Stop trying to make me build up your ego by making me jump when you say jump. Your job isn't to create an emotional state in me. Your job is to use music to tell us about the God we're suppose to be singing about.
Being the blog of one Audie Thacker, who is, amongst other disreputable things, a writer.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
one reason i don't like church singing
Few things irk me more than the manipulative church music leader. If you try to guilt me into making me feel excited for sitting through your music, it ain't happening. If all you have are songs about how great I am, how devoted I am, now excited I am, you've lost me, because I know how great I'm not, how devoted I'm not, and on a Sunday morning (or any other morning) I don't do excited.
Stop trying to make me build up your ego by making me jump when you say jump. Your job isn't to create an emotional state in me. Your job is to use music to tell us about the God we're suppose to be singing about.
Stop trying to make me build up your ego by making me jump when you say jump. Your job isn't to create an emotional state in me. Your job is to use music to tell us about the God we're suppose to be singing about.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
book review--Making Jesus Lord by Loren Cunningham
two
abused teachings to support one very bad idea
First,
a comment about the Kindle version of this book, which is what I
read. It's shoddy and sub-standard. It has no table of content, and
doesn't even have paragraph indents or chapter breaks. It was
obviously a hurried and slipshod job.
Now,
on to the contents.
The
author twists two biblical teachings in order to end up pushing one
very bad idea.
The
first misused teaching is the idea of “giving up your rights”.
Now, there is a biblical basis for this idea. One can look in I
Corinthians 8 and 9, and see where Paul wrote about how he decided to
not exercise certain rights, such as the right to expect the churches
to support him financially, or the right to eat certain things when
doing so might cause someone else to stumble. Paul's reasons for
doing so are love for God and other people, his concern that others
shouldn't stumble in his actions such as eating certain foods, though
he had the perfect liberty to eat those things, and his concern to
preach the gospel free of charge.
But
this author uses this idea of giving up rights to smuggle in some
very strange ideas, ones not found in the Bible. “He was giving us
the strategy for accomplishing the greatest job ever given to
man—taking over the earth from Satan and winning it back for God.
Jesus was showing us that the only way to conquer is to submit.”
(Kindle Locations 114-116) That's something not taught in the Bible
at all, but it does lead up to the big bad idea of this book. “It
is a rule of the Kingdom of God: Give up something good and receive
something of greater value; give up your rights and receive greater
privileges with God.” (Kindle Locations 133-134) Wow, great
privileges with God? Well, too bad that's not in the Bible. What
we're getting here is a quit pro quo, you give up something and God
will give you something in return. That's not how it works.
The
second abused idea is “moving in the opposite spirit”. Just like
the first, this one does a biblical basis. One could, for example,
point to Galatians 5:16-26, where the works of the flesh are
contrasted with the fruit of the spirit, and show how Christians
should turn from those fleshly works and grow more in the fruit of
the spirit.
But
this author again goes some strange places with his teachings. “God
is going to utterly defeat Satan, and He’s going to do it with
individuals who move in the opposite spirit to the forces of
darkness.” (Kindle Locations 1177-1178) Well, that's quite the
claim. Gotta verse for that? Btw he doesn't. “God allows attacks
from the enemy in order to extend Christ’s Kingdom on earth. We
take literal ground for God in this world every time we respond
correctly to Satan’s offensive.” (Kindle Locations 1274-1276) I
assume he means “literal” literally, and not figuratively, but he
certainly does not mean it biblically, because he offers no biblical
support for this claim.
All
of this leads up to the last part of the book, where the author
introduces his biggest and worst idea. It can be summed up by the
phrase “Seven Mountains Dominionism”. “God has told us to take
the world for Him. That’s what it says in Matthew 28:18-20 when
Jesus tells us that He has been given all authority in Heaven and on
earth, all other issues and doubts are settled. Then He turns around
and says to us, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you….””
(Kindle Locations 1523-1526) Uh...no, Jesus wasn't telling the
disciples to go out and take over the world here, that's nonsense.
You can look at what the Bible says in many different places about
the state of the world when Christ returns, and you'll see a gaping
lack of any mention of the Church having taken over the world and
setting up a bliss-filled theocracy just eager for Jesus to finally
decide it's time to come join the party.
“If
you have given over your rights, if you are standing barefoot in His
presence, He is promising to give you all the land that the sole of
your foot treads upon (Joshua 13).” (Kindle Locations 1565-1566) I
don't know what this author is thinking, but there is nothing like
that in Joshua 13. This is a common practice among people like this
author, taking a promise made to one person in the Bible and try to
shoehorn it for themselves. God made that promise to someone who
lived about 3500 years ago, not to us today. This promise is not God
telling us to go and take over the world.
“Jesus
has promised to give the earth to the meek, to the barefoot, to those
who have surrendered their rights to Him. He wants us to claim the
nations of the earth as His inheritance.” (Kindle Locations
1807-1808) While Jesus has promised that the meek will inherit the
earth, there is nothing in the Bible that tells us that Jesus “...
wants us to claim the nations of the earth as His inheritance”.
That's just something shameful this author made up.
“Like
any other Christian, I read my Bible and try to discern what is going
on around me. But one thing I do believe very clearly: Jesus told us
to occupy until He came (Luke 19:13 kjv).” (Kindle Locations
1632-1633) “He says to occupy until He comes. To occupy means to
take leadership.” (Kindle Location 1816) This is so bad, I'm
embarrassed for this author. Luke 19:13 is taken from a parable. “12
He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive
for himself a kingdom and then return. 13 Calling ten of his
servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in
business until I come.’” This is from the ESV, and it gives the
real meaning of the word translated “occupy” in the KJV which in
context would still be a fine word, it only becomes a problem because
of this author's dishonest twisting of that word. In a video on
YouTube titled “Ruling
With Jesus - Loren Cunningham”,
this author even goes so far as to compare the Church to an occupying
army. It is completely shameful for this author to try to take the
“occupy” from both the meaning of the original word, and from
it's context in this parable, and try to make it about some kind of
need for the church to act like an occupying army.
There
is simply so much wrong with this book, that it's just not worth
wading into the sludge to find the few good things he says. There are
so many better resources out there, ones that don't try to push
made-up ideas and fairy tales about taking over the world. Skip this
piece of rot, it's worthless.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)