as set forth in the Bible and expressed in the Confessions.

Conservative:  Upholds the traditional doctrines of historic Christianity based on Scripture.

Liberal:  Adapting religious ideas to modern culture and modes of thinking.

Fundamentalist:  Reaffirms the traditional teachings of Christianity in defense against liberal theology, Darwinism, German higher criticism and secular humanism, all of which undermine the Bible's authority.  The essential doctrines include:

             1.  The inerrancy of Scripture.

             2.  The Virgin birth.

             3.  Substitutionary atonement of Christ.

             4.  Christ's bodily resurrection.

             5.  The historicity of miracles.

 

Reformed:  All Reformed Christians will also share essentials with those who are evangelical, conservative, and fundamentalist.  However, not all evangelicals, conservatives, and fundamentalists subscribe to Reformed beliefs. The essential tenets of the Reformed faith are:

 

Total depravity (Original Sin) 

 Unconditional election (God's Election)

 Limited atonement (Particular Redemption)

 Irresistible grace (Effectual Calling)

 Perseverance of the Saints ("once saved, always saved") 

 

 

"The Five Points of Calvinism"

 

 

HISTORICALLY, this title is of little accuracy or worth; I use it to denote certain points of doctrine, because custom has made it familiar. Early in the seventeenth century the Presbyterian Church of Holland, whose doctrinal confession is the same in substance with ours, was much troubled by a species of new-school minority, headed by one of its preachers and professors, James Harmensen, in Latin, Arminius (hence, ever since, Arminians). Church and state have always been united in Holland; hence the civil government took up the quarrel. Professor Harmensen (Arminius) and his party were required to appear before the States General (what we would call Federal Congress) and say what their objections were against the doctrines of their own church, which they had freely promised in their ordination vows to teach. Arminius handed in a writing in which he named five points of doctrine concerning which he and his friends either differed or doubted. These points were virtually: Original sin, unconditional predestination, invincible grace in conversion, particular redemption, and perseverance of saints. I may add, the result was: that the Federal legislature ordered the holding of a general council of all the Presbyterian churches then in the world, to discuss anew and settle these five doctrines. This was the famous Synod of Dort, or Dordrecht, where not only Holland ministers, but delegates from the French, German, Swiss, and British churches met in 1618. The Synod adopted the rule that every doctrine should be decided by the sole authority of the Word of God, leaving out all human philosophies and opinions on both sides. The result was a short set of articles which were made a part thenceforward of the Confession of Faith of the Holland Presbyterian Church. They are clear, sound, and moderate, exactly the same in substance with those of our Westminster Confession, enacted twenty-seven years afterward.

R. L. Dabney

 

       The following theological terms were once thought to be "fringe" beliefs, but are finding expression more and more in the modern church.

 

Progressive theology:  One of their shared purposes is to portray Biblical doctrine as outdated and inconsistent with modern understanding on a number of issues. For instance, for "progressives," on the issue of homosexual practice, the American Psychiatric Association, which says it is normal, trumps the Bible, which says it is abnormal.

       But progressive theology isn't limited to sexual issues. It questions the Lordship of Christ, the efficacy of Jesus' atoning death, the miracles of the Bible, many of the commandments of God – even revelation itself.

       And neither is it limited to a single theology. One of its advocates, Dr. Douglas Ottati of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA., speaks of progressive theology as a conglomeration of theologies: process, liberal, Christian realist, liberationist, feminist, black, womanist and Minjung, a Korean philosophy that is a radical re-interpretation of Christianity.

       The phrase progressive theology is not new, even though the theology may have evolved – as progressive theology is always evolving. In 1888, C. H. Spurgeon, writing in the Sword and Towel, addressed the progressive movement of his time with a blunt assessment:

       "The idea of a progressive gospel seems to have fascinated many. To us that notion is a sort of cross-breed between nonsense and blasphemy. After the gospel has been found effectual in the eternal salvation of untold multitudes, it seems rather late in the day to alter it; and, since it is the revelation of the all-wise and unchanging God, it appears somewhat audacious to attempt its improvement. When we call up before our mind's eye the gentlemen who have set themselves this presumptuous task, we feel half inclined to laugh; the case is so much like the proposal of moles to improve the light of the sun. Their gigantic intellects are to hatch out the meanings of the Infinite! We think we see them brooding over hidden truths to which they lend the aid of their superior genius to accomplish their development!" The father of today's progressive theology is reputed to be retired Episcopal Bishop John S. Spong, who has been called "the Martin Luther King of Progressive Christianity." A few years ago, Spong spoke at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago at the invitation of the congregation's senior minister, Dr. John Buchanan, the founding co-moderator of the Covenant Network, a former moderator of the PCUSA and senior editor of The Christian Century.

       Spong has spelled out his version of progressive theology in 12 tenets that, if followed, would dismantle the last vestige of orthodox Christianity:

            1. "Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found."

             2. "Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt."

             3. "The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense."

             4. "The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible."

             5. "The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity."

             6. "The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed."

             7. "Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history."

             8. "The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age."

             9. "There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time."

             10. "Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way."

             11. "The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior."

             12. "All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination." Spong's list reads like a voucher for a parallel progressive theological movement knew as the Jesus Seminar, in which unbelieving teachers of religion decide arbitrarily which parts of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus are genuine. They delete the substance of faith and leave a moralizing Jesus with no atoning powers. Many Presbyterian congregations have welcomed Jesus Seminar presentations. Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian conference center in New Mexico, has offered Jesus Seminar programs. 

 

       Progressive theology also has kinship with the Re Imaging God movement that began in 1993. The Re Imaging themes – that the crucifixion was unnecessary, that God is a goddess named Sophia, that Biblical sexual ethics are outdated, that milk and honey are more apt communion elements than those representing the body and blood of Christ – resonate with the teachings of progressive theologians.

       With strong support from some Presbyterian staff leaders – both in money and attendance – the first Re Imaging God conference in 1993 ignited a backfire in the Presbyterian Church (USA), causing the denomination to lose millions of dollars and leading the 1994 General Assembly to declare that the movement was beyond the bounds of the Christian faith.

       But that did not stop "Re Imaging God" from making inroads into the PCUSA. The denomination included writings by prominent Re-Imagining speakers in a resource guide for a group known as the National Network of Presbyterian College Women. Fully funded by the denomination, the NNPCW was essentially a network of radical feminists who, among other things, decided to offer prayers to a female Jesus ("Christa"), promote lesbianism and join others in the progressive theology movement to oppose the denomination's ordination standard.  (John Adams, The Layman)

Natural theology:  The attempt to construct a doctrine of God without an appeal to faith or special revelation (Scripture), but on the basis of human reason and experience alone.

 

Pluralism:  Liberals tend to believe that all religions rest upon a common perception of God and therefore show a hostility toward any exclusive claims for Christian faith.

 

Liberation theology:  Interprets Christian faith from the perspective of the poor and oppressed.  For example, black theology, feminist theology, sexual theology all interpret Christian faith through the lens of their victimhood.  While Evangelical theology struggles to find expression in the postmodern world, the Liberation theologian searches to find the God of righteousness in a world of injustice.  Liberation theologians focus on the victims, not the sinner.

 

Process theology:  Find God through human history, reason and experience.  Knowledge of God in continuously unfolding (evolving) through intellectual insights.

 

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

       Hopefully, after reading this, you will have a better understanding of just what it is you believe when you make your confession.

 

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.  praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2: 42, 47

 

People are not attracted to churches that do not know what they believe.

James Montgomery Boice

 

  One thing is absolutely certain:  Until we know what we believe, the Lord won't be adding Christians to our rolls.

 

 

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you

Matt. 28: 19-20a

 

If people don't like us, they don't like us,

but at least they heard the story.

 

    People don't have to like us, either.  But the Lord has commanded us to teach His story, clearly and unequivocally.

 

" It is only by and through a converted clergy that 'the comfortable

Gospel of Christ may be truly preached, truly received, and truly

followed, to the breaking down of the kingdom of sin, Satan, and

death.'  Untold harm has been done to Christianity in all its severed

sections by the uninspired ministry of men who only know what the

Bible is not; and the saddest side of it is that the anticipated

stampede of the intelligentsia into the Church, which was to follow

the abandonment of miracle, has not taken place.  A return to a

Scripture that is really holy is imperative if our religion is to

survive." -- The Very Rev'd Edmunson John Masters Nutter (1942)

Almighty and everlasting God, Who has revealed Thy glory by Christ among all nations:  Preserve Thy Word of mercy and hope; that Thy Church, which is spread throughout the world, may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of Thy name, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen

 

 

 

 

Blessed are the saints who are equipped with the sound doctrines of TULIP!

The Old Gray Dog
Jim Tuckett

The Westminster Fellowship
Clearly and Unequivocally Proclaiming What It Means To Be Reformed Christians http://www.westminsterfellowship.org