The Hound of Heaven, the Word of God and conversion stories

Last week the temperature soared to 108 and smoke from fires in the hills and mountains hung in the trees of Sacramento. But the wind from the ocean and the coastal fog has sent the delta breezes our way. The last two mornings and nights the wonderful delta breezes have blown away the smoke and heat.

In the same way the testimonies of both Toby Brown and Bill Crawford have, at least for me, blown away the lingering effects of General Assembly. That is not to say that there are not great and troubling effects for the whole body of Christ when one part sinks into apostasy.

But the stories of how others were converted to Jesus are like great big gulps of water to thirsty people. While it is always the “Hound of Heaven” relentlessly pursuing us that is the actual cause of our conversion, the ways of coming to Him are like snow flakes, of a unique design. But one part of the story, always, is in one way or another, the word of God.

I thought of my own interaction with the Bible and my conversion as I read about Toby’s journey to an acknowledgement of the total truthfulness of God’s word.

I cannot remember a time, after I learned to read, when I did not read God’s word. But I didn’t understand it; I just thought it must be important. When I was thirteen my Sunday School teacher, who had also been my fifth grade teacher, my sixth grade gym teacher and the wife of the postmaster in our small town, asked us all if we were Christians. I said I was trying to be!

I was baptized in the Methodist Church that year, because I was trying to be a Christian and because everyone else my age was also getting baptized. Later in Stockton, California I started searching for God. The Hound of Heaven was pursuing. I tried different Churches, read books by Christian Scientists and kept reading the Bible. I knew it pretty well I just didn’t understand it.

Finally I asked God to help me understand what the Bible was saying.

A school friend took me and my sister to her father’s church for what she called a revival. We went all week to a little store-front Southern Baptist Church. On the last evening I was convinced, by some dear church ladies who thought I was already a Christian, that I should be baptized by immersion. (God has a sense of humor after all.) So down to the front I went.

When the pastor asked me, “Do you believe the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin?” yes, it really was like a light bulb going off in my head. No one in that church ever knew but my yes was my yes to Jesus Christ.

I was sixteen and finally the Bible opened up with God’s wondrous story of redemption. I couldn’t get enough. The first book I devoured was Romans.

My college experiences were different than either Toby’s or Bill’s. Well to start with, I had six children first! But I went to two secular colleges, a city college, and then the University in Sacramento. And I went as a Christian who believed God’s word was true. I had some wonderful yet hard experiences, because when God sends you somewhere you go in the strength of God’s care but he doesn't always send you to easy places.

Some examples of studying philosophy, religions and finally history in a secular college arena: at City College where I majored in philosophy I came across my first progressive Presbyterian. He taught many of my philosophy classes. Dr. Merritt did not believe in the deity of Christ and hated Augustine as we all found out in the History of Modern Philosophy. World Religions was taught by a Wicca member. And the class I took on the new search for the historical Jesus was, of course, taught by a fellow of the Jesus Seminar. I could go on.

But the important point here is that God’s word was always sufficient in those classes. At one point Dr. Merritt asked if someone had a Bible so they could read Isaiah 53. He wanted to show how the writer was speaking of Israel as God’s son. How easy it was to read and then slip in the words, “You know, some people believe these words were written about Jesus Christ.”

His words and His presence are always sufficient.

"But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." (Romans 5:8-10)

A book review of William Hague's "William Wilberforce" by Exiled Preacher

As if listening to the comments that ended my last posting, Guy Davies, Exiled Preacher , has posted a great review of a new book on William Wilberforce, the Evangelical Christian who spent his political life ridding Great Britain of the slave trade.

William Wilberforce by William Hague is written, according to Davies, by a non-Evangelical who is nonetheless sympathetic to his subject. The review begins,

“Last year marked the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Slavery itself was abolished in the British Empire in 1833. Many men and women campaigned against the slave trade, but the acknowledged leader of the anti-slavery movement was William Wilberforce. William Hague has put us in his debt with this well written and compelling biography. He evidently does not share the reformer's evangelical convictions, but he evidences a sympathetic understanding of his subject. The author's political background (he was a Conservative Cabinet Minister, then Leader of the Opposition and is currently Shadow Foreign Secretary) give him a valuable insight into the political aspects of Wilberforce's life.”

Another section: “But Wilberforce was involved in much more than the abolition of slavery. He was a best selling author. His A Practical View of Christianity exposed the nominal religion of the upper classes and set forth the evangelical faith in a provocative and winsome manner. He was an active philanthropist, involved in many good causes including the improvement of working conditions in the factories, the RSPCA. He advocated the work of overseas mission. In a three hour speech to Parliament, he successfully argued against the East India Company’s ban on evangelistic work in India.”

To read all of the review go here. William Wilberforce by William Hague .

Three theological And historical misunderstandings

Three points I wish to make about what I see as three theological and historical misunderstandings. The first has to do with false doctrine and individuals within the Church. The second has to do with false theological groups within the Church. The third has to do with renewal and revival movements within the Church.

Drawing by Melissa McHenry Tregilgas

(1)Individuals and groups who call themselves Christian but teach false doctrine are just that, individuals and groups who call themselves Christians and teach false doctrine. They are just like the rest of us: sinners. A few of them great sinners, some of them seemingly of very good character and most of them very enjoyable people to know.

I noticed this misunderstanding about false Christians as I worked in ministries to new religions. As the Director of Apologetics Resource Center I was usually the person who wrote about off-beat Christian groups. Most people reading this will have not heard of any of them. For instance, have you ever heard of the “Manifest Sons of God” movement? Or what about Free Love Ministries or Aggressive Christianity? (Same group!)

My point is most of the people in those groups were not monsters like Jim Jones or L. Ron Hubbard, instead they were people who didn’t understand the very basic foundation of Christianity. They needed biblical Pastors, teachers and friends.

The problem with false doctrine is not that the perpetrators are horrid people but that they have made Christianity a religion of works. When they sin there is no hope. Instead of the death of Jesus Christ providing the sinner with the righteousness that belongs only to Jesus Christ the believer has to “know” or “realize” who they are. Or the sinner has to somehow fulfill the very same work as Christ, for example empty themselves in order to be transformed.

Instead of the Father reaching down and placing them in safety because of the Son, they are left climbing ladders to God. That is why I write about false teachers, because both they and their followers are left without the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ.

(2.)Historically strange and false movements have grown in the Church, but the Church has outlasted them. The gates of Hell shall not prevail! In American Church history various movements have formed and grown in the Church but they have eventually moved out of the Church. For instance, the Unitarian church grew out of the early Congregationalists as a debate about the Trinity seemed to almost overcome the Church of early America.

The interesting part of this is that eventually the Unitarian Church had its own battle against those who no longer wanted to celebrate the communion service in any way. This was the battle the Unitarian Church had with the Transcendentalists. Later as false religion grew the Pagan and Wicca groups became a part of what is now the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Another movement that festered within the nineteenth century American Church was the Metaphysical Movement which was later to form into such groups as Christian Science, Unity School of Christianity and Science of Mind. Not many people know that early on this movement sought a home in the Christian Church. (And sadly it has influenced some of the Pentecostal churches and the Mainline Churches even now.) But the point is that God always has His Church somewhere and “having done all” she can still stand in His truth and grace. Error does not last.

(3.)A lot of writing has gone on recently about renewal groups having a slogan of “stay, fight win” in the mainline churches. I don’t think this is really the slogan of anyone but I want to address what it means to be renewal people in the Church. It means to be faithful to Jesus Christ and to be where He has called. And historically it can mean many things.

It can be a dying church that leaves a witness. Sometimes Christianity starts in the world as in seventeenth century Japan where most Christians died until Christianity was only a shell. It can be a renewing Church that waits a long time for renewal. Sometimes Christianity is renewed in the Church as it was in the Catholic Church of John Hus only to face death and a wait of a hundred years for the rise of a new reformation.

It can be renewal that lasts for years and changes history. Christians, in what would become modern Germany, were in prayer for church renewal when Martin Luther began his biblical preaching in what would become the Reformation.

We do not know where God is leading or what will happen in the mainline churches in the future. We cannot insist others follow Christ in the same way He calls us to follow Him. There is an old hymn that goes “Some through the water, some through the flood, some through the fire but all through the blood.”

But we can trust that His call is real and has value in His Kingdom. And we can keep loving those teaching false doctrine in the Church as we speak truth to them. We can also keep loving, caring for, and having fellowship with those God calls out of the mainline Churches. Perhaps in God’s plan they will bring blessings back to us.

The "New" New Age Presbyterian Mysticism and a question

In my last posting, “Something mystical this way comes: A new syncretism in the Presbyterian Church USA” I referred to Reverend Jud Hendrix’s use of the New Age Guru Ken Wilber. And I pointed out that Wilber’s “Integral Mini Model” is the first guiding text listed by Hendrix in his pamphlet the “The Mystical Church Network: A Contemplative Community of Support, Creative & Accountability.”

Drawing by Melissa McHenry Tregilgas

Also, on his blog, Out Beyond Ideas …, Hendrix has posted what he calls a Shema Circle.1. As I stated in the last posting he writes that it is “structured around Perenniel philosophy (Mind, Body, Soul, Spirit) and the Integral theory of Ken Wilber.” 2.

Having stated, after reading the material, and listening to some sermons that the new mystical movement is panentheistic and somewhat based on Ken Wilber’s new age material I looked around on Ken Wilber’s vast web site, KenWilber.Com. I found there in their on line magazine Holons a very recent summary of an interview with Brother David Steindl-Rast entitled “Brother David Steindl-Rast - Integral Christianity: Theory and Practice.” Steindl-Rast in an interview with Ken Wilber explains how panentheism is the more acceptable religious viewpoint than either pantheism or theistic Christianity.

In the summary Cory W. deVos writes from the interview:

“Panentheism also frees us from the typically mythological conceptions of God that are found in traditional forms of theism, in which one particular group of people claim an exclusive knowledge of God's nature—usually a single, monolithic, omniscient God who reveals himself only through faith and revelation, which more often than not resembles the "great superego in the sky." (Emphasis author’s)

Via deVos, Steindl-Rast, who is a Benedictine monk, adds to this a strange view of the Trinity. After explaining that “when viewed through the lens of Integral panentheism, the Trinity truly comes alive in our minds as three very different ways of experiencing God:

- The God that is the great, unknowable, Absolute Mystery, from which we come and to which we shall return—God transcendent, or God the Father.

- The God that we recognize in everything that we see, everything that we touch, everything that is—the entire universe as the Body of Christ; God immanent; or God the Son.

- The God that exists through doing, creating, knowing, understanding—the dynamic aspects of God; God as verb; or God as Holy Spirit.”

If this is the basis of the new denominational mysticism many questions could be asked but one might be: “When, for instance, at the “Church Unbound Conference,” Jud Hendrix and Liz Kaznak, co-Pastors of Covenant Community Church, a part of the new mysticism, minister as liturgists with Paul Detterman of Presbyterians for Renewal are the three people all lifting up the same Jesus?”

I don’t in anyway mean this as a put down, but it seems to me that these three people are embracing two different truths that cannot be reconciled.

1. Download shema_circle_ext_des.doc

2. See also, Integral Christianity Experience by Hendrix

Something mystical this way comes: A new syncretism in the Presbyterian Church USA

Well over a year ago I noticed an invitation to those interested in developing a mystical community. Such a community would supposedly transform the Church. The invitation stated that “the Mystical Church Network will engage clergy and religious professionals from a variety of denominations and religious traditions. The Network is one aspect of a larger multifaceted and organic movement called the Mystical Church Project which is being developed to support leaders, provide resources and create more integral communities of faith. The project and network will support and supplement the work of denominations as together we work for the transformation of the Church.”1

Additionally this pamphlet states among other things that the “Network will host a variety of national gatherings and will encourage local and regional gatherings as the network grows and develops. One gathering will correspond with the Annual 7% Event for Presbyterian USA clergy.”(Emphasis the authors)

It is important to note that although I found this on the blog site of Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, he was simply advertising it for Reverend Jud Hendrix, who alongside Reverend Liz Kaznak, is Pastor of Covenant Community Church. The Mystical Church project has taken form in the Integral Church Leadership Movement.

Mysticism in the Church is not necessarily a bad thing, but its validity does depend on what forms it takes. St Teresa of Avila is well known as a mystic within the Catholic tradition as is St. John of the Cross. But many mystics have edged their way out of the Church either by carelessly equating themselves with Christ or by becoming too syncretistic in their religious views.

Hendrix, who seems to be a fairly strong catalyst and leader within this movement, (he undoubtedly wrote the Network pamphlet) not only equates others and himself with Christ2, he also brings together many differing religious viewpoints placing himself well within what has been called the “New Age Movement”. And in fact one author that he often uses is New Age guru Ken Wilber. Wilber’s “Integral Mini Model” is the first guiding text listed by Hendrix in his pamphlet.

And on the Integral web site is a “Shema Circle,” (Download shema_circle_ext_des.doc ) “structured around Perenniel philosophy (Mind, Body, Soul, Spirit) and the Integral theory of Ken Wilber.”

Some of the explanation for this circle is based on Scripture, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut 6:5) But the more basic foundation is Eastern and new age philosophy as can be seen from this statement: “However, the practices of the Shema circle also seek to develop an awareness of “self” that transcends the individual and merges with the cosmic Self or Christ Consciousness.”

The best way to understand how this kind of mysticism is not Christianity is to look at some written texts and sermons, comparing them with Biblical Faith.

Perhaps the most basic place to begin would be with Hendrix’s views of Jesus Christ. In his sermon on “Resurrection and Evolution” while looking at Advent, Hendrix states “God comes to God’s self.” This means that Hendrix is following a panentheistic view of God that sees creation as the body of God. Next he looks at the person Jesus as he lives his life, referring to a great event when “something about Jesus wakes and he becomes the Christ. The metaphor of becoming enlightened or becoming into his own and at this point he somehow realizes who he is, the beloved, and he is united with God, all of creation and all of men.”

In a different sermon, “The Baptism of Jesus,”3 Hendrix refers to Jesus’ baptism as the time when he realizes he is God. Hendrix states, “A person wakes up, Jesus a human person … wakes up to the reality that all is sacred, that he is God … He some how becomes the channel for truth and grace… somehow with this new moment there is a new potential for the human experience.” This leads to the view that “There is new opportunity for all of history for us to wake up and realize who we are … we are god present in time and space.”

Hendrix turns Jesus into a kind of Buddha who reaches enlightenment and carries all of creation with Him. He is certainly using process theology and equates the life and work of Jesus Christ with evolution. He, not unlike Teilhard de Chardin, sees Jesus as the catalyst of a new consciousness for humanity, the bringer of new potential.

In fact he sees Jesus’ self surrendering and "emptying of himself" in death as the cause which opens all of creation to the possibility of having the same opportunity to become the Christ. Speaking of Jesus emptying his life Hendrix states, “So that the cycle can start again and we see that is not only the cycle of Christ but this is the cycles of evolution …the cycle of our own becoming…an on going process of dying and becoming.”4

Turning Jesus Christ into an enlightened person who realizes he is God leads to a misunderstanding about the Christian community, about redemption and about the need for others to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. For instance, writing on his blog, “Out Beyond Ideas …” about the second coming of Christ Maybe the Next Messiah Will Be a Collective, Hendrix writes of his longing:

“The other day I found myself wishing for Jesus to come back. Not something that crosses my mind much, but I caught myself thinking it. If not Jesus, I thought, then maybe a new anointed one (Messiah) to emerge on the world scene to make things right. Why not! I wondered. Isn’t it time for a little Fleshy Divinity again. Why can’t it be like the good ol days… when God would respond to the cries and chaos of the world with an embodied Messiah. Maybe, a women this time… to settle the argument once and for all about the gender of God. I Also briefly wondered if it was Barak Obama!??! – but that is yet to be seen?”

After speculating on what is needed in the world today, Hendrix goes beyond the individual messiah or avatar, as he puts it, and writes about the Christian Community as a collective Christ. He writes:

“This space of community is the playground of the Spirit. Christ says, “Where two or more are gathered I am there.” Access to Christ consciousness is not an individual experience but a communal one. A particular church or spiritual community is locally grounded and non-locally connected making it potentially a fuller reflection and agent of God’s Shalom than any individual Messiah could be. A community is the channel to the universal not the individual.”

The Jesus of this new mystical movement is not biblical. Jesus is the unique and only Christ.

"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." (1 John 4:15)

Jesus did not realize Christ consciousness or awaken to some new sense of oneness with God, humanity and creation. Instead the Father put his seal of approval on Jesus at his baptism. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And Jesus was quite aware of himself before his baptism. He in fact said to John the Baptist, who was protesting against baptizing him, "Permit it at this time: for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt. 3:15)

Jesus came to redeem a people for his Father. The simple Bible verse that even children know states it so completely. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) (emphasis mine)

With this new syncretism the individual Christian is left in a lonely place without a personal Savior and with only technological spirituality such as yoga and Tantra as a means of achieving wholeness. At the same time the Christian Community is turned into a place where Christ consciousness is exhibited instead of a community experiencing unity because each individual person is united to the risen Lord Jesus.

"What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete." (1 John 1:3-4)


1 http://breyeschow.typepad.com/faithblog/files/MysticalChurchProject.pdf.
2 See “Resurrection and Evolution” sermon by Jud Hendrix at http://youtube.com/watch?v=lWU0t6IAo1k. & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0fKb9bvcQs&NR=1.
3 See The Baptism of Jesus” by Jud Hendrix at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCHsm6hZK7I&feature=related. & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w6nVBDo0Mw&NR=1.
4 “Resurrection & Evolution.”

The General Assembly from a Piano Tuner and Bible teacher's perspective

My husband Brad Larson attended the 218th General Assembly with me. It was nice having his companionship as well as his wisdom. He wrote a letter about his perceptions of GA. After reading it I felt he was saying some important things and asked if I could edit out the personal parts and post it. He was happy to allow me to do that. I think hearing from someone who does not often get into the process of Presbyterian politics but loves teaching the Bible is extremely helpful.

Having been a piano tuner for more than forty years I am used to being the first and last person in the process of decision making and implementing. Occasionally when I need help I can interact with the Steinway Company from whom most of my work is drawn, directly and indirectly. The process of working out everything in committees can be constructive as well as destructive. I spend a lot of time thinking my way through issues before I make decisions that will affect my reputation and ethics because I want to be kept in the highest esteem by all I work for and represent. I feel that committees I have been a part of have often been very shallow when it comes to dealing with important issues.

So it is also with Scripture. Studying through the books of Jonah, the rebellious prophet, to John who shared the Revelation and Gospel with us at a very late time in his own life, along with many other contributors to our Holy Scriptures, I have come to see most clearly that Jesus demands that we give our complete allegiance to Him and Him alone!

At home in our own church we work within our congregation and Presbytery to accomplish what we feel is God’s direction and purpose for us. Sometimes the process works well and other times not so well. The 218th GA, however, is another story. I have never seen worse interpretations of Scripture and order of process in dealing with issues of life and death in the Church.

The oft quoted phrase “Love one another as I have loved you,” along with the passage from Micah felt too much like a hammer coming down upon me or a mantra that had some sort of influence just for the repeating of it. If the first phrase had been presented with both parts understood it would be a completely different picture. It is all good and fine that we should love one another (and I can sometimes be faulted here and need to repent), but it should have been also a part of the GA to finish the phrase by presenting just how it is that Jesus loves “us.”

Jesus encourages us with His love. Jesus warns us against sin with His love. Jesus confronts us with His love. Jesus says to us “Follow Me” because of His love for us. We have a Theologian, from our history, in B. B. Warfield who isn’t mentioned too much these days. One of my favorite things from him is his concept of Scripture called Avalanche Theology. Looking at Scripture is like standing at the bottom of a precipice and watching an avalanche coming down upon us. It might seem theoretically possible to pick our way through the falling rocks and debris and escape the force bearing down upon us but we know better.

We must see the Scripture as a whole and not try to pick our way through it selectively. It all has meaning in matters of life and death and relationship with the God we profess to love and worship.

We should rather be on our knees in prayer asking Jesus for wisdom, burying ourselves in Scripture so we might understand and discern God’s place in all our struggles of worship and belief.

The flagrant abuse of Scripture offends me deeply. Jesus left no one outside the boundaries of His love but He is very plain about what it means to follow Him. We as His children are all welcome at the Table receiving the gifts of his death, crucifixion and resurrection, but when we partake with malice, hatred, or unbelief in Jesus words to us, we do, as Paul said, drink to our own death. Simply translated this leaves us no room for personal desire or ambition; the things we strive for outside of Jesus Christ are exactly things that will draw us away from Christ.

If God is truly our highest worship then He has a right to call “sin” whatever he chooses and we will be sooner or later surprised at how right He has been all along. Many behaviors that God has called “Sexual Immorality” are plaguing the Church today. It is really astonishing that in spite of the fact that division in the church is the consequence of these behaviors no one seems to notice and the fight goes on with some imagining that sooner or later the Church will come together around these issues. It will never happen. The avalanche is upon us.

Only Jesus Christ can steer us through it. And He has promised us that He will if we will but just trust him. The rewards at the end of it all are full of joy and beyond comprehension in their magnificence. Jesus so loved the entire Cosmos (John 3:16) that He instigated redemption from the fallen world so that we might know eternal life in its fullness. We will all be just exactly who He created us to be in His image!!

May our Lord bless His Church and draw her closer to Himself as she struggles with faith and obedience.

Yes, I can change my mind!

I have had a change of mind, in part, about the posting I made titled Evelyn Waugh and the 218 General Assembly . After discussing my concerns with a friend who was in a much closer range than I of the podium, I believe the Moderator simply made several bad judgment calls and corrected one privately, never committing the others again.

However, I stand by my concerns that two Muslims helped to guide the commissioners in both the committee meeting and the business meeting in what should have been the commissioners' very Christian statement of faith. And I still insist that the question should be asked, "How do you witness to those who need Jesus Christ when what should be pastoral leadership stands between you and the lost?

For a complete report on the General Assembly with thoughtfulness, especially about the votes on human sexuality, I would hardily recommend Pastor Bob Davis' recent posting July 5, 2008: A Wrap-Up, of sorts. Please read to the end of his report.