Don't tell me 9/11 was not God's judgment on America

September 11 is almost here again and its being the 10th anniversary there are more commemorative events than usual, as well as terrorist threats of course. Pray those are soundly quashed.

A sermon that was given the Sunday right after 9-11 in 2001 was aired on Christian radio this morning, among other things complaining about those who saw the attack as God's judgment on America. Since I'm one who sees it that way I just want to give a brief answer:

To say that it was God's judgment on AMERICA is NOT to say it was God's judgment on the victims that day.

I've always been careful to say this, and nobody else who called it God's judgment blamed the victims either, at least that I heard. That was made up by the preacher on the radio. As a matter of fact there were very very few who even saw the attack as God's judgment at the time, while most sermons seemed aimed at exonerating God from such a charge.

Some, including the radio preacher, also seemed determined to put it in the context of Jesus' teachings about disasters not implying some special judgment of their victims, and in relation to the victims themselves that is perfectly appropriate. The victims were not being judged, AMERICA was being judged. Or at least we can't KNOW if some of the victims were being judged or not. God deals with individuals individually. Some of the victims were His and went to be with Him. God takes us home according to His own counsel, it could be by a national disaster or it could be by any other means chosen by Him at any time also chosen by Him. There were many stories of miraculous rescues --God dealing with individuals individually.

We can't even speculate about the reasons in the case of the individuals. We can't know anything about that. The only thing to be done in relation to the victims is sympathize and offer help.

And on the tenth anniversary of the attack the most appropriate thing to do is sympathize and commiserate and bind up wounds.

If it weren't for that sermon I wouldn't say anything else.

But the same Jesus who admonished His followers not to think of the sufferings of indivicuals as God's judgments also made it clear that God was going to judge the nation of Israel -- not one stone of the temple left upon another -- which He did in 70 AD.

God was not necessarily judging the victims of 9-11 but was undoubtedly judging the nation. To understand how such a thing could have happened to America we have to recognize that God still deals with NATIONS as described in the Old Testament and we are admonished in the New Testament to learn such things from the Old.

And one last statement: The preacher on the radio mentioned that both Right and Left think it was judgment, the Right because of our sins according to the Bible -- that's my position -- and the Left because America deserves it, I suppose for our "meddling" in the Middle East? The Left always sides with America's enemies. That's not what I'm doing. Our enemies' reasons are not God's reasons. I'm looking at it from what I understand to be God's perspective, not our enemies' perspective. God uses our enemies to judge us, and then eventually they will also be judged.

Contending for the truth can become arrogant ignorant denunciation of true if errant Christians

Heidi Swander of Olive Tree Ministries wrote this timely article that came in this morning's email from that ministry.

At what point does a fellow Christian deserve to be ostracized for their perceived apostasy? Where do you draw the line regarding Christians you will and will not fellowship with? When has a spiritual leader made a definitive decline into error? Sorry, that's three questions. Well, think about them for a moment. They're important questions to answer.

While you're thinking, I will admit to you that I am weary of the spiritual immaturity of many "discerning" believers. I am tired of the circular firing squads that have been drafted that position Christians to repeatedly fire on each other. I'm worn out from bitter, caustic diatribes toward fellow believers who have not proved to be ambassadors of the enemy at all, but someone we have short-changed by not allowing discourse on their perceived error.

Don't get me wrong: There are plenty of times, in these last days, when we must "contend earnestly for the faith." But the wise man or woman must discern when to contend and when to counsel. Let me explain what God has been teaching me.

You can read the rest of the article at the link.

I say it's timely because I've very recently been pondering much the same problem in "discernment" ministries I keep tabs on, as recently as last night. The problem as she describes it is a lack of spiritual maturity that gives no grace to someone who has committed some infraction of doctrine according to the "discerner's" standards, even someone held in great esteem by much of the church for their Christian teaching and work.

In the last few months I've heard some of the best of the best denounced in terms that brand them as apostates just because of such an error, or even just on the "authority" of some other "ministry" whose facts have not been independently checked.

I cringe when I hear such revered leaders as theologian R C Sproul, pastor and teacher John MacArthur, or Bible teacher Kay Arthur, denounced in such terms for some infraction according to the ignorant "discerner." The list is much longer than those three but those three come to mind. But such greats as Luther and Calvin have also been treated to such denunciations, and the latest volley of imprudent excoriation I heard was blasted against that venerable church father, Augustine. I even prayed that the Lord would make such "discernment" teachers aware of their folly and this email from Olive Tree I regard as answer from the Lord since I have reason to believe it goes out to many of those teachers.

Clearly much of it comes from sheer ignorance. They know just about nothing about the history of the church or the rightful place of any of these names in the regard of the church, they trust in their own uneducated first impressions, they magnify their own sense of the truth and righteousness at the expense of Christians of far greater stature than themselves.

It's one thing to discover and lament a doctrinal flaw in a leader's thinking, it's another to let that discovery or opinion lead you to treat that person as no longer a Christian.

I'm only going to mention what I heard said against Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in the fourth century, although Heidi Swander is really only addressing attitudes toward one another in today's church. The principle is the same. Is Augustine really a Christian or not despite his doctrinal errors? I say he is. I say we'll find him among the Lord's company at the very end.

What I've learned about Augustine over my Christian life has been pretty well balanced, treating him as insightful but flawed. He's held up as a theologian whose teachings had a great deal to do with inspiring the Protestant Reformation, and yet he's also acknowledged to have promoted views that gave support to the later development of Roman Catholic errors.

In other words Protestant leaders have taken what is of value in Augustine and have for the most part not fallen for his errors. But ignorant arrogant "discerners" with no knowledge whatever of Augustine except some quotes they recently heard attributed to him that they disagree with, no sense whatever of the historical place of Augustine, or of the circumstances which shaped his theology, speak of him as of the devil himself. Although I happen to agree that Augustine was very very wrong about, for instance, the identity of the angels who procreated with the daughters of men in Genesis 6 -- in fact I strongly agree with this "discerner" in this case and regard it as a very important point the church should be studying in the last days -- and Augustine's view does happen to be an interpretation is still accepted even among Protestants, and promoted by Calvin as well, sad to say, yet I cringe at the arrogant posturing ignorance of a denouncer of one of the best known fathers of the church as far more offensive than even Augustine's grossest errors. And it's a barrier to getting the teaching about Genesis 6 taken seriously by more Christians too.*

How ironic that he accuses Augustine and Calvin of attitudes that he himself is committing, pride, excessive trust in his own understanding and so on. If he thinks he is above being seduced by his own flesh or the wiles of the devil, above ever teaching anything that might mislead, unaware of the shoulders he himself stands on for his own doctrinal understanding, let him think again. He'd deny he has any such attitudes, but clearly he simply hasn't subjected himself to very rigorous self-examination.

He also falsely accuses those who refer to themselves as "Augustinians" or "Calvinists" of buying into everything said by those men and of "trusting in man instead of in God." He doesn't even have a clue what a person means by identifying as a "Calvinist" for instance, he just freely makes it up as he goes along, it MUST mean we're blindly following a man and not God. He's outraged at a false teaching and he's going to tar everything and everyone who ever got anything good out of the teacher with that error, deserved or not. And I don't think I've ever heard this particular "discerner" recognize, correct or apologize for any error of his own. He just thinks he's being misunderstood or persecuted when anyone objects, just goes into a litany of his good intentions and how no he isn't saying this or that. (Don't know how many times I've heard him say Hey it's not that I think I'm Mr. Perfect and the like, but again, how he acts doesn't quite fit his disclaimer.)

Augustine's writings are so voluminous it's possible nobody has ever read all of them and many Christians know next to nothing about him. Some of us may know about his conversion experience in which God used the voice of a small child playing a game to bring him to Christ, we may have read his Confessions, his autobiography which became the model for autobiographies ever since, we may have read his City of God in which he presents the enduring world of the spirit over the world of the flesh, of which Wikipedia says:

Augustine is the most influential Father of the Church in the West and through Western Christianity The City of God profoundly shaped Western civilization.

All of that is valuable despite his support of Roman Catholic errors, and Augustine's teachings were part of what inspired Luther toward his rejection of those very errors. Calvin too made use of some of Augustine's theology. It was a theology supportive of the Reformation's theology of salvation by grace through faith and dependence on God BEFORE Roman Catholicism had grown into what it later became.

Just because the Roman church has taken possession of him and calls him a good Roman Catholic does NOT mean he was himself a Roman Catholic in the sense someone like Aquinas was. The Roman church also took possession of Ireland's patron saint Patrick, although Patrick himself never had anything to do with Romanism. It's a big mistake to take what Catholic historians have to say about him as if it were THE truth.

Augustine is rightly considered one of the early fathers who belongs to the true church DESPITE the parts of his teachings that veer over to the superstitious errors of Romanism. One of my big problems with Augustine is that he spiritualizes the first part of Genesis. He apparently made plenty of errors of that kind although he ALSO developed enough of a theology of grace to inspire the Protestant Reformation.

Who of us is perfect? We have to be able to tell when a professed Christian has truly gone off into apostasy -- there are plenty of those these days -- oh, PLENTY! -- and one of my own discouraging discoveries has been how many true Christians don't have the discernment to reject them but even embrace them. But there are plenty of true Christians who make some theological errors that are far from the level of apostasy, who should not be denounced the way I've heard so many denounced recently by certain teachers out of profound ignorance, and yes, out of what Heidi Swander calls spiritual immaturity.

I recommend reading Heidi Swander's article all the way through.

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* It is sort of sadly interesting regarding Augustine's interpretation of the events of Genesis 6 that he made the comment I quoted in the previous post about trusting in yourself over God if you don't believe the gospels as written. Perhaps he simply makes an exception in the case of Genesis 6, as the discerner I'm talking about here reports him (or was it Calvin) as saying the idea that angels copulated with human women is simply false due to its own intrinsic absurdity, which certainly is a case of imposing his own prejudice on the scripture rather than accepting it as written.

The "discerner" however went on to accuse him of adding to scripture and deserving the curse of being eliminated from the Book of Life, which is REALLY not fair. Wrong interpretations of scripture are NOT the same thing as adding to scripture.

Save that accusation for the heretics who DID tamper with scripture in the early centuries and produced the Alexandrian Greek texts --or if you are a Westcott and Hort fan, then it is the Textus Receptus that was so altered, and all its manipulators, which according to the logic of W and H's theory involved an entire convention of the greatest names of the early church getting together specifically for that purpose, who are of course all going to hell. Sometimes people just don't think THROUGH their invented scenarios.

Anyway, if everybody who misinterpreted scripture based on his own personal biases were guilty of adding to scripture just about nobody could be saved. It's always disappointing to discover people doing this but I suppose any of us is subject to it and must be very careful for that reason.

I'm aware of some instances off the top of my head: I just happened to hear a discussion on Christian radio about the various views of wine in scripture which included the common idea that Jesus didn't REALLY drink wine, although scripture says He did, and that whenever wine is mentioned in the Bible it REALLY means extremely watered-down wine although there isn't the slightest clue in scripture itself that that is the case -- and these manipulations of scripture come from Fundamentalists who have their own axe to grind against alcohol. Apparently it was one of these fundamentalists who got the entire Christian church to use grape juice instead of wine, within the last hundred years or so. Welch was his name, of Welch's Grape Juice fame.

Are they all going to hell for their refusal to take scripture at its word?

I ran across quite a collection of rather agonized attempts to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion that Paul in 1 Cor 11:2-16 is saying women must put something over their heads during worship, that was extremely disappointing as I saw one otherwise justly highly esteemed preacher after another go to such lengths.

The idea that Paul meant long hair is really just stupid, excuse me but it is, it shows a bizarre inability to read in context and a strange lack of appreciation of the mind of Paul. The average Christian might not deserve to be called stupid for this misreading (though since we all have the Holy Spirit there's something wrong there too) but their leaders should have corrected them as they aren't stupid, but they go ahead and confirm this utterly ridiculous misreading.

The passage has its knotty points to unravel but the overall message is NOT that hard to figure out in itself. There is really no excuse. The early churches got it although many of them also found ways of not quite obeying it completely, according to Tertullian, yet the churches ALL obeyed it more or less down to the middle of the 20th century. NOBODY interpreted it as requiring long hair. The reference to long hair was recognized as the mere example Paul offered as one of his arguments.

Worse than that, however, is the contingent that understands that Paul IS calling for a covering to be put over the head, but, based on absolutely nothing in the text, and certainly based on nothing we could ever suspect of the apostle Paul in general, they decide it's really a culture-bound matter that applied only to Paul's own time and not to us. It REALLY means, according to them, that women are simply to dress in a sex-appropriate way. BALDERDASH! Paul is emphasizing the physical HEAD as the whole point of all his arguments and it takes some kind of self-delusion to ignore his obvious meaning!

(My study of all this is far more temperate, I don't erupt like this there if you'd like to go read my blog Hidden Glory and follow the argument in some detail).

I have to suspect this latter group of being motivated by a fear of the opinions in the church, a sort of feminist backlash. They all show a nervousness about the topic in one way or another and a few of them admit to that nervousness, just as the preacher who discussed the meaning of wine in the Bible also did. Rubbing your congregation the wrong way is NOT a fun experience. But it's sad that so many end up compromising the word for such a reason.

That's at least as bad as Augustine or Calvin's refusal to believe that angels copulated with women, simply on the basis of their idea that such a thing is simply absurd, although scripture unambiguously SAYS that is what happened.

Are they all going to hell for adding to scripture?

Oh and here's another one. Well, it's not exactly a case of misreading the Bible, but it is a case of insisting on a false view of history because you don't like the implications of the true history: This is the case of the King-James-Only people who claim that the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuagint was actually produced some centuries after Christ, rather than what is generally known about it, that it was produced some centuries BEFORE Christ and is most likely the scripture quoted by Him and His disciples.

May the Lord forgive us all for such indulgences of the carnal nature.

Answering my recent commenter, someone with another heaven story

Just visited a commenter's blog where I found a post in which she quotes Augustine about the folly of picking and choosing from scripture, as it shows trusting in oneself over trusting in God.

If you believe what you like in the gospels,
and reject what you don't like,
it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
~Saint Augustine~

Which is very ironic considering that that's exactly what she did on my Hidden Glory blog a few days ago where she did her best to discredit the apostle Paul as having reverted to Judaism in his teaching that women are to cover our heads in the church assembly, simply because she dislikes his teachings on women. I left her the following message:

Hello,
You've posted a number of times at my blogs, mostly opposing my views, and now I've come to your blog and have spent a little time familiarizing myself with your views.

Since you came to my Hidden Glory blog recently to denounce the apostle Paul essentially as a Judaizer in his teaching that women are to cover our heads in church, I have to conclude that you are one of those who reject God's word and prefer your own wisdom to His despite what you are implying in this blog post.

Actually, for all their theology of free will, the Arminians (I have no idea what an "arminiast" might be) do recognize God's sovereignty in most of the life experiences of Christians. The Pelagians, on the other hand, are more directly heretical in their insistence on human free will.

Be that as it may, I suppose you believe that evidence of Jesus' choosing you is your experience at the age of three? As I have also written at my blog in response to your posts, I believe you need to carefully and honestly reexamine that experience as there is no doubt it was a deception that has misled you for many years. If you were to describe that experience in some detail I'm quite sure it would show it wasn't heaven you were experiencing, and that wasn't Jesus you met there. Similar experiences children have reported of being taken to heaven reveal that they are in fact deceptions, as I have discussed in a few posts on my Faith's Corner blog. You should describe yours in some detail in your Profile here, or in a separate blog post if you prefer. If you are truly committed to the truth of Christ you should be willing to submit your experience to the prayerful guidance of other Christians and especially pastors or elders. Have you done this? I sincerely hope if you have not that you will, as you are most certainly under a very serious spiritual deception.

A great deal of what she says on that blog is more or less orthodox, but it is presented in such a disconnected way that I'm not sure what she means by many of the terms. Since she doesn't treat Paul as the author of inspired scripture but only as a fallible man, there are probably many other ways her doctrine is faulty. This is what I would expect of someone who attributes her salvation to a visit to heaven at the age of three. Akiane Kramarik -- who must be a teenager by now or a young adult, who also claims to have been to heaven, in her case at four as I recall, came back with a very New Age version of Jesus. The young boys who have had books recently written about their visits to "heaven" also have unbiblical ideas about God and Jesus from their experiences.

Texas Governor Perry's call for prayer for the nation NOT what we need

It sounds like a good idea, in fact it sounds like what I've been hoping would happen for a long time. But like Glenn Beck's rally it is pulling together people of false beliefs as well as true. We can't do this together with heretics and expect God to hear us. This sort of thing makes it discouraging even to consider calling Christians to a time of prayer.

Here's Brannon Howse on this upcoming event:

In August of 2010 it was Glenn Beck with whom Christians were uniting for his "Restoring Honor Rally". I took a real beating from many Christians for stating that I believe that Glenn Beck, as a Mormon, is proclaiming another Jesus and another gospel and that this event would not help America but hurt America.

Even after Beck released his book, Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life in which he detailed his completely unbiblical worldview; Christians continued to defend Beck stating that he is a good Christian that is teaching truth.

Now, as we approach August of 2011, many Christians are once again jumping on what appears to be the next spiritual bandwagon; a prayer rally being hosted by Governor Perry of Texas and other leaders. The website of The Response, says the reason for this rally is because:

America is in the midst of a historic crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. The youth of America are in grave peril economically, socially, and, most of all, morally. There are threats emerging within our nation and beyond our borders beyond our power to solve.

The reason the "youth of America are in grave peril economically, socially, and most of all, morally", is because they are in peril spiritually and I believe that giving credibility to and introducing youth and adults to false teachers and their unbiblical spirituality is only going to put people in danger of eternal, spiritual peril.

I do not believe this event will aide in reclaiming the country, restoring liberty, or prosperity and it certainly will not prompt God to bless America. I believe such an event will actually hasten God's judgment on our nation.

News reports reveal that on July 22nd, Governor Perry stated that he has no problem with gay marriage in New York. Are pro-family leaders that have agreed with boycotting secular companies for their support of gay marriage now going to be consistent and boycott Perry's prayer event?

The Response, as this event is being called, is being promoted as a time of prayer and repentance. However, how can Christians and Christian leaders gather together in a spiritual enterprise, a spiritual service, with individuals that embrace a theology and doctrine that teaches a different Jesus and a different gospel? I and thousands of pastors and theologians believe that the Word of God reveals that the teaching of the New Apostolic Reformation, (NAR) the Word of Faith movement and the prosperity gospel is completely unbiblical.

Yes, that's the problem with calls to prayer in this time. There was a time when a self-described Christian could be counted on to be orthodox enough to join with in such an event. In our time the nation is full of cults and apostate churches. Prayer for the nation now has to include strenuous spiritual warfare against false doctrine along with all the other needed petitions on behalf of the nation. Yes, such is the time we live in that we need to do spiritual warfare against a false Christian group that thinks it has the last word in spiritual warfare (see the Howse article linked above for an explanation of what I mean by this).

Norway joins the rest of the West in the eclipsing of its once-Christian society

How does someone come to the conclusion that the best way to combat an ideology that produces terrorists is to become one yourself?

That's what the Norwegian man who killed over 90 people at a "liberal" camp, and some government officials in another killing in downtown Oslo, seems to have been thinking. He says he wants to "change Norwegian society." He opposes the liberal immigration policies that have allowed the Muslim subpopulation to grow, he opposes multiculturalism and the Cultural Marxism that brought it about, he opposes the jihadic policies of Islam and wants them recognized and restricted by Norwegian society. How is that going to happen by murdering people?

It seems the only way he might change Norwegian society is by making it more paranoid and less free.

Norway has been known for its freedoms, for instance that its highest officials felt free to walk around in town or ride public transportation without the need for protection. Now that may change. How will that serve the killer's objectives?

They regard their liberal immigration policies and their open door to Muslims as part of their superior notions of freedom. If they do change in reaction to this murderous event they are only going to batten down more behind such policies and enforce them with other kinds of restrictions on their freedoms.

You know what's REALLY sad about all this? The freedom they are so proud of GOES BACK TO THEIR CHRISTIAN PAST. They no longer understand this and now mistakenly attribute it to their liberal policies, the policies that are allowing Islam a voice to such an extent that it may rise up and challenge whatever is left of Norway's Christian heritage -- because Islam is committed to taking the world for Allah and Islam is NOT a religion that promotes such freedoms as Norway has enjoyed for centuries. In nation after nation liberalism has become the handmaiden to the murderous aims of Islam.

Apparently the killer knows this and wants to bring it to the attention of the society in general. It isn't going to happen, it's only going to get worse. You don't return to a Christian society by murdering people.

The degeneration into liberalism AND the growth of Islamic influence in the West are BOTH DUE TO THE DETERIORATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

The solution is God-wrought revival. Certainly not murder.

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Later: Since of course the Right is concerned that the Left is going to make this into some kind of proof that Christians are just as much terrorists as Islamists, I want to add that I think Christians should be careful not to see this so much as a political conflict as a reflection of the spiritual "powers and principalities" that we are always up against. Our enemy is "not flesh and blood" and the war can't be fought effectively by human means. We really do need a revival, this is a spiritual war and it can only be won by Christians dying to self, taking up our cross and following the Lord into battle primarily on our knees. Really sad that this "Christian" killer doesn't recognize these realities.

Time off the internet

I'm having computer problems which is keeping me off the internet for a while. Computer crashed, have to use the library's or this borrowed old laptop that won't accept anti-virus programs for some reason -- they claim there's not enough space for them although the computer itself says it has 11 GB free so I don't get it, but whatever the reason it means I need to keep the risk to a minimum. I don't have the money to get a new computer outright although some friends have offered to help which I much appreciate and I may take them up on their offer. The borrowed computer is adequate for my work so far so there's no rush to get a new system.

And I have to say it's been a very good thing to be off the internet for a while. I've been getting a lot of reading done and catching up on other neglected things.

(I may go make a report on some of the reading on the Things of the Spirit blog.)

The Harold Camping False Prophecy

I haven't written anything on the Harold Camping Judgment Day May 21 prophecy debacle, thinking it's been amply covered elsewhere, but a link or two is probably in order.

I received this one of Eric Barger's comments through Olive Tree Ministries. He is imagining what it must have been like to be in the position of Camping's followers both before and after the prophecy fell through, and calls for prayer for them in the wake of the disaster.

Here's a 5-part blog post by W. Robert Godfrey, President of Westminster Seminary, giving background on Harold Camping and his approach to the Bible.

More links to come as I run across them.