Marriage, Cartoons, Ice Cream, and Beer

If there was any doubt of the truth that American culture is in a downward freefall toward unfettered debauchery and smut in our society, then May 15th, 2008 was a day that pushed those doubts farther and farther out. I am not a conspiracy theorist, so I don’t think that the three things that I am referring to were orchestrated by any one evil mastermind in a corporate office somewhere. However, I do believe and know that there is a demonic lord of the world whose plan is to further corrupt the world and saturate it with unclean and sinful things. So, in that sense, they are all connected.

Marriage:

SAN FRANCISCO , CA -- California's Supreme Court declared that gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry -- a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.¹

Same-sex Marriage is already legal in Massachusetts, so it was really only a matter of time before this happened again. I’m not surprised that it happened, nor shocked where it happened, but I am upset and concerned that it did happen. The Bible is clear that marriage is between one woman and one man, and this covenant lasts for a lifetime. But when Christians have an equal or higher number of divorces on average as the culture at large, we’ve got a serious marriage problem in our society, but more importantly in our church.

As far as the cultural impact on my society, I am very concerned about this ongoing issue. Leaving aside the fact that homosexuals have the exact right to marry in every state that heterosexuals do; one man can marry one woman. There is no distinction or discrimination on account of your sexual orientation. Leaving aside what this will mean for the raising of children in a same-sex household, the amount of children who will be impacted in homes and schools where this life-situation will necessarily be defended and validated is enormous. But this will definitely speed up the time when it will become illegal hate speech for Christians to declare that homosexuality is a sin condemned by God. It is not the only sin, or the grossest of sins, but it is a vile sin nonetheless. And when it is declared hate speech, it will be prosecutable by law. And this, my friends, is what primarily concerns me. The gospel will begin to be shut-up from the public square under force of law. We will still preach it, but our own families will suffer the retribution of our apostate society.

Cartoons, Ice Cream, and Beer:

Starbucks logo has always had the extremely subtle hint of nudity, I grant you, but their newest version of their logo takes all hints out of it. I find it very concerning that the breasts of a woman are exposed on the logo of a company that is known for its business’s saturation level in our society. I know full well that pornography is more readily accessible to anyone because of the Internet. I also realize that pornography and other lewd activities, like strip clubs and the like, are more accepted in our most tolerant society. This sexual de-sensitivity has gotten to such a point that sex sells everything; from cars to TV, and from coffee to ice cream. And this is just the latest in the over-stimulation and de-sensitization of our society towards sex and nudity.

Our culture is getting so bad, that the flirtatious game of a young girl (grade-school aged) that she plays in the presence of her mother in order to get a free ice cream doesn’t only get aired, but I haven’t heard any outrage over this. In the wake of the Miley Cirus “sex symbol” scandalous photographs, I would have thought that the latest Dairy Queen add would have been more condemned. And for those people who might think that I’m overreacting to this commercial let me ask this: would you want your third-grade daughter playing that sort of sexually charged game to get free ice cream? Would you want your twenty-year old daughter playing that sort of card to get free stuff? Ever wonder where the sexual inhibitions that leads to hooking up and Girls Gone Wild begins? Apparently, it begins at Dairy Queen and Starbucks now.

Not only is the over-tolerance of sexuality and nudity getting ever more pervasive, but so is foul language. A recent commercial for Amstel Light’s prominently used a play-on-words to be catchy for their new add campaign. It goes like this: Amstel Light is apparently made in Amsterdam. “Amsterdam” ends with in “dam” which sounds just like “damn”. Damn is a word that is considered course and has, to the best of my knowledge, not been allowed to be used on TV advertising. But good ‘ol Amstel Light found a way to swear and get it past any censorship. The final line of the commercial is, “One Dam Good Bier”. This, of course, makes no sense if we understand the word “dam” as it is spelled. However, if we understand it in its common usage in our culture as well as the meaning conveyed in this commercial, it makes sense. Its course and foul, and it is on your TV.

Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and Amstel Light didn’t come up with their advertising in a vacuum or in a culture that had not been heading in this direction for some time. Still, when you look at the pervasiveness and acceptance of all things sexual and course, how then can the claim be made that we are a mostly Christian nation. We might have been at one time, but we’re not now. I guess that we still might be a Christian nation if you define “Christian” the way that most of the evangelical world does. With the foul mouthed preachers, the sermon series’ on sex that could well be defined as soft-porn, and the increasing amount of alcoholic saturation of churches, whether it be churches in active bars or beer at bible studies or church events, perhaps America is a Christian culture. Its just that the Christianity of our culture is devoid of Christ and His sanctifying power.

May God have mercy on us.

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¹ http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/national_world&id=6144920

Did the Bereans use Coliseumpedia?

I recently heard Tony Jones being interviewed on our local Christian radio station in the twin cities. I must say that prior to hearing this interview I had not read anything written by Tony Jones or heard him speak, I may have heard him referred to by others, but none of the specifics of any of these references ever managed to stick in my memory. The only thing that I knew going into listening to this interview was (a) his name, (b) his affiliation with Emergent Village, and (c) that he is, apparently, a big name in the emerging church movement.

There were many things about the interview that caused my blood pressure to rise and caused me to scratch my head, both at Tony Jones and at the apparent unpreparedness of the hosts who, for the most part, don’t seem to agree with much of what the emergent movement stands for. But before I get into the main concern that I have with this interview, I must make a few preliminary comments. Tony Jones seemed to use the same types of thought question evasion and debate tactics that I have heard before from Doug Pagitt, who is another emergent leader and happens to be a leader at Tony Jones’ church.

As a matter of fact, Tony Jones was asked basically the same question that Todd Friel (“Way of the Master Radio” host) asked Doug Pagitt, and it was this: can or will a Muslim go to heaven? Both Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt recoiled from answering this question by stating that they didn’t want to engage in a question regarding some hypothetical person. Jones went on to say that if he could have a conversation with this person and find that this person rejected Jesus as the incarnate Son of God, then he would be able to take a position stating that this person was going to hell. Even as frustrating as this kind of answer was to me, it was better than Pagitt’s response. Pagitt would not even truly engage the question on that level because he was reluctant to agree that heaven or hell were actual real places or states of existence in the afterlife as the Bible describes.

But getting back to Jones; why was his desire for personal conversational confirmation of what an individual Muslim may or may not believe about Christ to be frustrating for me? Simply put, if Tony Jones doesn’t understand that anyone who would consider themselves to be a Muslim therefore implicitly rejects the idea of the incarnation or of the Triune Godhead, then what in the world does he believe that Muslims believe about Jesus? I am not an expert on Islam, but I have never found any sect or any division of Muslims who would hold to an Islamic faith but also believe that Jesus Christ is the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Godhead.

I would even make the argument that anyone who would hold to something even close to the true nature of Christ would be associated with Christen-dom, even if only loosely. That being the case, even many groups inside of Christendom do not understand Christ rightly (I have argued in the past and I will continue to argue that believing in the wrong Jesus means that you are still in your sins). Historically speaking, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses have always been considered to be cults, but now those lines, at least as far as the culture is concerned, are even being blurred to the point of no distinction. But even if we maintain the understanding that these false religions are not truly Christian, we still have to contend with false and heretical understandings of Jesus Christ inside of our ranks. Oneness Pentecostals reject the Trinity and believe that Jesus is the Father is the Holy Spirit with no eternal distinction in their persons. We can’t even get all who call themselves Christians to pass the Jesus test that Tony Jones wants to personally give to any and every Muslim before making any definitive statement about their eternal inheritance.

Furthermore, show me one religion or a group of people who believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal God, that He condescended to be incarnated as a man, that He claimed to be (and truly is) the only way of salvation and reconciliation with the one and only true God, and you will find a Christian.¹ You will not find a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Baha’i, or anyone else. It may seem laughable that I even feel like I have to make this point, but this is an example of the knots that need to be untied when dealing with many people who would be in liberal (in interpretation, not necessarily in political affiliation), or emergent, Christianity. And this type of convolution or blurring the truth of Scripture is, in fact, possibly one of the largest problems with the emergent church.

And it is at this point that my absolute frustration because of the “same old, same old” from the emergent stream of thought turned into something more…focused. After hearing the entirety of the hour long interview, I can safely say that I was aghast by the way in which Tony Jones seems to view the substance of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture, and the way of interpreting Scripture. When Tony Jones was asked about what his ultimate authority is, he responded in this way,

“The ultimate authority is God as incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ and represented in the teachings of Scripture.”²

He then went on to clarify his statement by making the meaning of what he had just said more ambiguous that it previously was.

“At every one of those steps, there are multiple interpretive steps that need to be made. How was Jesus representative of God? Christians have been debating that for 2,000 years. How do you faithfully interpret scripture as the inspired word of God? Christians have been debating that for 2,000 years.”³

Tony Jones seemed to clarify his statement of what the ultimate authority by referring some of the debates that have gone on inside of Christendom throughout its history. However, by design, he refrained from making a clear statement about which views inside of the history of the debates of the church correctly understand Christ and the teachings of Scripture. Is the Gnostic understanding of Christ and the Scriptures just as valid and true as the Judaizers or of the Biblical teachings contained in the Pauline letters? Is it just as valid to follow the interpretive methods of Athanasius as it would be to follow in the steps of Pelagius or Arius? As inclusive and intelligent as this type of position appears on the surface, after any quick examining of its substance, it is nothing more than a hollow nothingness of a statement. It lacks any clarity at all. He might as well as said that the ultimate authority is whatever you want it to be. Because, at the end of the day, that is what it ends up being with this perspective.

And when Mr. Jones was asked whether he agreed with a specific statement affirming the inerrancy of the Bible in its original autographs, he did not agree. Furthermore, he dismissed the very idea of affirming something intangible as being ridiculous. Regarding the autographs (the original writings of the Bible), Tony Jones stated that since neither he, nor no one else in the modern world, has ever seen the original writings of the Bible, how could he make a statement affirming what they said?

“I would not affirm a statement about something that no one has and no one has ever seen. It’s a purely hypothetical statement.”⁴

Again, this may seem to be intelligent and a good position for a Christian to take, but this further compounds the problems with Tony’s ultimate authority. He can’t affirm anything about the inerrancy of the Bible; therefore its role as ultimate authority is compromised. And furthermore, if the question that needs to be asked to a Muslim relates to the person of Jesus Christ, how in the world could you ever say that the Muslim has a view that is wrong if what the Bible itself says about Christ is possibly wrong?

And finally, Mr. Jones went from a vague statement of authority, to questioning the reliability of the only real source (both the autographs that we don’t have and the manuscripts that we do have) of that authority, to then having a complete mob-rule mentality when it comes to communicating the truth of Scripture.

He builds his case for a non-authoritative model for preaching by stating that heresies and cults don’t come from a discussion group atmosphere. According to Mr. Jones, cults and heresies come from figures like David Koresh or Jim Jones.

“I know that when David Koresh got to the end of a sermon, he never was like, ‘Ok, what do you all think about that?’ Jim Jones didn’t open it up for discussion time. He said, ‘ This is it, I preach to you with absolute certainty. I am the messiah. That’s how cults start, that’s how heresies start. When conversation is closed off and there is a single person or an oligarchy, the ruling few of an elite class, who say, ‘we have the Spirit, you don’t. We’re the only ones who get to interpret Scripture. All of you sinners out there, all of you people out there who are struggling with whatever you’re struggling with, you don’t get to. That’s the problem.”⁵

I have two major problems with what Tony Jones stated. First of all, how does he “know” what David Koresh or Jim Jones did or didn’t do at the end of every one of their sermons? Why should I believe him? What source material is he using for his conclusions? And since I have never seen all of David Koresh’s sermons and I wasn’t there in the Wako compound, how can I know for sure what he did or didn’t say or do? The second problem is Tony Jones’ mixing of the heresies and cults. I think that he is right about the formation of cults, but heresies do not always begin from a singular authoritative figure. They may be first promoted by one man or a small group of people, but they eventually become popular with the masses who, individually, may or may not necessarily be directly associated with the initial purveyor of the ideas. This is fairly a specific distinction, but it is supremely important because we should never be so foolish as to think that heresies only (or even primarily) come into play because of the presence of one dictator-like church boss.

And in an answer to the problems with having any type of authority or authoritative interpretation or communication of what the Bible does say about anything that he had attempted to bring out, Tony Jones puts forward his own idea of how the truth of the Bible should be communicated in sermons.

The sermon [at Solomon’s Porch] is written, is developed, by a group of people on a Tuesday night called the Bible Discussion group, and anyone in the church is able to come – gay, straight, ya’ know…gambling addict, glutton, you name it – they can all come. And they, for two-and-a-half or three-hours, talk about this passage of Scripture that we’re going to be preaching about on Sunday. And it really is an open-source, wikipedia, kind of way to come up with a sermon. And then whoever is charged that week, most often it’s Doug [Pagitt], the “pastor”…they take that and they kind of boil it down to about 30 minutes. And then, at the end of that 30 minutes on Sunday evening, it’s opened up to everyone in the congregation.

We’ve got people at Solomon’s Porch who’ll sit there with their laptop open on their lap…talk about keeping you honest when you’re preaching, their googling what you’re preaching about and looking it up on Bible web sites, wikipedia, and everything else. And people will say, ‘Hey I found this, what do you think about that?’ or, ‘that reminds me of this verse, let me read it to you…”.⁶

So, both in preparation and in presentation, wikipedia and potentially any other web site or author, has as much influence on the message as the Bible does. And anticipating a question about his wikipedia hermeneutic that wasn’t asked by the interviewers, he said,

"There are people who are still going to want to go to the encyclopedia Britannica because it’s some dude who’s got a Ph. D. from Oxford who’s going to write the definitive entry on Jesus Christ, or the Viet Nam war, or what have you. There are others of us, and I count myself among this group, who I trust the crowd at wikipedia where there are thousands of people editing the entry for Jesus Christ, or the Viet Nam war. I trust the crowd more than I trust the one guy with the Ph. D. from Oxford."⁷

Perhaps the best commentary that I can give to the main thrust of his above thought is to quote someone else.

"Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information."⁸

The first quote was from Tony Jones, a seemingly intelligent and spiritually mature member and leader of the emergent church movement, and it was said with seemingly a straight face communicating what he really believes. The second quote was from the NBC sitcom “The Office” as stated by the fictional bumbling buffoon, socially inept, and otherwise disaster of a boss named Michael Scott. He also made his comment in utter sincerity, but it was done so in the context of the program to show the utter foolishness of someone using wikipedia for the very reason that Tony Jones lauds its virtue. Whereas that makes the comment on “The Office” funny, it makes Tony Jones’ comments very tragic.

Finally, Mr. Jones’ statement, “I trust the crowd more than I trust the one guy with the Ph. D. from Oxford” was very tragically revealing. It was the wisdom of the crowd, rather than the God ordained authority, that led Aaron to make the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. It was the wisdom of the crowd that led ten brothers to abduct their brother, sell him into slavery, and lie to their father for decades stating that their brother was dead. It was the pressure from the crowd, not an individual, that led Peter to act hypocritically around gentile believers in the young church. It was the judgment and fury of the crowd that called for the execution of the innocent Son of God.

Church leaders are never above question. We must be Bereans when it comes to anything that anyone says about God. Did the Bereans use coliseumpedia or the writings of Plato or Aristotle to test find out if what Paul was saying was true? No, they used the Scriptures. We should use the Scriptures, for they are inspired by God for all things concerning doctrine, life, and godliness (cf. 1 Peter 1:1-3; 2 Timothy 3:15,16). Modern scientific theory does not trump the Scriptures nor does it guide our interpretation. The Scriptures help us in understanding the natural world as well as our place in it. Psychology does not trump the Scriptures, nor do the theories of any psychological school of thought guide their interpretation. The Scriptures help us to understand the inner workings of the mind, knowing the inner workings of the mind does not give us a better insight as to what the Scriptures mean. Scripture interprets Scripture. We just need to be humble enough to see its clarity and teachable enough to change our minds lest we profess to be wise, but truly be fools.

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¹ And notice that I did not make any statements about man’s sinful nature, the substitutionary atoning work of Christ on the cross, of salvation by grace alone through faith, or any number of other key Biblical truths. Because, if I did, they would become the focus of discussion other than my main point – anyone who affirms Jesus, His deity, and His claims falls into the category of Christendom, if not Christian.

² Tony Jones interviewed on KKMS Live with Jeff and Lee, 3/10/08 (hour 3).

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ http://dunderball.com/?q=taxonomy_menu/4/85

Rick Warren on the Colbert Report, Purpose, & the Chief End of Man

Today I came across a video of Rick Warren (Pastor of Saddleback Church) being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report”. The interview was around five minutes long and it was a complete tragedy to watch. One of the many depressing things about it was that Stephen Colbert seemed to display more Biblical knowledge than Rick Warren did during this interview.

Here is my personal transcript of the majority of the interview (I left out a few irrelevant caveats):

Colbert: Now before we go any further, the purpose of life does derive you’re basing this on biblical truths, right?
Warren: Absolutely.
Colbert: Ok, let’s explain to the kids out there that God does exist, that God does love you. Because their image of God from the MTVs and the Nintendos is like some vengeful monkey who’s throwing barrels at Super Mario.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: They don’t know who God is. Who is God Rick?
Warren: “God is creator, and He created the entire universe just so that He could create this galaxy, just so that He could create this planet, just so it tilted at the right axis so that it wouldn’t burn up or freeze up, to sustain human life, because He wanted to create human beings. He wanted to create you to love you. He loves even Stephen Colbert.
Colbert: Oh, I believe that.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: He created me in His image, and I sure love me.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Now but that galaxy earth thing, that sounds like the gospel according to Carl Sagan.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: I mean, are you a fundamentalist preacher?
Warren: No.

Colbert: You’re not.
Warren: No. A fundamentalist is somebody who stops listening. There are fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheist, and secularists. It’s an attitude that doesn’t listen to anyone else.
Colbert: Well I don’t want to hear any of that. What I want to hear is that you say every word of the bible is inerrant.
Warren: I do believe that
Colbert: So we should stone gay people?
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: It says so in Leviticus, we should do that.
Warren: Who are your writers?
Colbert: Uh…. Who are my writers? I’ve got none tonight except the inerrant word of God. I mean, you’ve got a very friendly God, don’t get me wrong. The God you describe very friendly, very casual, probably doesn’t wear a tie either,
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Your God is a lot like Jimmy Buffett.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: He’s very, very…He’s low key. Paradise is Margaritaville.
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Why do you think people respond? Is it because the god you describe is not vengeful?
Warren: No. There’s nothing in [The Purpose Driven Life] that historic Christianity hasn’t said for the past 2,000 years. I just said it in a very simple way. It took me, actually, 7 months, about 12 hours a day, to write the book, and I spent about half the day just trying to make the sentences shorter. So if it was a 17 word sentence, how could I say it in 9? If it was a 9 word sentence, how can I say it in 5? Einstein once said that if you can’t say something in a simple way, you don’t really understand it.

Colbert: The sub-question of [The Purpose Driven Life], is “what on earth am I here for?” What do you think the purpose of life is? Is it individual, or do you believe in something like the Baltimore catechism where we’re here to know God, to love God, to serve God?
Warren: Well I do believe that. One of the things that the Bible teaches is that this life’s not all there is. You’re going to spend more time on that side of eternity than on this side. You get 60, 80, maybe 100 years on this side, you’re gonna get trillions of years on that side. This side is preparation for the next. And there are things that we’re going to do in heaven that God says, “I want you to practice here so that you’re not a dufus when you get there.”

Colbert: What is the purpose of every day? Can I say what my purpose is? “My purpose is to shout at people that I disagree with.” Am I living my purpose, Rick?
Warren: You know, when you be who God made you to be, that makes God smile. I used to think that God only smiles when we’re doing, like, spiritual stuff: confessing, going to church, reading the Bible, things like that. But actually God gets enjoyment out of watching you be you. When my kids were little, I used to watch them sleep at night. And their little chests would rise and lower, rise and lower, and I got so much pleasure out of that, ‘cause I made ‘em. I’m their daddy. And when you be who God made you to be, a dufus…. When you be you, God looks down and goes, “that’s my boy.”

Colbert: Let me ask you something. If you ask Jesus to come into your life, will He?
Warren: Absolutely.
Colbert: If you ask Jesus to come onto your show, will He do that too?
Warren: (laughs)
Colbert: Because I’m having a hard time booking guests right now.
Warren: I have connections.

I have some major concerns with this five minute interview and what Rick Warren said (or didn’t say) about himself and about God during it. The first thing that was very concerning to me was how Rick Warren painted God’s reason for creation. Basically, as I understand it, Rick believes that God created everything just so that he could create you in order to love you and me because we’re so loveable. How else can you interpret his comments about creation and God’s pleasure out of watching “you be you.”

It is providential that I saw this video today because I have been thinking a lot about what various protestant catechisms state is the chief end of man. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But if, according to Warren’s comments, God created everything with loving His creation as His primary goal as they are, or “you being you”, what does that say about God’s glory, his hatred of sin, his demand for righteousness, and the need of grace? Some may argue that Warren’s statements reflect the essence of the message of unconditional divine love that was manifest in Christ during His incarnational mission. To that end, I would flatly disagree. His statements do the exact opposite. If God loves me for being me, and He’s proud of me for doing what I’m programmed to do, then why the cross? What’s the need to have God Himself beaten, spit on, mocked, unjustly tried, viciously executed, and for Him to bear the eternal wrath of God on His own for all of those who would follow Him?

God doesn’t love me for being me. He hates me for being me. He despises sinful men in their natural condition. Does He desire to have mercy on us and command all men everywhere to repent? Yes, but that doesn’t translate into an “’at-a-boy” attitude. Furthermore, Warren’s example of watching his own children sleep is such a distorted analogy of God looking at us, and I can’t stand it. Let me put forth an analogy that is closer to reality from a Biblical standpoint.

A father is sitting in the bedroom of one of his children watching him sleep. Earlier that same day, that child had murdered all of his siblings, raped his own mother, did various other wicked things to other people, and only fell asleep because of exhaustion. And when that child wakes up, if he has enough strength, he’ll kill his father. Does this father love his child for being who he is? Does watching this slumbering murderous and hateful little monster fill him with the same type of joy and pleasure that Rick Warren described? Make no mistake; our sinful condition is more heinous in God’s sight that this man’s son would be in his own. It is from this point, and only this point, of understanding our wretchedness that we can ever hope to understand the cross of Jesus Christ and what that means about God’s grace and the nature of man.

The second thing that was fairly frustrating to me was how Rick Warren defined fundamentalists and fundamentalism. According to Warren, fundamentalism is a bad thing because those who follow this type of a system don’t listen to others and their opinions. I’m not sure how much I would need to listen to and interact with those who disagree with me in order to not be guilty of this sin in his eyes, but I have to point something out to Mr. Warren. He’s guilty of the exact same thing that he is accusing fundamentalists of. Namely, he’s not listening to them. This is the same type of foolish and self-defeating argument that people have use frequently. One familiar incarnation of this type of logic is when the idea of absolute truth is being attacked. The objection used is, “there is no such thing as absolute truth.” And the problem with that statement is that the statement itself is a statement of absolute truth. I’m sorry, Mr. Warren, but your presentation of fundamentalism is not only untrue, but it’s also unfair and it makes you a type of fundamentalist because you won’t listen to what people like me have to say.

This type of foolishness is exasperating. He could have sad that fundamentalist Christians want to understand the Bible in a more plain and literal way, and they disagree with his church model and watered down gospel message (that ends up being so diluted that it is impossible to be certain that he preaches or believes the true gospel of Jesus Christ). He could have said that fundamentalists see Church primarily as a place for believers in Christ, whereas he sees church as a place to draw in unbelievers and effectively starve any believers of solid Biblical food. But he said neither of those things.

Thirdly, Mr. Warren was repeatedly asked direct questions about the Bible and about life that he completely ignored, shrugged off, or didn’t really answer. I couldn’t believe that someone who professes to be a Christian, when asked directly who God is, doesn’t immediately mention the name of Jesus Christ. But Rick Warren is not merely a professing Christian, he holds the position of an elder and that leaves him even less of an excuse for not being forthright and clear with matters relating to the gospel and Jesus Christ. If Warren’s lack of clarity wasn’t bad enough, it was the host of the program, Stephen Colbert, and not Pastor Rick Warren who was the only one to use Jesus’ name.

A little while later, on the heals of Warren’s assertion of his belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures, Colbert asks if we should stone homosexuals based on the book of Leviticus. There are many different ways that a pastor could have addressed this issue that would have both been glorifying to God and edifying to those who were listening, but Warren opted for a different type of response. Warren’s response of “who are your writers?” neither is glorifying to God or edifying or instructional to his hearers. Furthermore, this response shows his complete unwillingness or inability to address the larger issue of homosexuality. A pastor should be willing and able to deal with this issue, even if he is uncomfortable or nervous when he does it.
With all of the concerns that I have noted here, I must say that the majority of my frustration with this interview was not with what Rick said or didn’t say. Even though his performance was tragic, it was with the way that he showed, or didn’t show, his reverence for God that was most concerning to me. There were at least five different occasions where Rick Warren laughed at or encouraged blasphemous talk. When speaking about God – who is the creator of the Heavens and the earth, the One who holds all things together by His own power, the One who is a consuming fire, the One who holds the heavens in the span of His hand, the One who sought to satisfy His own justice and display His own grace by suffering to be a man and dying for those who hate Him – Colbert compared Him to a Donkey Kong-like figure and Jimmy Buffet. Colbert also compared Heaven to Margaretville, and he mocked Jesus by talking about how to get him on the program. Now, I don’t know if Colbert claims to be a Christian, so I don’t expect him to hold the name of God in honor; but Warren claims to be a Christian and an elder and he ought to hold God’s name in honor. To every one of Colbert’s blasphemous comparisons of God and to his horribly sickened way of joking about heaven, Pastor Rick Warren sat there and laughed. He sat there and laughed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he even joked along with Colbert’s comment about getting Jesus onto his program by saying, “I’ve got connections.” I’m sorry, Pastor Warren, but that is not funny and it seems to be apparent to me that your “connections” that you have with Christ may not be what you seem to think.

This despicable lack of reverence for God and reluctance to be bold about the proclamation of the gospel should cause me to be upset and offended for the sake of my God, His son, and His church. But it should also cause me to be ready to answer questions about God and proclaim the gospel whenever I might get the chance. Now, it is very unlikely that I will ever have the platform that Rick Warren has every week or that I would be on the Colbert Report to talk about Christ and Christianity. But if that should ever happen I need to be ready to answer the questions and do a better job of defending my Lord than Rick Warren did.

Pastor Warren, you should be ashamed of yourself.

The Sound My Brain Made When It Melted…

One of the blessings of my job, other than the primary benefit of taking care of my family and allowing my wife to stay home with our kids, is the fact that I have the liberty to listen to pretty much whatever I want throughout the course of my day. For the first few years, my regular diet of audio intake was Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Joe Soucheray. In other words, I listened to a lot of conservative political talk radio. However, after the election of 2004, I became less and less satisfied with the content of the programs. My views on social, political, and moral issues are still very much the same, but I became increasingly unable to listen to Medved and Prager be very openly inclusivistic as it relates to their views on religion and God.

My growing dissatisfaction with political talk (of any stripe) came about because of a few contributing factors. The major one is that during that time my only real desired topic of conversation was quickly becoming Christ, the gospel, and the Bible. Again, not that politics are unimportant, but I felt that my time and energy would be used more effectively if they are not consumed by politics. Furthermore, I have a theory about general conversation and people’s willingness to listen at all. I believe that everyone in every relationship (whether it is a long time friend or someone you just met) has a certain degree of conversational “capital” that you can choose to spend in conversation with that other person. In other words, normal social niceness will allow you to bring up a subject or talk about things for a certain length of time even when the hearer is opposed to what they are hearing. So, if I used my conversational capital primarily discussing budgetary issues, immigration, the war in Iraq, abortion, poverty, taxes, or any other important issue (and they are important political and social issues), I would not have any left to spend on talking about the gospel, Christ, salvation, and eternity.

So while this transition in my own thoughts was occurring, I found a talk radio program called “Talk the Walk” on a local AM Christian station. This program had many focuses, but primarily it was on the proclamation of true doctrine (Theology Thursday’s), calling out false teachers (False Teacher Tuesday’s), and evangelism (Witness Wednesday’s). I came to greatly enjoy this show, even if I did not always agree 100% with the host or guests. But then, about two years ago, the program started to change a bit. I didn’t know why, but I believe in January of 2006 the program was taken off the air, and a newer show that is much less critical of modern Christendom has taken its place. “Talk the Walk” morphed into “Way of the Master Radio” that still has the same goals as the previous show, but with a different name and a sharper focus, primarily, on evangelism but without losing doctrinal clarity or calling out false teachers when they pop up.

However, this is not an article about Way of the Master Radio, but it is focused more on AM 980 KKMS and the show “KKMS Live – with Jeff and Lee”. “KKMS Live” was the show that replaced “Talk the Walk” on AM 980 KKMS and I didn’t listen to it a lot at first because the style was a bit different from what I was used to. My first real exposure to Jeff and Lee was at a John MacArthur conference in mid January of 2006, and I had no adverse thoughts about them because of this experience. However, since then, I have heard snippets and segments of their program and I have become increasingly uneasy with some of the programming choices that they are making and some of the theological views that they choose to give air time to in order to promote them. This was no where more profoundly evident than when I heard them interviewing Tony Campolo.

Tony has written a book recently (honestly I don’t know or really care what the title is), and he appeared on this show in order to promote this book. I will mostly quote what Tony had to say as my critique and the subject of contention that I have with the show and its hosts. In his book, Tony apparently talks a lot about different forms of prayer, and he encourages practicing them. One of the forms is called Lectio Divina, and Tony explained what that type of prayer is,

“Take a passage of Scripture, read it. Now close the Bible; be still and let the Spirit of God apply what you have just read to your own personal existential situation. Go to the Scriptures and there are two ways of reading them. One is the scholarly way. “What did Paul mean when he wrote these words? How do the people in the social context who receive these words understand them?” That’s’ the scholarly way, but there is another way of reading Scripture in which you read some Scriptures and say, ‘Ok Holy Spirit, what do you want to say to me through these verses?’ We see the Scriptures as a vehicle through which God speaks to us, not in generalities, but to our individual needs. I am sure you have met people who have said, ‘I was going through a very difficult time and I was reading some Scripture and suddenly a verse that I had read over 100 times spoke to me in a way that it had never spoken to me before. And suddenly it addressed my need; at that hour it was exactly what I needed to hear from the Lord. That’s called Lectio Divina.”¹

After hearing this, to their credit, one of the hosts of KKMS Live voiced a concern that using this type of prayer would and this type of studying technique with the Scriptures would lead to misunderstanding the meaning of the text. I think that this was a valid question to raise, and it gave me hope that the hosts would stand firm against such inductive and subjective methods of Scripture interpretation. Tony responded by saying the following,

“I think that there is that danger, that’s why in this book, we establish certain parameters to make sure that you do not end up with pure subjectivity and end up interpreting the Scriptures in a way that suits your own purposes rather than see the Scriptures as an instrument through which God wants to speak to you in your situation. Now we all know that you can read the same passage of Scripture 10 different times, 10 different months, and every time the same Scripture will speak to you, probably every time it will say something else to you. I’m sure you’ve had that experience?”

When Tony asked this question, both of the hosts gave rather affirmative responses. Now this concerned me, and I was beginning to get rather irritated with this entire program and the dialogue that was going on here. But before I could even catch my breath, Tony kept steamrolling along the same thought line.

“But we always have to be careful; is what God is saying to us through the Scripture in harmony with His will, and there are certain ways of dealing with this, and we feel that John Wesley, and we talk about John Wesley in this book a great length, told us how to be careful so that we don’t end up with subjective interpretations that end up being quite heretical. One of the ways is this; that we must always read the Scripture and ask ‘how do those in the Christian community to which I belong understand these verses?’ To share what I just learned from these Scriptures with bro & sis in the faith is a very important thing. Because if I am out of line, they will correct me. The Scripture sys test the spirits to see whether they be of God. And this is one of the ways that you test; namely you ask brother or sister [summarize what you read and what it “said to me”], and wait for ether correction or affirmation from your brother or sister. The second thing to do is to ask whether, in the tradition of the church, the church has been around for 2,000 years and people have been interpreting Scripture for 2,000 years, is this in harmony w what the church leaders, the fathers & mothers of the church have said about this passage of Scripture over the years. Is it in harmony with that? ‘Check with tradition’ says Wesley. The third thing is; be reasonable. Is this a reasonable understanding of these verse? These are very very important things to do because otherwise we end up with pure subjectivity."²

I don’t think that I’m being too critical of Mr. Campolo here if I think that his method for validating his understanding of the Scriptures is way off. This method may well be good enough for the Roman Catholic system or any other system that holds up tradition as equal to Scripture, but not for someone who claims to be protestant and evangelical. He didn’t once mention that we need to check our understanding of a particular passage against the rest of the council of Scripture. Would it be reasonable to think that Tony was implying this type of Scriptural authority when he indicated that the steps for vetting ideas were to ask other Christians, to check the tradition of the church, and to see if the conclusion is reasonable? I don’t think so at all. It is not nearly the same as stating that the Bible is the single authority for all things pertaining to God and our Christian life. Honestly, he sounds more Episcopalian than evangelical with his readiness to bow to reason and tradition.

One other thing came out in his comments that truly troubled me. He made allusions to what the Bible is, what Scripture is, a few different times, but none of them was more revealing than when he advocated viewing the Scriptures “as an instrument through which God wants to speak to you in your situation.” I do not believe that I am playing a game of semantics when I say that this view of the Scriptures that he articulated is very dangerous, and I believe that the danger is evident in what he further went on to advocate. Let me, clearly and for the record, state that the Holy Bible, the Scriptures, is the container of the objective message from God but it is not an instrument for communicating a subjective message from God.

The differences in what I have said and what Tony Campolo has said are not minor. With Campolo’s interpretive method, it would be very possible (and likely) that based on (selected) comments and thoughts from some of the church fathers as well as utilizing modern reason along with the thoughts of other like-minded Christians that one could conclude that Christ isn’t God or that He isn’t the only way to God. Furthermore, other blatantly universalistic conclusions could be arrived at using this same hermeneutic. Consequently, this type of inductive interpretation is dangerous and deadly to the soul.

But, unfortunately, the madness didn’t stop. Campolo went on talking and now moved on to the second prayer type called centering prayer.

“Centering prayer is an ancient practice, and I think Jesus was into it. He said, when you pray – it’s ok to pray publicly with a lot of words - but if you really want to pray go into a closet and shut the door; that is go where there are no distractions; go where there is nothing around you to pull you away and then center down, focus. And the Hebrew Bible says, to meditate upon His word. To those who wait upon the Lord. I wake up in the morning before I have to, I did it this morning, before the alarm went off I was up, and I say the name ‘Jesus’ over and over again. And people say, ‘it sounds like vain repetition.’ Call it anything you want, there’s something about that name. It drives back dark things; it gets rid of the extraneous thoughts; I have to put things out of my mind, because the minute I wake up my head starts spinning with all the things that are waiting to be done. I have to drive them out and create what the celtic Christians called ‘the thin place’. An atmosphere that is rarified with nothing which I am conscience, save His presence. And in the quietude, and the stillness of the morning, I simply surrender and wait for Christ, wait for the HS to flow into me. In Isaiah 42 we read, ‘they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.’ And I ask the listeners, when was the last time you waited for the Lord to flow into you? When was the last time you were quiet and still and just surrendered and said, ‘Christ Jesus, come in, flow into my being, saturate my personhood.’ And then the next verse says, ‘and in stillness He will come into you.’ What a wonderful that we are taught in the Scriptures."³

Again, before I look at what was said, I must again note that the KKMS Live hosts responded in verbal affirmation of what Campolo just said. The truth of Scripture records that Jesus had long prayer times and that He often went away from people to pray, yes, but that doesn’t come close to saying that He was doing “centering” prayer. Furthermore, if centering prayer is emptying one’s mind of nothing save “His presence”, how could He do that if He was the one trying to pray in this way? It makes me want to retch when I hear Jesus’ habits being interpreted as doing centering prayer. That conclusion is only at all possible to come to if you go looking through the Bible for vague references to something that might have been centering prayer.

Also, I think that Campolo’s dismissal of the “vain repetition” (cf. Matt 6:7) objection shows a downright disregard for Scripture. To be fair, whether “vain repetition” is referring to this specific type of meditation or if it is referring to using a lot of big and dramatic words while praying, Campolo dismisses the objection outright! I’m not certain of the specific meaning of this text, but judging from the context it seems to be specifically referring to the quantity of words, perhaps these are in a vain display of intelligence in an attempt to show the severity of a need, as opposed to repeating one word over and over. And if that is the interpretation of this text in Matthew, I still would have a hard time finding anything in the Bible relating to prayer that indicates that we are to repeat one word over and over and over and over in an effort to be aware of nothing “save His presence”. Plus, the taught model for prayer from Jesus to the disciples was not one of emptying or not thinking about stuff, it was praying first and foremost for the supremacy of God, but then the prayer includes things that are in daily life like the provision of daily bread, requesting forgiveness for current sins, and from deliverance from temptation, and this is the exact opposite from a clearing of the mind.

“There is a kind of conversation with God where you say nothing and you hear nothing, but you just sense yourself being connected with Him and He being connected with you; flowing into your being, saturating your personhood. That’s what centering prayer is all about.”⁴

When he described centering prayer this way, I just about lost whatever sanity I still had left at this point. First of all, how do you have a conversation if no one says anything? I don’t even think that an emergent could understand that or pull that off. Secondly, what does it feel like to “sense” being connected with God in that way? And what does it feel like when God flows into you? What does “saturating your personhood” even mean? I have no idea what he just said. This is ridiculous. And this is supposed to be a way to converse with God? How can we do this and be confident that we are connected to God when we have no way to “test the spirits” to see if the feeling we’re getting is the saturation of my personhood by God Himself or just the leftover bodily reaction to the mocha I had this morning.

I don’t want to minimize making your requests known unto God – we should do that – but we need these other kinds of praying as well: Lectio Divina and I am also mentioning this other kind of praying which is called centering prayer. And there is a third kind that we mention in this book, and it’s the prayer of examine and I do this when I go to bed. I put my head on the pillow and I examine the day from when I woke up until that moment, and I think of all of the good things that I have done, all of the ways in which God moved through me and blessed other people; all the ways in which I did His will, and I thank God for them. Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, “and finally my brothers and sisters” and I could easily read ‘at the end of the day brothers and sisters’, ‘whatsover things you have done that are good, whatsover things you have done that are profitable, whatsover things you have done that are of good report, that are excellent, think on these things.” And the next verse is ‘and then continue to do them.’ Then I go over the day a second time and I remember all of the ways in which I failed God, all of the ways in which I sinned, and I repent, and I ask God’s forgiveness. But I dare not do the second thing until I’ve done the first thing. So often, all Christians ever do is confess their sins and do not recognize the wonderful things that God has done in them and through them. Hence, they end up very depressed because if all you do is concentrate on the negative, you will end up as a negative person. The prayer of examine requires that we do both of those things.”⁵

It is one thing to examine your day and praise God for how you’ve been used as a vessel to glorify Him, but it is quite another to mangle Philippians 4:8 to do it. I’m sorry, but “Finally my brothers and sisters” is not the equivalent of saying “at the end of the day”. “Finally” is not in reference to a time or date, but in reference to the conclusion of Paul’s letter. But even more than that, the text doesn’t say think on these things “that I’ve done” or “that you’ve done”. It says “think on these things” with no specification as to the person doing them. I tend to think that he’s referring to the good things, and specifically the best way to think on them is to go to God and to His Word and think on what He has done.

As to Campolo’s comment that confessing sin leads one to be negative because you’re only focusing on the negative, I must heartily disagree. I do attempt to confess my sin, as much and as often as I can, and it doesn’t leave me depressed. Why? My focus is not solely on my many and dire failures. My focus and my mind are fixed on the mercy of God. This does not leave me depressed, it leaves me thankful and in awe of Him because He saved me and loves me.

Well, it wouldn’t be fair to not mention that once Campolo was done with this part of his monologue, one of the hosts of KKMS Live responds by saying, “very good, very interesting.” Honestly, I don’t know what would be considered “good” about the content of what he was saying and the content of the book he was pushing. I’m not sure whose decision it was to push this book and give Campolo this platform, but all I can say is that wherever the blame lies, it is a bad sign for a Christian radio station that has included so many faithful Bible teachers.

I have no knowledge as to the motives of either of the hosts for why they were so inviting to Tony Campolo or to his dangerous and sub-Christian ideas of prayer and the Scriptures. That being said, I find it difficult to understand how the two hosts of KKMS Live can “amen” John MacArthur and seem to make overtones to really enjoying his preaching as well as other men like him and then turn around and be warm and fuzzy to a guest who promotes spiritual practices that are exact opposite of so much of what men like Dr. MacArthur have been teaching.

Whether the hosts have little or no discernment concerning the difference in the teachings of a Campolo and a MacArthur, or whether they don’t see a problem with the practices encouraged by Campolo, or if they do see a problem with the practices and do understand the difference between him and MacArthur type teachers but still gave a warm and welcoming environment for him to plug his book I don’t know. Regardless of the real reason for this kind of dichotomy, this does speak well for KKMS as a station, KKMS Live as a program, or Jeff and Lee as discerning and wise Christian “leaders”.

As a side note, this wasn’t the first time that Tony Campolo was a guest on this radio program. He was on near the end of 2006, and I listened to that show too. The thing that made me the saddest concerning that interview when I compared it to the recent one was that both hosts disagreed and brought up points of debate with Tony Campolo regarding his views on the Palestinian people, the state of Israel, social justice, and other conservative political issues. This was shocking and saddening because they were more passionate about the state of Israel and the government’s place in helping the poor than the clear problematic statements about the Word of God and about prayer. Not that the issues of modern Israel and poverty are not something to have biblically motivated thoughts about, but the disparity in passion and conviction between the two subjects was woefully concerning.

(Oh, and by the way, my brain made a gurgling sound when it melted.)

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¹ Tony Campolo on “KKMS Live with Jeff and Lee” November 26, 2007. http://www.kkms.com/blogs/JeffandLee/11560256/

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

Yoga…again

I heard about a television News Magazine segment that pitted John MacArthur against Doug Pagitt on the issue of Christians and the practice of Yoga, and it was quite interesting to see the exchange. This news segment really aligns well and adds further confirmation to my own views on yoga that I wrote about in “Yoga and the Christian: Do They Go together like Apple Pie and Baseball or Oil and Water?”

You can watch the video of this exchange on youtube, but the folks at Pulpit Magazine have transcribed the exchange as well.

Mike Galanos (host): Alright, let’s say I do decide to try yoga, head to the local gym, give it a shot. What am I opening myself up to spiritually that could go against my Christian faith?

John MacArthur: Well that would depend on how the yoga is conducted. If it’s just purely exercise, and you’re a strong Christian, it probably wouldn’t have any impact on your faith. But in the big picture, why would Christians want to borrow an expression from a false religion, from pantheism (god is everything, you’re god, everything is god), when we believe there’s only one true God (the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ). Why would we need to import that? If you want to exercise, exercise. But why borrow a term that has been part of a false religion for centuries?

Mike Galanos (host): Doug Pagitt, let’s get you in on this. And as we do, I want to read the definition from Webster’s on “yoga.” It says it’s “a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.” Kind of tough one to cipher but, on a spiritual front for a Christian, that does not sound like Christ-centered faith to me. On the surface of that definition, what’s going on here? Help us out.

Doug Pagitt: Well, for people who perform yoga, what they’re normally trying to do is to find a whole and complete and healed life. So when people participate in yoga, most of them aren’t on some kind of a yoga agenda. What they’re trying to do is use whatever practices they can find that would help them have a whole and complete life. And for a Christian, that’s certainly what we’re after. The Jesus agenda is a whole life, is a complete life, is a healed life. So when people use it to relieve stress, to be healthy in their relationships, to feel good in their body, that’s a really good thing.

In fact, there’s a great little verse in the New Testament where it says, “Whatever is good, whatever is right, whatever is noble, whatever is praiseworthy, think upon such things.” And for so many of us, yoga has been one of those ‘whatevers’ that’s such a positive thing in our life.

Mike Galanos (host): So you say, Jesus is alright with yoga?

Doug Pagitt: Yeah, are you asking if I think Jesus was alright with yoga?

Mike Galanos (host): Yeah.

Doug Pagitt: Yeah, I’m not sure exactly how to answer a question like that. My assumption is that Christianity and yoga are not in competition with one another and are not enemies of one another. So to suggest that I could speak clearly for everything that Jesus would have been okay with – if Jesus was familiar with yoga when he was alive, and yoga has certainly around from before the time of Jesus, I don’t think Jesus ever spoke out against yoga and said, don’t perform yoga. But that kind of question that you’re going to ask somebody – “If Jesus was okay with it, then I wouldn’t do it” – that’s the kind of thing that says, would Jesus be okay with pastors wearing suits? Would Jesus be okay with having Christmas trees? These are the kinds of questions that just don’t move forward.

Mike Galanos (host): Let’s get back to the yoga — Doug, let’s get back to yoga real quick – as you do the postures, and this again, again I have not done yoga, but you do the postures, and they’re, one of the concerns is that it’s an offering to some of the millions of Hindu gods. Is there a part of you in the spirit that’s tweaked at all by this? Are you bothered at all. You practice yoga yourself. How do you go through with it?

Doug Pagitt: Hey, I have to confess that I’m not very good at it? Yoga, it’s really hard to hold these postures, to hold these positions. And I’ll tell you that from my own experience, and the many, many people that I know who participate in yoga, none of them have ever found themselves to be opened up to something negative or something demonic or something evil. In fact, many of us find the high benefit that comes from body mind connection, and from knowing that we are pushing, that we are stretching, that we are sending our body into an exercise. And that exercise is not wholly disconnected from our will or from our mind or from our spirit; it’s a complete practice. And I’ve never known anybody who has had anything detrimental come into their spirit because of their practice of yoga.

Mike Galanos (host): John MacArthur, real quick, want to get you in on this as well, is all yoga bad yoga for the Christian?

John MacArthur: Well, let me just respond to what I’ve been hearing. That doesn’t sound anything like Christianity. If you want a whole life, if you want your life to be what it should be, you don’t put yourself in some weird physical position, empty your mind, center on yourself and try to relieve your stress. You go to the word of God, to the gospel of Jesus Christ, you embrace in faith the sacrifice of Christ in his death and resurrection as your savior and redeemer. God comes, regenerates you, transforms your life, makes you a new creation, and you’re saved and you’re on your way to heaven, and you can live a life of peace and joy. That’s the promise of the gospel. There is no contribution made to that by any physical position or any kind of meditation.
The idea of Christianity is to fill your mind with biblical truth and focus on the God who is above you. That’s Christian worship. The idea of yoga is to fill your mind with nothing except to focus on yourself and try to find the god that is inside of you. From a Christian viewpoint, that’s a false religion. Exercise is a different issue.

Mike Galanos (host): Gentlemen, we’re going to have to leave it there. Pastor Doug Pagitt and John MacArthur we appreciate your time, both of you. Thank you very much.¹

I find it interesting that Mr. Pagitt is unable to clearly state what he believes Jesus’ position would be when it comes to Christians practicing Yoga. Perhaps I’m not as involved in the emergent conversation as I should be, but shouldn’t that be one of the first things that is discovered with any activity or issue? But sadly, this is just one of the big problems with the philosophy surrounding Christians and yoga.

In an attempt to defend his position, Mr. Pagitt used a debate tactic and a contemporary theological argument that I am so tired of hearing because it is just plain nonsense. Mr. Pagitt said, “I don’t think Jesus ever spoke out against yoga and said, don’t perform yoga.” First of all, this is such a horrible way of communicating and understanding what Scripture has to say on any subject. Did Jesus ever say anything specifically about yoga? Nope. But He also didn’t specifically mention raping women or abusing children when referring to proper sexual expression. He also didn’t discuss the value (or lack thereof) of dog-fighting or gladiator contests as forms of entertainment, or a host of other issues. Furthermore, Jesus doesn’t make any specific comments about the sin of homosexuality. So, on Mr. Pagitt’s logical grounds, if Jesus doesn’t specifically condemn yoga, then it is (or it could be) fine if a self-professed Christian practices yoga. If that is the case, then we should likewise be able to explore the possibility of the rape and abuse of women and children for sexual expression as well as have a conversation about whether or not we should relax and enjoy some recreation while dogs or humans fight to the death. As a side note, I believe that Solomon’s Porch, Mr. Pagitt’s church, is not concerned with the sin of homosexuality. And the reason for their apathy on this issue, I would guess, is rooted in the same logic as he showed in the interview.

This hermeneutical travesty is so odious that it seems to scream at me whenever I hear someone use it. The Bible condemns any and all sexual expression outside of a marriage between a man and a woman (cf. Lev 18), and this would include rape, incest, molestation, masturbation, fornication, and homosexuality (see also Romans 1:20-32 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). The Bible encourages us to dwell on good and lovely things (cf. Phil 4:8), not on the brutal maiming and killing of people or animals for sport. The more I see people advocating Christians practicing yoga, or even defending it with the kind of nonsense that Mr. Pagitt used, the more I see the slimy fingers of the enemy closing around the throat of the slightly alive, but mostly apostate group that is American evangelicalism.

Dr. MacArthur hit the nail on the head with his condemnation of the “goal” that Mr. Pagitt described of those people that he knows who practice yoga. The Hindu practice emptying and focusing on nothing or on self is in complete and total contradistinction from the purposeful and discerning practice of faith and focusing our affections and actions on God through the power of the Holy Spirit because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I would actually have a lot more to say in refutation and correction of Mr. Pagitt’s errors, but I believe that it was said to him already by Dr. MacArthur. What a blessing it is to have a man of God who has been given, not only a platform but also a mind and heart to use that platform for the sake of Christ and the gospel instead of his own agenda.

As a side, and humorous, note, a while back I was assisting some friends of my parents in finding a local church near where I live. During the e-mail correspondence back and forth with them I happened to mention that a Baptist church I had attended during college was slipping toward emergent error, I believe they even were including yoga in their programs. In part of his responding e-mail to me, this gentleman wrote the following,

“It's interesting that you mentioned that the one church you went to in college has teamed up with the Emergent Church Movement. One of my college mates, Doug Padgett, is apparently one of the 'leaders' of the Emergent movement. I never thought of him as a Pastor or deep theological thinker at the time... but then... okay, so maybe I just answered my own question there - didn't I?”

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¹ http://www.sfpulpit.com/2007/09/13/john-macarthur-doug-pagitt-and-yoga/

Missing the Point

I’ve been desperately trying to catch up on my podcast archives so I have been listening to Allestair Begg from July, John Piper from March, and John MacArthur from early August. The series that Dr. MacArthur is preaching on deals with what types of people God saves, and it is focused (at least as far as I am now) on the fourth chapter of Luke where Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah and proclaims that this very Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing. My point with this entry is not to re-state everything from MacArthur’s sermon but to offer an observation and possible correlation to modern Christendom.

As far back as I can remember thinking about various stories in the Bible and those involved in them, I can vividly remember being shocked at the apparent stupidity and ungratefulness of many of the people. Whether it is the idolatry of the Israelites with the golden calf, their lamenting of manna that God provided, or the unfaithfulness on the doorstep of Canaan that led to the wandering in the desert for forty years, every time that I read or hear those stories I got so annoyed because they were being so foolish and ungrateful to God. Along with those thoughts I remember, on many occasions, thinking that if I had been living in any of those times that I would not have worship the calf, complained about the manna, and that I would have been on Joshua and Caleb’s side.

But when I was in college, I began to think about these things again and I began to realize that I was not like Joshua or Caleb, but I was more like the ungrateful and unfaithful Israelites who constantly took God’s previous miraculous works and bountiful provision and counted it as normal and as something to be expected. Just like anything that we receive on a regular or daily basis, we tend to expect it and we become (as a rule) less overtly thankful for it because it has come to be expected and counted as normal occurrence rather than a blessing. What do these thoughts have to do with 4:14-30?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana¹

The people in Jesus’ day had the privilege to see Christ and hear the perfectly articulated and tempered proclamation of the gospel that was a fulfillment to all that the Scriptures had been anticipating. They had the Perfect Law-Giver and Savior in their midst proclaiming that which the prophets and patriarchs wanted so desperately to see and hear, but yet virtually all of Jesus’ contemporaries missed it entirely while He was living, and even following His death, only a small percentage of national Israel has ever found her Messiah.

The question that comes to mind is how could these people who were so committed to the law and prophets and who were so knowledgeable about the commandments of God and the prophecies of the Messiah miss the very one they were awaiting and expecting? Through years of compromise or simple human vanity, the majority of Jewish people were waiting for a Messiah who was not primarily interested in the forgiving of sins and the salvation of the lost, but they were waiting for the Messiah to be the conquering king who would restore national Israel as a nation and kick out the Romans.

Since Christ has come and we have believed in Him, historically those who confess Christ have seen the folly of their error and have esteemed Christ as the only Begotten of the Father and have hailed Him as such. And we continue to be somewhat bewildered that Christ’s contemporaries could have missed everything that is so apparent to us. I fear that this same folly is as present today as it was back then. It may not take the exact form as it once did, but it is the same humanistic folly.

In Christ’s time, the popular and prominent teachers of the law saw no use for Jesus unless He would overthrow the Romans, and they demonstrated this by suing for His death. Some of those in opposition to Christ were, no doubt, committed disciples to the false religion that they had been instructed in. These same may have had no underlining agenda of personal wealth, fame, or preservation, but they believed that they were doing God’s work by having a false prophet and heretic executed. However, it is also just as likely that many of these religious leaders were more concerned about lining their own pockets, maintaining their own traditions, and holding onto their positions of leadership over and above worshiping and seeking after God, even if it would have been done in a false legalistic system that does not save.

Today many in the most prominent pulpits and ministries are preaching watered down and inclusive gospel messages, if they preach any kind of gospel at all. Teachers today are more focused on health and wealth, growing church ministries, or psycho-analyzing their parishioners rather than on the pure gospel message found in the plain understanding of the text of the Bible itself.

Some of the most frightening waves inside of Christendom are those of the emergent and social gospel movements. The emergent movement (specifically I am referring to those who are emergent in their theology, not in style of worship) seeks to blur all lines of doctrine in endless “conversations” that have no conclusions because all ideas are viewed equally valid. I agree with them, but not in the way that they intend. My views are equally as valid yours – they are both rubbish unless they are the views that are enlightened by the Holy Spirit and unless they come from a correct contextual reading and understanding of the Bible itself.

The social gospel movement removes the focus of the gospel from saving sinners and being justified in the eyes of God and instead puts the focus on social programs like feeding the poor. Feeding the poor and fighting disease is a good gospel work, but it is not the gospel. Feeding the poor and curing them of all sorts of diseases without explicitly preaching the true saving gospel of Jesus Christ is not an act of love, but it is an act of supreme hatred. If I know that God will condemn those who have not repented of their sins and believe in the gospel, but I do not exhort and plead with them to repent and believe, it shows that I don’t truly care for them.

Should Christians work to feed the poor and clothe the naked and heal the sick? Yes. But that should be done (a) because we are commanded to by Christ, (b) because we love those in need, and (c) because it is a testimony to the truth of the gospel. May we not fall into the folly of misplaced religious fervor, whether our main goal is to expel Rome or to feed and clothe those in need, that so easily grips the hearts of men, but let us focus solely on Christ and Him crucified for the salvation of sinners to the glory of God alone.

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¹ The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

Emergent “Seeker Sensitive Fluff”

I was scanning a popular emergent church youth leader’s blog recently when I came across a series of interesting videos. In case you don’t catch the parody, let me explain. There is a fairly popular ad campaign from Apple Computers where two actors represent the two rival computers types. The Apple, “Mac”, is portrayed by a young and contemporary actor, and is shown to be laid back and to have it all together. Mac’s rival, “PC”, is played by an older actor who is playing a very uptight, high maintenance and is shown to be deficient in all ways when compared to Mac.

Now, having the template in mind, we can look at the Christian parody of it. In the video series, the two character types are relatively the same, but instead of portraying rivals in the computer industry, they portray two different types of Christians in modern western society. The first character is a traditional protestant (I assume) named “Christian”. The second character is the contemporary believer, “Christ-Follower”, who is set up to be a character who is cool and, basically, the opposite of irrelevant “Christian”.

You can watch the two videos for yourself, but here is a brief synopsis of them:

Video 1: This is the first of the series where we are initially introduced to Christian and Christ-Follower. Christian has his stack of books and other materials that is capped off with his Bible, and it is noted that it is a King James Version. After divulging the contents of his stack of materials, Christian asks if Christ-Follower wants to see his bumper stickers. When given the go-ahead, Christian opens his suit coat to show various bumper stickers stating that he ran out of room on his car. The ending of the parody shows Christian copying everything that Christ-Follower says culminating with Christ-Follower saying, “I’m a big dork.” And then Christian repeats, “I’m a big dork…oh….”

Video 2: This video is sixth (and final, I believe) video in the same series. It shows Christian and Christ-Follower meeting with a therapist in some sort of a counseling session. The session opens with Christian talking about how he feels inadequate and has to hide inside of his church. The therapist then encourages them to give each other a compliment. Christ-Follower makes a genuine comment about how Christian is good at exegesis and that he dresses nicely. Christian grudgingly says that Christ-Follower is better at reaching “today’s generation”, but then he comments that it is done with “seeker sensitive fluff” and it is a “total waste of time” under his breath. The video ends with the therapist stating, “Maybe you should come in… twice a week.”

In the first video, I found it interesting that the books and materials that were mocked included “rule books, ethics manuals, and a morality play or two just for good measure” as well as Christians’ Bible. How did they mock his Bible? For starters, when displaying his Bible, Christian looks like a buffoon when he swings his bible around like a sword, and this is both mocking the type of believers that Christian represents as well as the fact that it seems to be demeaning the Bible and the power of the Word itself. I realize that might be a bit nit-picky, but…come on.

Also, I would like to know what rule books and ethics manuals the creators were referring to and, obviously, looking down upon. If this parody was to be an equal comparison (even with the above mentioned concerns) between modern Christ-Follower and Christian, I think that Christ-Follower should have had the following books in his hands:

• A New Kind of Christian (Brian McLaren)
• Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller)
• Velvet Elvis (Rob Bell)
• A Generous Orthodoxy (Brian McLaren)
• The Message (Eugene H. Peterson)

You see, the truth is that those in the Christ-Follower (Emergent) movement don’t want to get rid of rule books and ethics codes, they want their rule books and ethics codes to replace the old ones. When you disregard authors like Calvin, Luther, Augustine, Rile, Owen, Spurgeon, Edwards, and others and substitute them with the flavor of the month contemporary writings that are only “relevant” for a short time, you’re in danger of separating yourself from actually following Christ in favor of following a contemporary fad.

As far as the second video, I actually thought that it was funny. I understand that it was set up in such a way as to mock people like me who do classify a lot of what goes on now-a-days as “seeker sensitive fluff and a total waste of time.” But as far as the main thrust of my thoughts regarding this video, I’ll let another blogger’s comments set the stage.

The full brunt of his critique is best understood when all of the videos in this series are viewed. But, in case you don’t want to subject yourself to that, the basic thing to know is that in the other videos you see Christian listening to his “jPod” (an iPod filled only with explicitly Christian music and other media), carrying his HSHD (Holy Spirit Hard Drive) so that he can get a jump start of the “Holy Ghost, or Spirit, or something” when he gets bored in church, and we see him proudly displaying his WWJD bracelet. All of these things are to show that Christian is woefully out of touch with contemporary society and, rather foolish looking in his attempts to copy culture. After seeing these things, this blogger named Guy writes:

"Does it strike anyone else as awkwardly ironic that there is a Christian mimic of a popular sales campaign that is mocking the type of person who gets excited about Christian mimics of popular sales campaigns?"¹

In his comment, Guy identifies himself as an emergent type of individual, but wants to be real about who and what they are about. I find this comment as an accurate critique of the videos as well as somewhat ironic. How long will it be before videos like this, books like “Blue Like Jazz” and “A New Kind of Christian”, and other contemporary things are as foolish and out of date as Christian wearing his WWJD bracelet.

What could be more relevant to any hearing audience than the truth that God has revealed about how to be made right with Him, be forgiven of our sin, and avoid His terrible wrath and judgment? And in order to do that, we must proclaim the gospel in an undistorted and unapologetic manner.

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¹ http://www.ysmarko.com/?p=1042

Yoga and the Christian:Do They Go together like Apple Pie and Baseball or Oil and Water?

Since I graduated from college nearly a decade ago (near by a month, now), I have been increasingly made aware of a trend inside of evangelical Christendom. There are many trends, but one of them is the insertion of contemplative prayer and Yoga into an acceptable forum so that self professed Christians can participate while still staying inside of the bounds of Christendom. It seems now that many people inside of Christendom practice Yoga, and many of the correlating churches encourage it and facilitate it as a way to pray and get closer to God.

My response to this type of action, both on the part of individuals and modern Christendom as a whole, has been one of alarm, confusion, clarification, frustration, and now contention. This issue has come to the forefront of my thinking in recent weeks and months because not only am I aware of a large mass of people participating in these actions in a quasi-disassociated realization, but I have sadly come to find out that many of my friends and acquaintances from years gone by are being deceived into believing that this type of activity is at worst somewhat edgy, but still acceptable, or at best it is one of the best ways to do our personal worship and prayer time.

Some time ago I listened to Todd Friel interview a Hindu Swami (I believe his name was Swami Parum) about the growing phenomenon of Christian Yoga. The Swami was fairly offended by this trend and said that it would be as possible to have some form of Christian Yoga¹ as it would be to have a Hindu Baptism. His point was obviously very tongue in cheek because I have never heard of anyone trying to be baptized into Hinduism.

The point was that it would be impossible to separate the water ceremony practiced in or near a shrine of some sort that may be called “Hindu baptism” from the Christian symbolism of Jesus’ death and resurrection. A Hindu performing the act of baptism would, by nature of the act, be affirming what the Bible says about Jesus in His death and resurrection whether they wanted to or not. In the same way since Yoga is the Hindu (based) spiritual practice used to “connect with the Divine”, it has certain implications and ramifications. Everywhere I look, the description of Yoga always includes the fact that it is or has a “spiritual” component.

Here are a list of such references from the Yoga community from people who would not put themselves under the dogmatic claims and theology of Evangelical Christianity:

“Yoga, in general, is a spiritual practice or discipline that helps the individual unify his/her body, mind, and heart.”²

“Hinduism is not like a recipe ingredient that can be extracted from Yoga. Says Subhas Tiwari, professor of Yoga philosophy and meditation at the Hindu University of America in Orlando, Fla.: ‘Yoga is Hinduism.’”³

“The practice of Yoga does not only focus on physical postures to improve the body, but deals with all the aspects of our being and our lives. C.E., Patanjali who is considered the father of Modern Yoga compiled 195 aphorisms which are called the Yoga Sutra. In the Yoga Sutra, he described the eight aspects of a Yogic Lifestyle and called it the Eight Limbs of Yoga. The limbs are practical guides to a person's personal development to achieve the harmony of the mind, the body and the spirit which leads to Samadhi or enlightenment.

This is the ultimate goal of the Eight Limbs of Yoga. It is characterized by the state of ecstasy and the feeling that you and the universe are one. It is a state of peace and completion, awareness and compassion with detachment.”⁴

"The soul purpose of all forms of yoga is Spiritual-Realization. The various authentic yogas are the progressive religious disciplines of Hinduism."⁵

The advertisement for the Classical Yoga Hindu Academy in Manahawkin New Jersey promotes Yoga and Hinduism with the following questions, “If you are ready for the great adventure to Spiritual/Self-Realization... to uncover the essence of spirituality and religion... to understand what is Yoga–the religion of Hinduism... to discover the Love, Light and Energy within... to help reduce violence... to learn to relax and lead a healthy life...”⁶ and then you are directed to view more of their material.

It seems clear to me that Yoga is the method of worshipping demons (see 1 Corinthians 10) that was instituted in the Hindu religion. I do not see a way for any rational person to hold on to the autonomy and innocence of practicing Yoga after a serious look (or even a cursory, but fair, one) at the origins of Yoga inside of Hinduism. There is no way that any Christian should ever use this eastern mystical and otherwise non-Christian practice in any form for worshiping Jesus Christ.

I was reading what Brian Flynn had to say about Yoga and I came across a very good text of Scripture that deals with this issue. But first, I’ll give just a little bit of background on who this guy is. He was born and raised a church going Catholic in New York, but after he had been out on his own for some years he said, “I ventured or perhaps waded into Buddhism, Hinduism, and Transcendental Meditation. I eventually embraced the New Age” He eventually became so immersed in this New Age movement that he was “able to perform psychic readings and was quite good at it.” He goes on to say that the power behind his psychic abilities, known as his spirit guides, were demons. And once God saved him, he was able to see the demonic and satanic activity in this type of “spirituality” for what it is.⁷

Just as a quick sidebar, I don’t just take Brian’s testimony of his experience as the reason for believing that Demons are behind various pagan religions and forms of witchcraft. One only needs to read of the idolatry demon possession in the Bible in order to see that the Bible teaches that demons are behind pagan religions and the power in any form of mysticism or witchcraft (see Deuteronomy 32:15-18; 1 Corinthians 10:15ff). Well, in an article on Yoga, Flynn another passage in Deuteronomy that is germane to this issue.

¹"These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. ²You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. ³You shall tear down their altars and smash their {sacred} pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. ⁴You shall not act like this toward the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 12:1-4)

The focus of this passage is not primarily that the Israelites shouldn’t worship demons or idols (that is clear from all of Moses’ writings), but this specific section makes clear that there needs to be a distinction in how they worshipped. They were not to incorporate the pagan practices of worshiping their false gods into worship of God. The application to our modern time is that we dare not incorporate Yoga into our Christian worship practices because this type of compromise is forbidden by God.

What about the “ohm” or the mantra that practitioners of Yoga are encouraged to do? Some choose to do this, some do not, but many more are lulled into practicing this as well. Without getting into all of the technicalities of this, let me just cut to the quick and say that the reason for saying the “ohm” or a mantra is to empty or quiet one’s mind. A mantra is defined as “a sacred verbal formula repeated in prayer, meditation, or incantation, such as an invocation of a god, a magic spell, or a syllable or portion of scripture containing mystical potentialities.”⁸ It isn’t important what the practitioner says, the could say “ohm”, “la”, or even recite the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 7, the repetition of words and sounds in the manner that is taught is the way to quiet your mind.

The problem with this is manifold. First of all, I have heard on numerous occasions (from numerous sources) that proponents of this type of mantra chanting that is often associated with yoga empties the mind, but you must be careful because you may get an evil spirit when doing this. I heard this attributed to a proponent of Yoga and meditation who would never identify himself as a Christian. Knowing that since I cannot find the source material for that statement and that hearsay is practically worthless, I have a better authority to speak on this issue. In Matthew 12:43-45 Jesus teaches that demons will go to occupy people minds and hearts that are “unoccupied, swept, and put in order.” Although He was not teaching about the mental emptiness inside of this pagan practice, but He was speaking about a religiosity or “spiritualism” that left the inside of a person bare of the protection of the Holy Spirit.

“But Eric, Christians can’t be possessed by demons since we’re already indwelled with the Holy Spirit.” I agree, but that doesn’t mean that by dropping all of our mental faculties and empty our mind of any kind of engaged defense against temptation or influence that we will be unharmed by demonic influence. Even if it weren’t possible that we would be more susceptible to demonic influence in this process, we still should not ever pray in this mantra fashion. The “ohm” or mantra type exercises go outside of the realm of any acceptable Christian practice. We are not instructed to empty our minds, but to fill our minds by dwelling on what is good and lovely and worthy of praise. And the practice of mantra or repetitive prayer is explicitly forbidden by Christ Himself.

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7)

I don’t believe that it is a coincidence that the gentile pagans prayed with meaningless or vain repetition. I think that it has been the method of demonic religions from the beginning of time.

Now, I laid this groundwork regarding the spiritual nature of Yoga knowing (hoping) that the majority of my friends and acquaintances who have been engaging in and practicing Yoga have been doing so simply as a form of exercise, and they would classify themselves (by affiliation or by basic doctrinal confession) as Evangelical Christians. I understand the desire to get and remain healthy, and so now I would like to look at the idea of practicing Yoga that is completely divorced from any spiritual component, whether Christian or Hindu, and attempt to show why even doing it for this reason would be wrong.

Again, I want to state adamantly that I do not think it is possible to separate Yoga from Hinduism in any way. But, in order to deal with the desire to “just do Yoga” for exercise or stress relief without any spiritual goal, I will not hammer on that point any further.

“All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.” (1 Corinthians 10:23)

This verse has been brought up in defense of practicing Yoga for some type of non-spiritual exercise or recreation. Well, in this verse, Paul here is telling the Corinthians that they can feel free to eat the meat sacrificed a to heathen idols because it is not sinful to do so (i.e. eating meat is neither righteous nor sinful). However, if a less mature Christian brother (in that culture, he was probably recently saved out of the exact paganism that sold its leftover sacrificial meat in the market) is unable to partake of that meat because it is sinful to him, then the more mature Christian is not to eat of the meat either. I think that this is a great passage to look at in the context of this discussion, but not in the way that defenders of practicing Yoga would like it to be.

Eating meat, even meat sacrificed to demons, is not the same as participating in or copying a worship practice intended for a demon. We are instructed on how to pray, worship, take the Lord’s Supper, and other things, but we are not told where we can or cannot buy our meat. When it comes to buying meat, just don’t ask if it were sacrificed to idols and enjoy, that is part of the message of 1 Corinthians 10. The application to the modern day could be buying coffee from Starbucks or Caribou.

Starbucks is a big mover and shaker inside of the pro-homosexual agenda in the U.S. and Caribou is owned by an Islamic firm that is in favor of Sharia law (i.e. world domination by Muslims). I can choose to buy my coffee from either of them and not be sinning. However, if I were with you and you were so outraged at the political/social activism of either or both of these companies; it would be sinful for me to take you out to coffee at one of these establishments.

Again, I don’t believe that 1 Corinthians 10:23 supports a Christian practicing Yoga. Furthermore, I think that the beginning of the passage goes farther to show that even though God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, He still destroyed many of them (most) because of their sinful behavior.

In the same manner that we should not excuse Yoga as being acceptable because of 1 Corinthians 10:23, we should also not foolishly dive into it because it seems like a good thing.

Why should I avoid drugs (i.e. marijuana) if I view them as a good thing? Why should I not (if I were a single man) go out on a date with a lady who I care about and engage in intimate (non-sexual) behavior? They both seem excellent to me, and they make my body feel good? Why not? Because the Bible does give us instructions on what to do and what not to do regarding these types of things. Does it explicitly say “don’t smoke pot” or “don’t go to second base with your girlfriend” or “don’t practice Yoga”? No! But the principles for how we are to deal with drugs are present in the Scriptures. The principles for how we are to interact with women are present. The principles for worship and prayer are present too. Just because something seems…neutral…doesn’t mean that it is. Just because much of our culture says that participating in something is okay or even beneficial doesn’t mean that it is.

The principle for pot is the same as alcohol – don’t be drunk (Luke 21:34; Rom 13:13; Gal 5:21; 1 Peter 4:3). The word translated “sorcery” and listed among the “deeds of the flesh” that will result with those who “practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19,21) The Greek word translated as sorcery is the same root word for the English “pharmacist” and carries the meaning of “the use or the administering of drugs”⁹ (see also Acts 19:19 and Revelation 18:23).

As far as how we should deal with intimacy before marriage; without getting into a long (and we could) discussion about purity and how far we need to keep ourselves pure, let me say one thing. If you, sir or madam, can kiss, cuddle, or touch without either party lusting in your mind, then that may be acceptable. But, there is not a person living who could do that without crossing the line over to lust, and lust is just the same as adultery (Matthew 5:28).

In the same vein of thought, going to a Mosque, rolling out a mat, facing east, and bowing down towards Mecca multiple prescribed times a day would not be an acceptable way to pray to God, even if you are praying to Jesus (see Deuteronomy 12:1-4). Making a statue or getting a picture depicting Christ and placing a bowl of incense below it while praying to Jesus and focusing on the image that is before you is not an acceptable way to pray before God (Exodus 20:4).

And to my friends who want to practice Yoga with the thought that it would be detached from any spiritual aspect and only use it for a form of exercise, it would be the same as spouting off profane and blasphemous curses to God and to others with the goal of practicing diction and enunciation in order to speak better. Likewise, training with and competing in the “I hate Christ” Decathlon may be the best form of physical exercise around, but it would not be something that would glorify God by our participation in it. And finally, playing with an Ouija board is not a God honoring or an acceptable form of family entertainment even if we do believe that there is nothing spiritual or satanic about it. In the same way, practicing Yoga is not a form of exercise that is neutral and that would be ok for Christians to participate in.

There are some things that cannot be separated from the pagan and satanic affiliations that stem from where practice originated from (and from where it still flourishes). Yoga is one of them. In no way is right to compare a Christian practicing Yoga to Paul’s instruction on the Christian’s freedom in purchasing meat that had been sacrificed to idols. We must be diligent and not let our guard down; otherwise those who come after us may not hear the true gospel from the very churches that we attend.

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¹ “Christian Yoga” is supposed to be the practice of Yoga that is separated from Hinduism and able to be done in such a way that the Hindu religion is not present or dominant in that practice.

² http://www.Yoga.net.au/what_is_Yoga

³ Robert A. Davis, “Stretching for Jesus,” Time, September 5, 2005 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1098937,00.html

⁴ http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/yoga-and-health/yoga-lifestyle.asp

⁵ http://www.classicalyoga.org/page30.html

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ http://onetruthministries.com/my_story.html

⁸ http://dictionary.reference.com/search?db=dictionary&q=mantra

⁹ This is by no means a condemnation against medical treatment, but against the use of drugs to get into an altered or “enhanced” state of consciousness for some nefarious purpose.