Evangelicalism at a Crossroads.

I used to be an Evangelical. What that means is, I subscribed to all the doctrines that Modern Evangelicals believe. Whether is was the doctrine of "make a sincere decision for Christ" doctrine, or the "age of accountability" doctrine, or "believer's baptism" doctrine, I was staunch in not only believing them, but in proclaiming them.

But with all of my certainty over these teachings, there was something about all of this that made me worry. After all, as much sense as everything made, all the doctrines seemed to line up very well, I didn't seem to have any peace. I remember back during my days as a moderator at Christianity.com, that with all the people who would sign up daily to the forum and start posting, the majority of them were almost looking for a fight, and many of them actually were looking for a fight.

Now being what I called a "thinking evangelical", I liked taking on the ones who were spoiling for a fight. I remember one individual who billed himself as a "Messianic Jew", who called himself SolaScriptura. He was all about proclaiming to everyone that they needed to start being Jews as soon as possible because that is what pleases God. Of course, when you tried to pin him down for proof that being a Jew, keeping all the commandments and Holy Days and Festivals actually is pleasing to God, he had none. Not pragmatic proof, anecdotal or biblical proof. We eventually wound up banning him from the forums altogether for teaching false doctrines.

But the thing that got me about all of that was, no matter how many times you banned them, they would sign up again and come back for more. The fighting still goes on at the Forums at Christianity.com. There's a thread there that is a debate between so called "Arminians" and "Calvinists" that is currently on 29379 replies with no end in sight! Nothing solved, no doctrines ironed out.

But, after a while of having to deal with this kind of thing, I was challenged by someone to listen to "the White Horse Inn". I accepted the challenge, and that led me to Issues etc, which led me to the confessions and the LCMS. That's the nuts and bolts of it, but the reality was that I was tired of the bickering, tired of always having to defend something that I knew wasn't robust and fully fleshed out... That being Evangelicalism.

Don't get me wrong, there are some wonder Evangelicals out there who know there stuff pretty well. In such cases you can tell talk about the finer points of doctrine; The Lord's supper, Holy Baptism, Monergism, the Holiness of God... But for the most part, Evangelicals are either one of two types: They are as close to perfectly happy as they can get with where they are spiritually, or they are growing tired of what's going on. The ones who are growing tired of Evangelicalism are the ones I identify with the most.

They are like me. I started down the Wittenberg Trail because I was tired of all the shallowness, lightness and frivolity that was going on around me. I was tired of feeling beat down. I was tired of seeing people being destroyed by weird doctrines, talk of annointings, extra blessings from God... I was tired of being told how to manipulate God, even though they wouldn't put it in such stark terms as that. I was tired of hearing someone say, "if you do A, B, and C, you will begin to see the hand of God move in your life"...

I'd imagine that there are people out there just like me. I've talked to them a lot in the last couple of years. People like that are at a crossroads. What will they do? Will they find a robust faith? Will they find people to challenge them to dig deeper into God's word than they ever have before? Will they find someone who will enthusiastically proclaim Christ and him crucified, for them!

Oh Heavenly Father. Let me be your sounding board. Let me be the watchman at the Crossroad to point the true way. In the name of your son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. One God forever and ever. Amen.

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Issues etc. with the Numbers Game

Recently, a letter was posted on the official LCMS website purporting to explain why Issues etc. was canceled. The reasons, in my opinion, are rather spurious, and as someone is more familiar than most what Internet download numbers mean, I have to address something important concerning the reason by David L. Strand, Executive Director Board for Communication Services on the recent canceling of Issues etc.

Some may also be under a misapprehension about the size of the “Issues” audience. In 2005, station management decided it could no longer justify paying for expensive ratings reports in light of the predictably low and static nature of KFUOAM’s audience numbers. At the time, a blending of the spring 2004 and spring 2005 “books” showed an average listening audience during the “Issues” Monday-Friday timeslot of 1,650. There is no indication these numbers have grown appreciably since.

First of all, Mr. Strand, if you aren't keeping track of the numbers because it's not justifiable in your mind to keep track of the numbers, you shouldn't be saying anything about numbers in the first place. If you don't know what the numbers are, don't talk about what the numbers are.

As for the audio streaming of “Issues, Etc.” via the Internet, the numbers are similarly low. During the last full month (February 2008) for which we have reports, the average number of live, streaming listeners during the “Issues” Monday-Friday timeslot was 64.

That's actually pretty high numbers considering people absolutely have to arrive at the KFUOam.org website to access the feed. What should have been happening is the station streaming audio should have been MADE accessible in as many places as possible. Plus, someone should have been looking other popular ways in which streaming media is distributed on the Internet. http://www.stickam.com/ is a place where many radio stations and shows are broadcasting their content, live as it happens.

Also, are you saying that the people who were calling the show, some regularly, and some not so regularly, were not pretty amazing numbers? Shawn Hannity doesn't get as many callers as Issues etc. did, but he's doing rather well for himself.

Now, I want to address an issue that David Strand didn't even address. Radical Grace Radio lives and breaths by downloads per month. We can find out what are ratings are for on the air if we want to, but I personally have decided not to worry about that until after we've been on the air for at least a year. Pastor Gary and myself frequently check our downloads daily, and lately for a show so new and still relatively unknown, we're posting impressive numbers, especially since it's mostly been word of mouth that drives our numbers. I recently came upon numbers by a friend at Wittenberg trail that shows that Issues etc. was having around 300,000 downloads per month, and that figure was very steady. If we at Radical Grace Radio had one quarter of that right now, we'd be considered a huge success in the secular world. Your average secular radio station doesn't do anywhere near that size of downloads for any given show nor for the most part combined downloads for the entire station!

Again, I have to ask... What's happening here people?

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What happening people?

This has to be the cheap shot of all time. Let me say something here folks, this isn't about a talk show or the hosts thereof. It's about a Church Body, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, wanting to throw away it's Lutheran heritage along with the trappings of old world German Culture. In doing so, they are turning from Grace and leaving the word behind.

What am I talking about? Unless I'm sorely mistaken, this is the current model for Lutheran Church.

http://www.watersedgefrisco.com/

Take a look at the sermon videos, all the band instruments dwarfing the alter, no space set aside for the work of God, a "youth pastor" styled pastor who's yelling and screaming and giving good advice. He tries to placard Christ and him crucified up before the people, but he winds up driving the verbs the wrong way. It's subtle, but it's there.

Pastor Todd Wilken has taught me too well. Where other world religions are growing by remaining authentic, we're throw any chance at authenticity we have out the window. While Islam and it's Imams still say that Allah is not the Christian God, we are comprimising the Triune God's identity to attract people. While other religions are not concerned about numbers, we are counting the heads and the beans.

What's happening people?

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Issues etc... RIP

Apparently, somebody high up in our Synod has decided to pull the plug on the most successful outreach and news program that ever was produced by our Church body. Issues etc, was cancelled Tuesday, March 19th. Rev. Todd Wilken, who was serving his call to be the show's host, and Jeff Schwarz the producer of the show, were fired. The buzzword that's being bandied about is "terminated". This happened during Passion Week.

This blogger, who has been busy with a radio show of his own, is appalled that a pastor could be ripped from his call so easily. I'm equally appalled that a program, that aired for 14 hours a week and was the premier catechisis for many of us new Lutheran Converts, was taken down when it was so successful and was such a money maker for the station it ran on, KFUO in St. Louis. Nearly everyone you talk to who has become a Lutheran in the past five years will mention the profound impact that Issues etc. had on their walk of faith, and now that it's gone, there's a huge void left behind. Who will pick up the mantle?

There's been talk on Wittenber Trail of continuing the show via the internet. I'm all for that, but I'm all for us lay people and pastors taking a greater role in the future of our Synod. We can, as has been proven in so many internet venues today like Youtube, Stickam, and others, as well as numerous podcasting services, make a huge difference in the world today. Since our message is the message of the Gospel, it's not beyond God's ability to bless this world with a huge outpouring of materila with a polished and professional look, while all the time proclaiming our Risen Savior and standing by our confessional heritage.

What we need is resolve. I've learned that God is interested in doing what he wants to do, and not to argue with him when he wants us to do what he wants. He's already, literally, thrown a radio show at us. He's throwing more. It's going to happen whether we want it to or not. We're just caught up in the drama of God's work.

Peace to you all. Let's show these emergent/evangelicals types how we do things down town!

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Blogger just shut down my Pastor's Blog...

The new blog I opened for my pastor and co-host, Pastor Gary Held, was shut down by blogger supposedly due to "terms of service violations". I'm concerned that someone out there is flagging our blogs in an attempt to shut down Radical Grace's web presence. If this happens, everyone needs to have this feed saved. Radical Grace Feedburner Feed


I'm posting this on all the blogs. Link this feed.

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It's official... John Hagee is a heritic.

Personally, I don't know much about John Hagee. I've heard a few of his sermons via KFUO on Issue's etc. but other than that, all I knew about the man was he is a staunch defender of Modern Israel. Apparently, he's gone off the deep end.



His new book, In Defense of Israel, should be an interesting read.

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Atheists Pwned by Upstart Theologian, part 2

Here is Doug Powell, once again, refuting the Rational Response Squad's (RRS) silly arguments. Doug is far from an "upstart", indeed, he's a published theologian and appologist. He just put up another video continuing and explaining his argument for a transcendental God.



I'm especially fond of his renaming the Rational Response Squad, the Irrational Response Squad, or more ironically(?), the IRS!

Thought I'd just hide that one out of sight. Go and visit Doug Powell's website Here. He's a musician who's toured with Tod Rundgren.

Either way, for those who don't know what the RRS is, it's led by a young man named Brian Sapient, who believes that anyone who believes in God is delusional. In fact, he and his cohorts would like to have belief in God classed as a mental illness in the next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The fact that groups like the RRS exist is exactly why we need good appologists today. We might not be able to convert people with standard appologetics, but at least we can stand in the left hand kingdom when people try to make an end run around the law and class us as delusional.

Rock on Doug, Rock on.

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ELCA permits homosexuals to be pastors

This is in response to a certain ELCA Lutheran's justification for "inclusiveness".

"Check out their hearts: the hearts of a loving, committed gay couple look just like the hearts of a loving, committed heterosexual couple.
Something tells me that THAT is where God looks first."

That is true. God looks on the heart. But what does He see there? Even in the hearts of a "loving couple", He sees idolotry, bigotry, sexual immorality, deceit, malice, adultery, stealing, vanity, covetousness... People idolize their churches because those churches make it ok for them to sin, practice bigotry against those they do not agree with, hop from bed to bed on Saturday night before coming to church on Sunday, then lie about all of it with malice aforethought to make others look bad... They take illegal drugs, lying, cheating and stealing to get them, steal intellectual property and refuse to pay for any of it, covet their best friend's wives and plot how to get in their pants. They say they are 'good', but their hearts are open graves before God, wicked and deceitful above everything else. All this they practice, and more, all the while slowly abrogating God's law with doctrines of men, screaming at God while shaking their collective fists, "but this is my nature, why can't I sin as much as I want?"



The reason you can't sin is not because you'd better not sin, but because God has buried you in Christ in baptism, and raised you to newness of life. Praise God that this sinful flesh I inhabit will die one day, and along with it all that is impure. Those who would choose to sin, using as their excuse "this is who I am", are missing the point. I sin, but I hate my sin. It's in my nature to kill, steal, blaspheme, commit adultery, lie, cheat, desire evil, and worship false gods... It's who I am, but I shouldn't be allowed to do those things, anymore than anyone else should be allowed to sin.



I'm an LCMS Lutheran. I will not tolerate someone telling me that their sin is OK while mine is not. It's wrong for people to do that. Practice what you will, but when you turn around and make me into the outcast because you want to practice your sin, then you have put a heavy burden on us. Pretty soon you'll be picketting outside our churches, calling us bigots, tearing down our alters... All the while using as your excuse, "it's in my nature to sin, why can't I sin as much as I want?"



God's gospel is not "it's in your nature to sin, so I'll look the other way because you're not perfect". God's gospel is, "I am both just and the justifier of the wicked, and have not spared even my own son in order to forgive". Our response to that should not be to sin more, but to love God because he has reconciled us to himself through the death and blood of Jesus Christ. When sin requires that much blood and suffering to reconcile us before God, I as a child of God have every right to hate that sin.

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Nulla Salus Extra Christus!!

Of late, Pope Benedict XVI has made a couple of interesting decrees. The one on the Latin mass is interesting in and of itself, but the latest decree is one affirming St. Cyprian's Dictum "Nulla Salus Extra Ecclesiam" (No Salvation outside the church). Actually it's not so much a decree as it is a restatement of what has already been said and understood as official Roman Doctrine.

Having said that, what is most interesting about this is how The Pope makes a move concerning both Easter Orthodox Churches and Protestant Churches. In Reaffirming his document, "Dominus Iesus" and over and against what the 5th Lateran Council said (and Cyprian), he calls the Eastern Orthodox Churches "defective", a point that has never been made as far as I can find. He then lumps every other church body into one box, calling them "ecclesial communities". In that particular box he lumps all reformational churches as well. He has stated in the past that Protestant Theology is "gravely Deficient", and called Protestant churches "not true churches", and reaffirms these notions firmly.



What I'd like to do is show to both my Lutheran Brethren and any modern evangelical what it is that Rome still holds to. From the Council of Trent...

CHAPTER IX
AGAINST THE VAIN CONFIDENCE OF HERETICS

But though it is necessary to believe that sins neither are remitted nor ever have been remitted except gratuitously by divine mercy for Christ's sake, yet it must not be said that sins are forgiven or have been forgiven to anyone who boasts of his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins,[47] resting on that alone, though among heretics and schismatics this vain and ungodly confidence may be and in our troubled times indeed is found and preached with untiring fury against the Catholic Church. Moreover, it must not be maintained, that they who are truly justified must needs, without any doubt whatever, convince themselves that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from sins and justified except he that believes with certainty that he is absolved and justified,[48] and that absolution and justification are effected by this faith alone, as if he who does not believe this, doubts the promises of God and the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For as no pious person ought to doubt the mercy of God, the merit of Christ and the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, so each one, when he considers himself and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension concerning his own grace, since no one can know with the certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God.

Stunning... Absolutely stunning. The heretics are us, my friends. Because we believe, teach and confess that Salvation is by Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria, and reserve no credit for ourselves whatsoever, Rome considers us anathema. In this, Rome's Tridentine Catholic teaching tells us that no one should ever say nor believe that they are saved. This is a weird type of Pietism that robs the believer of any kind of comfort in this life. Even more so...

CHAPTER XI
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE COMMANDMENTS AND THE NECESSITY AND
POSSIBILITY THEREOF

But no one, however much justified, should consider himself exempt from the observance of the commandments; no one should use that rash statement, once forbidden by the Fathers under anathema, that the observance of the commandments of God is impossible for one that is justified. For God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes thee to do what thou canst and to pray for what thou canst not, and aids thee that thou mayest be able.

Rome would have us be, at the very least, Semi-Pelagians. Note that Pelagius' teachings began because he believed that God would not nor could not command of anyone something that is impossible. "For God does not command impossibilities" Rome says. Pelagius said that same thing.

Grace alone? Rome will affirm this one, though grudgingly. Their doctrines of prevenient grace teach that it's God's grace alone that saves. But look...

Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost,[116] and remains in them, or also that the grace by which we are justified is only the good will of God, let him be anathema.

Rome teaches that grace is something more than God's good will. It's understood that grace is a substance that is literally poured into us. Note also that those of us that understand that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, and that sole imputation alone is all that is needed for justification, are condemned.

Let's witness Rome now condemn the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy,[117] which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

I deliberately refrained from bringing scripture in until now because I was interested in making people think about what they believe as opposed to what Rome teaches. But right now, I'm going to let St. Paul talk to this particular Canon...

Eph 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

Gal 2:16-17 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!

Ro 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Indeed, Jesus tells us this...

Lk 18:10-14 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Again, Because we believe, teach and confess that Salvation is by Sola Gratia (Grace alone), Sola Fide (Faith Alone), Solus Christus (for Christ's sake Alone), Soli Deo Gloria (For the Glory of God alone), and reserve no credit for ourselves whatsoever, Rome considers us anathema.

Nulla Salus Extra Christum.

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The Lutheran Church makes a Christian Difference

After a month long break from High Places, I'm back and announcing the blogsite is completed for our Church's Podcast, The Lutheran Difference. Four People enter, only one leaves... No, I'm only kidding. The show is a discussion of Lutheran Theology in light of today's modern evangelicalism.

It's been a blast working on this. I'll be posting here again as well as at the show's blog. When you go to the site, you'll find you can listen right from the site, download the show as an mp3, subscribe to the show in RSS and iTunes, as well as find out about future programs and find programs you missed in the archives.

Surf on over to listen to the show. I have a meeting later today with the participants to plan for more programs and such.

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