Whirled Views with Dan Burrell

I lifted this from an article written by my friend, Charles Wood.  In the article, he cites a pastor friend who wrote the following to him:

“The greatest upheaval I have experienced with it, is when the Bible definition of what is spiritual is preached.  It reorders who is spiritual in the minds of the people. Consequently, folks once thought to be spiritual are found to be carnal. Folks once dismissed as peculiar are found to be spiritual. It breeds a tremendous amount of resentment in those who are revealed to be less than they have pretended to be. They want the ‘honor’ once given to them for holy living restored without having to live such a life. They immediately clamor for such Bible application to cease. Their comfort zone mentality resents moving up to Biblical guidelines. They press for pastoral qualifications to be upheld (such as in Timothy and Titus), but they excuse their own lack of personal holiness.”

Pastor Wood goes on to say this in another section:

      We often hear calls for unity among God’s people, and such calls at least appear to have a Biblical basis (“endeavoring to keep unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.”).  There is, however, a great deal more to the subject than meets the eye.
At the outset, it is important to identify the difference between unity and unanimity.  Unity involves likeness of purpose, aim or desired result.  Unanimity denotes complete agreement.  Two men may be united in purpose (such as advancing the kingdom of God or the best interests of a local church, but they may have very divergent approaches to how that is best done.  A good example might be that of Paige Patterson and Al Mohler.  These two theological giants both desire nothing more than the advancement of God’s kingdom and the winning of the lost, but they disagree on some aspects of how that is best accomplished and even on the way in which God operates in accomplishing His purposes in these matters.  They are in unity, but they hardly represent unanimity.
Recently, I heard of a local church situation in which another requirement has been added for the role of deacon - agreement.  Obviously, this is not a Biblical requirement, but it was slipped in under the guise of unity.  At the risk of being both pedantic and redundant, unity in the Spirit does not require complete agreement on methods, practices or other details.
When I was a young man in ministry, unity was something of a byword that was heard frequently.  It was the time of the zenith of the ecumenical movement (that was the precursor of the coming world church, if I remember correctly).  The cry was for unity and unity at all costs (and many churches surrendered their orthodoxy in order to heed the call to a mis-defined unity that had no Biblical basis whatever).  The call for unity was merely a cover for a call to get everyone together in spite of differences, gloss over the differences and present a powerful front to society.  By now we’ve all seen how that sucker melted down.
An appeal for unity in a local church may be genuine and sincere.  It may also be an attempt to cover up something that has been done that those involved know deep down inside was wrong.  The call to unity is thus an attempt to avoid admitting wrong or seeking to correct that wrong.  It may also be little more than  an attempt to “spiritually coerce” others to “fall into line.”
Unity has little genuine validity and no essential force without a basis of  truth.  Just as there was no truth behind the ecumenical calls for unity, so there is little or no truth behind many modern calls for unity.  Evangelicals and Catholics Together is hardly a basis for unity; it is merely an expression of wistful thinking on the part of a group of men.  Many of these men are doubtlessly sincere, but they apparently would compromise certain tenets of the faith in an effort to gain some form of unity in the mistaken belief that a “united front” would accomplish more than the daily practice of Biblical Christianity on the part of those who claim to be its adherents.
Although so many years in ministry may have left me a bit cynical in this regard, a call for unity almost always raises red flags in my mind.  Why is it necessary to call for unity at a particular time?  What has happened that would make such an emphasis suddenly necessary when it has not been featured before?  Is someone (or several) trying to hide something that has been kept from those to whom the unity appeal is now directed?  Are there those who are refusing to follow the orders of those who had no authority to issue those orders in the first place?  In brief, I want to be sure there is nothing wrong before I join the parade behind the banner of unity.
Remember, the call of the Apostle is for the “unity of the Spirit,” not for some man-made variety thereof.  The Holy Spirit is elsewhere called the Spirit of Truth.  Many of the appeals for unity that I hear today seem to deeply trouble me, and I am convinced that this troubling is due to the inner working of the Spirit of Truth Who dwells within me.  It, indeed, is good for brethren to dwell together in unity, but a unity that is not based on truth is no unity at all.  It is merely an attempt to gloss over wrong-doing or to guarantee the achievement of some man-made plan or to bring to fruition the vision cast by those who have no Biblical warrant whatever to be casting any vision at all.

Good stuff!

From Jon Acuff at “Stuff Christian’s Like“…

God is into numbers, but not the ones we think. I tried to define success with a certain attendance number. I estimated a massive number because my ego got caught up in it and I thought God was about big numbers too. And He is, just His number is different than mine. His number is “1.” Not 100. Not 1,000,000, but 1. He cares about the individual. He wants to reach 1 person. You. Me. Your dad. Your mom. That weird guy you work with. He has 1 person in mind. And I forgot that.

Read the entire post HERE.

Warning: This post contains offensive quotations.

It’s always amusing to me to hear liberals talk about “tolerance” and “diversity” and “acceptance.”  In case you are brain dead, when they use those terms, what they really mean is “YOU have to accept THEIR twisted lifestyles, viewpoints and hate speech.”

When the liberal elite say “Hate Speech” what they mean is that they want to be as vile, disgusting, mean, degrading and offensive as they want to be, but when you disagree with their opinion, you should be censored.

The Liberal Elite are a GIFT to the Republican Party right now.  Their response to McCain’s nomination of Sarah Palin is the best energizing force they could provide for red-blooded conservatives this side of arranging for the actual Resurrection of Ronald Reagan.  They’ve certainly taken this bored-of-politics, disinterested and unlikely-to-vote withdrawn member of the “Cultural Conservatives” and revived him.  I’ve even gone out and registered to vote in my new home state of Florida — something that wasn’t on my priority list just a few weeks ago.

If you wonder how DEEPLY, the Liberal Elites — and by them, I mean the Hollywood Hooligans, the Mainstream Media Big Namers and a smattering of entertainers, financial moguls and left-wing professors — then all you need to do is read the papers these days.  The hate spewed from these lunatics is absolutely stunning.

Take a look at this little diatribe from Jewish commedienne Sandra Bernhard regarding Sarah Palin:

Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s–t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b—h! Don’t you f–kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls–t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b—h! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f–kin’ cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls–t moment.

In the same “show” she also warns Palin not to come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some of Sandra’s big black brothers.  No hate speech here, right?  Can you imagine if Don Imus were to say something disparaging about liberal black folks what might happen?  Oh wait — we’ve already seen that!  Why the double standard?  And in case you missed it, the “Goyish, crappy, shiksa….” she is speaking of is the NEW TESTAMENT.  Of course, she’d never dare saying anything like that about the Koran, would she?  Again, the REAL “sin” here is being conservative — or even worse, a conservative Christian.  See the whole mess HERE.

The has-been comedian Chevy Chase called on Tina Fey to “Decimate” Sarah Palin in her future SNL appearances.  Read about that HERE.

Hollywood’s newest little lesbian superstar, Lindsey Lohan spewed the following on her blog:

“Is our country so divided that the Republicans best hope is a narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe?” 

I can (and will later on) give you pages of these diatribes.  Sure, you can find some whacked out conservative who’ll say some awful things as well — but they are rarely mainstream and when they do say trash, they are roundly and soundly denounced by principled conservatives.  You won’t hear that from the liberals — you’ll just get smirks, smiles of agreement and the secret hope that somehow their hateful opinions are the majority.

Conservatives should be concerned with this level of vitriol.  Can you imagine what would happen if this country gives them the keys to the White House, Congress AND the Courts all at the same time?  That, in and of itself, should give reasonable voters pause when they enter the voting booths in a few weeks.

I am going to link the hate-speech to this blog in the future — watch for it.  Uninformed and under-educated voters are dangerous.

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Late Entry:  Here’s another particularly VILE one from Salon.com.

“This is a message from the voters that we really need to step up and reclaim the mantle of reform that propelled us to power 12 years ago.” —Rep. Eric Cantor

So NOW you seem to get it.

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“The House has just engaged in runaway spending for far too long… [T]he one thing we could have stopped, but didn’t, was runaway spending.” —Rep. Jeff Flake

And the President let you get away with it.

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“I don’t care how many times the news programs, papers and magazines tell us the blowout last night was because of the Iraq war. It wasn’t. It was because the American public has decided that Republicans are no longer good stewards of the U.S. Congress and threw them out.” —Rich Galen

Ding, ding, ding, ding….someone was paying attention!(But as a side note, it was also about the war.)

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“I think a fairly good case can be made that the story of Election 2006 is more about poorly-led House Republicans losing than Democrats winning.” —John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union

Fairly good case? Fairly good case? Hello????Mr.Clueless, meetMr. Obvious.

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“Republicans have made matters worse by abandoning the reform agenda that animated their capture of Congress in 1994 and helped George Bush win the White House in 2000 and keep it in 2004. With scarcely a fight, Republicans gave up on Social Security reform in 2005, immigration reform in 2006, and never really got started on tax reform.” —Fred Barnes

That’s what happens when political parties worry more about keeping power than advancing principle.

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The numbers from every corner of the country make it clear that the American people meant to send a message to their leaders, and the future of the conservative movement depends on an accurate reading of the substance they meant to communicate, and a realistic reassessment of the current state of our politics.”—Michael Medved

Or in other words, the Republican base is not nearly as stupid as the Republican leadership thought it was and the Democratic leadership was a lot smarter than the Republic leadership thought it was.

Quotes taken from the “Patriot Post”