"Jesus" Isn't Enough

One of the things that you have to learn early on in apologetics and evangelism is that you need to have people define their terms. You will notice this most notably with Mormons and even moreso with those who merely label themselves as Christians. I have shown some of this in previous posts which you can read by clicking here.

People love to be included with everyone, especially politicians. Most people that I know believe that because President Bush said he was a Christian and used the name of Jesus, then he must be one. What I find interesting is that now that he has no votes or people to care about, we find out what he means by the term Jesus, salvation and the inerrancy of Scripture. What we actually find is that he actually sounds a lot like McCain and Obama. We must continually ask people to define their terms so that we can understand more fully if they need to be evangelized, exhorted or admonished. This should be our first goal when speaking to people that we don't know, or want to know more about. Defining terms helps immensely. What we found with President Bush is he loved to throw around the term Jesus, but now in the below article find that he really knows very little about him or the written word of God. From my perspective and this is completely arbitrary and just a guess...he used those terms to get votes. And it worked! Who knew that Jesus was that popular?

Jesus is more than a term, He is God incarnate, the eternal One, Whose word stands forever. Not one jot or tittle will be abolished, but fulfilled by the Holy Saviour of the world. Below, in this article you will see that, not only does Bush deny creation, but he denies that Christ is the only way, that God is completely sovereign and that the Bible is literally true. How much are we to allow someone to err before we call them an unbeliever? I wonder if anything will come of this or if the conservative pundit will stand by their man so that mud will not be on their face.

Take a look below at the article and tell me your thoughts.

Bush Says Creation 'Not Incompatible' With Evolution
President says in televised interview the Bible is "probably not" literally true and that a belief God created the world is compatible with the theory of evolution.

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with the scientific theory of evolution.

In an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Monday, the president also said he probably is not a literalist when reading the Bible although an individual can learn a great deal from it, including the New Testament teaching that God sent his only son.

Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said: "I think you can have both. I think evolution can -- you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."

He added, "I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life."

Interviewer Cynthia McFadden asked Bush if the Bible was literally true.

"You know. Probably not. ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son,"' Bush said.

"It is hard for me to justify or prove the mystery of the Almighty in my life," he said. "All I can just tell you is that I got back into religion and I quit drinking shortly thereafter and I asked for help. ... I was a one-step program guy."

The president also said that he prays to the same God as those with different religious beliefs.

"I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people," Bush said.

When asked whether he thought he would have become president had it not been for his faith, Bush said: "I don't know; it's hard to tell. I do know that I would have been -- I'm pretty confident I would have been a pretty selfish person."

Bush said he is often asked whether he thinks he was chosen by God to be president.

"I just, I can't go there," he said. "I'm not that confident in knowing, you know, the Almighty, to be able to say, Yeah, God wanted me of all the other people."

He also said the decision to go to war in Iraq was not connected to his religious believes.
"I did it based upon the need to protect the American people from harm," Bush said.

"You can't look at the decision to go into Iraq apart from, you know, what happened on Sept. 11. It was not a religious decision," he said. "I don't view this as a war of religion. I view this as a war of good, decent people of all faiths against people who murder innocent people to achieve a political objective."

He said he felt like God was with him as he made big decisions, but that the decisions were his.
"George W. Bush has to make these decisions."

Read More......

Guess Who? Oh no you didn't!

I am going to play a guessing game. I going to list some quotes from a very notable Christian that most respect and adhere to his writings. I have to be completely honest, I have never read any of his books. When I told some at my church that I had never read any of his books it as though I told them that I sell crack on the weekends. Read the quotes and then ask yourself, “Would I read anything from someone who held to these views?” Or “Would I have respect of this person as an apologist of the Christian faith?” So, here are the quotes see if you can guess who it is...

1. If by saying that man rose from brutality you mean simply that man is physically descended from animals, I have no objections…. For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumbs could be applied to each of its fingers, and jaws and teeth and the throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all material motions whereby rational thought is
incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man…. We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor how long they continued in the Paradisal state.


2. “I disbelieve that doctrine [total depravity], partly on the logical ground that if our depravity were total we should not know ourselves to be depraved and partly because experience shows us much good in human nature.”

When speaking of the fall:

3. “I have the deepest respect even for Pagan myths, still more for myths in Holy Scripture…. What exactly happened when Man fell, we do not know; but if it is legitimate to guess, I offer the following picture – a ‘myth’ in the Socratic sense, a not unlikely tale”

What about eternal security:

4. “There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians…. A Christian can lose the Christ-life which has been put into him, and he has to make efforts to keep it.”

As far as salvation:

5. “Though all salvation is through Jesus, we need not conclude that He cannot save those who have not explicitly accepted Him in this life.”

6. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in
agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position.

Any guesses? No it’s not Billy Graham, although not far from what he told Larry King, you can read that here.

It’s C.S. Lewis…

So we see that he believed in evolution, did not believe in total depravity, believed that the Fall was a myth (as he did with other OT stories), thought Christians could lose their salvation, and was as inclusivist of other religions leading to God, not just Christ (John 14:6).

Are you saying to yourself, “Yeah, but this is C.S. Lewis!”

Martin Lloyd Jones, as far back as 1963 even warned of Lewis’ views of salvation. We must be careful, as the Bereans, when they tested the Scriptures to make sure that what the apostles were saying was true. (Acts 17:10,11) Just because C.S. Lewis has written many “great” books that are accepted on a widespread basis, we cannot just accept what he teaches, but must examine his writings. I would contend that I will never read what he has to say nor will I allow my children. I would also contend that the Bereans would have turned a deaf ear to his teachings as well. It is also one more reason to know that we should leave parables and metaphors to Christ alone and the Scriptures alone.

Most of this post was taken from an article written by Gary E. Gilley. You can also get all the end notes from the quotes used in this article there.

Read More......