How Has Liberality Influenced The Church: Maybe you!

O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, 

our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your won bowels. Now for a recompense in the same (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged. Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with 

unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ

 with Belial? Or what part hath he that 

believeth with an infidel? And what agreement

 hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are 

the temple of the living God; as God hath said, 

I will dwell in them, and walk in them; 

and I will be their God, and the shall 

be my people. Wherefore come out from 

among them, and be ye separate, saith the 

Lord, and touch not the unclean thing and I 

will receive you, and will be a Father unto you,

 and ye shall be My sons and daughters, 

saith the Lord Almighty. 

2Corinthians 6:11-18

 

     The last blog pointed out to you that the Church has undergone many affronts towards Authentic Christianity and has allowed a new kind of gospel that Paul states is not the Gospel. The Great Awakenings brought both good and bad in the Church. After, or towards the end, of the First Great Awakening, with so much preaching, especially in the upper New York area, and area that came to be called the "burned-out" region led to such heresies as the Mormon Church. Folk religion practice under the guise of an established religion, but is not within the boundaries of an official doctrine and practices. Folk religion is infused with magic and superstition, what is called "sympathetic" magic, a belief that like forces influence like forces, a sort of Karma. What is unfortunate is that many of the components of folk religion have found its way into the modern mega-churches. Example: Lent, or the pagan feast preceding the advent of the birth of Jesus, it was called the winter solstice. The Eucharistic liturgy where the bread and win is transubstantiated, that is changed into the literal flesh and blood of Jesus. The New Land, America, the United States, growing in population and spreading out over the lad to the west people needed reassurance in times of trouble, and many of the new religious beliefs came out of that need. People were looking for healing, for fortunes, or to avert disaster.

      This need to find some assurance and hope led to such religious groups as the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Christian Science and many more and as the education system became more in line with socialistic ideologies, so too the Church became infected by those ideologies. The N.O.W. and the N.E.A., and the ACLU, led to an education to us, and to those who are now in school to come to believe in the culture of this world and this has brought liberalism into the Church. The "hippie" movement that began in 1960 has led to such hypocrisy in the Church that even today many people cannot see that they are "liberal" in their Christian Faith. The foundation, the fundamentals of the Christian faith being destroyed; or in the least made ineffective, are under a major revolt and the exposition of the teachings of liberalism are clouding over the teachings of Authentic Christian Faith. Liberalism is far removed for the teachings of historic Christianity even though it the bottom of each they profess Jesus Christ. Because both may claim the truth about Jesus Christ there is a major difference, one holds to the teachings of Jesus Christ, the other to the teachings of this world. There is hostility to the "doctrines" held by the Church from its foundation and replaced with  only such seemingly doctrines that fit their form of theology. These doctrines held by Liberal Christians are contrary to the doctrines of Authentic Christian Faith. We must, that is, if you desire Authentic Christian Faith, test what is being taught in your Church, and by Churches that teach another doctrine: i.e., allowing homosexuals to be leaders in the Church or allowing for abortion, and others such atrocities against what the Bible teaches. We must, if we are to be Scripturally correct: test, examine, study, and pray for guidance, and not just acquiesce, not to be apathetic, not tacitly approve. 

     The opening Scripture tells us to not even have an association with such ones. This does not mean not to have come contact with them, as within the work place, we do not become so closely associated with them that their offenses against God rub off on us: remember, one bad apple in the barrel can spoil the whole barrel. 

 

Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbor,

    and every one to his brother, What hath

the LORD answered? and, what hath the 

   LORD spoken? And the burden of the LORD

shall ye mention no more: for every man's word

   shall be hi burden; for ye have perverted the

words of the living God, and the LORD of hosts 

   our God.

                      Jeremiah 23:35-36

Guard your hearts and minds

Richard L. Crumb

How Liberal Christianity Came About

These are wells without water, clouds that 

are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist

 of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they 

speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure

 through the lusts of the flesh, through much 

wantonness, those that were clean escaped from 
them who live in error. While they promise 

them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, 

of the same is he brought in bondage. For if 

after they have escaped the pollutions of the 

world through the knowledge of the Lord and

 Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled 

therein, and overcome, the latter end is

 worse with them than the beginning.

2Peter 2:17-20

     Liberalism entered into the Church with much fervor after the First Great Awakening (1730 A.D.-1755 A.D.) a Protestant religious revival movement that left a permanent impact on Protestantism in the United States. The First Great Awakening emphasized a sense of deep personal understanding that there was a personal need of salvation by Jesus Christ. This Awakening encouraged introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality. The First Great Awakening focuses on individual and their need to be committed to Jesus Christ and less on the forms of ritualism, ceremony, sacramentalism, and hieracharchy. This change came about by several means, but one mean was that in Europe, England that held to rituals, hierarchy and was not especially interested in the individuals as long as they held to the rituals enforced upon them. Here in the United State where people fled to get away from such religiosity were willing and ready to hear this new Christianity whereby they were involved in their lives to live according to Scripture and not to traditions. This period of time say an increase in religious activity and change in an understanding of God. These United State Christians were now free to examine faith, and how they were to see and know God and this came about by great preaching. The First Great Awakening had great success in converting all people, black, white, yellow, brown, no matter their status in life, a form of inclusion.

      A Second Great Awakening (1790 A.D.–1840 A.D.) saw a rise in membership and peaked around the late 1850's which was characterized by enthusiasm, emotional,and an appeal to the super-natural. This Awakening rejected the skeptical rationals and deism of the Enlightenment an intellectual and philosophical movement during the 19th century. The period called the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason stated that reason was the primary source of authority and legitimacy and advanced such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government and the separation of Church and state. 
     The Third Great Awakening (1855 A.D.–1900 A.D.) was marked by religious activism and it it affected pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. There was movement from the postmillennial belief believed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ would occur after the earth, mankind was reformed. The movement affiliated with the Social Gospel Movement and applied Christianity to social issues. New groups emerged: i.e., the Holiness Movement, and the Nazarene movements, and Christian Science. 
     The Fourth Great Awakening took place in the late 1960's or even began following World War II.  During this time the "mainline" Protestant churches weakened and there were many theological battles fought, and schisms within Churches and during this time secularism grew dramatically. A new emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus from a new form of Church, non-denominational Churches and non-traditional Churches, mega Churches, the Charismatic movement, the gifts of the Spirit, speaking in tongues, healing, and prophecy all focused on this belief that this was from the Holy Spirit.  
     Why take the time to go over this history? Because while there were many good things that occurred due to the Great Awakenings, many unscriptural practices entered into the Church and today we are faced with the unscriptural practices that are leading people away from Authentic Christianity into a liberal Christianity that cannot be pleasing to God, or that God will give His blessing too. I will focus on what this liberality has and is doing to Authentic Christian Faith and Authentic Christian living.   

Be assured, you can have Authentic Christian Faith

Richard L. Crumb 

A Great Christian Fear

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith 

without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;) 

and let us consider one another to provoke unto

 love and to good works: not forsaking the

 assembling of ourselves together, as the manner 

of some is; but exhorting one another: 

and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

 For if we sin willfully after that we have 

received the knowledge of the truth, there 

remaineth no more  sacrifice for sins, 

but a certain fearful looking for of judgment 

and fiery indignation, which shall 

devour the adversaries.

Hebrews 10:23-27 

     The world and its culture contrary to the will of God and to Christianity, Christians attempts in every way possible to cause a Christian to lose their faith. We are told to hold fast to our faith and not waver. I cannot help but remember the might Christian man, a disciple of the Apostle John, Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, 155 A.D. a martyr who held fast to the faith delivered to him by the Apostle John. Polycarp when hearing that he was to be arrested was not dismayed and when the men came to arrest him he asked for some time to pray, to get ready for the ordeal that he was about to face. We too should go to God in prayer when we are about to face a circumstance that is beyond our control. The age of Polycarp was 86 years of age and when not yielding to the pressures  of the men who questioned him and mocked him and having put him in the area where Christians were forced to fight hungry lions, etc., the Proconsul asked him to recant, to swear by the genius (an oath invented under Julius Caesar, and under Augustus certain special days were set apart for worship of the Emperor), to repent and say 'Away with the atheists!' and this he did in a manner that only a faithful Christian could and must do for he said looking up at the crown in the stands: "Away with atheists." The proconsul angry with him and could not persuade Polycarp to recant his faith in Jesus Christ and replied to the proconsul: "Thee I had deemed worthy of discourse, for we are taught to render to authorities and the powers ordained of God honor as is fitting. But I deem not this mob worthy that I should defend myself before them." Further Polycarp knowing that he would be put to death be fire, said this: "Thou threatenest the fire that burns for an hour and in a little while is quenched; for thou knowest not of the fire of the judgment to come, and the fire of the eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. But why delayest thou? Bring what thou wilt." 

     Polycarp is a great example of holding fast to the faith unwavering, and if you read Fox's Book of Martyrs you will find many men and women of the years to be just like Polycarp. What about you? Are you willing to hold fast to your faith unwavering? The opening Scripture tells us of a very frightening thing: "

 For if we sin willfully after that we have 

received the knowledge of the truth, there 

remaineth no more  sacrifice for sins, 

but a certain fearful looking for of judgment 

and fiery indignation, which shall 

devour the adversaries.

     The Greek here cannot be more clear, this expectation is to receive from another, to look for, to wait for and the Greek translated judgment that means a judgment, a decision, a judicial sentence, and adverse sentence, and administration of justice. Notice here that the one willfully sinning after having the truth is not sentenced to Gehenna, to destruction, rather to a judgment. Some will say that this means you can lose your salvation and this is not what is being said here, no, you will face a judgment as we all will also face a judgment. Paul writes: "If any man's work abide which he hath built there upon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's world shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire" (1Corinthians 3:14-15). Revelation chapter 20 tells us of a time when men will go before the judgment seat of God and those whose names are written in the Book of Life go into a time of eternity, and those whose names are not found in the Book of Life are thrown into Ghenna, even hell, death, all to be destroyed eternally. It is true then that when a person comes faithfully, and this by the grace of God who gives this faith freely, and this by hearing the word of God, will live forever but we all are going to receive a reward as to how we have lived in this life. What that reward is above living eternally? I do not know and I do not want to know, I want to be as Polycarp, faithful to the end, no matter what! 

     As in the days of Polycarp and throughout the history of the Christian Church persecution is always present in some form or the other and today within the Church many have turned to a form of modern liberalism and this is not just an academic matter, it is an attack upon the fundamentals of the Christian faith. The problem is exacerbated by those who have attended Seminaries, Christian Universities that are teaching liberalism and then those people are those who are teaching Sunday Schools, and being pastors and even professors, or teachers. To grow in grace, to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and to be an Authentic Christian there is a need for truthful teaching and searching after the truth and have loyal devotion to the truth once it is found. 

      This, once again, is the thrust, the mission of this blog: to lead you to the place where you examine your faith and if there is something lacking within you, to change from the inside/out, to return to the truth of the Gospel delivered to us by men inspired of God to reveal to us what God wills for us in this life, and to teach us about the life to come. I will in the next blogs address: doctrine. 

Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul

   of the father, so also the soul of the son

is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

                        Exekiel 18:4

Leave the past behind: press forward in truth

Richard L. Crumb