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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Reinforcing your last paragraph, here is more
crackpotism from the Christ Church Cult:</FONT></DIV>
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<H1 style="MARGIN-TOP: 0pt" class=headline>Reformed Pastor Preaches on the
Proper Role of Ministers </H1>
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<DIV>By Lillian Kwon </DIV>
<DIV>Christian Post Reporter </DIV>
<DIV>Mon, Sep. 28 2009 02:29 PM EDT </DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV>
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<P>A minister who preaches on the authority and infallibility of Scripture is
often accused of being arrogant, said one pastor. Such criticism, however, is
withheld from someone who sits on a stool in a cardigan and chats with the
congregation, telling personal stories.</P>
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<DIV class=a_photo_right>(Photo: Desiring God)</DIV>
<DIV class=a_photo_caption>Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow,
Idaho, speaks to hundreds of people at the Desiring God Ministries' 2009
national conference in Minneapolis on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009.</DIV></LI></UL>
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<DIV class=box_label>Related</DIV>
<LI><A class=preview
href="http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090811/evangelical-pastor-the-jesus-you-can-t-ignore/index.html">Evangelicals
Challenged to Preach Bold, Hard Truths</A></LI>
<LI><A class=preview
href="http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090926/evangelicals-urged-to-heed-calvin-s-voice/index.html">Evangelicals
Urged to Heed Calvin's Voice</A></LI></UL></DIV>
<P>Criticizing the latter form, Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow,
Idaho, made the case for the preacher who declares "thus saith the Lord."</P>
<P>"A minister should ascend into the pulpit in order to declare what would have
been true had he never been born. He is there to preach what was written in the
Word before all ages and is utterly disconnected from his personal dreams, hopes
and aspirations," Wilson said at the Desiring God Ministries' national
conference in Minneapolis on Saturday. "A minister is not up there to develop a
relationship with everybody individually."</P>
<P>Ministers are not supposed to be extemporaneous actors trying to figure out
their lines from everything other than the Bible, he noted. They may maintain
that their scripts are better, their plot lines are grittier or that their shows
make more money, but a minister's script is Scripture, Wilson stressed.</P>
<P>"He is there to declare something that is outside of his control. What God
has revealed to us in the Bible is the message. That's the script."</P>
<P>Wilson, who describes himself as a biblical absolutist, gave a nearly
60-minute talk on Calvin, the Bible and the Western world during the three-day
conference themed "With Calvin in the Theater of God."</P>
<P>The Moscow pastor, who also helped to establish the Confederation of Reformed
Evangelical Churches, sees ongoing battles today on the infallibility and
inerrancy of the Word of God. But believers, he said, are neglecting the battle
over the place of the Bible.</P>
<P>"Conservative evangelicals believe the Bible has no mistakes in it ... but
who today believes as Calvin did? Who treats the Bible as Calvin did?"</P>
<P>Sixteenth century reformer John Calvin taught and preached as if the Bible
was the sun around which everything else revolved, but many Christians have
drifted far away from this, Wilson lamented. Some modern believers are
heliocentric on matters of personal piety or the denomination's confession while
geocentric with regard to matters involving the public square, he pointed
out.</P>
<P>"What good to us is a perfect sun ... if it revolves around a very imperfect
earth ... and is orbiting us at greater and greater distances out so that now in
the 21st century for most of the church it almost appears as a star. It doesn't
matter if you say it's a very perfect star if it's way far away and orbiting
us," he said.</P>
<P>"If we want to learn Reformation basics from John Calvin, this is what we
need to recover. An important issue concerns the nature of God's word but in our
day, the thing we are really clueless about is the authoritative
<EM>centrality</EM> of God's Word."</P>
<P>The conference speaker, however, cautioned ministers from making the subtle
mistake many make while defending the inerrancy and centrality of Scripture.</P>
<P>He explained, "We have fallen for the trap of thinking that inerrancy
requires us to be grade nerds – always the best student in the class but one who
cannot abide making a mistake and who will argue with the teacher (Mrs.
Enlightenment) over every last point."</P>
<P>But what's even more fundamentally wrong is that the Bible is subject to
proof and reasoning and weighed by the world's standards.</P>
<P>"The Bible is not which meets the standard. The Bible is that which sets the
standard," Wilson emphasized. "The Scriptures are not a possession of ours which
we may put into the world's balances to be weighed. Rather, the Scriptures are
God's scales in which He places the entire world and all the nations of
men."</P>
<P>While Christianity isn't blind leap fideism, Wilson said that in order to
understand the Scriptures rightly, one must be converted to Christ. Otherwise,
"if you're argued into Christ, you can be argued out of him."</P>
<P>The role of preachers then is to declare the necessity of hearing the Word of
God, he highlighted. They were not sent to make a few mild suggestions, dialogue
with the world and tell the world that it's quite right, or to indulge in a few
postmodern dabblings of a theological nature, he noted. Rather, they were sent
to "declare what has been accomplished" and not what they would like to have
accomplished.</P>
<P>The Desiring God conference was held Sept. 25-27 and included speakers John
Piper, pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church in
Minneapolis, and Mark Talbot, associate professor of Philosophy at Wheaton
College, among others. The theme of this year's conference was chosen in
commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth.</P></DIV></FONT></DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=philosopher.joe@gmail.com href="mailto:philosopher.joe@gmail.com">Joe
Campbell</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=noustweaker@hotmail.com
href="mailto:noustweaker@hotmail.com">Nous Tweaker</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com>"><vision2020@moscow.com></A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, October 01, 2009 8:00
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] Say What?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>You are a sick man because in a post where you try "explain"
why <BR>you're not a racist, even though you like to tell racist jokes,
you <BR>close with a "joke" about the military murdering the (black)
President <BR>of the United States.<BR><BR>But you're a "Christian" and
not a racist and (presumably) "pro- <BR>American." Holy crap! How do you nuts
get away with this junk? And why <BR>isn't everyone concerned that a
local Moscow church promotes such <BR>hateful rhetoric?<BR><BR>Do you
realize that your whole world view rests on the hope that <BR>logicians
know nothing about reasoning, biologists know nothing about <BR>the
origin of life, etc.? It is hard to climb out of the irrational <BR>hole
you're put yourself in, brother. There is really nothing for you <BR>to
hold onto other than your own arrogance.<BR><BR>Sent from my iPhone<BR><BR>On
Oct 1, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Nous Tweaker <<A
href="mailto:noustweaker@hotmail.com">noustweaker@hotmail.com</A>>
<BR>wrote:<BR><BR>><BR>> Joe Campbell wrote: [[ You are a sick man.
]]<BR>><BR>> Would you care to elaborate on that? Am I a "sick man"
because I <BR>> have a strong desire to live according to Scripture?
Or because I <BR>> try to deal charitably with other people who are
also trying to live <BR>> according to Scripture? Or is it perhaps
because I question the <BR>> received "wisdom" of our ungodly age? On
top of the fact that it can <BR>> require a lot of hard work to
understand the full implications of <BR>> the Bible's teachings,
sinful people are good at self-deception, and <BR>> since I am a
sinful person, I can't exclude for myself the <BR>> possibility that
I or another Christian or group of Christians might <BR>> be barking
up the wrong tree with regard to the interpretation and <BR>>
application of Scripture. But I am not prepared to admit that <BR>>
Scripture itself is "the problem." The Bible contains the solution,
<BR>> and is never the problem. I would say that taking the Bible
<BR>> seriously is a healthy sign, not a sign of sickness. But that's
just <BR>> my Christian faith talking . . . In any case, I am neither
ashamed <BR>> of anything in the Bible nor of anyone's desire to live
according to <BR>> its teachings. We need to constantly examine the
Scriptures and our <BR>> own hearts for error, but in principle the
desire to live according <BR>> to God's Word is a good thing, and I
thank God for instilling such a <BR>> desire in the hearts of His
children. May God in His mercy help us <BR>> to know and rectify our
errors! But trusting in His Word is not one <BR>> of
them.<BR>><BR>> Nous Tweaker<BR>> ===========<BR>> Can you handle
the truth?<BR>> <A
href="http://noustweaker.blogspot.com/">http://noustweaker.blogspot.com/</A><BR>><BR>><BR>><BR>>
_________________________________________________________________<BR>>
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href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com</A><BR>>
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