Confessions of a Stupid Elephant (Sample Chapter from “Stupid Elephant Tricks – The Other Progressive Party’s War on Christianity”)

© 2011, 2012 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.

The following sample is the complete introduction from the just-released book, Stupid Elephant Tricks – The Other Progressive Party’s War on Christianity. If you like it, please pass along this link to anyone else you know who might me interested and inspired by the message of this book. Thank you for your prayers, patience, and support!

For more excerpts and to address any formatting issues with this one (blog posts/emails can sometimes be thoroughly mangled in transit), please feel free to head on over to www.FireBreathingChristians.com. There is a lot of info on Stupid Elephant Tricks posted there, along with clips and previews from this month’s other R3V Press release, Satan’s Jackass – The Progressive Party’s War on Christianity.

That said, and without further delay, here’s your sneak peek at Chapter 10, “The Would Be God Who Would Be President”:

CONFESSIONS OF A STUPID ELEPHANT

THE REPENTANCE AND REFORMATION OF A CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE

…what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God…

2 Corinthians 6:14-16

                                                                                 .

“Of two evils, choose neither.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

                                                                                  .

Is my vote honoring to my God? This is the question that, by His grace alone, I’ve aimed to sincerely ask and honestly contemplate, and the serious consideration of this question is what I hope and pray to inspire in all other American Christians through this book.

As a thankful child of the ’80s, I have a soft spot and deep admiration for Ronald Reagan and what God chose to do through him for America in what was truly a desperate, dark time in the nation’s history. As a politically inclined young man in the ’90s, I also have something of a soft spot for Rush Limbaugh and the radio revolution he began “back in the day” of George H.W. Bush’s “kinder, gentler nation”. (I even refused to purchase the text bookfor a college sociology class taught by a gay (“homosexual”, not “happy”) Marxist, instead opting to carry a copy of Rush’s The Way Things Ought to Be with me to class every day.) And as a vocal supporter of the younger Bush’s campaigns in the decade that followed his father’s presidency, I have a very warm affection for good ol’ red state, Tea Party patriotism and sensibility.

   None of these things have changed.

I love America. I love her Constitution. I love her history. I love her unique wonder and witness to the providential hand and power of God. I love her role and influence in a dark world insofar as she has been able to attain and sustain that biblical “shining city on a hill” position mentioned so frequently and so fondly by President Reagan.

I love conservative books, I love talk radio, and I love the fact that God has given American Christians all of these things along with the power and opportunity to use them to shape our own government – something that is breathtakingly rare in human history. I love that we have no Caesar in America (at least not yet). I love that We the People are Caesar (at least for now).

But each of these loves have been, for me, cast in a new light. By the grace of God alone, I’ve only recently been granted enough light and the desire to face it so that I might come to see and contemplate that question differently. More seriously. More urgently. More faithfully.

Is my vote honoring to my God?

Considering what I have been graced to learn and live through His perfect Word, is my vote honoring to my God? Knowing what I have been blessed to see and understand about His nature and necessity as the center of all hopeful human endeavor, is my vote honoring to my God? Having embraced the truth that He has given me through His written revelations regarding the need to exalt and submit to Him in all things at all times, even (and especially) when doing so is decidedly unpopular and non-pragmatic by every self-serving standard and worldly impulse, is my vote honoring to my God?

   As I first began to seriously contemplate this question a few short years ago, I immediately realized that repentance was required. And in that same moment I also realized what it was that had played such a large part in my having previously avoided the true weight of the question altogether: Pride.

It was anything but comfortable to realize that  I  had been so far off the mark. And it was hardly a warm and fuzzy feeling that washed over me at the realization that I had been that far off the mark when I had, all along, had my God’s perfect truth plainly preserved and presented before me the whole time.

It wasn’t as though Scripture was vague, cloudy, or ambiguous regarding such vital truths as the centrality and lordship of Christ in all things at all times. It wasn’t exactly wishy-washy as to the price of submitting to Christ in each and every one of those things, either. And it sure wasn’t the least little bit wobbly or wiggle-room-friendly as to how counter-intuitive and downright peculiar the Christian life in action would appear from a worldly perspective. God’s Word couldn’t have been more clear on any of these things. It was as though it was perfect or something….and that perfection was cutting through a lot of pet positions, perspectives, and traditions that I’d proudly held close and dear for a very long time.

I realized that I had been very secularly pragmatic in my political thoughts and actions. I had been very self-focused, self-referential, and self-centered in my political thoughts and actions. And I had been all of these things in spite of my having known better all along.

Now here I am, in the year of our Lord 2012, and I see an America that is circling the drain in every significant, measurable way. Realizing that it is doing so in no small part due to the choices that  I  have made, the causes that  I  have supported, and the candidates for whom  I  have voted has not exactly proven to be my idea of a good time. It really was much more fun when I could just blame those evil and/or stupid Democrats for everything.

But the course that’s been charted for America isn’t an exclusively Democrat construct. Far from it. It isn’t a Republican creation, either. It is the product of a progressivism that has captivated both parties, and the “progress” at the heart of both its right wing and left wing variants is a progress toward a man-centered worldview and away from a God-centered one. If this path is followed for just a little while longer, we really will see the doom that has been waiting for us since we started down this trail.

   I love America. I love God more than America. Infinitely more.

So it is that I love America enough to root for her when she seeks and submits to His will, I love her enough to root against her when she goes the other way, and I love her enough to fight for her shifting to the former path when she is presently choosing the latter. My fidelity is, happily and adoringly, to God above all else, and that is the prism through which, by His grace, I aim to test all things – including all political things – and then ask the question: Is my vote honoring to my God?

My prayer is that the hard truths and bold statements made in the pages of Stupid Elephant Tricks will be understood with four keys kept on hand and in mind:

1. This book is written primarily to Christians. There is a roughly zero percent chance that much of what’s written in these pages will even begin to make sense to anyone else. That said, it is hoped that the Gospel presentation contained in these pages might be used by the Lord to add to His church as He sees fit. He is trusted completely in this regard.

2. All that any of us have – including any bit of knowledge or wisdom or insight – is a gift from God. None of us have any room to boast in ourselves, though we can and should boast in the Lord who has given us all of these things. I certainly do not imagine for a moment that I am inherently any better than any of those whom I may criticize herein. I am not. Of all the people I’ve ever met or heard of or even read about in a history book, the one of whom I am most aware as a sinful, selfish person is: Me. By God’s grace, He has saved me, and by His grace He is sanctifying me, but based on what I know about my own heart and my own mind, I do not for a single solitary second seriously present myself as inherently better than anyone.

3. This book does not pretend to represent or aspire to become a benchmark or standard setter for Christian political thought. The Bible is that book. This one is just an imperfect set of observations written by an imperfect man who hopes and prays that God will choose to graciously use these clumsy words and expressions to draw His people toward Him as the source of every meaningful bit of knowledge. I am not proposing or implying or even close to implying that those who arrive at different conclusions than I express on the subjects covered herein are in any way, as a result of such a difference, demonstrating that they are not “real” Christians or that they are in any way less of a Christian. The Bible is their proving ground for such things; this book is not.

4. We must seek biblical answers to every question – including the political. The whole thrust of this book is aimed at simply inspiring Christians to cast every political question in the perfect light of Scripture and then submit to what is revealed in that light – no matter the cost in this fleeting, temporal world.

So have grace towards others – including me and every target of criticism noted in these pages. Love as you have been loved. And then stand for the truth as the Lover of your soul has commanded, with all boldness and confidence in Him.

I trust that He will guide us all along the way as we take this journey together. He has placed us purposefully in such a time and place and situation as this. That reality is both a matchless comfort and a magnificently daunting challenge. And we shouldn’t want it any other way.

We have a nation to save, but we have a God to honor first. May He never again allow us to forget this.   Thank you for your patience, grace, and desire to pursue His truth in all things.

Soli Deo Gloria…and let’s roll!

SAB

March 25, 2012

© 2011, 2012 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.

For more excerpts and other cool things, head on over to www.FireBreathingChristians.com.

Thank you!

Intro to Fire – The Power and Purpose of a Common Believer (Excerpt from “Fire Breathing Christians”)

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

 

This has been a long time in the making, but the day has finally come…

Posted here is the introduction from Fire Breathing Christians – The Common Believer’s Call to Reformation, Revival, and Revolution. The book will be released in late October. In the days leading up to launch, I will be posting excerpts from many of its 21 chapters so that you might get a feel for the material without having to go to the trouble or expense of purchasing a copy. Of course, if you like what you see, I fully expect you to buy at least three copies.

In all seriousness, if, after reading through the Intro to Fire (and the excerpts to follow), you find Fire Breathing Christians to be your cup o’ tea, I hope and pray that you will use the great power that you have to fan this flame into something God glorifying and culture impacting by simply sharing the message of this book with like-minded folks.  The good news is that the “God glorifying” part of that equation is, in a real sense, already in the bag. He has taken care of that. The “culture impacting” part is where you come in. To that end, your prayers are coveted and your spreading the word of Fire Breathing Christians is more appreciated (and more important) than you may ever know.

Thank you for taking the time to pause, read, pray and ponder. Without further delay…

__________________________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2010 Scott Alan Buss - All rights reserved.

 

INTRO TO FIRE

THE POWER AND PURPOSE OF A COMMON BELIEVER

 

“FIRE…God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers and savants. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.”

Blaise Pascal

I can remember holding my wife’s hand when she died. Even now I can vividly recall the moment before and the moment after, but it was the difference between the two that struck me with a force I’d not anticipated. It was in that instant following her ascent to paradise that I realized fully for the first time the fact of death—the permanent passing of a good and beautiful thing from this flawed and fallen world. The moment before, Kristi was there. Her spirit and mind were with me. The potential for every good and miraculous thing that might be realized through them was there with me. Then, in a breath, they were gone.

From a secular perspective, this was pure tragedy. Twenty-five-year-olds aren’t supposed to be diagnosed with cancer and twenty-nine-year-olds aren’t supposed to die. From my own weak and flawed perspective, this was a time of great loss and pain—the quintessential example of “a time to mourn.” From God’s perspective, this was a demonstration of matchless love and flawless timing, all according to the perfect plan He had ordained since before the dawn of creation.

It was in the midst of these competing claims to truth that I was blessed with clarity. The God who had so lovingly sustained and encouraged me through a four-year saga of hope and sorrow had then graciously provided the precious prize of certainty. Just as I’d discovered a deeper meaning of death, so too I had been presented with the gift of peace through a divinely inspired clarity. For the first time, I came to personally realize that God’s plan was not merely perfect in a broad, general sense, but it was flawless perfection for each and every one of us on an individual level—even for me.

It was a simple concept, really, yet one of impossible weight, all of which seemed to relentlessly press on my mind. I was simultaneously numb from the profound turn that life had just taken with Kristi’s passing and awestruck at what I was beginning to see clearly for the first time. It was at once a wonderful and frightening experience; one that left me feeling both desperately small and boundlessly hopeful. As I struggled with these apparent contradictions, I developed into a confused American thirty-something-year-old Christian man. And that was a good thing.

In the following weeks and months, I prayed, studied and sought the thoughts of others who had been exposed to this convicting and invigorating clarity. This search led me to many wonderful and inspirational stories, including that of a man named Blaise Pascal.

God-given Fire

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Hebrews 12:28–29

Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623–August 19, 1662) was a child prodigy who became a prominent mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. By the age of nineteen, he invented what many consider to be the first computer (it was a calculating device that he crafted to help his father, who was a tax collector). What I found most intriguing about his biography was its “Night of Fire” episode.

In the late 1640s, Pascal came into contact and subsequently wrestled with Jansenism, a branch of Catholicism that emphasized the fall of man through sin and the necessity of divine grace. Pascal struggled with and contemplated this philosophy well into the 1650s; though during that time, he embraced neither its views nor the God claimed as their author.

Then, on November 23, 1654, not long after a brush with death at the Neuilly-sur-Seine Bridge, he was overwhelmed by an intense vision. Between the hours of 10:30 and 12:30 at night, Blaise Pascal experienced what has come to be known as his “Night of Fire.” He recorded the experience immediately in a note, which began: “Fire. God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and savants…” and concluded by quoting Psalm 119:16: “I will not forget thy word. Amen.” He then sewed the written note into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes. The presence of the note was discovered accidentally by a servant after Pascal’s death…that is, if you believe in accidents.

I no longer believe in accidents, and that’s the point. Well, one of them, anyway.

After reading Pascal’s story for the first time, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed and, I must admit, even a bit suspicious. The sheer power of it all was quite impressive, no doubt, but almost too fantastic to be true. Yet there it was, and as I pondered this dramatic episode further, my mind was propelled from one biblical account to another. The fire of which Pascal so passionately wrote inspired my recollection of John the Baptist’s announcing Jesus’ coming to “baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire” as well as images of Pentecost as recorded in the book of Acts:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.

Acts 2:1–3

These accounts painted the once suspicious Night of Fire in a very different light. They seemed to me to proclaim that Blaise Pascal’s experience, while utterly fantastic and awe-inspiring in so many beautiful ways, was nonetheless quite possible—indeed, in a very real sense likely—in the life of a believer. The more I studied, the more I became convinced that Spirit and fire are not merely possible, they are to be expected. They are to be assumed in the life of a Christian.

Just the thought of such a thing as this is worthy of pause, I think, and pause I did. My frazzled mind grappled at length with what was, for me, a wonderful and intimidating new truth: Christ has come to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. And even better, He doesn’t seem to be selective with this Spirit and fire. He gives them to every believer.

This magnificent power might come over you in an intense vision on a November night, or it may make itself known as you hold the hand of a loved one who is passing from this life and into the next. It may lay its claim upon you while you struggle and cry out from the deepest place of despair or while you happily sit and read under a shade tree on the perfect, sunny day. Whenever or wherever it may have come to you, I cannot know or say, though I can be certain of two things:

Every Christian has been baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Every Christian has been blessed in this manner for a great, God-centered and God-glorifying purpose.

The first aim of Fire Breathing Christians is to identify the God-given fire in every Spirit-filled believer so that they might actively and enthusiastically fan its flame. From one Common Believer to another, my initial goal is to impress upon every Christian man, woman, boy, and girl who may read these words that they have both an amazing power and a unique, individual purpose, regardless of their place, position, title, or role in this fallen world. There is nothing in your past—no failing or flaw—that alters this truth in the least. Every Christian has been called to otherwise impossible heights and equipped to attain them.

So it is that you and I have been brought together today for a great purpose. (And you thought this whole “pick up a book and have a look” thing was quite random, didn’t you?)

While we could hardly have imagined, much less properly planned such a meeting as this, we can now know that it has been both imagined and planned by the same Master who inspired matchless “certitude, feeling joy and peace” in one particular man on the night of November 23, 1654.

The God who claims and empowers great leaders and theologians is no less interested and takes no less joy in any other father, mother, daughter, or son. He seeks to lift them all to the same impossible height. As I am selfishly fond of pointing out, He takes great pleasure in using the weakest vessels to accomplish the most magnificent tasks. And His fire is not solely reserved for child prodigies or prominent philosophers.

This truth serves our purpose very well, as the change that America so desperately needs cannot be imposed from a pulpit. It will not be a product of seminary training. It will not come via decree or proclamation from the high places of man. It will come from the front lines, the grass roots, and the trenches. It is the Christian shopkeeper, landscaper, plumber, and homemaker in the pews who hold the keys to victory. They will make or break our cause.

It is the fire from above burning within these people that can heal a dying culture and restore a once-great nation. But this fire knows only one source and one goal—the one and only true God of biblical Christianity. Insofar as He, and He alone, is our center in all things, it will hold and we will accomplish otherwise impossible tasks.

To this end, every Common Believer has been called to this battle and equipped for victory.

The Common Believer

While this is certainly not a book of high theology, there are going to be some critical terms and concepts that must be defined as we go along.  To that end, Fire Breathing Christians will make regular reference to the Common Believer. With this term, I aim simply to address every genuine Christian convert and adherent to biblical truth, regardless of position, place, role or title.

The commonality expressed in this title is threefold:

1. Common in status as adopted sons and daughters of Christ.
2. Common in submission to Jesus as Savior and Lord.
3. Common in submission to biblical truth as authoritative in all things.

This category covers theologians, fieldworkers, philosophers, housewives, political leaders, policemen, fishermen, fathers, daughters, sons, and students. It includes all biblically defined Christians without any compulsion to exalt one above another or rank them in any order of perceived significance. These are the people that must be equipped so that they might successfully engage the culture.

We simply cannot continue to surrender most battles, cede most battlefields, and then hope to somehow win the war raging about that culture. We cannot wait for a good and godly leader to emerge or for somebody else—anybody else—to “do something.” We cannot wait for God to miraculously do what He has called and equipped us to do. You and I—each and every Common Believer—must take it upon ourselves to engage the enemy on every front. The arts…business…politics…these are the fields of battle that we are called and equipped to conquer.

Fire Breathing Christians is one Common Believer’s attempt to guide his brothers and sisters toward the Word of God so that they might be equipped to win the war we are all called to wage. In this, we will examine many spheres of life and areas of conflict between Christianity and its opposition throughout contemporary American society. We will see where we are, how we got here, and what we must do to restore our nation’s biblical foundation, one individual submission to Christ at a time.

Our preparation will begin with a detailed examination of the culture war as it currently stands on a variety of fronts; a survey of the battlefield, so to speak. As the self-helpers like to say, the first step to a solution is admitting that there is a problem, and when it comes to the state of American culture, we clearly have one of those. Many of them, actually, but each of these problems shares one root cause: Ours is a nation in open rebellion against truth and its author. The God of Christianity is hated here. This is the reality with which we must contend. This is our great challenge.

But we must never forget that within every great challenge lies great opportunity, and never more so than with this conflict in these last days. Our God has placed us in this particular place at this specific time to meet this unique challenge. He has equipped us for combat and called us to victory. These most comforting truths must not be forgotten as we take a first hard look at the field of battle.

Post-Christian America

American Christendom is in a free-falling state of collapse. Having conformed to the world she was commissioned to transform, the church has accommodated, embraced, and exalted an astounding variety of heretical concepts that would have been unimaginable to believers of just a generation past. Homosexual priests have claimed many a pulpit, the biblical definitions of family and gender roles have been largely abandoned, business and politics have come to be regarded as “separate matters,” church discipline is virtually non-existent, and Christ-less education has become the accepted norm. At the root of it all is an open tolerance of the biblical illiteracy that has come to permeate the church and define the average contemporary American Christian life.

As the church has surrendered to the lethargic, lazy spirit of this age, her enemies have advanced on all fronts. From within, liberal progressives win convert after convert through their zealous evangelical efforts. From without, an American culture at war with the faith that brought it into being batters, pounds, and assaults every biblical truth from every conceivable angle in a suicidal quest to remove from sight and memory every vestige of a once-cherished God.

Is this cause for despair? Should biblically submissive American Christians abandon all hope and concede that the culture—and perhaps even the church itself—has been lost to the enemy?

Absolutely not!

However brazenly the church may have spurned her Lord, we may be eternally thankful that in His matchless grace He has chosen not to return the favor. Far from abandoning us, He has called us to His side in these last days so that we might be empowered to stand and fight.

He has long been about the business of preparing us for this day and preparing this day for us. Throughout the age of American decomposition, He has allowed warnings to sound through the words of many good men and women.

Two such men published books in the early nineties, with each approaching the ongoing culture war from a unique perspective. Robert Bork’s The Tempting of America—The Political Seduction of the Law, written in the aftermath of his defeated nomination to the Supreme Court, was a brilliant and sobering account of a national judicial system that had lost its way. His detailed and compelling chronicle of America’s continued flight from her founding constitutional principles served both as a frightening diagnosis and a prophetic warning. Was Judge Bork’s warning heeded?

In the era of Barack Hussein Obama and Sonia Sotomayor, the answer is as obvious as it is unsettling. The “original understanding” of the Constitution so skillfully defined and defended in The Tempting of America continues to find itself openly undermined by the forces of progressive liberalism. In the wake of this ongoing assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation, we find ourselves moving ever closer to a state of overtly anti-Christian judicial tyranny.

In the classic work of apologetics, Christianity in Crisis, Hank Hanegraaff applied the illuminating light of scriptural truth to the church from within, focusing on the burgeoning movement of heretical philosophies that had come to permeate Christendom at every level and on a massive scale. Christians, the book maintained, had come to embrace and emulate a wide variety of cultic systems of thought in some form or fashion, and the cost to the church had been catastrophic. Hanegraaff predicted that if this trend continued, the church would find her already questionable influence further compromised, ultimately to the point of becoming a non-factor in the culture.

To avert this crisis, we must shift from perceiving God as a means to an end to recognizing that He is the end. We must shift from a theology based on temporary perspectives to one based on eternal perspectives.

And while change must come, it clearly will not come easily. Those who are feeding this cancer occupy some of the most powerful platforms within Christianity. They control vast resources and stand to lose multiplied millions of dollars if they are exposed.

The stakes are so high that those who are plunging Christianity into crisis seem willing to do and say virtually anything to silence opposition and rally support.

Was Hanegraaff’s warning heeded? Has Christendom embraced God as its ultimate end (or even as its ultimate beginning), submitting to His will wherever it may lead? Or is He still largely viewed as a tool to be used in the exercise of our will and pursuit of our desires all on our schedule?

Put another way, have you ever heard of Joel Osteen?

In the era of American Christ-less Christianity, the answer is clear and horrifying. The church has been utterly compromised, giving herself over to a Mr. Potato Jesus brand of religion that encourages adherents to add or remove any accessory from their customizable little pseudo-god in pursuit of personal acceptance and corporate relevance. The church has come to openly embrace virtually every counter-Christian concept in some form or fashion. As a result, the term “Christian” itself has lost most of its definitive power. It has become little more than a synonym for “good person.” That is, if you still believe in “good.” The results of this have been predictably devastating to the church, and where the church has been so effectively crippled by her enemies, the culture at large has suffered incalculable loss.

Biblical Christianity finds itself under siege from without and actively undermined from within. A nation once consecrated to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has fallen into a state of complete rebellion.

Terms of Engagement

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis described the path of the Common Believer as follows:

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’

This is a fine initial description of the core truth that will serve as our guide. Christ wants all of you and He wants all of me. You and I are called to fully submit every area of life to Him. Our notions of politics, the arts, education, and economics are all to be subjected completely to His will if we are to have any hope of peace, prosperity, and victory in the culture war that has ravaged the America that God has given us. It is from this perspective that Fire Breathing Christians seeks to empower each and every Common Believer. It is from this launching point that we will examine the spirit of relativism that has consumed the culture and the spirit of compromise that has corrupted the church.

We will see—many times in our adversaries’ own words—crystal clear expressions of rebellion against and contempt for the God of Christianity. We will witness the enemy boldly proclaim, exalt, and advocate opposition to virtually every clearly pronounced truth of Scripture. We will then examine these actions and the motivations behind them in light of biblical truth. In this, we will gain a crucial understanding of not only what the enemies of Christianity are doing, but why they are compelled to do so.

This understanding is vital. After all, if we do not know what our adversaries are doing and why, any attempt to effectively engage them on the cultural battlefield will prove futile. Only when we have this knowledge in hand are we properly equipped to achieve victory. Only then can we finally liberate American culture from the secular forces of relativism and humanism that have come to dominate and enslave her. With our enemies identified, their strategies understood and the battlefield surveyed, we will then fix our minds on the God-given blueprint for victory.

As we consider the many challenges before us and begin down the path towards cultural engagement, we are well served to consciously cling to three essential aspects of the Holy Spirit as evidenced in the life of the obedient Common Believer:

1. A humble spirit—We must never forget that every slave of the enemy is only acting according to their fallen nature. We were once just as they are now. We must always earnestly pray for their regeneration by God’s sovereign hand and treat them accordingly: with love, patience, and respect whenever possible. Our boldness must always be “in the Lord,” and not of ourselves.
2. A servant’s spirit—We must always aspire to actively, consciously submit to the will of God the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us. We must serve Him completely and in all areas of life.
3. A martyr’s spirit—We must be willing to pay any price for the sake of advancing the Kingdom of Christ. Any means any.

While our God has baptized us with Spirit and fire, we must never imagine for a moment that one will ever contradict the other. The passion and power given every Common Believer is essential to success, but we must remain vigilant against our inclination to pervert or distort these treasures for the purpose of self-exaltation or excessive criticism of another.

Through Christ and our complete submission to His will in all things, there is no obstacle, challenge, or opponent that we cannot conquer. Through a process of thoughtful, prayerful preparation followed by obedient execution of His perfect plan for battle, we can finally engage the culture, achieve victory, and restore our fallen nation.

Fire Breathing Christians is aimed at guiding the Common Believer through this process. In doing so, it is my hope that readers will come to realize what may at first seem to be an unexpected benefit from such a book as this: everyday application.

Lest there be any confusion, the aim here is not to promote the everyday application of Fire Breathing Christians. At least not as an end. No, the goal here is to encourage and guide every Common Believer toward everyday study and application of the revealed truth of Holy Scripture. If Fire Breathing Christians is to be rightly applied, the first step in that application will always be to seek, find, and submit to truth as revealed in the Bible. That is where God-given hope and power lie in their undiluted, unmatched, and eternally relevant form. This is where our fire is fed.

While much of what is covered in these pages deals with large scale and lofty sounding bits of high drama and grand strategy, as we pass each milepost along our journey, we will see with great clarity that each problem under consideration and its biblically prescribed solution has direct application to our lives on a very personal level. We will pause at each of these markers to observe and learn how it is that we are to apply these specific scriptural principles to our everyday lives on an individual level, and as we do so we will grow.

When properly understood, this book should challenge and inspire positive change not only at an institutional or organized political level, but in the morning commute and at the kitchen table. It should shape not only our view of “how the world should be,” but how our families, friendships, and personal relationships should be. This is not a top-down message. The Bible-based, culture-transforming change advocated here is one that must begin at the roots before it can progress to the treetop.

The great challenges facing our country cannot be met on a national level if they are not first overcome in each of our hearts and homes. It is in the everyday life of the Common Believer that this culture war will be won or lost, so our growth is essential. It is essential to our peace, our happiness, and our ultimate victory.

In concluding this introduction to what Fire Breathing Christians is, I am compelled to take at least a moment to clarify what it is not.

Though one of the central themes presented here is the empowerment and unique purpose of each and every Common Believer, this is in no way intended to minimize the significance or importance of good, God-fearing leadership. Church history is replete with examples of wonderful men and women who have faithfully served Christ and led His people through the careful use of biblically sound instruction, made possible only through long years of study and personal submission. I do not in even the slightest sense aim to exalt any Common Believer, myself included, above the need for such divinely provided leadership and guidance.

This is also not a work that seeks to denigrate theology, doctrine, or dogma as trivial or unimportant to the Common Believer. Quite the contrary! Theology, doctrine, and dogma are essential to the Christian life, as they literally define it. The approach taken here will be to address pertinent doctrinal matters as we go along without stopping to dwell at length or dive to the furthest depths with regard to any single one of them. I wholeheartedly encourage the pursuit of such depth and will commend the inspired, inquisitive Christian to seek out other works to aid them with their ongoing growth. Biblically-rooted, Christ-centered knowledge is the greatest thing that a human mind can experience, so its unending pursuit should be the most natural sort of desire for every Common Believer.

With the principles of everyday application firmly grasped in one hand and commitment to biblically sound intellectual pursuit in the other, we are well equipped to begin our journey on an individual level so that we might eventually realize transformation on a national scale.

The Secular Inquisition

You and I live in a post-Christian America that is rapidly transitioning into an anti-Christian state. This shift can still be reversed, but only for a little while longer and only if the Common Believer embraces their responsibility to engage the culture. It is my prayer and hope that our God will make use of these words to encourage and empower you to that end.

The Fire Breathing Christian has become both an endangered species and the most feared of creatures from the liberal humanist perspective now dominating the scene. I am convinced that by removing Spirit- and fire-filled believers from that endangered list we can both help every anti-Christian leftist in the nation realize their darkest fears and return America to her God-glorifying foundation. Put another way, we can accomplish great things and have a whole lotta fun in the process.

We will begin our preparation for battle by considering one believer’s stand and the subsequent hate movement mobilized for her destruction. In this example we will find a great deal of valuable information concerning the nature and strategies of our opposition as well as a clear and powerful warning to every Common Believer who would dare take to the field of battle: You will be hated.

American culture is at war with God, His Word, and His people. The active suppression and silence of all Christian thought is a primary goal of the forces currently guiding secular civilization.  We now live in an age of Secular Inquisition and must prepare accordingly.

So I invite you now, one Common Believer to another, that we might begin this most important journey together in the name of the one true God, who is a consuming fire.

__________________________________________________________________________

Thank you again for taking the time to read through this portion of Fire Breathing Christians. As I mentioned earlier, more excerpts will be posted in the coming days.

I apologize for a few annoying formatting issues with regard to this post.  The book itself is definitely a polished, smooth production. Unfortunately, that polished smoothness didn’t cut and paste very well, so…

Your patience is much appreciated.

Pre-order and sale information will be posted in late October, 2010. (The Amazon.com listing will be up in the next week or two, as well.)

Thank you for your prayers and support!

SAB

www.FireBreathingChristian.com

Copyright 2010 S.A. Buss

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New Vision and the Perception of Depth

 

When a Christian is born through their supernaturally imposed spiritual regeneration, they are made anew. They are fundamentally transformed in an instant. They are literally brought from spiritual death to spiritual life. In that magnificent moment of conversion, they are made into what God describes in His perfect Word as “new creatures”.

As new creatures, these reborn men, women, boys, and girls become defined and definable by new parameters, and they are imbued with a new heart, a new will, and a variety of amazing new abilities and attributes.

The attribute I’d like to touch on briefly here is that of new vision.

New creatures have new vision, and new vision brings with it a new perception of depth.

In much the same way as our physical vision makes use of two distinct perspectives in order to acquire a more accurate understanding of the physical world in which we live, so too does our new spiritual vision make use of two previously unknown perspectives, so that we might have clarity that we could never have known prior to conversion.

The first perspective clarifying truth attained through the new creature’s new vision is that of God’s holy nature. 

The second pertains to the true nature of man, both before and after regeneration.

With these previously unknown and unknowable truths brought into focus for the first time at the moment of a believer’s rebirth, they are given the spiritual equivalent of depth perception.

Just as two physical eyes are crafted to provide physical depth perception, so too are the twin truths of the complete holiness of God and the total depravity of man crafted so that they instantly and effortlessly illuminate depths that are not even noticed, much less understood or appreciated, by the spiritually dead, unrepentant, and unregenerate man, woman or child.

With this new vision, once self-absorbed God haters get a first glimpse at the pure holiness of the God they once openly mocked and sought to violate with every thought and deed. They finally gain the slightest sense of the depth of their guilt, and they are broken.

With this new vision, God’s adopted sons and daughters see the depths of the condition from which He chose to save them. They finally begin to see what they never could before: That they were completely dead and doomed to suffer the righteous wrath of the holy God against whom they had completely rebelled.

And through these profound revelations, the true depth of God’s grace is brought into focus…though not completely.

Not on this side of our physical regeneration, anyway. But in every day between this day and that promised one to come, our new vision will serve to guide us ever closer in relationship with and appreciation of our perfect Father, all to our eternal joy and all to His eternal glory.

SAB

www.FireBreathingChristian.com

__________________________________________________________________________

Copyright 2010 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

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Reformation>Revival>Revolution (1 of 3)

You say you want a revolution

Well you know

We all wanna change the world…

~ The Beatles

 

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

~ Jesus (the real one) 

 

Everybody wants a revolution. They sure seem to, anyway.

Nike wants one. Apple wants one. Chick-fil-A even wants one.

Every two years, the party out of power wants one.

Sexuality always wants one. The body count on that one stands somewhere north of 41,000,000 (and counting) in America alone. And that’s just the death toll on one of multiple fronts, mind you. Talk about a revolutionary war with casualties…

Fashion, technology, cars, video games, music, literature, film…even politics, sex, spirituality, and religion. Perpetual revolution is the way of the world. Revolution for the sake of revolution. Change for the sake of change. Movement without purpose or direction based on the notion that it always beats standing firm.

Revolution is popular, and we love popular. So it is that we must love revolution.

It’s hip. It’s cool. It’s serious, too. And the way that the whole revolution concept manages to cover everything from the hip and trendy to the serious and profound tells us something about its inherent power, scope, and appeal as an idea.

Yeah, everybody wants a revolution, and they all want you to join in.

Any self-respecting revolutionary lives to recruit, and these days they are programmed to do just that on behalf of the perpetual revolution machine that is popular culture. There’s always a new style, sound, and feel to pitch, and producers of the pitch are counting on their properly programmed pawns to do the work of spreading the latest and greatest good news of the millisecond where the most recently culturally coronated cool game, band, diet, look, sound, or thought is concerned.

It’s all about networking, don’t ya know. Oddly enough, most of those doing the bidding of ”revolutionaries” like The Beatles, Sony, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue don’t know. They have no idea how, why, when, where, or even that they have been so thoroughly programmed. They simply hear, obey, and regurgitate. They are defined by the world and they live accordingly. They “just do it”.  And the “it” in question is: advertise.

They do it on their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. They do it in their phone conversations and around the table when they bother to sit down and eat. They do it in the car with friends and at restaurants. They do this evangelical pop-culturist routine pretty much all the time. It’s who they are and what they’ve become, all by design.

You see, these pop-culture programmed little revolutionaries are inherently evangelical.

And, for a long time now, evangelicals have been very revolutionary. Only in a bad way.

The styles and modes of revolution practiced by most of evangelicalism in America over the past several decades have, for the most part, been expressions of open rebellion against biblical truth.

American Churchianity has been swept up, chewed up, and spit out by a secular culture that is very pleased with the resultant transformation of adversary into ally. The church has been conformed to the world she was commissioned to transform.

Where once we were known for Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, we are now known for Joel Osteen and Rick Warren. Where once our society was led and shaped by those with a high view of God and His Word, we are now inspired by any of a million different leaders heading as fast as they can in their million different directions from truth.

We now live in a supposedly Christian nation utterly dominated by fundamentally anti-Christian characters and concepts. From Flu Shot Jesus and The Artists Formerly Known as The Emergent Church to “Best Life Now” Carnal Christianity and Purpose Driven Evangelicalism, American Churchianity has largely abandoned the truth of Scripture as its guiding light and has subsequently stumbled down every dark alley towards which she has been nudged by her enemy.

A Mr. Potato Jesus brand of name-it-and-claim-it, man-centered spirituality and religion on demand has taken hold.

Welcome to the Progressive cultural and religious revolution!

We’ve revolutionized education.

We’ve revolutionized sexuality.

We’ve revolutionized family.

And right about now we’re revolutionizing economics.

So we see that, for much of the time since the American Revolution, major revolutions in America haven’t gone very well from a biblical perspective. They’ve been, for the most part, vehicles for decline and darkness in a land that once cherished truth, understood the nature of true liberty, and exalted the one true God of biblical Christianity.

So is revolution always a bad thing, then?

Nope.

Not at all.

It’s just that, like almost anything wicked little fallen people get their hands on, we are very prone to mess it up.

The bad news is that we’ve managed to do just that, both with great intensity and over a long stretch of time. America has been radically changed, one individual at a time, from a God-fearing, Scripture-loving, magnificently blessed bright and shining light in a world of darkness, to a hollowed out husk on the verge of death by a thousand suicidal decisions born of a thousand suicidal delusions.

The good news is that Jesus is God.

And He saves.

He saves people. One at a time.

These people make up families, towns, cities, states, and nations.

These people make up movements, too.

They start revolutions.

And, make no mistake, this is precisely what is happening…right here…right now…

C.S. Lewis put it this way:

 

“Enemy-occupied territory – that’s what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”

 

The call has gone out. The command has been given.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

The ultimate insurrection is now underway.

 And it’s gonna be good!

…to be continued in “Reformation>Revival>Revolution (2 of 3)” - to be posted soon…

____________________________________

By the grace of God, I’ve been given what seems to be nothing short of a miraculous opportunity through the good folks at WorldNetDaily and WND Books. My book, Fire Breathing Christians: The Transformative Power of the Common Believer, has just been listed at Amazon and, Lord willing, will be released on September 14. My aim with this work is to encourage just the sort of Reformation, Revival and Revolution that has been touched upon in these three blog posts. This is truly an amazing opportunity to bring a Christ-centered approach to the culture war that has ravaged America. Your prayers are coveted as I go about the risky business of tackling scores of the most serious issues in what will surely be a controversy inspiring manner. I am new to all of this, so please pray that I might be granted the ever-elusive perfect combo of boldness and grace (and basic competence, too…yeah, that would be nice).

As the long pre-release ramping up process rolls along, I’d appreciate it if you’d check out the listing of the book, read through the summary below and, if you have any thoughts (good, bad, or anywhere in between), please feel free to shoot me an email. I will read ‘em all and do my best to respond, though it may take a little time.

If you know of anyone who would be interested in this message, please forward it on to them. In this age of instant communication and networking, your help with this particular piece of revolution marketing can accomplish far more good than you probably realize. That said, please do not randomly send this info, blanket email folks, or anything like that. Only send this on to those whom you have very good reason to believe would enjoy and be encouraged by the themes in Fire Breathing Christians. This whole “Fire Breathing” deal is going to be annoying enough to folks on the other side of that coin. We don’t want or need to add unnecessarily to that offense.

I have no idea at this point whether it will be used or not, but, in order to help you get a better feel for the book, here’s an advance look at the copy that I submitted for the back/inside cover.  (All written material copyright 2010, S.A. Buss) :

___________________________________

Fire Breathing Christians is a pew-to-pulpit plea for reformation, revival, and revolution. The church has been infiltrated, redefined, and led down a path to man-made, man-centered religion and spirituality. A Mr. Potato Jesus brand of pick-and-choose truth now dominates the church.

In its postmodern abandonment and purpose-driven surrender of the Gospel’s essential penetrating edge, American Churchianity has exchanged the perfect, supernaturally forged Sword of Truth for an endless supply of flimsy, pathetic little man-made sporks. In strict theological terms, this is known as “really dumb”.  And “really dangerous”.

In a bold call to Christ-centered culture warfare, Fire Breathing Christians encourages and equips Common Believers to identify and overcome every enemy of the Gospel, including: 

• Progressive Religion – Postmodernism’s war on biblical truth has a gang of giggling, happily heretical allies in The Artists Formerly Known as The Emergent Church.
• Progressive Politics – The man-centered “social gospel” is built upon a foundation of Christ-less hope and Christ-less change. This anti-Gospel is the engine that powers the Progressive political movement.
• Purpose Driven Evangelism – In its embrace of Flu Shot Jesus and Carnal Christianity for the sake of secular appeal, American Churchianity has largely assumed the role of warm and friendly escort to Hell.
• The Goat Driven Church – Through its purpose driven business model and “Best Life Now” appeals to greed and narcissism, American Churchianity has been occupied, defined, and dominated by the anti-Christian “goat”.
• Compulsory “Charity” – Once its voluntary aspect is removed, Christian charity is murdered. Compulsory charity is a biblical oxymoron, but it is a required step down the Progressive path to socialism.
• Murder for Convenience – Where Nazi Germany murdered millions for horrific reasons, Progressive America has one-upped her super-state sister by murdering tens of millions of the most innocent for mere convenience.

In every vital area of consideration, Fire Breathing Christians points directly towards the only solution with the power to save a person, a nation, a culture, or a world:

The whole, undiluted Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is the banner under which we must formulate every strategy and fight every battle. This is our source of true hope, peace, and joy. This is the banner that we must restore as our guiding standard in all things. This is our Reformation…our Revival…our Revolution…

We were made for such a time as this.

___________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to read and prayerfully consider these things. Your thoughts, support, and especially your prayers are coveted! Together, Lord willing, we will see great positive change in this wounded culture as we swim deep, make waves, and endeavor to exalt the whole, undiluted Gospel of Jesus Christ as the essential first solution to any problem facing any individual, city, or nation. This is the message of Fire Breathing Christians.

Soli Deo Gloria…and let’s roll!

SAB

www.FireBreathingChristian.com

__________________________________________________________________________

Copyright 2010 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

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All Mighty vs. Most Mighty

As Christians, we worship and serve the one true and Almighty God.

That gets cooler to me every time I think about it. I’m sure that you who are also Christians feel the same way. And hopefully that means it gets cooler to you and to me quite often, since we should be naturally inspired to frequently dwell on His nature.

His sheer power is nothing short of incomprehensible to our finite little minds, and that’s one of many great reasons that we have for our constant awe, wonder, and amazement over Him.

That said, I’ve got a natural tendency that I think comes to most of us where this “Almighty” idea is concerned, and when I take the time to consciously check it when it rears its ugly head, I invariably shift into a much higher gear of the aforementioned awe, wonder and amazement. It works for me every time, so I wanted to share just in case it might help you a bit too.

First off, we as Christians tend to have a hierarchy in mind with God at the top. This, for the most part, is a very good thing.

One potential less-than-good-thing about it can be our natural tendency to default to placing limitations on things that we imagine or represent conceptually. With this in mind, it’s easy for us to end up with a hierarchy composed of things with God being the thing at the top, but, often times unconsciously, we then think of Him as existing within certain limitations that actually do not apply.

While we are likely to assume God rightly occupies the Top Spot, and therefore holds the titles of Most Mighty and Most Powerful, this is not enough.

All Mighty is much more than Most Mighty. Infinitely more. And we need to remember that as best we can.

Of course, an All Mighty God instantly qualifies for Most Mighty status as well, but often times there are limitations assumed with Most Mighty that are easily shaken off when we pause to consider just what it means to be All Mighty, as the God of biblical Christianity is known to be.

If we’re not careful, especially when we don’t pause to consider this All Mighty nature of His, we are often times automatically inclined to think of Him as much, much less than what and who He truly is. Infinitely less.

Many of us automatically imagine Him – again, not inaccurately, but under-accurately (I make words almost as effortlessly as God makes galaxies) – as merely being more powerful than everything else under Him on the descending flow chart of created things in our minds. We see Him as more powerful and more mighty than fern trees, grasshoppers, seagulls and sharks. We rank Him well above storms, oceans and even planets and stars. We even place Him over angels, demons, and people.

We see God as Most Mighty when we place Him here, and this is a good thing.

But when we realized that He is All Mighty as well, then it gets a whole lot better…and a whole lot more intimidating…and a whole lot more wonderful.

This All Mighty God holds all might. This All Powerful God holds all power.

For you numbers folks, the balance of power and might goes something like this:

God – 100%

All that comprises His creation – 0%

Every bit of power that every fish, person, planet or star operates with is continually flowing from Him, as it must, because all true power is always His. He is the source of all power at all times and in all places.

The physical power required for every breath that we take is given by God in the moment that the breath is taken. It must be, as it is His.

Every gust of wind, note of song, and spark of thought is powered by His power. Every roll of thunder and exploding star does its thing on His schedule with His power all according to His plan.

Nothing that occurs does so without power given actively by Him in that moment so that it might come to pass all according to His eternal plan to display each of His holy attributes to perfection and bring maximum glory to Himself in the process.

Now that is God.

At least more so than the “most mighty” version that can creep into mind if we let it…

.

www.FireBreathingChristian.com

__________________________________________________________________________

Copyright 2010 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

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Magnificent Joel’s MMA Jesus

You’d think that any serious, thoughtful, biblically literate Christian with at least two God-given brain cells to rub together would be able to identify sound theology at least where the cornerstone basics are concerned. Sadly, I find that assumption challenged every time I hear the likes of Joel Osteen open his pie hole to the thunderous applause of enormo crowds of professing believers.

Maybe another false assumption would be that these “believers” actually believe in and on the one and only Jesus of the Bible and subscribe to what was once referred to reverently as “orthodox Christianity”.

They certainly do believe in Joel. That much is clear.

But what about Jesus?

The Jesus of the Bible, I mean?

Well…

Before I wander too far off track, let me cut to the chase and quote Magnificent Joel directly as he described a battle that he believes Jesus had with Satan in hell (and yes, he means this literally folks):

“For three days Jesus fought with the enemy. It was the battle of the ages, light versus darkness, good versus evil. But thank God Satan was no match for Jesus.

“He grabbed Satan by the nap [sic] of his neck and He began to slowly drag him down the corridors of hell. All beat up and bruised because He wanted to make sure that every single demon saw very clearly that Jesus was indeed the undisputed champion of all time!”

At this point, I’m thinking that South Park is roughly as credible as Mr. O in its depictions of Jesus, Satan, hell and virtually every theological issue that both have touched upon. Honestly, one has to wonder how such a thing could be spoken to a “Christian” crowd without inciting a combination of hysterical laughter and frustrated disgust.

But there he stands: The Great Joel Osteen.

Most recognized evangelical in the land. Best known “Christian leader” in the country.

With evangelicals like this, who needs a Whore of Babylon?

What might somebody like, I dunno, maybe…the Apostle Paul have to say about this?

How might he react to Joel’s “teaching”?

I’m thinking we might see something close to Smiling Osteen’s farcical depiction actualized were such a meeting to take place between he and Paul.

Now there’s a pay-per-view event for the ages: Paul vs Osteen! (I think they could even use Joel’s “light versus darkness” and “good versus evil” taglines in all the pre-event promos.)

Now that’s a Celebrity Death Match I’d pay real money to see! 

And yeah, I’d toss in an extra $10 for HD on that one…definitely…

$15 if Cartman referees.

 

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and Thank you for your support!

For more, please visit the FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN BLOG or head on over to the full FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN WEBSITE – Copyright 2009 S.A.Buss

Heresy Chic: Denningtonism Jumps, Stumbles and Splatters onto the Evangelical Stage

     

Denningtonism is here.

And it ain’t pretty.

Monica Dennington, self-appointed Bible interpreter and theologian, has declared war on Bible interpreters, theologians and those who might find value in what God has chosen to do through them. At the top of her list: Calvinists.

In a thirty-plus-minute tirade posted on YouTube, the high priestess of Denningtonism rambles, rants and rolls through a laughably ignorant yet disturbingly angry attack on those who embrace Reformed Christian theology, also known as the doctrines of grace. A complete, word-by-word presentation and critique of Dennington’s attack video is viewable here.

Charge after charge is made. The most profound of accusations are repeated again and again.

As for the evidence…

Bah! Who needs evidence?

This is Monica Dennington. Monica Dennington needs no evidence, thank you very much!

And if you dare vocalize any opposition to the pronouncements of this founding, self-anointed prophetess of Denningtonism?

Well, you just don’t do that. That would be arguing, and God hates arguing, or at least all arguing not initiated by Monica Dennington.

So says Monica Dennington.

Should they choose to endure Monica’s Scripture-twisting, venom-spewing, evidence-free accusation-fest of a video production, the biblically literate listener is likely to come to two conclusions:

1. Monica Dennington is biblically illiterate and utterly ignorant of even the most basic concepts embraced by those who advocate the doctrines of grace.

2. Monica Dennington is likely to attract a horde of followers.

Biblical illiteracy is epidemic in the American church, and, sadly, that will go a long way toward promoting the spread of Denningtonism.

Pirate Christian Radio did an exceptional job of presenting every word of her video rant and then offering thoughtful, Bible-based criticism, all from a non-Calvinist perspective. Dr. James White has also posted a fine response on YouTube. Both videos can be seen here, and I highly recommend ‘em.

Denningtonism is here, “you guys”.

Pray for its leader, her followers and a shallow American Christendom that allows for the easy acceptance of such unbiblical movements.

Soli Deo Gloria!

 

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

See also: “Everybody Expects…the Liberal Inquisition!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

Subscribe to FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN!

Support FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN by:

and Thank you for your support!

For more, please visit the FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN BLOGWIRE or head on over to the full FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN WEBSITE – Copyright 2009 S.A.Buss

Little Fascists on Parade: Public School Praise and Worship, Obama Style

How do you inspire the Statist ”education” system to embrace a Christian hymn for use in its classrooms?

Easy: Swap out the name of Jesus in favor of Barack Hussein Obama.

It’s all about having the right messiah in place. Once we get that in order, everything’s just peachy.

According to a report posted at Fox News, children whose parents chose to send them to a New Jersey public school for state-controlled “education” were subsequently instructed in the praise and worship of Barack Hussein Obama.

And get this: The parents were surprised.

Many parents expressed something like shock at the notion that a pro-government, anti-Christian education system would seek to actively steal glory from Christ and lay it at the feet of the most pro-government, anti-Christian President in our nation’s history.

Lyrics for the hymns presented by the Obama Youth were as follows:

Song 1:
Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2:
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”

Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country’s economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —-

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

One of the songs was set to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a famous Christian hymn, while lyrics from the other included snippets from Jesus Loves the Little Children, where praise of Jesus was replaced with the exaltation of Barack Hussein Obama.

Is this sad?

Of course.

Is this evil?

Yes, it is.

Is this surprising?

How could it possibly be so?

Every system of education takes a position on God, Christ and religion. There is no such thing as a neutral perspective: every worldview has a God or god. As Jesus has said, you are either for Him or against Him.

The public “education” system has chosen its messiah, and it sings his praises accordingly.

 

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

See also: “Everybody Expects…the Liberal Inquisition!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

See also: “Create a Godless Nation? YES! WE! CAN!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

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Candy Christianity: A Kinder, Gentler God (Part 2 of 4)

 

Continued from “Candy Christianity: The Counterfeit Gospel of the American Church” (Part 1 of 4)

“Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.”

Acts 12:23 (ESV)

“I hope you have become nauseated with the tawdry entertainment that passes for the true worship of God in many of our churches and, like the saints of the past, are longing for more of the deep truths of the inerrant Word of God.”

James Montgomery Boice

As the origin and object of all that is good, He alone is worthy of glory. The harmony here is both apparent and essential to Christianity. If we believe that God is the author and objective of every good thing, then it is impossible to conceive of a valid justification for the assignment of glory – any glory – to anyone other than Him. He is the beginning and the end – the alpha and omega – of all that is good.

Enter: Pride. The hand that claims honor for any self outside of Him; the wide and welcoming gateway through which all other evil marches.

We are intensely prideful selves by fallen natural inclination. We yearn for significance. We desire glory. We have seen His glory and acted upon that desire.

As pride-filled and sinful men and women, ours is a relentless thirst for self-significance. This self-significance requires self-glorification. In a mad quest for validation of our selves, we’ve sought to make His sovereignty our possession and plaything. We’ve mocked His holiness. We’ve turned from His perfect love.

We’ve become pirates and pretenders seizing upon His honor.

We are the thieves who’ve sought to steal His glory and in doing so have instead transformed our great and beautiful adventure into a terrible, dark tragedy. At the end of the day, we’ve each stolen nothing but our own happiness, peace, joy and even life itself.

This is the price of the theft of His glory.

Though it was our intent to pilfer His prestige, we’ve only managed to secure a pirate’s nightmare payload of fool’s gold: Crushed spirits, soft bodies, weak minds, rudderless families, sterile churches, a crumbling nation and a depraved culture are but a few of the more spectacular gems that we’ve managed to acquire.

What a deal!

Who said crime didn’t pay?

Indeed, such thievery does pay. It pays in death: the death of a body, the death of a mind, the death of a spirit, a church, a culture and a nation. In choosing to rob our God and mock His holiness, we have chosen death in every way and at every level.

As we rob Him of glory, we rob ourselves of life. As He is given glory, we are given life. Peace, joy, happiness and fulfillment in any true, lasting sense can only be known when God is given glory. So it is that our attempted theft has stolen only hope from our future.

But what we have intended for evil, He will use for good. He always does.

This is sovereignty.

This is perfection.

This is love.

It never could have been any other way.

With all praise and thanks to Him, let us now prayerfully and thoughtfully consider the wicked path that we have chosen and from which He has saved us.

“God made man in his own image and man returned the compliment.”

Blaise Pascal

“Any view of the human will that destroys the biblical view of human responsibility is seriously defective. Any view of the human will that destroys the biblical view of God’s character is even worse.”

RC Sproul

“The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide.”

CS Lewis

Our will has spoken.

With great enthusiasm we’ve exchanged the perfect, sovereign, holy God for something much more comfortable. Something warm, fuzzy, fluid and kind. Something we can wrap our minds around and to which we can relate. Something sensible. Something less intimidating.

A kinder, gentler god is just what we wanted – exactly what our hearts desired – and now we have him.

He is not sovereign. We are, at least practically speaking, and practicality is the bottom line with this god and his people.

His word is not holy. We pick, choose, spin and distort his recorded pronouncements without hesitation or shame. We’ll go as far as to attribute our own words and thoughts directly to him, printing them out neatly and signing his name at the bottom as a sort of unintended punch line.

His name is not holy. We print it on t-shirts, bumper stickers and posters, shoe-horning it into every Madison Avenue spun secular mold imaginable. He must be sold, after all, and what better way to accomplish this noble task than to cloak him in counterfeit Coca-Cola, Calvin Klein and McDonald’s logos?

If we could dip him in chocolate and put a bow on his head, we surely would. Anything to entice the poor, lost sinner to choose wisely, of course.

All’s fair in love, war and evangelism.

Holiness can be compromised. Sovereignty can be explained away. The rebellious will be made to feel welcome, warm and even cherished.

Once this wonderful, harmonious relationship is established, there’s nothing left to rebel against, is there? What could be more perfect!

This permissive god will be adored and we will carry his message of respectful inclusion to the four corners of the earth. We’ll exhaust and embrace every option as we spread his name and his oh-so-marketable brand of love throughout creation.

We will attach his name to any secular enterprise, from the benign and banal to the vulgar and vile. This god is sure to be gratified every time someone picks up a copy of “Girls Gone Wild, Bible Style”[1] from their local church coffee shop and book store.

After all, sex sells and we’re all about the numbers.

Numbers, numbers, numbers!

Numbers are good. Numbers are success. Numbers are the goal. Size matters most. More is always better, and ever-increasing quantity is this god’s given mission.

Hitting those targets, filling those pews, selling those tickets, books, albums and god-wear have become favored ways of spreading his seeker-sensitive message. With such great effort made towards secular accommodation, the counterfeit kingdom has grown at a frightening clip.

As this fiction-founded faith snakes its way into congregations and pulpits, the church body begins to rot from within. The bridge we’ve built to a God hating culture is now overrun by enemy forces eagerly seeking our destruction and happy to accept our helping hands in the process.

In countless ways we have forsaken His kingdom for the kingdom of the age. We have forsaken holiness. We have forsaken Him.

Our kingdom has come. Predictably, it is little more in overall quality than a well-landscaped subdivision of Sodom. We are cuddling and nurturing a world of God-haters. With the sovereign, holy Christ removed from its center, ours is a philosophy doomed to spread death to all it touches – all with a warm, happy smile, of course.

We’ve lost our way and are leading the world accordingly. We’ve hit the dimmer switch where brightness is needed most, we’ve smiled and shrugged at profound deviations from truth and sought to avoid conflict at any and all cost – and make no mistake, the price of this aversion to confrontation has been enormous in scope and catastrophic in nature. We’ve taken the Neville Chamberlain approach to dealing with the enemy and our enemy is quite pleased.

We are determined to be liked; adored even. The god of our age is a staunch advocate of a Barney the Dinosaur approach to life, and you can be sure that he is appreciative of our compliance. Hand in glove with this guiding principle, every worldly standard of goodness, kindness and warmth seems to have been coddled, appeased and accommodated.

We have accepted and subsequently fostered the notion that God can be known without being feared, and this was the first crucial step toward our replacing Him entirely with the kinder, gentler god we’ve come to support if not consciously embrace.

Amazingly, the notion of a god who is “Savior but not Lord” has gained currency in the church. Lost entirely is the concept of our slavery to Christ. We have been bought with a price. We are His. Consequently, we are to seek and submit to His will completely and joyfully. His sovereign lordship requires this of us.

Of course, this Sovereign Lord is incompatible with the spirit of the age. That spirit inspires and permeates the counterfeit kingdom. We have come to perpetuate this favored perspective of the enemy through our flight from the essence of lordship.

Continued in: “Candy Christianity: The Devil’s Favorite Flavor” (Part 3 of 3)

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[1] Girls Gone Wild, Bible Style CD set. Sold in 2007 at North Point Church (Assemblies of God) in Springfield, Missouri.

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

See also: “Everybody Expects…the Liberal Inquisition!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

See also: “Create a Godless Nation? YES! WE! CAN!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

Subscribe to FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN!

Support FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN by:

and Thank you for your support!

For more, please visit the FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN BLOGWIRE or head on over to the full FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN WEBSITE – Copyright 2009 S.A.Buss

Candy Christianity: The Devil’s Favorite Flavor (Part 3 of 4)

Continued from “Candy Christianity: A Kinder, Gentler God” (Part 2 of 4) – Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss

The god of this permissive kingdom is not necessarily to be feared. He is neither holy nor sovereign. He is open to interpretation and just as open to your input. He changes and grows. He is the author of many truths. Many paths lead to him. He will be your savior if you feel the need for one, but he need never be your lord.

And he absolutely loves “Girls Gone Wild, Bible Style”.

This shining savior is the bright and morning star; the prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit that works through and towards disobedience. He is the father of lies.

He reviles the sovereign and holy God. He is a murderer from the beginning and a thief of God’s glory. It must come as no surprise that he would so delight in making us accomplices in the plundering of God’s honor. In accepting his invitation, we’ve brought a wide smile to the face of the enemy.

As he smiles, hope always fades. Hope for any good thing cannot exist apart from the sovereign, holy God who is so despised by this rebellious world and its temporary ruler.

This is what the theft of our Lord’s glory has wrought.

We’ve trampled His holiness, dismissed His sovereignty and made every attempt possible to claim His glory as our own.

All in the name of Christ.

We’ve succumbed to our fallen nature, once again becoming god-lovers and God-haters. By human standards we have judged the God of scripture and found Him wanting.

While we may have discarded Him, we may take eternal comfort in the fact that He, by His sovereign grace, has chosen not to repay the favor.

Our perfect, sovereign and holy God has a plan. It is a flawless plan. He clings to us even now, as we have carefully, thoughtfully and diligently sown the seeds and cultivated the path of our own destruction.

“The unregenerate world of sinners despises the Holy Spirit, ‘because it seeth him not.’”

Charles Spurgeon

“And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.”

John 3:19 (NLT)

Up is down. Down is up.

True wisdom is foolishness to the world.

True love has been substituted with a pale imitation that knows nothing of discipline and depth. Most congregations are hand fed a watery mix of pop psychology and feel-good, non-confrontational religion while the world burns around them.

The favored myths of the enemy now course through our veins. We have co-opted, assimilated and repackaged each and every one of them for Christian consumption, and the result has been the fermentation of an increasingly Christ-less, and therefore impotent, Christianity.

All by design.

The myths of neutrality and mediocrity have rendered our lives virtually indistinguishable from the God-hating population of a fallen creation. The myths of ease and independent personal ability have us spinning our wheels at the bottom of the pit, digging only deeper down, perpetually inspired by the ridiculous notion that we can do even the slightest good thing apart from Him.

With but one step back from the sovereign Lord of creation, we’ve managed to acquire every bit of freedom that our fallen wills could have ever hoped for and much, much more.

Our birthright as sons and daughters of the King has been sold, or, more accurately, given away. At least that was our intent.

Most thankfully, in this instance and in the ultimate sense our intent is of no account.

No matter the level of betrayal, idiocy or stupidity we demonstrate as we persist in catering to the standards of a world that hates the God we claim to love, He is faithful and utterly undeterred. The sovereign creator and ruler of the universe has a plan. It is perfect in all ways, at all times and for all people. It cannot be thwarted, compromised or even ever-so-slightly adjusted by the will of demons, angels or men.

Continued in “God’s Call to War: Fire Breathing Christianity” (Part 4 of 4)

Copyright 2009 S.A. Buss – Feel free to re-post this piece, but only with the copyright included and a link to Fire Breathing Christian whenever possible. Thank you!

See also: “Everybody Expects…the Liberal Inquisition!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

See also: “Create a Godless Nation? YES! WE! CAN!” at http://firebreathingchristian.com in the Article Archives.

Subscribe to FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN!

Support FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN by:

and Thank you for your support!

For more, please visit the FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN BLOGWIRE or head on over to the full FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN WEBSITE – Copyright 2009 S.A.Buss