Inaugural Worship Service

Well this morning, I came across the Inaugural worship service that was held in the Washington Cathedral on 21 January 2009.

A few observations,

1.) It was an 86 minute service. Inclusive of all the songs and liturgy the name of Jesus Christ was mentioned one time by Rev. Andy Stanley. I’d like to give Andy points but to be honest you don’t get any points for being part of a ecumenical service where the gods are implicitly being given equal time and equal credence.

2.)Historic Christian songs were used but none of those songs referred to Christ. In this multi-cultural age we are going to have to think long and hard about grand historic hymns that made fine singing in the context of Christendom but can be easily co-opted into being paeans of praise to a generic civil religion god and gods.

3.)The worship was led by Christian ministers, Christian Priests, Hindu leaders, Rabbis, and Muslim leaders. This was not a Christian service but a polytheistic service. All the gods are welcome as long as all the gods know their place. This underscores my constant contention that the God in our system is the State who serves as the God of the gods.

4.) The civil religion aspect of it was highlighted by patriotic songs and the constant invoking for the good of the State and its leaders. A Christian service by contrast would ask for the good of God and that the leaders might be blessed as they are faithful to God’s revealed Word.

5.) The hypocrisy was pretty thick at two points. First, when they read the Isaiah 58:6-12 passage which was used for the theme. Second, when they sang “He’s got the little bitty babies in His hands.” When you read that passage, and then combine it with the song and then when you think of the barbarity of abortion you wonder how anybody could keep a straight face.

6.) The female preacher managed to use the anti-Christ dating system of “BCE” in order to date the book of Isaiah. This is a significant attack against Christianity.

7.) The sermon done by the “lady” preacher was entirely horizontal, speaking solely about man’s duty to man. It also was laden with socialistic type themes. A great deal of blather about social justice and the brotherhood of all mankind. It was a least common denominator sermon done for a least common denominator god. It fit wonderfully into an age that is trying to build a New World Order.

Conclusions,

1.) Our official State religion is the same as Rome’s in the 1st century. We are held together by Caesar worship. We are polytheistic in the sense that the citizenry is allowed to serve any god it wants as long as its god doesn’t defy Caesar.

2.) There is little strength in the mega Churches. Rick Warren and Andy Stanley are classic examples. If they are willing to be representatives who add Jesus to the pantheon of the State gods then it is questionable where their real allegiance lie.

3.) As Christians and in Churches we need to keep praying for civil magistrates but the requests should take on a predominant theme of repentance for our “leaders.”

4.) We should understand that our leadership is God’s judgment against our sin against Him. The Church has played the harlot and so we have been given wicked men to rule over us both in our Churches and in those who fill the role of civil magistrates.

You know you might be Republican …

if where a spine is supposed to be there is linguine instead.

if you’re more afraid of the news media then you are the voters.

if you think big government is bad unless your party is in charge.

if your goal is to simply “moderate” Democratic ideas and policy.

if you think it “crafty” of you when you make sure the Democrats get only 95% of what they want.

if you think Ron Paul is an extremist.

if you’ve never read a book.

if you can’t decide who is better looking … Nancy Pelosi or the Congressional pageboys.

if you took John McCain seriously.

if you can’t make the connection between the Warfare State and the Nanny State.

if you could proudly say without cracking up …. “George W. Bush is my President.”

if you never doubted “weapons of mass destruction.”

if you thought the worst thing that Clinton did in the White House was to get serviced by an intern.

if the phrases “monetary policy,” “fiat money,” “fractional reserve banking” and “inflationary cycle,” find you scrambling for a dictionary.

if you’re genetically incapable of realizing that the lesser of two evils remains evil.

A Discussion Concerning Warren’s Prayer

Eva Marie Cropsey — Daughter of a Michigan State Senator

“Isa” is the name for Jesus in Arabic. Yeah, it’s the name used in the Qu’ran, because the Qu’ran was written in Arabic. You can’t look at this and say it’s “totally disgusting, since all those mentioned are not the same God at all,” because they are all actually referring to the same person. Yeah, Islam goes wrong in what they believe about Jesus’ resurrection and in believing that Muhammad was greater than He was, but they do honor and revere Him.

Unless you actually talk to Rick Warren, you can’t give his motivation for praying the way he did. However, a possible alternative to the idea that he’s just trying to make everybody happy is that he’s trying to build on the common roots of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. If you know anything about the history of these religions, you should know that Christianity’s basis is in Judaism (Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures), and Muhammad was greatly influenced by both Judaism and Christianity. If you want to reach people for Christ, you need to build on common ground, rather than trying to eliminate the commonalities you do share. Jesus called us to be peacemakers (Matthew 5), and Paul sets a precedent for this in his sermon to the Areopagus (Acts 15) where he quotes the an Athenian poet and references an Athenian religious tradition of worshiping an unknown God (for more on this, you should read Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson). The Shema is from the Hebrew Scriptures, yes, but aren’t the Hebrew Scriptures also your Old Testament? God hasn’t changed since then. Islam teaches that God is compassionate and merciful, but doesn’t Christianity teach the same? And in case you’re wondering, “Allah” is simply a generic word that means “God.” There are thousands of Christians in the Middle East that use this word to refer to the same God that you and I worship.

I’m sorry. It looks like neither one of us is going to change our positions, so there isn’t any reason to discuss it further. I would suggest that you research the historical roots of both Islam and Christianity for yourself–outside of what you have been taught by a pastor or Christian educator–and also that you read the book A Deadly Misunderstanding by Mark Siljander.

Bret responds,

No, you are wrong. If Jews and Muslims do not believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for the sins of the world they do not revere him and they do not honor him. In point of fact they dishonor him, disrespect him and call God a liar. That is not revering! In point of fact that is blasphemy.

This can be seen by your notion that Islam, Christianity and Judaism has common roots. What Islam and Judaism teach is diametrically opposed to Christianity. Judaism and Islam are bastard religions that deny the essence of Christianity. The Triune God that Christians serve has absolutely nothing in common with the Unitarian blasphemy of Islam and Judaism. Muslims and Jews deny the virgin birth. Muslims and Jews deny that there is salvation in no other name except for Jesus. Muslim and Jews deny that Jesus is God. Muslim and Jews deny that Jesus will return again to judge the quick and the dead. Saying that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have common roots is like saying that a Porn Flick, a Snuff Movie and “Old Yeller” have common roots all because they are all cinema.

When a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ prays he is not looking to find common ground with pagan religions or pagan gods. In doing so he is doing exactly what I suggested he was doing when I wrote the analysis piece of Warren’s prayer. When a Christian minister prays he prays that the God of the Bible would defeat all other rival gods and deliver their adherents out of the false religions they are in bondage to.

No you advised me that my learning is deficient. I should probably tell you that I am a Pastor. I have the requisite degrees. I have done the research. I have already read the books you recommend.

Allow me to suggest you have read all the books that are creating the current crisis in Christianity. For example in Acts 17 Paul was not using a common ground approach. You might want to check out this links to see that discussed in detail.

http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa045.htm

Common ground evangelism is a disaster precisely because the pagan denies the common ground exists. He hates God and so hates the common ground you are trying to reach him on. If you are interested in seeing this idea teased out I would recommend,

http://www.the-highway.com/defense_VanTil.html

The OT is my Bible but it is not the Jewish Bible. They read it in such a way that it is no longer the Scripture to them. They twist it and ruin it and what Jews need to be called back to is the Scriptures they deny by the way they read it.

Allah may be the same word for God but He is not the same God. We do Islam no service by allowing them to think Allah and the God of the Bible are the same beings. Primarily because the God of the Bible exists and Allah doesn’t. I don’t care if converted Muslims use the word Allah to address God as long as they are convinced of Allah’s Triune character.

Siljander used to be my congressman years ago. He is a liberal and knows less about Islam then I’d care to mention. A good beginning resource on Islam is Serdga Trifkovic. He grew up around Islam and knows what a danger it is and how it hates Christianity, and how it will not be satisfied until it conquerors all its competitors.

Rick Warren is a well intended fool who is trying to sink Christianity into a sea of meaninglessness pluralism. I’m afraid you’re already wearing the weights around your ankles. You strike me as a sharp young lady. If you are as sharp as you sound you will go the extra mile and investigate these things I’m telling you to see whether or not they are so.

You know you might be Democrat …

If you got knocked up in order to collect a larger government check because you couldn’t afford your three children by three different men.

If you were glad for the government bailout because it allowed you to take your trip to the Riviera with your mistress.

If you were able to base your recent bank mortgage loan on the fact that you had had three jobs in two weeks.

If you cheated on your taxes and knew it wouldn’t matter much unless you were nominated to be the Secretary of the Treasury.

If you think that drinking copious amounts of Liquor is a cure for a hangover or if you think that borrowing more money is a cure for debt.

If you think that it is necessary to teach 1st graders what a dildo is while showing films on how homosexuals couple.

If you hate God even though you are convinced that he doesn’t exist.

If, while shoveling your sidewalk clean of the 24 inches of snow you have received daily for the past week, you keep warm in the sub zero cold by looking forward to legislation that will stop global warming.

If you consider Barney Frank a role model for America’s children.

If you think women should have a right to choose to kill their children but you don’t think Americans should have the right to choose to keep and bear arms.

If you think Republicans are conservative.

If you were one of the 1.8 million that attended the Obama inauguration but not one of the 14 who had a job and so had to miss work.

Behold The State … The Giver Of Life

ABC Sunday News Show

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Now how did we go from aiding children’s health to making sure people don’t have children in two sentences? How does making sure that people don’t have children at the same time contribute to children’s health?

Look, the State sees itself as the parent of the citizenry and as the Parent it must decide when and to when not have children, and if it decides to not have children in order to relieve the pressure on the Parent’s budget as the parent it is sovereign to make that decision.

What this boils down is that the entitlement culture cannot provide for all the illegitimate children that it creates and as such the State will take sovereign responsibility to make sure that people on the Government dole will encouraged (in due time required) to not have to many children.

Also keep in mind that it is likely that planned parenthood is going to be the beneficiary of all this family planning stimulus money.

Now, you better believe that if the birth of children is a concern to the Sovereign state because of their great cost that it won’t be long until the Sovereign state will be concerned about how much money is required in our season of dying. The generation who aborted their children for the sake of convenience are going to find itself aborted in old age for the sake of convenience. Payback is a b—-.

How many more of God’s prerogatives does the State have to try and take up before Christians begin to realize that it is idolatry not to try and check the State’s desire to be God?

These people, and the people who keep voting for them are sphincter release valves.