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What Rock? |
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| Dee Bowman |
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Oliver Goldsmith, the
Irish-born British writer, once said, “As I take my shoes
from the shoemaker, and my coat from the tailor, so I take my
religion from the priest.”
That statement is the attitude of many religious people today.
What they know of religion is what they’ve been told, not
what they’ve learned from a perusal of the Scriptures. The
Catholic takes his faith from what he has been told by his
religious mentor, the Parish Priest; the Protestant takes his
religion from the creeds devised by his religious leaders. The
latest of these religionists, the member of the community
church, takes his faith from his own subjective reasoning.
Whatever he feels in his heart is true and he is accepted in
the religious community based on that which he has decided.
The community churches—such as Joel Osteen’s Lakewood
Church, or the Grace Community Church, and literally dozens of
others like them are proliferating at an amazing rate. They
have become so popular, in fact, that many mainline
denominations, once known as Baptists or Methodists (i.e., the
Sagemont Church,) Pentecostals, have joined the crowd and are
re-denominating themselves so as to conceal any sort or kind
of peculiar doctrine. They no longer push their creeds or
disciplines in preference for a more individualized sort of
religion—one where you just accept anybody who is willing to
“accept Christ as your personal Savior” and “feels right
in his heart.”
Actually, the concept of community religion has been around
for some years. The mantra has been “it doesn’t make any
difference what you believe, just as long as you’re honest
and sincere.” That seed has now grown into a full-blown
radical subjectivism; it has but one requirement—that you
“accept Christ as your personal Savior.”
Under the guise (and a clever one at that) of promoting
religious unity, the movement actually does just the opposite.
It accepts religious disunity. The people who comprise the
community churches don’t agree on hardly anything
doctrinally, although they do have a same-mindedness about
their feel good philosophy and their health-wealth gospel
antics, none of which bear any resemblance to doctrinal purity
as defined in Scripture. You never hear them quote Galatians
1:6-10, 1 Peter 4:11, 2 Timothy 3:16, or 2 John 9, nor do you
hear them speak of the broad way as opposed to the strait and
narrow way of Matthew 7:13-14, much less verse 15, for to them
there is no such thing as a false teacher—saving, of course,
for those of us who would dare call them back to the principle
of giving Bible authority for all you do in religion.
Further, the community church concept is what I choose to call
accommodative religion. It is a religion dedicated to
providing whatever is wanted by the people. If you want a
religion which features first-class musicians and
entertainers, and stage productions par excellence, they’ve
got it. If you want a pop-psychology religion, they’ve got
it. If you want a religion where there are puppet shows,
marches and parades, pageants at Easter and Christmas,
fireworks on the Fourth, movies, coffee houses, seminars on
subjects ranging from financial advice to mental health,
they’ve go it. They can accommodate whatever you want. And
if you want it on Saturday night instead of Sunday, you’ve
that, too. They even have traditional or contemporary worship
services, which ever you want. And, bear in mind, through it
all you will feel good. I mean you will feel goooood.
Whatever happened to preaching about sin? How often to you see
on these people’s television broadcasts sermons on judgment
and hell? Does the Bible have nothing at all to say about
homosexuality, about lust, or covetousness? And if Jesus meant
for you to feel good all the time, what did He mean when He
said (Lk. 6:26), “Woe is unto you when all men shall speak
well of you; for so did your fathers of the false prophets”?
And what Paul mean when he said, “…all who live godly in
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12)?
This movement is filled with appeal. It offers numerous
benefits. It assures, with its “seed planting” financial
suggestions, prosperity and respect. It even looks good on the
outside. But it cannot deliver what it promises. The reason is
simple: it’s founded on something other than the Rock.
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Copyright (C)
2008
Southside Church of Christ
All rights reserved.
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