RELIGION IN THE NEWS
A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Rocky Ford Colorado Gazette with a headline: “Five RF Pastors Switching Pulpits Sunday.” “For a variety of reasons, Christianity is divided into many denominations. This Sunday as a sign of their faith in the same Lord, five local congregations will exchange pastors for a day. Looking forward to preaching at St. Peters Catholic Church, Pastor John Knight, pastor of First Baptist Church commented: ‘We are unifying our churches through service to each other. I thought it would give us a different perspective on each other’s congregations recognizing the similarities rather than just the differences.’ ‘I think we are likely to increase our understanding of the gospel to the extent we listen to the Spirit’s voice through those that have some different understandings rather than only listening to those who already agree with us,’ said John Zimmerman, pastor of Rocky Ford Mennonite Church who will be preaching at First Baptist Church. ‘And anyway, while denominations have some important differences, the reality is that many of the distinctions that seemed important in past generations don’t seem so significant anymore. The lines between denominations are fading.’ Other pastors involved in the exchange will John Farley, Pastor of St. Peter’s Catholic Church who will preach at First Christian Church; Carol Isaacson-Hull, pastor of First Christian Church who will preach at the Church of the Nazarene and Bill Seal, pastor of First Church of the Nazarene who will preach at Rocky Ford Mennonite Church.
Tom:
Dave I know a lot of people who are listening to this are thinking well that’s great. Here we are really coming together demonstrating that we are all Christian and that’s going to be a great witness to the world. But there are some big problems here.
Dave:
Well Tom, I guess we’ve talked about this before. The source of truth is God’s Word, not what somebody says. Again, the Bereans searched the Scriptures to check Paul out. You don’t hear anything like that here. Well we’re going to listen—well we’re not going to just listen to those who agree with us—let’s hear from those who disagree with us. There’s no thought of discernment whether what these people who disagree with us, whether what they teach is right or wrong according to the Bible. But we’re just going to get in one another’s pulpits and were going to show that we are all Christians. Well we have Catholics involved here; not just Catholics, but there are apostate Protestant churches. Apostate for what reason? For example if we went to downtown Seattle , Washington you have First Baptist Church downtown Seattle , Washington . The pastor is Romney R. Romney—
Tom:
Senior Pastor.
Dave:
Senior pastor and he has written a book: Journey to Inner Space . They are still offering it even though we exposed it way back in The Seduction of Christianity . And Journey to Inner Space: Finding God in Us and the man is into finding God in everybody. Everybody’s okay, God is in everybody. And it’s good to practice Yoga and he would accept Buddhism and Hinduism and so forth. Now I would say that man has some very serious heresies—denial of the narrowness of the gospel that Jesus taught. He said straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life; few there be that find it. We’re going to change pulpits? There are some very serious doctrinal differences, but when it comes to Catholicism, I mean we’ve gone over this I guess, I don’t know how much we’ve talked about Catholicism, but their Jesus is a wafer. The Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again and is in a resurrected and glorified body at the Father’s right hand, but no, they say He is still being offered. Jesus said it is finished. The writer of Hebrews says by one sacrifice he is perfected forever and that there’s no more sacrifice for sin, but the Catholic Church says no Christ is still being offered and if you dare to say when you take the bread and the cup this is merely a remembrance of a sacrifice completed on the Cross 1900 years ago and you deny that this is an ongoing sacrifice that Christ is literally be emulated, that’s their terminology. He is being offered for sins and this is a propitiatory sacrifice, anathema to you! So we have a very serious difference and it is so serious that the Catholics are forbidden to partake of Protestant Communion and they forbid Protestants to partake of the Mass.
Tom:
Right, so that won’t be happening in this exchange of pulpits. But Dave there’s another irony here and that is you have a pastor of a Mennonite Church . Now this man must not know his history because Menno-Simons—
Dave:
Well, they were persecuted by the Catholics.
Tom:
Absolutely, and he was a former Catholic priest. Why did he reject Roman Catholicism and then he was persecuted for it and what has been resolved today to push that aside?
Dave:
Tom they were called Anabaptists. We go way back. Why were they called Anabaptists, like a- theists? That they were against baptism. No, they were against infant baptism. And these were all Catholics who had been baptized as infants and when they came to faith in Christ, they got saved, they were born again through the gospel, and then they realized that baptism was for believers, so they were baptized again. And they were persecuted and killed, not only by the Catholics, but also by the Protestants, because Lutherans as well believed in the efficacy of infant baptism—baptismal regeneration, so there are some serious differences here and you can’t just overlook them.
Tom:
Well, that’s the question Dave. Have these things been resolved or are we just brushing aside biblical truth for the sake of unity.
Dave:
Right, they have not been resolved and the biblical truth is being ignored and now we are just going to say that we are all united. And that is a dangerous delusion.
