A Quote…

Or two, that I wish to share with you:

The search for truth implies a duty. One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.

- Albert Einstein

In this world, those who seek the truth will also find trouble.

- Gary Amirault

And,

His malice may be concealed by deception, but his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.

- Proverbs 26:26

So, Have You Offended Anyone Yet?

Culture Watch

Bill Muehlenberg’s commentary on issues of the day…

OK, today’s question is this: have you managed to offend someone lately? And if not, why not? No, I am not being a smart-aleck here. These are actually legitimate questions. You see, here is a truism you can bank on: if you proclaim truth in the public arena, you will cause offence. It is that simple.

And if you publicly speak Christian truth in today’s culture, you are guaranteed to offend someone. Indeed, how can you not offend someone? If you stand up and make any Christian truth claim today you will end up offending all sorts of people. Let me make it plain for you:

-If you say marriage should only be between a man and a woman, you will offend homosexuals and their supporters. -If you say killing unborn babies is wrong, you will offend those who are pro-abortion. -If you say harmful drugs should remain illicit, you will offend the pro-drug legalisation crowd. -If you say that God exists, you will offend all sorts of angry atheists. -If you say Jesus is the only way to God, you will offend all sorts of non-Christians – and even some wimpy Christians. -If you say we are all sinners who deserve eternal punishment, you will offend those who don’t believe this way. -If you say the Bible is God’s full written revelation to mankind, you will offend those from other religions or no religion. -If you say there is such a thing as absolute truth, you will offend the relativists.

The list goes on and on. It is impossible not to offend some people if you take a stand for biblical truth and morality in the public square. And there is nothing new about this. It has always been the case. Whenever God’s people have stood up and proclaimed God’s truth, offence has been taken – big time.

In both Testaments we see over and over again how God’s spokesmen were hated, rejected and opposed by others. You see, they took offence at the message being proclaimed. Let me offer just one Old Testament passage here: “To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the Lord is offensive to them, they find no pleasure in it” (Jeremiah 6:10).

Anyone not in loving submission to God will of course find his word to be offensive. They will hate it and reject it, and those who proclaim it. It has always been that way. And things are no different in New Testament times. One simply cannot read the Gospels and notice how often Jesus caused offence.

Everywhere he went he got people angry, he offended people, he divided people, and he caused an uproar. Yet today’s evanjellyfish think that all of this is taboo – we must not offend anyone or do or say anything to put people offside. We must just smile a lot and never say anything which might be deemed offensive, intolerant, judgmental or controversial.

Sorry, these guys do not have a clue. They obviously have never read what actually happened when Jesus walked the earth. Let me cite just one passage. Many dozens of others could do, but get a load of this one (as found in John 6:60-66):

“On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “’Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you – they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.’ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

Did you get that? Jesus offended people. He divided people. He caused many to turn away from him. And yet he was the most loving, gracious, meek and humble man to walk the planet. If such a person could not help but offend many, then how in the world do we think that we can avoid causing offence?

Of course the gospel message is deeply offensive. All those who live for self and sin will be offended by the gospel. That is natural. For example Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 that the gospel message gives offence. As he writes in v 23: “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block [or offence] to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”.

Given all this, it makes perfect sense to hear John writing these words: “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you” (1 John 3:13). Of course it will hate us – how can it do otherwise? To vainly imagine we can live a genuine Christian life and yet never offend anyone or get anyone bent out of shape is a pipedream. It just ain’t gonna happen.

Now, to say all this must not be misconstrued. Am I saying we should go around deliberately seeking to offend people? No. Am I saying we should delight in picking fights and getting people upset? No. Am I saying it is a good thing to be ornery, cantankerous and belligerent? No.

But we are to contend for the gospel, without seeking to be contentious. We are to fight for the faith, without seeking to be pugilistic. We are to argue our case, without seeking to be argumentative. But remember how the most graceful and loving man to ever live fared as he sought to proclaim truth. People hated him for it, and they eventually crucified him.

So if Jesus received such a response, why do we think we are going to get off without any opposition or enmity? As J. Gresham Machen wrote way back in 1923, ‎”Few desires on the part of religious teachers have been more harmfully exaggerated than the desire to ‘avoid giving offense’” (Christianity and Liberalism). Indeed, all the great preachers have always known this:

-“It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher.” George Whitefield

-“A sermon often does a man most good when it makes him most angry. Those people who walk down the aisles and say, ‘I will never hear that man again,’ very often have an arrow rankling in their breast.” C.H. Spurgeon

-“You can really test what is being preached by one particular criterion, and it is this: the gospel of Jesus Christ is always offensive to the natural man. . . . If you find the natural, unregenerate man praising either the preacher or his message then, I say, you had better examine that preaching and that preacher very carefully.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

-“Why in God’s name do you expect to be accepted everywhere? How is it the world couldn’t get on with the holiest man that ever lived, and it can get on with you and me?” Leonard Ravenhill

-“The desire to please may be commendable enough under certain circumstances, but when pleasing men means displeasing God it is an unqualified evil and should have no place in the Christian’s heart. To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.” A.W. Tozer

Amen and amen. So I ask you again: Have you offended anyone lately?

HT

 

How To Tell When Someone Is Lying

An interesting article from Forbes here.

 

Archbishop Louis Falk, Unity, Accountability and the Blogs

I refer you to a previous post, that is drawing a fair amount of attention and comment. I’ll tell you why this is so in a minute. But first note this comment by a one Glenda Lough:

‘Archbishop Falk Not Joining the Ordinariate’ -wonderful headline, redolent of the equally risible and bathetic ‘Queen Not Dead’ headline which appeared in the (UK) Sunday Times some years ago.

John Bruce responds:

This blog entry http://www.theanglocatholic.com/tag/archbishop-louis-falk/ from 2010 makes it plain that Falk had been aligned with Bps Campese and Moyer within the ACA as favoring Anglicanorum coetibus. I believe the headline appropriately expresses a change in views by Falk, whereas the Queen does not change state until she passes away.

See here’s the thing about the blogs: They hold people accountable. It’s very easy to vilify the blogs, when they don’t suit your purposes, when you don’t agree with what is being said on them, and when they expose otherwise unpopular truths.

Archbishop Louis Falk was the once Primate of the TAC, a public figure, who (like many others) stridently lead us the way of the Ordinariate. He then dropped off the radar. Just like that. Rumours and speculation naturally abounded. Now, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to do an about-face, and that under the assumption that people have simply forgotten. He was pro-Ordinariate. Now he is not going. And he doesn’t even have the mettle to stand up and say so. Simple accountability. And accountable he is (!), to all those he (once) lead down a path of Christian unity, a path that is now fast becoming nothing more than a most inconvenient blight, a matter the sooner forgotten, the better, or at least, so it would seem…

Cave, cave, deus videt.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

- Hebrews 4:13

Bloggers Expose Matters

The Russian Orthodox Church has admitted it doctored a photograph of Patriarch Kirill on its website to erase his expensive watch, after bloggers highlighted the efforts.

The Telegraph reports:

The picture in question shows the patriarch sitting at a polished wooden table with Russia’s Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov in 2009.

While his wrist appears to be covered with a black tunic, a reflection on the table reveals a fancy watch.

“Employees of the press office’s photo department have made an absurd mistake while working with the photo archive on the website,” a statement circulated by the patriarch’s press service said.

“Why a crude violation of our ethics was committed is something that will be carefully investigated, and the guilty will be severely punished.”

“They have completely lost their minds in the Russian Orthodox Church,” wrote Vadim Petrichenko, a blogger who was the first to find the doctored photo and put it on his Facebook page on Wednesday evening.

The photos were replaced with the original undoctored version Thursday.

Patriarch Kirill’s watch has been a subject of controversy ever since he wore it on a visit to Ukraine in 2009. Perceptive observers identified the model as a Breguet, which costs about 30,000 euros.

The patriarch last week denied that he wears such a watch and called any photo evidence a collage.

The church is currently suffering through a public-relations nightmare…

More here.

I keep saying this: Don’t lie. Be honest. The truth will come out, one way or another… It always does! And it really looks especially bad when leaders in the Church are found out.

 

Truth

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

-  Winston Churchill

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote to Start the Day

A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, what kind of gospel is that? Preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed do not light up the world!

- Archbishop Oscar Romero

 

Something to Think About

HT

 

The True Causes of Schism

We often think schism is caused by heresy, but often it is the case that a heresy is merely propped up as an excuse for the schism, when the real motives lie elsewhere.

In his essay, “Cultural Polarity and Religious Schism,” the great historian Christopher Dawson wrote:

Behind every heresy lies some kind of social conflict, and it is only by the resolution of this conflict that unity can be restored.

He gives as an example the Armenian schism at the time of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon.

Yet even from the beginning it is obvious that the passions which filled the steets of Alexandria with tumult and bloodshed and set bishops fighting like wild animals were not inspired by a pure desire for theological truth or even by purely religious motives of any kind.

Dawson goes on to analyze the sociological causes behind schisms, including that of Protestantism in Europe during the time of the Reformation, but I want to focus more specifically on the Orthodox schism.

It seems clear to me that the Orthodox schism from the Catholic Church was caused by motives other than theological. Indeed, reading the history of the events of the schism, the rift between the Latin West and Greek East, coupled with the overweening pride of the leaders on both sides, it is clear that such deep cultural, political, and geographic differences contributed to the schism more than the relatively minor theological differences… 

More here.

Swedish Church Members ‘Don’t Believe in Jesus’

Only 15 percent of members of the Church of Sweden say they believe in Jesus, and an equal number claim to be atheists according to the results of a recent survey.

I don’t even know what to say… I mean, what’s the point? Church without Jesus?!

More than 10,000 members of the Swedish Church participated in a comprehensive membership survey carried out over the past year and dubbed “Member 2010″ (Medlem 2010).

According to the survey, 15 percent of church members they are atheists, while a quarter of Swedish Church members identify themselves as agnostic.

The younger the members, the more likely they are to be atheists or agnostics.

Bromander pointed out that there is no requirement that church members believe in Jesus or any particular religious figure.

“Many are members, not for religious reasons, but because of the role the church plays in society, or because it serves as an organisation which maintains Swedish traditions,” said Bromander.

“In fact, there are many members who would rather that we focus more on our social work in Sweden than on Sunday services.”

Of the roughly 6.6 million members of the Church of Sweden, about 400,000 are active churchgoers, attending services at least once a month.

According to the survey, 90 percent of church members have a weak relationship with the Swedish Church, forcing the church to ponder whether or not it remains a relevant institution in Swedish society…

There’s more here.

They’re calling it ‘a byproduct of the secularisation’. That and the Church acquiescing, simply giving up on standing for and preaching the truth if you ask me. Biblical truth that is…