Most people, quite naturally, would fear being struck by a sword more than a scalpel. But slice someone up with a scalpel a thousand times and you can still kill him. Death by a thousand little cuts, rather than death from a single blow, is death just the same.
Some cults seem to have perfected the art of theological “death by a thousand cuts.” Case in point: the Liites (that is, “Li-ites,” or followers of Chang-Shou Li), better known by their self-given title as “The Local Church.” The Local Church first made its appearance in the US in the 1960’s, when Chang-Shou Li (known by his disciples as “Witness Lee”) arrived in America and began to draw followers to himself. Among other peculiarities, The Local Church claimed to be the only legitimate expression of the church. All other denominations and sects are part of corrupt “dead Christianity” from which the “blind” who receive “sight” must separate themselves: “When we were in the denominations, we were blind. I do not believe that any dear Christians who have really received sight from the Lord could still remain in the denominations.... But when he receives his sight, he will swiftly leave the fold for the pasture, for the sunshine, for the fresh air [i.e, join The Local Church].” (Witness Lee, Christ Versus Religion LSM, 197,1 p.109-110). The exclusivist claims of the LC have now been relaxed ostensibly, and according to their website (http://localchurches.org/beliefs/index.html) Christians in other churches can now be saved. If that were the only “scalpel cut” inflicted by Li and his followers, then it wouldn’t be fatal.
But the surgical “cut to the heart”—and one of the reasons the LC is still a cult and not just a far-off-the-center fringe group—is their unorthodox view of the Trinity. Chang-Shou Li was what theologians call a modalist—someone who denies that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three Persons within one divine Being. Modalism affirms that God is one Person who has “temporary manifestations” as the Father, Son, or Spirit. You can think of the god of modalism as wearing different hats at different times. He puts on one hat and now he’s the Father. He takes that hat off, puts another one on, and now he’s the Son, and then, the Spirit, and so on. He changes titles, but doesn’t reveal himself as distinct Personalities. This heretical view of the Trinity has rightly been rejected since the days of the early church.
That Li was a modalist is clear. Among numerous other (literally) damning statements: “Therefore, it is clear: The Lord Jesus is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and He is the very God. He is also the Lord. He is the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the Mighty God, and the Lord.” (Witness Lee, The Clear Scriptural Revelation Concerning the Triune God, www.contendingforthefaith.org/responses/booklets/triune.html). What’s perplexing though is that there are actually orthodox expressions of the doctrine of the Trinity on the LC website, for instance: “The local church believes that God is the only one Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—co-existing equally from eternity to eternity (1 Tim. 2:5a, Matt. 28:19).” Nevertheless, despite repeated calls to do so from evangelical leaders, LC leadership stubbornly refuse to disavow the heretical teachings of their founder, Chang-Shou Li.
So which is it then? Is Jesus one of three Persons, or is Jesus and the Father and the Spirit all the same Person? Is the LC an orthodox church with a sound view of the Trinity, or a heretical church teaching modalism? The answer is both, and therefore, neither.
In fact—and this is what is so sinister about the movement—the LC today are neither modalists nor Trinitarians. They are “confusionists” who espouse two views that are mutually exclusive and irreconcilable with one another. The Godhead cannot be One Person and Three Persons. He is three Persons (biblical view) or one Person (modalist view). But both cannot be true. The philosophically savvy term of describing the LC view is deconstructionism, which posits that there are no integrated and consistent thought systems, only the illusion of unity that breaks down to absurdity and contradiction when examined closely. And that’s what LC doctrine does. It break down to meaningless babble and absurdity. Confused "God-talk" can neither save people, nor glorify God.
Add to all this the final “scalpel cut” of the LC church’s penchant for suing the pants off people who disagree with them (latest case: an $136 million dollar libel suit against Harvest House publishers who labeled the LC as a “cult”, a suit which the LC lost), and what the LC movement amounts to is theological “death by a thousand cuts”: on the one hand, diverting precious time and resources from the church to answer their clever obfuscations and legal tactics, and on the other, dragging precious souls with them down to hell.
Beware the scalpel.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Burning the Qur’an: If You Do It, Don’t Say the Bible Told You So. If You Don’t Do It, Make Sure You Do What the Bible Tells You to Do.
Pastor Mike offered some sound insights on the controversy over the planned Qur’an burning by a Florida church at the Compass staff meeting today. Like the shrewd steward of Luke 16, the “wise as a serpent” Christian today does well to weigh the impact of his actions on his audience: are unbelievers more likely or less likely to respond winsomely to the gospel as the result of such a radical action?
But some might beg to cite biblical precedent here. After all, the occult books burned by repentant former practitioners of black magic in Ephesus (Acts 19:18-20) were so many that their total value reached 50,000 pieces of silver. A lot of Ephesians, and no doubt some Ephesian occultists, eyed the smoke rising from that fire! So is there a biblical principal in view in the present Qur’an burning dilemma that would require such a dramatic public statement?
Simply stated, no. The burning of the Qur’an and the burning of the occult books in Acts 19 are worlds apart for several reasons. First, it should be pointed out that the new disciples in Ephesus were renouncing their own former religion, not denigrating that of others. While a public book burning by Muslim converts to Christianity would not be a great idea, it would certainly be a different case than that of Terry Jones (the spiritual leader of a group of people in sunny, mild, and conspicuously non-Muslim Florida) getting a hankering to burn the religious text of some other faith. Not that this would be our best advice either, but why doesn’t he burn a few hundred copies of Playboy or Hustler? They probably sell better down there than English copies of the Qur’an do. And I doubt even Jones would argue that laying pure eyes on the pages of the Qur’an would be as defiling as the latest smut turned out by Hefner and friends.
If you were inclined to “go biblical” in your arguments to support Qur’an burning, chances are you’ve already made a turn back. But just in case, going a bit further into the context of Acts 19 we see just how impossible it is to use this text as proof for this latest misguided endeavor.
The converts of Acts 19:18-20 were, as we mentioned, practitioners of the arcana mundi, or “black arts” in Latin, which were specifically proscribed and punishable by Roman law. So too was any mystery religion that was not a religio licita, that is, a religion officially recognized and tolerated by the state. Roman society disdained such superstitio, “superstitious beliefs”, and a number of public book burnings are gleefully recorded in the annals of the Roman historians Suetonius and Livy. Far from enraging the average civic-minded Ephesian, the book burning would most likely have been viewed as a welcome purge from society of superstitious unmentionables.
Not so with the cult of “Artemis of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:28) and her great temple, mentioned just a few verses later in the biblical account. A source of civic pride, the official cult of Artemis was one layer of the societal glue that bound Ephesians together. So careful were Paul and his companions not to cast unnecessary aspersions on the Artemis cult that later the town clerk could remark confidently that they were neither “sacrilegious” nor “blasphemers of our goddess.” (verse 37).
The Ephesian milieu was a complex mix of religion, social mores, and political pride—not unlike that of the Arab world today. The tides of Arab nationalism have waxed and waned over the centuries, but for many Arab Muslims, in particular, Muhammad will always be a rallying point. It was he who united the nomadic Arab desert tribes and began to form them into an impressive and dominating fighting force. The sayings of the Qur’an, which Islamic history attributes entirely to him, have served as a crystallizing and preservative force for the dialect of Arabic which has become standard across the Arab world. While not generally spoken by the masses, it is still largely understood, whether you’re a cosmopolitan socialite in Tangiers, Morocco, or a marsh Arab dwelling in tenement huts in Iraq. Though the analogy is crude, in some ways Muhammad was the founding father of the Arab national movement, just as George Washington was of that in America. Only, Muslims remember Muhammad as both a religious and secular figure, whereas Americans have long forgotten Washington’s deism, but still embrace his secularism and libertarianism.
In the end, the whole conversation seems like just another round in the endless cycle of foolhardy reactionism against Islam by Western evangelicals. We are too busy disobeying the Great Commission to actually do what Jesus tells us to do: Go to unbelievers (even Muslims). Preach a simple gospel with boldness and humility. And pray that people will be saved. Whether the next Florida pastor is too busy organizing sea-side treasure hunts for retirees or decides to go on a “burn crusade” against the world, we’ve missed the point.
But some might beg to cite biblical precedent here. After all, the occult books burned by repentant former practitioners of black magic in Ephesus (Acts 19:18-20) were so many that their total value reached 50,000 pieces of silver. A lot of Ephesians, and no doubt some Ephesian occultists, eyed the smoke rising from that fire! So is there a biblical principal in view in the present Qur’an burning dilemma that would require such a dramatic public statement?
Simply stated, no. The burning of the Qur’an and the burning of the occult books in Acts 19 are worlds apart for several reasons. First, it should be pointed out that the new disciples in Ephesus were renouncing their own former religion, not denigrating that of others. While a public book burning by Muslim converts to Christianity would not be a great idea, it would certainly be a different case than that of Terry Jones (the spiritual leader of a group of people in sunny, mild, and conspicuously non-Muslim Florida) getting a hankering to burn the religious text of some other faith. Not that this would be our best advice either, but why doesn’t he burn a few hundred copies of Playboy or Hustler? They probably sell better down there than English copies of the Qur’an do. And I doubt even Jones would argue that laying pure eyes on the pages of the Qur’an would be as defiling as the latest smut turned out by Hefner and friends.
If you were inclined to “go biblical” in your arguments to support Qur’an burning, chances are you’ve already made a turn back. But just in case, going a bit further into the context of Acts 19 we see just how impossible it is to use this text as proof for this latest misguided endeavor.
The converts of Acts 19:18-20 were, as we mentioned, practitioners of the arcana mundi, or “black arts” in Latin, which were specifically proscribed and punishable by Roman law. So too was any mystery religion that was not a religio licita, that is, a religion officially recognized and tolerated by the state. Roman society disdained such superstitio, “superstitious beliefs”, and a number of public book burnings are gleefully recorded in the annals of the Roman historians Suetonius and Livy. Far from enraging the average civic-minded Ephesian, the book burning would most likely have been viewed as a welcome purge from society of superstitious unmentionables.
Not so with the cult of “Artemis of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:28) and her great temple, mentioned just a few verses later in the biblical account. A source of civic pride, the official cult of Artemis was one layer of the societal glue that bound Ephesians together. So careful were Paul and his companions not to cast unnecessary aspersions on the Artemis cult that later the town clerk could remark confidently that they were neither “sacrilegious” nor “blasphemers of our goddess.” (verse 37).
The Ephesian milieu was a complex mix of religion, social mores, and political pride—not unlike that of the Arab world today. The tides of Arab nationalism have waxed and waned over the centuries, but for many Arab Muslims, in particular, Muhammad will always be a rallying point. It was he who united the nomadic Arab desert tribes and began to form them into an impressive and dominating fighting force. The sayings of the Qur’an, which Islamic history attributes entirely to him, have served as a crystallizing and preservative force for the dialect of Arabic which has become standard across the Arab world. While not generally spoken by the masses, it is still largely understood, whether you’re a cosmopolitan socialite in Tangiers, Morocco, or a marsh Arab dwelling in tenement huts in Iraq. Though the analogy is crude, in some ways Muhammad was the founding father of the Arab national movement, just as George Washington was of that in America. Only, Muslims remember Muhammad as both a religious and secular figure, whereas Americans have long forgotten Washington’s deism, but still embrace his secularism and libertarianism.
In the end, the whole conversation seems like just another round in the endless cycle of foolhardy reactionism against Islam by Western evangelicals. We are too busy disobeying the Great Commission to actually do what Jesus tells us to do: Go to unbelievers (even Muslims). Preach a simple gospel with boldness and humility. And pray that people will be saved. Whether the next Florida pastor is too busy organizing sea-side treasure hunts for retirees or decides to go on a “burn crusade” against the world, we’ve missed the point.
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