Christians are often the worst kind of sinners. We smoothly speak a spiritual language designed to cover a sensual lifestyle.
We must stop speaking as if everything we do is God directed and find the humility to speak truthfully about our agendas, our need for control and power, and our self-absorption.
If we were to become brutally honest about our failures then others might find the gospel we stalk about more authentic.
In short, our talk needs to match our walk. God saves sinners, but you'd never know Christians sin by the way we speak. We often do things that are sinful, but we can't speak honestly about the things we do.
We spiritualize even our sins.
The only cure from the pride that leads "the foot that slides in due time" is an honest assessment that God isn't always the reason behind what we choose to do.
Let me illustrate
Back in the early 1990s, the Southern Baptist Public Affairs Committee and the Christian Life Commission were the targets of some fundamentalist leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention.
These fundamentalists believed that the aforementioned SBC agencies needed to be purged of the "liberal" leadership they possessed.
Two of the people strategically placed by Judge Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson to serve as board members on the Public Affairs Committee and the Christian Life Commission during the proposed merger were North Carolinians Sam Currin and Coy Privette. These two Southern Baptist men were closely identified with the Southern Baptist Convention's Conservative Resurgence were also friends and associates of U.S. Senator Jesse Helms.
Currin and Privette worked behind the scenes, and eventually publicly, to get the Public Affairs Committee and the Christian Life Commission to merge into an entity that would be named The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
The intended goal was to put the newly formed ERLC under the direct control and influence of Dr. Richard Land through getting Dr. Land elected as the President of the new organization.
They succeeded.
But that is not the end of the story.
Sam Currin, a former United States attorney later served over three years of a six-year jail sentence for fraud. Coy Privette--a politician, director of missions and pastor who was known in all three positions as an outspoken moralist--was arrested and charged in 2007 with six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution.
These were the two men that leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (Pressler and Patterson) strategically assigned to bring about a change in Washington D.C. on religious issues, morality, and ethics.
I've gone back and read as many quotes I could find from the mouths Sam Currin and Coy Privette regarding the merging of the two Southern Baptist entities into the ELRC and Dr. Richard Land's election as President.
Not one time did I read either of these men publicly acknowledge that they had an agenda to merge the two institutions and get their friend and like-minded idealogue Richard Land elected as President.
Their language was all filled with phrases like, "The Lord has directed. . ." or "We are grateful to God for His leadership . . . " or "This historic day is part of God's plan . . ." etc...
I wish people who profess to be Christians would simply state the plain truth and stop spiritualizing everything.
How many pastors say "God has called me to another church" when it would be more accurate to say "I have an opportunity to go to a bigger church that will pay me a larger salary which will possibly enhance the opportunities and influence I have in terms of my ministerial career."
A talk consistent with a walk is far more convincing of gospel reality.
10 comments:
Wade,
When we hear teachers of the Bible speak of the contextual understanding of the scriptures, we all should be concerned. From the time of Abraham, the understanding of God's purposes has been predominately man centred theology rather than God's divined purpose theology.
God had a plan that He intended to have played out over a very long time period. From when God called Abraham and solemnly swore, what we have labelled as the Abrahamic Covenant, as the final play at the end of the Age of the Ages, the time that will pass will be just shy of 5,200 years.
Is the intended inheritance of Abraham and his righteous descendants of the whole earth under the heavens or is the Inheritance just a small portion of Land, often referred to as the Promised Land.
What is meant when prophecy speaks of God, teaching the redeemed Israelites on or about, the "Mountain(s)" of Israel. What or who is Israel and when does the foundational rock appear that comes down out of Heaven that is the foundational understanding of God's Heavenly Kingdom that then grows to become the highest mountain in Israel and also in the whole earth.
Our understanding of God and His scriptures is corrupt. When Jesus describes the activities of Satan and his Good and faithful servants when he goes away for a time, claiming that while he is away, he will receive a kingdom, we turn the respective parables on their heads and argue that the lead role in both parables is Jesus and not Satan.
Yes, there are many "christians" around who believe that Jesus is the One Whom God sent, but they do so from a Hellenistic perspective of understanding.
As you have written we do need to get real. We need to study the scriptures so that our theological understanding is the same as God's so that we can be God’s Kingdom of Priests, His Holy Nation/People and His possession among the Nations.
Sadly, we have many blind leaders who are leading us into a false religion, where many people will become ensnared, but the blind leaders' war cry is that we have to know the right context to understand scripture and what it should say.
For me, an understanding of Isaiah 58 helps me/us to become more God centred in our outlook as to what God wants for each and every one of us, particularly the keeping of His Sabbath Day/Age Holy.
Shalom
Wade,
My cousin, James Hicks, had a business that built “trusses” (a structure that goes from wall to wall and supports the roof).
Your post reminds me of our former pastor of many years ago. Hicks was not a member of our church, but had donated trusses for a new addition to our small church and had volunteered to ‘supervise’ putting them up. One day, he was working alone when our pastor came by.
Hicks said, “Can you help me a few minutes?”
“Sorry, my hands aren’t made for physical work.”
Later the pastor told us God had called him to another church. (Bigger church; bigger salary.) “When God calls, we must Obey.”
Within a year, he explained to that church why so many had left by saying they were “deadwood”. My son told him they were leaving because his children no longer had anyone their age to be friends with. Before two years past, the church sold their parsonage to meet expenses and cut his salary.
Strange, how God called him somewhere else.
" . . . Jesus called the Twelve and said,
“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the last of all and the servant of all.”
(from the Holy Gospel of St. Mark 9:35)
The link to the BRnow.org leading to the story of Privette's arrest shows this message:
oops!
The page you're looking for has either been deleted or been moved.
hmm....
try Wiki
"He was a longtime member of North Kannapolis Baptist Church, where he was pastor for 14 years and was later named pastor emeritus.
In 2007, Privette was charged with six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution.[3][4] Privette eventually resigned as president of North Carolina's Christian Action League and pleaded guilty to the charges.[5]"
another poor conflicted soul
https://baptistnews.com/article/southern-baptist-morality-activist-confesses-to-soliciting-prostitute/?option=com_content&task=view&id=2782#.XMBkrehKi70
Wade you need to add Curtis Caine to the list of CLC/ERLC members during Richard Land's tenure. I am not sure if Caine remained in when they switched to the ERLC only. Caine is the man who famously said in the CLC meeting as was reported in Baptist Press that apartheid in South Africa was good because it kept the races separate. His pastor told me Caine was a racist John Birch Society member whose on church didn't trust him to serve on committees.
If we consider these 3 men we see that the entity in our convention that should speak for us on ethics, morality and race contained a crook, a fornicator and a racist. this is a result of Conservative resurgence leadership.
I was at the SBC meeting in New Orleans I believe in 1990 at the time Jesse Helms was in a tight race for the senate in NC. Sam Currin was chairman of the ERLC. He and Richard Land made up a new award for Christian Service and presented it to him at the convention so he could use it in his campaign. That is how the ERLC has been used under the conservative resurgence leadership.
In the early 90s at almost the same time the chairmen of the IMB, NAMB and SWBTS had to resign their church pastorates and trusteeship because they were caught in adultery. These are the type of leaders the conservative resurgence has placed our missionaries and seminary professors under.
P.S.
I remember before he left, a pulpit committee visited our church. Wonder if their church selected a different committed to find their next pastor.
Before he left our church, I had made a star over our slide and had lights on it. His seven-year-old son woke up one morning and looked out the window (seeing the star
the first time) and thought Jesus had returned.
JOE !
:)
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