A couple of days ago I got a phone call from Mum. One of the oldest family friends, an Anglican priest and chaplain, who had been faithful throughout a long life, had died after a long period of illness. His wife said that he had become tired and was ready to meet his maker. As Mum said, his widow was calm, but the time of grief and tears will come.
He married me. Rest in peace, Bob.
I discussed this with Robyn. She said that those men believed, and it showed. They did not even have to preach. Their approach to all the sacraments was such that their faith shone. She does not see this now. The Anglicans have become too vibrant, too diverse and too political.
And they are dying. For the heretical spiral to convergence is one of death.
Having rejected the sovereignty of God and authority of the Bible — two cornerstone Christian beliefs — he was already substantially outside the evangelical fold. But then Bart committed what many would call an unpardonable sin: He became a universalist. He simply couldn’t fathom a God who would condemn his nonbelieving friends to hell for eternity.
“I was only interested in a God who would save everybody,” Bart said. “It didn’t matter that the Bible had some verses that said something different.”
This unholy trinity of Christian rejections sent Bart into a spiritual tailspin. He was thrown out of conferences and churches for preaching unorthodox beliefs. Then he published an article in “The Journal of Student Ministries” laying out his scandalous theology. After vicious pushback and cries of “heresy,” the article was pulled.
“I started rejecting the supernatural stuff, the orthodoxy. I no longer believed God does miracles or that Jesus was raised from the dead or that other religions were false,” he said. “My Christianity had died the death of a thousand nicks and cuts.”
But it wasn’t until the biking accident in 2011 that Bart lost whatever remained of his tattered faith. “While recovering, I thought, ‘When this body dies, I think that will be the end of Bart Campolo. I don’t think I will be going anywhere. I don’t believe in eternal life in that way anymore.’”
Today, Bart serves as the humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. He is only one of a few individuals in such a role on a U.S. campus.
I am confident that Bob is covered by the blood of Christ. He is of a generation that was born in the depression, sustained families during the cold war, and were faithful. That generation had its heretics. All generations do. And those who were faithful will be told by God that they were faithful servants.
The rest of us, living, need to today repent. Of the evil we love, and our errors.
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,
(2 Peter 2:1-10 ESV)
John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
(Mark 1:4-8 ESV)
This world is fallen. It is far better to be confessing your sins and in tears than pretend that evil is the will of God. At least the first person is honest in his apostasy. The hidden apostate does more damage, even as they damn themselves.s
On Wednesday (Dec. 7) the Rev. Nancy Butler of Riverfront Family Church in Hartford died voluntarily. For two years she had been suffering the debilitating effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease even as she continued to pastor the evangelical church she established in 2008 as “theologically open minded, diverse, empowering women and affirming of LGBT people.”
The letter she wrote to her flock last week begins:
I have decided to go off my feeding tube and vent this week and . . . how should I put it . . . die. I knew my suffering would reach this tipping point and caring for me would become impossibly demanding. What I didn’t know was whether or not God would want me to suck it up for some unseen purpose or end my life this way.
I am a little surprised God is confirming this decision. Nice to know He isn’t a sadist. He is oh so tender right now. He tells me my work is done and it’s the right time to come home
Having a feeding tube removed does not legally count as assisted suicide, but we shouldn’t be fooled by the passive voice. Someone took the tube out, very likely a medical professional. Nancy Butler died of her own will, with assistance.
If you do not provide the essentials of life you will die. Dehydration will kill even the fittest; The number of very fit athletes who ended up with heat stroke a couple of years ago in the crossfit games (which has now moved to the midwest, where the heat will not be as high) after “Murph”[1] testifies to this.
What is the greater error is thinking that God was behind this. Suffering is evil. It is a result of the fall. We can hate suffering, and evil, and pain. It is our duty to minimise this for others, having the courage to bear the burden given to us.
Knowing that we are not in control. God makes the rules, and he does not care for our false concerns for inclusiveness and non judgementalism.
He wants us to repent, and turn from our sin. He died to give us a pathway to him. He rose, ensuring our salvation.
Do not listen to the converged. There is a hell, and it is filled with those who had pride in their spirituality. It far better to join in the prayer of the criminal.
God have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.
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1. 1 mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 pushups 300 squats, 1 mile run, wearing a 20 kilo vest. In the 2015 games, this was done in the middle of the day in high heat. Elite professional athletes collapsed, and one potential top five woman had to withdraw