Friday, September 24, 2010

New podcasts up!

Over the last few days I have had the privilege to interview (if you want to call what I do an interview) Connie Waters, Phil Shepherd and Jonathan Brink. So, there you are, you are now officially updated.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Three Views Calvinism, Arminianism and "iggyism": or just some theological riffing



I am fully aware that this is way over simplified... But for discussion.... any thoughts?
blessings,
iggy



John CalvinFoundation laid by Augustine
John WesleyFoundation laid by Arminius
iggy
Foundation laid by Irenaeus and The Bible


T
Total Depravity - Human beings are so affected by the negative consequences of original sin that they are incapable of being righteous, and are always and unchangeably sinful; human freedom is totally enslaved by sin so we can only choose evil.
Deprivation - Human beings are sinful and without God, incapable (deprived) on their own of being righteous; however, they are not irredeemably sinful and can be transformed by God’s grace; God's prevenient grace restores to humanity the freedom of will.
Innocent until one sins – Man has a predisposition to sin. We have had our eyes open to see the difference between good and evil, given statutes and laws that step by step give us all the mercy and grace and forgiveness and blessings of God, yet have not the moral consistency to live it out.  All men eventually sin thus only by sacrifice of blood can man be forgiven.
U
Unconditional Election - Since human beings cannot choose for themselves, God by His eternal decree has chosen or elected some to be counted as righteous, without any conditions being placed on that election.
Conditional Election - God has chosen that all humanity be righteous by His grace, yet has called us to respond to that grace by exercising our God-restored human freedom as a condition of fulfilling election.
Conditional Election modified– All have been forgiven once and for all through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Yet, not all are saved. Man must lay down his free will as a living sacrifice and receive the Life of Christ Jesus in order to be saved. Once one has converted, he is predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
L
Limited Atonement - The effects of the Atonement, by which God forgave sinful humanity, are limited only to those whom He has chosen.
Unlimited Atonement - The effects of the Atonement are freely available to all those whom He has chosen, which includes all humanity, "whosoever will."
Unlimited Atonement – Not only was the whosoever -will atoned for but the whole of creation. Except save the fallen Angels.


I
Irresistible Grace - The grace that God extends to human beings to effect their election cannot be refused, since it has been decreed by God.
Resistible Grace - God’s grace is free and offered without merit; however, human beings have been granted freedom by God and can refuse His grace.
Sustaining Grace – God’s grace sustains all creation. For if God so willed He could say, “no more” and nothing would exist. This is contrary to the character of God. There is the calling of the Holy Spirit or wooing, then the conversion. Conversion can be instant or may take a lifetime or be denied or forfeited, thus not accepting salvation and being later cast into the Lake of Fire.
P
Perseverance of the Saints - Since God has decreed the elect, and they cannot resist grace, they are unconditionally and eternally secure in that election.
Assurance and Security - There is security in God’s grace that allows assurance of salvation, but that security is in relation to continued faithfulness; we can still defiantly reject God.
Assurance and Eternal Security – Once one has gone through conversion he is no longer subject to this world, but is now subject to the works of Christ Jesus whose works are final and complete. No man can remove salvation from himself for it is not of himself as it is God’s salvation given to us by His Grace, through Faith in Jesus Christ

To sum it up, Calvinism denies that God is truly sovereign as He is subject to the system and is without a true free will. Armenianism puts too much on mans works to justify a person as only by the blood of Jesus are we justified and kept pure. It is not by works we are saved, nor is it by works our salvation is maintained, as it is God's salvation given to us through His Grace, through faith in His Son. A bit of a disclaimer, I wrote this up about 5 years ago, and re-reading it I am not satisfied with some phrasing or ideas.

Is infallibility and inerrancy even biblical?

 I realized a couple of things over the years. I admit there was a time my faith demanded a literal/infallibility/inerrant view of the bible. I needed the view to keep faith. However over the many years, I found 1. There is some... major circular reasoning going in the views. 2. Not all denominations or streams of Christianity agree how far infallibility and inerrancy should go. Some say the bible is the Perfect, (A view I find offensive to Jesus) while some concede there are not original manuscripts to prove the view. 3. That translations are not infallible, or without error. Yet, for some reason, I found that the Person of Jesus taught in the bible has grown and shown Himself more and more real to me... and in His Way, proved the bible to be faithfully true. It holds authority in my life because Jesus is my Authority. Jesus gives His authority to the bible so as I trust Jesus; I trust the written word to guide me. I agree it is a confusing and frustrating book at times... it is beauty and grace, yet reveals the evil in all of us... it holds nothing back yet hides our sin... to really find the Bible in its fullness is to find the Living Christ Jesus... To find Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit, then one can begin to learn how to understand the book.

I see infallibility and inerrancy as man made modernist constructs that are imposed on the bible... These ideas are even opposed to the teachings of Jesus and of course the bible itself as John 5: 39- 41 show. Jesus does not need man's approval... nor does the written word need man's approval. The bible does not need to be proven by the scientific method; in fact I agree with atheist David Hume that using the scientific method is the wrong tool to use to prove God or other things that are faith based. Now, I find my faith allows me to not need these man made tools to prove God for me, in fact I find they get in the way of understanding what the bible teaches. I know that is very hard for some to read and grasp, and recently having watched a few friends lost faith over the years over the view the bible is infallible and inerrant, only seems to prove they are not tools of faith but hinder or destroy faith.

Romans 14:23 is talking about food, and if a man eats against his conscience, the he sins. “But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.” Here I see two things in relation to what I am saying. 1. I see that infallibility and inerrancy are built on the foundation of doubt. While these ideas are well intentioned, to even ask if they are true shows doubt as well as it shows that doubt in itself is bad.

The second thing I see in this verse is that anything not of faith is sin. These views are not based on the pure trust in Jesus at His word, let alone trusting the bible to be what it is. The ideas of infallibility and inerrancy grate against faith. Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” In fact if one backs up to chapter 10, they will see the writer of Hebrews building a case for faith… that came out of the peoples experience with the Living Christ Jesus. Their salvation came through faith, and the writer of Hebrews exhorts those he or she is writing to not to base their belief on what they see, but from faith. Then he gives the definition of faith as I already quoted. From this definition the writer launches into a history lesson on faith that sums up with the writer explaining that faith was the ingredient that drove the patriarchs of the faith, even though they did not get to see what those present in the writing had seen. At one point the writer of Hebrews states “6.  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Again, two things I see, 1. Faith is the only thing that pleases God. 2. One must believe that God exist to receive the reward.

If the tools of infallibility and inerrancy are contrary to faith, then they are of sin. I see that these two teachings run contrary to my conscience. In that if someone demanded me to believe in those two things now to keep my faith in God, I would lose faith entirely. However, to see them as they are, man-made constructs imposed on the bible, allows me freedom to have faith and to walk in faith. I find it easier to trust Jesus, as I no longer must contend with men to prove what I cannot. I can only be like the blind man in John 9:25 “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" This seems to confound the “wise” (those atheists I run into) as I agree totally with their argument, however must profess my faith so I become the fool for the sake of faith.

By the way, if I am wrong, I have no issue with that at all either. But for those who will now criticize, allow me to walk in the faith granted to me, as I allow you to hold to your view.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A couple of new podcasts are now up

I have a couple of new podcasts up.
Interview with John O'Keefe talking about his new book, The Boneyard

Also an interview with Bobby Masilamani.
Bobby is a 20 year old Evangelist in India who has taken on 18 street kids, but that's not all. 

Monday, September 13, 2010

Been a weird but busy couple of weeks

I have been a little silent on my blog. However, been hard at work in other areas... that as it may be, partly that I am looking for a job. Meanwhile, I am selling books on Amazon.com under the name Saving Faith Books (Yeah there are some books I would not rather sell) as well as changing the name of my radio station to Saving Faith Radio (which includes changing over the blog for the station.) I have been selling books pretty well.

The idea behind the station name change was this: I decided that iggyROCKS! sounded a bit amateur. I hope to move on and grow the station in a bit of a different direction and thought the name change to Saving Faith Radio might make it sound more interesting. My thinking is that 1. There is a saving faith that leads us to Jesus. 2. There are many out there who are hurting and their faith is fading, and they need a place to help save their faith. 3. It sounded a bit like saving face… Other than that, it just seemed a time for change. I did notice my numbers have changed dramatically as I was in the top 50 in my genre and now popped into the top 100. Mostly I believe is that no one can find me under the new name. It may take a while for the name to register with live365.com so for at time if you are still looking for my station, you can find it under iggyrocks. Also, I have started more live shows, and have figured out a way to take live calls. Believe me it is all very low-tech.

I also plan to add more shows and have been talking to JR Harrison, who is one of the Out Law Preachers to do an audio version of his blog sermons. I hope this will add a bit more spice to the mix.

While I am writing I might as well point to a few things around the blogosphere. JR Harrison’s blog as he has many great thoughts there… also Brandon Mouser calls out Ken Silva on his version of a picture (Brandon was present for the picture while Ken was sitting in his evil lair thinking of new things to make up.) It is funny reading good ole Ken as he has not changed and begins to sound more and more like Pee Wee Herman “I know you are, but what am I?”



I have fallen in love with the Out Law Preachers. While some are more radical about Grace than I am, I see God is doing something great with these radicals. So if you are on Twitter as well as on Facebook check them out.

I had a run in with an old friend. I still consider him a friend though since he has turned agnostic or atheist or whatever, he seems to be angered when I even try to interact with him. In fact his story is that he was a Fundamentalist Baptist, who slowly became a Christian Universalist, then read a book debunking the inerrancy and infallibility of the bible and so, lost his faith in God all together. I mentioned that these terms are not even taught in the bible (yes it is “God breathed” and “inspired” but I see those word often packed with meaning not found in the text itself… so when you find an original text we can talk further on infallibility, you might then have a strong case). He then went into strange rants about what I believe (though he was not even close) as well as telling me I must believe the bible is all Truth! Ummm… I pointed out that Satan is quoted in the Bible and his words are lies, not truth… yet sadly it just turned uglier and uglier… to the point he told me to “F*** off”. Well, I hope he is content… still sad to lose a friend I respected and loved over the years. It seemed that he went full circle in his fundamentalism mindset though. I know that Atheists bristle at the idea of being called a fundy, but you are… you have a belief system which is a “religion” of sorts… Believe me I knew guys whose religion is Harley Davidson so don’t tell me atheism is not a religion. You worship science, and your own knowledge… you worship self ego etc… etc… etc… If I turned atheist I would worship peanut butter and fishing… A friend pointed out this site I think expresses my thoughts in a humorous way about atheistic fundamentalist… check it out. Personally, the one big reason (besides not being able to deny that Jesus entered my life as He did) that I would never become an atheist or agnostic, is the ones I run into are just plain mean people. (Just watch the comments over that one!) BTW, I believe that this person worshiped the bible and Jesus wanted to break him of his idolatry... of course if he ever reads this he will blow a gasket (though he is never angry... haha!)

I also have been doing fund raising for different ministries in Africa and soon India... you have read a few past posts on this so I will not say much more other than I hope to move forward to start a non-profit organization soon that helps out small ministries that God seems to be bringing to me. 

Well, that is about it for now. I hope to get back teaching on my blog soon… so beware!