Thursday, June 18, 2009

Religious Liberty and Homosexual Marriage: Incompatible

This is an old article from Chuck Colson. He provides a few case studies of what happens when Christians try to exercise their religious liberty over against the intersts of the homosexual agenda.

Maranatha!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Rev. Wright and "them Jews"

Perhaps as you read this article it might be helpful to remind you that the current President of the United States sat under this man's teaching for 20 years.

But as I have said before, if you don't understand American history and Black history you cannot fathom a Rev. Wright. He seems like a pulpit crackpot. But the truth is, he is not atypical of many Northern Black pastors and churches. He is probably more mainstream than many outside the Black community are aware of. It is unfortunate. His views are Black Nationalist and are ideologically driven by an alienation from "White American" Christianity of the 1900-1930s. Huh, you say? I think it should be called the hate that hate produced. Many Northern Black Christians and Churches responded to an indifferent White Christianity by leaving the faith altogether (Nation of Islam), radicalizing (Shrine of the Black Madonna) or melding Black nationalist ideology with Christian replacement theology (Trinity United Church of Christ).

That the vast majority of mainstream white Christian churches were indifferent to the plight of oppressed Blacks in America from the end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement - with a couple of exceptions - is a documented fact. Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is a not a reply to "racists and Ku Klux Klanners" but to the mass of indifferent White Christian pastors who refused to ally themselves with the evident work of the Lord in clarifying the moral aims of the Civil Rights Movement.

Thus, the indifference of the so-called "White" Christian church in America led Black people to conclude that "White" Christianity is the enemy of Black people. And it became possible, in this construct, for Black pastors to identify themselves and their churches with the ultimate oppressed figure - Jesus himself - at the hands of the Jews. Moreover, "the Jews", or in this case "them Jews", at-large have become the co-conspirators with Whites in the narrative of "keeping the Black man down" and "practicing genocide" and opposing the truth. Indeed, contra Jews and Israel, many Black churches have adopted the radical Palestinian mantra of "Zionism = Racism".

The trouble is, despite evident racial progress and a very real change of heart from many White Christians and predominantly White churches, Rev. Wright and many others have never deviated from this "ideology as theology". The oppression narrative has expanded its scope and has explanatory power for Black pathology now. It has filled the church pews Sunday after Sunday with the alienated and economically desperate throughout urban and northern housing communities for four decades. It remains very activist. And what community organizer worth his salt would not want be an active part of such a community institution? By golly, with the help of charismatic pastors fully committed to the rhetoric of nationalism, fully committed to the narrative of Jews and Whites as continual oppressors, why, an activist politician sitting the pews for 20 years under such teaching might actually come away with having learned something.

Good Lord, help us!

Interesting megachurches study

Here's a link to Christian Post about a study of megachurches. What most piqued my interest is what I intuitively sensed about them: most of the attendees are single. most people go to a megachurch because they're attracted to the worship style; most people stay at a megachurch because they're attracted to the senior pastor.


Interesting stuff...