Month: January 2015

After dinner last night, which was good, primarily because someone slse made it with craft Son and I walked around Napier. In 1931 Napier was flattened by an earthquake and was then rebuilt in the fashion of the day: there has been some redevelopment at the edges but the bulk of the central city is Art Deco. Including the (ugly) cathedral, but not the (ugly) Presbyterian Kirk, or the (extremely, blatantly ugly, brutalist) Catholic one.

After last week, we will worship not with the Pentecostals, but with the Evangelicals, Baptist type. I checked out the bulletins of the nearest Presbyterian Kirk. Female minister. Last bulletin in the mid year. Discussion of enjoying Muslim spirituality while in Brunei. No. Not the Kirk I love, merely the form without life.

However, I remain a member of a Presbyterian Kirk (PCANZ): a combination of evangelicals and some emerging church type gloss. We love the people, and they have not yet fallen into error. The church, as the Orthodox Presbyterians note, is at times more visible than others, and at present the PCANZ remains supportive of the confessing believer. However, that could change.

“When must we leave a church?” The word “must” is key here. You are not asking when it might be okay to leave a church, but when does the Lord require us to do so? Maybe your choice of words was fortuitous and not intended, but if intended, I applaud the high view of the church which they imply. It is a curse of our times that American Christians flit from church to church to “ministry” to “fellowship” for the flimsiest reasons (e.g., where to put the wood stove, or the minister’s personality, or the music program, etc.). This is no way for God’s children to treat the Bride of Christ.

The Westminster Confession of Faith correctly observes that “This catholic [invisible] church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.” (25.4) And, “The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan …” (25.5).

True churches of Christ may vary in their purity of teaching, worship, and administration of the sacraments, and no true church on earth is free from error. On the other hand, some churches have declined to such at an extent that they are not true churches at all. Your question seems to be: where on this continuum of purity / impurity does it become the right thing to leave a church? Or: at what point has a church fallen off the continuum of true churches into being no church of Christ?

I don’t think that any individual (or couple) is competent to declare a professing historic Christian church to be “no longer a part of the invisible church.” Over the years some Orthodox Presbyterian authors in various articles have referred to the apostasy of the PCUSA, but it is significant that no assembly of the OPC has (to my knowledge) ever officially declared that the PCUSA is an apostate denomination.

Apostasy in the PCUSA was the issue struggled over, and its toleration (and the triumph of toleration-as-a-policy) was the cause of the forming of the OPC. But I do not think that as a church we justify our coming into existence (against the charge of schism) by saying that the PCUSA had ceased to be a church of Christ.

Those pastors, elders, and congregations who first left the PCUSA in 1936 to form the OPC had, before leaving, struggled for decades against the toleration of unbelief and the growing power of anti-Christian modernist heresy in the “broadening church” (to borrow the language used by a highly regarded PCUSA historian). They considered that their commitment to the church (an expression of their commitment to Christ) required them to labor for her reformation.

But when, in 1935 and 1936, the modernists and broad-church proponents succeeded in defrocking from the ministry the very men who had labored to call the church back to fidelity to her Confession and to the Christ of the Bible, it was clear that the time had come to leave. As a denomination the PCUSA not only refused to be disciplined on the basis of the Word of God, but rather imposed discipline on those who had sought scriptural reformation. (Echoes of the Papal Bull excommunicating Martin Luther for standing on the Word of God for the purity of the Gospel of Christ!)

That is a very long preface to the scripture, driven by a sense that our churches have taken Christ out of the picture and replaced him with a forgery: the forgery has over times been a fascist (Spain, Italy, Germany) or a Social Justice person (Argentina, The Vatican, the PCUSA). Christ was none of these, nor any other fashion of the day: a rationalist, an environmentalist etc.

Christ was God incarnate. He taught he was God incarnate. He promises that we can do great things in his name, but it must be Christ’s name, not our fashions, nor our wishes.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

(John 14:6-14 ESV)

One of the reasons I link to and pray for (not as constantly as I should) Roman Catholics, Orthodox, members of “Bapticostal” (their term) churches, Anglicans, and members of historically Black churches is that each one of these bloggers is attempting to be faithful to Christ. They love their church, but they are clear-eyed. It is not perfect.

None of us are. Our models of Christ do not have the power of Christ.

And compared with the trees, the world-renowned architecture of Napier has limited beauty.

Yet we should belong to a Kirk: we should support it: we should use it to provide charity to the poor and help to the suffering. In times of great need it is safer and wiser to have a storehouse that is guarded by the men of the kirk. And in times of great pressure, when the leadership of our churches tend to forget Christ and listen to the latest meme, or delusion, promoted by the media, it is time for us all to pray for our Churches. That they will remain faithful to Christ.

For on the last day, we will be united in Christ. Let us support each other, now.

__________________

Update One.

I could not belong to the PCUSA. They have lost authority by not standing on many issues, and the fact that they do not require their ordained members to confess faith and agreement to the confessions leaves them tolerating gross error.

There are many Presbyterian pastors, churches, and laity who are now wondering what they should do. The confessing church, made up of the conservative and biblically faithful believers, has been filled with grief, disbelief, and dismay. They finally lost the majority vote over acceptance and ordination of homosexuals, bisexuals, trans-genders, adulterers and fornicators into offices of ministry in the denomination. The truth is they lost this argument years ago by accepting principles of authority that predetermined this outcome. By staying and fighting they will accomplish nothing. They have been outwitted and out-maneuvered and have lost ground they will never regain. They can never win or reform the institution, and I will explain why it is better to leave than to try.

It is worth noting the divorced are not on that list: I would add them to it.

At the beginning of the new year, and particularly when you are on holiday and without distractions (though the motel we are staying in, even in the less desirable bit of town, has Wifi and TV, we are not cut off) is that you can do a bit of lifehacking. You can try things out. So this morning, instead of getting up and caffienating I went for a quiet and slow (oh, so very slow) jog to watch the sun rise. I found myself in prayer: then (caffienated) I approached the word. This is what i did as a kid, but chronic injuries have made me so stiff and sore most mornings that it stopped.

Time to start revising habits. This is not because the improvement in habits lead to salvation, but to make things easier when I get back to work and the pressure is back on me. Besides, at this time of the year, the cool of the morning is actively pleasant.

Lifehacking is useful, but salvation comes only through Christ: and for those postmoderns who query this may I refer you to the gospel for today.

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

(John 10:7-17 ESV)

This is very clear. Christ is the sole door to salvation, and only through him can we find peace with God. Christ is not going to limit this to the tribe, to Jewry: it will be for all people and for all nations. None will be excluded by colour or creed or race. We are, in Christ all equal in dignity as fellow children of God, and all equal in our need, for none of us have fulfilled the Law and can claim justification by our own righteousness.

And the other ideologies out there are destructive. Such as the SJW narcissistic activism, worshipped by so many.

This is the consequence of putting a childish and evil ideology, as well as your egotistical self, ahead and above all other people. Your career is more important than your children. Your PhD is more important than your husband. Your book is more important than your family. And your activism is more important than your friends. Sadly, all of those things cannot replace the most dynamic, intelligent, interesting, engaging and rewarding thing on this planet, and that is other human beings.

However, what is truly the juiciest morsel of revenge is that feminists and marxists do this to themselves. They have the same single shot on this planet as anyone else, which really is EVERYTHING a human has, and they piss it away on a religion that is nothing more than an excuse to be a narcissistic, self-absorbed psychopath.

Mocking them for dying alone with their cats really isn’t a cliche or a lack of genuine criticism. It’s 100% fact. And it’s a fact they should be constantly reminded of as the rest of us enjoy our lives and the loving people therein.

Now, the forces of this world are against us. The instruments of propaganda want to geld Christ, and remove Christianity from society: turn it into a footnote, make it one with the Hittites, Sodom and Gomorrah. And these people are within the church. The best example of this is what happened to the biggest group of US Presbyterians. That church is now broken, and the evangelical congregations are leaving it, with good reason.

In the same way, the PCUSA has long embraced a very liberal abortion policy. Their stated position has been that “the considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision.” And their sexuality curriculum teaches that abortion “can be an act of faithfulness before God to intervene in the natural process of pregnancy and terminate it.”

Note also that the “PCUSA actively supports and endorses the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (formerly the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, RCAR) and Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options (PARO).” Both organizations have been featured on the PCUSA website.

And despite opposing late-term abortions where the baby could survive outside the womb, the PCUSA’s medical plan “pays for abortion without restriction.”

Is it any wonder that this same denomination has cast off the Word and chosen to redefine marriage?

In their official statement, they wrote that their decision was “the result of deep discernment to hear God’s voice and discern God’s will.” In reality, it was not deep discernment but deep deception.

These are is just some of the reasons the PCUSA is in such decline, with membership now down to 1.8 million from a high of 4.25 million members in 1965.

And now those numbers will likely drop even further, as many PCUSA churches, leaders, and individual members will make the difficult but necessary decision to leave the denomination entirely, either joining together to forge a new group, joining an already existing group, or serving independently.

Already the Presbyterian Lay Committee has stated that it “mourns these actions and calls on all Presbyterians to resist and protest them.” The committee wrote, “You should refuse to fund the General Assembly, your synod, your presbytery and even your local church if those bodies have not explicitly and publicly repudiated these unbiblical actions.”

And they added, “God will not be mocked, and those who substitute their own felt desires for God’s unchangeable Truth will not be found guiltless before a holy God.”

Given the fact, though, that the vote to redefine marriage was three-to-one in favor, it appears that the only viable protest is to make a complete exodus.

The sad truth is that these faithful Presbyterians are not so much leaving their church as their church has left them.

Now, what to do about this? Well, reform our lives, repent (where lifehacking is a useful skill), of course. And refuse to take part in the progressive dance. The NZ Presbyterian Church has not taken these positions, though there is pressure from an incredibly selfish and entitled elite to do so. But these people are foolish, childish, and need to be mocked. Brother Mundabor, who is fighting for the Catholic faith, has advice we can all use.

You would not be led in moral matters by a child, or by a lunatic, or even by an old crank. Nor would anyone you know. Therefore, the best way to counter Pope Francis’ disgraceful papacy is to expose him for the man he is: an old, lewd man completely deprived not only of Catholicism, but of decency.
…
As the Catholic criticism mounts, non-Catholics will run to the protection of the Pope from the attacks of… sound Catholics, and more people will open their eyes.

We can all do our part. We can, again, contribute in the shaping of the perception, which in turn will heavily influence the effectiveness of Francis’ work. You can’t be considered a nincompoop and a great leader at the same time. Not even if you are Pope.

This Pope must be reduced to an embarrassment even the Press wishes it would end soon; a pathetic clown inviting bystanders to a circus show in which only some freaks have any interest; a walking cautionary tale about the dangers of looking for popularity at the cost of truth.

Let the winds of propaganda flow. But let us instead talk about the consequences of all this. If you live for Christ and your neighbour, you are not promised riches and your own personal bubble to make an individual spirituality. Instead you are told you will be opposed in your work, you will suffer, but you will find joy in Christ.

The elite, with their descent into childishness, have confused pleasure with joy, success with godliness, and misunderstood that freedom and maturity require self control and discipline. The Pagans will rise at the end and damn them as effete, foolish, and without any duty, for they knew better, seeing raising families as much the duty of man as serving in the ranks when needed.

Yes, we need to think carefully about what we do. But we also need to subvert the foolishness of this world by our actions: bowing not to their idols but to God alone.

One of the odd things about living in the Antipodes is that the Christmas/New Year holidays coincides with the summer school break and academic year break. My first tutorials are in February: it is this time of year that New Zealand shuts down and everyone goes and finds a beach and some surf. And, about ten days into the break, I realize that I truly need it. However, today’s text is not about that, but instead about new starts, doors opening.

Now, I know many who say that we should be stepping out in faith: I am not sure if that is always the case. For some are called, true, to move to other places and do great things for God. To leave their land. For the rest of us, our job is to remain salt and light, in a time which is neither. And we do this poorly.

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

(Genesis 12:1-7 ESV)

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

(Hebrews 11:8-12 ESV)

A slight deviation onto the election of Israel. God is not man, that he changes his mind, nor the son of man, that he needs to repent. The promises made to Abram are still valid to the people of Israel: salvation could come through keeping the law, but one man alone could do that, and he made the new covenant. If you are not under the new covenant of christ, you are under the old covenant, of Abram, Isaac and Moses.

And only a fool would offend those whose descendants have the promise that they can bless and curse nations and peoples. In this, the liberal poison that has rotted the PCUSA is showing its fruit.

The Presbyterian Church USA, the flagship church of America’s fading Protestant mainline, voted to boycott the state of Israel earlier this year, and nearly voted to prohibit the use of the word “Israel” in its prayers. The new Marcionism of the mainline churches justifies its aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies by rejecting a link between the living Jewish people and the God of Abraham. By contrast, both Pope John Paul II of blessed memory and Benedict XVI emphasized that God’s covenant with the Jewish people never was revoked.

That is also the firmly-stated view of the German Evangelical Church, the main body of German Protestantism, and it was front-page news in Die Welt, one of the country’s quality dailies, this morning. Its new chairman, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, told the newspaper,

“We speak today of the continuing Election of Israel. The new covenant for which Jesus Christ stands does not in fact replace God’s old covenant with the people of Israel. On the contrary, Jesus Christ brings the so-called heathen into the covenant. For us Christians he is the person in whom we experience God. But that in no way diminishes God’s covenant with Israel.”

Dr. Bedford-Strohm emphasized that his church had moved beyond Luther, the founder of German Protestantism, because Luther’s Jew-hatred could not be dismissed as a “minor error.” He puts the American Protestant mainline to shame. There is Jew-hatred in Germany, to be sure, mainly among Muslim immigrants….

Nonetheless, there is still a mood of repentance that must be acknowledged–in contrast to the smug, narcissistic progressivism of the Presbyterian Church USA, for example. I’m no Christian, and I don’t love my enemies, but I respect the grandchildren of my enemies who strive to come to grips with the past.

Well, yes. Smug, narcissistic progressivism poisons, and it will not allow one to listen and act in faith. Being aware of your own sin, your own broken state, allows you to listen, and in faith obey. For without faith nothing we can do.

Coming back to the text. Abram was given a mission. It was to live in a new country, as a stranger, and not settle: not be citified. He was not to give his loyalty to any city-state or nation-state. And by faith he beleived that he would have a son to inherit (rather than Eliezer of Damascus (Gen 15:1). He was not to follow in the practices of the inhabitants of Canaan.

For most of us, our mission is obvious. It is raising our families, doing our job, obeying the lawful orders we have. If you are a mother of two or three young children you need not seek another duty: you have a full-time job already. If you are a student, that is your mission and that is your mission-field.

We look to the spectacular and think we need to do great things. This is an error. We need to consider that even in an adventure, it is the mundane that preoccupies us. If you are climbing a hill you better not look at the summit but where your hands and feet are, lest you fall off. And you better be obsessive about cooking and camp hygiene.

We are promised sufficient strength for the tasks we have to do. And in our strength, we are not going to succeed.

Dwelling in God’s presence all the time is the only way through that that I’ve found, He’s strong enough to center me. I am NOT strong enough in myself, all I do is wash up endlessly on the rocks of pleasing one person or another. Painful. Pointless. Unpleasant.

Weirdly, after the initial fear-storm, centering on God is better, and I seem to be more of a joy to others. Which is important to me, and always will be.

Now, I have a very long task list for next year. So long that the first thing I need to do when I get back is write them all down in the front of the 2015 daybook and then strike them off as I go: a task I dislike as much as budgeting and paying the bills. But the people in my life are more important than the schedule, and God is more important than both.

Well, the New Years fireworks woke me as I was dropping off to sleep last night, and now it is the first day of 2015, the first coffee of the new year, and a time to do some summarization. There have been 23 000 user sessions and 83 000 pageviews last year. This site is still small, but it is not obscure.

Over the last year I have returned, over and over, to the theme of holding fast in Christ. That we need to be living a Godly life, in families that are somewhat functional, and continually reforming our own life. For our society is going down the toilet.

And as someone who went to a High School that would have never been allowed near Disneyland, I agree with this.

The first time my alma mater got our school banned from Disneyland was in 1961. Someone in my class brought dynamite to school, and I knew plenty of folks who carried. (I didn’t know back then, they told me later). People had sex in school! Anyone who can walk and is ever allowed out of their parents’ eyesight for more than an hour (including time when they’re theoretically at school) can make the wrong choice. (Ahem, 14yo isn’t going to that school – but he has at least one friend who will).

But the attitude of the normals (who have been infected with SJW) is more like, “Well Buffy likes girls (this week) and we’re trying to be supportive of that”. “Buffy wants to be called Butch now”. “I told her that she doesn’t have to wait for marriage unless she wants to” “We haven’t made any rules about dating…” -headdesk- “Just be honest and open with me”. You’re supposed to fear your parents wrath – aren’t you? All anyone cares about is that their kids get into college. You can have the character of a rabid chihuahua and that still counts as parenting win.

I guess I spend so much time now with the TC community and … you know, sane people? That when I bop over to “normal” land, it makes my head hurt. Oh well. They keep moving the bar down like this and our kids will cross over it without noticing. Thanks for making “exceptional” = “decent human being”.

I am no where near perfect. Neither is anyone in my family. We have our difficulties: and if anyone trolls me on FB you will find I have my fair share of troubles. That is life. We are not going to be prosperous or happy all the time.

But we need not fall into the pit of this society, where having the personality of a feral dingo (my cats consider Chihuahuas to be fast food) is a feature, not a bug.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

(Colossians 2:6-12 ESV)

Consider for a second this photo: taken on a walk a couple of days ago. It is a Koru: the symbol is one of renewal in Maori mythology — and taken on by corporations, such as Air New Zealand, as a logo.

[Note to the trolls: I took the photo. On a path. You cannot copyright everything: it is not a taonga for Maori only. I am of the 5th generation to live in NZ: three of those generations are buried here. You can take your restrictions and throw them in the rubbish].

This Koru is beautiful, and it reflects on the glory of God. But making a mythology about it is wrong. We should worship the creator, not the creation, nor the ability of us, the created, to make things that allow us to capture how light affects the beauty of nature.

And in this time of no standards, the regulations around any interaction with any other person have become overly punitive. Let us not follow the rules of this society: it is broken.

Let us, this year, turn to Christ, and not to our superstitions or mythologies. And let us continue to build each other up, encouraging the human, and not the orcish.