This is the second post in a series of studies found in the book “The Great Evangelical Disaster”, by Francis Schaeffer. I’ll be going chapter by chapter, sub-section by sub-section, in as much “true to the book” order as I can. Last time was the exception, because the last subsection is the thesis of the chapter – so, I covered it first. From the thesis, I’m advancing to the supporting truths used to reach that conclusion.

If you’d like to follow along in this study, and really get the “meat” of it, I suggest you pick up a copy of this book. It isn’t prohibitively long. It’s 192 pages, including references, both a preface and introduction, as well as “The Mark of a Christian” included, to reinforce the Biblical emphasis on love being the Christian’s mark in the world. If you can’t find at your local Christian bookstore (and I suggest you encourage them to carry volumes of a deeper nature, like this one), it may be found on Amazon . Onward.

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This is the opening post in what I hope will be an engaging experience – a study into the works of one of the great modern-day Christian thinkers. “The Great Evangelical Disaster,” by Francis Schaeffer.

Francis Schaeffer is the founder of the L’Abri Fellowship. That word, in French, means “shelter”. Francis was deeply concerned about the state of Christianity in the philosophical, theological, and public arenas. While not really an apologist, per se, his insights into the philosophy and basic tenets of Christianity may give us a better understanding of the world we live in, the ideas we face, and the true state of affairs the Church, and we as Christians, are in.

The introductory chapter to this book is entitled “What Really Matters?” The title question is actually asked at the end of the chapter, in a sub-section titled the same as above. He asks: “What is it that matters so muchin my life, and in your life, that it sets the priorities for everything we do?”

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Yes, it’s Mardi Gras time here. I hate it. I hate the hedonism, I hate the excessive drinking, I hate the immorality, and I hate the general attitude about it.

But, let’s move on.

James White, at Pros Apologian/Alpha and Omega has a couple good ones. A Letter to A Hyper Calvinist, and an explanation of Why No comments?.

James, by the way, is the winner of “Best Overall Evangelical Blog”, as well as the “People’s Choice Award” at Evangelical Underground’s Blog Awards.

Weapons of Warfare is also discussing James.

Wittenberg Gate is talking about Terri Schiavo. I’m glad she reminded us about her.

As you may have noticed, I have a strip across the top right. This is where I got it.

Evangelical Underground has an interview with one of his blogs of the month – Amy’s Humble Musings.

Imago Dei contrasts parental authority over piercings with their authority over abortion.. devastating.

Oh, and they’re also talking about Chess and the Christian.

Every Thought Captive covers outdated ideas… and Bishop Spong. You can imagine.

Bible Archive: The Simple and Glorious Gospel of God. The title says it all. Read.

off shore fisherman discusses pornography. Very wise fisherman. (and, my google hits just went through the roof… won’t they be surprised coming here :D)

Weapons of Warfare – Thou Shalt not Kill?

Ales Rarus covers Hyssop. And stuff.

Update 4:
I appreciate everyone’s help.

But, honestly… it works in firefox, and coding for internet exploder is an exercise in futility sometimes.

I’ve only known wordpress existed for a little over a month, and css isn’t my specialty.

If anyone wants to look at this.. let me know, and I’ll send you the template and css. See if you can make something of it. I’m tired of looking at it.

Update 3:

Every strong and bold tag is removed from the two sidebars.

I notice the right bar is up higher than the left… could that have something to do with it?

Update 2:

Ok, I’m annoyed. It happens when you mouseover a link that is bolded/stronged.

WHY does that screw things up, I’m asking? WHY OH WHY.

Update:

Ok, IE should work for everyone now. However.. if you’re on 800 x 600 resolution … it won’t.
I have a 16mb video card on this box… so you have no excuse 😛

Basically, I totally redesigned the template, the css, and everything. Kept the graphics, and.. yeah.

On Firefox, I get a friggin’ annoying textual glitch – I think the sizes, when it changes from bold to normal, is messed up. I have no idea where it is – I spent probably two hours looking for it. If you can find it… God bless you.

Announcements:

WEAPONS OF WARFARE IS THE WINNER OF BEST APOLOGETICS BLOG! Congratulations!

Vox Apologia IV is up at firstpete315. Go read it… or a giant monkey will carry you away.

Apologetics:

AllThings2All has a great post about Scientology. (Plus Scene and Herd goodness!)

The Huntington Apologetics Team has a good post about Judgement vs Judging.

Every Thought Captive covers World Religions, quotes me on Joel Osteen (vannnnity!), touches on Worship and Church Pressures, and has his own little link carnival – which includes a link to one of his older posts.

Wittenberg Gate goes Beyond the Gate.

The Minor Prophet has… a lot of posts. Just go visit, k?

Read the rest of the posts on Evangelical Underground’s front page. Because.. I told you to.

Oh, just in case you missed… EU is my Blog of the Week. Why? Because I said so – and because he’s cool. Can’t you just be cool to get an award? What’s wrong with that? I think “cool” is disenfranchised these days. I’ve givin’ a little back – y’know?

At Ales Rarus, I have to agree… there’s just “some people“. Oh, and Mother Mary is still a hot topic over there. (I hear it’s quite contrary.)

21st Century Reformation has a passion for content.

I look to pastor bloggers and philosopher bloggers and devotional bloggers and apologetics bloggers to begin using blogging to learn and discuss church reformation and become engaged in the discussion.

Eh. I’m not really all that into church reformation, myself. I tend to defend my faith from other faiths as a rule. But, hey… everyone’s gifts are different. Mine don’t tend toward the pastoral, I’m afraid. But… he’s a pastor 😀 Go check it out. You have gifts – and yours may be what God needs to use.

From the Adrian Warnock department: Of course there are apostles today, and The simple gospel in 10 points.

Oh… and AllThings2All gets a Warnie. Acceptance speech?

Weapons of Warfare covers Various Antitheses.

off shore fisherman… A witch is a witch. AWESOME post. Read now.

Also… he asks a good question. “Can you love Jesus too much?” Another excellent read. I like this blog. It’s great due to it’s brevity, and the wisdom in almost every post. Sort of like reading Proverbs.

Challies is having his February giveaway. So… go enter.

James White discusses The Qur’an in the Light of God-breathed Scripture.

Just go read Counter-Cult. I added them over the weekend – and they ROCK.

Also new – but, I’ve sort of been including them by default anyway… The Revenge of Mr. Dumping. His post in the current Vox Apologia is NICE. He says it’s “inspired BY” Vox Apologia… well, I beg to differ. It’s inspiring people to keep entering, in my humble opinion. It’s just that good.

Discourse(s) of the day:

Hookflash, who I had a discussion with recently, is chatting with others about it on the “Infidel Guy” forums.

This post will be the “home base” of Vox Apologia editions. So.. if that’s what you’re looking for.. you’re at the right place.

Vox Apologia I

Vox Apologia II

Vox Apologia III

Vox Apologia IV

Vox Apologia V

Vox Apologia VI

Vox Apologia VII

Vox Apologia VIII

Vox Apologia IX

Someone emailed me yesterday, and asked me to provide my thoughts on whether prayer (over meals, specifically) in public is acceptable, per Matthew 6:5-6.

Well, I’m going to make two caveats. One, I’m not going to link to the post in question, because it has seriously derailed. Two, I’m only addressing that specific question.

So, with that said, here goes.

Prayer, indeed, is to be private. However, there is a difference between prayer, and giving thanks.

What we do when we “bless our food”, as it is commonly called, is not in the pattern of prayer which the Lord outlined, in His prayer. It is not meditation and communion with the Lord, as a fully realized prayer to God is – it is an almost ritualistic blessing, or thanksgiving, for the blessings we have received from Him.

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A post at the Bible Archive gave me a interesting link to an atheistic site – which asks questions of God.

The questions are here.

The answers thus far are here.

The intro to the page says this: “God, if you truly exist, we have a few (dozen) questions for you. Why don’t you answer them for us? P.S. Any of your followers are welcome to answer these too. This is just the start of questions we have and there are obviously some we neglected in this version. So, all atheists, please submit your questions to be added to the list. And… “God”, you’re omniscient, so you know how to contact us, but for your followers and the atheists… Go here… CONTACT US.”

Also, on the page, it says: “God…

Sorry if these questions sound a little sarcastic. It’s just that we’ve been asking these for a very long time and we haven’t heard from you yet. Are you listening?”

My answer: Yes.

My challenge: Apologists! This is what we do. Go forth! Email, (or trackback to this post) your answers – and I’ll list them for you in a single post.

I want to make it clear: Please, please be careful to be a good witness, and a defender of the faith. God doesn’t give points for good arguments. He just expects us to give an answer – His answer.

(HT: Bible Archive.)

If you read their doctrinal statement, on their website, you’ll notice what they say.

WE

BELIEVE…

	•	The Bible is the inspired and only infallible and authoritative Word of God. Salvation has been provided and is available for people through Jesus Christ. Through His sacrifice on the cross, we can die to our sinful nature and be born again to a new life of purity and power.
	•	Water Baptism is a symbol of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ and a testimony to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
	•	The Baptism in the Holy Spirit, according to Acts 2:4, is given to believers who ask for it, provides power to live a sanctified and holy life and to be effective in service to God.
	•	As children of God, we are overcomers and conquerors and have authority over the devil and his works.

This sounds great. However, as you’ll come to see, “sounding Biblical” is different than “acting Biblically.”

They even have an answer for why they don’t really present the Gospel, during sermons: “The proclamation of the Gospel comes after individuals have opened their hearts to God and turned from themselves to others. Only then are they truly ready to hear and benefit fully from the Word of the Lord.”

Sounds reasonable, right?

Before every sermon, Joel leads his congregation in the following response:

This is my Bible.
I am what it says I am.
I have what it says I have.
I can do what it says I can do.
Today I will be taught the Word of God.
I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive.
I will never be the same.
I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of the Word of God.
I will never be the same.
Never, never, never.
I will never be the same. In Jesus name.
Amen.

What I have for you is something interesting. My parents went to his Lakewood Church last year. My mother has lymphatic/breast cancer, and was going to Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center.

They had heard about how large, and how great Lakewood was. So, they went to visit.

This was in the old building, before they moved to the arena. Outside, there are rows of flags. Inside, there is beautiful granite lobby. For new members, there is a room, with 12-foot ceilings. Very large. On the back wall, is a picture of “The Family”. The recently deceased Pastor John, his wife Dodie. Joel and Victoria. Paul and Jennifer. Kevin and Lisa Comes. (Lisa is John’s daughter). This picture is huge. It covers the entire back wall. The receptionists, the tour guides – they refer to the Osteens as “The Family”.

“The Family”? Hrmm. This sounds a bit Baker-like, doesn’t it?

When they asked about the flags – the 50+ flags outside – they asked: “Are those for the missionaries you support?” In many churches, they put out flags for each country they have missionaries in. The church I grew up in did that. So have several other churches I’ve attended.

The answer? “No… we have some missionaries in those countries. That’s not what they are for”.

Hrmm. Well, Lakewood prides itself in being “multicultural”. Which is fine. Their old building was located in the heart of the Houston ghetto, too. Well, a bad neighborhood, at least.

The tour guide gushed: “When visitors come, “The Family” stand right over there (in the lobby), and meet everyone, and talk to them. She points at a raised dias, well above the rest of the floor. Well, that sounds like putting them up on a pedestal to me. Literally.

Joel is the former media pastor of the church. Image, and marketing is where he comes from. Inside the sanctuary, there are riding camera pods set into the roof, which can zoom down, around, and everywhere, to film the services. The choir risers come up out of the floor. The band is arranged around a spinning globe of the world, to one side. They have Cindy Cruse-Ratcliff, Israel Houghton (or, if you prefer: here), and Marcos Witt to lead their worship. As a Music Director’s son, I can tell you – that’s an impressive lineup. She says so, as well.

But, now we come to doctrine.

“Listen folks, most of you here are born again Christians. But what I want to say to you is this is when you share your faith, don’t talk about the preacher, don’t talk about the church, talk about the fact that their sins have already been forgiven. That’s the good news. Listen; don’t dangle people over the fires of hell. Lisa and I always kid about you know we’re going to dangle them over the fires of hell. Listen, that doesn’t draw people to God. They know what kind of life they live. They know how bad they’ve lived. What you’ve got to do is talk about the goodness of God. Listen, it’s the goodness of God that brings people to repentance. It’s the goodness of God.”

That quote can be found here. This is his easter sermon.

Wait, wait… can I get a comparison to Jonathan Edwards? Anyone? Please, feel free to contribute.

*sigh*

I don’t want to judge, Joel, though. I want to point out two things.

1. He DOES preach Jesus. He mentions Jesus quite a bit, and he DOES say that Jesus is the savior, and that there are sins to be saved of. He gives the gospel – at least in some of his online sermons. Ok? He is NOT the antichrist, and he is not “our worst enemy”.

2. HOWEVER. His church, and much of his message are much, much, MUCH too man-centered. It is NOT repentance oriented. It is NOT “go, and sin no more” oriented. It is NOT spiritual meat. It is spiritual milk, being preached to thousands of spiritual babes. Because he doesn’t preach meat, he never creates spiritual adults. He keeps his thousands in their spiritual infancy.

THAT is what is dangerous. If he will not stand for doctrinal meat, if he skips over doctrinal “hard topics”, and he fails to teach, and only exhorts on a superficial level – he is failing in his calling. To teach the word of God, you need to rightly divide the Word of Truth. Which, incidentally, means dividing all of it. If he skips the meat, and stays with the milk, he will create a generation of spiritual infants, who teach other spiritual infants. Never will they grow up, and be “equipped” to fight the battle against the “principalities, and powers of this world”.

This is a problem. Joel, as I read him, definitely preaches the Bible. Unfortunately – he is too centered on himself, on “the power of thinking”, and on “faith healing”. Too much concentration on “the power of faith”. When my mother, who I mentioned was in Houston to be treated for cancer, arrived at this church – they gave her a pamphlet with detailed how she could be “miraculously healed”. Needless to say, friends – she was very, very upset. The receptionist prayer over her, and kept pushing on her back, as if she was supposed to “fall over in the Lord”.

Come now. I understand they are charismatic – but… skipping doctrine, encouraging man-centric theology/teaching, and promoting faith healing just is NOT mainline Evangelical thought. It’s not even left-leaning Evangelical thought.

He would be classified as a “charismatic” pastor, in my humble opinion. In no way should he be considered necessarily “Evangelical”, or even remotely so. He downplays too many fundamentals, and exalts too many man-centric concepts, despite the fact that he does preach, nominally, from the Bible.

So… that’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.

If you read this Joel… I love ya. But please… preach more doctrine, and less fluff, man.

It’s perhaps one of the most interesting questions in Christendom. “If you have never heard the Gospel – what happens to you?”

Well, there’s several verses which pertain to it. There’s several schools of thought.

Here is my take.

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge.” (Psalm 19)

God’s creation testifies to His existence. Also:

” For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from (by) faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

It’s not brain surgery, in my humble opinion. Whatever men need to know about God – He has revealed. I’ll say along with James Holding: “Those who want to know it, will be given the knowledge needed for salvation. Those who seek God will have God sufficiently revealed to them.”

Also, as he notes: “Nevertheless, it is not lack of hearing the Gospel that causes condemnation; it is sin that causes condemnation, and it is not hard to arrive at a deduction that sin is offensive to whatever powers one may suppose to be at hand (indeed, the religious history of sacrifice and penance suggests a broad awareness of this!) and that there needs to be some connection or bridge in order to achieve a reconciliation.”

One last thing: Jesus said, Himself, that the Gospel is hidden from those who think themselves wise.

“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”

I’m not interested in a “God isn’t fair” argument. God is NOT fair. He is Just, and He is Merciful. All deserve His Justice – by which all sin results in death. So, regardless of whether they heard the gospel or not – they are condemned. However, God is also merciful – so, He offers a chance to be saved from His Justice, by His Mercy. This is the Gospel. Are all granted the specific mercy of hearing the Gospel? No. Do you need the Gospel to be saved? Well… not exactly. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” But does the Gospel contain that? Yes. In today’s society, it’s hard to imagine someone who has not heard the Gospel. In far countries, and in foreign lands, it is possible noone has heard. From what missionaries tell us, though – it is more frequent to see a foundation laid in that place for the Gospel, than it is to not see one.

So, my basic wrap-up?

Who are we to say what happens?

If God grants us the Gospel, we are recipients of His mercy. He grants that mercy to whomever He will. We all deserve Justice. Some receive His mercy. Even that is much, much more than we deserve.

So… who knows? Our goal should be to “go, tell it on the mountain – over the hills and everywhere”. Only God knows exactly what happens. All I know is that His Justice – AND His Mercy – are utterly, inconceivably far above mine. Second-guessing either is just as utterly foolish.