Headlines Update

Christian Research Network shares just a few secular headlines that reflect the growing flood of deception and compromise in evangelicalism...

Evangelicals a Liberal Can Love
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF-The New York Times
…Today, many evangelicals are powerful internationalists and humanitarians — and liberals haven’t awakened to the transformation. The new face of evangelicals is somebody like the Rev. Rick Warren, the California pastor who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life.”
Mr. Warren acknowledges that for most of his life he wasn’t much concerned with issues of poverty or disease. But on a visit to South Africa in 2003, he came across a tiny church operating from a dilapidated tent — yet sheltering 25 children orphaned by AIDS.

The Unexpected Monks
From the Boston Globe:
Some evangelicals turn to monasticism, suggesting unease with megachurch religion - and the stirrings of rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church.

S.G. PRESTON IS a Knight of Prayer. Each morning at his Vancouver, Wash., home, he wakes up and prays one of the 50-odd psalms he has committed to memory, sometimes donning a Kelly green monk’s habit. In Durham, N.C., Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and fellow members of Rutba House gather for common meals as well as morning and evening prayer based on the Benedictine divine office. Zach Roberts, founder of the Dogwood Abbey in Winston-Salem, meets regularly with a Trappist monk to talk about how to contemplate God. Roman Catholic monastic traditions loom large in their daily routines - yet all three men are evangelical Protestants.

The image of the Catholic monk - devoted to a cloistered life of fasting and prayer, his tonsured scalp hidden by a woolen cowl - has long provoked the disdain of Protestants. Their theological forefathers denounced the monastic life: True Christians, the 16th-century Reformers said, lived wholly in the world, spent their time reading the Bible rather than chanting in Latin, and accepted that God saved them by his grace alone, not as reward for prayers, fasting, or good works. Martin Luther called monks and wandering friars "lice placed by the devil on God Almighty’s fur coat." Of all Protestants, American evangelicals in particular - activist, family-oriented, and far more concerned with evangelism than solitary study or meditative prayer - have historically viewed monks as an alien species, and a vaguely demonic one at that.

…the rise of the New Monastics suggests that mainstream worship is leaving some people cold. Already, they are transforming evangelical religious life in surprising ways. They are post-Protestants, breaking old liturgical and theological taboos by borrowing liberally from Catholic traditions of monastic prayer, looking to St. Francis instead of Jerry Falwell for their social values, and stocking their bookshelves with the writings of medieval mystics rather than the latest from televangelist Joel Osteen.

Baptists Hope Unity Effort Sparks Movement
Christian Post brings us this piece:
Thousands of Baptists wrapped up a historic three-day gathering wondering if their time spent in Atlanta was the beginning of a major Baptist movement toward unity or just a moment.
"We don’t want this to be a wasted moment," former President Jimmy Carter told the Baptists as they closed the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant on Friday.

And it will likely prove part of a movement…the great falling away.

Hypocrites Gather in Atlanta
In this piece Paul Proctor begins:
According to the Associated Press, a group of Baptists recently met in Atlanta at a gathering called, Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, "to develop common ministries" and "challenge any perception that all Baptists accept conservative Southern Baptist views." The AP reported that host and former president, Jimmy Carter "hopes [the] moderate Baptist meeting in Georgia will serve as [a] model of unity"…

Lillian Kwon wrote [in Christian Post] that they are "hoping an image of unity will emerge." Apparently, if real unity is not achieved, an image of unity will suffice, which in my view, further validates the reputation liberals have earned over the years for seeking symbolism over substance.