Welcome to this week’s “Throwback Thursday” installment. Today, we’re going to revisit a post that was originally published back on May 11, 2017 and has been revised.
There was a man who walked on this Earth about two-thousand years ago named Jesus. In fact, every time you write the date on a check you attest to the reality of His existence. There are some today who say He was a great teacher. Others say He was a prophet. But Jesus claimed to be much more than that. He said He was God the Son and the ONLY WAY to eternal life.
What if He was right? What would that mean for you? People all over the world have an opinion about Jesus, but wouldn’t you want to know what He taught for yourself?
Come and see about Jesus.
“Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” – John 1:38-39
“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” – John 4:29
“Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good (like Jesus) come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” – John 1:46
“Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.” – Psalm 66:5
Counting the Cost: A Memoir By Jill Duggar Gallery Books, 2023, 271 pp.
Readers of this blog know I had a long stretch at an independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) church, so I was interested in the fundamentalist Duggar family and watched multiple seasons of their popular “19 Kids and Countdown” cable television reality show. However, the Duggars’ success began to unravel in 2015 with the first of multiple sexual scandals involving oldest son, Josh.
A couple of the older daughters subsequently began distancing themselves from the family’s stifling legalism, which had been fueled by the strict tenets of Bill Gothard and his Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP).
Jinger Duggar’s excellent book, “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear” was published last January (see my review here).
Next, Jill Duggar unwisely allowed herself to be used as a pawn by the producers of the decidedly anti-Christian documentary, “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” released on Amazon Prime in June (see my review here). Jill was presented as being so bitter and vindictive that viewers, including myself, wondered if she still considered herself a Christian.
With “Counting the Cost” published in September, Jill tells her story without any manipulation. Yes, she is still a follower of Christ, but castigates Gothard, the IBLP, and her parents’ strict religious legalism as her sister Jinger had done. What sets Jill’s book apart is she also has a big ax to grind with her father, Jim Bob, regarding financial renumeration for her participation in “19 Kids and Countdown” (2008-2015) and its spinoff, “Counting On” (2015-2017). Jim Bob had pocketed all of the substantial proceeds over the years and the children didn’t receive a dime. Like all of the older children, Jill had appeared in 200+ episodes over almost a decade. It’s evident from reading the book that Jill’s husband, Derick, coached the normally-passive Jill to confront her father regarding the money issue. Jim Bob’s rationale was that the children were well taken care of while living under his roof and they would be receiving their portion of the large Duggar estate upon his and his wife’s passing.
On the cable shows, the Duggars presented themselves as the ideal Christian family, but there were a lot of problems when the cameras weren’t rolling as we now see from Josh’s multiple scandals and from the books by the two daughters. Many former-fundamentalist Christians, not just the Duggar siblings, are dealing with the aftermath of hardcore, religious legalism.
I’m “counting on” this being my last post about the Duggar family. If I had to choose, I would definitely pick Jinger’s book over this one.
Christianity and Liberalism By J. Gresham Machen Ichthus Publications, 2020, 200 pp.
I’d been meaning to read J. Gresham Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalism” for quite a long time and finally squeezed it into my reading queue.
In the 1910s and 1920s, Christianity in America was approaching a crossroads. Bible-denying German higher criticism had infiltrated seminaries decades before and was making its way into pulpits and pews. Orthodox Christians pushed back and defended the Bible and the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. Between 1910 and 1915, conservative evangelical churchmen wrote ninety essays published under the banner of “The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth,” defending the basic truths of Biblical Christianity.*
Presbyterian theologian, J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), witnessed the rise of higher criticism at Princeton Seminary where he taught and within the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA), the denomination he was affiliated with. In 1923, he wrote “Christianity and Liberalism” in response to pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?,” an apologia for Bible-denying liberalism, which had been published and widely distributed the previous year through the patronage of “philanthropist” John D. Rockefeller Jr. and had gained a wide acceptance.**
Machen’s basic premise in “Christianity and Liberalism” was that liberalism’s denials of 1) the Bible as God’s inerrant Holy Word, 2) the supernatural miracles recorded in the Bible, 3) Jesus’ divinity, and 4) salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone had rendered it a counterfeit Christianity that was completely untethered from the faith of the early church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. It was Christianity without Christ.
Machen’s arguments were rational and, most importantly, Biblical, but the cancer of unbelief was already widespread. Machen subsequently split from Princeton in 1929 and founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. In 1936, Machen left the PCUSA and was instrumental in the creation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Many of the mainline Protestant denominations of Machen’s day succumbed to Bible-denying liberalism.
*I need to read and review the two essays from “The Fundamentals” that address Roman Catholicism: 1) “Is Romanism Christianity?” by T. W. Medhurst, and 2) “Rome, The Antagonist of the Nation” by J. M. Foster.
**Martin Luther King Jr. would subsequently hail Harry Emerson Fosdick as “the greatest preacher of this century.” King Jr. was a liberal Baptist pastor who taught a Bible-denying social gospel previously propagated by Fosdick.
Universalism (or semi-Universalism), the religious view that all people are God’s children and that all “good-hearted” people will make it to Heaven (except for maybe Hitler and a few other mass-murderers) is gradually making inroads into “big tent evangelicalism.” Case in point below.
About one year ago, I began following a very popular (17.8K followers) WordPress blogger whom I will refer to as MT. He presents himself as somewhat of an “evangelical” Christian (although he makes it a point of refraining from using that particular term). Immediately after I began following MT, he published a post extolling Mother Teresa as an example of Christian charity. As you can imagine, I had a problem with that and responded with a post (see here). In the ensuing exchange, it became clear that MT fully embraced the Roman Catholic church as a genuinely Christian institution and was totally dumbfounded by those who believed otherwise. I had no desire to read the musings of a Rome-friendly ecumenist, so I stopped following MT’s blog, however, I occasionally dropped by to see if he was propagating any more wide-is-the-way-isms.
Well, this past August, MT published an absolute doozy of a wide-is-the-way-ism, entitled, “The Parable of the Good Mormon,” parts one (see here) and two, that went to even further extremes than his previous Mother Teresa post.
I’ll summarize “The Parable of the Good Mormon” posts as briefly as possible and add my observations. Today we’ll examine part one and next Monday, part two.
Part One
To give the impression that he somewhat comports with Christian orthodoxy, MT begins with the disclaimer, “I’m not a Mormon, nor am I a fan of Mormon teachings.” With that formality out of the way, he then proceeds to tell us that many years ago, as part of a “faith-based” Christian comedy duo, he made an appearance at a university auditorium in Ogden, Utah, which is about 38 miles from Salt Lake City, the epicenter of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. MT explains that the anticipated audience would largely be ex-Mormons who had converted to Biblical Christianity. MT implies that just as 1st-Century Jews had hated Samaritans, the ex-Mormon Christians who would be attending the show hated the LDS.
MT claims God gave him a message to close the upcoming performance by citing Luke 10:30-37, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but to replace the “Samaritan” in the parable with a “Mormon.”
MT relates that the comedy duo performed their routine and he then closed with his “Parable of the Good Mormon” Scripture-revision as planned. He states the ex-Mormon, converts-to-Christ audience reacted by sitting in “deadly silence.” MT then continued to address the audience by haranguing them for their hatefulness and idolatry of correct doctrine: “So why did Jesus cast a Samaritan as his hero? To make a point: It’s not knowing the right stuff that makes us good or righteous, it’s what’s in our hearts. The Jewish prophets had been gifted with revelations from God, and the Samaritans had not (Jesus acknowledged this). But that didn’t automatically make all Jews good, or all Samaritans bad. What mattered to God, Jesus insisted, was the disposition of a person’s heart.”
My Observations
While MT portrays the ex-Mormon, converts-to-Christ audience as hating Mormons just as Jews hated the Samaritans, that was probably not the case. The ex-Mormon Christians probably love their Mormon relatives, friends, neighbors, and co-workers and desire that they also accept Christ as Savior and leave Mormonism with its heretical doctrines and false gospel. For MT, that desire translates as “hate.”
MT claims God instructed him to deliver the ecumenical message. Since the message contradicts Scripture, it could not have been from God.
MT claims Jesus cast the Samaritan as the “hero” in the parable to make the point that it’s not knowing the right “stuff” (correct doctrine) that makes us good and righteous, but rather it’s what’s in our hearts. MT is mistaken. Jesus did not use the Samaritan character in the parable to teach a salvation message, but rather to teach a charity message. We are to treat everyone with love and charity, which includes witnessing to them about the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. Certainly just knowing correct doctrine intellectually doesn’t save anyone. We must personally respond and accept Jesus Christ as Savior through faith alone. Good works and charity will be the evidential fruit of genuine salvation in Christ.
Knowing the right “stuff” (correct doctrine) is vitally important. Scriptural passages abound which teach that accepting Jesus Christ as Savior through faith alone is the ONLY way to eternal life (see Acts 4:12, and for many more references see here). In contrast to MT’s wide-is-the-way platitudes, the Bible says that there are none righteous (Romans 3:10-12) and that the hearts of men are desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9-10). What makes people righteous is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ that’s imputed to them the moment they accept Him as Savior through faith alone (Romans 3:21-22), NOTthe very imperfect disposition of people’s sinfully-depraved hearts.
According to God’s Holy Word, accepting Jesus Christ as Savior through faith alone IS what’s important, it’s NOT“thedisposition of a person’s heart” as MT claims. MT is presenting a case for salvation by alleged “good-heartedness,” but that is NOT the Biblical way.
Next week we’ll take a look at Part Two, the conclusion of MT’s “Parable of the Good Mormon.” We can surely expect more arguments propagating wide-is-the-way salvation by “good-heartedness.” See that post here.
In this 1:20-minute video-short, Costi Hinn (forthegospel.org) and apologist-evangelist, Mike Gendron, discuss why converted Catholics should be re-baptized.
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Below is a link to Mike Gendron’s Gospel outreach ministry to Roman Catholics, Proclaiming the Gospel.
It’s puzzling that the RCC still strongly opposes Freemasonry. Popes of yore accused Freemasonry of propagating religious indifferentism (the belief that differences of religious belief are of no importance), yet modern popes have promoted indifferentism since the Second Vatican Council by teaching that all religions are legitimate pathways to God. Membership in either Freemasonry or the Roman Catholic church is not a viable option for a born-again follower of Jesus Christ. It’s almost humorous that the Knights of Columbus was created in 1882 as an RCC-sanctioned alternative for Catholic men seeking a secret-handshake fraternal.
Last weekend, we noted that pope Francis had fired one of his most vocal critics, Joseph Strickland, conservative bishop of Tyler, Texas. Conservative Catholic media pundits are outraged by the sacking, claiming Strickland has been valiantly defending traditional Catholic teaching in opposition to Francis and his doctrine-bending progressive reforms. Could Strickland and other conservatives/traditionalists galvanize opposition to Francis towards some form of schism? While some conservative Catholic media pundits might be open to some type of formal split from Bergoglion progressivism, I doubt there would be much grass-root support for schism among the 60 million+ American Catholics who mostly go about their religion in a perfunctory manner.
The Catholic author of this article cites 1) Holy humor, 2) Saintly squad, 3) Festive feasts, 4) Confession, 5) Catholic cuisine, and 6) Eternal optimism as positive and inviting characteristics of Roman Catholicism. In contrast to the author’s whimsical musings is the grim reality that Catholics are taught they must merit their salvation by obeying the Ten Commandments, an absolutely impossible task.
It’s revealing that the writer of this article, a Catholic priest, extols C.S. Lewis. Undiscerning evangelical pastors regularly commend Lewis to their congregations from the pulpit, yet the high church Anglican didn’t believe in the inerrancy of the Bible or in penal substitutionary atonement, but he did believe in confessing sins to a priest, in purgatory, in the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic church as a Christian institution despite its false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit, and in semi-universalism. See my post on Lewis here.
Michael Voris, the founder of the influential Catholic rad-trad website, Church Militant, which is highly critical of the preponderance of gays among Catholic prelates and priests, was outed as an S&G-ual himself back in April, 2016. At that time, Voris claimed to have put that “lifestyle” behind him. This week, Voris was forced to resign as president of Church Militant for violating the organization’s “morality clause.” The details are unspecified as of now, but one can imagine. It’s ironic that Catholicism’s leadership admonishes the rank and file that they must merit their salvation, yet they themselves are blatant examples of sin and corruption.
This article states that “Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen was unanimously acquitted by the Helsinki Court of Appeals on charges stemming from her 2019 tweet that took issue with the Finnish Lutheran Church’s promotion of S&G ‘pride month’ by citing verses from the Bible.” That’s good news, BUT it’s not the end of the story. The S&G steamroller will continue its crusade to squash all opposition to the S&G agenda.
Thanks for joining us today as we continue to examine and respond to Catholic apologist, Karlo Broussard’s book, “Meeting the Protestant Response” (2022). This week, Broussard concludes his two-part chapter in which he defends the Catholic doctrine of merited salvation using Matthew 25:31-46 as his proof-text.
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Roman Catholics emphatically claim that they also believe in salvation “by God’s grace through faith,” BUT what they actually believe by that statement is that grace from the Catholic sacraments enables them to avoid sin and to do good works (i.e., “cooperate with grace”) so that they might merit salvation at the moment of death.
Protestant response #72: “The works are not causative of entrance into the kingdom. They’re merely evidential.”
Broussard writes, “Protestant Bible scholar D.A. Carson offers an alternative explanation for the role works play in Matthew 25:31-46. He proposes the idea that the works mentioned are merely evidence of one’s saving relationship with Christ and that they play no causal role. It’s not that the righteous are entering the kingdom because they committed good works; rather those who deserve to enter the kingdom will just happen to have committed good works, and those good works can serve as the proof that these people are in the right place. Carson thinks this interpretation is ‘suggested by the surprise of the righteous.'”
Broussard’s response
Broussard mounts a two-pronged attack against Carson’s argument:
1. Broussard writes, “(Carson’s) interpretation . . . contradicts the plain sense of the text. When Jesus tells the sheep they will ‘inherit the kingdom’ prepared for them, he says ‘for [Greek, gar, ‘marker of a cause or reason’] I was hungry and you gave me food’ (v.35). In other words, the sheep will inherit the kingdom because they exercised charity. Charity is the reason for entrance into the kingdom. That’s not merely evidential; it’s causative.”
2. “A second problem,” writes Broussard, “lies with the surprise of the righteous. Those who receive eternal life are not surprised at getting into the kingdom. Rather, they are surprised at the fact that when they served others, they somehow served Jesus. Furthermore, the surprise that the righteous experience in discovering they were serving Christ in serving others doesn’t take away from the fact that loving service of others is grounds for entrance into heaven.”
My response
My rebuttal to Broussard’s arguments in the previous installment (see here) is relevant here as well, but I do have a few additional comments.
Remember that Scripture interprets Scripture. In apostle Paul’s thirteen epistles, do we find any doctrinal statement which implies that salvation is merited by charity? We do not. We only find Paul’s explicit and repeated teaching that salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.
The Catholic interpretation of Matthew 25:31-46, that charity merits salvation, is fraught with pitfalls. How much charity? What is the cutoff? In addition, people’s charitable acts are usually less than altruistic. “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” – Isaiah 64:6.
In Matthew 25:31-46, the sheep are the sheep because of their salvation in Christ by faith alone and any charitable fruit they evidence is through Christ. The goats are goats because they were never born-again in Christ and any charitable works done are outside of Christ.
Matthew 25:31-46 describes the final judgement at the end of the world. Some suggest the division of the sheep and the goats is connected to the preceding Tribulation period, but I have chosen to avoid discussing that view.
Not just Roman Catholics, but Protestant social gospel advocates point to Matthew 25:31-46 as the basis for their beliefs and temporal efforts. Pastor D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones did great work in illuminating the spiritual dimension of Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount (see here), and I’m of the view that the food, drink, welcoming, clothing, and visiting referenced in Matthew 25:31-46 also have a spiritual dimension, i.e., a person desires spiritual “food” and a believer reaches out to them with the Gospel.
Ecumenical evangelical, does it bother you yet that Catholics, as exemplified by Broussard here, unabashedly maintain that salvation must be merited?
Below is a good article from Matt Slick of Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry regarding Matthew 25:31-46.
Next week: Protestant response #73: “Jesus is not talking about eternal punishment. Rather, he’s talking about temporal punishment.”
Announcement: We’re rapidly approaching the conclusion of this seventy-seven part series examining Catholic apologist Karlo Broussard’s book, “Meeting the Protestant Response” with only five more installments remaining. I don’t mean to minimize these final sections because they do deal with the most important difference between Roman Catholicism and Gospel Christianity, which is how a person is saved. However, with the thought in my mind that this book is coming to an end, I asked the Lord to direct me to another recently-published Catholic apologetics book that uses a multiple question/statement format that we could examine in weekly installments. I’m pleased to say my prayer was answered. More information to follow.
For this week’s Throwback Thursday installment, I’m republishing this very short post from previous years about something that never gets old; being grateful to the Lord for His bountiful blessings!
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my brothers and sisters in the Lord here at the WordPress blogosphere! May your time today with your family and friends be joyous as we contemplate all of our blessings in Christ Jesus!
Len Dawson: Superbowl Quarterback By Larry Bortstein Tempo Books, 1970, 182 pp.
Football is a part of Thanksgiving Day celebrations for many families, so with that in mind let’s talk about one of my favorite players from yesteryear. But first, some necessary preliminaries.
In late-September, 1969, I was standing outside of grammar school with some of my eighth-grade classmates and they were discussing professional football. I remember it like it was yesterday. My father wasn’t a sports fan, so I had no clue what the guys were talking about. I knew I needed to quickly educate myself. The following Sunday, September 28th, I tuned into NBC at 4PM and watched the San Diego Chargers beat Joe Namath and the World Champion New Jets, 34-27. Ah! The lightning bolts on the helmets and uniforms! The powder blue jerseys! Quarterback John Hadl connecting with receivers, Lance “Bambi” Alworth and Gary “The Ghost” Garrison, again and again! Man, I was an immediate Chargers fan! Later that week, when I eagerly joined in the football conversation with the kids at school, they couldn’t believe I was a fan of the Chargers of the allegedly inferior American Football League. They all followed their father’s cue and were fans of the New York Giants or Cleveland Browns of the much older and allegedly superior National Football League broadcast on CBS. Oops! In my ignorance of football, I had picked the wrong channel and the wrong league!
Well, it was too late to change. I continued watching the American Football League games on NBC every Sunday, rooting for my Chargers, but it quickly became apparent that three teams had an edge in the league’s pecking order, the Jets in the East and the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs in the West. The Raiders were evil personified and thoroughly enjoyed the reputation, while the Chiefs, quarterbacked by the cool, calm, and collected, Lenny Dawson, and coached by dapper Hank Stram, were offensive and defensive innovators and “good guys.” As much as I loved my Chargers, Kansas City was a notch above and beat the Bolts in both regular season games.
The second-place 11-3 Chiefs qualified as a wildcard and beat the 10-4 Jets in the first round of the playoffs and trumped the 12-1-1 Raiders in the AFL Championship game. Kansas City was a 12-point underdog to the NFL Champion Minnesota Vikings going into Super Bowl IV in New Orleans. But Dawson and the Chiefs demolished the “Purple People Eaters” 23-7 with offensive razzle-dazzle and punishing defense. Many considered the Jets’ victory over the Baltimore Colts in the previous Super Bowl a fluke, but Dawson and the Chiefs proved the AFL was the NFL’s equal. My fanship had been vindicated!
To my bitter chagrin, the two leagues merged the following year.
This old paperback is an excellent biography of Chief’s QB, Len Dawson. I bought this book when I was 13YO following Super Bowl IV and re-acquired a dog-eared used-copy several months ago. Writer Bortstein follows Dawson from his early days at Alliance High School in Alliance, Ohio, to Purdue University, to five unproductive years on the bench at Pittsburgh and Cleveland, to being acquired by Stram (a former Purdue assistant coach) and the Dallas Texans in 1962 (the team moved to KC the following year). Dawson and the Chiefs blossomed under Stram. Lenny wasn’t flashy or super-athletic, he just quietly got the job done even if his arm wasn’t the strongest. Lenny and crew lost Super Bowl I to the Green Bay Packers in 1967, but of course redeemed themselves in SB IV. Dawson retired in 1976 at the age of 40. He followed his long football career as host of HBO’s “Inside the NFL” from 1977 to 2001. Dawson died in 2022 at the age of 87.
Along with Dawson, I enjoyed reading once again about those great Chiefs players of 1969 – Mike Garrett, Otis Taylor, Robert Holmes, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, etc., etc. And let’s not forget my favorite Chief of that year, rookie cornerback Jimmy “Bump and Run” Marsalis.
Above: Jimmy “Bump and Run” Marsalis’ 1975 Topps football card
Above: Len Dawson’s 1969 Topps football card
As to why I occasionally post on “secular” topics, see my explanatory post here.
I was in my pajamas when I took our dog Gracie outside to go potty very early on a Monday morning a few weeks ago. It was rainy and a cold 44F degrees and I was getting uncomfortably wet. The dreary conditions brought back memories from my childhood. I used to have to walk to and from St. James Catholic grammar school, which was about a half-mile from our house and I often had to walk that distance in the cold pouring rain. But I was prepared! On rainy days, my Mom made sure I was wearing my bright yellow raincoat with its matching hood and rubbers over my shoes. Even when walking in a torrential downpour, I stayed pretty dry except for maybe the bottoms of my pants legs. I remember thinking the raincoat and hood were a marvelous invention.
I forget exactly when, but in the middle-school grades (5th? 6th?) the “cool” boys in our class deemed that it wasn’t acceptable to wear rain slickers or rubbers. Or wear a hat. Or use an umbrella. Or carry school books in a bookbag. I certainly didn’t want to be the target of their mockery. My Mom relented and accepted that rain slickers were a bit juvenile for middle-schoolers, but insisted that I wear rubbers over my shoes. Clothes got wet, but shoes became ruined in water. Well, I wore the rubbers for a short distance, but took them off and “stored” them in a neighbor’s hedgerow, only to retrieve them on the way home.
So there I was, walking to and from school in the rain with no waterproof jacket, no hat, no umbrella, and no rubbers. I ended up sitting at my desk sopping wet and cold. But, boy, I was “cool”! My craving for peer acceptance overruled reason and my own comfort.
It occurs to me that adult Christians also do things to conform to peer pressure and the general consensus. They dismiss the clear exhortations and admonishments of Scripture and bend to the popular consensus that we should embrace everyone who “just loves Jesus” whether they actually hold to the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone or not. Closing the door to pseudo-(c)hristian false teachers and their false gospels is now viewed as rude, unloving, and close-minded. Foolishly walking to school in the rain with no protection had temporal repercussions, like ending up uncomfortably wet and catching a cold. Embracing pseudo-Christians who believe in merited salvation has eternal repercussions like muddying the Gospel within the Church and stifling outreach to lost religionists who need the genuine Gospel.
Just as we children distanced ourselves from those classmates who continued to wear rain slickers lest we also be labeled as “uncool,” evangelicals distance themselves from brothers and sisters who warn against ecumenism with Roman Catholics and other works-righteousness religionists lest they also be disparaged as “close-minded fundamentalists.”
Don’t allow yourself to become “soaked” by undiscerning ecumenism that accepts purveyors of works-justification and salvation by merit as fellow “brothers in Christ.” Put on Scriptural truth and discernment for your protection and for the sake of those pseudo-(c)hristians who need the genuine Gospel.
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