Troubled

So I'm awake at midnight, I have to get up for church in the morning, yet I'm awake blogging. I will admit it's because I am troubled and even grieved over what I see, especially in the last new months. There is a reaction and backlash, at least around me, against theological thought or study. Here is what is disturbing to me. Every Protestant denomination in the US uses approximately the same bible, slight variations due to translations, but everyone accepts the KJV. Catholics use it with the apocrypha. Everyone reads the same Bible. Every Christian denomination prays in the name of Jesus. Most Christian denominations pray for help from the Holy Spirit. Most pastors I know believe they are inspired by the Holy Spirit, yet many of them are preaching contradictory messages.

I think about John Piper, Rick Warren, Joel Olsteen, Benny Hinn, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Erwin McMannis, Bill Hybels, John McArther. All of these men pray, and feel they are inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit. These men have all had success, which could be interpreted blessing, but they cover the spectrum of theology, beliefs, practices and ideals. They read the same passages out of the same bibles. Many of them are educated and study the scriptures regularly.

So back to my troubles. Admits all this turmoil, we need anchors. I believe we need 2 things. First is a strong and solid theology. I say that because this idea of "well let's just read the Bible and let the spirit guide us" has led to the aforementioned situation. Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Reformed, Emergent, Calvary Chapel, 4 Square all just read the Bible and have completely different ideas on many of the foundational tenets like salvation, baptism, communion, ecclesiology, eschatology and the like. It doesn't work, chances are you will read with your sinful nature and ignore the spirit (or are you a more spiritual person than all of these men?)

We need heroes of the faith to cling too, we need to study and read and do hermetical studies. God gave us a brain and the ability to learn and understand, and He expects us to put some effort into it. If you don't like the argument, at some point you will have to get over it, or begin a life of Monasticism, because the argument is all around us. We are battling for the souls of the lost, and if you don't believe me, turn on TBN for a while. Makes you wonder how many will miss Heaven because Joel told them that God just wants them to be empowered, and they believe it. McClaren told them there is no hell, and they believe it. Someone told them they don't need to do anything, God will predestine them to heaven, and they believed it. Someone told them if they make an intellectual and verbal assertion of Christ as real, they will go to Heaven, and they believed it. All of these people will taste Hell because they never submitted to the Lordship of Christ, because they just read the Bible, and they didn't get it. They didn't understand, and WE DIDN'T HELP THEM. Why? Because we didn't know. We told them some passages, led them in a spirited rendition of the "sinners prayer" and assumed it would stick. When they walked away, we questioned eternal security.

So I'm awake at 12:18 a.m. blogging. I don't know how to solve it. When I bring it up, I am shot down. Labeled because I wrestled with and found a theology that was embarrassed by strong and spiritual men, that brought the cannon together and made sense of my trials and sufferings. Somehow it became that I am a monster who doesn't care about people's souls. I have been called a trouble maker and divisive. I have been told that having a theological viewpoint will cause me to read scripture only so I have ammunition for my next onslaught. No one has really stopped to ask me why. Only once, and I was told to stop talking, my post was too long. Is this how we will treat the lost and unsaved when they come with spiritual questions? Will we tell them "just read your Bible"? Have we turned the Great Commission into "go into all the world and make them say the prayer". God save us, because we have tried so long and hard to save ourselves, and it doesn't seem to be working.