Eternal Security, or Perseverance of the saints, maintains that none who are truly saved can be condemned for their sins or finally fall away from the faith.
Discuss.
By the way – please avoid cutting and pasting arguments of other writers from other sites to prove your argument. If you want to cut and paste a bit here and there, that is fine, just put the URL where you got the info. You can also reference another URL, too, if you want us to go there to see what that writer says. Thanks!
My recent online wanderings have led me to a couple of interesting church of Christ related websites.
First, is Journey to Orthodoxy. This is a blog by Nathan Lee Lewis, who was formerly Southern Baptist, but has since become Orthodox Christian. He makes some pretty interesting pleas to Campbellite churches of Christ.
Second, is a website I found on JP Manzi’s blog, and it is a bulletin board for church of Christ persons who have since gravitated towards the Catholic church. It is called church of Christ to Catholic.
As a Protestant Christian, it is interesting for me to see these other two streams of Christianity, and how they have developed through history. And it is interesting that they all also claim the mantle of THE church of Christ.
Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July!
Believe it or not, I have found several blogs of people in the churches of Christ who are trying to figure out this new movement called “the Emerging Church”.
Personally, I’m not completely sold on the Emerging Church, but I do think that it is good that they are trying to figure out how to relate with the 21st Century western culture. I appreciate their willingness to thrash through the issues of traditional -vs- Scriptural. And I think that especially hyperconservative churches of Christ need to ask themselves hard questions about this issue (as do all Christians from every Christian background).
Of course, some Emergents go too far and throw the baby out with the bathwater, so that Scripture plays little role. But I appreciate that God is using this movement to continue the building of His kingdom.
The church of Christ and the Emerging Church? Wow. That’s a union I didn’t see coming. It’ll be an interesting discussion!
You can read about it here.
And here.
And here.
If you Google “church of Christ” and “emerging” or “emergent church” together, you’ll find more.
Thoughts?
I had an “Aha!” moment just now.
No, not that kind of “Aha!” moment. You know, like a “Eureka!” moment. Or an “Of Course!” moment.
Let me explain. A few minutes ago, I was walking past a house on my street and heard some sort of “Hillsongy” P&W music coming from the window. I didn’t know the song, but it was one of those obviously Christian songs – and as notoriously bad Christian music can be, I don’t mean “obviously” as a critique. In fact, it made me nostalgic for a few years back when I listened to a lot of that sort of music, and it also reminded me of some pretty significant things that happened to me at that time, in my Christian walk.
Then, the “Aha!”, “Eureka!”, “Of course!” moment hit… one of the reasons why I (and probably so many other people) get so angry and sad about the message that the hyperconservatives are trying to get out, at least in my community in NC/VA.
According to their message, the Jesus that died on the cross for me and for so many others was insufficient. His death was insufficient. His defeat of hell and the grave was insufficient. The blood that he gave as an atoning sacrifice for our sins was insufficient.
According to their message, the Jesus that walked with me and my family through personal tragedy (the death of my father and the burning of my church not long after) was false. The comfort we felt from the Holy Spirit as we grieved was false comfort. The unity that we experienced with our fellow church members was a farce.
According to their message, the Jesus that has inspired men and women through the centuries to give up everything they have to work with people who have nothing was anti-Christ. Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, Jim Elliot and Roger Youderian? All Lost. Lottie Moon? Lost. William Carey? Lost. The people talked about at the Voice of the Martyrs? Lost. All the faithful followers of Jesus through the ages who have believed differently than they do? Lost.
Why? How could this be? It is because they all served an insufficient Jesus.
The Promised Land
And for what? What is this wonderful alternative that they have set up? This Newly Restored Promised Land to which they are attempting to lead us? Certainly it will inspire a new generation of people who want to go to the four corners of the earth to share the Good News of God’s grace! Well, let’s look and see.
“If you don’t take the Lord’s Supper each first day of the week you are lost!”
“If you play a guitar in a church service, you are lost!”
“If you aren’t baptized exactly the way I say you should be according to my interpretation of Scripture, you are lost!”
“If you don’t follow the rules I have set up from my “study” of Scripture, you are lost!”
“If you aren’t in a church that I approve of, you are lost!”
And, finally, said to the “unbeliever”: “we are here to defeat destroy you and uplift truth”!
It Is For Freedom You Have Been Set Free
When I let myself think about the bondage that they are setting up for people through their deft mishandling of the Word of God, it makes me really, really, sad. It makes me sad for the people who will fall for their mishandling. It makes me sad for the people who halfway listen to them and, hearing them quoting Scripture, think that they are somehow authoritative. It makes me sad because it is an attempt to turn the Gospel into something that it is not – a prison, when Christ came to set the prisoner free (Luke 4:18); to give us freedom (John 8:32).
(image from here)
The Word as Blunt Weapon
“But they make people go back to the Bible!” some would say. Yes, that is true, but do they make people go back and sit at the feet of the Master to grow closer to Him, or do they make people go back so that they can also learn to prooftext the Word and fight with it like some sort of blunt weapon?
(Image from here.)
An Answering Voice
And I was suddenly glad that I had started this blog, so that there would be an answering voice out there. JR likes to ridicule us, that we may only have five (or so) people commenting here each day, but my blog status report tells me that we have hundreds of people visiting and reading each day.
It’s my prayer that some of them might be people who are looking for a way out of the bondage of this way of thinking, and that somehow we might help them to see that Christ exists outside of their assembly, regardless of what they might hear from the pulpit on Sunday morning.
My Prayer
And to any of those folks who might have stopped in here today, I share Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3:
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
(image from here)
This looks like an interesting blog from a church of Christ elder from Georgia, Alan Rouse. The title of the blog is “Christian Unity”, and it seems that, unlike the hyperconservatives in our area, when he says “unity” he doesn’t mean “uniformity” (thanks, Katherine). He means actual unity. Look for his blog to be added to the blogroll!
I would encourage his posting entitled “Advocating Against Unity“.
For any of our local hyperconservatives who may click over to look at the blog, please note that the man is very much Biblical in his arguments, and he seems to have a very Christlike attitude. Take notes!
If you are trying to understand where these folks are coming from, I would highly recommend spending some time on the ex-church of Christ website – especially in the “Church of Christ: Doctrine & Culture” board. There are some insight into this culture for those of us who weren’t raised in it.
It’s really interesting to me as a person who was raised in a different faith tradition, and you might find it to be so as well. At the least, it is informative to understanding any hyperconservative churches of Christ that might be in your community.
While Nathan and Corey debate I would like to offer my services to debate Johnny…..one church of Christ preacher to another……on the following issues:
Who is the enemy? Who is a false teacher?Or, perhaps on ministry approach.
Really, Johnny…who did Jesus call “hypocrites”? Those who were sincerely striving for God, but were mistaken in some areas, or those who were insincerely religious, who didn’t care about God’s will?
Doesn’t Jude 22-23 call for different approaches to different people? And it seems like (maybe I’m wrong) all you want to do is “hate even the garment stained by the flesh,” while neglecting “have mercy on those who doubt,” and “save others by snatching them out of the fire.”
Johnny, if you’d care to answer this challenge, you can contact Clint here at our blog, or on Randy’s blog, or go directly to the horses mouth at Clint’s blog:
In case you were wondering what was on that DVD that Chris didn’t show on Sunday night, he has uploaded it to the internet and given us permission to embed it here for your viewing pleasure.
You can comment here, or directly to Chris over at his blog: The Knight Shift.
For those of you in the WGSR viewing area, Chris Knight is supposed to be on Sunday night at 8:00 for 25 minutes. Charles Roark has apparently offered Chris 25 minutes to give his position regarding Johnny Robertson and their recent encounter outside the WGSR studios. Knowing Chris from his blog, I would bet he’s got something interesting up his sleeve! Let’s all watch and support him.
Answering the Church of Christ 