Following Jesus

Stephen Mcalpine: Riotism: A Movement for the post-Christian West

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Riotism

Ri/o/ti(s)m

noun:

  1. A subversive church community defined by a singular and holy commitment to Jesus and the faith once for all delivered to the saints as revealed by God through his Holy Word.                                                                                                                           
  2. An exuberant church community defined by a joyful and outwardly-focussed desire to share the gospel of the kingdom in word and deed with those who are lost, dying, hurting and rebellious.

Example of Riotism: These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also….and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. (Acts17:6)

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The western church of the early-mid twenty-first century will be a movement committed to what I call Riotism. It will have to be, or it risks not being a church at all.

Riotism is defined by a traditional understanding of salvation and the Bible, and a shameless assent to the credal statements of the early Church. It is defined by a firm, and courageous rejection of the new morality espoused by the world; a new morality, sadly,  being chased helter-skelter down the street by post-evangelical Christians in a vain attempt to prove just how right-on they are.

So what do I mean by Riotism? Is it worth another neologism in times such as this, when everyone is trying to find something new to say? Here are some thoughts:

Riotism: not Pietism

Riotism is no keep-it-to-yourself club that bunkers down, tips its lid to the world and tries to avoid trouble.  It is no “search within” Christianity that is content to let the world go to hell in a handcart, whilst sitting around the parlour fire reading Pilgrim’s Progress.

Riotism understands full well that wherever Jesus is proclaimed as Lord, the Caesar-du-jour is being challenged.  Riotism, whilst not going out of its way to placard and shout, establishes an alternate community within the wider community whose practices and values are not only strange to that wider community, but hostile in their very implications.  Not hostile in manner or approach, but by the fact they challenge every other Lordship, and refuse to be co-opted to Caesar’s cause.  Riotism should be misunderstood, mistrusted, misinterpreted, mistakenly attributed for evil, and missed  like crazy should it up stakes and leave the neighbourhood.

Read the rest here: Riotism: A Movement for the post-Christian West.

Mexican activists target Catholic cardinal with criminal complaints for opposing gay ‘marriage’

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Mexico shows where same sex “marriage” impacts churches and their freedom to preach Biblical values.

From lifesitenews.com

Mexican activists target Catholic cardinal with criminal complaints for opposing gay ‘marriage’

June 30, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, the retired archbishop of Guadalajara, has been made the subject of multiple criminal complaints by homosexual activists following a televised speech in which hedenounced the Mexican Supreme Court’s recent declaration nullifying state laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman, according to Mexican media sources.

In his weekly video address broadcast on the Catholic television network Mariavision last week and redistributed widely on the internet, the cardinal denounced the definition of marriage embraced by the court as “deviant” and a “perversion” of the true nature of marriage, words that describe the Catholic Church’s doctrine on homosexual acts.  He also lamented the lack of opposition from Catholic bishops, and theorized that the impulse to redefine marriage is an attempt to destroy the institution as part of a larger plan to establish a “new [world] order” and a single global government.

“Anything outside of this divine institution [of marriage] is an attack against it and is an aberration, and cannot be acceptable to a Catholic,” said Sandoval.

In response, a coalition of at least twelve homosexual organizations has filed criminal complaints with two government agencies claiming that the cardinal’s words are “discriminatory” and “incite violence” against homosexuals.

The cardinal “with his declarations is fomenting homophobia and transphobia,” said Carlos Becerra of the Diverse Union (Unión Diversa), one of the groups filing complaints, in an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE.

“The cardinal thinks that marriage between people of the same sex isn’t a matter of human rights, but human rights are for everyone,” he added.

Mexico’s left-wing Milenio newspaper reports  that another homosexualist group, the Cohesion of Diversities for Sustainability (CODISE), plans to file a complaint against Sandoval with the federal Secretariat of Governance, as well as against the seminary of Guadalajara because they “give a talk that incites hatred and discrimination and that generates confusion among heterosexual parents regarding the rejection of their homosexual children, and creates a repressive and suicidal mentality in their homosexual children.”

This is not the first time Cardinal Sandoval and other Catholic prelates and institutions have been threatened with legal action for daring to defend the Catholic Church’s doctrines regarding the immorality of homosexual acts and the nature of the marriage bond.

In August 2010 Sandoval publicly accused Marcelo Ebrard, then the Chief of Government of the nation’s capital, of having “fattened” the Supreme Court with benefits so as to secure rulings in favor of his anti-life agenda, which included abortion and homosexual “marriage.” Ebrard repeatedly threatened and then initiated legal action against Sandoval, using his own personnel to prosecute him on four charges. Ebrard also threatened the spokesman for the archdiocese of Mexico City, Hugo Valdemar, with legal action for stating that the city’s abortion regime was more murderous than narcotraffickers, because it had killed more people. The charges against Sandoval and Valdemar were found to be baseless in a verdict given in 2014, and Ebrard was required to pay all of the legal fees of the archdioceses of Guadalajara and Mexico City.

Jennifer LeClaire: Judgment or Awakening? My Response to America’s Great Fall

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Judgment or Awakening? My Response to America’s Great Fall

Gay American flag
The Supreme Court voted to overturn a ban on gay marriage, causing a massive ripple effect. (Reuters)
 
 
Jennifer LeClaire is now sharing her reflections and revelations through Walking in the Spirit, a new podcast from Charisma. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.
Watchman on the Wall, by Jennifer LeClaire
When I learned the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage I went into what you might call spiritual shock. I almost felt like someone had died. Someone didn’t, but something did. True liberty and justice for all. I am grieving right now over the false freedom that was birthed out of a false equality movement. I am mourning because true freedom and true equality have been replaced by a counterfeit crusade that truly sets no one free. I am weeping because America has fallen and many in the church are being caught up in the Great Falling Away.
A line in the sand was long ago drawn. Our tyrannical government crossed that line on June 26, 2015. When five Supreme Court justices trampled state rights they knew all too well Christian rights would be trampled along with them. Call it a betrayal of our Constitution. Call it an anti-Christ agenda. Call it an assault on religious freedom. It’s all that and more.
See, crossing this line in the name of equality was a spiritual assault on every believer who calls on the name of Jesus. This isn’t about allowing gays to get married. No, not really. While I stand against gay marriage, it’s not the letter of the law that concerns me most. It the spirit behind the law that truly grieves me. This ruling will open the floodgates to a tsunami of perversion in the land. Pedophiles now want the same rights as same-sex couples. But that’s the topic of another column.
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Of course, we wrestle not against flesh and blood (see Eph. 6:12). Our nemesis here is essentially the spirit of the world (see 1 Cor. 2:12). The church opened the door to the spirit of the world long ago, as is evidenced by the adultery, child molestation, financial improprieties and other scandals running rampant in the body of Christ. Unfortunately, we’ve discovered it’s not so easy to shut the door. High-profile pastors and entire denominations are capitulating to the popular opinion on gay marriage. As Charisma Media founder Steve Strang so aptly wrote, it’s time to stand up and be counted.
I would say that persecution is coming except that it’s already here. Bakeries, bed and breakfasts, pizza shops and farmers are being sued for refusing to accommodate gay weddings. Public officials are being fired for standing for the truth and military chaplains are being told they cannot pray in the name of Jesus. As the saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
So what is my response to America’s great fall? Will we see a great judgment as so many are saying in this hour?
Read the full article here

Stacy Lynn Harp: The American (Australian) Church is a Whorehouse

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Some very confronting words here for the American church and the Australian church also. Just change the nationality as you read.

Stacy Lynn Harp writes:

The American Church is a Whorehouse: Tullian Tchividjian Shows Us ThatScreen Shot 2015-06-23 at 12.11.22 PM   

I have many things on my heart as I have thought about writing what I’m about to share, so before I go any further, I’d like to ask that you don’t shoot the messenger and instead consider what I am sharing, then weigh in with your thoughts.

 

Yesterday the very sad, but not really all that surprising, news broke about the grandson of Billy Graham.  In case you’re not awareTullian Tchividjian admitted to adultery, after he was confronted by some in his church, and he resigned as the pastor of the church.  Note that he didn’t actually do the honorable thing and just resign when he knew he was doing these things, he had to be confronted by those in his church.  I actually think it’s a little miracle the leadership even did that.    The public statement that he released also revealed that his wife had also committed adultery.

I have to say that I remember when Tchividjian first came on the scene as the new pastor of the church because I found it sad that the grandson of Billy Graham was given the pastorate instead of someone who was apart of Coral Ridge at the time.  I remember thinking, “Here we go again, another Christian celebrity with the Graham name.”  I heard him being interviewed all over Christian media and I never understood why.  Why was he so great?  Because he’s related to the famed evangelist?  So what, big deal.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the Graham family doesn’t have the most stellar record of righteousness.  There’s been divorce among the children, adultery and even departure from the faith.  Even Anne Graham Lotz has written about her time away from the church because of her husband and her being thrown out of the church.

So, seeing another famous relative of the famed evangelist fall from “grace” as they all say, isn’t all that surprising and in fact, it’s to be expected.

I’m someone who didn’t have a Christian heritage growing up and I used to feel envious of those who were “blessed” to be raised in the church.  I no longer feel envious because most of what we see in this culture of Christian celebrity is nothing but hypocrisy.

The church in America has prostituted herself out for fame, money and personality.  To be even more blunt, the church in America is a whorehouse.  Now maybe that offends a few people and maybe you don’t agree with me, but that’s what I see.  There isn’t a day when there isn’t some news about a pastor “falling from grace” or someone involved in ministry of some type that isn’t caught busted in some “moral failure”.  Those “moral failures” are often sexual in nature, but not always, sometimes it involves money.  Other times it involves abuse of power and personality.

If we want actual revival in America, then it’s time to buck tradition and shut down the whorehouse.

Read the full article here

Forgiveness in Charleston

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The way of Jesus can be very difficult to follow at times, but when we dare to walk the hardest path the world takes notice.

Notice that in Charleston there have been no race riots, just prayer vigils. 

Alan Bevere writes:

 

The Way of Jesus vs. The Way of the Zealot (Allan Bevere)

 

Last Friday, the world witnessed the way of Jesus Christ in Charleston, South Carolina. The family members of the victims in the horrific shooting at an historic AME Church in Charleston, SC spoke to the racist young man that perpetrated the crime of killing nine people during a Bible study. Their words were nothing less than moving; and to a world that so often believes violence is the answer to violence, they were almost shocking.
 
Those who spoke to Dylann Roof did not speak in anger telling them they hoped he would burn in hell for his crimes. Instead they spoke through tears of grief and pain, not only telling this young racist how he had devastated their lives, but they did something that their faith demanded they do– they forgave him.
 
A daughter of one of the victims said, “I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul,” she said. “It hurts me, it hurts a lot of people, but God forgive you and I forgive you.”
 
A sister of one of the pastor’s killed stated, “We have no room for hate. We have to forgive. I pray God on your soul. And I also thank God that I won’t be around when your judgment day comes with him.”
 
The way of Christ was seen in those moments on Friday through his grieving disciples. Anyone remotely familiar with the Gospels could hear in their words the voice of Jesus on the cross– “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” Those moments on Friday were holy moments, when the way of the cross was demonstrated to be a real and viable way for the followers of Jesus to live. Many, including Christians, have expressed shock in the midst of their admiration, that forgiveness was the subject of their words to Roof, and not words of hatred. Most people wouldn’t have blamed them if words of hatred were expressed. There is something sad about the fact that even Christians seem more accustomed to responding in hate than with love and forgiveness. I suppose that is because we have far more of the former and too little of the latter.
 
We Christians like to talk a good line about how important the Bible is to us. Many of us tout the fact that it is our central and final authority. But it seems to me that all too often we spend more time talking about the authority of Scripture than actually seeking to live it in our lives. We have reduced the Christian moral life to just being nice and decent. Our morals are more reflective of our culture than the Bible we claim to cherish, as several Pew studies have shown. We know what the Bible says about forgiveness, but how many of us really take that radical forgiveness and put it into practice in the way those family members did on Friday? How many of us Christians were focused more on revenge and hoping this twisted young man gets the death penalty, than even imagining that forgiveness is possible? What we witnessed last Friday was the followers of Jesus taking the Bible so seriously, that they had the strength and the courage to put its words into practice.
 
The Wall Street Journal pundit, Peggy Noonan has written a fine editorial on this, but I take great exception to one thing she wrote– “What a country that makes such people. Do you ever despair about America? If they are America we are going to be just fine.”
 
I do not doubt that there are good and noble things about America and its values, but it wasn’t America that made these people; it was Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. What we witnessed on Friday was not American, it was Christian, plain and simple. They embraced the way of Jesus Christ in all of its difficulty and did what seems so counter-intuitive to the way things work in the world and in America. They opted for forgiveness instead of revenge.
 
What makes their actions last Friday so powerful is that even Christians in America do not think in this way. As I said, we say how much the Bible means to us, but then we find ways to opt out of its demanding ethic. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, to go two miles with the Roman soldier carrying his equipment instead of the one that Roman law allowed. Such demands make us uncomfortable, and since not even Jesus’ followers can imagine how that might work in the ways of the world and in America, we water it down, we treat his words as metaphorical, or we put such restrictions on it, that turning the other cheek amounts to nothing more than not responding when someone insults us verbally. We take the punch out of such words making them easy to follow, which means we don’t have to take them seriously either. Thus, actions like we witnessed on Friday are a surprise, even to most followers of Jesus. Noonan writes,

As I watched I felt I was witnessing something miraculous. I think I did. It was people looking into the eyes of evil, into the eyes of the sick and ignorant shooter who’d blasted a hole in their families, and explaining to him with the utmost forbearance that there is a better way.

But there are those who disagree that this is a better way.

The better way– the answer to what happened in that church in Charleston– as some Christians have stated, is not to for Christians to offer the way of Christ– the way of hospitality and forgiveness, but instead the way of the Zealot– let’s arm the pastors. Instead of treating strangers who come into our midst as friends, let’s assume that first and foremost they are suspects to be watched. After all, the way of Christ results in the cross, while the way of the Zealot, fighting violence with violence, is the only thing that is effective in the ways of the world. Such zealotry is not the way of Christ, but all too often it seems to be the way of America, and Christians have unwittingly accepted that way and baptized it.
 
And until Christians take seriously the Scriptures they claim to cherish, radical forgiveness will always be be the exception and not the rule… because the way of the Zealot is easier to embrace than the way of Jesus Christ.
It would be good for us to remember that the way of Christ continues to this day; the way of the Zealot ended violently and in defeat in 70 A.D. in Jerusalem. Apparently, the latter turned out not to be the better way.
 

Christology and Sexology

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From Ministry Matters:

REUNITING CHRISTOLOGY AND SEXOLOGY

June 23rd, 2015
 By Talbot Davis
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Don’t you hate it when your strongest disagreement is with your closest friends?

Here’s how that’s working in my life. In the same-sex relationship, intimacy and marriage debate that is currently dominating United Methodist news, I have a collection of colleagues with whom I am in substantial agreement on almost every theological issue.

That is, we hold to a high view of the authority of Scripture, an ongoing concern for the salvation of all people, a belief in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, and most essentially, a commitment to what is commonly called a “high Christology.”

By “high Christology” I mean an understanding that Jesus is not godly. He is God. He is not a great man. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is not one of many. He is the one and only. Along with my friends, I treasure the truths we read in John 1:1-4, Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:1-4 and Philippians 2:5-11. Every knee really will bow and every tongue really will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And yet a number of those same “high Christology” colleagues also embrace a new relational ethic in which same-sex marriages would ultimately be approved by and occur in United Methodist churches. With great passion and convincing articulation, they claim that you can at the same time affirm the historic creeds of the Christian faith and an evolving understanding of human sexuality. The list of these friends includes people likeSteve Harper, one of my seminary professors,Adam HamiltonandMichael Slaughter, Methodism’s highest profile voices, and the voices you hear among the new cadre of colleagues from theVia Media Methodistssite (an organization which, to be clear, has taken no official stand on changing the language in the Book Of Discipline.)

So I want to share a few lines with you on why I believe such a view is both intellectually and biblically untenable. In short, why a high Christology must be reunited with an ancient sexology. My points below will center primarily-though-not-exclusively on Paul’s texts, as he is the source of both the strongest language and the greatest disagreement in the same-sex marriage debate. 

Read the rest of the article here

Self-Love And Confusion in the 21st Century

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self-love-65693_1280

One of the biggest deceptions in our society is that self-love is a thing, much less THE thing.

With the rapid rise in wealth since the Second World War, large periods of peace in many places (always excluding the Middle East) and technological advances that have revolutionised society, the old ideas of responsibilities, commitment and so on have crumbled. There is a consensus that my life is to be the best life, as  measured by my desires.

The widespread availability of motor vehicles since the War meant that the general mobility of people has exploded beyond what our grandparents might have imagined. Where previous generations often were born, married, raised children and died in the one community, now people move house regularly. Fly In Fly Out and Drive In Drive Out workers are the new norm, meaning that families no longer  need to be near the bread-winner’s work place.

The communications revolution of recent years means that you can communicate with anyone any time right around the world. Not only that, people can portray any personality they choose online as they hide behind their screens.

The sexual revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s brought reliable contraception and the divorce of sexuality from pregnancy and thence from marriage.

All of these changes in half a century, plus many others that could be mentioned, have brought people in the Western cultures to an understanding that their self-actualisation, their own pleasure and personal satisfaction, are the most important things about life.

Society, inasmuch it has any role in anybody’s life, is there to facilitate my happiness.

If I want to use illicit drugs or go on a drinking binge then that’s fine as long as nobody gets hurt. Somebody will be there to overcome the health effects or the psychiatric issues later.

If I want to engage in high risk sexual activity then somebody will pick up the tab later for my anti-HIV medication.

If I want to walk out on my relationships then somebody will be there to pay for the care of my children.

The rhetoric of the same sex marriage campaign echoes this. If two people are happy then why get in the way of love?

If some white guy wants to live as a black woman then who are we to judge?

Collectively we have become confused about who we are and why we are here. Self-love is not the highest love, nor is the right to happiness a real right. Marriage is not about romantic love for that matter.

Christians are told we love because Christ first loved us. Because of that love we are to live lives of joyful service of God and the world, laying down our lives, dying to what we want to become what God wants us to be.

Our culture has got this so wrong. Self-love does not lead to better people- it just makes self-centred people.

When a whole nation of self-centred people all jostle for their “rights” then the nation is divided and chaos ensues.

We are in a mess now of our own making. Don’t blame the politicians, the judges, the media, the corporations. We’ve bought into the lie that it’s all about me. And the chaos- that’s ll about me too.

Separating From State on Marriage

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As the secular state continues to march away from the Christian ideals of marriage, more and more people are pondering a post-secular marriage arrangement by which churches institute their own sacramental marriages independent from the state.

While I have been praying for the current campaign for same sex “marriage” to be destroyed, I have also thought about alternatives to marriage. In NSW, for example, there is a relationship register set up primarily for gay couples but open to all couples. This would provide a legal recognition of a marriage celebrated by a church but outside of the legal marriage system.

Roger Olsen comments on the U.S. situation:

Some Thoughts (and a Proposal) about the Religion and Marriage Issue

It seems to me the next step in separation of church and state is one religious organizations should take. They should be proactive. Take the proverbial ball into their own court and decide and announce, very publically, that only they will decide for themselves who is and who is not married. This is the natural parallel with religious organizations alone deciding who is and who is not ordained.

In “old Europe” governments decided who was ordained with all the civil privileges and responsibilities attached to that status. So-called “sects” (religious organizations not recognized by the state) could ordain whomever they wished but, in the eyes of government, those ordinations meant nothing. In “new America,” gradually, through a series of court decisions, all governments got out of the business of deciding valid ordinations. Today, so far as I know, no government entity in the U.S. has the authority to declare any religious organization’s ordinations valid or invalid.

The next natural step is for churches and other religious organizations to take away from government the right and authority to decide for them who is married and who is not. Already some Baptist churches in Texas, for example, are doing this. Some are calling the marriages they perform and recognize “covenant marriage” and relegating marriages they don’t recognize as valid, for them, to the category “civil marriages” or “civil unions.”

Read the full article here

Ray Ortlund: What Kind of Men Does God Use?

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billygraham-praying

The Bible says, “If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21).  This is a big part of the power of the gospel.

Horatius Bonar painted that picture with greater detail after observing the kind of “vessels” God clearly used with divine power.  Writing the preface to John Gillies’ Accounts of Revival, Bonar proposed that men useful to the Holy Spirit for revival stand out in nine ways:

1.  They are in earnest: “They lived and labored and preached like men on whose lips the immortality of thousands hung.”

2.  They are bent on success: “As warriors, they set their hearts on victory and fought with the believing anticipation of triumph, under the guidance of such a Captain as their head.”

3.  They are men of faith: “They knew that in due season they should reap, if they fainted not.”

4.  They are men of labor: “Their lives are the annals of incessant, unwearied toil of body and soul; time, strength, substance, health, all they were and possessed they freely offered to the Lord, keeping back nothing, grudging nothing.”

5.  They are men of patience: “Day after day they pursued what, to the eye of the world, appeared a thankless and fruitless round of toil.”

6.  They are men of boldness: “Timidity shuts many a door of usefulness and loses many a precious opportunity; it wins no friends, while it strengthens every enemy.  Nothing is lost by boldness, nor gained by fear.”

7.  They are men of prayer: “They were much alone with God, replenishing their own souls out of the living fountain, that out of them might flow to their people rivers of living water.”

8.  They are men of strong doctrine: “Their preaching seems to have been of the most masculine and fearless kind, falling on the audience with tremendous power.  It was not vehement, it was not fierce, it was not noisy; it was far too solemn to be such; it was massive, weighty, cutting, piercing, sharper than a two-edged sword.”

9.  They are men of deep spirituality: “No frivolity, no flippancy . . . . The world could not point to them as being but slightly dissimilar from itself.”

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