This piece over at Christian hate site CRN.(Mis)Info? attacking both of my websites Apprising Ministries and Christian Research Net also quotes a fellow despiser of the Biblical doctrines of grace Steven Furtick (see below). It’s illustrative of the utter cluelessness of compromised new evangelicalism and it’s centered on their fellow man’s values. What happens is a fulfillment of 2 Timothy 3:7 – always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Oddly enough, in a rather rapacious rant about how we are not at war in the Church, the author says in arrogant confrontational condescension:

ODM websites, in particular, spit out terms like “man-lovers” or “man-pleasers” in response to kingdom calls for compassion or in response to Christians who believe that God created a world that sits somewhere between free will and predestination. They instantly elevate any theological disagreement as if it were the preaching of another gospel rather than simply disagreeing with the systematic (man-made) theology of the ODM, and blast away accordingly,…

O please. Look, 1) the “theological discussion” is not about theology proper but rather about the Gospel itself. And 2) you need to understand that the new evangelicalism and its ugly stepsister the emerging church have their own “systematic (man-made) theology”. And watch out for this straw man: “disagreeing with a tenent [sic] of a particular systematic theology does not automatically equate to sin or false teaching.” Whoever said it does? The issue is not about “systematic theology”; as always the issue remains what does the text of the Bible itself say.

And finally the author says:

We are not at war within the church, and while there is a need for discernment, an amount of charity among brothers is required, without nasty attempts to first prove that the target of our criticism is not our brother, so that we can fire away without impacting our conscience.

But hear me and hear me well; first of all, the Church has always been attacked from within. Has our author never read – “and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). And secondly, in this generation we must now come to realize that we are in a spiritual civil war over the Gospel itself.

For example, whether a Dan Kimball is my brother or not, I don’t know. What I do know is this; he preaches a man-centered gospel: synergism–man is involved in his own salvation at whatever level. And I unabashedly preach a God-centered Gospel: monergism–God alone is involved in salvation. This is what the Reformers referred to with the five solas. For more I refer you to Recovering Reformation Theology: Rejecting Synergism and Returning to Monergism by my friend and fellow pastor Bob DeWaay.

However, because Kimball denies that God alone elects, draws to Himself whomsoever He wills, and then regenerates them apart from anything they do, at best he is my estranged brother fighting for the wrong side. You see, teaching otherwise robs Christ Jesus–the LORD God Almighty Himself in human flesh–of the glory that is due to Him alone. As long as He chooses to sustain me, even as an unworthy bond-slave who deserves nothing, this is what I will gladly labor for.

If I am to err, then it will have to be from trying to give God too much glory. And what is more, being among the relatively few fighting to give all glory to God and His Christ alone we are only following in the footsteps of the great Apostle Paul:

Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. (Acts 15:1-2)

Deeds Not Creeds: Forget Doctrine And Just Get Busy For [A] Jesus