Articles of Interest 02-25-12

Internet Monk – ‘Cause every girl’s crazy ’bout… – Pastor Ed Young, Jr.’s new web page. Not me

Digital Trends – Michigan State Police puts cop cars to the test – Being a car buff. I like stuff like this. See how the police cars from GM, Ford, and Dodge did this year at the annual Michigan State Police yearly test.

Slaughter of The Sheep – The Problem with Not Questioning – and it’s getting harder and harder to question. If the church discipline move really gains traction, see this come up in some prerequisite before one can join a church and watch an essential of being Berean get twisted to becoming an essential of never questioning.

Slaughter of The Sheep – If You Get in TBN’s Way, You Die! – Originally, I thought this was some old clip from 1988 but the clip is from February, 2012. Do pentecostals / charismatics really believe that people die for coming against them? Some of them actually do believe that.

Christian Post – Christian Boycotts Have No Biblical Warrant? – Not only do they don’t have biblica warrant. They simply don’t work because these same corporations go back to their ways after the heat of a boycott cools down.

Christian Post – Zachery Tims, Paula White to Be Honored at 2012 All-Star Gospel Brunch – really? Why honor a deceased pastor whose death is controversial and the release of the cause is being fought against and the woman who left behind a church in shambles to go the church the now deceased pastor previously pastored.

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Wartburg Watch – Is Church Discipline Going Rogue? and Is Church Discipline Getting a Bad Rap? Yes and No – I have been following this particular blog for numerous months now and I am enjoying the content especially when it comes to the topic of church discipline. I am very leery, not of the concept, but the abuses that can happen within the concept being called “of God”. I said this in a previous post:

Church discipline is the new buzzword, making a comeback, and may become the next global church movement. Most every church is trying to get on board, and the first celebrity pastor who can make it easy to administer via a new best-selling book / DVD series combined with having the church lawyer cross the “T” and dot the “I” will be the celebrity pastor who will make loads of money off the concept via the book, seminars, DVD teaching guides, and workbooks. A proper balance needs to be restored, but I am afraid this can very easily turn into the rehash of the Shepherding Movement (Ft. Lauderdale Five) from the 1970′s.

Now I am getting three very deep concerns here:

(1): The trial lawyers and not God and the Bible are writing the discipline policies. Look at the last famous lawyer named Charles Grandison Finney that influenced a major American revival and see the theological dead end it took us to.

(2): ‘Non-essensials’ (politics, non-essential theology, etc.) can very easily become re-defined as being ‘essentials’ to the point of failing to measure up to the wrongly re-defined ‘essentials’ can get you punished.

(3): With personal social media (facebook, twitter, etc.) being the current evolution of the Internet, will you be forced to either sign away your rights to talk about / question your church in a ‘negative’ light (term used loosely) within your social media / blog / internet form / personal webpage, etc. or would you be required to disclose all current and future social media / blog / webpage/ internet forum identities in order to be monitored and be potentially subjected to discipline / excommunication for ‘negative’ content (term used loosely) posted within these medias?

Can this happen in a similar way that employers are now using social media to determine who gets hired or fired from a job? Have we reduced church from being a house of worship to just another job with benefits? Is the Bible really influencing the church or are the policies of a Fortune 500 corporation directing church laity, polity, and discipline? From reading some comments at a ex-Independent Fundamental Baptist site I like to visit frequently, there are Independent Fundamental Baptist universities that have now taken either a firm ‘no social media’ policy and have Internet content filtering blocking access to sites like facebook and twitter(some are extreme to ban smartphones with Internet access) or adopted a policy of required disclosure of social media / blog / webpage/ internet forum identities in order to be monitored and potentially demerited/punished.

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White Horse Inn Blog – On Electing a Shepherd of the National Soul – well stated, especially in the realm of describing “confusion of kingdoms”

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