Broad meadows

(Personal note: For those who have been waiting for more content, I apologize for the delay. I’m currently involved in a short term project that will be ending soon. Today’s post is a little ahead of where I wanted to be for this installment, but recent events has moved this topic forward.)

This week I read two headlines that alarmed, but didn’t really surprise me. One of those headlines indicated that the Vatican has decided to add an Islamic prayer room there. If you read the “Following the Cup. . .” series that I wrote, you know I don’t consider Catholicism to be biblical Christianity . But that being said, the world and certainly Islam considers them to be Christian.

On a practical level this makes little sense. You can’t claim to be the proclaimers and defenders of truth and allow this type of cognitive dissonance to enter your theology. What dissonance am I talking about? Christianity proclaims Jesus died for the sins of the world on a cross and then rose from the dead. Islam says that Jesus was not crucified. Which one is right? One account has 500 hundred witnesses that were there (according to 1 Corinthians 15) and the other didn’t come along for about 600 years, in other words, not an eyewitness. Seems like a simple argument to win. So why accept something that is provably not true?

I found it interesting that when I looked up the actual definition for syncretism, this is what I found, “Syncretism is the blending of diverse cultural elements, beliefs, and practices to form a new, cohesive system, often occurring when different cultures interact. It can be seen in religion (like Voodoo blending West African traditions and Catholicism),”. You have to understand this is a practice that they have had for centuries.

Another aspect of this effort by them is evangelization. It sounds like and is often defined as evangelism, but in this case, it’s not that at all. In Catholic circles, it means restoring the separated brethren. By that they mean the Protestant, evangelical church under their authority. This is clearly not being done by persuasive biblical argument. So how might this be accomplished without having to do that? It could be the infiltration and control of church boards. Certainly the things that have happened to me smacks of something larger.

Why do I say that? Prior to my fall out with the leadership, not the congregation, of my previous church, I noticed some changes in some things and people that had barely got through the door in teaching and leadership positions. The very first time I had seen one woman at the church, and I was there pretty close to every week, she was in one of the children’s rooms teaching. Shortly thereafter, her husband, with no record of speaking in the adult Sunday school class, was now teaching and became an elder. This person, who hardly knew me at all, decided to kick me out of their church for the things I have written on my blog. All this skipping the all important final step of Matthew 18, allowing me to defend myself before the congregation. The current leadership there now continues to dismantle effective ministries and people. A food pantry that had served tens of thousands of meals to low income families in our area is being evicted from their building. The church’s history is being slowly and quietly erased. People do come and go at church, but when people who have been there a long time are being kicked out, that should raise some alarm.

The other headline the caught my eye was that the Anglican Church will be removing admonitions against homosexuality from the Bible. The only thing that will change is the destination of your parishioners. No one in modern times has a right to rewrite history and certainly no one has a right to change an ancient writing that is the word of God. Do whatever you want to do, but don’t call yourself a Christian if you’re not willing to adhere to biblical teachings.

Even though I confess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and I believe that he died an atoning death for the sins of the world and my own sin and that he was raised from the dead as he said he would be, proving himself to be the Son of God with power, I am considered a false teacher by them. The difference between us lies not is our common proclamation of the gospel, but in how the book of Revelation is interpreted. That shouldn’t be enough to keep us apart, but this is what they want.

My advice to anyone who is invited to or is taking part in an elder board meeting behind closed doors is to record everything and don’t let them try to talk or intimidate you into not recording it. My interactions with church leadership has been disappointing to say the least and I can tell you they don’t act the same way behind closed doors as when in the sanctuary. This lack of accountability has lead to excesses and corruption. The church, and by that I mean the parishioners, does not have to accept leadership like this. Keep a close on your leadership. Not all are who they claim to be.