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Message |
Heretic
Registered user
Username: Heretic
Post Number: 255
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 03, 2006 - 8:41 pm: |     |
Greg,
I don't know that you could ever possibly know how many eyes your "Open Letter" opened (at least this side of heaven) but thank you so much for doing what you did and putting everything on the line for Christ. It was one of the first things I read as I began to question the teachings of my church and was the beginning of the end for me, really. A few weeks later I got up the nerve to suggest to my denominationally employed wife that we prayerfully go through it with our Bibles. Hesitantly she did at first, but as we continued studying the scales began to fall from her eyes. The short version is that here we are about a year later, my wife is no longer working for the SDA church, we are now attending a Bible-believing church where scripture is taught expositorily each and every week from the pulpit and in classes, and we're experiencing joy in Christ really for the first time. Thanks.
Heretic |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 2431
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 05, 2006 - 8:54 pm: | |
Tonight was the end of the 40 days of purpose for which we used the Rick Warren book written of by Chris in the first post on this thread. When I went to the Wednesday evening meeting, as the pastor asked that all small groups come to the church and meet as a large group, I was thinking that if he mentioned the sabbath and tithing I was going to schedule a meeting with him and tell him my thoughts on these two things. He already knows my thoughts on tithing, as I told him them, from the Bible, when I gave him books written by former SDAs last September. Well, thank You God, Jud did not mention the sabbath or tithing, from that last chapter. All he talked about was how we are to help each other, encourage each other and pray for each other.
So, I thought I would let all of you know how it turned out for me.
God is always awesome.
Diana |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 3689
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 05, 2006 - 9:58 pm: | |
I'm glad he's not promoting Sabbath and tithing, Diana.
God is awesome!
Colleen |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1490
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 12:17 am: | |
Diana,
Thanks for sharing.
What was your overall impression now that the 40 days of purpose are over? Do you feel like you know God's purpose for your life better now, than before the 40 days?
Stan |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1491
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 12:36 am: | |
On a related topic, Chuck Colson has just caused a whole lot of controversy by an editorial he wrote in the April issue of "Christianity Today".
In this article he writes about how contemporary christianity is soothing itself to death. What are your thoughts on this most controversial article?
www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/004/15.116.html
I am somewhat surprised by this article, as Colson has been very friendly toward the seeker movement in the recent past. Well, just maybe he is having second thoughts.
Stan |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1492
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 12:44 am: | |
Diana,
I was catching up on this thread more closely as I have been very busy lately. I just saw your post from Mar. 31 post number 2423. I was interested in what you said about your impressions of Purpose Driven, and that you saw "proof texts", and the comparison to your 12 step program is very interesting.
Stan |
Raven
Registered user
Username: Raven
Post Number: 412
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 5:07 am: | |
Stan, I can see how the article in Christianity Today will certainly be controversial! The way I see it, there should be balance. It seems the author is going the other extreme to counter what he thinks is a negative extreme in contemporary Christianity.
His opening paragraph bothered me. I've heard people before say contemporary Christian music is just "emotionalism" and devoid of any theological content. I'm not sure which song he was referring with a "meaningless ditty called "Draw Me Close to You," But if it's anything like the song "The Power of Your Love" where it has a line "draw me to Your side" -- that song had a profound positive effect on me back in the SDA church (during a church function, certainly not the church service!); that's when I strongly recall feeling the pull to grace and it started opening my eyes to the strong disconnect between SDAism and Biblical reality. A lot of these "emotionalism" songs are ones that speak to our spirit. Christianity is a relationship, not just theology.
At our church, the contemporary service is not in the same vein the author described, "with their guitars and bongo drumsóoften perform at ear-splitting levels". I know what he's talking about, and I don't personally like that. However, they're not all like that. Even with guitars and drums at our church, it is not ear-splitting and is done in a very worshipful manner.
The balance does need to be there, however, with plenty of solid Biblical teaching as well. I agree that is lacking in today's Christian world. But contemporary "emotionalism" music is not necessarily to blame, IMO.
(Message edited by Raven on April 06, 2006) |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 1342
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 9:28 am: | |
There is a song called "Draw me close", below are the words. It's more a song about restoration. And yes, I suspect one could think you're singing to a human. Or you could sing it as a prayer to God. You can say the same thing with several songs, I think. But we sing them to God and move on. One of the guys from Selah has a song that was made popular by secular artist Josh Groben before he recorded it himself. I'm sure Josh doesn't view it as a song about God, but the guy from Selah absolutely did. How far do you take that argument?
Draw me Close:
Draw me close to you, never let me go. I lay it all down again. To hear you say you are my friend. You are my desire. No one else will do. Cause no one else can take your place. To feel the warmth of your embrace. Help me find the way, bring me back to you. You're all I want. You're all I ever needed. You're all I want, Help me know you are near.
----
I agree, Raven with your comments about music and emotions. We are emotional beings. To try to say we shouldn't worship with our emotions seems to insist we be robots. God made us with emotions, and while they are not a good gage of what is reality, they are nonetheless a real component of our makeup. Working to sort through emotions is a real process, just ask any child of divorce as an example. The statistics from long term studies about such kids are staggering, and incredibly accurate from my experience. Those are emotional assaults on children that they don't have the mental tools to negotiate alone. And those very real emotions affect those kids lives until they find a way to resolve them. Many don't and just spiral into further destruction their whole lives. So, though emotions are not an accurate reflection of the world, they sure have a real and profound affect on people who are emotionally damaged and would naturally affect ones perspective of God. To say we should not have emotions or express emotions to God, or experience emotions in worship just seems to deny a major part of our personhood. IMO.
To Chuck's article....many "traditional" hymns had awful theology in them. I remember singing some songs thinking "where is that in the Bible?" (of course, no names jump out at me at the moment). I for one, do not agree with FOTF focus on the 10 commandment issue, and don't find it a "moral" issue that I can support. So, I've stopped making the program a priority for my day. But CC is good friends and agrees with Dobson, but what do you do when you don't? Are you somehow less Christian because you don't support their cause? Sure, they have some good stuff too, but does that mean we follow their lead all the time? Same thing could be said with other teaching radio programs. There are some that are just awful theologically, but because the radio doesn't discriminate, the bad is mixed in with the good. Sometimes, you just want to listen to music.
I did chuckle at his characterization of singing songs over and over. Sometimes, it's over done, but I know there are times that the Lord is speaking to me, and I'm not ready to "move on". But there are others in our church that do not like the contemporary and are quite frustrated by all sorts of silly things...like the music leader repeating the first line of the song. It's not possible to make everyone happy. We can have people gripe it's too loud, and that they can't hear; it's too hot, it's too cold; sermon was too long, sermon was too short, etc. all from the same service. And remember, those "traditional" hymns were not that well received in their day either. In a couple of hundred years, the cream of the crop will be the classic "traditional" songs and the controversy at their introduction will also fade into some historical volume somewhere that few people know about.
Sometimes you just wanna say "gimme a break" 
(Message edited by melissa on April 06, 2006) |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 1344
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 9:53 am: | |
BTW, did you notice the poll on that same CT page about whether evangelicals should take a position on the global warming issue? 34% said yes because it is God creation. Most other categories were in the 10-15% range with a couple at 7%. |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1493
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 12:10 pm: | |
Raven and Melissa,
I agree with your views on this. It looks like Colson was in an extreme setting, where it is true that the repetition does get excessive. I have nothing against CCM, as long as you can hear the words and they are Biblical.
I do agree with him though about the state of Christian radio. With few exceptions, it has become crass commercialism. There is an "SDA" radio station in Loma Linda, who has dropped all of its teaching programs like Swindoll, Bill Pierce, and others, to play nothing but Christian rock. I try to listen for about 30-60 minutes at a time, but it is programmed just like any other top 40 rock station with even the jingoisms "KSGN!!--Riverside. They used to have Chuck Swindoll in the AM which was great, but now they have a morning show, with a lot of empty talk, interspersed with traffic and weather, and the same old top 30 or 40 songs that do have little theological content, and even lacks good musical value. They don't play the great contemporary hymns like we are blessed with today, either. But it looks like Christian radio is serving up junk food for the most part.
On weekends, one of the only good stations in our area, revert to infomercials advertising every health gurus products imaginable. A lot of these health products have no proof that they work. It sounds so much like hucksterism. But this must be the financial realities of running a Christian radio station today.
Here is where the controversy about Colson's article hit the blogosphere. www.theologica.blogspot.com/2006/04/mr-colson-i-respectfully-disagree.html
Sam Storms, associate pastor for John Piper takes Colson to task for criticizing the song that Melissa printed the words to above. So Colson even irritated those who would otherwise agree with him about the state of Christian radio.
Stan
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Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 1345
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 1:55 pm: | |
Thanks for that post of lyrics, Stan. I think I left out a line in mine.
I heard someone one time complain because of the song "letters from war", which spoke of a mother sendng letters to her son in war, and praying for him. This person thought the song inappropriate on the Christian radio station because it was not "about" God, but I guess I'm not so narrow that I think Christian radio should ONLY be worship songs. Steven Curtis Chapman has a beautiful song about his wife and his love for her, in a Christian context. Michael W. Smith does some great songs about his daughters on his albums, though I don't think they get much air time. There are wonderful things in the Christian life and it doesn't seem somehow unspiritual to appreciate those things. Read Song of Solomon....can you imagine if someone wrote a song from a passage there? LOL.
Some people just seem to want to criticize everything. The comments in the blog were an interesting example of that. I found the most interesting one to be whether Martin Luther would have sang a song that said "Jesus, I love you" (or some such similar words) insinuating all songs are "feminized", whatever that means.
Can't we just get along????? Live peacably among each other? What ever happened to the Christian unity?? I guess people will forever divide over music..... |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1495
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 2:58 pm: | |
Melissa,
I don't think the point of Colson's article or my comments above would be talking about your song examples. Colson was talking about how CCM is crowding out much other good teaching. Colson says it is a lot more soothing to listen to music, than it is to hear about obeying God and seriously living the Christian life.
I went to the blog comments and actually it was a lady who made those comments about Luther not being comfortable singing a love song to Jesus. There is a point to this. This is where the feminization of Christianity has probably affected men, who are uncomfortable singing love songs to Jesus. Michael Horton, whose article was linked on one of the blog comments talks about this phenomena, and why men are negatively affected by some songs that seem very sentimental. Men are comfortable in expressing their filial love for Christ, as Redeemer and Savior. This article is actually very good. And Michael Horton is no legalist, and he likes good rock music. But the hymnody at various times has been quite quetionable, as well as very good. This article should also generate controversy.
www.modernreformation.org/mh96hymnstoo.htm
Stan |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 1346
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 3:07 pm: | |
I wasn't necessarily saying they were (related to you or Colson's point), just pointing to another extreme that some take.
I knew the person was a woman who made the remark I paraphrased. I just don't understand how it's a feminization to not be comfortable saying "I love you". I personally have never heard such words from either of my parents in my rememberable memory. So, comfort with expressing love doesn't really seem gender specific to me. But that's just experencial observation, and not on topic, really. |
Riverfonz
Registered user
Username: Riverfonz
Post Number: 1496
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 3:25 pm: | |
And here is Tim Challies on his blog strongly disagreeing with his friends Taylor and Storms.
www.challies.com/archives/001772.php
So Challies agrees with Colson. This is the blog that we had the Sabbath discussion on.
Stan |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 2432
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 5:59 pm: | |
Stan asked the following: "What was your overall impression now that the 40 days of purpose are over? Do you feel like you know God's purpose for your life better now, than before the 40 days?"
What I learned was a review of things I already knew. Like I said in one post, I learned things in my 12 step program, like needing other people in my life to help me and me to help them and for us to encourage each other. What I would rather have done is go to an inductive Bible study. So, the answer to that question is "No, I did not learn anything different". I did not participate in the 40 days last year, so I thought I would see what it was like this year.
It appears to me that the 40 days will benefit new Christ followers and encourage them to meet others in the church. That is what happened in the group I attended. We are going to continue as a group. We were asked if we wanted to learn how to study the Bible or study the book of Phillipians. I was the only one that said Phillipians. I can always learn more about how to study the Bible.
I am always awed by God when I see how He works in the lives of those around me and with me.
Diana
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