Defending the Faith, Evangelizing the Eschaton
Here is a video of my presentation at First Baptist Church in Morristown TN on October 27, 2013. I cover material from Petrus Romanus and Exo-Vaticana.
Please leave a comment if you are interested in having me talk at your church.
As Petrus Romanus the Final Pope is Here co-written by myself and Thomas Horn was recently released in a new edition, recent actions by Pope Francis necessitate a response. In my first article for Before it’s News, I suggest we might be seeing harbingers of the dissolution of the papacy as Rome is judged in accord with “City of Seven Hills will be destroyed” at the culmination of the Malachy prophecy.
Read it here: Petrus Romanus Author Update: The Dissolution of the Papacy Into Limp Wristed Liberalism?
This film is 20 years old but we just watched it in a Christian Ethics class at SEBTS. It’s astounding how those promoting the gay agenda have accomplished most of their stated goals since the film was made. They did so largely by manipulating an ignorant postmodern culture who cannot make basic category distinctions. For example, even many who claim to be Christians cannot make the distinction between the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the gay rights movement. They say, “we accepted other minorities, why not gays?” But homosexuality is a behavior based identity choice whereas race and gender are not. They are not the slightest bit comparable but the general population’s failure to make the distinction has led us down the road to the moral chaos that exists today. It’s really important to understand the distinction. Even though it’s old and a little cheesey, watch this film.
During a Mass last week, Pope–Petrus Romanus–Francis called ideological Christianity “an illness.” According to the Encarta dictionary, Ideology can mean 1) an organized system of beliefs, values, and ideas forming the basis of a social, economic, or political philosophy or program. 2) a set of beliefs, values, and opinions that shapes the way a person or a group such as a social class thinks, acts, and understands the world. When considering Christianity then the second seems most applicable but it is not necessarily negative. It seems to me it means one tries to live consistently with what claims to believe. Pope Francis finds that unacceptable:
Interestingly, the Pope also criticized conservative Catholics for protesting abortion and same-sex marriage. When asked about homosexual priests who had infiltrated the Roman system he replied, “Who am I to judge?” startling words from the so-called vicar of Christ. As a result, secular humanists, abortionists and homosexuals are beside themselves with joy over the pope’s position against the hated fundamentalism. The term “fundamentalist” has been given a bad spin and I would like to correct it.
In 1846, the Evangelical Alliance was formed to unite all believers who saw liberalism as a denial of the faith. At a meeting in Niagara Falls, New York, they listed the five “fundamentals” that could not be denied without falling into the error of liberalism. These were: (1) inerrancy of Scripture, (2) the divinity of Jesus, (3) the Virgin birth, (4) Jesus’ death on the cross as a substitute for our sins, and (5) his physical resurrection and impending return. These doctrines are what separate the sheep from the goats. The church I attend affirms all of them. If yours does not, consider finding a new place to worship. While it is argued here that they are all essentials, two, four and five cannot be denied while in any meaningful way remaining a Christian. After all, Christ is the center of Christianity, the Gospel is His death and resurrection and the great hope of the believer is in Jesus’ promise to return (Heb 9:28; Tit 2:13).
Even the outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens has better understanding of Christianity than Pope Francis. This is an excerpt from an interview of Hitchens by a Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell concerning his book God is Not Great:
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.[1]
It is terribly unfortunate that an ardent anti-theist like Hitchens understood Christianity better than a minister like Sewell and, apparently, even the pope himself.
[1] “The Hitchens Transcript”, Portland Monthly, http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/arts-and-entertainment/category/books-and-talks/articles/christopher-hitchens/ (accessed 9/29/2011).
R.A. Torrey
R.A. Torrey (1856–1928) was an independent Congregationalist educator and evangelist. He was ordained in 1883 as a Congregationalist minister serving as a pastor and missions supervisor (1883–1889). In 1889, D. L. Moody asked Torrey to become the first superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute where he served until 1908. Torrey pursued his interest in mass evangelism and missions with overseas tours, including meetings in Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, and elsewhere. In 1912, Torrey took leadership of the newly formed Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola). His leadership was foundational for the school which today boasts one the top apologetics programs in the country as well as the well respected Talbot School of Theology. Torrey stayed at Biola until 1924. We need more men like him today.
In our increasingly pagan environment, poorly educated false teachers are infiltrating the body and spreading heresies and denying basic biblical theology. Recently the Lord has led me to address the attacks upon the Holy Spirit by Russ Houck (who claims a doctorate in theology from an unaccredited school) and his popularizer Rob Skiba, both who teach that that He is merely an impersonal force. While its common among the cults, it is a dangerous heresy. Torrey wrote an excellent book The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit stating in the very first chapter that this is not an optional doctrine but rather one that is fundamental to the worship of the true God:
It is of the highest importance from the standpoint of worship that we decide whether the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, worthy to receive our adoration, our faith, our love, and our entire surrender to Himself, or whether it is simply an influence emanating from God or a power or an illumination that God imparts to us.If the Holy Spirit is a person, and a Divine Person, and we do not know Him as such, then we are robbing a Divine Being of the worship and the faith and the love and the surrender to Himself which are His due.
RA Torrey, The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, (New York: Fleming HL Revell Company, 1910), 7.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has questions or perhaps was misled by the heretical teachings of Houck and Skiba. It is available as free download here.
