SOUTHERN BAPTIST FAILURE
TO "BIBLICALLY" SEPARATE AND ENGAGE CULTURE
CATHOLIC & MORMON ENGAGEMENT
AND SYMPATHIES INSTEAD
CATHOLIC & MORMON ENGAGEMENT
AND SYMPATHIES INSTEAD
Some time ago, Ken Silva of www.apprising.org, before he became ill, claims to have coined the phrase "Slowly Becoming Catholic" when referring to the Southern Baptist Convention. That phrase might appropriately fit all the many and varied instances of the S.B.C. and its adoption of Catholic contemplative mysticism, lectio divina, gushing over the Pope, or Billy and Franklin Graham and other Southern Baptist affiliated pastors and churches aligning with Catholics in ministry endeavors.
It doesn't fit quite so well when referring to the SBC's equally frequent and varied ecumenical ministry endeavors, accords, conferences, and public displays of "common ground" with apostate, heretical denominations, and downright pagan religions such as the Mormons.
Then you have the associations with the alleged sexually abusing Sovereign Grace Ministries and C.J. Mahaney; and other continuationist neo-reformed personalities such as Wayne Grudem, John Piper, Mark Dever, Tim Keller, et al.
Add to that the commonplace fatalist and defeatist disengagement from the culture and politics justified by a unique eschatalogical interpretation of the biblical "end times". Such is like wearing a traditional, conservative Christian dull gray suit of clothes to cover the naked liberalism infecting the SBC so as to portray a form of pseudo-conservatism which was long ago lost. So, while SBC pastors and leaders try to portray conservatism, they will tell you it is useless to vote for any political party or to actively engage the culture. The exception would be of course their affinity for contemporary rock worship styles and music, since their Arminianism requires them to become like the world to attract the unregenerate and unchurched hordes wanting to be fawned over and entertained by irreverent worship experiences devoid of the biblical gospel of repentance and grace. As with the Catholics, the SBC goes for salvation by grace and works.
As the SBC tries to hasten Christ's return by disengagement, they will also demonstrate by their overeating, pot bellies, and double chins, that poor health will also get you to heaven quicker than someone in trim shape and good health who may wait in vain. That way, you can avoid the consequences of a spiritually degenerating nation, and not have to even waste years waiting for Christ's return.
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TREATING MORMONS AS CHRISTIAN EQUALS:
ALBERT MOHLER, JR.
For example, this recently from pastor Ralph Ovadal of Pilgrims Covenant Church, Monroe, Wisconsin at www.pccmonroe.org:
Dear Friends,
I am providing here a link to an article which was posted at Deseret News October 21, 2013. It is a report of Dr. Albert Mohler’s relationship with LDS officials and his recent speaking engagement at the Mormon Brigham Young University. I believe in civil and religious liberty. I believe Christians should stand against the persecution of anyone. But Al Mohler is playing right into the hands of the devil when he cultivates friendships with LDS officials, speaks of respect for them, and gives speeches at BYU when the word of God forbids it, for instance: James 4:4; 2 Cor. 6:14-17; Eph. 5:11. The Mormons are thrilled to have this very influential evangelical desensitize other evangelicals to the utter wickedness of Mormonism, regardless of any statements he makes about differences in doctrine. Mohler’s actions empty his mild clarification of credibility and effect. So, the LDS officials, and the devil, give such statements from their good friend a wink and a nod, knowing the greater good which is being accomplished for Mormonism and the corruption of evangelicals. I mean, the LDS newspaper Deseret even includes his quotes in its story! Say, Al, I would just mention here that the Scriptures nowhere tell ministers to have fellowship with and cultivate working friendships with the leaders of false religions masquerading as Christian. No, quite the opposite is true.
By the way, the organization Standing Together exists for the purpose of breaking down walls between the LDS and Christianity. So, thanks, Al. Thanks for this. Thanks also for signing the Manhattan Declaration. Thanks for muddying the waters concerning the sin of homosexuality . . . and so forth. I suppose a big thank-you is also due to Dr. John MacArthur who is once again having his dear friend Al Mohler, along with other New Calvinists such as Mark Dever, speak at the 2014 Shepherds’ Conference. Oh, the wretched irony but growing commonplace nature of it! Unfaithful shepherds preaching at “The Shepherds’ Conference”!
Ralph Ovadal
Albert Mohler's other view about Mormonism:
"Mormonism Is a Sincerely False Gospel":
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FULL SCALE RETREAT FROM CULTURE (WAR)?:
American Family Association's "Rightly Concerned" webpage:
Wall Street Journal article referenced below:
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 8:06 PM
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at “Focal Point”
In this week’s Wall Street Journal, Neil King, Jr. offers a frankly disturbing profile of Russell Moore, the new head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
The tone is set by the title of the piece, “Evangelical Leader Preaches Pullback From Politics, Culture Wars.” Since one man’s “pullback” is another’s “full scale retreat,” social conservatives have a right to raise questions about the new course Moore is setting for the SBC.
Conservative Catholics are already expressing alarm at Pope Francis’s rebuke of the Church for being “obsessed” with issues such as the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of marriage. If the SBC were also to abandon the field of cultural conflict, as Moore seems determined to do, the two largest organized religious bodies in the United States will have ceded the field and the contest to our adversaries in the battle over societal values.
The Journal notes that Richard Land, whom Moore has replaced as head of the ERLC, unhesitatingly spoke of a “radical homosexual agenda.” Moore instead warns conservatives that gays and lesbians are not part of an “evil conspiracy.”
While most homosexuals aren’t in some kind of sinister partnership with nefarious forces, the same cannot be said of homosexual activists. Wikipedia lists no less than 72 groups in the United States alone whose mission is to normalize the “infamous crime against nature,” to demand special rights on the basis of aberrant sexual behavior, to radically redefine marriage and the family, and to demonize pro-family organizations as “hate groups” for disagreeing with them.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) are in fact part of an evil conspiracy to celebrate behavior that according to Romans 1 is “contrary to nature,” consists of “shameless acts” and causes participants to “receiv(e)...in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Yet Moore says that marriage shouldn’t be seen as a “‘culture war’ political issue.” When bakers, florists and photographers are being punished by government, when members of the military are being court-martialed for supporting natural marriage and told told that pro-family groups are threats to national security, and when the SPLC hate map is used by a shooter to take a gun into the offices of the Family Research Council, that’s about as cultural and political as it gets. Someone must stand in the gap and fight for the First Amendment rights of these victims, especially their fundamental right to the free exercise of religion.
We cannot and must not surrender when our most deeply cherished values and the Constitution itself are being shredded. This is no time for the sunshine soldier and the summer patriot.
According to the Journal, Moore says we must ,“tone down the rhetoric and pull back from the political fray,” largely because of what he calls the “visceral recoil” to conservative positions on social issues among younger evangelicals.
But this is to allow the least mature, least experienced, and least wise among us to shape our message to the culture. Moore in this instance seems prepared to follow rather than lead, to go with the flow rather than swim against the current. But leaders do not follow public opinion, they shape it, especially when the issues are matters of biblical morality.
Moore warns that we must not be “co-opted” by the political process. But this seems to be what has happened to him. Even the Journal says he “is responding to this (cultural) drift.” He appears to have been co-opted by the slide of young evangelicals into moral relativism and by the Republican Party elites who want the GOP, in the Journal’s words, “to back off hot-button cultural issues.” Moore’s softer, gentler Christianity will give him a place in their inner circle. But it is more important to stand for the right principle than to sit at the right table.
Moore seems to have forgotten that Christ has not called us to be nice but to be good. Nice people never confront evil, but good people do.
At one point, Moore says “Christianity thrives when it is clearest about what distinguishes it from the outside culture.” I could not agree more. But the clearest distinction we can draw between our values and the values of secular society are precisely on the issues of life, marriage and family.
The one value Moore seems to be prepared to fight for in the public arena is amnesty for those who are criminal trespassers on sovereign U.S. soil. That hardly seems to reflect the biblical and American value of respect for the rule of law.
Ralph Reed says the conservative movement has experienced “a tough defeat” and now must adopt a “shift of tactics.” Someone needs to tell Mr. Reed and Mr. Moore that surrender is not a tactic.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
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SOUTHERN BAPTIST CATHOLIC SYMPATHIES & ADORATION:
See:
"Rick Warren prays for new Pope":
http://www.standstillawhile.net/2013/03/rick-warren-prays-for-new-pope/.
"Southern Baptists pay tribute to the Pope":
"Evangelical Leader Preaches Pullback From Politics, Culture Wars":
"Russell Moore: From Moral Majority to 'Prophetic Minority'":
Russell Moore-- claims WSJ headline on his article 'awfully misleading'
"Southern Baptist Convention's Moore: Christians Can't Be Political 'Mascots'":
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Ex-Mormons: Lynn and Michael Wilder and their family:
FREED FROM
"STRIVING, STRIVING, STRIVING BY WORKS"
TO OBTAIN SALVATION
FORMER "HIGH PRIEST" IN MORMON CHURCH:
