THE PAGANIZATION OF THE UNITED CHURCH

Community of Concern AGM, Hamilton, April 29, 2004

Don Faris Ph.D. (Edin) <mfaris@shaw.ca>
©2004, All rights reserved.

In 1989 I wrote the book. The Trojan Horse: The Homosexual Ideology and
the Christian Church, as a response to the 1988 General Council. I introduced
it by saying,

Anyone who thinks the current controversy in the Christian Church about
homosexual practice is only about homosexual practice is greatly mistaken.

There are very real grounds for the underlying concern that if the same type
of biblical, ethical and theological thinking evidenced in this debate is applied
to any other sexual practice condemned by Scripture, it too, would be
approved. If the authority of Scripture, tradition and reason are undermined
by the authority of a nonbiblical homosexual ideology, why should it stop
there? The homosexual ideology is only part of a wider sexual ideology that is
grounded in the self-regarding relativistic individualism which is the ideology
of the liberal middle class in North America.

The homosexual ideology is like a TROJAN HORSE, which, if approved, will
bring these underlying ideologies into the church. If these nonbiblical, or one
might even say antibiblical, ideologies can capture the church, in what sense
will the church remain Christian? If the authority of the one Word of God,
Jesus Christ, as attested in the Scriptures, is replaced by the authority of
ideologies from the dominant culture, are we still dealing with Christianity?

It is not with great pleasure that I say 15 years later, that what I predicted
has happened. With the approval of gay, lesbian and bisexual marriage, the
foolhardy blessing of behaviour that God condemns, the paganization of the
United Church is almost complete.

I define modern paganism as a self-centred religiosity based on the
notion that everyone should believe whatever they want and do
whatever they want, because there are no religious or moral
absolutes.

THE MODERATOR'S LETTER

After the 38th General Council had already committed the United Church to
the support of same-sex marriages, the Moderator sent a letter to
congregations along with study material designed to justify this action. I
found the letter to be very patronizing toward those who hold the New
Testament view of the Christian faith and marriage. The Moderator goes out
of his way to quote a hymn by a well-known Unitarian which says, "New
occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth". We know
that Unitarians hold the view that the divinity of Christ, the doctrine of the
Trinity, and salvation through Jesus Christ's cross and resurrection, are
"uncouth". The Moderator apparently extends this to what Jesus taught about
marriage! He feels he has to tell us that this issue is about people, not about
objects in a debate. Surely all ethical debate is about people, and not objects
in a debate.

I know some people with homosexual and bisexual orientations in the United
Church, many of them long-term ministers. Many of them served in powerful
positions in our National Headquarters or in Conference Offices or as University Chaplains, and in those positions they used their influence to
advance the homosexual ideology. This ideology insists that homosexual and
bisexual behaviour should be just as acceptable to Christians as heterosexual
marriage. One of those people ran against our current Moderator and was
narrowly defeated. Perhaps it would have been better if he had been elected
because he would have been the first openly gay or bisexual Moderator,
another occasion of great celebration for the political elite who control the
United Church. It might also have been better because in his personal life he
embodies the revisionist ethics that the United Church elite promote. It is a
matter of public knowledge, front page news in Vancouver, that this self-
declared gay minister fathered, somehow or other, a child for a self-declared
lesbian activist. If you meet this man, does he seem to be an intelligent man
and a nice person? Yes, he does! Does that make his actions moral? No. Does
that make him a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. No.

I know some adulterous people in the United Church, many of them long term
ministers. If you meet them do they seem to be intelligent and nice people?
Yes, they do! Does that make their actions moral? No. Does that make them
faithful followers of Jesus Christ? No.

I also know some people with pedophile orientations who are active in the
church, some of them ministers. Some are heterosexual pedophiles. They
prey on young girls. Some are homosexual pedophiles. They prey on young
boys. Some are bisexual pedophiles. They prey on young boys and girls. I
know one who was a school teacher and an elder in the United Church. He
sexually abused the young boys in his class at school. When he was asked
how he could hurt these young boys this way he replied. "I wouldn't do
anything to hurt them, I love them". I know of another who is one of the most
intelligent, charming and charismatic individuals you could ever meet. It was
that intelligence and charm that made him such a successful pedophile! He
was a regular church-goer, a married man, and a scout leader. He was the
kind of scout leader who took the time to get to know the boys' parents and
he used this friendship and trust to abuse over 200 young boys. If you meet
this man, does he seem to be an intelligent and nice person? Yes he does!
Does that make his actions moral? No. Does that make him a faithful follower
of Jesus Christ? No.

What the Moderator does not address in his letter is the teaching of Holy
Scripture, the teaching of Jesus, himself, in regard to sexual ethics. The Basis
of Union says that it is that teaching, and that alone, which is the "ultimate
standard of Christian faith and life".

And here is where the study material sent out to congregations is so
irrelevant and so biased. It is irrelevant because it does not contain the
teachings of Scripture, and of Jesus, about sexuality and marriage. It is
biased because it does not identify the shift from the moral-biblical basis of
the 1960's reports, to the ideological-political rhetoric of the studies from
1980 onward.

THE 1960 REPORT ON SEX, LOVE AND MARRIAGE

This bias is obvious, also, in the alleged summary of the 1960 report, SEX,
LOVE AND MARRIAGE. This summary fails to tell congregations that the
1960 report contains a very important section on homosexuality from pages
14 to 16. If congregations are supposed to deal with homosexual marriage
surely it is relevant to know that this 1960 study of marriage spoke very
clearly about homosexuality. Why hide this studies' insight from
congregations? It is hidden because this 1960 study said what was true both
scientifically and biblically in 1960, and this truth remains the same in 2004!

This study is so good, and since the United Church won't share it with you, I
want to share it with you. In regard to the causes of homosexual behaviour
the report says:

A large majority of people reach adult life and sexual maturity looking to the
opposite sex as the specific object of their sexual yearnings. This is
heterosexuality. Since it carries out one of the fundamental purposes of the
sexual instinct, namely, reproduction of the species, it is considered "natural"
We know, however, that certain forces, usually environmental in origin, may
determine a deviation from normal sexual feelings. People so affected have
"learned" to respond with sexual feelings towards members of their own sex,
without or with a corresponding response to the opposite sex. Such
individuals are "homosexual" or "bisexual" in orientation.

In looking for the causes of such "unnatural" responses, physiological,
psychological and social factors must be considered. Physiological
disturbances, as the primary determination of homosexual orientation,
operate rarely.

The term "psychological" is here used to describe the psychic forces in an
adult which have become "part of his personality, since they are the result of
powerful stimuli during very early childhood. Thus a young child may have
such experiences with regard to either of his parents that it is impossible for
him to want to emulate the parent of the same sex or to love the parent of
opposite sex. When this happens he reaches adult life with a background of
childhood experience that often makes successful heterosexual adjustment
impossible.

The term "social" refers here to the influences on one person by other
persons during adolescence and subsequently. If a boy is sexually stimulated
and satisfied by the activities of other males during that time in his life when
he is very easily influenced, and if this occurs several times, conditioning
takes place and his eventual sexual relationships will be affected thereby.
Girls may have the same experience.

This is a good summary of where science remains in 2004! In regard to
ethics, the report begins by making a distinction the 1988 General Council
refused to make.

Christian ethics distinguishes between homosexual feelings and their
expression in overt acts of homosexual conduct. Homosexual conduct
constitutes a moral problem in four ways: it violates the will of God as
an offense against the proper expression of sexuality in monogamous
marriage; by misuse of natural functions homosexual activity is a sin
against the self; since it involves at least one other person of the
same sex, with or without his consent, homosexual activity is
unedifying and destructive of "neighbour love"; it tends to undermine
the foundations of stable society based upon heterosexual marriage
and family responsibility.

Neither society nor the persons who have homosexual tendencies are
helped by denying the moral implications if those tendencies or
feelings are allowed expression in homosexual conduct.

The section concludes by saying that people who struggle with deviant sexual
feelings should be treated with compassion. And it goes on to say that
treatment can often be helpful. All of this is true. This 1960 statement on
SEX. LOVE and MARRIAGE declares that homosexual behaviour is immoral.
This is exactly the position of Scripture. It is also clear in saying that marriage is between one man and one woman. This is exactly the teaching of Jesus.

RECENT UNITED CHURCH MOVES

How does the United Church overcome this teaching? It simply ignores it! It
ignores Scripture. It ignores the teaching of Jesus. It has recently even gone
so far as to remove the Scriptural basis for marriage in the teaching of Jesus
in Matthew 19 from the new wedding services. You can hardly read these
words of Jesus at a marriage of two homosexuals. Jesus said,

"Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning, made them
male and female", and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one".

In the year 2000, without any warrant from Scripture, General Council
declared that human sexual orientations, whether heterosexual or
homosexual, are a gift from God. But this "inclusive" or "egalitarian"
statement does not go far enough.

If heterosexual orientation and homosexual orientation are a gift from God,
what about other sexual orientations? Why are they not also a gift from God?
Why not men or women having sex with boys and girls? Why not men or
women having sex with animals? Why not mothers or father having sex with
their own children? Why not brothers and sisters having sex with each other?
Why not group sex? Why not three or four men or women having sex
together?

According to the 1988 General Council, God's intention for all human
relationships is that they be "faithful, responsible, just, loving, health-giving,
healing and sustaining of community and self. If homosexual relationships
meet these criteria, why can't pedophile, bestial, incestuous or group sexual
relationships equally qualify? If you think these questions are whimsical, you
should know that the American Psychiatric Association has sponsored
symposia discussing the removal of pedophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism,
transvestism, voyeurism and sadomasochism from the DSM-V listing of
mental illnesses, just as it removed homosexuality in 1973. The arguments to
justify this change are the same as those used to justify homosexuality. There
are some famous high functioning individuals who engage in all these
practices. Or as one psychiatrist said, "Any sexual interest can be healthy and
life-enhancing". This is exactly in line with the thinking of the United Church
General Council. It is nothing less than a return to pre-Christian paganism.

WHERE IS IT TAKING US?

Do you know what is really frightening? Having set aside the clear teaching of
Jesus that sexual activity should be between a man and a woman in a loving
life-long covenant of marriage, our children, our grandchildren and our
teenagers in the United Church will be taught that there is no absolute sexual
ethic taught in Scripture ... about anything! This would come as a surprise to
Jesus and to Paul, but it comes on the authority of Walter Wink, who also
incidentally denies the unique divinity of Jesus Christ. Wink's ethics could
logically teach that there might be circumstances that could justify
homosexuality, pedophilia, incest, bestiality, prostitution or even rape. And,
by extension, that there are no absolutes to condemn the greedy exploiting
the poor or sadists torturing innocent people! Or they could be given the
teachings of Anglican, William Countryman, who left his wife for a gay
lifestyle. His book. Dirt, Greed and Sex argues that the Gospel allows no rule
against bestiality, polygamy, homosexual acts, pornography or prostitution.
And won't it be nice when the children come home from Sunday School with the information that Ruth and Naomi were likely lesbians, David and Jonathan
and Jesus and the beloved disciple were probably homosexuals, and the story
of how Jesus healed the "boy" of the Centurion at Capernaum and so restored
him for the sexual enjoyment of the Roman officer. "Gay" theology has come
up with all this nonsense, but the "inclusive" United Church, no doubt, will
want to include it at the same time that it excludes the teaching of Jesus.

QUESTIONS FOR THE MODERATOR

When some representatives of the Community of Concern recently met with
Moderator Short, he told them he did not agree with "absolute persons" by
which he meant people who believe in moral absolutes. I would suggest to
you that Jesus, Paul and all the apostles believed in moral absolutes including
the moral absolute that sexual activity should be confined to one man and
one woman within the bounds of a loving, lifelong marriage. I would direct to
Moderator Short the questions Robert Gagnon asks of Walter Wink. (Robert
Gagnon, No Universally Valid Sex Standards? Available at
www.robgagnon.com) If there are no absolute sexual precepts universally
valid in every time and place:

• When might a proscription of rape not be universally valid?

• Under what circumstances would sex with a pre-pubescent child be
acceptable?

• Which occasions would make blessing a sexual union with one's
horse or dog an attractive option?

• When might God be pleased with a violation of the Decalogue
commandment not to commit adultery?

• In what times or places would it now be good to institute marriage
between a father and daughter or between two siblings?

And, as Gagnon observes, you could extend this list to include prostitution,
sadomasochistic sex, spouse swapping, "recreational sex" and "open
marriage". God help our families and children if our Moderator and ministers
preach and teach that there are no moral absolutes.

If you want to dig more deeply into the Christian view of sex and marriage, I
recommend you read Robert A.J.Gagnon's important book. The Bible and
Homosexual Practice and look at his website www.robgagnon.net
<http://www.robgagnon.net/>. There you will find a wide range of very
profound biblical scholarship. To keep up to date on the scientific issues, I
recommend you consider joining the National Association for Research and
Therapy of Homosexuality or NARTH. This organization is composed of
thousands of psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors who want to help
sexually deviant people find help, hope and healing. NARTH has existed since
1992 and its website is www.narth.com.

CULTURAL ACCOMMODATION

How is it that the United Church of Canada and the lemming-like Anglican
Church in Canada are abandoning Christian sexual ethics and adopting pagan
sexual ethics? The answer is that their leadership, their theological colleges
and most of their clergy have abandoned the authority of Scripture and
accommodated their faith to the ideologies of the surrounding culture. The
strategy of accommodation to the surrounding culture is indeed at the very
heart of liberal theology. This accommodation is thought to be necessary for apologetic reasons. The theory is that it is easier to explain the Christian faith
to people if you accept the basic premises of their world-view. The fact is that
if you accept the basic premises of the world-view of the surrounding culture,
you end up reducing the Christian faith to a mere echo of what the
surrounding culture already believes!

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

It is more than 60 years since Richard Niebuhr summarized nicely what liberal
Christianity had done to weaken and cheapen the Gospel. He wrote:

It proclaims a God without wrath who has brought people without sin into a_
Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a
Cross!

The truth of this statement was dramatically revealed by the official reaction
of the United Church to Mel Gibson's powerful movie. The Passion of the
Christ, (press release by the Rev. Bruce Gregerson, General Council Minister
for Programs for Mission and Ministry, Feb. 24 and Feb. 27, 2004). The
response is full of the usual official double-talk but it is clear that it is saying
that the movie glorifies violence and suffering and is anti-semitic. In fact, it
really clears the Jewish leaders of having any part in the execution of Jesus,
indeed, it even absolves the Romans, as the only guilty party is an
abstraction called "the Roman Empire". The statement also really denies that
the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus was necessary to deal with human sin.

"The Passion" offends some people, including apparently, the United Church
leadership, because it shows how Jesus Christ bore all the sins of all of us,
Jew and Gentile alike, through the sacrifice of Jesus' spiritual and physical
suffering, in accordance with the Scriptures. Of course, people who no longer
respect the Scriptures are offended. In one of the few reviews which is worthy
of the movie, Kenneth Woodward wrote, in the New York Times (February 25,
2004)

Mr. Gibson's film leaves out most of the elements of the Jesus story that
contemporary Christians now emphasizes ... He doesn't promote social
causes, as liberal denominations do. He certainly doesn't crusade against
gender discrimination as some feminists believe he did, nor does he teach
that we all posses an inner divinity, as today's nouveau Gnostics believe. One
cannot imagine this Jesus joining a New Age sunrise Easter Service
overlooking the Pacific.

Like Jeremiah, Jesus is a Jewish prophet rejected by the leaders of his own
people, and abandoned by his handpicked disciples. Besides taking an awful
beating, he is cruelly tempted to despair by a Satan whom millions of church-
going Christians no longer believe in, and dies in obedience to a heavenly
Father who, by today's standards, would stand convicted of child abuse. In
short, this Jesus carries a cross that not many Christians are ready to share.

Certainly it was because of the crucifixion of Jesus that many first century
Jews rejected Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah of Israel. The Messiah they
wanted was a political-military leader who would drive the Romans into the
sea! How can the United Church deny that the Jewish leaders had a part to
play in the crucifixion of Jesus? Only by ignoring or twisting Scripture.

Just as the United Church's embrace of the gay ideology demands that it
ignore Scripture, so the United Church's embrace of the pluralistic religious
ideology demands that it deny the actual history of the death of Jesus in the
name of preventing anti-Semitism. The 2003 statement Bearing Faithful

Witness should be entitled, Bearing Unfaithful Witness. What lies behind this
General Council statement is the denial that Jesus Christ is the Christ. The
background documents deny that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel or that He
even viewed Himself to be the Messiah of Israel. (Is Jesus the Messiah?
pp. 17-18). This denial is in itself anti-Semitic! It tears Jesus from his first
century Jewish roots. It tears Him from His real historic roots in Israel which
are clearly and trustworthily witnessed to in Scripture. What is so sad is that
it is not only a clear denial of Scripture but also reveals the pathetic lack of
scholarship in the United Church. In 2003 Tom Wright published the most
important study of the resurrection in the past 100 years. Entitled, The
Resurrection of the Son of God, this 800 page study convincingly
demonstrates that serious Christians must hold that Jesus is both the Messiah
of Israel and the Lord of the world. It is anti-Semitic liberals who deny that
God chose Israel out of all the people of the world, as the people to whom He
would send His Son, as the suffering Messiah of Israel and the Lord of whole
world. Those who hate the Jews hate Jesus. Those who diminish Jesus Christ,
diminish the Jews who have a special place in God's plan of salvation.

Real Christians have always believed that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the WORLD, He does not take away the sin of the world
except for the sin of Jews. He does not take away the sin of the world except
for the sin of homosexuals. He takes upon Himself and takes away the sin of
Jews and Gentiles, black and white, male and female, you and me. Christians
believe that Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, and Lord of the world, is the Saviour
of the whole world and it would be the deepest and most unloving anti-
Semitism to deny the offer of that salvation to the Jews.

The great evangelical Anglican, John Stott, in his wonderful book The Cross of
Christ, points out that it was not only the Jews and the Romans but each one
of us who crucified Jesus. He says we ourselves are guilty.

If we were in their place, we would have done what they did. Indeed, we
have done it. For whenever we turn away from Christ, we "are crucifying the
Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace". (Heb.6:6).
We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to
our ambition like Pilate. "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", the
old Negro spiritual asks. And we must answer, "Yes, we were there". Not as
spectators only but as participants, guilty participants, plotting, scheming,
betraying, bargaining and handing him over to be crucified. We may try to
wash our hands of responsibility like Pilate. But our attempt will be as futile as
his. For there is blood on our hands. Before we can see the cross as
something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as
something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, "only the man who
is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross", wrote Canon Peter
Green, "may claim his share in its grace", (pp 59, 60)

In the first century it was the political power of the Romans and the religious
power of the Sanhedrin that co-operated to crucify Jesus. In our time it is the
political power of the Government of Canada and the religious power of the
United Church General Council (our Sanhedrin!) who crucify the Son of God all
over again and subject Him to public disgrace by approving gay, lesbian and
bisexual marriage.

CHEAP GRACE

The truth is the leadership of the United Church has turned it into a pagan
religious society where people are invited to believe whatever they want and
do whatever they want. The Gospel has been reduced to a therapeutic
invitation to "come as you are: stay as you are". No need for repentance, no

need for obedience to Christ. It proclaims what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called
"cheap grace". "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring
repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without
confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the
cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate". (Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
The Cost of Discipleship, Collier, 1963, p.47). That is what I hear and see
coming from our General Councils, our officials, from our Moderators.

?  Denials of the unique divinity of Jesus Christ.

•  Denials that Jesus is the Christ.

•  Denials that His costly suffering sacrifice was necessary for the
forgiveness of the sins of the world.

•   Denials of the actual reality of the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ

•  Denials that God's commands are absolute.

• Denials that the Holy Spirit can bring healing to sexual brokenness.

 

THE NEW CREED IS SUB-CHRISTIAN

We know that the United Church of Canada began in 1925 as a biblically
based, evangelical, orthodox, Trinitarian Christian church that hoped to
attract other like-minded Christians to join together for the sake of mission to
Canada and to the world. We know this because it was all clearly laid out in
the 20 Articles of Faith of the Basis of Union. To see how clearly the United
Church has watered down, indeed, abandoned, the Christian faith, you need
only look at the so-called "New Creed" which the United Church created in
1968. Compare this "New Creed" to the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed
of the world-wide church which are both affirmed in the Basis of Union. The
difference is startling.

The great Creeds of the Church have a three-fold structure which honour the
three persons of the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The New Creed of
the United Church nowhere mentions the Father, or the Son, and we can only
hope that the reference to "The Spirit" is to the Holy Spirit and not "The Spirit
of this age". However, this is a faint hope as the work of the Holy Spirit is to
witness to Jesus Christ as Lord and to His Father, who Jesus taught us to call
"our Father". The New Creed never names the Father. It never names Jesus
as His Son, the Christ, or the Lord. The New Creed is a watered-down,
unitarian, therapeutic, "feel-good" product of the 1960's, and yet as the
United Church heads toward a new statement of faith in 2006, it will be given
equal status along with the pagan ethical statements of recent General
Councils in shaping the new statement of faith.

THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH IN CANADA

What is the future of the United Church and other churches in Canada?
Sadly, the future of the liberal-dominated mainline denominations, sometimes
referred to as the sideline denominations, because of their cultural
accommodation, is not very bright. The United Church started out with
600,000 members in 1925. By 1965 that number had increased for the
fortieth year in a row to reach nearly 1.1 million members. I remember very
clearly when at that time the Moderator, E.M.Howse, a Bloor Street liberal,
denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. He may simply have been
seeking headlines for himself, but the result was the beginning of the decline
of the United Church. From 1965 on, the United Church membership has

declined every year, until sometime in 2005, our eightieth anniversary year,
our membership will be less than 600,000; less than we began with in 1925,
in a nation with more than three times the population of 1925.
Since the pagan sexual teachings of the 1984 and 1988 General Councils, the
rate of decline has increased. The publication of a new hymnary in 1996
(Voices United) which contains hymns and prayers directed to the pagan
Mother Goddess has not helped (eg. Hymn 280 and prayers p.916). From
1984 to 2002 our membership declined by 30%, the highest rate of decline ol
any denomination in North America. Our church leaders lived in denial by
claiming that church attendance was increasing. This was a lie.

While membership declined by 30%, church attendance declined by 39% and
Sunday School attendance declined by over 50%. These rates of decline
continue, and indeed increased in the data released this year. What does the
future look like? The United Church paid sociologist Reginald Bibby to produce
a stewardship report called Unitrends in 1994. This survey revealed some
interesting insights into the United Church such as the fact that some 76% of
theological college faculty respondents did not consider it very important to
their faith to confess Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and some 40% of these
same faculty felt comfortable worshipping with Wicca, that is with witches!

But more to our point, he discussed church attendance data that suggest that
the United Church is, in his words, "an aging and a dying church". He wrote,
"As things stand, it's precisely what is going to happen to the United Church
during the next century (this century!) If critics want to "get literal", the
denomination will continue to exist, but in dramatically diminished form.
There may be only about 200,000 core participants in 2015, maybe 100,000
by 2035, perhaps about 50,000 by the middle of the next century (this
century!)".

Unfortunately, Bibby's data is optimistic. The attendance figure he used for
1994 was inflated by about 10% and the rate of decline has been even faster
than he predicted. I would suggest that the 50,000 attendance figure across
Canada will be reached in less than 40 years from now. So what is the future
of the Church in Canada? Unless there is a massive repentance on the part of
the leadership of the United and Anglican churches in Canada, they will
virtually disappear over the next century. But God will not leave Himself
without a witness. The Biblically faithful. Evangelical and Pentecostal and
Community Churches are growing, and will continue to grow.

THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH WORLDWIDE

This is entirely consistent with what is happening all around the world. We are
living at a time when the Christian faith is growing at a rate unprecedented in
history. It is growing in Africa, South America, Oceania, and Asia. For
example, there are around 3 million Anglicans and Episcopalians in Canada
and the United States combined. There are about 17 million Anglicans in
Nigeria alone and some 50 million Anglicans in all of Africa! I recently visited
Zambia where I was a missionary some 35 years ago. The United Church of
Zambia officially declared itself an evangelical church some years ago and it is
growing steadily. I met United Church of Zambia women's group members
doing street evangelism (when was the last time you saw a United Church
Women's group doing this?) The big church in Lusaka is full of black people
every Sunday. When I was there it was full of whites!

Several months ago I visited a Presbyterian and a Methodist Church in
Singapore. The Presbyterian Church has 5 services which 2,000 people attend each Sunday. The Methodist Church has 11 services with about 8,000 people
attending. One of the Chinese Presbyterian pastors I spoke to had just
returned from studying in Edinburgh (where I received my Ph.D. where he
completed his thesis on the growth of the Christian Church in China. I asked
him how many Christians he thought there were in China, He said there were
about 3 million Christians in China when the Communists expelled foreign
missionaries in 1949. He estimated there are now between 50 and 80 million
Christians in China. Many of their leaders have been imprisoned and tortured
and many have been killed. But this suffering church continues to grow as
Bible-toting young people create house churches in village after village.

There is one result of the acceptance of the homosexual agenda that is not
often mentioned. That is the divisive nature of this acceptance both within
denominations and within the world-wide ecumenical movement. It is very
clear that the arrogant actions of North American Anglicans will result in there
being two Anglican Churches in the world.

The one will be the third world biblically based evangelical Anglican Church
with the support of approximately 90% of Anglicans and the other will be the
North American hedonist cult representing about 10% of Anglicans. John
Spong's rhetoric can be taken to represent the direction of the North
Americans and the fact that in the 17 years he was Bishop of Newark, the
membership in his Diocese declined by 44% indicates the results.
The other result is that the North American Anglican and United Churches can
say goodbye to any real involvement in the ecumenical movement. Roman
Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and third-world Evangelical and Pentecostal
denominations have already started to break off relations with denominations
with gay ministers and gay weddings. Recently the wealthy American
Episcopalians sent delegates to participate in the consecration of a Bishop in
Uganda. They came bearing gifts of money for much needed development
programs. The Ugandan Anglicans refused to allow them to take part in the
consecration and refused to accept their money. It is the money from wealthy
North American mainline denominations which has bought them power and
influence in the World Council of Churches. Those days are over.

God is doing a new thing in the world. The average Christian is no longer a
rich, white, northern male. The average Christian is now a poor, coloured,
Southern woman. They know what religious paganism is. They know what
moral paganism is. They know what suffering is. Through Jesus Christ they
have been delivered from the realm of darkness, to the realm of light. They
are acquainted with suffering and they rejoice in the good news that through
the Cross and resurrection of Jesus the power of sin and death have been
destroyed. They read their Bibles, they believe their Bibles, they live their
Bibles in a way that we do not. In my area of North Vancouver, some Anglican
congregations have become so fed up with the pagan teachings of their
smooth-talking unfaithful Bishop that they have rejected his leadership and
come under the direction of a faithful Bishop appointed by five Archbishops in
Africa and South East Asia. I do not expect the re-evangelization of Canada to
come from the dying pagan ideologically dominated United or Anglican
churches.

God is doing a new thing. He is working through the Evangelical, Pentecostal
and Community Churches which are biblically-based and open to the Holy
Spirit. He is working through the third world churches. If there is not a deep
repentance on the part of the leadership of the mainline churches of North
America, many more of their members and many more of their congregations
will move to where God is moving.

CHRIST IS OUR FUTURE

And God is moving! He is the living God. That is why we must hold to the faith
once delivered to the saints. We must hold to the faith which declares that
God loves this broken and sinful world so much that he sent his royal Son to
become its Messiah, its Saviour, its Lord, at measureless cost to Himself.

In His incarnation, and through His resurrection, Jesus Christ has healed,
restored and renewed our humanity. That is why Jesus taught us to pray to
our Father, saying "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven". God takes our humanity and what we do with our bodies with
eternal seriousness. Our future is not to become a bunch of disembodied
spirits floating amongst the clouds. No, our future as God's people, will
involve being given new bodies, transformed bodies, like Jesus" resurrection
body, to share in the new heaven and the new earth that God will create.

But for now, He has given us a task, and that task it to proclaim His kingdom,
to seek to reflect His kingdom, to seek to do His will, to strive for his justice
and righteousness (they are the same words in Greek) and His love, here on
earth. As Tom Wright has written, ("Grave Matters", Christianity Today, April
6, 1998 vol.42, No4, p.51)

If Easter faith is simply about believing that God has a nice comfortable
afterlife for some or all of us, then Christianity becomes a mere pie-in-the-sky
religion rather than a kingdom-on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven religion. If Easter
faith is simply about believing that Jesus is risen in some "spiritual" sense,
leaving his body in the tomb, then Christianity turns into a let-the-world-
stew-in-its-own-juice religion, instead of a kingdom-on-earth-as-it-is-in-
heaven religion. If Easter faith is about me, and perhaps you, finding a new
dimension to our own spiritual lives in the here and now, then Christianity
becomes simply a warmth-in-the-heart religion instead of a kingdom-on-
earth-as-it-is-in-heaven religion. It becomes focused on me and my survival,
my sense of God, my spirituality, rather than outwards on God, and on God's
world that still needs the kingdom message so badly.

Even now God is preparing us to become Kingdom People, even now by His
Holy Spirit, He is beginning to do for us and for the whole world, what He did
for Jesus on that first Easter Day. That is why, the apostle Paul, with some
Christians in Corinth running wild had to ask them, (I Cor.6-.9-ll).
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived, neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor
male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God. And
that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified^ in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of
our God.

Even now Jesus Christ is building his church, even now he is calling people to
take up their cross and follow him. Jesus said, "I, when I am lifted up, will
draw all people to myself. (John 12:32) And Jesus was lifted up.

Lifted up on the Cross

Lifted up in the Resurrection

Lifted up in His Ascension.

And what is Jesus doing now that he is glorified and exalted at the right hand
of the Father? Paul tells us in Romans, chapter 8. In verse 34 he says, "It is
Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,
who intercedes for us". And in verse 26, he has also written, "... the Spirit
helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but
that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words".

What is the bodily resurrected and ascended Jesus now doing on our behalf in
heaven? Two things: He is praying for us. And he is sending us his Holy Spirit

Right now. He is praying for you.
Right now. He is sending you his Holy Spirit to pray in you.

Sometimes in the seemingly endless struggles in the United Church we feel
very wounded and very weary. We don't know how to pray or what to pray
for. When that happens, even now, or in the middle of the night, let yourself
be prayed for. Let Jesus pray for you. Just receive His prayer and say "Lord,
your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven". And let the Holy Spirit fill you
and pray in you. If you ask. He will do it, and you will receive the healing and
the strength you need to do His will, on earth, as it is in heaven.

***********************************************************************

Helpful websites:

www.narth.com http://www.narth.com/
www. robgagnon.net < http://www.robgagnon.net/>
www.theologymatters.com http://www.theologymatters.com/
 

Helpful books on homosexuality:

Robert A.J.Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001)
Jeffry Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Baker, 1996)
Neil & Briar Whitehead, My Genes Made Me Do It! (Huntington House, 1999)

Helpful books on Christians Origins:

N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Fortress, 1992)
................. Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress, 1996)

................. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003)

Helpful books to confront paganism in the church: 

C. Fitzsimons Allison, The Cruelty of Heresy, (Morehouse, 1994)

Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Either/Or: The Gospel or

Neopaganism, (Eerdmans, 1995)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (Collier, 1963)

T. F. Torrance, Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking,

(Eerdmans, 1994)

Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth, (Eerdmans, 1991)

...................... The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Eerdmans, 1989)

Paul C. Vitz, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship, (Eerdmans,
1988)

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