Taking an Upward Turn...

I finally found what I was looking for, a side street that would lead me back to the Yellow Brick Road that leads to…well…Him. Almost one year ago I was introduced to the world of the Christian internet and the multitudes of blogs. Immediately I discovered there were brothers and sisters who were as concerned as I was about the direction of the evangelical world and I gained much additional information. I had not even heard of the emergent church movement before then and I quickly added them to the ever widening list of new and confusing streams of Christianity that are breathlessly running toward relevant methods and thoughts that will rejuvenate what they consider an archaic and immobilized faith that has lost its ability to reach and even care about the world in which we now live. Their assessment about the present state of the church is oh so right on, but their path to newness is very misguided.

And so I ventured into the Christian blogasphere having never even seen a blog before. Look, comment sections. Wow, like a kid in a candy store. There is such a feeling of empowerment and camaraderie that summons the endorphins when you comment on a blog, it is like presenting your point of view without interruptions and everyone is on the same level at the place of theological equality. Unbelievers and agnostics, Calvinists and Arminians, reformed and semi-reformed, all are welcome in the electronic round table called the blogasphere. A new and exciting experience which gives people the forum to correct, contend, confront, and even castigate those who espouse your opinion of deviant Christian theologies. And after you comment you return periodically to see if anyone has responded to you and are disappointed when no one has, after all, your comment was so well thought out and Spiritual. The emperor has no clothes. It is fulfilling…for a while.

It wasn’t long before I began to recognize something obvious, most people did not espouse the overarching view that I had entered with, specifically that the church as a whole was in desperate need of a massive revival. All of us, every denomination and every orthodox believer. I thought there might be a few who saw what I saw, and I do not mean just agreeing in a perfunctory way that “Yes, we all could use a revival”. No, I mean seeing and painfully feeling the backslidden condition of the church, even the most fundamental and orthodox sections of the evangelical world. We all could get a vicarious thrill by reliving Luther’s journey and the subsequent revival that swept Europe and birthed Protestantism, but could we not see that in many ways the church is in the same pre-Luther condition? We could rejoice in the Spiritual revival that had changed Wesley personally and allowed God to use him throughout the world, but why did we not see how desperate our own personal condition was? Even the Great Awakenings that had flooded parts of America were somewhat maligned in certain circles and some now even believe that revivals are not of God. My balloon began to leak.

Then as I rapidly aligned myself to those who would disagree with the different purpose/seeker/emergent (et. al.) movements I started to see "something" in so many of the writings and exchanges. At first it was camouflaged within the righteous indignation, but eventually it came out of hiding and was living and breathing openly on the words and attitudes of so many who would generally hold to the same views that I do. It is now a stifling and suffocating cloud that chokes out any invitation to the precious Holy Spirit.

Now originally I found a site called Slice of Laodicea which by its name I thought would address some of the issues I had been feeling. It did and within its electrons I discovered that there were many who saw the falling away of the evangelical church and I also learned of the emergent church. It was there I honed my comment skills which is an Olympic event in the Christian blogasphere. Now you become familiar with lots of commenters and posters by name and tone but in reality you never get to know them personally. You do not know their reputation or family or their walk, and like the mega church we so criticize, the blog family is even more distant and impersonal. And those commenters who voice similar concerns become “blog friends” and they rush to applaud and support each other and their opinions. It is a support group that is edifying on some level but can easily become a comfort zone of that “something” that I said now resides on orthodox beachfront property openly bathing itself in so many writings and comments.

What is it? It is “tuphoo”. This is the Greek word that comes from the word “to make smoke”. It also is from the word to make blind and in the literal sense it means to envelope someone with so much smoke it blinds them. That particular word means pride and is used in I Tim. 3:6. So there is so much self righteous and fleshly smoke enveloping the Christian blogasphere it has enveloped so many and blinded their eyes to their own sin, their own weakness, their own disgusting and carnal pride.

Any goofball can have a blog and it is sometimes treated as if the person who runs a blog is somehow approved of God. The same can be said for ordination, book writing, and a host of other things that can be manipulated by the designs of man. Titles, there is a manipulative garment of pride. Think about it, Dr., Professor, Pastor, and others are so coveted. No one ever signs their correspondence “Sinner Frueh” or “Unworthy Rick” or even “Goofball Henry” (I know that is your favorite). So let me remove the veil, we all are men with feet of clay. We all have our issues both personal and sometimes public, we all could be better fathers, we all could be better friends, we all could be better husbands, and we all could be better Christians. And all of us could be light years more like Jesus and to say we fall very short is such an understatement it is prideful in itself.

So the pride of being a watchman has become disgusting to me and the carnal and sarcastic banter is certainly not endearing to our Lord. I have made prideful mistakes along the way but I still believe with all my heart that the western body of Christ continues to significantly stray from the benchmarks which defined the teachings of the New Testament, both Jesus and Paul and the rest. But I refuse to sacrifice Christlike humility on the altar of being a truth warrior. It is no secret that most of the watchman blogs have picked the bones clean from Warren, MacLaren, and all the usual suspects, but where are the constant calls for prayer and fastings for them? For us? Just because you espouse the orthodox doctrines of the Scriptures does not mean you are not a hypocrite, far from it, sometimes that is the actual breeding ground for hypocrisy. We think we are such soldiers for God’s Word and yet we mostly ignore the self flogging Scriptures that lay open our own sin. You can be correct in theology and be disapproved of God personally. AGAIN, You can be correct in theology and be disapproved of God personally. That degree is well earned throughout the University of Blogasphere.

So how can we not see the sarcastic and caustic tone that masquerades as “soldiers of truth” within the ranks of orthodox blogs? If it is not blatant and obvious to you than we are reading different blogs and comments. It is mostly an exercise in verbal dueling and attack and counter attack. Powerless and self serving. It has become indigestible to me and when you visit some of the most vicious blogs you will notice that an overwhelming majority of their posts are something negative, however true, about something and someone. And when they post something devotional it almost seems out of character and it usually is a devotional authored by someone else not coming from their own devoted heart. It has run its course with me, maybe you can continue to feast, I cannot. It has beat me down and I now feel more sad for the body than when I walked through the electronic gate and I refuse to be identified with any who on paper believe what I believe but who do not care about being like Jesus. And if you think that they represent Jesus, well then you are guilty of redefining Him in like kind as some of the emergents have done.

And as I have traversed the landscape I would visit reformed, or hyper-reformed, or Calvinistic blogs (not all) which exhibit an aura that they have found the Holy Grail. They sometimes have an unveiled pride about their new found theology which some even called the “teachings of grace” or the “teachings of sovereignty” that is meant to insinuate that the free will camp doesn’t either believe in those things or have a shallow view of them. So even if you are “orthodox” in most of your views if you are not reformed you are a second class citizen that hasn’t yet had the ultimate epiphany that lifts you into the theological stratosphere. And some are of MacArthur, some are of Sproul, and some have other administrators of their particular persuasion and when I warned of idolatry I was invited not to comment again. They can dish it out but don’t touch their calf because theirs is real gold. And the sad part is that most of them see the compromising of the church and with that they will allow you into their midst, but if you offer a word of correction to them or even to us collectively you become undesirable.

And the desire to find out negative things about preachers both theological and personal is almost insatiable. If Rick Warren spit on the ground it would find its way on a post somewhere and then the other piranha would gladly link to it. The whole thing is a mess and its negativity far outweighs its Spiritual edification for me.

So as I said in the beginning, I have found a road, an alternate route that leads to Him. I have already wound down my time perusing (or trolling as someone has accused me) the internet for things to agree with, I need things that will challenge me personally to pursue Him. Will I write about the compromising streams? Sure. But it is more than obvious that writing is not the instrument that God will use to defeat the spirits of compromise, only a total, startling, and breathtaking revival in the midst of God’s church will ultimately bring glory to the Lord and His Word and that will only come as we seek Him and His Spirit with all our minds, souls, strength, and with sacrificial and time consuming prayer and fasting. Until then we will write on into oblivion, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ever should, and burning everything in our theological paths in order to be called a “warrior for truth”. To be sure there are significantly more pen warriors than kneeling warriors.

Perhaps, just perhaps, God will be leading me soon to step into the prayer closet, take one final look at the constant gibberish, and slowly but resolutely close the door and enter intimately into a interactive blog whose Author is the sole contributor and every post is for my personal edification and correction. And when the comment section is opened I can only say,

Woe is me, Jesus my Lord I ask you to cleanse me and create in me a heart of worship worthy of the One who hung for me and bled for the sins I now repent of. Remove me from me and perfume me with the sweet smelling savor that will draw people to Jesus and give me your truth with your mind, not your truth with my mind.

You alone Lord, You alone, are Lord and worthy of worship.

Amen and Amen.