Division in Today's Church

Pastor James McDonald has written a great post about division within the church.

http://familyreformation.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/a-step-toward-winning-the-battle-loving-each-other-amid-differences/

I agree with him, the state of the church in America today is truly concerning. I believe the same spirit of rugged individualism that played such a large role in the birth of this country has also fostered quite a bit of Protestant division over the centuries. These days, people have initiated and supported church splits over matters of sheer preference, such as worship music, or whether or not the church changes venues, or how the church collects offerings. There is often precious little humility in evidence during times like these, precious little desire to elevate the interests of others above one’s own interests per Phil. 2:3-4.

How much more likely is division, then, when earnest and sincere Christians have honest differences in doctrine? This is why I believe that the family reformation concept that Pastor McDonald and others are advancing is so critical to the church today, because it provides a model and a possible solution. A longer-term one, to be sure, but as John Wesley said, “Give me 100 men, filled with the Holy Spirit, and I will take all of England for the Lord.” How much more, then, for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of Godly families?

When we consider the question of whether we can have fellowship with another believer who differs with us in doctrine, what's the first thing that comes to mind? It isn't worship music, is it? Or how far their church is from us? Or how their church collects offerings? Is it even a more controversial doctrine, such as the miraculous gifts, or eschatology, or baptism, or soteriology?

I don't know what the first question is for you, but for me, it's whether that professing believer has a true and earnest and passionate LOVE for the God of the Bible. If so, then with love, and patience, and the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God, I believe most things will work themselves out. Much of the time, a doctrinal difference springs from ignorance, and I've typically found that it's best to instruct ignorance, while saving rebukes for rebellion.

If there is true salvation, and a sense of humility and teachability, and a reliance on the Word, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, and a local Body that practices the one anothers, I believe all things are possible. And all the more so when the ties that bind the local Body together are generational ones, formed of blood and love, with fathers and mothers who raise up their children in the fear of the Lord, and embracing Biblical gender roles, all on the same common foundation, that strongest bedrock of Jesus Christ.

Romans 15:5-6 - Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful Blogging

Wow. Has it really been over a week since I last posted? This blogging thing sure takes some getting used to! Between a busy week at work, and a busy week at church, certain things just seem to slip by the wayside. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that, mostly because to me, blogging isn't about a virtual, make-believe, unimportant, pretend world. The blogs I've read and the people I've "met" represent real people, Godly people, and praise the Lord for that! Sometimes they represent people who live in bigger cities, and sometimes they represent people who live on relatively isolated farms or in small towns, where finding like-minded people is often hard to do. And for them, I imagine that experiencing various blogs across the country can be an encouraging tool indeed.

Regardless, even more important than all of the above, Col. 3:23-24 states, "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ." If I'm going to do this blogging thing, I should do it faithfully, and diligently.

Resolved, not to let a full week go by without posting at least once.

(OK, so Jonathan Edwards I ain't...)

He Is Risen, Indeed!

As this glorious Resurrection Sunday draws to a close on the West Coast, I wanted to take the opportunity to rejoice yet again with my brothers and sisters. I am especially struck today by Numbers 21:1-9, which describes the complaints of the Israelites, and the punishment of God upon them.

Yet God also provided salvation for those Israelites who were under the judgment of the fiery serpents, and that salvation came when they fixed their gaze intently upon the bronze serpent lifted high above the camp. And as our Lord said in John 3:14-15, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."

I am always struck by how the Old Testament so perfectly, completely, and consistently points toward the coming Messiah. And that Messiah came down from Heaven and walked the earth two millenia ago, and lived a perfect life, and was lifted up and crucified on a cross, and died for our sins, and was buried, and was raised on the third day, so that those who believe in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

He is risen, indeed! Praise the Lord!

Repenting from Socialism

CT asks me how it was that I turned away from Marxism and/or socialism. To explain that, I probably need to explain how I got that way to begin with. It all started in college, when I attended a large, liberal university. I was a pretty sheltered kid, so after being bombarded with all kinds of new information, I began to latch onto concepts of social justice as my cause of the moment. Whether it was racial injustice, or helping the poor, or feminism, or gay rights, or the environment, I was all about crusading for what I viewed as the less fortunate. And after enough of that thinking, I became convinced that our capitalistic economic structure was one of the major causes of all of these hardships and inequalities in our society. Being oh-so-infallible at the age of 18 as I was, I hardened in my position and really bought in, and hard. I went even beyond socialism, and into actual Communism/Marxism. That was my position all through college.

As I ended college and started law school, I started to become disillusioned. The various student movements that I had joined started to fragment and splinter, and a number of the other leaders had demonstrated themselves to be opportunists. I started to withdraw from those movements, and as I spent time away, concentrating on my studies, the fiery Marxism retreated as well.

By the time I left law school, I was more socialist than Marxist or Communist, which was progress of a sort, I suppose. Part of it was that natural drift away from my old companions and organizations, but part of it was also summed up by an old saying, "He who is not a liberal at the age of 20 has a heart of stone. He who is not a conservative at the age of 30 has a head of stone." And I was not yet a Christian back then, so I was also motivated by a lot of selfishness, by the prospect of making a lot of money as a lawyer, and suddenly having 75-90% of it taken away for the good of the workers wasn't quite as exciting to me.

Concepts like socialism are much more feasible in the sheltered, ivory towers of college and graduate school. Once I started working -- and earning money -- I saw more and more of the inherent problems within a socialist viewpoint. After a couple of years as a lawyer, I had pretty much given up on the concept of socialism, and was pretty firmly in the "liberal Democrat" category. Economically, I had grown more conservative over time, but socially, I was as liberal as ever. I was a science-worshipping evolutionist, a pro-abortion feminist, an affirmative action and gay rights supporter, so many different things and causes, I still supported.

All of that changed after God saved me, years ago. My testimony, I'll share another time, but suffice it to say that after I genuinely believed that Christ is the Son of God, and that the Bible is the inerrant, true Word of God, my worldly thinking began to conform to biblical thinking, instead. The scales dropped from my eyes, and when I compared my previous, empty opinions to the perfect truth of the Word, the Word won out every time.

Now, I'm about as far from the labels above as can be. And when it comes to economics, I believe a laborer is worthy of his reward. Yes, we should help the poor, and yes, we should render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, but my preference would certainly be to help the poor out of a joyful and regnerated heart rather than governmental compulsion, and to pay taxes in as small an amount as possible so that I might maximize my stewardship for the work of the Kingdom.

One of the most ironic things to me about all of this is that when you look at the early church in Acts, when you look at Christian families throughout history and today, they have all really functioned like a form of benevolent socialism, perhaps communalism or communitarianism would be apt descriptions. Acts 2:44-45 shows this quite clearly, how the early Christians would pool their resources and share them out to whoever had need. Similarly, for any family that is united in love, there has always been a sense of pitching in and helping out for the common good.

The distinguishing factor here, however, is the love of Christ which compels us. Not the government. These are feasible, small-scale examples, not the massive-scale state-sponsored socialism that I once believed in, which is invariably corrupted by so much sin. It is only in the Christian family unit, or perhaps a smaller local church, where such things are even remotely possible. Once again, these things spring internally from a regenerated heart of love, and cannot be imposed externally by any human institution.

Praise the Lord for His grace, and especially on this glorious Good Friday!

Galatians 6:10 - As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

"China's Birth Limits Create Dangerous Gender Imbalance"

From the AP, a horror show full of nightmares.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090410/ap_on_re_as/as_china_gender_imbalance

Some quotes, in blue:

China has 32 million more young men than young women — a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime — because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son, a study released Friday said.

There it is, in plain, blunt language. To put that 32 million number in perspective, the entire population of CALIFORNIA based on the 2000 census was a bit over 33 million.

The prevalence of sonograms in recent years has allowed parents to learn the gender of their fetus about 20 weeks into pregnancy, Hesketh said, leading to a rise in abortions based on sex. Abortion is legal and widely available.

Technology can be a blessing from God, but if misused by sinful human beings, it can become a scourge. Sonograms, coupled with abortion being "legal and widely available."

Many countries ban abortion after 12 or sometimes 24 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother's life is at risk. China's laws do not expressly prohibit or even define late-term termination.

Even late-term abortion is available in China, allowing a couple who's already hemming and hawing about this abomination to have the maximum amount of time to make the wrong, horrendous decision.

"From other research, it is clear that sex-selective abortion does indeed contribute to these high sex ratios, but so do other things (such as) non-reporting of girl births, abandonment, even infanticide," Riley said.

INFANTICIDE. ABANDONMENT. So instead of parents raising up their children with love in the fear of the Lord, we have a complete perversion of parental duties and the possibility of murder even OUTSIDE of the womb. I know the natural human heart is depraved, but this level of barbarity is simply stunning to me. And yet I know that but for the grace of God, I could be right there, too!

Ratios in Jiangxi and Henan provinces were the highest in the country, with 140 boys for every 100 girls in the 1-4 age range, the study said.

Hesketh told The Associated Press she thought rates were highest there because both provinces are poor and have largely secular Han Chinese populations. China's often disadvantaged ethnic minorities are exempt from birth limits, and researchers found normal sex ratios in the minority regions of Tibet and largely Muslim Xinjiang.

And here we see how the problem is worst in largely secular regions, how the problem would be even WORSE without what I understand to be a very rapidly growing Chinese Christian segment of the population.

Evangelical Christians are often accused of being "sexist," even though Biblical gender roles can lead to the most loving, sacrificial, and Christ-honoring families, working together in joyful harmony. Even though women and daughters are cherished and honored and protected, even at the expense of major or sometimes even mortal peril for the men.

And yet look at what happens when unfettered secularism, without the influence of godly men and women, takes hold of a population? You have the worst kind of sexism possible. INFANTICIDE OF BABY GIRLS, SOLELY BECAUSE THEY'RE GIRLS.

I am so unbelievably saddened, particularly on this glorious day commemorating Christ's death on the Cross. My desire is to channel that sadness into regular prayer for China, and to consider other ways of helping the growing Christian church in China.

The study said enforcing the existing ban on sex-selective abortion could lead to normalization of the ratios.

One final note. The study's proposed solution? MORE government regulation, rather than, oh, I don't know, perhaps REMOVING the unnatural restriction on having children?

Psalm 127:3 - Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

On Being Counter-Cultural

One thing about family reformation specifically, and conservative evangelicalism generally, is that they're strikingly counter-cultural. When you think about it, in a world that seems to be increasingly embracing a hedonistic, individualistic, materialistic culture, the very notion of "holiness" starts becoming so foreign, that it's almost a curiosity. "Holier than thou" has become a major insult, even though the very definition of holiness has all but disappeared from common societal understanding.

Think of all of the ways that family reformation and conservative evangelicalism are counter-cultural.

- Traditional gender roles, in a world that worships "equality" so long as that so-called equality drags down both genders equally into the pit of sin.

- Heterosexuality, in a world that is so concerned about "tolerance" that it is willing to accept just about anything, no matter how contrary to nature.

- Large families, in a world that constantly frets about overpopulation and overindulgence for the couple as two individuals, rather than as parents, or as a family unit.

- Pre-marital purity and modesty, in a world that is so sex-obsessed that risque "fashion" and pornography are multi-BILLION dollar industries.

I'm sure you can think of many more.

Being counter-cultural in the above ways can be like a badge of honor. We are making a stand, darn it, and not even the gates of Hades will overpower us! And it is right to make that stand, and it is important to make that stand, and we expect hardship and oppression and resistance as a result of making that stand. Indeed, that pressure from the world is promised all throughout Scripture.

The thought I had, which sparked this post, is that we always need to remember WHY we're making that stand. It's not about being counter-cultural simply for the sake of being... counter-cultural. We're making that stand for CHRIST. Because our Savior, our perfect Lord who is precious beyond all measure, died on the Cross for our sins. We can never forget that. "Preach the Gospel to yourself every day," a number of wise men have said, and I whole-heartedly agree.

Perhaps this is already basic and elementary to you. In a way, it's basic and elementary to me, too.

So why is it that I STILL forget, sometimes? That on occasion, when I'm all caught up in the middle of a storm, when I'm so busy making a stand, being counter-cultural, I tend to focus on that, instead of Jesus?

I pray we will always strive to be like Mary, who sat lovingly at the feet of her Lord to receive His teaching, rather than Martha, who despite all of her haste and diligence and frenetic activity somehow managed to let the most important thing of all slip out of her mind.

Welcome, from a Reformed Liberal

This blogging thing is a bit new to me, but after spending the last couple of weeks scouring the web for everything I could find about family reformation, family integrated churches, Voddie Baucham, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Vision Forum, Boerne Christian Assembly, Quiverfull, the Phillips, the Botkins, the McDonalds, and so many others, I felt compelled to start sharing some thoughts, hopefully to help myself crystallize what I've been learning, and even more hopefully to encourage the dear saints and godly families about whom I've been reading.

Aside from the Bible and certain other great scholars of the Reformed faith, the writings I've recently read, from so many different leaders, bloggers and visionaries, have been among the most educated, sanctified, intelligent and inspiring that I've ever had the privilege of examining. And I have the increasing conviction that living in this manner is perhaps the best way we have of walking our Christian walks.

If I had to pick one thing that has been the most convincing to me, it is the children of these godly families. Bold, intelligent and trailblazing sons. Feminine, dutiful and loving daughters. I know a lot of Christian parents, even though I'm not one myself (yet), and without fail, their biggest and most common prayer request is for the salvation of their children.

I know that family reformation (which I'm using as a shorthand term for the overall synthesis of the concepts I've been reading about lately... and if I'm using a wrong term, please correct me) is not a panacea, and it is not a magic bullet. I know the Lord is sovereign, and He will save who He will save. But there is Scriptural merit to the concept of generational faithfulness, just as the consequences of sin can reverberate down the line for three and four generations as well.

I know that I'm dealing with a limited sample size, I know that there are tragedies and failures in every group, and I know that there is still so much to learn and discover. But the fruit I'm witnessing from family reformation is simply undeniable to me. The things I'm reading resonate in my soul, and much more importantly, conform to Scripture. And if my primary concerns as a future husband and parent -- Lord willing -- are the sanctification of my future wife and the raising up of godly children who fear the Lord, then it almost seems an abuse of stewardship to spurn this path, especially after learning so much about it.

Especially when comparing this path to the paths taken by certain other dear saints and parents, many of whom I pray for regularly.

Some introductory thoughts, from a Reformed liberal. And by the way, the title of this blog is intended as a play on words in two different ways. Long ago, I was once liberal politically, a Marxist, a radical socialist, and now I'm definitely not. And long ago, I was once an atheist, a stingy miser, a "free will" individualist, and now I adhere to the Reformed Christian faith and I'm much more generous -- one might even say "liberal" -- with the money God has given me, thanks to the Spirit.

All praise to God and God alone for changing my heart of stone, certainly I was incapable of doing anything good on my own.