OD Today: 6 January 2009 (late edition)

This is a little early for a late edition, but I’ve got a lot to do this afternoon. More ReJesus, more Islam, and a cameo by Rick Warren. The best of the bunch is the second-least likely: one of the ODM detractors says global warming is done.

1. Student of megachurchs Ed Stetzer repeats an article he wrote for the Nashville Tennessean on how to stop the decline of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Yet, such change will require an openness to other approaches to church and ministry from different cultures and generations. Openness will be difficult since preaching against other ways of doing church still gets the “big amen” at the SBC meeting– even though the “Amen Corner” is getting older and smaller every year. If we share a common theology, we need to hold out a chair and ask new generations and ethnicities to sit at the table of leadership. We need leadership change.”
2. Ed Stetzer interviews Alan Hirsch, co-author of ReJesus. “Every time we attempt to image God, be it mental or metal, we limit him and thereby seek to control him. We must always allow Jesus to be beyond any stereotype that we might wish to make of him.”
3. Dan Phillips on analysis paralysis. “It’s just that we’ve moved the focus from my obeying right, in faith and by grace (which is an explicitly Biblical focus), to my yielding right (which is not). And I still fail, because I have to strike the right mystical attitude to shift into “J” for Jesus-life. If I’m not there, there’s something more for me to do.” This would be so much more helpful if he would point out examples of people recommending “doing nothing to avoid doing something in the flesh” rather than setting up a straw man and pushing it over. He mentions but does not cite Andrew Murray.
4. Bill at Defending Contending blames sin generally and divorce in particular for the current state of the American economy. “Capitalism must break down; it’s not designed for a completely unrighteous people. As America slips into paganism, our economy will become the economy of a pagan nation.”
5. James White on offending atheists; Daniel at Puritan Reformed amens. I haven’t seen or heard this sixteen-minute clip yet, but the “it’s time to stop being polite” argument sounds familiar to anyone who has listened to Richard Dawkins recently.
6. Daniel at Puritan Reformed offers a link to Brannon Howse interviewing Matt Smith; Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, attends Smith’s church. “Until and unless the people of the Middle East embrace Christ and surrender their hatred and their hearts to Him, there will be no peace in the region.”
7. Chris Lyons talks about the end of the global warming debate. Like Lyons we typically avoid the Huffington Post here, too. No quote necessary, really.
8. John Baker links to a Guardian (UK) article about the Richard Dawkins/New Atheist bus campaign. And with that color scheme I suspect Dunkin Donuts is involved somehow.
9. Bill Wilson talks about Islam in America, touches on the protests in Ft Lauderdale on December 30th. I think I also linked to this article dealing with those protests a few days ago. “Throughout the Bible it is shown that nations perish when they allow false religion to gain a foothold.” Yeah, that article on Dominionism is starting to feel overdue.
10. Speaking of which, Scott Isebrand at Religious Right Watch (not an ODM) tries “gays and lesbians are the new Jews” as a sound bite. “Fundamentalists the world over spread myths about gay people, sexual and reproductive health, and science, they do so hoping to leverage the fear they create into power and access for fundamentalist leaders and cultural influence for fundamentalism as a movement.” For the record, we here at ODT agree that some conservative Christians got way too cozy with Adolph Hitler and his ideas before and during World War II (but of course see also Dietrich Bonhoeffer). Are Christians (apart from maybe Fred Phelps?) recommending killing homosexuals?
11. James Swan spotlights Catholic apologist Tim Staples’s interpretation of Romans 5:12 (mp3 at link).
12. Paul Walker says the Southern Baptist Convention’s (offline?) Missions Mosaic magazine is recommending lectio divina and labrynth-walking. I can’t find original sources for any of this online.
13. Henry Neufeld starts off talking about Rick Warren’s “try it for sixty days” quote, ends up telling Christians generally to “get over it.” “What can we Christians be thinking? We expect Christianity to be easy (try it for 60 days). We expect to be prosperous, and for some reason, certainly not derived from experience, tradition, scripture, or even from any reasonable thought process, we think we shouldn’t be attacked, criticized, or ridiculed.”
14. David Reagan ponders the question of whether the Antichrist will be a Muslim. “I recently read four books that relate to this topic. One lays the biblical foundation without asserting that the Antichrist will actually be a Muslim. The other three use that foundation to make the assertion. Each of these books will be reviewed over the next couple of entries.”
15. Denise at Surph’s Side links to Clifton Loucks, who dissects and rejects the Apostles’ Creed. “What do unbelievers think as they attend our assemblies and hear us say, “He [Jesus Christ] descended into Hell” after his death, and then try to explain away the obvious meaning of the words by saying that Christ really didn’t go to Hell? Why should they believe anything else they hear in our assemblies?”
16. Chris Rosebrough: Book of Mormon “best used as toilet paper.” (~28:00).

OT Today: 23 December 2008

Here are the online discernment links for December 23, 2008:

• Reformata.org links without comment to a CANOE/Associated Press story about an Amsterdam nativity scene featuring a “Mary in drag.” The organization Christians for Truth is mentioned as having protested to the city.
• Orrin Judd links to comments by Joseph Alois Ratzinger’s comments that “saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction,” and links to a BBC news story.
• Job at Jesus Christology reviews and interprets the Disney movie “Meet the Robinsons;” “So what is this time machine? Your Bible. Most specificially, the prophetic and eschatological passages thereof.”
• Dwayna Litz recommends the weblog WifeBoat, an outreach to women in difficult marriages.
• Brannon Howse distributes an article by Israel Wayne on Presuppositional Apologetics. This article appears to be special to Worldview Times; I can’t find it anywhere else.
• Job at Jesus Christology offers his take on Obama/Warren: “The problem with Warren and those like him is that they offer a Jesus Christ that is Savior without truly being Lord.”
• Michael Davis offers a link and an assessment for Rick Warren’s “The Purpose of Christmas” article at Christianity Today: “excellent.”
• Michael at Chasing the Wind offers links to bad-news Christmas stories.
• Larry Schweikart, professor at the University of Dayton, author of 48 Liberal Lies About American History, appears on Richard Land Live (audi0); Land accuses John Kerry of treason, both discuss treatment of Ronald Reagan as a litmus test of the accuracy of a history text.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to an article on AMERICABlog pointing to current and cached versions of Saddleback Church pages, showing that language stating that homosexuals are not welcome in Saddleback small groups has been removed. Schlueter’s comment: “Biblical Christians are the offendees at the moment, raising sand over his removal of material from the Straddleback Saddleback website to appease his leftist, homosexual friends.”
• Lighthouse Trails links to an article by Melissa Etheridge at Huffington Post, comments “The writer, Melissa Etheridge, who met Rick Warren a few days ago at the MPAC Convention, believes that the world is on the brink of a new era. Note in the article that Rick Warren is softening his public opinion regarding the practice of homosexuality. Just as was predicted by MPAC last week, Warren is rethinking his views.”
• John Baker shares details, analysis of Warren’s address at Muslim Public Affairs Council Convention. “This statement by Rick Warren is so horrendous as it makes differences which can determine the difference between Eternal life and eternal damnation inconsequential for the sake of working together on what he calls areas of common ground!”
• Ingrid Schlueter shares a letter (PDF) from Margaret Manning at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries regarding Zacharias’s references to Henri Nouwen, comments: “The letter was in response to a listener to Ravi’s show who was concerned after hearing Ravi refer to Universalist and quasi-Buddhist, Henri Nouwen, as one of the ‘greatest Christian saints.’”
• Ingrid Schlueter also shares the Melissa Etheridge column: “Remember the column when I advised angry, anti-Warren gay activists to go back to their bathhouses because it would all be OK?”
• Ingrid Schlueter points to a press release by Patrick Mahoney and Kaitlin Clare of the Christian Defense Coalition regarding the concerns of (unnamed) pro-life groups that they will not be able to demonstrate at the Obama inauguration.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to Sam Guzmán/Always Ready sharing this John Piper video (“You Must Suffer”).
• John Sexton links, comments on the waning influence of religion in America: “Sounds to me like people believe religious influence is waning every time a Democrat wins the Presidency. As I’ve argued before, I’m not sure that really holds this time around. Obama was clearly the most religious of the two major party candidates.”
• Job at Jesus Christology comments on the Focus On The Family/Glenn Beck/Mormonism flap, layoffs at Focus. “Also, if the role of the gospel is to transform the world, then the Bible itself would declare the gospel to be a failure. Why? Because the Bible makes it clear: the world is never transformed. It is never subdued. It remains wicked and rebellious to the very end.”
• Ingrid Schlueter relays a press release for a new book by David Cloud/Way of Life Literature: “Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond.” I am interested to note Cloud’s preference for the King James Version of the Bible.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to a TMZ story on Rick Warren. Warren not only keeps company with sinners, he buys used books at their thrift stores, etc.
• Reformata.org apparently links an MSNBC story on the Saddleback website edits story, but the link itself is missing.
• Job at Jesus Christology calls out Atlanta church Ebenezer Baptist Church for inviting Rick Warren to speak on January 19th as part of their Martin Luther King Jr Day observance.
• Vic Eliason welcomes Brannon Howse to the Crosstalk airwaves (audio) to discuss the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (December 17). Howse says the convention “treats children as adults” including free access to pornography. Also, Eliason scolds evangelical Christians who voted for Barack Obama.

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OD Today 22 December 2008

I picked up a bunch of new links over the weekend, but right now everybody seems to be focused on Christmas and their personal celebration thereof, so links are a little light.

• Brannon Howse distributes Chuck Missler on The History of Christmas. I can’t find the original at Missler’s website.
• Brannon Howse distributes Steve Camp on church discipline. I think this is a reference to the Rebecca Hancock story, but it’s hard to tell.
• Brannon Howse distributes Matt Barber on “the gods of liberalism.” This looks like his Baalism post from World Net Daily a couple of days ago.
• Brannon Howse distributes a piece by Mark Creech; this is a fairly standard A-B-A piece calling America to repentance, with Christmas as a backdrop.
• Michael Davis links and comments on edited Christmas carols in the United Kingdom. I had been wondering where the War on Christmas stories were. See also Orrin Judd on Christmas carols edited in deference to modern sensibilities, including the plight of Palestinians.
• Joseph Farah’s open letter to Rick Warren; he asks him to call abortion “evil” during the Obama inauguration invocation. Ingrid Schlueter links and agrees.
• Sharon Lindbloom quotes an eleven-year-old article by Sinclair Ferguson on the differences between Jesus and Santa Claus; the article makes a passing reference to Pelagianism.
• Todd Rhoades calls out Ted Haggard, says he’s playing a blame game.
• Ingrid Schlueter summarizes a One News Now article on Rick Warren’s appearances over the weekend.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to a Ken Silva article regarding Focus on the Family/CitizenLink/Glenn Beck.
• Salt & Light gives the most detailed discussion of the Glenn Beck/CitizenLink story I’ve seen so far. It does not use the phrase “promoting Mormonism,” but instead notes that CitizenLink glosses over the differences in the Gospel as presented in evangelical Christianity and in Mormonism. This highlights the problem of making common cause with heterodox groups without saying something that isn’t literally true.
• Michael Newnham gives the bum’s rush to Ted Haggard and Joseph Farah. “See, we’re supposed to engage the culture and the political process unless we lose and then we are supposed to demonize those who won.”
• Lighthouse Trails links to an article at News With Views by Paul Walter on the perils of creeping Socialism. No actual American Socialists are mentioned.
• Ingrid Schlueter salutes Operation Rescue.
• John Baker links to an Agence France-Presse article quoting Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez, governor of the Bank of Spain, predicting a total world financial meltdown. “This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.” Baker adds related links in the comments.
• John Baker links to a Der Spiegel article on German church members who limit their Christmas service to tax-paying, tithing church members, says this is why Christianity is dying in Europe.
• Jerry at CRN.Info parses some recent Ken Silva articles (mostly the Rob Bell/homosexuality thread) and asks if Silva adheres to Sola Scriptura when he spends so many words quoting Walter Martin, Charles Spurgeon, and others. Also, he questions the scriptural basis of Silva’s model of pastoral accountability, especially vis-a-vis Rob Bell.
• James Thomas parses “the Christ within all of us.” He cites a local disc jockey, but doesn’t name the station or jockey.
• Reformata.org links to a Steve McConkey editorial/press release at Christian Newswire, correctly says “promotes Mormon Glenn Beck” instead of “promotes Mormonism.” McConkey: “Some of the false doctrines of Mormonism include polytheism, an attack on the trinity, that Jesus was the spirit-brother of Lucifer, that God the Father is married to Mother God, temple baptisms for the dead, the Bible has missing parts and many errors.”
• James White takes issue with Darrell Bock’s reported comments reported by Fox News regarding Rebecca Hancock and most churches wanting to handle the matter more privately, says the church should speak from a position of holiness, also talks about homosexual “hatred for God’s law.” No transcript available.
• Douglas K. Adu-Boahen picks up part three of his series on Sola Scriptura and the Emerging Church, responding to Nic Paton. It includes links to the first two parts. I do kind of wonder why the ODMs (e.g. Ken Silva) don’t take on e.g. Nic Paton, because he really is saying that Sola Scriptura is done and over.
• Gay Christian Movement Watch takes on e.g. Paul Halsall God’s love vs. God’s judgment and what both mean regarding homosexuals and homosexuality.
• Jonathan Dodson follows up on Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity claim that American Protestantism is dominated by semi-Pelagianism, both on his own weblog and at Creation Project. I kind of think it’s touching that he doesn’t seem to know that “100 proof” is not the same as “100 percent.”
• Vic Eliason interviews Lila Rose on Friday’s Crosstalk America (audio). “What Lila discovered was a pattern where Planned Parenthood employees violated state parental consent laws and statutory rape laws by downplaying the age of the fictitious man, while encouraging her to obtain a secret abortion by crossing state lines.” Strictly speaking because there was no act (there was no 31-year-old boyfriend, and Lila Rose is not thirteen years old) Planned Parenthood technically did not violate parental consent/statutory rape laws. I’d guess they could be convicted of conspiracy, though. Her website is here. The YouTube video is here.

Also, professional religion reporter Rachel Zoll covers Rick Warren’s stands on various issues in an economical number of words.

OD Weekend 20-21 December 2008

ODM posting is light over the weekend; I have to assume everyone’s remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy.

• Mike Ratliff interprets a number of scriptures regarding Hell as part of his ongoing response to Christian Universalism. Reformata.org links too.
• James Thomas interprets Ezekiel 9:1-11.
• Dwayna Litz links to a post by Julio Severo giving his perspective on abortion and homosexuality in American from Brazil. “I came to know that, many years before my first contact with the US pro-life message in 1986, Brazil had been receiving massive influence from pro-death America. Ford and McArthur Foundations, and many other American institutions have been for decades inspiring and funding the pro-abortion and pro-sodomy engineering in Brazil.”
• Lighthouse Trails accuses Rick Warren of trying to serve both God and Man, claims he’s explicitly claimed that religion doesn’t matter, just works.
• Bill Randles condemns the movie Twilight, scolds Campus Life, Focus on the Family, Christianity Today, Christian Teen, and Christian Stay at Home Moms Magazine for giving it good reviews, and commends Caryl Matrisciana and Paul Villanueva for this article; Randell’s article appears to be a summary with commentary. “I believe that ‘Twilight’ is a direct assault on the gospel, an obscene parody of the good news of salvation, the salvation we obtain by partaking of the precious blood of Jesus, offered as a sacrifice for us.”
• Lighthouse Trails reminds us that Rick Warren appeared at the 8th Annual Muslim Public Affairs Council Convention yesterday, and links to this article by co-headliner Juan Cole: “I came away liking and looking up to Warren. In fact, I wonder whether with some work he could not be gotten to back off some of the hurtful things he has said about gays and rethink his support for Proposition 8.”
• Lighthouse Trails repeats the latest update on the Stowers in LaGrange, Ohio.
• Ingrid Schlueter takes Focus on the Family to task for featuring Mormon Glenn Beck on CitizenLink Friday Five. Includes link to this YouTube video.
• Ken Silva takes another shot at Rob Bell regarding Bell’s position on homosexuality, mostly relying on Joe and Erica Martino as proxies for Rob Bell. Silva distinguishes between his position and that of e.g. Fred Phelps/Westboro Baptist Church: “Unfortunately Erica took exception to my comment confusing my proper Biblical position concerning the sin of homosexuality with the inexcusable and completely un-Christian actions of Fred Phelps.”
• Brannon Howse republishes a Norm Geisler response to Steve Gregg/Hank Hanegraaff regarding partial preterism. 
• Brannon Howse republishes a Marsha West column on the outgoing President’s concession that he is not a literalist, the reaction, and assorted cultural issues.
• John Sexton compares Caroline Kennedy to Sarah Palin.
• Dwayna Litz repeats a comment from a source I can’t identify, including the claim that Rick Warren is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and adds a link to a post by CBN reporter David Brody, in which Warren claims he’s neither from the political left or the political right.
• Laurence Justice tells why he doesn’t give an altar call. The original is here. “Charles Finney, the inventor of the altar call, was a Pelagian in theology. Pelagianism is a damnable heresy which teaches that the fall of man in sin did not actually make him dead in sin.”
• Lighthouse Trails mentions the Pew survey on whether Christians believe other faiths can lead to Heaven, mentions Rick Warren again.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to a World Net Daily story regarding seven students in Granby, Quebec (Jonathan Gagne and six others, not named) suspended from school for boycotting an mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture course. The corresponding National Post story is here, and has a tone that differs from the World Net Daily story.
• Dwayna Litz mentions the movie Zeitgeist. The corresponding Wikipedia page is here, and the movie’s home page, apparently with a stream for the whole movie, is here. The Google Video link is here. Most of Part One seems to be quotes from Jordan Maxwell, with video, plus a narrative claiming Jesus was a mythic figure based on the Egyptian god Horus.
• Michael Davis updates on California Attorney General asking the California Supreme Court to overrule Proposition 8.
• Ken Silva adds detail, links the same video regarding Glenn Beck/Focus on the Family. “Beck is a Mormon, and you can hear his tear-filled conversion to the god (read: demon) of Mormonism in the video clip below.”

OD Today: 17 December 2008

Here’s a summary of the day in online discernment:

• Ingrid Schlueter links to Dinesh D’Souza’s account of his debate with ethicist Peter Singer.
• Ingrid Schlueter joins Jeffrey Whittaker at Herescope in criticizing William Young’s novel The Shack. He takes Young to task for mixing fact and fiction and by implication portraying Jesus’s Crucifixion as just another story; she says evangelical Christians value their emotions over the truth of Scripture.
• Ingrid Schlueter scolds New Life Church in Elmhurst, Queens, for having a Seventies themed New Years Eve party.
• Ingrid Schlueter me-toos Ken Silva in calling out Rob Bell/Mars Hill over homosexuality; apparently Silva wrote Mars Hill asking about Rob Bell’s position on gay Christians and got a form letter in return.
• John Baker raises the spectre of hyperinflation and says we’re on the brink of The Very Great Depression.
• John Baker links to an article in the Jerusalem Post saying Messianic Jews Jamie and Stacy Cowen were detained by the Israeli Interior Ministry for proselytizing, which is illegal under Israeli law.
• John Baker links to an article from The Christian Post quoting a BeliefNet.com interview with Rick Warren where he refers to the social gospel as practiced by the mainline denominations as “Marxism in Christian clothing.” Warren also calls out evangelicals and fundamentalists for ignoring felt needs.
• La Shawn Barber updates the Lila Rose/Planned Parenthood of Indiana case, including an investigation by the Indiana Attorney General.
• Dwayna Litz says Jason Upton is teaching universalism.
• John Sexton links to a UPI story saying there is evidence of arson at Wasilla Bible Church in Wasilla, Alaska.
• John Baker links to a Times Online article in which Pope Benedict is quoted as saying that Philippians 4:4-5 and 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 refer not to the Last Judgment, but rather that “love is near.”
• John Baker links to an article by Gene at End Times Disciples on “Bootleg Faith.”
• Ingrid Schlueter says Phyllis Tickle wants to pull evangelicals into the influence of occultists.
• Ingrid Schlueter takes Rick Warren to task for appearing at Obama inaugural and gives her take on his social gospel/Marxism interview, saying nobody better embodies the social gospel than Rick Warren.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to a couple of Yahweh Yoga video clips.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to a US News/World Report story quoting David Gushee saying backers of Richard Cizik are looking for a like-minded replacement to follow him at the National Association of Evangelicals.
• Ingrid Schlueter links to a frame at Christian Worldview Network for this YouTube clip, a Catholic News Agency (TV) clip about a gay marching band scheduled to participate in the Obama Inaugural parade.
• Dwayana Litz sends an update on an outreach in Tel Aviv.
• Ken Silva says Jesus taught Sola Scriptura.

And finally, as a bonus: Brannon Howse visits with Vic Eliason, discussing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Wikipedia page for the Lord Our Righteousness Church.

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