Monday, November 25, 2024

Eric Trump, Lance Wallnau- Judging Churches according to their political aspirations

 

Eric Metaxas, on New Apostolic Reformation leader, Lance Wallnau’s recent video states “Trump is a new man, he’s a new man, he knows that he’s at war with satanic enemies in the deep state[1] “they are the enemies of America they are enemies of we the people.”-- "The message is we’re going to go scourged earth on the deep state.”

Speaking of the future after Trump has finished his first two-years, Wallnau asks, “what can we do to unify before the midterms the next time? The suggestion, referring to a hoped for web site asks, “What if we had people rate the pastor?”

Metaxas excitedly tells him there already is such a web site MYCHURCH FINDER.ORG where churches and pastors are rated. There are three grades of churches explained on this web site. A: “Biblically Sound, Culturally Aware & A Non-Socialistic Legislatively Active Church.”

B: “Biblically Sound AND either Culturally Aware (with a Biblical Worldview) OR A Non-Socialistic Legislatively Active Church, but not both.”

And,

C: “Biblically Sound Church.”

There is also the letters WNR for churches that do not supposedly possess any of those characteristics.

 The description of a Biblically sound church carries all the points most orthodox churches would own including the Nicene Creed and The Apostles Creed. (Well of course the Baptist and the Pentecostals while agreeing with those creeds in their theology do not generally accept the use of creeds.) That would be simply C, according to their rating.

 Going much farther A would include both Culturally awareness described this way:

“ A Biblically based church that is culturally aware with a Biblical Worldview will, in addition to the above, be committed to countering the culture with God’s objective moral truths, teaching regularly on other religions, the Biblical view of Family, Sexuality & Marriage. It will be Pro-life and encourage the congregation to stand boldly for righteousness in the face of the current cultural decay. It will advocate for Biblical values in the arts, entertainment and the marketplace. It will teach Apologetics and a defense of the faith and why Christianity is true vs other religions. It will teach the evils of Marxism, Liberation Theology, Critical Race Theory, DEI, Wokeism, One World Government and any new depravity and corruption that the world will attempt.”

Most orthodox churches would agree with most of the above except the gospel of God’s redemption through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ would be the priority and core message rather than teaching about, “the evils of Marxism, Liberation Theology, Critical Race Theory, DEI, Wokeism, One World Government and any new depravity and corruption ...” Plus, an orthodox church would emphasis the Beatitudes and other biblical principles such as caring for strangers, feeding the hungry, forgiving enemies.

The third part of the description of an A church is called “legislatively active but non-socialistic.” The explanation of that is:

The church will, “be involved with educating the church and be involved with all legislative matters concerning Morality, Family, Sexuality, Marriage, Life, the freedom to evangelize and the protection of Life, Liberty and Property. It will recognize that the Church is the conscience of the government and take that calling seriously. It will understand the legislative responsibilities given to the Church in Exodus 18 and teach God’s plan for government. It will fight for moral justice, not “social justice.” It will understand that the government’s role is to protect Unalienable Rights and not to manage the economy or provide charity or free goods and services to citizens. This is because the latter takes by force the fruits of labor from one person and gives it to another, it forcibly violates the Unalienable Right of an individual to do as he wills with the fruits of his own labor. See kansasvideo.j3ip.com for a full explanation of rights vs goods. And just as important, this kind of church will encourage its congregation to run for office and vote and be involved in campaigns.”

The above “legislatively active but non-socialistic” description is political and consists of points that believers can agree or disagree on. It is the involvement in legislature and political campaigns by the Church that is the problem. We can disagree over federal charity but we shouldn’t disagree with the importance of separation of Church and State—too many have lost their freedom when there was no separation. Many of the first peoples to come to America came because there was no separation of Church and state and they had lost their religious freedom.

I want to return to Metaxas and Wallnau, their very comments, here and in other videos reveal their unkindness and hurt both to faithful followers of Jesus and to the whole Church. In their political ambitions they have lost the biblical distinctiveness that is to mold our love for brothers and sisters and our care for a broken world that needs God’s healing. In this particular video they are speaking about the new Bonhoeffer movie and a review of it in Christianity Today entitled, ‘Bonhoeffer’ Bears Little Resemblance to Reality. Unhappy with the review they insist that Christianity Today is dead. They see others who don’t embrace their political views as satanic.

God has called the Church to preach the good news of God’s grace through Jesus Christ. God always places His Church under the cross not under the banner of any nation.

 

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