the gate

Ed Stetzer has a very good post today about Christians bearing false witness. Here are a few excerpts:

But one question has been really troubling me lately: why do Christians lie about each other so much?

This malady seems to be everywhere, but it is surprising to me how common it is among the most conservative of Christians—those who speak often of their belief in the authority of Bible. People like me. We are quick to defend the authority of God’s word, but are not always as quick to apply what it says about lying to our own words.

John Calvin said “slander is often praised under the pretext of zeal and conscientiousness. Hence it happens that this vice insinuates itself even among the saints, creeping in under the name of virtue.”

But it’s important to note that if we are going to take the 9th commandment seriously we have to do more than not lie—we must tell the truth, and even defend those who are being lied about.

We cannot not let a passion for the truth make it OK to not speak truthfully. God is never honored when we defend His truth by speaking falsely.

The whole post is well worth your time.

To make sure we only tell the truth about others, let’s not repeat hearsay (something we didn’t witness with our own eyes or ears). Let’s not embellish, distort, stretch, shade, or slant the truth, or give only partial truth (speaking the bad and remaining silent about the good, for example). God is very clear in telling us that sins of the tongue are as serious as any other sins. Slanderers are just as sinful as homosexuals and drunkards.

Let’s be careful with our words.

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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh, and lived among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1,14)

John’s amazing declaration isn’t that the Word was written down but that the Word became flesh and lived among us.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son….” (Hebrews 1:1-2)

Yes, God has spoken!

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Is there such a thing as a good slap in the face? A boxer fighting for big prize money would probably say yes if his trainer woke him out of a stupor with a slap so he would have another chance to win that prize.

This is that kind of a slap in the face.

Darryl Dash posted a video of the atheist, Penn Fraser Jillette (of Penn and Teller), saying this:

“I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, and you think, ‘Well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward’…How much do you have to hate somebody not to proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”

Wow! How much do you have to hate somebody not to tell them about Jesus?

You should go watch the video. And I especially appreciated Cameron Crabtree’s comment.

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Update 12/19/08 — The Pew Forum has updated their research to be more specific.
USA Today reports:

But an overall majority (54%) of people who identified with a religion and who said they attend church weekly also said many religions can lead to eternal life. This majority included 37% of white evangelicals, 75% of mainline Protestants and 85% of non-Hispanic white Catholics.

Pew’s new survey also found that many Christians (29%) say they are saved by their good actions; 30% say salvation is through belief in Jesus, God or a higher power alone, which is the core teaching of evangelical Protestantism; and 10% say salvation is found through a combination of behavior and belief, a view closer to Catholic teachings.

What is the reason for so many evangelicals’ confusion? I think it is because so many in the “Evangelical” church are preaching politics, moralism, psychobabble, prosperity, etc., . . . everything except the gospel. Click here and read the USA Today article.

[end update]

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Earlier this year, the Pew Forum reported some information I think we ought to know about the United States.

What is the fastest growing religion in America? Go ahead, take a guess.

What is the fastest declining religion?

We won’t get into the debate about whether the U.S. is or has ever been a “Christian nation.” But let’s just say that Dorothy wouldn’t even recognize Kansas if she were there now.

“The number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.” Thus, the unaffiliated are the fastest growing “religious” group in America. (Some people suggest Wicca is the fastest-growing religion in America. Read about it here, here, or here. But it would take some real magic for Wicca to become the third largest religion in the U.S. by 2012, as some claim will happen.)

Catholicism has experienced the greatest net loss.

Yet, the U.S. is on the verge of Protestantism dropping below 50% of the population. Evangelical protestants comprise only 26.3% of the overall adult population.

“Muslims, roughly two-thirds of whom are immigrants, now account for roughly 0.6% of the U.S. adult population; and Hindus, more than eight-in-ten of whom are foreign born, now account for approximately 0.4% of the population.”

Every indication is that adherents of religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., will continue to grow as a percentage of the U.S. population.

The Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey is here. Check out the interactive graphics, or read some of the report.

You can read the New York Times article about the report here. Here’s the Los Angeles Times article about it: Survey Shows Californians Less Religious Than Rest of Nation. And here’s more press coverage (check out the spin factor in some of those headlines . . . sheeesh).

This is why I keep saying We Need To Stay Gospel-Focused. Nothing else is up to the challenge.

What do you think about the changing U.S. religious landscape?

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proverbs 20:25 - it is a trap for a man to say rashly, “it is holy!” and after the vows to make inquiry.

not everything is from God.  not every book on the top 10 list, not every philospher or prophet, not every blog, and certainly not every word form the mouth of a politician.

it is unwise to make a conclusion that something is (or is not for that matter) from God without examination.  this is a huge problem in our society.  “if it sounds good, it must be true”.  bologna.  the problem is that we have fallen slowly into a place where we accept that truth is relative, or that truth can be different for you than it is for me.  double bologna.

truth is defined as “the true or actual state of a matter; conformity with fact or reality”.  truth does not take a back seat to what we want to believe, it is unalterable.  it cannot be coaxed into a state of relativity, it thereby ceases to be truth.

even Christianity ceases to have any meaning if there is no truth.  why would we ever ask to receive mercy from God if it is not an unalterable truth that we are in need of it?  why would we ever believe that the sacrifice of Jesus extends somehow to us if it is not an unalterable truth that He was God in the flesh and lived a sinless life?  why would we ever choose to deny ourselves the pleasures of the world if it was not an unalterable truth that God wants us to live another life?  and why would we ever believe that God has promised us His inheritance if it is not an unalterable truth that this inheritance is His to give?

truth is absolutely essential.  love truth - seek truth - find God.

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the illusion of truth is all around.  people like to paint their relative understandings of truth in such a way as to seemingly prove their point, but to the trained eye, the boat just doesn’t hold water.

case and point:  newsweek’s article “our mutual joy” (an attempt to use the Bible to support gay marriage)

i really think that you have to read the Bible with bias in order to draw the conclusion that it supports homosexual marriage.  this article makes some reasonable conclusions regarding Biblical principles or love, inclusion and same sex relationships (read: close friendships).  however, those elements of Christian love do not negate the passages of Scripture that are clear on the issue.  what about 1 corinthians 6, or 1 timothy 1??  these passages do not speak towards marriage per se, but it’s clearly logical that if He is not in support of homosexuality, then He wouldn’t be in support of homosexual marriage.

if you want to argue in the courtyard of PCC about love and committment and whatever, that’s one thing.  but once you try to use the Bible to build an incorrect and illogical argument, that gets me a little hot under the collar.  people cannot make a practice of justifying their desires with 2 passages of Scripture taken out of context and a smile, and we Christians that believe that the Bible IS truth cannot let them do it. 

the problem is that the argument sounds nice.  Jesus loves everyone.  He never denounced homosexual marriage.  what about jonathan and daviiiiidddddd!!!???  what could possibly be wrong with 2 committed people loving each other in monogamy?  it sounds very nice doesn’t it?

the problem is that it’s un-Biblical.  no matter how you paint it, it is not and will never be Biblical.

newsweek is getting bombarded with mail.  that’s what they get for printing this garbage.

so lesson 2 of “hooked on phonics” is:
     actlualy raed the wdors and let tehm sepak for thselmeevs.

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If I described to you what you are about to experience, you probably wouldn’t believe me. So I won’t tell you — I’ll just let you experience for yourself.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!

That was fun. Now try this one.

A dootcr has aimttded the magltheuansr of a tageene ceacnr pintaet who deid aetfr a hatospil durg blendur.
can’t figure it out?

There’s a lesson about life here. The first scrambled paragraph is fun. It seems convincing based on what we are presented there. However, the single scrambled sentence follows the rule of keeping the first and last letter in place, but is much more difficult to read. Why? There isn’t much of a context to help us decipher the meaning, and letters that should be next to each other are separated farther apart. There may be other reasons also. Sorry to disappoint you, but somebody designed that first paragraph to deceive us.

Lot’s of people are telling us things that aren’t true. If we fall for their trickery, scare tactics, humor and/or charm, we become the victim of their scams.

In the first 12 verses of 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul warns us of “preachers’ tricks,” and says he practiced none of them. He said, “Look at my life. Remember how I served you. I made sure you knew Jesus is the superstar, not me.” Paul was all about the gospel, and the gospel is all about Jesus.

Too many Christians have forgotten who the real superstar is!

HT: Matt Davis

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“In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent U.S. residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades. More than 40,000 of them were admitted last year, the highest annual number since the terrorist attacks, according to data on 22 countries provided by the Department of Homeland Security.” (The New York Times, 9/10/06)

We can respond to this reality in one of three ways: first, we can be worried or frightened; two, we can ignore it because we view it as of no consequence; three, we can see it as the work of our sovereign God who is bringing the world to us so they can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, says that although there are many reasons Muslims immigrate to the U.S., three are especially significant. The first and most important is refuge. There are many troubles in the Muslim world. There is ethnic and religious persecution. There are wars. There’s tyranny. There are lots of reasons to leave the Muslim world. Secondly, there’s educational and economic opportunity here. And thirdly, there is what he calls Islamist ambition — militant Islamic ambition. Militant Muslims come to the United States to change the United States.

We should not welcome creeping Sharia. I do not think allowing militant Islamists to change the U.S. is a good thing. (But maybe I’m wrong! Keep reading.)

For those Muslims who come here for non-violent reasons, I believe we should see it as the sovereign hand of God at work. We should view it with a Great Commission mindset, and be intentional in our hospitality and our friendship.

In chapter 16 of his book Perspectives On The World Christian Movement, Dr. Ralph Winter discusses redemptive history. When I first read it, it was as if scales fell from my eyes and I could see, in a way I never had before, God’s amazing work throughout history to gather in those who are far from him. Dr. Winter argues quite persuasively that God will do whatever it takes to save lost people, and that the salvation of those who are lost is much more important to God than the comfort of his children. Whenever the Church becomes evangelistically complacent, God jars her out of her complacency. One of the ways he has done that across the ages is by bringing desperately lost people into the places where Christianity has been established, but those Christians are not missionally zealous.

I believe we Christians in America have an opportunity to make a zealous gospel response to the immigrants among us before God takes it to the next level. What is the next level? Dr. Winter describes it quite vividly:

Once more, when Christians did not reach out to them, pagan peoples came where they were. And once more, the phenomenal power of Christianity manifested itself: the conquerors became conquered by the faith of their captives. Usually it was the monks sold as slaves or the Christian girls forced to be their wives and mistresses which eventually won these savages … In God’s eyes, their redemption must have been more important than the harrowing tragedy of this new invasion of barbarian violence and evil which fell upon God’s own people whom He loved. (After all, he had not even spared His own Son in order to redeem us!)

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related posts:
Creeping Sharia: What Islamists Are After
The Islamization of America?
No, Henny Penny, The Sky Isn’t Falling

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As someone who truly wants to obey the Great Commission, I am surprised by how many people think they are “safe” and immune to tragedy here in the United States. We are not “safe” here, and there is no “safe” place on this earth. As Christians, we should find our peace and security in Jesus, not a geographical location. In terms of the Great Commission, we cannot assume that we are safer staying in the U.S. than we are if we go outside of the U.S.

Are you aware that we have people training for jihad here in the U.S.? Do you know that terrorists planning to attack India trained here in the U.S. in jihadist camps? I could post hundreds of such news reports. Here are but a few quotes. As usual on this blog, clickable links are in blue.

This investigation arose as part of the investigation of individuals attending the Dar al Arqam Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va.  In June 2003, Benkahla and ten others were indicted by a grand jury in Alexandria for conspiring to commit various offenses including mounting expeditions to attack India in Kashmir and Russia in Chechnya in the course of training for jihad in Virginia and Pakistan. (If you happen to click this link, be sure to scroll to the end where you will find the crimes for which the individuals involved in this case were convicted … and you might want to thank the next FBI agent you happen to see.)

Mumbai in the U.S.? Fort Dix suspects were training for “jihad” (alternative links here and here)

Behind a stretch of barbed wire in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, a small community of Muslims is drawing the attention of federal investigators who suspect the group may have ties to an extremist group believed responsible for a string of firebombings and assassinations across the United States.

Terrorists Training in Rural America?

The United States can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study being briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

Two of the more predominant mosques in the United States that have received funding from the Saudi government, and that adhere to the Wahhabist [i.e., terrorist] ideology, are the al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn, New York, and the King Fahd mosque in Los Angeles, California. Both mosques welcomed a number of the hijackers who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001.

“Traditionalist Catholics” continue their campaign of jailings, threats, fines, deprivation of water and electricity against evangelical Christians in southern Mexico. (more info here) [The inclusion here of Catholics persecuting evangelicals is in no way intended to compare or associate Catholicism with Islam. It simply illustrates danger from what some people would consider an unexpected source.]

Beyond these examples, we must be honest about the danger of traffic accidents and violent crime in our communities every day. Just as hard hat warning signs do not imply the sky is falling, these “warning signs” I’ve posted are not intended to cause fear or panic. They are simply intended to shatter the illusion that there are safe places on this earth.

When will we obey Jesus? “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:35)

When will we live in the supernatural joy experienced by the first Christians that is not dependent on comfortable circumstances? “They called the apostles in and had them whipped. The leaders ordered them not to speak in Jesus’ name. Then they let the apostles go. The apostles were full of joy as they left the Sanhedrin. They considered it an honor to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.” (Acts 5:40-41)

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related posts: Creeping Sharia: What Islamists Are After and The Islamization of America?

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No, I haven’t started wearing a tinfoil hat. Nor have I been reading The Catcher in the Rye. But the article I posted on Saturday, prompted me to do a little more reading.

Have you ever heard of Islamist Lawfare? Brooke M. Goldstein says, “One tenet of Sharia law is to punish those who criticize Islam, and to silence speech considered blasphemous against Islam or its Prophet Mohammed. The Islamist movement has two wings — that which operates violently, propagating suicide-homicide bombing and other terrorist activities, and that which operates lawfully, conducting a soft jihad, within our [U.S.] court systems, through Sharia banking, within our school systems and through organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Canadian Islamic Congress.”

In June of this year, the the San Francisco Chronicle reported the following:

• Last month, students at Friendswood Junior High in Houston were required to attend an “Islamic Awareness” presentation during class time allotted for physical education. The presentation involved two representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization with a record of Islamist statements and terrorism convictions. According to students, they were taught that “there is one God, his name is Allah” and that “Adam, Noah and Jesus are prophets.” Students were also taught about the Five Pillars of Islam and how to pray five times a day and wear Islamic religious garb. Parents were not notified about the presentation and it wasn’t until a number of complaints arose that school officials responded with an apologetic e-mail.

• Earlier this year at Lake Brantley High School in Seminole County, Fla., speakers from the Academy for Learning Islam gave a presentation to students about “cultural diversity” that extended to a detailed discussion of the Quran and Islam. The school neither screened the ALI speakers nor notified parents. After a number of complaints, local media coverage and a subsequent investigation, the school district apologized for the inappropriate presentation, admitting that it violated the law. Subsequently, ALI was removed from the Seminole County school system’s Dividends and Speaker’s Bureau.

• As reported by the Cabinet Press, a school project last year at Amherst Middle School transformed “the quaint colonial town of Amherst, N.H., into a Saudi Arabian Bedouin tent community.” Male and female students were segregated, with the girls hosting “hijab and veil stations” and handing out the oppressive head-to-toe black garment known as the abaya to female guests. Meanwhile, the boys hosted food and Arabic dancing stations because, as explained in the article, “the traditions of Saudi Arabia at this time prevent women from participating in these public roles.” An “Islamic religion station” offered up a prayer rug, verses from the Quran, prayer items and a compass pointed towards Mecca. The fact that female subjugation was presented as a benign cultural practice and Islamic religious rituals were promoted with public funds is cause for concern.

• Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a charter school in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., came under recent scrutiny after Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten brought to light concerns about public funding for its overtly religious curriculum. The school is housed in the Muslim American Society’s (the American branch of the Egyptian Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood) Minnesota building, alongside a mosque, and the daily routine includes prayer, ritual washing, halal food preparation and an after-school “Islamic studies” program. Kersten’s columns prompted the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union to issue a press release expressing its own reservations about potential First Amendment violations. An investigation initiated by the Minnesota Department of Education verified several of Kersten’s allegations and the school has since promised to make the appropriate changes. In a bizarre twist, when a local television news crew tried to report on the findings from school grounds, school officials confronted them and wrestled a camera away from one of its photographers, injuring him in the process.

• The controversy surrounding the founding of New York City’s Arabic language public school, Khalil Gibran International Academy, last year continues. Former principal Dhabah “Debbie” Almontaser was asked to step down after publicly defending T-shirts produced by Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, an organization with whom she shared office space, emblazoned with Intifada NYC. But KGIA has other troublesome associations. Its advisory board includes three imams, one of whom, New York University Imam Khalid Latif, sent a threatening letter to the university’s president regarding a planned display of the Danish cartoons. Another, Shamsi Ali, runs the Jamaica Muslim Center Quranic Memorization School in Queens, a replica of the type of Pakistani madrassa (or school) counter-terrorism officials have been warning about since 9/11. Accordingly, several parents founded Stop the Madrassa: A Community Coalition to voice their contention that KGIA is an inappropriate candidate for taxpayer funding.

I post this not as an alarmist. Nor am I advocating that we start marching in the streets, or that we organize a petition drive. But I do wonder if you are aware of what is happening in America. Did you know your tax dollars are being used to help fund the Islamization of American school children? What is the appropriate response as a Christian? Elevate your allegiance to Christ above your American citizenship, and tell us what you think we should do as Christians. (If any of you international readers want to weigh in, we would certainly welcome your comments.)

I have a couple more related posts, so stay tuned.

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