I saw this statistic today, and it was quite alarming: 10% of senior pastors in Protestant churches are female. This number has doubled in the last ten years. 58% percent of these “pastors” are found in mainline denominations. I guess the most surprising thing about that last statistic is that mainline denominations account for less that two-thirds of this phenomenon. Read the story here.
I thought this was an interesting quote from one of the ladies interviewed in the article:
Some of the teaching of the Bible was misquoted. With a better understanding of the Scriptures, people are understanding God is no respecter of persons. . . . God chooses whom he wants to get his work done. People are becoming more open.
Since when do the Scriptures matter? Many of the denominations and seminaries mentioned in the article abandoned the authority of the Scriptures decades ago. But the Scriptures do matter, I suppose, when it is acceptable to twist them into whatever shape we wish to.
Sadly, all of this calls the following verse to mind — which is why it is alarming news;
O My people! Their oppressors are children, and women rule over them
O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths. (Isaiah 3:12)
Carl Trueman has a good article in the latest issue of Themelios. He speaks about how to avoid the forgetful nature of the Christian life, using the OT book of Judges as an example of why this is so necessary.
The Passover is just one example of many rituals outlined in the Torah which functioned on one level as reminders of who God was, who the Israelites were, and how they related to each other. Thus, when we come in to the Promised Land and we find the Israelites suffering persistent recurrences of amnesia, it does not take a genius to assume that part of the immediate cause of this was their abject neglect of the means which God had established for keeping his name and his acts fresh in their minds.
His later comments in the article are directed at those who (ironically) might be the most susceptible to “forget” — theology students and pastoral students who spend much time in the word, but who run the risk at turning this into a mere academic exercise and to neglect the God-ordained means of the preaching of the word and the sacraments:
To the research student, and even perhaps the one studying theology for a first degree, this all sounds terribly boring. To spend the week voyaging at the far reaches of intellectual seas of scholarship, and then the weekends listening to some person standing in a pulpit and simply expounding the text or serving bread and wine? What is the value in that? One can imagine the Israelites in the Book of Judges raising similar questions. Do we need to do that Passover thing again? Do we not all know what it means? Do we really need the law read to us so often? Surely once we know what it says, we can move beyond it? The net result in Judges is, of course, that the values of Sodom come to flourish within the very boundaries of the Promised Land and within the very practices of the Lord’s people, with fatal consequences for at least one young woman. Neglect of the boring, day-to-day routines led to absolute disaster. It is the same today. I have yet to come across a student who struggled with, or even abandoned, the faith, who did not, at some early point in their struggle, abandon the mundane routines of the Christian life: regular attendance at the preaching of the word, prayer, etc. etc. Boring they may be, but they are God’s means of preventing amnesia; and we forget them at our peril.
Let us not forget these things which were written for our instruction.
This quote is from a sermon on heaven preached by Ted Donnelly:
There’s an almost universal idea that we can deserve Heaven. That’s what people think. It’s right for them to go to Heaven. They’re worthy of going to Heaven. That’s what all other religions are based on. That is the hope of the man or woman on the street. My friends, one glimpse of Heaven; one millisecond of Heaven; would render any such notion absolutely preposterous. If we could see for a fraction of a second, the glory of Heaven, we would realise our utter incapacity, and unworthiness, and inability, of ever reaching or being present in that place. Sooner could a worm aspire to be a brain surgeon, than a sinner, hope to work their own passage to glory.
I read this interesting article written by a professor in the RCA (Reformed Church in America). He is predicting its demise (it has been slowly dying as a denomination for many years) for, among other reasons, a lack of confessionalism. For instance, he writes:
In several studies of RCA members from 1976 through 2000, Roger Nemeth and I found that there was little knowledge of and support for the great creedal Standards of the Reformed Church. When asked about the Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of the Synod of Dort, and Belgic Confession, laity largely responded with, “Huh? ” … Upon the advice of critics, we altered our more recent survey questions in order to assess levels of support for the tenets of the creeds, rather than for the creeds by name. Not surprisingly, we found that there was a rather high level of assent to such doctrinal verities as the sovereignty of God, the divinity of Christ, the importance of the Bible “for faith” and “for action,” the virgin birth of Jesus, and so forth. Equally popular, however, were Arminian heterodoxies, such as a widespread affirmation that our own actions and beliefs (and not divine election via “predestination”) are central to determining our eternal fates. Similarly, RCA folks generally affirm that all faiths are human efforts to comprehend divine glory and that Christianity is not the only route to eternal life.
That’s sad stuff, but it can happen to any denomination that loses its theological bearings. But as the article notes, it is not “liberalism” that is killing the denomination, but rather so-called “evangelicalism,” or as the article describes it, “a generic form of American evangelicalism with a thin Calvinist overlay.”
[Rev.] Eggebeen came up with a hair-raising idea: He would turn God’s house into a doghouse by offering a 30-minute service complete with individual doggie beds, canine prayers and an offering of dog treats. He hopes it will reinvigorate the church’s connection with the community, provide solace to elderly members and, possibly, attract new worshippers who are as crazy about God as they are about their four-legged friends.
No kidding. This is another reason for the Regulative Principle of Worship, imho. I also see that this church is Presbyterian. Want to guess the specific denomination? It ain’t ARP.
This was a troubling paragraph in the article — troubling because it speaks volumes about the theological confusion that exists today (in churches no less):
Traditionally, conventional Christians believe that only humans have redeemable souls, said Laura Hobgood-Oster, a religion professor at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. But a growing number of congregations from Massachusetts to Texas to California are challenging that assertion with regular pet blessings and, increasingly, pet-centric services, said Hobgood-Oster, who studies the role of animals in Christian tradition. She recently did a survey that found more than 500 blessings for animals at churches nationwide and has heard of a half-dozen congregations holding worship services like Eggebeen’s, including one in a Boston suburb called Woof ‘n Worship. “It’s the changing family structure, where pets are really central and religious communities are starting to recognize that people need various kinds of rituals that include their pets,” she said. “More and more people in mainline Christianity are considering them to have some kind of soul.”
Equally troubling is the pastor’s poor example of exegesis in justifying such a ceremony:
“The Bible says of God only two things in terms of an ‘is’: That God is light and God is love. And wherever there’s love, there’s God in some fashion,” said Eggebeen, himself a dog lover. “And when we love a dog and a dog loves us, that’s a part of God and God is a part of that. So we honor that.”
The pastor seems to have forgotten the “is” from John 4:24 — “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” And indeed, 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” But I fear there is much darkness at Covenant Presbyterian Church.
I thought this entry over at the Stand to Reason blogsite makes an interesting argument about Christian attitudes toward Halloween (compared to other issues). This is neither to condemn or promote such cultural observances, only to give a moment to pause and consider the things important to us.
It’s fair to be concerned and think carefully about how we participate in the culture and Halloween. It’s important to evaluate how cultural practices influence us. It’s essential to use wisdom and discernment how we participate in Halloween, if we do. It’s, obviously, a duty to avoid any occultic involvement. What I’m talking about is the level of energy and attention given to it and the contrasting lack of it given to arguable more central issues of Christianity. Christians can be shocked that another Christian will go trick or treating, but not blink an eye of awareness or concern when another Christian distorts the doctrine of the Trinity.
I recently listened to an excellent sermon by John Fesko on a difficult passage from Deuteronomy 21:18-23. It is well worth your time. Rev. Fesko does a great job of showing Christ from an often ignored/rejected text. Here’s the link.
A couple of weeks ago, the Missus and I watched an episode of Law and Order where the case centered on the topic of abortion. It was a great episode, and involved a “ripped from the headlines” (or “ripped-off from the headlines” as I always like to say) story of an abortion doctor who was slain at his church during a service. The interesting thing about the episode is that several of the main characters were portrayed (favorably) as being pro-life. One of the police detectives was very frank about his pro-life stance, so much that his partner objected openly (and was portrayed very negatively when he did so). One of the Assistant D.A.s was also very much pro-life (even arguing with his boss that Roe v. Wade needed to be re-examined because of advances in medical technology since 1973), and his assistant, who was pro-choice at the beginning of the episode, changed her mind near the end after hearing the testimony of a witness who gave birth to a child (a baby who would have been otherwise aborted because of severe birth defects — the mother gave birth and enjoyed the few hours of her child’s life). Here’s a clip of a very powerful scene. NBC needs to be applauded for such a powerful episode.
The Missus pointed me to this story today. It involves a woman who worked as a director at a branch of Planned Parenthood. She resigned after she was forced to watch an ultrasound of an abortion being performed (I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been). She describes the change of heart in terms of a spiritual conversion.
God is certainly capable of striking a straight blow with a crooked stick. May He be praised!
It was on October 31, 1517, that an obscure young monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg church, setting in motion a series of events that became known as the Protestant Reformation. In honor of this day, I present a great clip from the 2003 movie Luther (Luther’s “Here I Stand” speech at the Diet of Worms):
Also, if you have not already done so, I would like to encourage readers of this blog to peruse my Reformation Day entry from last year: The Audacity of Pope.
