Category: Christianity

Good Grief!!

No wonder things in our culture are so upside-down.

I was warned this was futility, but I insisted on trying anyway. I have joined two online Christian dating websites. One is dominated by Reformed Baptists and the other with Seventh Day Adventists. This rant is directed at the Reformed Baptists.

I first met someone that I knew was a Reformed Baptist minister when I was finishing college. He lived in Laguana (now part of Elk Grove). He had ten children that we all home schooled by their mom. Their house was immaculate. It looked like a model home. There were no toys or books out of place, and I was amazed at the cleanliness of the place.

Several families in my current church are from Reformed Baptist backgrounds.

It would be difficult to explain the differences between a Reformed Baptist and your neighborhood Baptist church. Reformed Baptists are essentially proto-Baptists. If you froze Baptist theology in about 1,800; meaning, no fixation of futurism as presented by Scofield and Hal Lindsey or Tim LaHay, then you would be in the ballpark. In the Reformation period, Baptists were pariahs and regarded in some circles as heretics, but their image has softened over the years.

Anyway, I was on a live chat that was held last Saturday with folks from the Reformed Baptist singles site. The moderator kept trying to find topics for us to discuss. Boy was his selection, controversial. Guys, I love controversy, but I would never suggest the topics that he did. One was concerning some states passing laws to post the Ten Commandments. Several participants were against the idea, which I found curious. Another topic that he tossed out for discussion was infant baptism.

As a follow-up, one of the guys posted a poll that members were asked to vote on. The poll had four opinions on posting the Ten Commandments. The four options presented concerned having a state pass a law to post them, getting a local school board to unilaterally adopt such a policy, sit out the discussion and just home school your own kids, or concern that states mandating this for public schools would result in states issuing private schools mandates too.

Folks, I was really frustrated with the underlying assumptions that people had when discussing posting the Ten Commandments. Looking back on it, I think it was their unspoken assumption that government is neutral or should be on religious issues. As stated often on this blog, there is no such thing as neutrality. All law is by its very nature religious. The only question is which god is being promoted, and which one is being undercut.

The baptism question was also a trainwreck. While I expect Baptists to expound the virtues of “Believers Baptism”, for them to invoke the Covenant as a proof of it is simply ridiculous. Sorry, but me and God is not a Covenant formula. If a person is in covenant with God, then so are all his descendants, born or unborn. A vital part of a covenant structure in succession.

For a child to be born into a Covenant family is to experience blessing and to be outside is to experience cursing. Again, there is no neutrality. Some in the conversation argued that a child being born into a Christian family was not a blessing to the child. The assumption is that all children are reprobate pagans in diapers. Such a view is no covenant at all.

I mentioned Merideth Kline and Ray Sutton and said they need to deal with the Covenant in terms of what these men have published. All I got was crickets. The truth is that they wouldn’t know the Covenant if it bit them in the butt.

Folks if some schmuck off the street was this ignorant, I would expect that, but these guys think they are God’s gift to the Church and ready to lead the next generation of the faithful. As we used to say when reciting the Litany, “Lord have mercy”.

That they haven’t read everything is apparent, but to think they don’t need to is frightening.

The older that I get, the more I have learned that much of what is circulated in evangelical circles is just sentimental crap. Only by setting aside our preconceptions and assumptions can we really understand the Bible.

Much of modern church worship music is not. It’s just entertainment. The focus is me, myself, and I, not God, holy, righteous, and unapproachable.

Sadly, no English translation of the Bible gets everything right. Ditto for the Hebrew. Michael Heiser is on the right path with many of his explanations of mistranslation and once you understand the Bible as subverting the pagan cultures around ancient Israel, the odd parts come into sharper focus. Brian Godawa is worth reading for this very reason.

Andrew Torba, R.J. Rushdoony, David Chilton, Frances Schaeffer, and many others are seldom read today but all have things to say that should be heard.

Sorry but going to church one or two hours a week, so you can play Call of Duty the rest of the time is not a formula for successful Christian living or being a husband. Guys you need steak in your spiritual lives not warm milk.

Almost a year ago, I heard an interview that Gary DeMar did with Brian Godawa. Brian was promoting his book Cruel Logic. As a result of the interview, I purchased the book.

I enjoyed most of the book except for a side character named “Danny”. Danny had nothing to do with the main plot and I skipped much of the interaction that he had with this babe that was the ringleader for the campus chapter of Black Lives Matter. This storyline pushed an otherwise PG story into R Rated territory. Brian had a point in putting the character into his book, but I can’t gripe too loudly about it without spoiling this part of the story. Let me just say that it left me very uncomfortable on a lot of levels.

Anyway, I decided to get another Brian Godawa book that was about the biblical character Noah. Frankly, I didn’t like it all that much. Brian took what I felt was the weasel way out and opted for a local instead of a global flood. On a key plot point, he cheated by doing this. I will get into this more shortly without mentioning this book. However, what I did like was in his appendix to the book. He discussed a different view on Old Testament cosmology.  Each novel that he writes has extensive background material  in the book’s appendix that is arguably better than the novels.

Brian and some of his fellow travelers are big on understanding the Bible within the context of the surrounding cultures. As they see it, much of what the Bible does is subversion of other culture’s mythologies. He makes a good argument that the Bible does this in many passages as it puts down the gods of other nations and exalts the God of Scripture.

Much of this cannot be seen in English translations because the translators didn’t understand the references, or the translators believed the manuscripts to be correct. Much of the supernatural view of Scriptures relies on the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Godawa and others make the argument that the Jews tinkered with the Hebrew translations of the Old Testament in the second and third centuries after Christ to minimize passages that benefitted Christian efforts to proselytize Jews. They also lean heavily on extrabiblical writings between the Old and New Testaments.

In addition, some of their arguments get into the literal jots and tittles of the Hebrew text. Originally Hebrew was written entirely in consonants. Vowel markings were added later and, in some cases, may have been incorrect. Likewise, they occasionally take exception with how the Greek was handled. A check on some of the translations relies on the Dead Sea Scrolls as an independent voice on which translation is correct.

The most famous mistranslation in the Bible is the word, “Armageddon.” As written, it means “mountain of Megiddo”; however, Megiddo is a plain and there are zero mountains there! They and others say that the correct rendering is “mountain of assembly” which is in Jerusalem not Megiddo. Frankly, this makes more sense but is clearly less sensational.

There is a myriad of both small and great tweaks that they believe need to be made to the English translations. Once you start down this path, it is clear that Moses and the prophets, were bashing pagan gods and their practices on a regular basis. It is our ignorance of the historical context and surrounding pagan religious beliefs that prevents us from seeing references to them on the pages of the Bible. In reality the Bible is neither safe nor tame if you start digging into it.

Believe me, unicorns are easy to explain compared to spirits, Tartarus, Satyrs, Lilith, vampires, and a variety of other biblical references that have been papered over in English. Talk about making the Bible, come alive, Michael Heiser’s “Unseen Realm” came make it anything but routine.

One controversial aspect to the supernatural view of the Bible is its reliance on books such as First Enoch. I Enoch is quoted by New Testament writers like Peter and Jude and is even referenced by the Apostle Paul.

One of Heiser’s books has an extensive list of familiar (to the original audience) noncanonical works quoted in the Bible. You’d be surprised how much in the Bible is a direct response to the pagan cultures surrounding ancient Israel.

Some passages of the Bible are clearly about supernatural entities be they demons or angels. Psalm 82 is one example.

Recently, my pastor did a sermon on this Psalm and totally missed the point. He did a whole sermon on the passage assuming that it was talking about human judges. It is not. It is clearly speaking of supernatural beings. Otherwise, how do the last few verses make any sense?

6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

My pastor skipped these verses in his sermon. If you assume this Psalm is about men, I can see why this part was passed over. Why would it be bad to tell a human judge that he will eventually die and fall like a prince? For a judge to be equated with a prince in the above context seems to be a bad thing, but equating a human judge to a prince seems like a promotion to me. The “Ye are gods” in verse 6 should be familiar since Jesus quoted it as proof of his divinity. If Jesus is using the verse to prove his divinity, how can my pastor be using this same verse to prove that it is applied to men? (John 10:34)

However, if I was to tell a supernatural being that he was to die like a man and fall like a prince, that would be about the worst outcome a supernatural being could be promised. Please note that God is not threatening those in Psalm 82 with this outcome, God is proclaiming their judgement.

This Psalm is messianic. God is taking the rule of nations away from angels (supernatural beings) that have failed to govern men justly and that rule is being given to Him. Jesus inherits the nations as a result of the Resurrection and Ascension.

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

Psalm 82 has zero to do with human rulers.

Another passage that Heiser and others show is mistranslated is Deuteronomy 32:8.

When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

This verse makes zero sense if you read it. How could God divide the nations according to the children of Israel when this was done centuries before Israel had been born? God divided the nations after the Flood. There were 70 nations.

A traditional understanding is that Genesis 10 enumerates some seventy original nations. This number is often symbolically significant in Scripture, indicating completeness. Later in biblical history, the concept of “the seventy” reappears in various contexts, such as the seventy elders of Israel (Numbers 11:16) and the sending out of the seventy (or seventy-two) disciples by Jesus (Luke 10:1). This recurrence underscores the unity and diversity of humanity under divine providence.

What is the biblical Table of Nations?

 Israel has twelve sons, not seventy. Heiser and other say that this passage should read as “the sons of god” not “children of Israel”.

So, what Deuteronomy 32 is saying is that the nations were ruled by angels—probably of the fallen variety—but God was going to create his own nation and call a people for himself. Enter one guy named Abram then Isaac, then Jacob, add four hundred years, and here we are wandering through the desert.

Heiser’s motto is something to the effect that if its in the Bible and its weird, then its important.

There are some weaknesses in parts of what Heiser says.

1. He and his followers don’t seem committed to a young earth interpretation of the Bible and allow more years into the past than most Creationists believe.
2. Heiser and many of his supporters are not sure if the Flood of Noah was global. This is due in part to the next point.
3. Heiser believes the Nephilim are giants—half breed offspring of angels and human women. (See Genisis 6) This unholy crossbreeding was the main reason there was a Flood. The Bible is clear that the children of Nephilim were alive after the Flood. No explanation is given as to why the Nephilim would be the cause of a Flood but that their offspring would still be alive after it occurred. Both the Bible and extrabiblical texts are silent on this question. Did angels insist on fathering children with human women anyway?
4. The traditional understanding of Satan and the fallen angels is wrong. There were three angelic rebellions.

These three rebellions are: (1) Satan’s initial rebellion against God, (2) the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 leaving heaven to take human wives, and (3) the divine council abusing their territorial rule over the nations and turning it into a sort of rivalry against the true God. For Heiser, this threefold framework explains the majority of the Bible’s spiritual-warfare passages, and it clarifies the difference between Satan, false gods, and demons.

Where Do Demons Come From?

One strength of Heiser’s ideas is that of explaining why during the conquest of the Holy Land by Joshusa that some cities were razed and others just conquered. Those cities held or ruled by descendants of giants were totally destroyed, those with no association with giants were just taken militarily. This completely diffuses the claim that Joshusa was all about genocide. The only genocide was for half-breed offspring of angels and women not normal humans. Thus, the conquest was really a type of spiritual warfare.

Heiser also adds some depth and background to the mission and ministry of Jesus. Heiser uses the location of events in Jesus’ ministry to show that the backdrop of many events was a type of spiritual warfare. Jesus was challenging the pagan gods and claiming superiority in a number of familiar stories related to walking on water, casting out demons, the transfiguration, and many more events. The idea that His spiritual warfare was only 40 days in the wilderness is a far cry from reality.

The thing that does go too far in my opinion is adding Heiser’s ideas to the Pre-mil, dispensational nonsense that has permeated much of Christianity. Unleashing Heiser on a future understanding of the book of Revelation creates a whole new genre of science fiction and speculation that knows no bounds. Even Hal Lindsey and Tim Lahay would roll over in their graves if they heard some of the wild speculation that is being published today as a result of mashing up Heiser with the Scofield Reference Bible.

Heiser is about 85 to 90 percent correct but I’m skeptical on the last little bit. Perhaps there are some texts out there which have yet to be translated that might convince me of the remaining part. I believe in demons and that there were giants, I’m just not sure Heiser can fully explain them with an appeal to I Enoch. On the other hand, nothing he advocated is related to whether we get into heaven or not. He does liven up Scripture reading and that is something very few can say. Once you read his book, the Bible will be a more lively place to explore your relationship with God and your understanding of its historic and cultural context.

Brian Godawa and some others do a podcast almost every month called Iron and Myth.

VFTB Video Archive

It is an exploration of Heiser’s ideas, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and current archaeology. Currently, there are 38 episodes that are each just over an hour each. The last 15 minutes is a solo segment by Derek Gilbert. Gilbert is one of the folks that has crazy ideas about Revelation. He is usually OK when talking about history. He drives me crazy because he can’t see that Revelation (for the most part) was fulfilled in 70 AD. Godawa liens Reformed and Calvinistic. I tend to agree with him more than the others. Doug Van Dorn is a Reformed Baptist pastor. Judd Burton works in the field of archaeology.

Last note is that episode one of Iron and Myth is audio only. Derek Gilbert has an app called GilbertHouse that is available for Apple or Android phones. This app can download either audio or video of episodes of this podcast and others as well.

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” Clint Eastwood

I wish to preface my comments with the statement that I really like living in North Idaho. But some folks in the pulpit can get under my skin. What follows is a bit of a rant on this topic.

First, I am about the most ecumenical person that you will ever meet. I have very strong convictions on what I believe but I have enough charity to allow others that hold different opinions (or convictions) than mine and not let our differences be a barrier to fellowship. The caveat is that they must acknowledge the central tenants of the faith. The Apostle Paul put it thusly, “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” 1 Cor 2:2.

Second, I really dislike it when other guys call everyone else in the Church that believes differently than them, heretics, apostates, unbelievers, and other derogatory things, and damn them all to hell; doubly so when they are demonstrably wrong. Triply, so when the differences are secondary theological issues.

There’s a guy up here that is all over Facebook tearing everyone else down and thinking he is promoting his tiny little church. The problem is that this guy is the pastor of said tiny church. Were he just a member then I would write it off to him being a nut but when he is constantly playing the clergy card then it deserves a response. This dude is proud. I mean as in PRIDE in all caps, proud. This is a trait that I have encountered often with folks that identify as Baptist. I know because I used to be much like him. Yuck. They are Right, just ask them. In fact, they are so right that any Scripture that might challenge their view cannot possibly be translated correctly. They totally own the entire market on Truth, just ask them.

The clergyman in question, claims that the King James Bible is THE Word of God. No, you need to read that again. It’s not the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic manuscripts that the Bible was originally written in that are the Word of God but THE 1611 English translation that is THE inspired Word of the Almighty. The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts, even if we had the originals of the Prophets and Apostles, are not the Word of God. Only the work product of the translators of the 1611 Authorized Version of the King James Bible could produce the genuine text of God.

First this means that Jesus never knew what the Word of God actually says because the inspired Word of God would not exist for another sixteen centuries. Thus, the Septuagint version that Jesus quoted during his earthly ministry was not inspired. I was pointblank told by this guy that Jesus never quoted the Septuagint during his earthly ministry. The only alternative is that Jesus really did talk in Elizabethan English.

Second, the Word of God was not only unknowable in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek but in its subsequent Greek and Latin translations. Only after translation by fallible scholars over the course of more than 1,600 years could the actual Words of God be known. This idea is as ridiculous as the origin of the Orange Catholic Bible in Frank Herbert’s Dune series.

The idea that the so-called Authorized Version of the King James Bible (KJV) is THE WORD of God is stupid. So, why does he make such an indefensible claim? Because he can’t read Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and he wants a way to claim superiority over those that do. You see, if you can read the ancient languages, you can prove that the King James has errors in it and that some of his theological positions are false. Taking false pride in his ignorance is just a cover for his shortcomings. Talk about a bully in a bully pulpit.

I recently challenged him on a few of his claims on Facebook and was finally told to view his sermon and all my questions would be answered (or rebutted). For entertainment purposes, I looked up his YouTube sermon. Can you believe that he didn’t even link it to his suggestion to watch it? The sermon was based on John 3:22.

“After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.”

If you read the verse above, you might expect a sermon about Jesus traveling with his disciples and wondering if Jesus was baptizing folks along the way. Or the interaction of Jesus and his disciples with those of John the Baptist in the verses that follow but no, we get to launch from this one verse into a rant about politics and the evils of fellow Christians. Here is his promotion for what you get from his sermon on this lonely and seemingly innocuous verse.

🤔Does your church teach that society and culture will get better and better through the Christian involvement in politics and government?

🤔Does your Church host John Birch Society events?

🤔Is your Church involved with the Black Robe Regiment?

🤔Does your Church quote a man by the name of Doug Wilson, or hold to any of his teachings?

👉If you answered yes to any of those questions then chances are good that your church has been infected with a false teaching

My first thought upon seeing this was an old quotation of Dr. Walter Martin, (a Baptist minister that could read Greek and Hebrew), “A text without a context, is a pretext, usually for error.”

The pastor went from John 3:22 to Matthew 24 which he then tried to cherry-pick. His attempt at logic was this, Jesus takes care of his disciples. You are Jesus’s disciples and thus he will care for you too, but Jesus warned you in Matthew 24: 4-14 about those bad people over there. The linkage between the two verses is imaginary because there is none but why let facts get in the way of a great opportunity to pontificate?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

Jesus warned his hearers to beware of bad stuff that was about to happen to them in a few short years, but somehow, he left out the specifics. Believers lingered in agony for over 2,000 years trying to decipher these words of Christ until our intrepid minister was able to identify what Jesus really meant.

Oh, the bad stuff Jesus was warning about in Matthew 24 (quoted above) could be totally avoided if his hearers fled a few miles to the mountains when they saw the impending signs. Clearly the warning is a local not global catastrophe.

“Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:” Matt 24:16.

But why let context get in the way of bashing people that the good reverend doesn’t like including: Presbyterians, Free Masons (black robe regiment?), members of the John Birch Society, Doug Wilson, or any other “false teacher” as he defines it. (Please note only he has the ability to know the truth from false, it is not based on Scripture but his secret knowledge.)

At this point, I was only about halfway into his sermon and had listened to all that I could stomach.

Sorry, but this portion of Matthew 24 is such a misquoted passage that I couldn’t let it go without comment. I will limit my comments to one word in verse 14: namely, “world”.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

There are three words in Greek that are translated into English as “world” in the KJV. One means the entire world (cosmos), the inhabited world or Roman Empire (Oikumene), and another that often means the land in or around Israel.

It seems that every person I know that is clueless about Greek thinks “world” in verse 14 is talking about the entire planet. They think since the Gospel has not gone to every nation on the planet that “the end” mentioned in verse 14 can only mean the end of history. However, if you bother to look up verse 14 in Greek, something the minister in question categorically refuses to do, it says this, once the gospel has gone to every nation in the Roman Empire (Oikumene) that the end would come. Thus, whatever “the end” was, it is a past event that happened during the lifetime of the original audience that heard Jesus’ words. This makes the biblical admonition in Matthew 24 an historic event that happened 2,000 years ago and not some unrealized future event.

If the minister can’t get the context of the verse correct, then how can we trust his application of the text?

He is abusing the passage to erect a strawman that he can then verbally beat like in piñata. Tearing other Christians down as a way to lift himself up is a constant part of his evangelism. Everyone in his community and his country is going to hell because they don’t agree with him. This guy is like a Babylon Bee parody of a Jack Chick Bible tract.

Oh, many of the people and groups that he attacked in his Sunday morning rant are going to be in heaven with or without his help. Somehow Baptists think they are the only folks that will make it into the Pearly Gates. Why is that anyway?

What’s that old saying about remaining silent and not opening your mouth lest you remove all doubt?

Part of the sermon was an Ad Hominem attack on a group of people that fought to make homeschooling legal in the United States. This minister believes in homeschooling and opposes sending children to government schools but was too clueless to know that he benefitted from the hard work of fellow believers that he was falsely attacking. This really angered me.

When a guy attacks you and your ideas and can’t get your name, beliefs, or history correct, then you know he did zero research. He came to the subject with a conclusion in hand and haphazardly filled in the necessary blanks to further his argument. Oh, unlike him, the people that he attacked know Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and the history of their faith. They also are prolific writers and not to be trifled with; especially by folks that have never read their works.

Hey, Rev., you might wanna look at this verse:

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” Hosea 4:6.

Oh, quoting this verse reminds me that part of this sermon was also a diatribe railing against the idea that Christians should believe and obey God’s Law. Apparently, man’s law or Satan’s rule is perfectly ok for him, but it is unreasonable for us to keep God’s Law. This is literally the definition of antinomianism. I guess God is only interested in men’s souls but not in redeeming the whole man. Last I heard, this was considered a Greek heresy.

In the movie, Full Metal Jacket, the drill sergeant says you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the Corps!

Sorry Bro, but all of you either belongs to Jesus or you have no part in Him.

My Bible says that Christ reversed the curse and that the meek will inherit the earth not heaven. Our job under the dominion mandate is to bring every area of life into subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ.

As you can see, this guy is getting on my nerves. I really want to find a way to peacefully coexist with him since we live in the same small town, but all he wants to do is be the guy throwing people under the bus. Jesus said to love your neighbor not frag them. I guess a high body count on Facebook is his metric of a good day’s work.

I wish he would get the basic subscription level of Logos Bible Software.

For only $15 a month, he could get commentaries and Greek/Hebrew interlinear translations and all the tools necessary to at least make more informed study before making a fool out of himself. I don’t believe ministers need to know Greek and Hebrew but at least have the humility to know that you really don’t know it all. The arrogant, anti-intellectual King James only B.S. is really stupid and not the hill that any serious Christian should be willing to die on.

Oh, other things this guy promotes on Facebook

🤔 The moon landing was faked

🤔 The sun, moon, and stars revolve around the earth

🤔 The pledge of allegiance violates the first three Commandments

🤔 Churches that are 501.c3 have broken the first three Commandments

Opening remarks:

This is another book recommended by Andrew Torba in the back of Christian Nationalism. The book is five chapters long and weighs in at about 150 pages. It was published in 2003. My recollection is that the guys at Berean Church in Sandpoint quoted one sentence from the book out of context and then threw Leithart under the bus as a heretic.

Review:

This book is like CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity in that it has lots of thought-provoking stuff and is trying to get readers to think outside of established categories about the Christian faith.

I cannot hope to “convince” readers or “prove” anything here, since I have certainly not provided enough argument or evidence to compel agreement. I hope instead to hint at, gesture toward, trace, or sketch what may be a fresh approach to the (mainly ecclesiological) issues I discuss, more to change readers’ angle of vision than persuade. (page 7).

Leithart is dissatisfied with the self-imposed limits that we as believers have allowed the secular world to impose on us. He feels strongly that we are all too willing to allow our faith to be boxed-in as a private affair between us and God and that we generally are unwilling to engage the world around us.

The Bible gives no hint that a Christian “belief system” might be isolated from the life of the Church, subjected to a scientific or logical analysis, and have its truth compared with competing “belief systems.” (page 14).

Though it has roots in the patristic period, Christianity in its more developed form is the Church’s adjustment of the gospel to modernity, and the Church’s consequent acceptance of the world’s definition of who we are and what we should be up to. Christianity is biblical religion disemboweled and emasculated by (voluntary) intellectualization and/or privatization. (page 17).

He places Christianity in one corner and in the other is the Church. The Church is both an assembly of believers (ecclesia) and a government (polis). The Church is a multi-language nation.

My complaint is more fundamental: we have accepted our liberal opponent’s account of who we are and no longer see that the gospel an is inherently political announcement, nor that the Church is an inherently political community. (page 38).

Leithart would find the notion of “me and Jesus is a majority” as laughable. The Church gives a believer purpose and meaning within a community.

Leithart argues that saving faith in Christ is not like “adding Jesus to my life” but is a completed surrender of my life and a completed adoption of Christ’s.

Conversion does not simply install a new “religious” program over the existing operating system. It installs a new operating system. (page 16).

Leithart concludes his book with ideas such as these:

Renouncing Christianity thus entails embracing Christendom. (page 136).

Suppose the king is a liberal who tries to police the boundaries of the Church, telling the Church where it can and cannot speak, what it can and cannot do. In that case too, a clash is inevitable and, again, kings have a herd time winning such battles. …

On the other hand, if the Church appears preaching Christianity, the king is entirely capable of stealing the rhetoric and story and ideas of the Church to buttress his power. … Or, political powers may simply force Christianity into the private sphere—shoving ideas back into the brain and Christianity back into churches. Churches in the grip of Christianity will hardly blink when the liberal king tells them that that have to confine themselves to thinking pious thoughts. (page 149).

Application

Folks, this was written in 2003 but sounds like a perfect description of the total failure of the clergy in all denominations when confronted in 2020 with the Covid 19 order to shutdown all church worship and scatter the flocks of Christ. We, as believers, accepted the liberal lie that the Church was “non-essential” to our way of life and virtually ever minister, not only in the United States, but all of the West, complied without question. I can number all the churches in the United States that did not shutdown during Covid on one hand and still have fingers left. This is a huge indictment of the moral failure of modern churches.

The failure of churches during Covid is exactly the point Leithart is trying to make with this book. We have abandoned Christendom and replaced it with a pious, personal, and ineffective philosophy called “Christianity.”

The same moral failure lamented by Leithart will be played out next weekend when our community hosts its first gay pride event. Instead of protesting, local churches numbering as many as 13 congregations, will be holding a picnic at the fairgrounds as a “family friendly” alternative. They are expecting a crowd of 1,000 people at the event.

Except for one person that calls himself a street evangelist, nobody plans to be at the event to share Christ with these folks. I specifically asked my church leadership in the loudest voice that I could, why do we refuse to share Christ with these people? I said that we need more people in front of the venue protesting than they have attending it.  Essentially, I was told that homosexuals are not “the elect” and that they should be ignored. Folks, if you ignore cancer, does it simply go away or spread? I submit to you that sin is a cancer, and it will spread like wildfire if not halted in its progress. To this end, I bought 100 tracts to hand-out at the event, and I will not be participating at the picnic.

Leithart’s book is worth a look. I suggest having multicolored highlighters and going through it two or three times to really get a feel for his arguments. This book is asking you to think outside your preconceived categories and view faith in Christ in terms of the early church not categories given us by the pagans that gave us the Enlightenment and modernity.