There's a subject that fits equally well in Part VII and Part VIII of the series THE LOST DOCTRINE, a
series on the doctrine of holiness and its purposeful exclusion by MEism (Modern Evangelism). It's the cheap worship forms that crop up when a people don't know God. These forms are shared by almost all religions. As "Christian" circles become far from God and unregenerate, the worship is no longer holy worship for the Holy God. In fact, the worship is no longer for any god at all. Instead, it's for the worshipers and their desire for religious feelings. Individuals aren't holy (Part VII) and the group isn't holy (Part VIII, coming next).
If you're a regular reader, you know I don't believe the god of MEism is actually the biblical God. All created gods have two characteristics. First, they're unhinged from reality/truth. They're imaginary. Second, since everyone, including their worshipers, know it they need a physical representation to help the imaginary god feel real to its adherents. There's a cognitive reason for this and I'll take that up later. These two characteristics have two corresponding sins in their worship. Here they are:
THE NO-THOUGHT ZONE
MEer (singing):
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Oh-oh-oh-ooooooh.
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble...
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Christian: Well, I don't think so. When did your lord die?
MEer: My Lord is Jesus Christ.
Christian: No way. Jesus died 2000 years ago. Nobody here was there.
MEer: What? Of course you weren't there.
Christian: So why ask if you already know the answer?
MEer: It's a great song.
Christian: What's so great about it? It's nonsense.
MEer: It's not nonsense. It's a great song. I thought you said you were a Christian. You should love that song.
Christian: I hate that song. It's nonsense.
MEer: What are you talking about? It's all about how Jesus died for us because He loved everyone so much! How can you make fun of Jesus?
Christian: I'm not making fun of Jesus. It's just a stupid song. Unless you think I'm 2000 years old, you know I wasn't there.
MEer: Yeah, I get it. You weren't there. It's not about that. It's about the love of God.
Christian: Now, wait a minute. That's exactly what it's about. It says it. "Were you there...?" Why did you ask if I was there when you know I wasn't? And how can you say it's not about that when it asks it four times? Words mean things in my world.
MEer: Because it's about the love of God.
Christian: Okay, God loves me. What does this song say about God's love or about Jesus' death?
MEer: It says God loves you.
Christian: Why not just say that?
MEer: You're being stupid.
Christian: I'm just asking what this song means. It's a nonsense question.
MEer: Well, I know it's a great song. You can just feel the spirit. You obviously don't have the spirit. If you had the spirit, you'd know how real this makes Jesus.
That's a fictitious conversation, but not much different from many I've had with church goers. What's the problem these two are having? They have two very different worldviews. The MEer doesn't believe truth is objective. Jesus, God, and salvation need to be "MADE" "real". As a natural result MEism enshrines any worship practice that "makes" religion "real". The definition of "real" is different for one than for the other.
I'm sure, if asked, many MEers would say they believe that Jesus really lived, really died, and was really raised from the dead. (But some will have that other definition of "really".) However, that's not how they live. They evaluate spiritual things mostly on emotional impact, not reason and history. The photo I chose to illustrate this section isn't isolated. That motto is being promulgated and is popular on church signs. It's the natural outworking of wanting religion without having to deal with the objective truth of the written Text.
While Jesus intro-ed His retorts with "Have you not read..." or "Is it not written...", the ME response is usually rooted in experience. And why not? That's all they have. Studying the Divine Textbook is hard work. Going to religious entertainment is much easier. We actually now have MEers "gifted" to play in a "praise band" and instead of believers coming together to hear the Word explained and applied, we have "Christian concerts"! Emotive affect trumps truth.
As a result, holy worship is gone. One of the holiest aspects of biblical worship is its unique rootedness in reality, in real historical facts and a worldview that corresponds with science and history. But since thought is second to affect, ME worship has become pagan in that the job of the pastor is to use trinkets, incantations, special words and rituals, dance, song, and movement to bring to emotive recall and enhance religious feelings. The centrality of the Word is gone and the centrality of truth in general is gone. ME worship is just like any other, just change the name of the god and insert the correct words and rituals.
The pastor now functions like a shaman.
Do you think I've gone too far with the paganism analogy? Well, let me take you to another song and this is an old one, so this trend away from truth isn't new. Have you ever falsely claimed to be a prophet? "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..."
REALLY? Have you ever sung that? If you did, you lied. You have claimed a vision you never had. I did when I was young. You may not have intended to do so, but you did. And if you say, you're just singing that which the lyricist attested, did you check out Julia Ward Howe? She wrote that. Did she really see Jesus at His return? Or did she construct it to whip up war pathos for an army? Research it. Think it through. If she took liberties, that doesn't excuse you.
And beyond the specifics, look at the fact and fiction in both songs I brought up. In the first song there is some factuality, but it's so minuscule that it only serves the affect. In The Battle Hymn of the Republic, I'm not sure any facts are present. It seems to be an entire set of fantasies designed to imbue Union soldiers with a sense they were fighting God's war. Only in the latter verses, not often sung, is there any biblical material and that is no excuse or moral cover for the heresy of the first two verses.
Think about this: The Civil War ended nearly 150 years ago, so even if that song contained facts pertaining to the situation at the time, it's irrelevant today...but it doesn't seem to be. It's still used today. Why?
The affect. Just the affect. That's all that matters.
Fantasy and affect aren't Christianity.
THE EASTER BUNNY VS. REALITY
Imaginary things are for children and crazy people. And children need visuals. Visuals to help us imagine God are expressly forbidden in Scripture. Here's why: God is holy.
Well, now that the ME god isn't holy, but primarily loving, we could use a visual or two to help us get all that holy, fiery, righteous God stuff and all those passages with Jesus saying things about eternal fire, gnashing teeth, weeping in torment, and dumping religious folk like us in hell out of our minds.
And we like pichurz cuz we don't hafta readum.
Why do we get Easter Bunny candies? Why do we put up pictures of the Easter Bunny? Simple. It isn't real and we want to humor the kids. The easiest way to humor the kids is to help them picture what we want them to believe. Why do we take the kids to the mall santa?
To quote a Catholic priest I heard on the news this morning, the reason for the pictures is to help us "imagine" what Christ was like. He was jacked because some (evidently unemployed) scientists were working on the Shroud of Turin, using some special method to create a three-dimensional image. Interestingly, the priest admitted the whole project may be irrelevant because we have no direct evidence the Shroud was Jesus' shroud. It's all a guess.
Play John Lennon for a moment and imagine the work on the Shroud is fruitful and we get an accurate portrayal of the man to whom the Shroud belonged. You know for a fact it will be venerated and worshiped. And we don't even know for sure who it is. If it isn't Jesus and folks worship the man of the Shroud, they aren't worshiping God. They're idolaters.
Here's a
NEWS FLASH: You don't get to imagine God.
So, just why do you think some folks insist on all these lying, false, and just plain stupid pictures that are supposed to be pictures of Jesus? Are we children? I'm not and I don't want to be treated like one. I refuse to be treated like one.
TOP FOUR REASONS GEEZUZPICHURZ ARE BAD:
4. They try to make us God. They do that two ways. First, they always reflect the culture of the folks painting the trinkets and the folks buying the trinkets. I have found a couple geezuspichurz that portray their geezus as a homosexual. You'll say that's blasphemous. It is. It portrays Jesus as a dirty, sinful, filthy person deserving hell. You're right. But if you paint your geezus to look like you, who do you think you are? The Scripture (Remember the Scripture?...all words..no pictures...) says you're a filthy sinner, too, just like the homosexual--just change the details. You're not God and painting Jesus to look like you doesn't change that. It's blasphemy. And by the way, have you ever noticed how mad white "Christians" get when a black geezus is painted? Are whites God or is God white? Add racism to blasphemy. That should make a tasty pudding.
Second, when we think we can imagine God, we arrogantly imagine we are in His place. HE, AND ONLY HE, thinks things into existence. Remember Genesis? (An interesting insight here, I think, into the basic sin of postmodernism and the so-called Emergent.)
3. Which geezus are you going to pick? Remember the first law of logic you learned? The law of non-contradiction tells us the whole geezuspichur thing is stupid. Why be stupid? And when did stupid become an acceptable form of worshiping God? You can get skinny geezi, fat geezi, black geezi, white geezi raised in Kokomo, Idaho, sad geezi, laughing geezi, plate-head geezi, flashlight-behind-the-head geezi, flat-hair geezi, breezy-hair-like-a-girly-model-photo-shoot geezi...
GEEZZZ...I...get to pick...I guess...
AND, yes, there's even a Dan Haggerty geezus for all you Grizzly Adams fans. BEEElieve it or not. Google it.
Look. If one geezus is actually Jesus, all the others are imposters. No way around that. There's a whole lot of lying going on. Only one can be right. I think it's the one in the Bible.
2. God is holy. This is the reason most prominent in Scripture. The uniqueness of God is the reason for the prohibition. Conversely, I believe, the rejection of holiness naturally makes the embrace of images natural--sinful, but natural. In Deuteronomy 4, starting in verse 14, we see an exhortation to keep the commandments, starting with the second and it's based on God's uniqueness and the unique relationship between Him and the assembly. Specifically, we're told images are forbidden because no image was revealed to man. No image was available because God is outside space/time, unlike anything seen. A physical image of Him is nonsense. Interestingly, we have no idea what Jesus looked like, other than the fact that He wasn't much to look at, according to the prophets. Deuteronomy 4 is presented at the end of this post to read. Please do. God pounded the second commandment over and over in that passage and it was based on the fact that depicting God is really impossible. He is like no other.
Why do we think, then, it's okay to find some guy, put him in a sheet, pose him, take a picture, and lie to our kids? Or why is it okay to just make it up? Making things up is called lying, isn't it? "...lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female..."
When you paint or buy or hang a geezuspichur, you're not being spiritual. You're acting "corruptly". That word is from the root "shachat", meaning corrupt, blemishing, destructive. And look at the backend of the second commandment. If you raise your children on images, instead of the scriptural God, you will destroy them to the "third and fourth generations". And doesn't that make sense? What do you expect to happen when the kids get a load of the femmy guy outside the door with no knob and very little of the manly carpenter who warned folks of hell and refused to back down for the preachers of His day pictured only in Scripture? Remember the Easter Bunny?
Well, your kids do.
1. It violates black letter Scripture. Isn't that enough? Can't we just obey the second commandment?
IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH?
Let's play John Lennon again. Imagine teaching a math class. Imagine you're teaching the kids the Pythagorean Theorem. You tell them to sing a song about the theorem. The song is fun and the kids love it, but it doesn't delineate the theorem. Then you tell them all to imagine Pythagoras and draw a picture of Pythagoras. Then tell them the theorem has to do with triangles. Tell them to imagine and draw a triangle.
Now, have you taught the kids anything?
Why do we do that in church?
Is that coherent with worship of the God of Truth?
Come let us emote together?
I'll end here. God is the God Who decides truth by His smallest thought. He cannot lie because whatever He says is truth. We have no right to imagine anything in our worship. We are called disciples, not dreamers. A disciple is a student, not an aspiring artist. And that's appropriate because God is the truth, not a dream.
Be holy,
Phil Perkins. PS--Read this:
Deuteronomy 4:15-40 15 ¶ "So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. 19 "And beware, lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 "But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as today. 21 "Now the LORD was angry with me on your account, and swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. 22 "For I shall die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this good land. 23 "So watch yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the LORD your God has commanded you. 24 "For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25 ¶ "When you become the father of children and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so as to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you shall surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but shall be utterly destroyed. 27 "And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where the LORD shall drive you. 28 "And there you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30 "When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. 31 "For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. 32 ¶ "Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? 33 "Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? 34 "Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 "To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him. 36 "Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. 37 "Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, 38 driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. 39 "Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. 40 "So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time."--NAS
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