Some Surprising Observations from Attending a "Moderate" Southern Baptist Church

I hardly ever get to attend a church as a visitor. But over Memorial Day weekend, I did just that in Ft. Worth, Texas. While my wife and two of my daughters were two hours west of Ft. Worth, I was alone, and I needed to decide which church to attend. I chose a Southern Baptist church close to where I was staying, and a church I was somewhat familiar with in my seminary days back in the late 1970s.

As I entered the worship center, I flipped through the church program that was handed to me, and I noticed immediately that the church had a different name than what it had back in my seminary days. I had no problem with that, but as I read through the program before worship began, I did see something much bigger than a name change that raised all sorts of red flags. I discovered that I was sitting in a "moderate/liberal" Southern Baptist church. (In case someone thinks I might be jumping to conclusions with my labeling of this church, the pastor in his sermon even brought out that their church was a moderate Southern Baptist church.) Texas has two state Southern Baptist conventions, due to a split several years back between the conservatives and the moderates.

I did give it some thought about quietly making my move out of the church building and finding another place to worship. But I stayed put, because I thought this might be a good learning experience. I am glad I stayed put.

What I witnessed was something that blew my religious socks off. We sang some hymns, some of which were totally new to me, but every one was very deep theologically and biblically. We did a responsive reading from two Psalms, after which the choir sang a beautiful song from one of the Psalms in response.

Later the deacon of the week got behind a microphone on the floor and read to us Romans 13:1-7. The pastor then preached out of Matthew 22:15-22, the last in his sermon series on historic Baptist principles. (Of course, his take on all that constitutes historic Baptist principles would be somewhat different than mine.) While the sermon was entitled "The VBS Flag Incident", it was basically a sermon on Baptists and Religious Liberty.

While I disagreed on some points he made in his sermon, at least he preached verse-by-verse, and as I looked around the congregation, everyone had his or her own Bible opened and was following along as the pastor preached. It was not a three-point, twenty-minute sermonette with jokes interspersed, worn-out illustrations, or a poem at the end. It was a very well developed biblical exposition of the text.

Contrast to what I witnessed that Sunday to what I have seen at some contemporary "conservative" evangelical/Southern Baptist worship services, and the differences are startling. In the modern conservative stream, I have seen many people not even carry a Bible to church. To reduce the number even further, I have seen many of those who have a Bible never make an attempt to open it during the sermon.

One of the saddest commentaries on the state of the church today is the number of people who do not carry God's Word with them to church and/or those who never open their Bibles at all while they are at church. Why go to all the trouble when it is shown on an overhead screen? But the saddest commentary is not all of that. . .there is one that is sadder and more tragic, and that is not giving the people a reason to bring and use their Bibles in the first place.

When sermons are fluffy topical motivational speeches with very little exposition of Scripture, then why bring a Bible, when the man behind the pulpit, or on a bar stool, or on a sofa hardly uses the Bible himself? When we do not give an ample reason for people to bring and use their Bibles at church, then that has to be the sadder commentary on the state of the modern church.

So what I learned on Memorial Day weekend this year is that I attended a non-conservative church in order to hear more Bible than I possibly would have had I attended a flashy, trendy, "conservative" church.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Is Barack Obama the Antichrist? (or if he is not, does he come in as a close runner-up?)

I turned 18 in September 1972, just two months before the first presidential election in which 18 year-olds were allowed to vote. In the early spring of my eleventh grade, months prior to my birthday, my economics teacher talked me into attending the local Democrat precinct meeting at someone's house. That is the last thing I wanted to do and the last place I wanted to be on a school night. But to please my teacher, and to earn some possible brownie points in class, I reluctantly went. That was my first taste of local politics, a far cry from my taste for sports.

The biggest surprise came when they began to nominate delegates from the precinct to attend the Eastern Oklahoma County Democrat district meeting (or whatever it was called). My teacher nominated me to be a delegate. I sat there in shocked silence. What did I do to her to get this type of treatment? If this school night in a stranger's house with a bunch of adults was a barrel of fun, I just couldn't imagine what excitement would be brewing in a Friday evening and all-day Saturday event at a high school auditorium! My brownie points better be piling up in a big way.

After attending that two-day mini-political convention, I decided quickly that it was going to be my alpha and omega as a political delegate.

That election year would eventually have George McGovern as the Democrat nominee, President Richard Nixon as the Republican nominee, and George Wallace as the Independent candidate. I stood in a long line to vote for the first time in November that year. It was a privilege I took seriously.

Many that year thought McGovern was probably the Antichrist or close to it. After Watergate became full-blown, there may have been many who once thought McGovern was the Antichrist changed their minds to Nixon's being the most likely candidate for the biblical position.

While in college, several of us drove over to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to hear some Georgia peanut farmer speak. I shook hands with the former Georgia governor who would eventually become the next President of the United States.

I held out great hopes for the unashamedly "born-again Christian" who now occupied the White House, but my hopes faded over time. I still remember such things as those long gas lines and our hostages in Iran. Jimmy Carter was a good, decent man, I thought back then, but I became to believe he was just too incompetent for the job. He may have meant well in all that he did, but he was just in over his head. I have done household plumbing before, and I know what it is like to be in over my head, figuratively and almost literally.

David was a righteous man, but he was also very skilled in what he did. (Psalm 78:72) Character and competency together residing in a leader is a powerful force for good in any society.

Presidents have come and gone, and our own evaluations and opinions may vary on how each one did. The awful truth is that we probably have had more mediocre or bad Presidents than we have had great ones. This only shows the genius of our founding fathers, who did not want a monarchical executive. Our country, so blessed by God in the wisdom imparted to our nation's founders, is very resilient because not all power rests in one man.

Two of our most unheralded past Presidents whom I would put in the "great" category are Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, and Calvin (good first name!) Coolidge, a Republican. When Cal Coolidge left the presidency in March 1929, he said, "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business." If government would mind its own business, and quit trying to mind everyone else's, it certainly would be a marked improvement, in my books.

Certain past Presidents have gained the inevitable distinction of being nominated as the Antichrist. That would be a special category of a "bad" President.

Without giving away everything in a future article, I can with 100% certainty say that Barack Obama is NOT the Antichrist. Some would be quick to add, though, that he deserves to come in as a close second.

I realize the Bible says that we are to pray for all those in authority, and if first century Christians can pray for Nero, then we can pray for President Obama. I also realize that God raises up leaders as He sees fit, as He did toward Pharaoh and Cyrus, and as Nebuchadnezzar learned the hard way after seven years of insanity. I also know that the Bible teaches that the king's heart is in the hands of the King, and He can turn it whatever direction He chooses.

The other thing we learn in Scriptures from the history of Israel and Judah is that God often gives the leaders they deserve. The more appropriate question to ask then is not if Barack Obama is the dreaded contrived "Antichrist" or not, but is Barack Obama God's judgment upon our country? Are we getting what we deserve?

That may sound like a harsh statement, and I do not delve into politics in these articles and I certainly refrain from doing so when I teach God's Word on Sundays, but it is hard to ignore the obvious these days. Charles Spurgeon in his sermons frequently referred to relevant current events in his day.

I have read much on Barack Obama's upbringing (no, I am not talking about his birth certificate!), and that alone scared me. While I disagree with about everyone of Obama's liberal policies, and while I think he has proven to be much more incompetent or inexperienced than any previous President in my lifetime, those two factors alone by themselves do not raise my concerns to the level that it exists today.

While I have disagreed with all past Presidents over certain issues, I figured that for the most part they thought that what they were doing was what was best for their country. Some may have come from different worldviews or held different presuppositions than I did, but still I tried to give the benefit of the doubt to all of them in that they were doing what they thought would help our nation improve or get better.

But. . .

I do not know if I have that same sentiment toward the current occupant of the White House. This is the first time I have ever felt this way toward the President of the United States, and it is not a feeling I relish or enjoy having. It is hard for me to imagine that we would ever have a President that would purposefully do things to harm our country. What we are witnessing today has to be more than just incompetence at work. It has to be something else. No one can just be this arrogantly wrong or misinformed.

I hope I am proven wrong, but if it is true that the current policies of this administration are aimed at bringing our country down at home and abroad, then we are on uncharted waters as a nation. Incompetence is one thing, but intentional design is something far worse.

Like every parent, I want my children to have things better than I did. I want to leave them a country flourishing in liberty. I want them to grow up with opportunities to use their God-given abilities in a free society. I want them to be grateful they are Americans. I want them to bask in the rich heritage of our country.

My concern is that we have a President who does not share in these same desires and goals, and who is determined to undo everything our country has stood for. Whatever his motivations, my prayer for this President is that he will be a one-term President. 2012 can't come soon enough for me. After all, that passage in 1 Timothy 2 says we are to pray for those in authority so that we can lead a quiet and peaceable life.

Calvin Coolidge hit the nail on the head.

After saying all that, though, I must repeat what I read this week as I was studying for my sermon series through Ezekiel: "If there is any lesson to be learned from this sorry history (of Israel) it is this: Trust God, not national power. American Christians are too often overly concerned with saving America. Perhaps God does not intend to save America. But God will save His people. He always has, and He always will."

That is a bigger nail.

Yours in Christ,

Chris

WARNING: In Case of Rapture, This Blog Spot will be Unmanned

I write these articles on the fly most of the time, but this time it is really, really on the fly. . .as in I will be flying away in several hours. At least that is what Harold Camping has informed us. The world is coming to an end on May 21, and I don't have that much time left before I must don my rapture robe woven out of silk from Jerusalem.

I overheard some comments today while I was out there working in the secular world (now why was I working in the first place, when I should be eating and drinking because the day after tomorrow I will fly?). These employees were joking about the atheists who have formed a business to take care of the pets of all departed Christians come May 21. That is the American entrepreneur spirit at work--making money at the expense of end time silliness. Many Christians have been doing that for years (just walk through your local Christian bookstore), so why can't atheists join in the parade and reap the same financial bonanza?

My first car was a 1963 two-door white Chevy Impala. I had on it a bumper sticker that read, Warning: In Case of Rapture, This Car will be Unmanned. It was the "in" bumper sticker among Christians at that time in the late 60s and early 70s. I soon discovered that "rapture" was secret (no pun intended) code language known only to the inner circle of dispensationalist Christians. The world by and large had no idea what that bumper sticker was saying. But it made us all Christians feel good, I guess. Or maybe just plain superior to all those worldly folks.

Of course, rapture is not found in any biblical concordance. That in of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, because the word Trinity is not found in the Bible either. The word "rapture" comes from the Latin word "rapio", and it means to be caught up. It is not the word that bothers me so much, but how the word has been co-opted by a cult-like following among a huge portion of evangelical Christianity, which has done nothing but make Christians look and sound stupid in the eyes of the world.

For the first eighteen centuries of Christianity, the idea that Christians would be secretly raptured out of this world to be followed by a seven-year tribulation time and then the Second (or would it be Third?) Coming of Christ was totally foreign to the thinking of all Christians. The trio of Edward Irving, J.N. Darby and Margaret McDonald in their English cult group changed all that. Pretty soon, Darby exported this sensationalism to America, and a divorced lawyer who had spent time in jail, a C.I. Scofield, picked up on this novel theory, and as Paul Harvey was fond of saying, now you know the rest of the story.

Harold Camping may be an extreme example, but he is an eschatological blood brother, whether certain people want to admit it or not, to all the other end time prophecy "experts" who have drunk liberally from the well of dispensationalism. Harold is bold enough to pick a date; others only flirt with dates. (Of course, if Harold lived back in the Old Testament times, when the penalty for being a false prophet was death by stoning, Harold would have been a goner a long time ago.)

What is the difference really between Harold and all those preachers who were so eager to preach after the devastating earthquake in Japan that we were witnessing a sure sign that we are living in the last days, or how the turmoil in Egypt was a sure sign that the rapture is very, very near?

While growing up as a young person, I heard this remark made many times over: "There have been more earthquakes in the 20th century than all the earthquakes in the previous centuries combined. This just proves we are living in the last days just like Jesus said in Matthew 24:7." Well, guess what? No one ever called anybody on the carpet about that statistic; we just took it at face value (and we love to say we are Berean Christians like in Acts 17:11?), because it sounded so good coming from the pulpit or when we read it in print.

The truth is in earlier centuries they did not have the modern know-how in seismology to measure earthquakes. The statement was and is blatantly false, but don't let that minor detail stop many preachers and authors from using it over and over again still today. The apparent rise in earthquakes over the last several decades is due to nothing more than the use of technological advanced seismographs. How many were killed in the Japan earthquake? Compare that to the one in China in 1850, where an estimated 400,000 died, or how about the one in Calcutta in 1737 where 300,000 died, or how about Egypt in 1138 where 230,000 died, or to top them all, again in China in 1556 where there were over 800,000 casaulties?

So Harold is camping on the fact that May 21 is when it will all end. I can only hope and pray that all this inexlpicable fascination with a cultish modern invader called dispensationalism will come to an end someday.

I told my wife I was going to take her to Hawaii on our 33rd wedding anniversary come May 27. You could not imagine how happy I made her feel. But alas, I also told her I found out that the world will come to an end six days before then, so I had to scrap all my original plans.

Another fallout of dispensationalism--it does not promote harmony in the home. Thanks, Harold.

Looking for the blessed hope,

Chris

What is a Mommy After All?

I searched and searched for just the right poem to read on Mother's Day;
But all seemed so impersonal and just did not express what I wanted to say.
I'm not that great a poet; rhyme is not my thing,
And to put it to music--everyone knows I can't sing.
So I've come up with my own prose, be it ever so small
To answer the fundamental question, "What is a Mommy after all?"

A Mommy from my perspective is a 1001 different things--
Or is it rather a Mommy must do each day 1001 different things?
Underneath her blouse is hidden a big letter "S"--
Now does that stand for Super Mom, Super Caring, or Super Tired
(or maybe all the above)?

A Mommy can leap over a pile of toys with a single bound,
Wipe a runny nose faster than a speedy toddler,
And with nerves of steel go toe-to-toe with anyone who messes with her kids.

A Mommy cooks, sews, irons, washes dishes, mops floors, changes diapers,
Dresses the kids, takes them to the doctor, shops until she drops,
Watches Barney for the umpteenth time, kisses and mends boo-boos,
Cleans house, picks up clothes, does the laundry, dusts and vacuums,
And then by lunch time she's ready to go at it again.

A Mommy does that and more,
And yet she finds time for Daddy.

A Mommy is a lighter sleeper than a Daddy;
That's why she always gets up at 2:00 a.m. with a sick child,
While Daddy is still fast asleep, or pretending to be.

A Mommy is smarter than a Daddy;
That's why a Daddy always tells his child to go ask Mommy.

A Mommy does not get paid by the hour;
She gets paid by looking with satisfaction
Into the eyes of a family God has given her.
A Mommy reads to her children from the most precious Book of all,
And tells her children about the most precious Person of all.

A Mommy watches her child take her first step,
And before she can turn around, she is watching that child
Take her first step down a wedding aisle--
A Mommy knows how to cry alot.

What would this world be like if God did not give us Mommies?
Children grow up, leave home, start their own families,
Come back to visit for a while, and always ask for advice.
Yes, children grow up, but Mommies never really do,
Because Mommies are always Mommies.

So I close this little prose with one more bit of rhyme.
To tell you all that a Mommy is I simply don't have the time.
And that's something else special about a Mommy--
She always seems to have the time or take the time.
How she does it, I will never know!

But to see those little ones grow up full of the love of God,
Well, that's worth all the having to get up and go.
So Mommy, I salute you--you really are one of a kind.
Don't worry about falling behind on your housework,
Because your homework is walking behind.




Many thanks go again to Jan Blair of Jones, OK, who did the above in calligraphy and nicely framed it for us over 16 years ago.

Rot in Hell: How a Secular Newspaper Can Teach a Christian Pastor

One thing is certain: Osama bin Laden is NOT the Antichrist.

This article was not exactly what I had in mind for part two of Is the Islamic Antichrist Among Us?, but it is funny how the news events of the day can change one's course.

My sister called me this past Sunday evening to ask me if I were watching TV. She does a good job of alerting me to things I should be aware of, like an approaching tornado, because most of the time we don't have the TV turned on. This time, though, it was not a weather report she was making me aware of; instead, it was the earth-shattering announcement that our military, particularly the cream of the cream of the crop, the Navy Seals, had taken out Osama within a 40-minute time period within his compound in Pakistan.

It was either Good Morning, America or the Today Show the next morning that held up the New York newspaper headlines announcing the death of this terrorist mastermind. One of the New York City newspapers had this for their big caption on the front page--ROT IN HELL. Beside that was the picture of Osama bin Laden.

How strikingly odd that a secular newspaper in New York City would admit in this "eliminate-all-hell-talk" postmodern religious environment that hell must be a real place after all. True, it is only a place for the really, really, really bad folks, like Osama, or other mass murderers, or serial rapists, or child abusers, or former spouses, but nonetheless, the world still has a place for hell, besides just in our cursing. We can't shake off hell, as much as we are told that we must, in this new age of coexistence, full tolerance and positive feel-happy spirituality where all roads lead to heaven. . .except that one road we must keep in tact that leads to hell.

What is the explanation for all this dichotomy of how we should not believe in hell, yet how we should believe in hell? The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says that God has set eternity in the heart of man. Man has been designed by its Creator to think of eternity, that this life is not all there is. The new atheists or the run-of-the-mill advanced secularists can try all they want to rub this "archaic" thought out of our craniums, but it simply will not go away. We have a list of people that we want to see rot in hell. It is more than just a death wish, and it is more than just a hell wish too.

This is because we know that justice is never fully served in this life. It is not right that Osama had a quick death for one time, when how many people did he kill, many of them very painful slow deaths, on 9/11? Even if we could kill Osama many times over, we still would think he did not fully get what was coming to him.

We demand that there be a fuller justice out there beyond this life, something that is more exacting and more definite by a Judge that is completely able and willing to do the right thing in every case. Justice delayed is justice denied, which is often the case in this life; but that sticky unresolved issue could be more than overcome if justice determined is justice divined in the next life.

Of course, a normal man's thinking has all those people "worse" than himself getting their just desserts before God one day; he never stops to consider that Gehenna will be populated by people that were not as "good" as God. That should strike another kind of terror in the mind of every man. How can anyone be as good as God, and how can I then be removed as a prime candidate for residency in hell myself?

Justification is the heaven-sent solution whereby man can avoid being sent to hell. Since all our righteousness is like filthy rags (menstrual cloths, literally), we need the perfect Righteousness of Another to be transferred to our account. Jesus, the God-man, through His death on the cross, has made it a reality that a believing, repenting man can have all his sins removed and God's righteousness be put in its place. What better deal could man hope for--this is real hope and change--God gets all our sin, and we get all His righteousness. Man comes out on the better end of that arrangement.

This is where the New York City newspaper falls short. All will "rot in hell", apart from God's saving grace.

But at least the secular media recognizes there is a hell of some sort. Maybe they can teach a few things to people like Rob Bell, a Christian pastor and author of Love Wins, who denies the reality of hell.

What a strange world we live in, where we are asking the world to teach a Christian pastor some sound theology. How foolish could we be for expecting it to be the other way around!

Living with eternity in mind,

Chris

Is the Islamic Antichrist Among Us? (part one)

In February 1989, the Ayotallah Khomeini delivered his infamous fatwa (the formal opinion of a Muslim canon lawyer) against Salman Rushdie, the author of Satanic Verses.

As a quick historical review, during the prophet Muhammad's days in Mecca, before he was run out of town and took his flight to Medina, Muhammad was sitting with some eminent men of Mecca next to the Kaaba, the cube like building in the middle of the center of the mosque at Mecca. There he began to recite sura 53, which describes Gabriel's first visit to Muhammad and then goes on to the second visit:

He also saw him (Gabriel) another time

By the Lote tree at the furthest boundary

Near to which is the Paradise of rest,

When the Lote tree covered that which is covered,

His sight turned not aside, neither did it wander

And verily he beheld some of the greatest Signs of his Lord

What do you think of Lat and Uzza

And Manat the third beside?

At this point we are told that Satan himself put into Muhammad's mouth words of reconciliation and compromise:

These are exalted Females

Whose intercession verily is to be sought after.

The Meccans were overjoyed at this recognition of their deities and are said to have prayed with the Muslims, the early followers of Muhammad. But supposedly, Gabriel paid another visit to the Prophet, scolded Muhammad, and told him that the true ending to the verse should have been:

What! shall there be male progeny unto you, and female unto Him?

That were indeed an unjust partition!

They are naught but names, which ye and your fathers have invented.

Muslims have always been uncomfortable with this story, unwilling to believe that the "monotheistic" Prophet could have made such a concession to idolatry. Actually, this was not a slip of the tongue by Muhammad. This was a calculated attempt to win the support of the pagan Meccans to Muhammad's eclectic religion. When the Meccans failed to follow in line, Muhammad reversed course, and blamed Satan for inspiring him to say the original lines.

If Satan truly had been these words in Muhammad's mouth, how can anyone put faith in a man so easily led astray? How could God allow that to happen? How do we know if there not other passages in the Koran where Muhammad had not been led astray?

For Salman Rushdie to pursue this line of thought and state the obvious from Muhammad's inglorious past, he was deemed as good as dead. Mr. Rushdie became a fugitive on the run from the long reach of the Muslim law.

At the same time, a glaring inconsistency existed, even to this day. Christian end-time soothsayers in our country have recently nominated Libyan President, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, as a possible candidate for the post of Antichrist. Other candidates have come and gone through the years, but the nominations will keep pouring in until somebody will finally get it right, supposedly.

But the surprising thing about al-Qaddafi is that he is anything but a faithful Muslim. His public statements on the Prophet, the Koran and Islam in general amount to a blasphemy far greater than anything written by Salman Rushdie. He changed the Islamic calendar, mocked Meccan pilgrims as "guileless and foolish", criticized the prophet Muhammad, and claimed that his own achievements in Libya were far greater than those of the Prophet. He has shown extreme skepticism about the truth of the Koran and even about the details of the life of the Prophet. Though religious leaders found al-Qaddafi anti-Islamic and deviant, and condemned his "perjury and lies," there were no calls for his death, nor were any of his writings banned.

Today there is an uprising in Libya, as there is in other parts of the Middle East. The protesters in Libya have discovered, though, that it is a much harder job to dislodge their leader than in the case of Egypt's Mubarek, another previous candidate for the post of Antichrist. This has led many to assume that the protesters are a more radical group of Muslims who finally want to instill an Iranian-type Islamic state. NATO has gotten involved, along with American air forces, and the time may come when ground forces will be sent in to remove the Libyan leader from power. The question remains, though, why has it taken so long for Muslim leaders to take al-Qaddafi to task for his anti-Islamic rants through the decades?

One explanation is that in Islam and in Muhammad's own life there are a countless number of inconsistencies and contradictions, all because "the end justifies the means."

Ibn Warraq in his book Why I Am Not a Muslim reminds us we need to distinguish three Islams: Islam 1 is the what the Prophet taught as contained in the Koran, Islam 2 is the religion as expounded, interpreted and developed by the theologians through the traditions (Hadith), which includes the sharia and Islamic law, Islam 3 is what Muslims actually did do and achieve, or to put it in other words, Islamic civilization. (Do you see the familiarity with what Jesus had to face in His day with his ongoing confrontations with the Pharisees and scribes?) Trying to reconcile all three strands of Islam will cause any critical thinker to have unending migraines.

For starters, Muhammad did not invent a new religion. He was basically jealous that his tribe in Mecca did not have a monotheistic religion like the Jews and the Christians. Inside the Kaaba there were 360 idols, for instance. What Muhammad did was draft the moon god "Allah" into becoming the One Supreme God, and then from there he borrowed pagan practices left and right, much of it from Zoroastrianism, to fit them into his home-brew concoction of Islam.

Islam does not allow for critical analysis. Everything is to be accepted by blind faith. When one dares to question anything about Muhammad's life, his sayings, the Koran or Hadith, or the religion of Islam in general, that person becomes a marked man, ala Salman Rushdie. In contrast, Christianity invites critical thinking and probing investigation, because the truth has nothing to fear.

Because Europe and the United States have been swept off her feet by growing secular humanistic ideology the past two centuries, they no longer have the stomach and mind to recognize the danger that Islam imposes. The United States is not far behind Europe in so many ways. Have you ever wondered why since 9/11 there is the inexplicable attempt on the part of the political, academic, media and religious establishment to defend and even promote "peaceful" Islam at all costs? How can the National Organization for Women remain silent, for example, about how women in Islamic countries are treated? Such is the case, though.

I have often wondered about the "COEXIST" bumper stickers I see on vehicles. Is it just by accident that the first letter C represents Islam, whereas the last letter T represents Christianity? Hmm. But more to the point, what are the chances that we would find a COEXIST bumper sticker on a vehicle in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, et. al.? A rational person would have to conclude that we don't have much problems with "coexisting" in the United States. (How many Muslims have been persecuted, beaten, imprisoned, killed in this country, and how many mosques here have been bombed or burned to the ground? Compare that number to Christians and churches in Islamic countries.) It seems that the Islamic countries didn't get the memo yet on peaceful, tolerant coexistence.

In the United Kingdom, where Prince William got married today (finally!), there are more Muslim mosques than Methodist churches. Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. Many European leaders are afraid to make a move due to how it may upset the Muslims in their respective countries. Witness how Spain quickly withdrew its armed forces from the Iraqi war, all because of a terrorist attack on a train.

Where did this "bend-over-backwards-to-appease" Islam attitude develop in Europe? In the sixteenth century, when Europe began to explore other parts of the world, the notion of the "noble savage" was first fully developed. That included Muslims in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. The seventeenth century saw the first truly sympathetic accounts of Islam. Compared to the Catholic Church, for example, Pierre Bayle would comment: "The Muslims have always had more humanity for other religions than the Christians." The Crusades, going back several centuries, were the Catholic Church's attempt to outdo the Muslim jihad. This had a lasting negative hangover in the minds of the intellectual class in Europe.

George Sale in his translation of the Koran in 1734 firmly believed that the Arabs "seem to have been raised up on purpose by God, to be a scourge to the Christian church, for not living answerably to that most holy religion which they had received." In other words, Islam was a means of divine judgment upon the Christian church. Had the church lived up to its ideals, then Islam would not have succeeded so much. That was the estimation of many at the time.

It was Voltaire, the French atheist, that got the pro-Islamic, anti-Christian ball rolling at full speed. To Voltaire, the God of Christianity was a "cruel and hateful tyrant" who "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough" and nor could he have inspired "books filled with contradictions, madness and horror."

By contrast, Voltaire found the dogmas of Islam very simple: there is but one God, and Muhammad is his Prophet. There were no priests, no miracles, no mysteries. This appealed to the anti-supernatural bent of people like Voltaire. The historian Gibbon, who wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, painted Islam in a favorable light, especially as contrasted to Christianity. The anticlerical Gibbon jumped on Islam's bandwagon because it provided more ammunition is his own disdain for the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. Gibbon's deistic view of Islam as a rational, priest-free religion, with Muhammad as a wise and tolerant lawgiver, enormously influenced the way all Europeans perceived their new sister religion for years to come.

A familiar pattern was emerging in Europe in the late 1700s and into the 1800s--Islam was being used as a weapon by a growing number of movers and shakers in European society to mock and to attack Christianity. Many of the European apologists of Islam had not proper acquaintance with the Arabic sources of Islam; most had only a superficial knowledge of their subject. They simply used Islam as a convenient weapon against intolerance, cruelty, dogma, the clergy and Christianity.

This is where we are today. Christianity is the whipping boy; Islam is the whipper.

So. . .is the Antichrist an Islamic religious-political figure who may be on the scene now, or who will appear soon? It is reported that Glenn Beck has suggested as much. The 12th iman will reappear, and in Islamic theology his likeness is comparable to the Antichrist we read about in the New Testament. So the reasoning goes. But what does the Bible say about the Antichrist? Surprisingly, the Bible paints a totally different picture of the antichrists or an antichrist than that that has been popularized through evangelical or even Mormon circles.

Yours in Christ,

Chris

Earthquakes in Pulpits and Pews

Tim LaHaye was in Hawaii at a Bible prophecy conference (at what other conference would he be attending or speaking?) when the 8.9 earthquake rattled parts of Japan. When asked about the news in Japan, the first thing out of his mouth was along the lines that the Bible says there would be earthquakes in various places before the Second Coming of Christ. Where is all that Christian compassion for the victims and survivors of that catastrophe? Nothing seems to matter more than to hope that this crisis or the next crisis fits into our end-time scheme. Just like Jonah. (See earlier blog post, Have You Been Gypped about Egypt?, and especially my P.S.)

Let us set the record straight. Jesus is coming again. There will be a second bodily coming of our Lord. There will be a future bodily resurrection of believers and unbelievers alike. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. There will be an eternal lake of fire.

But there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says that earthquakes, famines, wars, or whatever else would increase in frequency right before Christ's Second Coming. This may come as a shock to many, especially those who have been fed dispensationalism all their lives. And I may be branded as some sort of kook heretic, but so be it.

It was the improper interpretation of God's Word that led the religious leaders in Jesus' day to miss the boat on his First Coming, and it is the improper interpretation of God's Word that is leading many Christians today to miss the boat regarding the Second Coming. (See John 2:18-21 and Mark 14:55-65 for one such example.)

There is ONE passage about earthquakes or wars or other catastrophic events that have been used over and over again by countless preachers and authors who relish in sensationalizing over national or world tragedies. This passage is found in the Olivet Discourse, which is found in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Many assume right off the bat that this whole discussion between Jesus and His disciples was about the signs leading up to the Second Coming of Christ. That is where people go wrong.

The disciples were not thinking about the Second Coming of Christ. They did not know fully yet about the First Coming of Christ, and they would not know all about that until after Christ's resurrection. So why would they bother to ask about the Second Coming now thousand years removed from them, when they did not even have at the time the slightest clue about Jesus' death just several hours away?

What was the burning issue on their minds? Luke 21:5-7 tell us, so does Mark 13:1-4, and so does Matthew 24:1-3. Jesus made it so clear to them and to us, how can we miss it? Jesus pointed to their beautiful Temple in Jerusalem, which all Jews took enormous pride in, and said that building would be leveled to the ground. Naturally, the Jewish disciples were astonished to no end, and they wanted to know when the end of their Temple would occur.

Jesus proceeded to answer their question. He gave the signs leading up to the end of the age, not the end of the world, but the end of the old covenant age, when Jesus would come in judgment upon that generation that rejected the Messiah. When the Temple is destroyed, there are no more sacrifices, priests and Levites are out of a job, and the old covenant nation of Israel ceases to be. Plain and simple. The disciples were not asking about the signs leading up to the Second Coming of Christ (why would they be concerned about that since it was going to be such a long way off, two thousand years and counting now?). They were asking when the Temple and their nation would come to a screeching halt.

Wouldn't that concern us if someone with impeccable credentials and authority told us today that our nation's capital would be overthrown? Would our normal, natural reaction be, "When will a rebuilt nation's capital be destroyed some hundreds or thousands of years later?" How preposterous. That flies in the face of reason. Or would it be something like this, like what the disciples asked, "When is our country today coming to an end? Tell us, give us some clues, give us some time indicators, when will the D.C. we have now be Destroyed Completely?"

So Jesus answers the disciples' question. He doesn't answer a question that they didn't ask. He doesn't give answers that would be totally irrelevant to His disciples. Jesus knew what the disciples were asking, the disciples heard what Jesus had said, and the question before us is this: Will we hear Jesus, or will we hear some popular preacher/author instead, who will take advantage of an earthquake in Japan, in order to prove a point that Jesus never made? Do we know more than our Lord?

Bottom line is this--everything Jesus said in Mark 13:5 and following (and in the other synoptic gospel accounts) is about historical events that would happen leading up to the destruction of the Temple in the first century. And in Mark 13:30, Jesus wraps up everything in a nice pretty bow by saying, "Truly I say to you, THIS (not THAT, as in a future distant generation) generation will not pass away until ALL THESE THINGS (all the things he talked about from v.5 on) take place."

Was Jesus right? Jesus spoke these words in 30 A.D. Guess what would happen in 70 A.D., forty years later, within a generation of time? The Temple was destroyed by an invading Roman army. The old covenant age came to an end. The nation of Israel ceased to be. Jesus came in judgment, like when God came in judgment numerous times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 26:21, Micah 1:3, etc.).

There are many passages in the Bible that speak concerning the Second Coming of Christ, but Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 are NOT one of them.

What about the earthquake in Japan? Or Hurricane Katrina? Or Haiti? Or 9/11? Or Mt. St. Helens? Or the Vietnam War? Or the San Francisco earthquake? Or the Chicago Fire? Or the Black Plague in Europe? Or the Crusades? Or any other disaster that has been used to justify the nearness of Christ's Second Coming?

Rather than go to Mark 13, we should go to Luke 13, like verses 1-5, for insights on how Jesus handles man-made or natural disasters. "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Jesus said that twice in fact. He didn't jump on the leading news stories in His day in order to hype them for some end-time scenario. He preached repentance to those who were still alive. There is a far greater "fate" than dying in a tsunami; it is dying without Jesus.

Maybe the real earthquake that needs to happen today is the one in our pulpits and pews. Maybe we need to shake loose of some bad teaching that has grabbed hold of us for so many years and has distorted our view of prophecy and of the gospel.

Living in the blessed hope of Christ's coming,

Chris