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Drippings from the Honeycomb

 More to be desired are [the rules of the Lord] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:10)

Slack

8/23/2023

 
On a recent visit of our area nursing home a thoughtful resident said to me after the chapel service, “I can tell that your church isn’t a slack church. There are too many slack churches these days!” I perceived this lady had attended a mainline church in her day and witnessed it, and others like it, steadily decline due to slackness. (The tragedy is they had not always been slack). By slackness she meant faithful, true, devoted, committed to the Faith.
​
Many dying (and dead) churches are:
  • Slack in the articulation and presentation of the Gospel
  • Slack in their adherence to historic Christianity
  • Slack in regenerate Church membership
  • Slack in regular worship
  • Slack in the administration of the ordinances
  • Slack in the preaching of God’s Word
  • Slack in corporate and personal prayer
  • Slack in discipleship
  • Slack in family worship
  • Slack in evangelism
  • Slack in their moral standards
  • Slack in their accountability
  • Slack in their fellowshipping with “one another”
Rather than being slack the Lord desires us to be strict, not cruel as in the negative sense of the word but diligent in the positive sense. (We show ourselves diligent when we love and believe in and know what God has called us to as the Church).
Healthy churches are:
  • Strict in the articulation and presentation of the Gospel
  • Strict in their adherence to historic Christianity
  • Strict in regenerate Church membership
  • Strict in regular worship
  • Strict in the administration of the ordinances
  • Strict in the preaching of God’s Word
  • Strict in corporate and personal prayer
  • Strict in discipleship
  • Strict in family worship
  • Strict in evangelism
  • Strict in their moral standards
  • Strict in their accountability
  • Strict in their fellowshipping with “one another”
In a word, healthy churches seek to be faithful to the Biblical design for the Church.

What Happened to Christian Canada?

1/12/2023

 
In a recent blog I noted statistics regarding the visible decline of Christianity in Canada. This raises the question, ‘What Happened to Christian Canada?’
​
In a book by this title historian Mark Noll reached the conclusion that we exchanged a Christian vision of Canada for a multi-cultural one. This is true. Canada was a bi-lingual, Anglo-European, Protestant-Catholic nation. Our identity, while different (and sometimes divided), was also one in heritage. While multi-culturalism (language, ethnicity, religion, etc) is not all of itself wrong, this new vision for Canada was an intentional subversion of the existing Christian vision by cultural Marxism (e.g. the thoughts of Antonio Gramsci [1891–1937]). Christian values were assaulted and a Christian vision was replaced by a vision that divided, and accelerated by individualism, made Canada far easier to control to ideological ends.  
 
While Noll is correct, his social theory is not the whole story as he alludes in his conclusion.

One must recognize that even at its height all of Canada was never truly Christian, there was much nominalism, of people buying into the Christian vision or attending church culturally but not truly and spiritually. One must believe the Gospel to be a Christian.

Still, many denominations faithfully preached the Gospel and so it could be assumed that many Canadians truly were Christian. However, with the arrival of theological liberalism in Canada (which accelerated in the 1920s), countless Canadian denominations, pulpits and churches became arid wastelands that gave the appearance of Christianity yet without Christ. Long before an assault from without can an attack from within. William Booth of the Salvation Army foresaw this shift in the 1800s when he said of the 20th Century:

“The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.”[1]

If truth is not presented it cannot be trusted and it therefore does not transform.

There is nothing less attractive than nominal Christianity, no meaning, no joy, no fruit of faith, no substance. As more and more Canadians became nominal Christians is it any wonder ‘Christianity’ was spit out? Like the story of the Return of the Unclean Spirit in Mt 12:43–45 Canadians spit out nominal Christianity only to embrace other isms far worse than the first.

People began to look to the old worldly isms of materialism, commercialism and individualism in increasing degrees. (A corporatism in Christian Canada gave way to the extreme individualism of today).

Christianity was also beset by other isms such as Darwinism, Communism, atheism, the Sexual Revolution and post-Modernism. (It is interesting to note how a decline in the number of children necessitated an immigration policy that supported multi-culturalism).

While the full answer is even more complex than this some major contributors to the decline of Christian Canada were recasting our identity (cultural-Marxism), liberalism, nominalism along with various other isms.

No doubt some genuine Christians of the past bear spiritual and social responsibility for allowing us to drift away from orthodoxy and slip into nominalism as a nation, thus allowing this shift to take place (a giant can only be toppled if it blindly believes itself unstoppable).

 The faithful remnant in Canada (e.g. the Church), now often bolstered by new Canadians who are already Christian, must rise to be the vanguard of society’s wellbeing (salt and light, Mt 5), do honour to our Christian heritage and offer a bright hope and alternative vision for the future. However, this will not be done through worldly means (2 Cor 10:4) but by the faithful preaching of the Gospel and lives lived to the glory of Christ. This is how the early Church began and transformed the Roman and European landscape. This is how we must win Canada today; one soul at a time.


[1] https://caringmagazine.org/the-best-18-quotes-from-william-booth/

A Strange Religion

12/10/2020

 
There are many things I, as a pastor, would rather write about, but it often behoves me, for the sake of my sheep and those who would be gathered in, to defend the faith, to protect and guard from error, so that the saints may be edified and sinners saved. This is where Jude found himself:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3)

Liberalism (and I daren’t even give it the satisfaction of enjoining it to that blessed title, Christianity), is a new religion that was birthed in the nineteenth century (1800s). Like Satan posing as an angel of light or a wolf dressing in sheep’s clothing, Liberalism (lateral deists as a friend of mine calls them), guises itself as Christian, though in peering into the [initially] subtle differences, one finds an entirely different religion. We’d do well to know what Liberalism is, so in spotting it, we might turn from error fix our eyes upon the truth of Jesus.
​
A newspaper from the 1920s, an era where Liberalism and orthodox Christianity were in conflict, contrasted the chasm like differences between the two.
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One author who wrote on the subject was J.G. Machen in Liberalism and Christianity (1923). In his classic work he argued that Liberalism was indeed a new religion. ​
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​To further illustrate the differences, consider the Fellowship’s Statement of Faith (1953) (and still today) contrasted with the much more orthodox United Church Statement of Faith (1925) and their most recent statement, Songs of Faith (2006), on the subjects of the Bible, Jesus and Mankind (these three are chosen because of their centrality in the faith):
*
United Church (1925)
FEB (1953-Present)
Song of Faith (2006)
Bible
​We believe that God has revealed Himself in nature, in history, and in the heart of man; that He has been graciously pleased to make clearer revelation of Himself to men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; and that in the fullness of time He has perfectly revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person We receive the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, given by inspiration of God, as containing the only infallible rule of faith and life, a faithful record of God’s gracious revelations, and as the sure witness of Christ
We believe that the Bible is the complete Word of God; that the sixty six books as originally written, comprising the Old and New Testaments, were fully inspired by the Spirit of God, and that they are, therefore, entirely free from error; that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice and the true basis of Christian union.
​… God is Holy Mystery,
beyond complete knowledge,
above perfect description…
 
…Scripture is our song for the journey, the living word
   passed on from generation to generation
   to guide and inspire,
   that we might wrestle a holy revelation for our time and place
   from the human experiences
      and cultural assumptions of another era.
God calls us to be doers of the word and not hearers only…
 
Mankind
 We believe that our first parents, being tempted, chose evil, and so fell away from God and came under the power of sin, the penalty of which is eternal death; and that, by reason of this disobedience, all men are born with a sinful nature, that we have broken God’s law, and that no man can be saved but by His grace.
We believe that the human race was created by God in His image and was originally perfect, but the first man, Adam, sinned against his Creator in an act of rebellion and disobedience. As a result of Adam's sin, the entire human race, excluding Christ, is alienated from God, condemned to spiritual and physical death, and utterly helpless to establish reconciliation with God.
​Made in the image of God,
we yearn for the fulfilment that is life in God.
Yet we choose to turn away from God.
We surrender ourselves to sin,
   a disposition revealed in selfishness, cowardice, or apathy.
Becoming bound and complacent
   in a web of false desires and wrong choices,
   we bring harm to ourselves and others.
This brokenness in human life and community
   is an outcome of sin.
Sin is not only personal
   but accumulates
   to become habitual and systemic forms
            of injustice, violence, and hatred.
Jesus
​We believe in and confess the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, who, being the Eternal Son of God, for us men and for our salvation became truly man, being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, yet without sin. Unto us He has revealed the Father, by His word and Spirit, making known the perfect will of God. For our redemption, He fulfilled all righteousness, offered Himself a perfect sacrifice on the Cross, satisfied Divine justice, and made propitiation for the sins of the whole world. He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, where He ever intercedes for us. In the hearts of believers He abides forever as the indwelling Christ; above us and over us all He rules; wherefore, unto Him we render love, obedience, and adoration as our Prophet, Priest, and King.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth. We believe in the essential deity and eternal existence of the Lord Jesus Christ with the father in preincarnate glory, in His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles and teachings, His substitutionary atoning death for the sins of all people, His bodily resurrection, triumphant ascension, mediatorial ministry and His personal, visible return.
We sing of Jesus,
   a Jew,
   born to a woman in poverty
   in a time of social upheaval
   and political oppression.
He knew human joy and sorrow.
So filled with the Holy Spirit was he
that in him people experienced the presence of God among them.
We sing praise to God incarnate.
Doctrinal error and moral misguidedness—accommodating to the world, syncretism—has meant that the once largest Canadian Christian denomination is now one of the fastest dying religions in Canada (the old statistic was that one church building closed each week; now the figure is that, with the Anglican Church and some others, 10,000 buildings will close in 2020 alone). While a dead orthodoxy can certainly lead to closed churches, a vibrant orthodoxy normally to lead to spiritual flourishing and healthy churches (as seen in the independent and non-religious study from Ontario in 2015).
​
Like Jude, may we cling to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints,” which along is true, which alone can save; and having come near the end of our Old Testament journey in Cover to Cover, may we take heed of the danger that will come to God’s people when we compromise with the world in belief and practice (i.e. Judges).

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    Author:
    Chris Crocker

    Aside from quality family life, ministry, and Christian academia, I delight in many common gifts the Lord has blessed us with. I am a fourth generation beekeeper, an avid outdoorsman, and a lover of adventure. I enjoying running and jogging. I also enjoy travel, carpentry, gardening, music, strategy games, history, geography, and good conversation.

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PO Box 73,
144 Lorne Street,
​Markdale N0C 1H0

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“It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night.”
​(Ps 92:1–2, A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath)

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