The Morality of Anger

“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.” – Aquinas

As Christians, ought we to be angry when we see injustice around us – and what does that look like?

Are we talking only talking about the large injustices of poverty, inequity, discrimination etc within our societies, or does this include injustices on a smaller scale within some churches, or when we see false doctrines that promote types of injustice? Examples might be the injustice of people facing dire financial stress being judged for not tithing, or perhaps a church stressing its right to receive time, tithes and offerings from all its members but virtually ignoring the needs of those who later need help – saying “God will supply” while doing nothing. (Think of Jesus’ expressive comment re the Pharisees ‘devouring widows’ houses’.) Or false doctrines promoting submission by the weak towards the powerful, when Jesus message was about the strong serving the weak.

Are we to never let the sun go down on our anger – including this type of anger at injustice. Should we just deal with it inwardly, and live a peaceful life regardless of injustice around us? Are we to walk in a kind of forgiveness and not let anger have a lasting foothold? Can we live a peaceful life while being angry at injustice and things that we perceive as travesties of our faith?

Can anger be an expression of love?

In some Christian contexts, anger is suspect. It can be seen as sign that the person has to deal with their inner man, rather than as a correct moral response. If the messenger is angry, criticisms of church methodologies or culture are sometimes deemed invalid without being considered at all. Is this approach immoral? Does it lead a congregation into a kind of immorality where injustices in their midst are belittled or overlooked?

I am not for a moment suggesting that all criticism from an angry person is invalid, or that every time we are angry we are right.

To me there is a tension in what Aquinas says, yet he also has a strong point. He is one of the most influential Christian thinkers ever.

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RavingPente

EndTimesProphetic Missed This! Also LakeLand Q&A Opportunity…

A recent speaker from Lakeland has been touring around Sydney. They’ve given me their contact details as they saw that I expressed concern about the Lakeland ministry. We left on good grounds where they gave me their contact details.

This person apparently did ministry with Bentley and they too have been talking about down here the angel ‘Winds of Change’.

A friend of mine has already given me a list of questions they’d like answered. So I’m opening an opportunity here for people to ask questions. Max between 5-10 questions.  I’ll want to keep these conversations private with them and those who I will pass on her replies too.

So e-mail me at specks_and_planks@hotmail.com .

In talking with this person, they also informed me that EndTimesProphetic is being sued for gossiping, slandering and attacking a member from Todd Bentley’s ministry. So keep Miriam in your prayers. It’s sad how things have gotten so ugly.

So e-mail me your questions and I’ll e-mail there reply. Hopefully this will be a fruitful time where we can understand Lakeland’s dilemma and are sensitive and wise with our questions to this person. No pointed questions that are attacking.

So what you waiting for???

A Planks&Specks Review; A Renewal with A Bit Of Positive Light?

I’m going through a bit of a conviction spill at the moment.

I was at church three times over the weekend break and felt convicted about some of the things I’ve possibly said on Signposts02 and other sites like Groupsects, EndTimesProphetic, etc that may have been seen as inappropriate.

I would just like to apologize for any form of gossip or slander that may come across from my posts. Wherever they may be. At the same time, I’m aware that these blogs do their best to run on honesty. And try to seek truth behind closed doors. Rants can be healthy and I know I have done so.

So anything that I have said from the flesh that tickled my ego that bordered on pride, slander or power motives, I am incredibly sorry about.

If anyone has found anything suspicious that I have said online, please bring it to my attention. I wish to change them if that is the case. God completely convicted me a few weeks ago that every human being is irrational and that my heart was effecting my thinking. I revealed to me that I was never in control of my head, but how my emotions affected the way I think.

So in light of this, I would like to bring any form of correction to any previous post that people may question as not being ‘honest’. I would say a bit more than  90% are based off actual experiences, accounts and good sources.

And because I feel I am operating in reversal mode, I would just like to invite you in this thread in particular to actually evaluate ministries such as Hillsong, CCC, Lakeland, MorningStarMinistries and actually post up some of the awesome things that they are actually doing.

It’s common for blogs to really have an ‘us versus them’ attitude and I know I have done that knowingly and unknowingly. So part from this being a public apology and correction time for me (if you wish to correct me on views on other threads), I’d like to encourage people to post up some positive things that these minstries have and what there ideals are.

(In doing so, only for this thread will I actually delete comments that are not online with this ‘positive light’ request.)

Just For the Beauty of It…

We’ve had the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) to remind us all that material security can be incredibly fleeting, and bring a new focus on ‘things that really matter’.  Now, we have an example about not judging by appearances – and that it doesn’t take appearances to lift the hearts of a crowd. 

Just in case anyone’s missed it, here’s the video of Susan Boyle, the ordinary, overweight, 47 year old spinster, who astonished the judges in the auditions for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, and which apparently made Demi Moore cry.

Since embedding has been disabled, you can click on the link here. It’s worth it if you haven’t seen it.

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RavingPente

Does anything need to happen for ‘church’ to be valid?

Pom raised an interesting tangent on the recent thread “Why bother going to church at all…”. I thought the topic was worth exploring, so here it is:

Just a question. If we can gather together in any format (eg a picnic) and we worship God daily (eg through our decision making at work) and we can preach the Word through conversations. Do we need any type of structure? Can we still function correctly as a body?

Also, if we already gather together in certain structures (like in a business) can Christians simply gather and minister within that business and therefore function as a church there? What would need to happen for it to be valid? – Pom

The first response is from MN – I’m reposting it in the comments below.

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RavingPente

Why bother going to church at all? What is the point?

Bull posted the above question up for discussion – I think its worthy of its own thread, so here we go…

Here’s my response, to get the ball rolling:

OK – well you all know I’m not attending a formal ‘church’ at the moment, but I am still part of the body of Christ (ie: the church), and gathering with other Christians in other ways is how I currently interact with the rest of the body. I can’t leave the church as I am part of it in Christ. So the question to me pertains to why do we bother going to an organised church.

I don’t believe we are meant to live our lives in Christ by ourselves; there is too much discussion of body life in the NT to ignore. There may sometimes be circumstances where we are isolated for a time, but I don’t believe this is God’s plan for us in the long term. We are to love one another – we can’t do this in isolation. However, I think the size and style of gathering are irrelevant as long as the expression of Christ is healthy.

There are benefits for many people in attending an organised church; the main thing is I think is to attend one that is a healthy community, teaching what Jesus believed, with a focus on Jesus and a focus on loving one another. I think its vital for church health that the focus on ‘building the church’ is about building people – encouraging us to love one another and God in a relational way, rather than an emphasis on counting salvations, participating in internal church programs, counting numbers of church plants or numbers of congregation members. If love for one another gets lost in programming or busyness, the health of the gathering will suffer.

Whatever the size or style of gathering, if it focuses on building people into maturity, so that they grow in the knowledge of Christ and increasingly live accordingly, and this is all done in love – then it will be a good place to be. Who wants to miss out on that?

I believe that we need to listen to God in our personal walk about where we would be best gathering in our current season, and certainly not to men who have their own agenda to push. If a denomination is pushing its superiority over others, putting down Christians who attend elsewhere, then we are hearing from men and their egos, not Christ. If a denomination pushes loyalty to itself and equates this with loyalty to Christ, then again we are hearing from men, not Christ, and need to seek God on our place there.

Attending church – gathering or assembling together in some form – is a good and beneficial thing according to scripture, and we ought not neglect it. I think the point is that we are part of Christ’s body, not on our own, and we are to love one another – we can’t do this in isolation.

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RavingPente

How far is too far (and what to do about it)?

Verses from 2 John 1 v 8-9 have been discussed a bit recently and they jumped out at me again today … and sharing is good for the soul

8Look to yourselves (take care) that you may not lose (throw away or destroy) all that we and you have labored for, but that you may [persevere until you] win and receive back a perfect reward [in full].

9Anyone who runs on ahead [of God] and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ [who is not content with what He taught] does not have God; but he who continues to live in the doctrine (teaching) of Christ [does have God], he has both the Father and the Son. – Amplified version

Clearly if your belief system is “ahead” you may lose “all” and someone in this situation “does not have God” (whatever “have” means in this case).

Some sets of doctrines are clearly in the “ahead” category (from where I sit anyway).  These are doctrines pushed by this or that movement by one means or another that add to, or directly contradict the scriptures, or need Jai Taurima-like leaps of logic.  Obvious ones are prosperity doctrine, coverings, miracle offerings.  Snake handling (see Wazza’s post “Well, at least these Pentes …”) is an extreme example.

But how wrong do you have to before you don’t have God anymore?

What is this verse saying about losing Father?  After all, we are all wrong.  Wrong about something.  None of us understands and does Father’s teachings fully. And then again no one is completely wrong all the time, as RavingPente pointed out recently even on Phil P’s block he does say good things mixed in with the prosperity doctrine etc.  How wrong is too wrong?

On reflection I don’t think it is so much about how far wrong you are as it is about motivation and what master you are serving. I can abide in Jesus even if I don’t clearly understand the trinity, or how many heavens there are.  But if I concoct a doctrine for my own purposes that is a different beast.

If I need to construct a doctrine it is because I am not “content”, as the Amplified puts it, with what Father has already provided.  It means there is an aspect of the world that would be better for me if this new doctrine were true. It might be that I will feel more secure with a doctrine that says by doing XYZ Father is more pleased with me.  I can then do XYZ on a regular basis and feel better.  If I choose to put my faith in this doctrine I have put my feeling of security ahead of Father.  In a way I have made an idol of my security and put it before Father.

People pushing these doctrines seem to do it for the benefit of their organisations.  For the money, or maybe the prestige or something else.  These organisations have needs and people modify the scripture or use other people’s modification to fulfill these needs.  Miracle offerings, coverings, hierarchical command and control, etc are all convenient doctrines that help an organisation’s  bottom line.  The organisations believe, I suspect, that the ministry is from God so to put it first is OK.  I don’t think this is a correct approach, the end does not justify the dodgy means.

And what do we do about it?

I spent the morning with some great friends in Jesus (an ex-CCC family and an ex-Hillsong family) and individual responses to the issue of dodgy doctrines were quite different.  One person was frustrated about the wrongness of what they had been taught and the damages such teachings cause.  Another was indicating how the different churches have different views but there is no point confronting them about it and trying to change them, all you can do is say what seems right to you and live side by side.

Both these points of view make sense to me.  And correcting my brother’s doctrine does not seem to be very high up Jesus scale of things for me to do (cf the mote in my brother’s eye).  Also, as discussed on another thread, it is the Spirit’s role to convict rather than mine.

So are we to rail at the perpetrators of these doctrinal crimes?  Well yeah, I reckon so.

Not so much to the pastors et al who come up with the weird doctrines because they won’t listen – they have, in my experience, constructed doctrines that prove (1) they are better than you (2) they are more anointed than you (3) they are righter than you (4) if you speak against them you speak from the devil (5) they must ignore all negative speech, etc.  And not so much for the people fooled by the weird doctrines because really they are into it and it is the Spirit’s job to convict of sin.  An not so much “rail” because that is kind of pointless, no one listens to frothing at the mouth.

I think we do need to speak out so that people who are already questioning can see another point of view.  The point of view that the dodgy don’t even want heard (you have probably heard that some churches are saying that such blogging is immoral – you must not speak your mind out loud).

But in the end the most important action to take is the one in verse 8 “look to yourselves”.  It is the easiest thing in the world to make an idol for one’s self and read the scriptures through it – I expect we have all done it.   I pray we can all trust Father to prise those idols from our hands and that we can rely on those constructed half-truths just a bit less doggedly tomorrow than today.

Gods  blessing,

Heretic(1)

Church Attendance – Key to a Fruitful Life

There seems to be an emphasis these days within the Christian City Church movement on the importance of being in church every week, as some kind of duty that you owe the rest of the church body, and as part of being a ‘good’ Christian.

If you don’t make it every week, you are not committed enough. You can’t access God’s Presence as fully anywhere else. Particularly if you are a leader, you should be there each week as an example to others. Now, on Phil Pringle’s blog, using Psalm 92:13, he promises that if you do this, God will cause your whole life to flourish.

Ps 92:13 KJV

13Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.
14They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;

The post is Phil Pringle’s “Easter” blog message. In it, he stresses the importance of being planted in the ‘house of God’, not just attending church, and urges people to use Easter as an opportunity to recommit to coming to church every week. Ps Pringle says that a lifelong commitment to “the priority of being in the House of God will make us fruitful all our days”. Google his blog, and read it for yourself. (Mmm… I thought this was quite an original angle on the importance of Easter.)

My local CCC discourages members from going away for the weekend together, unless they can make it back in time for church on Sunday. They don’t discourage people from taking normal family holidays, but do discourage groups from the church going on weekends away together resulting in missing church completely. Leaders in particular are discouraged from making these arrangements. (I’ve been told that applied at CCCOF too). Time away that skips a church service is seen by the local CCC leadership as ’social’, not ‘holy to God’ like time in church, even if it is a prayer retreat or fellowship for a home group, and these relationship building things are not as vital as attending church each weekend, even if its just once or twice a year that a group from church goes away.

My local church took it one step further, even preaching once that part of holiness was getting to church on time. (Not sure where that is in scripture, but anyway, there it was.) One person wanting to serve in a ministry (which ironically would prevent them from attending many services) was told to take ‘baby steps’ first – the first one being to attend on time. This was a challenge for that person, for family reasons, and had nothing to do with their ministry effectiveness.

Reading Ps Pringle’s latest blog seems to me to show that this view on weekly attendance wasn’t unique to my local church, but is taught as doctrine within the movement. (Although perhaps not the emphasis on being on time?) If you are not attending church each week, you are not thoroughly abiding in God, it seems.

Well, I’ve heard that one preached before. Obviously I don’t see church attendance as ‘abiding in God’ – I hope I abide in God every day, not just for an hour on a Sunday. What I hadn’t heard before was that attending church weekly would cause your whole life to flourish!

I don’t know if this is taught at Hillsong, but I’d be interested to know how widespread it is, or is it a CCC specialty?

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RavingPente

Can You Serve Both God and Tribalism?

Luke 16:13 KJV

13No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

The discussion that started about Rick Joyner video’s has turned to the topic of  church ‘tribalism’, which seems worthy of its own thread… here it is.  As a starter, I’m reposting Heretic’s remark on the topic, which links tribalism and mammon.

From Heretic:

RP and I were discussing mammon the other day (as you do) and she pointed out something I had not really considered before (but she did not post it I think). The literal meaning of mammon is money, but what is the “unseen” or spiritual reality that the “seen” reality of money points to?

The scripture points to mammon being another “master”, a master being someone who provides you identity, security and tenets to follow.

Money certainly does this. There are many rules and principles about getting growing and keeping money, money provides security and people definitely see themselves in terms of how much money they have and how they came by it.

So the “unseen” version is that mammon is about identity, obedience and security and how finding yourself and your security in these things means you can’t get these things from Father through Jesus. You can’t have two such relationships at the same time (we are designed to be monogamous).

There are many other things besides money that fall into the mammon category and this tribalism thing is just screaming out “mammon, mammon, mammon!”.

The tribe gives you tenets to follow and if you follow them you get your identity. You get the security of being part of something that has in some way “arrived”, “made it” and if you are associated with it you have arrived too and are safe in the knowledge that you have made it too – you are OK.

I am convinced that chasing the next big movement of Christians (emerging church maybe), or, say, hanging your hat on the third last movement (Pentecostalism maybe), is mammon. Similarly chasing the latest “outpouring” is the same.

Father may have spoken the leaders of those movements. That is great. But that is not for us to rely on. Father speaks to us too and that is sufficient. I am pretty sure the only label we should appropriate for ourselves is the one Jesus gave us, being, friends of his.

I don’t think it is wrong to go a Pentecostal or Emerging gathering and/or associate with brothers of that ilk but if you find your identity in it or become obedient to it or find your security in that movement then you may well be choosing another master for yourself and be in the thrall of unrighteous mammon even if money is no problem for you at all.

- Heretic on original thread

And just for context, Vine’s definition of mammon is:

mamonas, a common Aramaic word for “riches”, akin to a Hebrew word signifying “to be firm, steadfast” (whence “Amen”), hence, “that which is to be trusted”, Gesenius regards it as derived from a Heb. word signifying “treasure” (Gen. 43:23); it is personified in Matt. 6:24; Luck 16:9, 11, 13.

So – can we serve both God and tribalism? Where do we draw a line?

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RavingPente

The Price of Prosperity Doctrine

I’ve been reading a fascinating book about the effects of a materialistic upbringing on children, called “The Price of Privilege” (Subtitle: “How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids”), by Madeline Levine, Ph.D.  Naturally, my thoughts turned to the seemingly materialistic culture within prosperity doctrine oriented churches, making an analogy between the upbringing of children and the discipling or training of Christians.  This isn’t a big stretch of the imagination, given the parental role played by some senior pastors towards their congregations.

The book emphasises that it is not money itself that causes problems in children, but the parental attitudes they experience as they are brought up in some of these privileged households.  Problems are more likely when their upbringing is  primarily achievement and performance oriented, when they are given material goods instead of having their parents time and interest;  or sent on numerous scheduled programs with no time left to pursue and discover their own interests, they can fail to develop an inner sense of self including the internal resources to deal with lifes inevitable ups and downs.  There are much higher statistics for suicide, drug use and other dysfunctions in the children of privileged, driven families, which apparently are as bad or greater than those for children from poor backgrounds.

Could churches that focus primarily on measurable things such as achievement, material success and attendance at a plethora of meetings and programs have a similar detrimental effect in the lives of some of their congregation members?  Perhaps there might be increased depression rates over time, or repeated disillusionment over time, or a lack of maturity and ability to stand on their own feet in matters of faith, independently of their church support.

Maybe the reason some church goers fear that those who stop attending will ‘backslide’ is because they think that they themselves would, without the external support of the group.  Then they apply this to others, without believing that our inner motivation is what ultimately keeps us in our faith, not external ones such as a church environment.  If our faith resides only because of our church environment, it will eventually feel pretty false.

The church (parental) focus on achievement and material success could be at two levels.  There are measurable achievements by the church body, such as increased member numbers, a large, attractive, well equipped building, increased salvations or big, successful event presentations, and measurable achievements at the individual level by members – numbers of people brought to church; amounts given; and personal business or achievement success .  Congregation members would receive recognition and even status for these things; the church likewise in the eyes of those who share its culture.  Where a church has elders (less common these days), will these be chosen from successful business owners for example, or from those whose character tells the strength of their faith?

Members who don’t achieve in these measurable ways may not be valued much by the group, despite their growth in areas that the Bible tells us are fruit of the Spirit, such as love for others, kindness and self-control.  Over time, the group could then lose these people despite their good scriptural example – weakening any discipling process.

Perhaps those who do achieve measurable things will become addicted to that type of recognition, rather than knowing that they are OK without it.  If pastors become addicted to that kind of thing, it can’t be easy to lead well by example – what values will they then be reinforcing?

Will congregation members experience depression as a result of the outworking of these things, yet blame themselves for not thinking positively enough?  Will congregation members grow towards maturity in that kind of environment?  Some no doubt will, regardless.

It might not be easy to tell from the outside if a church is like this.  A prosperous church with a balanced approach and good values may be healthy; a poor church with materialistic values may not.

In any case, this is me theorising.  I could just be meandering up the garden path.  But I can’t help wondering if there might be some similarites between parenting styles and their effects on children, and church leadership cultures on their congregations.

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RavingPente