Category Archives: Eschatology

Is There Not a Cause?

May 2, 2012 By in Absolutes, Church, Emergent, Eschatology, Gnostic Dualism, Post-Modernity, Relativism, Transcendent 10 Comments
Is There Not a Cause?

A cry of confession…

A plea for forgiveness…

A call to repentance…

…for myself and my Christian brothers and sisters in the West:

• By drifting into self-absorbed, post-modern subjectivity and relativism, we ignore the liberating blessing and power of God’s transcendent and objective truth, goodness and beauty for all of life and culture.

"All authority in heaven and on earth ..." ~ Jesus

• By neglecting the historic doctrines of the faith to embrace the attitudes of our day and the latest theological fads, we proclaim a disjointed and shallow “gospel” that lacks answers to the great issues of our age.

• By promoting a narcissistic “me”-focused faith, we forget that Jesus wants us to know Him not merely as savior, but also as sovereign creator, lawgiver, judge and provider.

• By seeking grace without truth, we no longer serve as salt and light to our neighbors, cultures and nations.

• By falling prey to Gnostic dualism, we fail to equip believers to be disciples who live out God’s precepts and authority in all spheres of human endeavor – including the “secular” and “material” world of our day-to-day existence – as our fellowships and churches instead focus, ad nauseum, on only so-called “spiritual” matters.

• By ignoring Biblical injunctions to renew our minds so we can be faithful stewards over all aspects of God’s creation, we’ve become trapped in intellectual lethargy.

• By embracing recent eschatologies of retreat, defeat and escape, we sit on the sidelines as God’s triumph over evil continues its progressive march through history and in other parts of the world.

Forgive us, Lord, for wanting only you and not also your Kingdom. Even so, we honor your name. May your Kingdom come as your will is done on earth, just as it is in heaven …

Gnostic dualism is a system of belief that views, among other things, the temporal material world as inherently bad and only what is spiritual as inherently good. It thus tends to withdraw from any redemptive involvement with the “world” to focus only on what is “spiritual”.

The main theological battle of the first several centuries of church history was between Biblical Christianity and gnosticism. The core beliefs of gnosticism, however, can be seen in segments of the Church throughout history, including today.

Celebrating 100 Years of Twisting, Licking and Dunking

March 6, 2012 By in Eschatology, Humor, Joy 3 Comments
Celebrating 100 Years of Twisting, Licking and Dunking

Today is the 100th birthday for Oreo cookies.

I LOVE Oreo cookies! They are proof that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives.

Enjoying an Oreo cookie also theologically demolishes all arguments one may muster in support of a pessimistic, doom and gloom eschatology. Ah, the joy! 

But enough theology …

The great thing about Oreos is that they single-handedly satisfy the FDA’s recommended daily requirements for three of the four essential food groups.

Those four essential food groups are sugar, lard, chocolate and caffeine. To achieve a balanced diet, though, I often have a mug of hot coffee with my Oreos.

I once made the mistake of mentioning our four American food groups to a friend from Canada. He seemed surprised, and said he thought the four major food groups in the U.S. were fast, fried, deep fried and refried.

I told him that was only true in the deep south. In Virginia, by God, we may be south of the Mason-Dixon line, but we’ve managed to hold onto some remnants of high culture!

I must confess, however, that strawberry “fig” newtons are my other weakness. At least they provide some pretense of being healthy (applying snobbish Canadian standards), since they contain fruit (that red goo is real fruit, right? – if not, don’t tell me and destroy my ignorant bliss).

Anyway, happy 100th birthday.

Now where did I put my box of Oreos …

Evangelical Prophets or Martyrs?

October 6, 2009 By in Catholicism, Charismatic, Church, Eastern Orthodox, Eschatology, Evangelical, Gifts, Great Commission, Kingdom of God, Leadership, Pentecostal, Pietism, Sovereignty, Truth, Worldview 6 Comments

I vividly recall leafing through World magazine back in 2006 and reading the unsettling but hardly surprising news that Randall Terry – the firebrand evangelical who formerly headed Operation Rescue and was then financially wiped out following a series of lawsuits by pro-abortionists – had joined the Roman Catholic Church.

“Unsettling,” because it provides further evidence of the growing weariness and disillusionment I’m seeing among spiritual “entrepreneurs” who’ve been laboring within evangelical circles to expand the Kingdom of God in all spheres of life and culture.

“Hardly surprising,” however, as those “on point” for the Kingdom increasingly seek refuge from the prevailing pop-theology (or dare I say lack of theology) and me-focused brand of Christianity that pervades evangelicalism (which includes charismatics and Pentecostals), animates many of our local church and national leaders, and cuts believers off from the great historic doctrines and creeds of our faith.

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