Bad Doctrine

It’s late, but I feel like I must write at least a little.  Lately, I have had a lot of thoughts run through my head as I try to sleep.  In fact, it’s these thoughts that keep me up until the wee hours of the morning almost every night; those type of nights render me almost useless the next morning.  But what a gift it is to think, to reason, to ponder.  If we couldn’t do it, we could not meditate on God’s word, and thus we could not know Him, so, I think I will take the late night thinking.

A week ago my pastor encouraged us [a group of crazy college kids] to really feast on the Word, and to develop a habit of getting in to it every day until our soul is happy in the Lord. He referenced several letters written by George Muller, all of which challenged the very right to call ourselves well read in the Word of God. Within this context, my pastor mentioned the typical college student’s tendency to latch on to practices while failing to truly embrace the principals over the practices they quickly grow to love. He then explained that as quickly as college students love one practice they essentially see the problem of legalism, and quickly over embrace a sense of hyper-grace and slip into a state of antinomianism.

Truly, the average college student is quite erratic in belief and behavior. Unfortunately, it only gets worse when in a large group, where the populous can indirectly create a false sense of what is moral and amoral. Though rooted in a message, book, or sermon the practice of embracing practices over principals is simply wrong and dangerous. At its very core it neglects the gospel.  Likewise, the one who abuses the theology of grace and despises all practice and indulges in lawlessness is also venturing off the road.

My pastor’s correction was quite wise and, I hope, a beneficial warning. Our goal should be to steer ourselves back to the center of the road by clinging to the cross of Christ and coming back, day after day, to scripture. It is only through scripture that we can possibly hope to know God and pursue righteous deeds. In light of this, I was inspired to write a blog-book of sorts, College Road.  It should be relatively short, about 18-25 posts throughout the final semester of my 5 year college career. I want to get to the core of the collegiate problem, reveal all its different guises, and most importantly help direct our gaze to the cross. I hope by the end we will be encouraged to live as Paul explained when he wrote the Corinthians, simply, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

by Tyler Thayer
Bound2Christ – boundtochrist.com – © 2010

Dr. Don Carson gave a series of guest lectures at Reformed Theological Seminary about the New Perspective of Paul.  While quite academic, I highly recommend it for those who know nothing on the topic and who may encounter it in school or in some church they visit.  You can find it on the web by going to itunes.rts.edu or searing for D.A. Carson in the iTunes store and clicking on “New Perspective on Paul” under iTunes U.

Statistically, no.  But as Al Mohler writes in a post, this nation’s pluralism looks more like Hinduism than Christianity.

“Without doubt, Americans have been growing more and more accepting of plural and relative understandings of truth,” Mohler writes. ” A tragically large number of those who identify as Christians have been drinking from the same wells of thought (as Hindus).”

His post draws most of its material from Lisa Miller’s article in Newsweek.

I don’t know about you, but if I ever want to get your tempers flaring, all I have to do is take one afternoon and surf the Internet.  Recently, I re-discovered a video that made me want to go Rambo.  Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works and the infamous WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com, launches his campaign against Christianity in a 10-minute video called “10 Questions Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer.”  I am normally challenges by questions from non-Christians.  But these ten that I supposedly “have to” answer make me want to hit something rather than explore my beliefs further.

I’ll spare the details of the questions in this rant, but the main presupposition of Brain’s video is that Jesus Christ as God does not and did not exist.  It isn’t because there is no historical evidence.  Jesus as we understand Him does not exist because He is allegedly imaginary.  We know He is imaginary because the claim that He is good and loving does not match up with the way the world works.  Why doesn’t it match up?  A few examples: bad things happen to “good people,” people starve, God apparently has a bias against amputees and God demands the death of “innocent” people.  Humanity is essentially good and because the Christian God does not give humanity what it wants, God can’t be good. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, apparently they never left. However, the problem of indulgences has returned in a less offensive way. The Catholic Church recently announced they will be offering plenary indulgences in celebration of the Pauline Year¹. These indulgences cannot be bought like the ones back in the 1500s, yet they can be earned by a person’s “participation in events connected with the jubilee year.”

Of course, most have always known that indulgences never went away, or at least the idea of them. The Catholic Church has always offered some sort of works-based guarantee. In the case of indulgences, you can get a certain number of years cut off your stay in purgatory based off good works such as how many Hail Marys you say, how many pilgrimages you make to Rome, etc. It is usually a problem of “purification,” not a problem of salvation. However, this new emphasis on complete absolution of sin will have new and greater implications beyond the skewed doctrine of purgatory.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. For those of you who don’t know what “plenary” means, neither did I. I looked it up; it means “complete.” [↩]