Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-2-26

A couple decades ago I was on a panel with Lauren Winner, whose recent book Girl Meets God was a success and in the news. It was mildly controversial – as was I, to the extent that I swam upstream at the time against early signs of “Woke” in the church. 

My memories of that session, or her speech, have faded in my “mind,” and I think everybody that day sort of talked past each other, making our points. Never a bad paradigm, when issues are openly discussed: we have grown too eager for people mud-wrestling on every topic on TV and in assemblies. But I do remember the environment. Our host was Point Loma Nazarene University, its beautiful campus located between San Diego and the Pacific Ocean.

My impression of the Nazarenes, I think from its member Bill Gaither, was that they can be described as “Pentecostals without the tongues,” meaning believing in the latter-day validity of Spiritual Gifts but exercised rather privately. However accurate that representation, I had the impression that the denomination was firmly Biblically based and of traditional, sound theological tenets.

Since then I have married a lady of Nazarene roots, whose father was an official in its music ministry; I have attended its services around the country, and have a copy of its Essentials on my desk (although we are Pentecostals of standard practice ourselves). Nazarene doctrines, the recipient of Holiness traditions, are impressive.

… which is why I was shocked to read a column by the esteemed legal scholar and social critic Jonathan Turley recently, “Religiously Woke: Dean of Students Warns that Saying ‘In Christ Alone’ Constitutes ‘White Privilege.’” Excerpts:

Dean of Students Jason Cha [at Point Loma Nazarene University] told student leaders that identifying as being “in Christ alone” is a sign of “white privilege.” Turley, a Catholic, was not singling out Nazarenes, and neither am I, in raising the alarm over heretical tendencies in contemporary churches. In the political realm he noted, In Texas, Democrat James Talarico has declared that “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.” His church leaders at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church admit that most of its members are likely agnostic or atheist. Other Democratic minister-candidates have similar far-left views of religion, including Iowa’s Lutheran minister-turned-candidate Sarah Trone Garriott, who is under attack for participating in a Satanic wedding.

Point Loma previously has confronted controversy for offering Woke courses, its hiring faculty patterns, and refusing to allow a campus chapter of Turning Point USA. Turley noted that critics also pointed to a controversy involving a poet brought to campus to share a view of Jesus as  “agnostic and horny” and an “erotic lover.” 

If there are objections to such a trend in “higher” education – and I have many – it should not be whether an institution has a right to run its own affairs. I suppose. But I agree with Turley that “a school established as ‘a simple Bible college’… seems determined to be something quite different.” The matter at hand concerns basic integrity. But more importantly, much more importantly, it concerns the drift of contemporary Christianity.

We are in a post-Christian age. Many Christian churches – Catholic orders and Protestant denominations; major synods and conventions as well as local churches – have strayed from orthodoxy. Obviously, as in the PLNU case, I do not mean retaining Thees and Thous or the Latin mass or such details. I mean questioning the Divinity of Christ; the Virgin Birth; the Resurrection of Jesus; the exclusive means of Salvation as preached and believed for 2000 years. 

My friend Eva Marie Everson recently recalled the words of St Anthony the Great, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad they will attack him, saying, “You are mad; you are not like us.” St Anthony’s prophecy in the Fourth century echoed Biblical forewarnings… and has found echoes in observations of people like George Orwell and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in our lifetime. 

There are schisms in major denominations – and thank God for the faithful remnants! – filling news accounts. Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Anglican/Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and other “faith traditions” are fractured, as groups and fellowships cling to tradition and Biblical precepts, and depart from parent organizations as if to say, “I never knew ye.”

Major denominations have decided to trash their own, and ancient, belief statements in order to adopt politically correct social-gospel standards.

Many “breakaway” fellowships are south of the Equator, and we are seeing a reversal of missional patterns of recent years: Black and Asian and Latin missionaries are being sent to Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America to share (or introduce?) the Gospel.

… and so forth. The list of apostasy and heresy is easy to begin, and, tragically, hard to finish. As sad as this turn of events is, it should not be a surprise: the Bible prophesied that in the Last Days the saints will be deceived… that the foolish will have “itching ears” for lies… that people will call good “evil,” and evil “good.”

Have we arrived near those Last Days? Surely we are closer than ever (despite never to know the precise “time or hour”) because there always has been Good vs Evil, however our time is an unprecedented age of deception, widespread heresy, spiritual corruption, and countless “angels of light,” false prophets. 

Of course we can determine to be watchful, spiritually aware, and “as wise as serpents”; we must pray for discernment. But that is not enough. Merely seeing the signs of times does not mean we should surrender. 

Wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12).    

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Click: Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross 

( www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlgwTxGlUk )

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Categories: Belief, Obedience, Patriotism

Tags: Chris Blue, St Anthony, Eva Marie Everson,

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