The world around us constantly drives an attitude of discontent into us. It always insists we should want more and always makes as if someone who lacks the ambition to have more is a loser or not to be praised.

That’s the world. However, the Holy Spirit says something different in 1 Tim 6.

6 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Something of this want to have more has also crept into teachings in the church, most visible in something known as the “prosperity gospel”, which I’m not a fan of.

Our lives are very much a seeking for contentment, happiness and joy — and there is nothing wrong with us seeking these things! The problem is that the world says we can find them in what it has to offer: lots of money, lots of property, lots of cars, lots of stuff, lots of girls / guys, lots of sex, lots of fame, even lots of knowledge. And we believe it.

1 Tim 6 is referring specifically to finances, offering something counter-cultural and hardly praised by man: contentment with your lot.

Of course, when one looks at the poor it may be a little unfair to say to them that they must be ‘content’ with their hunger or whatever, but that really is a different story altogether. For those who are not poor, contentment with the basics – simplicity – is better than discontent and the need to always have, and have more.

However, the quest for contentment can actually come to its end pretty easily. Contentment, true contentment, is actually found in Christ Jesus. In Philippians 2 Paul talks about how he now considers everything he gained as ‘rubbish’ so that he may gain Christ. Clearly he knew there was a treasure far greater that everything the world offers us.

Contentment, peace and joy knocks at the door – but will we let Him in? Or will we be too busy gazing (or rather, coveting) out the back window at our neighbour’s house?

Like the scripture says – those who pursue the riches of this world pierce themselves with many pangs. It’s not worth it.

Truth be told, there really is no need for someone who earns two million a year to live much differently to someone who earns, say, R400,000 a year or thereabouts. Those who earn more just have more to give, really, but the pursuit of stuff will get no one anywhere in the quest for contentment and joy.

Simplicity really is sweeter – and a lot less complicated.

Those who pursue Christ will find much more than they even dreamed. Yeah, it’s tough, but finding true treasure takes a lot of digging and a lot of getting dirty – but it’s always worth it!

Ah, it feels so great, so sweet, to be content

Here is a brilliant comment my wife says with regards to this: “Detox your material system!” Lol, brilliant!

The Times have published an article of mine today about The African Way and post-colonialism.

It has produced some rather interesting comments.

Read the article here.

At last, after spending the entire weekend working at the rAge video gaming event at the Coca-Cola Dome, Northgate (JHB) I’m able to post a quick blog about the Equip Gauteng time that happened from Wednesday night to Friday night this last week.

(For those interested, check out the great coverage for rAge at http://gaming.do.co.za.)

Anyway, Equip Gauteng was awesome. Although I had to work Friday at rAge, the time I did manage to spend at Equip was really awesome.

God really moved and spoke to me over the weekend, thanks to the wonderful facilitation done by the guys who came to preach and facilitate the electives.

Terry Virgo was one of these, and I thoroughly enjoyed his talk about the Holy Spirit, where he related his own walk into understanding the Holy Spirit.

I did the “Holy Spirit and Evangelism” elective, which had Keir Taylor and a team of others (whom I admit I don’t know) administer a wonderful time while relating some of their own experiences with the Holy Spirit. It’s really interesting to see how the same God works so personally and differently with everyone.

I think I’m finally starting to get it. Rather than trying to understand how the Holy Spirit works through some calculated, mechanical method, this keeping in step with the Spirit thing is more about the wind blowing wherever it pleases (John 3:8). This means the Holy Spirit, although the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, is also rather unpredictable. You can’t box Him and expect Him to react in a certain way. He blows wherever He pleases, and will do whatever He wants to do.

Of course, when people hear this they think that it’s all about throwing our heads away and forgetting about the Word. But this was Tyrone’s point – for too long the Church has argued over being either “Word based” or “Spirit based”, with people sitting in only one of these camps.

But actually, the Church needs to be Word AND Spirit based, the two working hand-in-hand.

Tyrone’s illustration that he has been using lately focuses around an aeroplane. An aeroplane needs TWO wings to fly, not one, and – likewise – the Church needs both Word AND Spirit to do what God has called us to do on this planet.

This is so integral to what we see in the Bible that to ignore it results in dire consequences for the Church.

Personally, I have faith more than ever now to see healings take place through simple prayer. Not mechanical prayer based on all the formulas I’ve been taught (“Say this!” “Believe like this!” etc.) but simple prayer with faith in Jesus to do what He did on this earth before when He walked it; not to try and formulaise anything when I see healings happen, but to simply let the Holy Spirit blow wherever He pleases; to stop trying to calculate and manipulate God, but rather simply live in the freedom He gives.

I’m excited!

The Shack – A Review
by Ryan Peter

I’ve actually been wanting to read The Shack for a while now, for no other reason, really, than to satisfy my curiosity as to what all the fuss around the book has been about – it being labelled as brilliant on one end of the scale, and downright heretical on another.

Well, my landlord borrowed me the book and I finished it within two days. This shows that The Shack is a relatively easy read (well, for those that read a lot) and wasn’t difficult to get through at all.

My impression? Well, as usual, many of the heretical claims made against it were a little extreme, but it was pretty obvious where people may have a problem with it. Of course, a lot depends on how you approach books and art in particular, which we’ll cover in this review.

The Shack, written by William P. Young, follows the story of a certain Mack Philips whose young daughter, Missy, was abducted and killed some years prior to the book’s story. Her body was never found, but her clothes were found in a pool of blood in an old shack somewhere in Oregon’s (USA) many mountains and forests and her abductor was a known serial killer.

Philips’ anger, resentment, questions, bitterness and altogether sadness around the affair draws him away from God, and one day he receives a note in his post box beckoning for him to meet God at the shack. In desperation and anger Mack accepts the invitation, half-expecting to meet the murderer, and arrives at the shack to meet God.

The story then unfolds as God, in the form of a woman (God the Father), a carpenter (Jesus) and a small asian-looking girl (The Holy Spirit), lead Mack on a journey of healing.

Young obviously wrote the book in an answer to people who are suffering in various ways, particularly in areas of injustice. He does a pretty good job in exposing some of the deeper things of our heart, such as how we judge God as humans and how we struggle with our identity.

Young challenges some dogmatism around how God reveals himself, doing it firstly through portraying God as a black woman (challenging racist and sexist lines) and the Holy Spirit as a small asian woman. I think these are good challenges to the more fundamentalist kinds in Christian circles, who need to really deal with God more as a person than as a set of beliefs or formulas, which I feel many fundamentalists are prone to do. God cannot be boxed, and when we try and box Him we simply create religion.

Obviously, portraying God as a woman hits many nerves with many different people. I, for one, see no reason to use a different picture of God than the one already provided by the Scriptures (God as a father) as a general rule, but I appreciated how and why Young did this in the context of the story of The Shack. God is sexless, after all. Later on, when the time is right, God reveals himself to Mack as a Father again and retains this form.

Secondly, the obvious Universalist themes that come through now and again in the book would offend many people in many different ways as well. I didn’t have a problem with it in principle, since I understand what Christian Universalism looks like and it really isn’t the same as the kind of Universalism we see from other crowds.

Christian Universalism doesn’t believe that all roads lead to heaven, it simply believes Hell won’t last forever, and God will find a way to bring those in Hell back to Him. But the book never expressly gives an opinion on this subject.

To be honest, I don’t know if Young really has an idea of what he thinks of the after-life, as he refers hell in chapter 11 (“Here Come Da Judge”) as eternal torment – but this happens in a way that is left open to interpretation, as God, now in the form of Sophia, or Wisdom (referring to the book of Proverbs) seems to scold Mack for having a sharp calvinistic background, believing that God chooses who goes to hell and who doesn’t.

However, I thought that this chapter was certainly the best part of the book by far – it exposes far more in our hearts around how we judge God and see God than just the hell/calvinist/predestination question. Young exposes some really good stuff around how modern theology and also contemporary man see God, and does a brilliant job in my opinion. Naturally, though, the book represents some anti-calvinism which would get a more dogmatic crowd’s back up.

Other than that I did find the book a little bit flowery in many areas. These weren’t particularly helpful to me, but they may be for others who have a really hard view of God and need to see God differently. I still do think that Young reaffirmed contemporary sensibilities in these areas, but he never went overboard in my opinion.

The bottom line with The Shack is that it is a fictional work. It’s not even really allegory, it’s more a commentary of sorts, in the form of fiction. I felt the idea was great but the overall package had its moments in amongst a lot of “floweryness”.

Because of the nature of the book itself one must take its theological thoughts in context, but many people don’t do this – treating the work as having tremendous authority or scrutinising it too closely for its lack of dotting all of the I’s and crossing all of the T’s. Books, particularly fiction, should be read as a narrative – not as a textbook.

This book should be taken for what it is – art. This means it must be taken into context as to its original purpose, and it must be remembered that the book is full of perception and, at the same time, we often project our perceptions over what is on the page, bringing us to a ton of other conclusions. Mature readers will understand what I mean.

Eugene Peterson’s recommendation on the front cover that “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his,” is a little overboard. I didn’t think that Pilgrim’s Progress was that amazing either, to be honest, but I think The Shack falls short of far too many theological truths for it to work as well as Bunyan’s work.

Personally, I don’t think Young intended for the book to be that deep on theology anyway, and it’s done well for what it is.

Would I recommend it? Well, I really think it’s a pretty average book so I’m not going to go and tell anyone to go out of their way to buy it. If someone is also struggling with God over suffering or justice I don’t think it’s the best book to deal with that either, although it might help, depending on the person.

But is it a heretical book bordering on evil, as some Christians have thought? No, it isn’t.

I hope that Young would continue writing, though, and perhaps provide us something deeper in the future.

A part of the Lutheran church, the ECLA, appears to have gone the same way as a branch of the Anglicans (Episcopalians) by voting last month for homosexuals to be allowed to practice homosexuality within the church and still function as pastors, etc. as long as they are committed to life-long monogomous relationships.

Here are the actual points as they were voted:

2. “Resolved, that the ELCA commit itself to finding ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.” Approved with 61 percent of the vote.

3. “Resolved, that the ELCA commit itself to finding a way for people in such publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders of this church.” Approved with 55 percent of the vote.

4. And that the church will respect the bound consciences of those who disagree; affirm “structured flexibility” in candidacy decisions and the extending of calls; eliminate the prohibition of rostered service for those members who are in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationship; development of appropriate guidelines and amendments; to trust established process and those entrusted to carry them out. Approved with 68 percent of the vote.

John Piper at his Desiringgod.org site reports that, curiously, on the day of voting a tornado appeared and seemed to have damaged a bit of the building where everything was taking place. Although I don’t think every tornado out there is God’s judgement or an act of God, something about this particular one is very peculiar.

That aside, I just don’t understand why loving gay people means that I should accept their sexual life as approved by God? If practicing homosexuality is a sin, then it is the same as lying, for example, and are we suddenly not able to love someone if they’re perpetual liars? And are we unloving towards them for calling what they are doing morally wrong and hurtful to themselves and others?

Surely the whole point of Jesus saying we should love each other and our neighbour is that we love DESPITE what people do rather than because of what they do? But the argument for homosexuality here is saying “love me because of what I do, because this is who I am”.

I don’t love anyone like that, not even myself. If I did then it wouldn’t be unconditional love, would it? It would be quite conditional. And Jesus exhorts us to love unconditionally.

I have to love myself despite all the sins I do both to myself and others. That’s what unconditional love is. So if I say “practicing homosexuality is a sin” is that the same as saying “I hate you?” Of course not. But yet that’s what I keep hear people saying and I’m getting upset about it because it really makes no sense whatsoever.

Since when does someone’s particular struggle in life line up with their identity, especially since the identity of Christian’s is found in Christ – not in our struggles but in God Himself? Alcoholics are struggling with alcohol, they weren’t born alcoholics but may have had numerous things happen to them which caused them to make certain decisions that made them addicted to alcohol. So what? We all have our own struggles. In God we can deal with them.

Fortunately for me I know a few gay people now and almost every single one of them are very suspicious over my motives when I love them and treat them the same as everyone else. They seem to find it difficult to relate to me and as a result I just don’t seem to be able to strike up good friendships with them, even though I’m trying.

It seems to me that they don’t seem to understand that when I openly say “having sex with the same gender is a sin” I am not saying “I hate you and you’re going to hell.” Why the heck would it?

Sometimes it even feels as if I’m having the eyes of judgement from others on me, that there is a self-righteousness that says, “hey, I accept homosexual sex as accepted by God. I’m WAY more righteous than you bro.”

Some people seem to think that if you are saying that homosexuality is a sin like lying then we’re calling homosexuals liars and robbers and thieves, which is unfair. To be honest, I’m a liar and robber and thief too but Jesus died for my sins so that I can die to them and live for Him. We’re ALL liars and robbers and thieves, didn’t anyone read Romans 3? Hasn’t someone missed the whole point here?

The unfortunate thing is once the Lutheran church has made this step it becomes incredibly difficult to undo it. They should rather have sought to be strict about their disciplinary methods, perhaps, ensuring these were more loving and gentle and reconciliatory.

This is a post I’ve put up at the Emerging Africa site. See the conversation there at www.emergingafrica.info.

Note that I don’t consider myself to be emerging or Emergent (or anything for that matter besides Christian) but I converse with brothers and sisters who do.

Having given some praise in my last post about the recent Amaharo conference (okay, I know it’s not THAT recent but I’m a bit slow) I felt that in line with the whole honesty thing that I also ought to do some criticism (constructive, of course; edifying, I hope).

This time I listened to the following talks:

Transfiguration – Claude Nikondeha
The Church and Apartheid – Moss Nthla
The Reformation of the Church – Paul Verryn

Now I know some found these encouraging but I, for reasons I think I now understand, couldn’t help but feel a little discouraged. Not that the talks were in themselves bad but just because their subject matter – social problems, what is being done from a social perspective, what we can do about social problems – is just so BIG. Verryn’s talk about what they are doing in the inner city methodist church was just so… well… it’s great and all, but is there really any CHANGE happening? Are people truly experiencing God, knowing God, finding new LIFE – real, spiritual, down-to-earth life and joy, rather than just hand-me-outs?

Please hear my heart on this. This is an honest reflection.

I am not judging what Verryn and the church is doing there, nor what Claude is involved with (I’m sure he may read this). I don’t even know these guys or what they do. What I’m trying to say is if our Gospel becomes nothing but the ’social gospel’ then it is no different to any other gospel out there. And it’s just so tiring. We’ll never see lasting transfiguration through social programmes alone – there needs to be real spiritual and literal LIFE transferred from believers in Jesus to others; and those others need to become believers in Jesus themselves, surely, if the Kingdom of God is to grow like a mustard seed.

Something felt like it was missing. The something I refer to is at the end of 1 Cor 4: “For the kingdom does not consist of talk but of power“. Now, again, I’m not criticising anyone in particular now – I’m just saying that, even amongst emerging church people in general I see a real lack of talk about power and, quite frankly, the supernatural (I use the term for conversation’s sake, not because I like to lump things into categories of ‘natural’ or ’supernatural’).

I don’t mean a metaphorical or poetic meaning to power, I mean something far more literal and down-to-earth; gutsy and dirty. I mean flaming hot ‘you’re going to experience God’ now power. The kind that truly makes a person addicted to drugs no longer addicted; the kind where the crippled walk and the deaf hear; the kind where evil spirits flee and the joy of the Lord fills the person.

The power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that God gave to us on Pentecost. The Spirit that Jesus referred to in Acts 1:8 where he said “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samara, and to the ends of the Earth”.

Claude did speak about contemplation, but I still felt that the spark required for contemplation to bring true refreshing was missing a little. The spark, the tongue of fire, the Holy Spirit Himself. We can contemplate, meditate, pray, chant, sing, dance, whatever we want as much as is humanly possible but without the Spirit’s power it’s really just so tiring and boring; and there is no fruit. After all, it is the fruit of the Spirit we are seeking (Gal 5) – the Spirit produces the fruit we’re wanting to see.

Social programs are only social programs until they are ignited with the fire of God. That’s when they move from social programs to Kingdom advancement. That’s when we truly see transformation and transfiguration. That’s when living water truly flows. When the bread of life is tasted. We need the Holy Spirit, and we need Him to be not theoretical, not JUST poetic, but literal and actual in our lives.

Taking my que from Acts 2:3 where Peter says to the lame beggar that he doesn’t have money to give him, but rather has something else to give him, which was complete healing, I can’t help but feel a little bit like we can miss it. Yes, we must clothe and feed the poor, and this is good news to the poor, but is it THE Good News? Isn’t THE Good News the fact that Jesus is alive and he can come miraculously into your life and change you and your life completely? Isn’t the message of the Kingdom that He has come to bring Shalom? Peace and abundance? Spiritual on-the-ground reality?

Yes, of course feeding and clothing is part of the job, but without the reality of the Spirit and the actual dynamite power of God we are not going to be able to achieve our purpose. And what is our purpose? Isn’t it, in the end, to actually make disciples of Christ who can also bring the life-changing power of God to others? The world will be changed by us changing government, of course, but you put a bunch of wicked-hearted and injust people in charge of government and any system will just become corrupted.

Where is the power that literally heals the sick and raises the dead? This is the power I’m talking about.

In our quest for transformation in this world we must not forget the basic doctrines of our faith, listed in Hebrews 6:1 and 2 for us,

“Repentance from dead works and faith toward God… baptism… the laying on of hands… the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement.”

The laying on of hands is what we are actively doing now, or we should be. This doctrine, as all doctrines, has a very practical application – we lay hands on the sick and the destitute, they recover, change happens, they experience God. And, of course, we lay our hands now on this world and it recovers, change happens, and it experiences God. But in the laying on of hands it is the power of God which is transferred, and that is what we are trying to do.

This is an honest critique and I’m hoping to edify us all to continue the journey, and in doing so not forget our true Source and what it is we are truly doing. We’re transforming the world with true power, we’re transferring the Living God’s life that is in us to others – literally. We are bringing the true Gospel of Shalom. We are pursuading others to believe on Jesus and join us on His quest of true, literal, healing to individuals and to the world. We are not merely clothing the poor and feeding the sick, for

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

For the Kingdom of God is a mustard seed.

If emerging guys want to be the well-rounded Christians they want to be, perhaps they also need to start getting a little old-school pentecostal and charismatic too. At the moment, I do feel that this element of Christianity appears to be missing.

I’ve started (at last) listening to the audio of the Amaharo conference, which was held in June in South Africa.

Roger Saner has very kindly put up the recordings of the event here

The talks I’ve listened to so far are:

Edward Simiyu - The ministry of presence
Kelly Nikondeha - The Amahoro story
Postcolonialism and why it matters – Dr Kenzo Mabiala
The African Reformation – Brian McLaren

Once I get some more bandwidth I’ll download and listen to some more.

Alright, now what did I think? Feel? Both?

Actually, both are a good way to explain what the talks have so far meant to me.

Mabiala’s talk about postcolonialism was quite fascinating. This is because it began to unravel and reveal the colonial thinking in my own head, particularly in areas of which types of thinking are ‘biblical’ and which are not.

Example? Well, Mabiala made some references to TIME. For the African, the watch is not something that comes from their culture. The African gets up when he gets up, goes to work when he goes to work, etc.

Now I’ve begun to realise how my own colonial mindset sits in judgement over this thinking. A concept of time such as this is far less ‘efficient’ than the Western concept of time, in my thinking.

From a background perspective, I know that Africans tend to view time in the form of “now – backwards” whereas Westerns view time more of “now – forwards”. This has led to Westerners being more interested in progress, while Africans more interested in the past (ancestors, etc.).

Ancestral worship aside, the very concept of time from the African was not only viewed as ‘inefficient’ for me (and one could discuss what ‘efficiency’ really means anyway, which I’ll probably reserve for a future post) but also as ‘unbiblical’.

But is it unbiblical or just… different? Or, is it not that bringing in both concepts of time, forming something together will show us something truly biblical? Is that the answer? A form of pluralism?

Or, even more so, perhaps the concept of time has nothing to do with the Bible whatsoever? In other words, it’s ABIBLICAL.

What does the Bible say about progress and efficiency? The BIBLE, not my own protestant work ethic or Western tradition?

Seems to me the Bible has a few things to say about work. It implores us not to be lazy, to work with our hands, to be diligent in our work and to watch our herds carefully. It also reminds us that wealth is seasonal, or that we should work with seasons in mind. But it doesn’t say anything about what the RIGHT philosophy of time is, it simply says that as long as we stick to these basic guidelines we’re ok.

What’s my point? My point is that rather than putting everything into a category of “biblical” or “unbiblical”, which is how I’ve always measured things (or thought I was), there is now a third category opening up to me – “ABiblical”. Something that is neither WRONG or RIGHT, but simply dependant on either my taste or what is necessary for the culture I find myself in.

For instance, when I am in Africa I must do as the Africans do. If I throw my watch away and live as the Africans do am I doing something wrong? Unbiblical? Or am I just taking on another culture, or parts of another worldview, for a time so that I may reach those in this culture and worldview with the Gospel?

See, there are certain things I may feel I must ‘teach’ Africa as an educated person, and that these are ‘biblical’ concepts. Some examples are: We must be on time, we must work from 8 to 5, we must wear respectable clothing, we must do this and that. And so Africa seems like this huge challenge because ‘basic things’ of ‘life’ and the ‘gospel’ need to be taught.

But are these not rather ABiblical things that, even myself, who is not racist and loves cultures, somehow at the back of his mind still judges his ‘culture’ as ‘more right’ than another? Is it about one culture being better than another, or is it about forming a colourful culture together, with one Head and King, Jesus?

For one, as a white guy, the talks so far have made me understand the African better and also see my own ignorant colonial thinking.

Last night my wife and I watched a bit of Sting’s “All This Time” DVD. I’ve always loved world music, and I felt God really speak to me last night, while enjoying this spectrum of music and musicians from all parts of the world. It’s time to break loose of the pressures of my own culture and greco-roman, even stoic thinking, that has for too long disguised itself as ‘biblical’ when it is nothing of the sort (or, rather, some of it is just abiblical) and be free from concepts such as what ’success’ really is, what ‘efficiency’ really is, and what Biblical really is, what Kingdom really is, amongst others.

This frees one up to preach the GOSPEL, not their own culture’s view of the gospel, or their own culture as the Gospel. While I never for once thought I was doing that, it seems that I have been doing that without even realising it. After all, Paul in the Scriptures said “I have become all things to all men so that I might save some.”

Forgetting what lies behind, straining forward to what lies ahead
(Phil 3: 1-16)

This was the subtitle of my sermon “Press On” I preached this last Sunday at my church, Church on the Square.

You can download the sermon here.
(Right-Click and ‘Save target as’)

I thoroughly enjoyed it! Although, giving it a listen, I could have dropped some of the “ums” in places… oh well, I’m sure I’ll improve.

As Christians we need to leave the past behind, and leave those things behind that get us caught in a rut and prevent us from moving on towards the upward call and greater prize God has for us.

Once we are saved, we are saved, and when we fall we can get up in the grace of God and press on. We don’t need to dwell on our sins, our mistakes, guilt, shame etc. And we should sort out any relational problems, such as forgiveness issues etc.

Also, God wants us to know more about Him – who He is – and we need to be unsatisfied with what we know now. Some of our doctrines and ideas of God are not necessarily wrong, but they aren’t the full picture – God in His fullness. God wants us to open our eyes wider and see more of Him, and so we need to move beyond the rut that prevents us from seeing and knowing more of Him.

Grace is not just forgiveness, but also the power to get up and move on. Thankfully, when we’re saved we can sort out sin issues within God’s safety rather than run away from God. The problem is many times we run away from God when we sin rather than run TO Him, and it’s the latter that we need to do if we want to get rid of sin, even habitual sins.

Religion wants to tie us up in a sin-focus, where all we do is focus on our sins in an effort to be ‘perfect’ and ‘accepted’ by God, when we are already accepted by God and don’t need to be perfect – we just need to be moving on.

The more we focus on sin, the more we’ll sin. We need to focus on the victory Jesus attained for us, and race towards the prize – forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead.

Those are a few snippets of my sermon. Download it here.
(Right-Click and ‘Save target as’)

Shannon (my wife) and I have been reading CS Lewis’ Sci-Fi trilogy in the last few weeks together.

All I can say right now is wow. Lewis did an amazing job with this trilogy, I don’t know why it isn’t as popular as much of his other work. It may be because the first two can be a little difficult to read, but other than that it is a really good job.

One of the best themes he has developed through the series has been one of obedience. We’ve got about three chapters left of the last book and then I’m going to post a review of sorts here at this blog.

The three books in the series are:

1. Out of the Silent Planet
2. Perelandra (Voyage to Venus)
3. That Hideous Strength

Wikipedia has an entry on the trilogy here

In response to some debates I’ve taken with various fundamentalist groups (mainly ‘discernment’ websites I’ve stumbled across recently) I’ve decided to post an explanation of why I view hyper-fundamentalism (an extreme type of fundamentalism) in Christian circles as spiritually harmful to those who would consider themselves fundamentalist.

In other words, I’m saying hyper-fundamentalists are on dangerous ground (‘playing with fire’ to use their phrase) by being so, well, hyper-fundamentalist. In this case I place them in the same “class” (so to speak) as all forms of extreme thought – such as the extreme emergents who are dabbling in other forms of spirituality, the extreme charismatics who claim to see angels every weekend etc., and the like.

I’m making a point here that I feel needs to be reiterated. ALL forms of extreme theology are spiritually dangerous. We must at all times stay balanced with our theology and our outlook, with the capability to truly be able to discern lies from truth. In all forms of theology there is some truth somewhere. Even Paul found this by quoting the poetry of the Greeks in Acts 15 where he used their own poetry to Zeus to describe God. This is why discernment also doesn’t always take a second, sometimes it needs careful study.

This is to allow those who I’ve debated with recently (more than one ‘discernment’ website) to understand my views and motives more correctly. I don’t know if any of you guys who I’ve been debating with are actually going to comment on this article, but I thought you may still find it of interest

So, hyper-fundamentalism is dangerous to those who are in it because:

1) It will sidetrack you, take you away from God’s calling on your life, and get you involved with nitpicking everyone’s theology in the church rather than engaging those outside of the church with the Gospel.

2) It has a tendency to make you unteachable and finally unapproachable.

3) The result will be that you will not be able to teach and exhort others, no one will listen to you.

4) In other words, you will not be able to minister to others effectively.

5) It will take away your joy.

6) It will bound you into LAW, not GRACE, despite how much you THINK you are living in grace, and despite your theology on the matter, you will find yourself living under LAW.

More than that, hyper-fundamentalist groups have a habit of causing great division.

Saying this immediately invokes the response of “we will not compromise the truth for anyone” and a whole lot of verses where Jesus said he has not come to bring peace but a sword etc.

That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m saying is that hyper-fundamentalism causes division within itself. As the ‘true’ and ‘really born again’ and ‘really bible-believing’ Christians break off, each group begins to believe that they are the ‘really REALLY bible-believing Christians”. Elitists mindsets go nowhere but to further elitism, resulting in many of the sheep hurt, scattered, and without a shepherd… easy for the picking. While the elitists continue to fight about who really is ‘in’, and form their own groups around a particular ‘non-compromise’, the honest sheep don’t know what’s really right and wrong and many get lost. Furthermore, those who are fighting about some particular fringe-doctrine find themselves burnt out in the end and greatly hurt. Some of them simply never go back to church, while others will delve into new age stuff in a knee-jerk response to their hurt.

This happens, I’m not making it up. Guys like the guy who runs infidels.org, the atheist site, are fundamentalists who got hurt in the process. Hyper-fundamentalism is a trap to sidetrack you from what God really wants to do through you.

I’m using the language of fundamentalists to make my point here. Hyper-fundamentalism is a trap of the devil. It is NOT bible-believing Christianity. Hyper-fundamentalism’s doctrines READ INTO the Bible, they don’t READ OUT of the Bible. They READ IN what they WANT to see, selectively taking what supports the hyper-fundamentalist agenda, which is – ultimately – to enslave you to religion.

This sounds very much like what hyper-fundamentalism would call Emergents or Third Wave people etc. That’s my point. Little do you know you are stuck in a similar trap, just on the other end of the scale.

This is not to say that hyper-fundamentalists are not well-meaning people. What I’m saying is I’ve never heard a hyper-fundamentalist ever quote a scripture in its context, with a solid background in balanced theology.

Ok, maybe I have once or twice, but most of the time it’s just a pick-and-choose of scripture to support the point that someone, somewhere, is not really a Christian because they said this and that, and if you say “they didn’t really say that” you are told “yes, but I’m just making it clear what they really MEANT. I’m exposing the lie.”

Well I’m exposing the lie right now about hyper fundamentalism. If you are caught in it your are dabbling in something that is spiritually dangerous to you. You need to surround yourself with balanced, well-meaning, honest Christians who read and discuss the Bible, who believe it and practice what it says, not what they think it says, and not what they want it to say to support their own views.

Hyper-fundamentalism will either lead to you getting badly hurt, or to you going nowhere, as it’s a trap designed to keep you from growing.

Here’s what I’m not saying:

1) I’m not saying we need to compromise on truth. But Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. If you’re unsure on truth just stick to Jesus and you will be fine. What I am saying is we need to be more discerning as to what is really truth, and what is just a red herring. We need to be less hasty and more responsible with discernment.

2) I’m not saying there’s no place for rebuking, or sharp rebukes at that. There is a place for rebuking, usually out of a context of relationship, as we see modelled by Paul and others in the Bible. The only time Jesus rebuked people publically was when they made a public thing of it.

That should be enough explaining, I hope!