In the meantime

Quote of the Day

After spending way too much time today reading through over 50 comments on a post about R.C. Sproul, most of which were just downright mean and nasty (imagine that, Christians on the Internets being mean and nasty), I ran across this great quote from Jeremiah Burroughs, the great Puritan preacher who spent his last days devoted to healing the divisions he saw developing in the Body of Christ in the mid-1600s:

"If contentious men can find nothing against their brethren, they will surmise there is something. If they can find nothing in their actions to judge, they will judge their hearts. If there is nothing above board, they will think there may be something under board; and from thinking there may be something they will think it is very likely there is something; and from the likelihood that there is, they will conclude there is."  (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 204).

HT: Douglas Wilson, Blog and Mablog

Where Do You Draw the Line?

There is a great scene in Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye struggles to deal with cherished lifelong traditions being challenged and forced resettlement causing them to leave their beloved village. He paces the stage thinking out loud, debating the pros and cons of the situation when he suddenly stops and resolutely declares, "But if I bend that far I will break!"

Where is that breaking point for you? Part of the process of discovering who you are is knowing where you draw the line.

One of the great passions of my life and the primary focus of my ministry efforts for the years to come is unity in the Body of Christ. I am a firm believer that we can and should join hands across theological and denominational lines to impact our culture with the message of the Gospel. But I am not suggesting that in the name of unity we should reach outside of the mainstream of orthodox Christianity or that we should embrace or endorse other belief systems.

Two news items last week illustrated this point quite well. The first was an ongoing discussion between Dr. Al Mohler and Mormon apologist Orson Scott Card on whether or not Mormons are Christians. The second was the story of Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, a 23 year Episcopalian priest who a little over a year ago announced that she had embraced Islam, but was still a Christian. She was, she said, "100% Christian and 100% Muslim."

Most of us who have examined the basic tenets of both Mormonism and Islam have come to the conclusion that neither is compatible with biblical Christianity. Most Muslims would agree, but for some reason the Mormons, who believe the non-Mormon Christian church was totally corrupt ("the devil's church") from the death of the Apostles until the time of Joseph Smith in the 1800s desperately want to be recognized as Christians by mainstream Christianity.

As I said earlier, most Muslims don't want to be considered Christians. Of course, the aforementioned Rev. Reddick is not most Muslims. Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island (which has authority over Rev. Redding) has removed her from the pulpit for a year for her to reconsider her theological stance. The Episcopal Church is certainly not a bastion of theological conservatism, but thankfully they apparently know that Christianity and Islam are incompatible.

It is not only important to know where you draw the line, but also knowing why you draw the line there. In the case of the debate between Mohler and Card on the interfaith site Beliefnet, Dr. Mohler has done a masterful job of questioning why the Mormons are so adamant about wanting to be considered Christians when a central part of their theology states the church became corrupt after the Apostles died.  In their view, the church remained corrupt until Mormon church founder Joseph Smith restored the "true" church in the 1800s. Therefore, those of us who are not a part of the Latter Day Saints - those of us in mainstream Christian churches - are still a part of corrupt churches.  So why would they seek so earnestly to be identified with us?

There is no doubt that we in the evangelical community have a natural bent toward exclusion and exclusivity. Many of us have sought to be passionate advocates for a end to the process of narrowing the definition of what constitutes a Christian, or a Baptist or whatever label within the Body you are seeking to define. We long to see more cooperation, understanding and fellowship within the broader Body of Christ. But for each of us, there is a place where we draw the line, and for me that line is drawn around the primary, foundational doctrines of our faith.

The vast majority of evangelical believers see these first-tier doctrines as the things that truly define Orthodox Christianity. The Trinity, the divinity and humanity of Christ, the word of God, and justification by faith -- these are doctrines around which we draw a very clear line. As much as we might love individuals who believe and teach otherwise, we cannot join together in ministry efforts with those who deny the deity of Christ, believe in works salvation, or say there are many paths to God and Christ is but one of them.

As Tevye would say, if we bend that far we will break.

Will There Ever Be Another Billy Graham?

The month of June has seen the dedication of the Billy Graham Library and the passing of his beloved wife Ruth.  At both of these events we've been reminded again how frail Dr. Graham is.  He retired from public ministry a while back, but these events have also reminded us of the awesome impact this son of a North Carolina dairy farmer has had on the world.

The vast majority of Americans don't remember a time when Billy Graham was not the most famous evangelist in the world.

What is it about Billy Graham that made him the most popular evangelist and religious figure in the last 100 years (and arguably in history)?  He was a compelling speaker, but he wasn't spellbinding like Martin Luther King.  He possessed a mesmerizing gaze with deep set eyes, but most of his ministry was to huge crowds who couldn't see his facial expressions. The content of his messages were simple and he wasn't especially deft at turning a phrase.  But there was something about Billy Graham that made him the world's pastor for the last sixty years.

It wasn't what he could do, it was who he is.  It is the essence of the man that we admire, whether we are the President of the United States, the Queen of England, or a man or woman struggling to make ends meet.

There are two basic things about Billy Graham that made him Billy Graham.

First, he is a man of steadfast integrity.  Over the 60 years of public ministry he never allowed himself to be in a room alone with a woman that was not his wife or daughter.  He never even allowed himself to be photographed with a woman unless Ruth was with him.  He instructed his organization, The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to pay him a salary equal to that of a local church pastor in a metropolitan area.  He turned over all royalties (which amounted to millions of dollars) from his best selling books to the BGEA.  He was and is above reproach, in every sense of the phrase.

Second, Billy Graham belonged to the entire body of Christ.  He was a Southern Baptist, but he sure didn't act like your typical Southern Baptist evangelist.  He didn't condemn or reject those who didn't agree with him on every theological jot and tittle.  He gladly partnered in his crusades with any church with a desire to help win people to Christ.  As a result, Billy Graham belonged to the Baptists, but he was also claimed as one of their own by the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Pentecostals, the Charismatics, the conservatives, the moderates, the young, the old and everyone in between.

He also belonged to the world. He was respected, even loved by the people he was trying to reach with the gospel.  People didn't feel that Billy Graham was preaching against them or at them.  They sensed that he cared about them and that he was sincere in wanting them to have peace with God. I remember my agnostic Jewish biology teacher in high school seeing a copy of Billy Graham's book "The Jesus Generation" on my desk in class.  He picked it up and said, "Billy Graham.  I like Billy Graham.  There's someone who knows what he is talking about."

Billy Graham was color blind long before it was politically correct to be color blind.  In the 1950s and 1960s he demanded that his crusades be completely integrated, much to the consternation of many of the prejudiced church members who expected the crusades to be as segregated as the churches they attended on Sundays.

Billy Graham united the church behind the common goal of winning people to Christ. He didn't try to get everyone to agree with him, he just wanted them to join him in an a crusade to share Christ with their lost friends and neighbors.   

Over the last twenty years, our culture has become more and more polarized... just look at a map of the "red" and "blue" states.  We have taken sides on the left or the right and have nothing but disdain and condemnation for those on the opposite side from us.  Sadly, the church has mirrored society in this.  We've taken sides on the left or the right and have nothing but disdain and condemnation for those on the opposite side from us.  (In the case of my denomination, we divided up on the right and the far right and have nothing but disdain and condemnation for those on the opposite side of the same side as us.)

Will there ever be another Billy Graham?  Will there ever be someone again who can unite the Body behind the common goal of winning others to Christ?  I certainly hope so. 

Get the Family Together

If you love someone, you care very deeply about the things they care about.  If something is important to one you love, it is important to you.

Did you know that unity in the family of God is very, very important to Jesus? It is so important to Him that in the garden shortly before the soldiers arrived to arrest Him, Jesus prayed that we would be one just as He and His Father are one.  Here's what He prayed:

"I'm praying not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me because of them and their witness about me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, so they'll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence That you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me." (John 17:20-23, The Message)

Sadly, you don't have to hang out at church more than a few minutes to realize that we are not one.  In fact, the Body of Christ couldn't be more disunited.  We're fragmented into hundreds of denominations, and even within those denominations the members can't even agree on the smallest things.

I am absolutely convinced the disunity of the Body is the devil's proudest accomplishment in the last two thousand years.  Think about it: If you were the devil, how would you go about making sure the world didn't come to know Jesus?  He can't discredit the Savior; He is blameless and spotless.  He can't discredit God's word; it is truth without mixture of error.  He can't discredit the message of the Gospel; it is the power of God unto salvation.  So what's the devil to do to slow the spread of the Gospel?  He went after the weakest link in the chain - us. 

The devil is a liar, but he's not stupid. If he can get you and me arguing and fighting with each other we'll be so busy going after each other we won't take the time to tell others about Jesus.  And that is precisely what he has done so successfully for most of the last two thousand years.

Here's the truly heartbreaking part- We've been separated for so long and the divisions run so deep that most of us have a great distrust for anyone who proposes unity among the various factions of the Body of Christ.  I might have to admit that you are my brother in Christ, but if you adhere to a different belief than me about when in the course of history Jesus is going to return or whether or not a gift of the Holy Spirit is still valid today, I can't worship with you, I can't fellowship with you, I can't work together with you to win our city for Christ, and in a lot of cases I will preach against you in my pulpit.  God help us!  No wonder the world looks at us and decides they don't want what we claim to possess!

If you look at the disunity in the church and consider how many hundreds of years it took us to become this fractured, it is so easy to give up hope.  There's no way we can ever put this back together again.  We can't even get 10 people in our church to agree, how can we even dare to think the Body of Christ can ever be united this side of eternity?

But I still believe in and serve a miracle-working God!  A God who spoke the universe into existence with the power of His Word.  A God who time and time again has done the impossible. The Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that nothing is impossible for God.  And in the Garden hours before He died for you and me Jesus prayed - not that you and I would agree on everything, but that we would be one.

God, get your family together again!