That’s my argument against evangelicalism. They as a group somehow believe that you can mix intellectual analysis and reason with faith. Sorry, if I read my scriptures right, that aint’a gonna work.
Reason doesn’t have to be, but can be the enemy of faith. Trying too hard to reason things out will cause apostasy. The anti-christ will depend on peoples human reason to deceive them.
I was riding to a funeral with my Friend Harold Hein today. During the drive I was expounding on why the church of today is so inept. They don’t believe or accept the empowerment of the Holy Ghost. That is particularly true in the evangelical community.
I am on this bandwagon because I saw this article today in the news. Rick Warren is in the Middle East and says to our enemies that 80% of American people are against the war in Iraq. That simply isn’t true. He is doing what many well-meaning evangelicals do. They think by appearing “moderate” they can appeal to a wider realm. Sorry, you only appear weak and impotent. And stupid.
Here's what he said:
Pastor Warren expressed admiration of Syria and the coexistence he saw between Muslims and Christians, stressing that he will convey this image to his church and country."I live close to Wheaton, the center of evangelicalism. Or, better said, the center of weak theology and poor ministry. I feel sorry for those who graduate from these evangelical schools today. Unless the power of the Holy Ghost comes on them, they will shrivel up and blow away.
Rick Warren also is quoted as saying that 80 percent of the American people oppose what the Administration is doing in Iraq.
Blown away by every wind of doctrine as Rick Warren has just been blown by. I know he’s a big shot author, I know he pastors a 30,000 member church in California. I know he’s considered by most to be some kind of Guru. Color me really really really unimpressed. If you don’t know who you are as a man of God and you get pushed around by the zeitgeist of the middle east, you should be displaced by someone with actual spiritual gonads.
So, you can call me: Pentecostal, tongue talker, Holy Roller, charismatic, radical nutcase for Jesus and even Lutheran (Mo or Wi synod). You just doesn’t has to call me Evangelical. I ain’t one.
UPDATE: Rick Warren denies having said any such thing. OK. I will apologise and recant what I have said if in fact this rebuttel from Rick Warren turns out to be true. I was going on what appeared to be correct news reporting from Syria and not from bloggers.
But, in fairness, Rick Warren has responded here. I don't yet know who to believe. I think in the bad old cold war days we used to call them "Tools" of the enemy. I think Warren was blindsided.
I'm still not an evangelical. To the anonymus writer who I percieve was RonMak, I think your appelation of Evangelical in New Zealand is different from what it is in the USA. To be called an evangelical is not a badge of spiritual courage in the USA. And, I said I had NOT read Warren's book. I do own it. I have tried to read it a couple times and stopped because I found it wanting so. My wife read it and yawned. I don't get it, we must be a very needy people for this to have had such an impact.
2 comments:
I Am an evangelical. Not a Southern baptist one, not a red-necked one who supports Bush without thinking, and not a super conservative one because I too read the Bible and try to follow Jesus' teachings. I see without any question that Christ had a bais in favor of the poor. Not that he was against the rich, but that he saw how the poor were generally oppressed by the rich. I do not support super conservative policies because they have a general tendency to govern in favor of the rich and use generalities to excuse themselves for NOT helping the poor who live in their midst. In this way, I seem to differ from many of my evanglelical colleagues.
I do not know what Warren said in Iraq. I have to accept your word as the truth. If so, then Warren should have kept his trap shut. However, I HAVE read his "Purpose Driven Life" book and while I did not think it warranted the sales it generated, it didn't warrant criticism from anyone who hasn't read it either. What He said in it was in keeping with Christ's teachings and isn't that what all Christians are to do, evangelical or not!
The reason I am an evangelical is that they teach biblical principles more accurately than any of the other churches I've been to.
Regading the Holy Spirit: I don't know what churches you have been in, but I can tell you that evangelicals emphasize the works and empowerment of the Holy Spirit in their lives more than any other group of churches that I know of.
Of course, I do not live in the States, that may have something to do with it.
Evangelicals above all others stress that God's ways are not man's ways, and that the Bible is the anchor of reason (Prov. 3:5,6), which is totally different than the "humanism" you claim about them.
Regarding the support of the war in Iraq: The most recent polls I have heard about say that 65% of Americans disagree with the war in Iraq. That may be a bit off the 80%, but it is still the significant majority. So is this all Warren is guilty of?
I wonder how any one person such as yourself could be wrong on so many accounts.
I agree totally with the above comment. But I, too, am not an evangelical living in the U.S. I am a Canadian Evangelical. Unfortunately, Canada's evangelicals, particularly in the most western two provinces, are becoming more and more like the red necked, ultra right winged, conservative evangelicals of the Southern States. They notice the poor in other countries, but in their own country, they are hard hearted indeed. They spend one day a month working in some soup kitchen and then vote in the government that will hurt the poor the most. Is it only me that sees that something is wrong here?
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