Will You Pray for Unity Among Believers Online?

1 Corinthians 11:19
There must be heresies among you...

I am afraid I am going to disappoint Toni Birdsong at www.stickyjesus.com.

Citing Mother Teresa as an inspiration of unity she begs us to pray for unity among believers online. I want to challenge the concept that the type of unity she has in mind is really "Jesus' idea of unity." I challenge the idea that we ought to be unified online. I challenge the idea that as diverse as the Christian world is in any community, it ought to be unified in the sense I think Toni thinks, certainly in the sense Mother Teresa thought. I challenge the idea that this sort of unity would be healthy even within the community of believers called Baptists.

I am afraid the type of unity Toni seeks is built upon the principle not of agreement, but of indifference, this sort of unity ignores doctrine for the sake of peace.

And here is the problem with that, without grappling with doctrine, truth begins to slip. The fact that we contend for our faith provides for an environment where truth may rise to the surface rather than settling in the bottom of the unstirred jar. I am not advocating for physical battle. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Neither do I believe there is any room for hatred of among the contestants. If God loved man so much that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" then there is reason for the child of God to love even those we have the most heated contest with.

But we must have the contest. We must prove out truth and expose the heresies among us. Only then will truth be manifest.

The online forum is the most liberating form of worldwide communication history has ever known. It has great potential for the spread of the gospel. But it has an equally great potential for the decimation of truth.

No, Toni, I won't pray my guts out for unity among online believers.
But I will pray that the gospel has free course and that the truth of God will rise to the top amidst all the biblical heresy that is disseminated online.


Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

Deception?

Recently I read the blog post of the conversation between Fundamental Baptist Evangelist Arv Edgeworth and the self professed ex fundamental Baptist church member Steve. The site is www.baptistdeception.com/arv-edgeworth-deception.

Apparently Steve has made it his mission to blog about his traumatic experiences in church and thus, to encourage others in their exodus from church. In an attempt to befriend and perhaps turn Steve, Arv reached out through e-mail correspondence, believing those e-mails to be private. Steve published what he claims is the raw and unabridged and unedited trade of correspondence. Steve warns his readers that it is brutal and urges those who suffer from post traumatic stress resulting from their life in an independent fundamental Baptist Church not to read. He claims at the beginning that Arv verbal fists were swinging so wildly that he eventually had to cut the correspondence off.

I read the thing in its entirety.

First, I saw nothing near what could have been called verbal fists. Arv did, near the end, suggest seeking legal recourse if his correspondence was published on the site. Steve countered that with a refusal to be threatened and some pretty good verbal jabbing of his own. His closest actual argument against Arv is that Arv would write a post and then write another before Steve had time to respond to the first. This, Steve wanted to clearly point out, and it is obvious that it really bothered Steve.

I know neither man.

The correspondence reads pretty much like I would think two men who are locked in disagreement might communicate. Both become frustrated that the other has not accepted his views.

The thing that does become blatantly clear is that Steve does not accept any passage that Arv refers to as a valid authority in the communication. He constantly asks Arv to support the Scriptures he cites with other references and he wants to know who taught Arv to accept Arv's understanding of the passage. Steve also likes throwing out term used in debate, argument and philosophy. Steve wants Arv to know that Arv doesn't have an education and Steve implies he does.

Bottom line, I came away from the blog with the sense that Steve has swallowed Satan's bate to catch Eve in the garden "hook, line and sinker." Whether he in fact grew up in an abusive church I do not know. I do know that there are some. But Steve just doesn't like authority. He has bought into the idea that he can be, as god, knowing good and evil. And he has elevated the man made education above the Word of God. Steve claims to be a follower of Christ, but it is after the order of Cain, it's on his terms and not the Lord's. Though he titles his blog about the deception of Arv, the deceived is Steve.

Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

Vacation Deprivation

I have the solution for our countries woes! I heard it on the radio just this morning. According to a survey put out by Expedia.com America suffers from Vacation deprivation. Unlike our European counterparts, who get on average at least 30 days vacation per year and then both use all of their days a relish in the memories and tales of those vacation days, Americans only get on average, 14 days of vacation per year, generally only take half of them and seldom speak about their vacation once they are home. And, again according to the Expedia.com report, the reason we suffer from this deprivation is because we also suffer from a "Protestant work ethic." There it is. Our problem is that we work like Christians and not like Europeans.

I have a number of issues with this radio report:
First, who wants to be like Europe?
There is a reason our forefathers hazarded their lives to begin again in this new land. There is a reason our forefather's children once again hazarded their lives to forge out a brand new system of government separated and completely different from their European monarchies. The European economy is in the dumps. With the exception, I think, of Germany, the whole place is about to collapse financially. Who wants to imitate that? Oh, wait! We already have. Our economy is also in the trash. Could it be the result of too much European imitation already?

And then there is the whole idea of the term "vacation deprivation."
Sounds like a disease doesn't it? That's it. Let's diagnose a person's lack of vacation as a disease. That will give them an entitlement. Then our already near bankrupt government will have an excuse to tax our already overtaxed population to pay for the prescription. Better yet, let's have our government step up to the aide our afflicted by requiring those businesses, who are already taxed to the gills, to pay more taxes for exposing their helpless workers to this dread disease. And once we have punished them sufficiently for their negligence, let's have our government force them to pay for the poor souls whose sorry hap in life has been to work for these companies to have sufficient vacation time to reverse the symptoms of their obviously now incurable disease.

And how about that other American disease, the "Protestant Work Ethic"?
I do not believe that true Christians are Protestants, but let's leave that alone for today. There we go, blame every problem the world has on the Christian mentality. The world was, after all, so much better off before Jesus Christ came from heaven and dwelt among us. I can see it now; Christ's real trouble was vacation deprivation. He could have lived to a ripe old age if He had only taken more time off. He did, after all, only get to work for three and a half years before He died. And then there are the apostles. The Apostle Paul's real problem was vacation deprivation. Can you imagine how badly he must have suffered from this horrible illness after planting churches all over the Middle East and into the regions of the west, writing half of the New Testament and turning the world upside down with his doctrine? He probably thought being beheaded was a break!



Marvin McKenzie
In the fields