“SOLA SCRIPTURA” IS AN UNBEARABLE THOUGHT TO MOST AND MANY. I must not be so gullible as to raise a banner and think the church of my peers or those left standing in nearly any other generation will file in line. To the aging Baby-Boomer Copernican, the Doctrine of Flat Earth is as intolerable a truth as any, and to what generations remain of our church, the Doctrine of Inerrancy or a belief in “the literal intent” of the Holy Ghost has little to no bearing on the Christian. Scripture has lost its Divine authority.
Here in the west we are surrounded on all sides by the Emergent Church, and in the ranks of almost all remaining congregations we find members of its society, even if they themselves do not understand their citizenship, or where they derive their thinking. The fellow who prefers “warm and fuzzy” rather than cold hard facts, experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, images over words, feelings over truth, spirituality over religion, tolerance over exclusivity, or the one who prefers not to be held in a box, he is perhaps such a card holder. Might I be so bold as to state they are attempting to expand God’s kingdom, at least outwardly, but not on the authority of the Prophets and the Apostles or Yeshua Hamashiach, all of whom employed cold hard facts over the warm and fuzzy, objectivity over subjectivity, and everything else that counters this sudden fleshing-out of the church’s post-modernist nightmare.
My wife and I attended an Emergent Church for three months too many. Tattoos replaced statements of faith, alcoholic beverage supplanted communion with the saints, technique-driven meditation and mystical practices such as yoga replaced personal prayer, pagan beliefs were openly exchanged, how a Bible passage “made them feel” was upheld and discussed rather than the intended meaning of the Spirit, disposing the weight of our spiritual forefathers was trivial, and methodology, like the commissioning of Elders, was altogether disregarded. The church, by the way, was exploding, as if its contributing worshipers were discovering something entirely different.
It’s what the kids these days are referring to as the new spirituality.
Dozens of converts were pouring through the doors each week in order to work themselves into fervor of feeling, likely confusing their outward expression for the presence of God. Excuse my forthrightness, but their often regurgitated motto was, and I quote, “If God is present then the doctrine must be sound!” This is assuming that God was present at all, rather than the great reformers and revivalists before us, who would rightly proclaim in the face of apostasy, “If the doctrine is sound, then God will meet us there.”
When it was announced by the Senior Pastor how, and I quote, “spiritual depth in the Word” would not be pursued in his congregation, but rather “shallow rooting,” his exact phrasing from the pulpit, so that we might all share in our common experiences, this New World Order doctrine, straight from the mouth of our beloved Jesuit Priest, Pope Francis, had reached its fullest apostasy. My wife and I gave him more courtesy than he deserved, perhaps because newfound friends were present, sat through what remained of this Sunday morning funeral, and then promptly left, having never once entered our minds to return.
It is my hope in these writings that I can simply save a soul by keeping it simple and pointing that person back to the reformers call of old, Sola Scripture, or Scripture alone. Perhaps I am not an epic dreamer, just a little one at best, and seek the salvation of one soul over a coliseum of many—but that’s the way it likely goes in the reality of the arena anyways, despite appearances.
We must employ the Holy Bible as a mirror, matching its face with our own reflection firmly pronounced upon it. This is the reformers call to “Sola Scriptura!” Where there is error, we must adjust our lives to fit within its pages, being not too proud for repentant confession as to dare ask the Word to conform to us or our faulty wisdom and human tradition, lest we also become delusional in our thinking. And then there shall be no end to it, the continual heaping of apostasy.
Should God allow for such a policy regarding, say, personal exemptions of His Holiness—all so that He might pat our narcissism on the head—we are left with far more terrible a thought, that God might always extend the measure of consequence for the disobedient child, and to no end. Or perhaps we are forced to contend with the greatest nightmare of all, that He might altogether overlook any such consequence for the self-declared loving soul, who needn’t repent of anything if it should prove too bothersome, and to such degree that the atoning sacrifice of our Lord on the cross is finally regarded as a pointless burp in history.
Maranatha from Prince Edward Island!
Noel
