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Truth in Conviction offers insights related to politics, religion and social happenings in the US and worldwide. The columns' philosophical base is conservative. Regarding
religion, it is evangelical. Concerning social matters, it is grounded in biblical ethics.
Swank has BA and MDiv degrees with graduate work at Harvard Divinity School. Married for 49 years with 3 adult children. Author of several books and thousands of articles in various Protestant and Catholic magazines, journals, web sites, and newspapers. Writer of weekly religion column for PORTLAND PRESS HERALD newspaper, Portland ME. |
Fri Mar 05, 2010
NAZNET CHAPLAIN BARBARA MOULTON = QUIET LIBERAL SUPPORTER
J. Grant Swank, Jr.
While NazNet moderators Hans Deventer and Scott Cundiff took owner/founder Dave McClung’s web site from holiness/evangelical/conservative to emergent church liberal, former moderator chaplain Barbara Moulton played cheerleader.
Whatever Deventer and Cundiff posted that was in keeping with the swing from conservative to liberal Moulton cheered on with comments or posting her name in agreement with their heretical positions.
McClung stood by permitting his site to be turned from “friend” to Church of the Nazarene to Judas the betrayer. If there is ever an enemy on the Internet to that denomination, it is NazNet.
The Church of the Nazarene Board of General Superintendents, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Nazarene Bible College, countless district superintendents, Nazarene headquarters’ department heads, Holiness Today editors and other personnel have been informed of the NazNet betrayal.
Moulton is known for her refusing to take a public witness on God’s abhorrence for homosexual activity. She, a chaplain, stated she would not marry two persons of the same gender. But she emphatically stated that she would not make a public testimony concerning the biblical position on the matter.
The latter would be in keeping with Deventer and Cundiff’s posted suspicions that the Bible is in fact without error.
Moulton’s refusal to speak in public on behalf of God was posted on the Internet. With that, McClung stated that she was “pained” by the exposure. However, McClung did not appear pained that his chaplain moderator refused to stand alongside God in His revelation in Scripture.
Moulton then became known as the gay-mum. She was mum on the gay nuptial issue. That spiked a number of responses from biblical believers asking how a Christian chaplain could be so cowardly.
Shortly, Moulton’s name disappeared from the NazNet masthead. Obviously, the “pained” Moulton led to her absenting herself from being moderator. However, she continues to post on NazNet.
Deventer and Cundiff still hold their moderator positions though their postings have been exposed far and wide. Deventer calls the exposure all “lies.” However, whatever has been revealed concerning his theological liberalism has been supported by his quotes from his postings. The same with Cundiff.
Cundiff, pastor of a small church in Alvin, Texas, knows that clergy and district leaders on the South Texas District Church of the Nazarene know of his double-tongue. They know that he preaches the typical Nazarene message from his hometown pulpit while playing the cavalier theological liberal emergent church enthusiast on NazNet.
Cundiff has even stated that the more he studies the Bible the less he knows God. Evidently to get his pastor’s salary check plus benefits, he does know God when preparing his Sunday msesages.
Deventer, from the Netherlands, knows his district superintendent has been informed of his liberal postings. Yet there is no sign that he still cannot believe in the Bible, that unsaved souls are annihilated at death, that there is an “intermediate state” for souls upon death, that he hopes God takes all souls to heaven, that there is no eternal hell, and that the emergent craze has a lot going for it as the new church.
Moulton, in the meantime, remains on NazNet as a contributor. Her postings are usually quite trivial, not broaching in-depth theological matters. However, NazNet readers cannot but remember that she was the chief cheerleader for Deventer’s and Cundiff’s liberal positions throughout.
Read NAZNET DISTORTS at http://naznetdistorts.blogspot.com/
Thu Mar 04, 2010
WILL BABIES BLOCK OBAMANGST-CARE?
J. Grant Swank, Jr.
“A little child shall lead them.”
It could be that the unborn child could slice and dice the Dems’ so-called “health” care bill.
“’Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,’ Representative Bart Stupak said on ABC’s Good Morning America when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.
“’Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,’ he said” per Reuters.
Those who are pro-choice are for murdering unborn boys and girls. It is murder. One cannot find middle ground. One either murders the unborn child or does not murder the unborn child.
Those who are convinced that God does not want mortals to slay their children are convinced that going against that ethic will bring dire circumstances at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Obviously there are those who are merely church people, like Nancy Pelosi who is a renegade Roman Catholic. Being a church person is not being a Christian. One must know the Savior and live by His ethic to be known as a child of Christ.
Those Dems who say that they will not give in on the abortion part of Obama’s bill are those who repeatedly inform the media that no amount of political persuasion will change their minds.
Of course, the public has been told that before and found these moralists not moralists. Time will tell who is truthful and who is playing word games.
But it just could be that in the end the children could block the Marxist Muslim Barack Hussein Obama’s so-called “health” care issue. That would be particularly interesting considering Christ’s high regard for children.
Read “UPDATE 2-US Democrats would kill healthcare over abortion” at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0421749120100304
FOOTNOTE: THE BIBLE AND ABORTION
It is alarming to realize the nonchalance on the part of many concerning abortion. But it is not new. A popular newsmagazine quoted one medical opinion: “Abortion is finding its place as a perfectly acceptable and valid health measure. We no longer think of it as a crime.”
There are those who say that every woman has a right to control her own body. That is true. Then, having control over her own body, she should not become pregnant if she does not want children. That is control! When she becomes pregnant, then she has lost her control over that situation.
But more importantly, only God has final rights to any person’s body. He brought that body into life and someday will take that body out of life. In the meantime He provides the very sustaining power for the body’s life to continue.
The Bible speaks of a fetus as a person, not simply tissue that can be discarded if found to be a bother or nuisance. Since the fetus is a person from the moment of conception, then the destroying of the fetus is killing a person.
“In the past, some people have mistakenly speculated that perhaps the body might be in the process of formation for some time, and then ‘God breathes a soul into it.’ They had it backward. The life that is present forms matter into a body for itself’” (Joseph Breig, “Life Forms Matter,” The Catholic News, Jan. 24, 1974, p. 8).
“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk … and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit” (Job 10:8-12 NIV).
“Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name...and now the LORD says--he who formed me in the womb to be his servant...” (Isaiah 49:1, 5).
“The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations’” (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
In the following passages we note that personality is ascribed to the unborn.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that fully well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:13-16).
“Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3).
Exodus 21:22-25 relates how Israel was to judge a circumstance relating to the death of the unborn:
“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
All of the latter deals with unintentional hurt that comes to a pregnant woman; how much more will divine penalty come upon those who intentionally discard the fetus? The Gospel of Luke ascribes personality to the fetus within Elizabeth:
“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit… As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (1:41, 44).
Mere tissue does not leap for joy; only personhood leaps for joy. The Bible regards the fetus as having personality. In Galatians, Paul speaks of himself as a person while still in his mother’s womb, but more a person consecrated by God for a holy mission (compare Jeremiah 1:5 for the same accent):
“But when God, who set me apart from birth, and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles...” (Gal. 1: 15-16).
Since the Bible regards the fetus as personality, then the aborting of the fetus is murdering personality.
Some verses from Scripture dealing with murder are then appropriate for study, such as Genesis 9:6: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” Also, read Exodus 23:7: “Have nothing to do with a false charge, and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.” Note I Peter 4:15: “If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer...”
If the Republic returned to the biblical definition of personhood, we would defend every womb child.
John Adams said the following:
“Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”
Andrew Jackson said the following:
“The BIBLE is the rock on which our Republic rests.”
Daniel Webster:
“If we abide by the principles taught in the BIBLE, our country will go on prospering.”
“For all the talk of freedom and self-determination, the abortion movement is at its heart a movement denying rights to a silent segment of humanity and soliciting public sanction, support and subsidy to its own cause” (Donald P. Shoemaker, ABORTION, THE BIBLE AND THE CHRISTIAN, Hayes Publishing Co., 1976, p. iv).
NAZNET MAKES A SANCTIFIED GOD CRY
J. Grant Swank, Jr.
It is so very, very sad; nevertheless, it is fact.
NazNet, set up as a site friendly to the holiness Church of the Nazarene has gone for anti-Bible teachings such as are popular now in the emergent church.
Brian McLaren, stroked emergent church guru, has become the New Age messiah for NazNet and like sites spreading across cyberspace.
NazNet moderators Hans Deventer and Scott Cundiff are two of the prime leaders with founder/owner Dave McClung giving permission for these heresies.
A web site that should be teaching the world via the Internet the marvelous life of sanctification has given itself over to being avant-garde theologically liberally.
The world is in miserable shape. It needs the biblical call of saving grace and sanctifying grace. In the meantime, we have the likes of Deventer, Cundiff and McClung endorsing the
Bible as riddled with mistakes.
Deventer states outright that he does not believe the Bible except for his hug with Jesus. Cundiff states outright that the more he studies Scripture the less he knows God. McClung goes on his merry way allowing this blasphemy.
There sits a web site telling readers that it is a companion to the Church of the Nazarene when in fact it is the enemy to the Church of the Nazarene.
Read NAZNET DISTORTS at http://naznetdistorts.blogspot.com/
Those of us who love the biblical doctrine of sanctification suffer. We would pray for the site to give all energies to explaining God’s Word offering the holy life possibility. Instead, readers go to the site to read trivia, nonsense and heresy—all provided on one NazNet.
There is so much that NazNet could do as an instructor concerning the biblical doctrine of holiness. That teaching is rare within Christendom. Therefore, NazNet could pick up on that void to give forth with some of the most amazing scriptural data.
Instead one gets the impression when perusing NazNet that it tries everything but holiness as a viable theme. Why? The reason is obvious. If moderators are theologically liberal so that they question the authenticity of Scripture’s divine revelation, they personally have no living relationship with the Holy Spirit.
With that, they have nothing to teach that is biblically sound. Their minds have been given over to the reprobate mind. They are captured by the latest fads sweeping across too much of the evangelical church.
Would that NazNet would break before God, confess its waywardness and begin the mission of teaching biblical holiness. For instance, the site could begin with the lesson of sanctification being sweet surrender. What a magnificent place to begin.
Sanctification, simply stated, is sweet surrender.
When one becomes saved, he takes Christ’s blood upon his soul. In that, he receives divine mercy. Sins are cleansed. This is a divine act beyond our fondest imaginations.
When the saved one then becomes sanctified, he yields his all to Christ. In salvation, one takes grace. In sanctification, one gives all to God.
Picture yourself now standing before God. In your hands are all that you have and are: wardrobe, vehicles, properties, family, friends, wallet, health or sickness, desires, reputation, abilities, dreams, future ambitions, finally death and eternal destiny.
Lift all of this to God. Give it all to Him without reservation. That is the surrender of sanctification. You received at salvation; you now yield at sanctification.
In that moment of submitting completely, the Holy Spirit accepted your all. He then cleansed it in order to return it as holy to you. Now what you submitted is ready for the kingdom’s good.
Previously, it was used chiefly for your own self-focused “good.”
At the time of sanctification, you are made pure by the Holy Spirit. He takes away your selfishness, stubbornness and stupidity which clung to things for your own welfare. In place of all that, He gives you grace to abandon to God. Now you no longer live for self but for the Savior alone.
When you were first saved, your sins were cleansed. Now that you are sanctified, your sin nature is cleansed. This is the “double cure” of which we sing in the hymn, “Amazing Grace.”
How does the Christian remain sanctified? Simply put: remain surrendered to the Holy Spirit in everything. Do not take back anything that you yielded to God. Leave all with Him--everything old, everything new—past, present, future.
As long as your soul submits completely to the Lord, you are continually cleansed. This is all accomplished by His grace, not of works, lest anyone should boast of his own human achievements.
Grace saves us from our sins. Grace sanctifies us from our sin nature. Therefore, God receives all the glory.
Can one remain sanctified completely until death? Certainly. By an act of free will, one becomes saved and sanctified. One chooses these opportunities of divine grace. Likewise, the believer may exercise free will for holiness till death. The decision is always left with us.
Less than surrender is misery. It is a double-minded life--living for God, yet living secretly (and sometimes obviously) for one’s self. This is evidently difficult and trying to the soul.
Total surrender is sweet in that it returns one’s soul completely to God. Instead of straining to plot one’s own benefits, one yields all such maneuvering to God. Therefore, there is a freedom from striving in everything.
The on-going life of sanctification then is perfecting the surrender. It is learning from the Holy Spirit how to consecrate the most practical items to God--life’s minors and majors. It is being taught how to think with God ("the mind of Christ").
It is discovering that material less is spiritual more.
Sanctification in this life has no conclusion but “more.” There is always more to come upon in God, more to precision, more to uncover of one’s own self and of God’s self. That is why it is such an exhilarating adventure.
How then does “the law” enter into this sanctifying grace? Is one at liberty to do as one pleases once one comes into this release? No. Instead, one finds that God’s commandments are the key to freedom within. Therefore, the sanctified yearn for more of God’s statutes.
The Bible speaks of the “law of liberty.” This is one more aspect of the sweet surrender. It is experiencing being a slave to God in order to be free from sin and self-centeredness. These paradoxes are lived out dynamically in the sanctified walk.
When the sanctified read of God’s expectations (laws) in the Word, they become as delicacies to be enjoyed. Before sanctification, the double-minded believer shunned God’s laws for they appeared restrictive. After sanctification, the believer binds God’s laws to his heart for they are indeed liberating.
Abiding by God’s law releases one from being legalistic. Legalism is adhering to man-made laws.
Living by God’s laws is not cold, sharp and unkind legalism; instead, it is gentle, understanding and patient.
Satan thrives on a legalistic religion. The Holy Spirit tutors the sanctified in the eternally true laws of God.
First century Judaism was founded upon legalism. Jesus offered the truth which would set one free from such humanly manufactured bondage. For that reason, Jesus was murdered by the religious system.
Live out the law of holy love and you yourself will be set free. Strap the commandments of God to your soul joyfully; in that you will be released from your chief enemy--stubborn self.
Sweet surrender not only includes yielding tangibles and inner drives. It also includes pain, confusion, tormented thinking, betrayals of the past, disappointments, ponderings of suicide, doubts and dreads.
The true sweetness of this surrender is realizing that the Father is willing to accept these hurts--for healing. Many have been made whole when they submitted those wounds of the heart which they thought they had to contend with till death. No. “Cast all your cares. . .” means all.
Frequently, Bible preachers and teachers request their hearers to yield tangibles and inner drives.
But it is not that frequently that such speakers get around to the awful burdens that many sincere grace-children carry all the time. Therapeutically, it is needful that we preach the “full gospel"--submit to Him the bleeding souls, too. He can soothe. And He does.
Sanctification is one of the most enticing dimensions of the gospel. It is sad that it is not set forth more often. Our souls are made for this opportunity of grace. To lack this experience is to remain partially bound in spirit.
When Jesus said that He came to set us free, He meant it. Sanctification is that wide, open door.
Have you come to God with your all? Have you stood before Him with everything? Then have you yielded all of this--pain and pleasure--to the One who formed you?
Let Him take this package for its cleansing. Satan will lie to you that God will rob you blind, leave you bankrupt. Do not believe the father of deceit.
The Holy Spirit will instead make your offering holy, returning it to you for heaven’s sake.
From that moment onward, keep that package in God’s plan. In that, you will experience in the depth of your soul the sweetness of your on-going surrender.
Such will continue, if you will it, till you see Him face to face when walking through the door of death.
Eternal life will be continuing the sanctification without threat of Satan’s intrusion. It will in fact be “holiness forevermore.”
Read DISCOVER HOLINESS at http://www.michnews.com/J_Grant_Swank_Jr/gs030110.shtml
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