Posted on 02/04/2004 5:50:56 AM PST by sheltonmac
I respectfully disagree
The author took an excessive liberty that deserved to be contextualized
The average modern evangelical knows a lot more about what pop psychology thinks about man's problems than what God's word says about man's problems; he knows a lot more about what his friends and neighbors think about morality than what the Creator says about morality. And so, there is a wide chasm between what this kind of Christian says and what he does.
Average does not mean all it means mean. If your not part of the mean then you should be able to refute Covenant Theology.
"Attacks" against the author of a posted piece is fine; "attacks", however unintentional, against Religion Forum posters is not.
Damn those egg shells!
He did make what I feel is a very crucial point about reading and trying to understand the whole Bible. I think there is too much time spent in the New Testament and not enough time spent in the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus “of love” in the New Testament is the same God who spare Noah but destroyed everyone else. He’s the one who told the Israelites to go war and take over the land. And He’s the one who sent the Israelites into captivity for disobedience.
God does not change and is consistent. To understand the whole glory and majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ you must understand both the New and Old Testaments.
PS-I just read the posts by our non-Calvinistic friends. I did not interpret “modern evangelicals” as fundamentalists from his sermon or a slam at non-Calvinistic churches. I interpreted his comments to refer to those liberals in the church today who calls themselves “modern” evangelicals. This is the title they use. Even so I still don’t think he should have spent time on this. You guys are becoming overly sensitized. Isn't there anything GOOD that you learned from the reading?
I'll begin my conclusion by stating that the average modern evangelical is unaware of the richness of this portion of Scripture because he is not used to devouring large sections of the Bible; he is used to “proof-texting” his way through life. What I mean is that he is able to cite a verse here and a verse there, but has no grasp of the systematic and progressive nature of God's Word.
That's Baloney
If I sound a little defensive, then I think I have a right to defend myself and the evangelical movement in general. I have not attacked anyone personally here except the author of this article, and I have responded because he apparently is accusing the average member of my church and churches like mine of being biblically ignorant. Yet, I would venture to guess that the average pew warmer at his church would fall into the same paint can that he is broad brushing the evangelical movement with. Yet is he pointing fingers at his congregation? No. Its those darned evangelicals that are the problem.
I was pinged to this article by the poster. I read it and found it to be filled with stereotypical nonsense about the quality of the worshipers that attend modern evangelical churches. That they don't receive the whole council of God. That they only study proof texts. That they don't understand the bible like they should. Well I can't help it if there are lukewarm Christians in the evangelical movement. But if Dr. Bordwine thinks the problem is exclusive to the Evangelical movement and is not endemic to his own congregation as well, then he needs to take the log out of his own eye, so that he can see the splinter in the eyes of those he is so broadly maligning.
I think I've made my point.
I would beg to differ. The liberals in the churches today think that the word "evangelical" is a dirty word and they would not call themselves "evangelical". The Modern liberal has no interest in spreading the word of God or in saving lost souls. They are not evangelical. They are socialists and do-gooders who think that any path to God is ok.
Had he used the term "Liberal" I would not have had a beef, except that the average "liberal" chruch member would not use "proof texts" since they don't even believe the bible to be the word of God.
The author was clearly attemtping to malign the modern evangelical movement, which consist essentially of the evangelical churches that have sprung up in the last 100 years or so and tend to be dispensationalist in their theologies.
He wasn't talking about Vicky Gene's church. He was talking about churches like mine. And he's wrong. We emphasize the bible. While we de-emphasize sytematic theolgies, we emphasize the bible and believe every word to be inspired, not just those that prove our preconceptions.
BTW I don't know if the author is a Calvinist or not. It doesn't matter. On his broadbrushing of the modern evangelical movement (which I dare say contains many churches that are Calvinistic, like the Pennisula Bible Church which I posted above) he's just plain wrong.
I did not interpret “modern evangelicals” as fundamentalists from his sermon or a slam at non-Calvinistic churches. I interpreted his comments to refer to those liberals in the church today who calls themselves “modern” evangelicals.
That's my interpretation as well. I will say in Dr. Bordwine's defense that his description of the "modern evangelical" fits the majority of professing Christians I know. They chew the milk that's fed to them convinced that it's actually meat (Heb. 5:12-14).
He was talking about churches like mine. And he's wrong. We emphasize the bible. While we de-emphasize sytematic theolgies, we emphasize the bible and believe every word to be inspired, not just those that prove our preconceptions.
I can't say exactly what he meant by the term "modern evangelical," and I do wish he would have elaborated. But I do know that in every single "evangelical" church I've visited (with possibly only one or two exceptions) I have NEVER heard a sermon on the doctrine of election, for example. The "modern evangelical" - if I may be so bold - wouldn't feel comfortable in a church like that.
Gosh, Shelton. Talk about broadbrushing. The majority of professing christians that you know, huh? Would you number yourself among them? Or are you just plain holier than they are?
I know that there are a lot of "holier than thou" people who would say that about me. And in a lot of ways, they'd probably be right. There is a lot of room for improvement for sure.
You know Shelton, I would venture to guess that there are probably a lot of "holier than thou" people that you know that would say the same things about you. Would they be wrong?
That's because a lot of them are just not Calvinist. You are looking for Calvinism where it isn't. You seem to be judging the sincereity of churches based on whether they are Calvinist or not, not on whether they are teaching the Bible. While you believe that Calvinism IS the gospel, they don't. They view the doctrine of election differently than you do, so you don't believe they are teaching it at all.
They just don't teach it the way you believe it. But there are differing interpretations. The election passages are not concrete and they are subject to reasonable differing interpretations. That's why God invented denominations.
If I were to take that on face value and make assumptions as the author does, that would lead me to believe you mean there are no Calvinist churches concerned with evangelism.
BUT that would be an incorrect assumption.
At the risk of sounding patronizing, I agree with you. We should rejoice in that, brother. :O)
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