I spent a little time recently reading specifically Christian news sites. Aside from one that holds a Catholic slant, most of them collect stories regarding American evangelical politics. There’s a lot of stuff aimed at pressuring US government entities to do things favorable to conservative evangelicals.
That would include some lawsuits I would consider totally frivolous, like the guy in Idaho who wants to be an independent construction contractor, but refuses to give the state his SSN because of his peculiar religious beliefs. We are convinced the Word says this man should simply accept the obvious, that for him to follow his peculiar religious rules will result in persecution. Persecution comes with following Christ, and we should consider it normal.
Sometimes the content of stories seek to hide something more sinister than trying to force government to make peculiar exemptions. You perhaps have noticed a number of evangelical influencers who have renounced their allegiance to cultural Churchianity — Marty Sampson of Hillsong and Joshua Harris of Covenant Life Church — along with several who are dragging their religion through the mud of public scandals. Most of these are associated with a peculiar thread in Western evangelical religion: Dominionism.
We’ve discussed that before. In broad terms, it is the religion of conquering the world politically in the name of Christ. This view is espoused by Hillsong and a handful of Calvinist organizations that have proliferated in the past decade. But the actual attempt to assert such political influence has been around since before WW2 in the US. Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family, while motivated by the panic of the left against even the slightest shred of conservative religious influence in society, is nonetheless an accurate warning about a very secretive program.
While many groups are ostensibly Dispensationalist/Zionist in belief, the broader Dominion Theology is quite often teamed up with the non-Zionist Covenant Theology of the more recent Calvinist revival. It is probably the single greatest political threat to globalism. Ever since the globalists and Zionists split some time ago, the latter has built a potent imperialist network intent on forcing Western evangelical cultural Christianity down everyone’s throat. They have infiltrated the ostensibly globalist intelligence community well enough to keep the Deep State from becoming even more blatantly partisan.
The single greatest threat to genuine faith is embracing traditional organizational models. What you see paraded as “new” church formation is merely the same old entrepreneurial model commonly used in niche entertainment businesses. I call them “entrepreneurial churches” because the model bears little resemblance to traditional churches, except perhaps in the most superficial ways. But it remains trapped in the single greatest lie the Devil has ever promoted: that churches should work to be taken seriously by the world. It’s part and parcel of head-centered religion. It goes all the way back to the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine.
Still, we are not hostile to all organized Christian religion. We have been called to a very narrow and difficult path, and the mainstream churches don’t want us. Our ministry is aimed at giving a sense of fellowship and identity to folks who cannot fit themselves into the mainstream religious organizations. We serve those church’s interests, if not their concrete objectives. We most certainly aren’t trying to compete with, displace them or be like them in any way.
Not all of the news is bad. In case you have grown weary of the propaganda against Christian faith itself, here’s something to counter the lies. Someone who actually studied the situation tells us the numbers reveal a different story. People are still hearing the call, and trying to find a religious setting that answers to that sense of calling. We sincerely hope they find what they seek, because we know that the Lord works in churches, often despite the humans running the show.
Meanwhile, please note that I turned off JScript to visit these sites because they are among the very worst offenders about hounding visitors with the most atrocious and annoying advertising.
Unrelated question: in Psalm 75, why is God’s wrath likened to a cup of wine that is mixed and spiced wine? What would that imagery have conveyed to the autjor’s contemporaries?
Psalm 75 is a very difficult translation from Hebrew, so bear in mind that we could all be missing the point. That said, Benjamin, it would appear that verse 8 is reference to Providence. That is, God decides who gets which cup, and what’s in that cup. Folks in the Ancient Near East did not turn the wine storage containers frequently as they do in modern Western wineries. Thus, ANE wines (typically in large clay jars) would settle the dregs and the first pouring off the top would be the sweetest. Even better is when the wine is mixed with spices. Some will get that first serving of sweetness from the Lord. Some would get the dregs, which taste more like vinegar, and He might mix in poison for them. I really don’t believe this is a question of Election, per se, but more about embracing Him as Lord as one might any literal human ruler. It encourages folks to embrace their divine calling, whatever it may seem like from a human level.
The Psalm as a whole is Asaph telling how, while he is before the congregation in worship, a primary duty is to promote that higher lordship of Jehovah, and himself as merely His shepherd. On God’s behalf, Asaph will execute the justice of God’s Law. As part of that duty, Asaph will warn people not to be arrogant. Earthly (political) advantage does not actually come from alliances with powerful armies (east, west, south, etc.), but God decides who gets what power for His own inscrutable reasons. Thus, the image of God being the bartender, deciding who gets what drink.
Asaph then declares that he will promote the glory of God, come what may, and participate in pulling down those who are arrogant against God’s choices, and reward the humble, taking his cues from God’s revelation.