11-2-26<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A couple decades ago I was on a panel with Lauren Winner, whose recent book Girl Meets God<\/em> was a success and in the news. It was mildly controversial \u2013 as was I, to the extent that I swam upstream at the time against early signs of \u201cWoke\u201d in the church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My memories of that session, or her speech, have faded in my \u201cmind,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My impression of the Nazarenes, I think from its member Bill Gaither, was that they can be described as \u201cPentecostals without the tongues,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 which is why I was shocked to read a column<\/a> by the esteemed legal scholar and social critic Jonathan Turley recently, \u201cReligiously Woke: Dean of Students Warns that Saying \u2018In Christ Alone\u2019 Constitutes \u2018White Privilege.\u2019\u201d Excerpts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dean of Students Jason Cha<\/em> [at Point Loma Nazarene University] told student leaders that identifying as being \u201cin Christ alone\u201d is a sign of \u201cwhite privilege.\u201d<\/em> 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 \u201cI always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.\u201d His church leaders at St. Andrew\u2019s 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\u2019s Lutheran minister-turned-candidate Sarah Trone Garriott, who is<\/em> <\/em><\/a>under attack for participating in a Satanic wedding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a> to a controversy involving a poet brought to campus to share a view of Jesus as \u201cagnostic and horny\u201d and an \u201cerotic lover.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n If there are objections to such a trend in \u201chigher\u201d education \u2013 and I have many \u2013 it should not be whether an institution has a right to run its own affairs. I suppose. But I agree with Turley that \u201ca school established as \u2018a simple Bible college\u2019… seems determined to be something quite different.\u201d The matter at hand concerns basic integrity. But more importantly, much more importantly, it concerns the drift of contemporary Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are in a post-Christian age. Many Christian churches \u2013 Catholic orders and Protestant denominations; major synods and conventions as well as local churches \u2013 have strayed from orthodoxy. Obviously, as in the PLNU case, I do not mean retaining Thee<\/em>s and Thou<\/em>s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend Eva Marie Everson recently recalled the words of St Anthony the Great, \u201cA time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad they will attack him, saying, \u201cYou are mad; you are not like us.\u201d St Anthony\u2019s prophecy in the Fourth century echoed Biblical forewarnings\u2026 and has found echoes in observations of people like George Orwell and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in our lifetime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are schisms in major denominations \u2013 and thank God for the faithful remnants! \u2013 filling news accounts. Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Anglican\/Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and other \u201cfaith traditions\u201d are fractured, as groups and fellowships cling to tradition and Biblical precepts, and depart from parent organizations as if to say, \u201cI never knew ye.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Major denominations have decided to trash their own, and ancient, belief statements in order to adopt politically correct social-gospel standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many \u201cbreakaway\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 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\u2026 that the foolish will have \u201citching ears\u201d for lies\u2026 that people will call good \u201cevil,\u201d and evil \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have we arrived near those Last Days? Surely we are closer than ever (despite never to know the precise \u201ctime or hour\u201d) because there always has been Good vs Evil, however our time is an unprecedented age of deception, widespread heresy, spiritual corruption, and countless \u201cangels of light,\u201d false prophets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course we can determine to be watchful, spiritually aware, and \u201cas wise as serpents\u201d; we must pray for discernment. But that is not enough. Merely seeing the signs of times does not mean we should surrender. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> (Ephesians 6:12). <\/p>\n\n\n\n + + + <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n