learning to avoid the metrosexual evangelical

See Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YykfDFEk3y8

When Being a Nice Guy in Women's Jeans is Not Enough

"Earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints."Jude 3

by Ed Enochs

Since becoming a Christian over twenty years ago, I have seen a lot of things come and go in the Evangelical Church here in Southern California.

As a very young man, the thing we had to deal with in the late 1980's and early 1990's was the backlash against Evangelicalism due to the Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart scandals that rocked America during that era. Almost every conversation I had with non Christians during that time period was directed back to the scandals of one too many big time electronic media pastors who gut busted fleecing their flocks or with one illicit affair or another.Yet, as I recall that era of American Evangelicalism, things were much different back then, truth was truth and most conservative Evangelicals had a conception of what was true and what was unbiblical.

We knew that Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics were unbiblical and many of us attempted to demonstrate from the Bible that these things were so.But we have reached darker times in American Evangelicalism...In our postmodern day and age, things have changed big time. Very few Evangelicals know the essential truths of the Christian faith and almost no Christian will take a stand for the truth if it will make him or her unpopular.In our pragmatic times, most Christians avoid controversy and confrontation as though it were worst than the AIDS virus. Most Christians I know these days have no convictions and tolerate the most wretched heresies and lifestyles to occur right under their noses.

Most Christians I meet these days have very little doctrinal conviction and even less ability to defend their faith if they should encounter a false teaching.As I survey the current milieu and culture of American Evangelicalism here in Southern California, I have seen many Evangelical Christians fall away into Eastern Orthodoxy and other false teachings because they were not grounded in the essential truths of the Christian faith and very few Christians around them would take a stand against these false teachings when it mattered.

Evangelical Churches and colleges are now moving away from Biblical verse by verse preaching to being proponents and Representatives of seeker sensitive, pragmatic and Emergent Church religion filled with sentimental falsehood. Formerly staunch Evangelical Churches and educational institutions have become bastions of Postmodern relativism where very few Christians know the truth let alone stand for the truth.In Southern California Christianity today, the type of man that is admired is the nice likable guy, the metro-sexual Evangelical, the good guy with the frosted hair, tight black t shirt and the tight faded jeans who is whimsical conversationalist and attempts to tolerate every-ones beliefs and lifestyle irrespective of how contrary to the Bible those beliefs and practices are.

Today's Church is filled with what I would like to christen the "Metro-Sexual" Evangelical. This is the type of Evangelical male who places more emphasis on his personal grooming and appearance than what the Bible teaches. The Metro-Sexual Evangelical is the rock star wannabe, the smooth operator with all the lady friends who tolerates everything and anything in the Christian Church because he does not the know the first thing about what Biblical Christianity is.

The Metro-Sexual Evangelical has risen to popularity and prominence in most Evangelical churches and colleges in Southern California because a generation of American Evangelicals have become pragmatic compromisers and distanced themselves from any semblance of authentic Biblical Christianity.

The real man and woman of God who cares about what is happening with American Christianity will learn what the Bible teaches and what is authentic and historic Evangelicalism is and will avoid the "Metro-Sexual Evangelical" who is destroying the Church with his compromised lifestyle and lack of Biblical knowledge and discernment.

The question is, are there any Biblical men left in American Christianity?The time has come to leave the women's jeans and Metro-Sexual Evangelical behind and return to the historic Evangelical Christian faith based on the authority of the Bible alone, that teaches that there is still truth and falsehood in the world today, that teaches that Evangelical doctrine matters, that teaches that Jesus Christ is still God the Son, that teaches that the Trinity is still true, that teaches that the Bible is still the inerrant Word of Almighty God, that teaches that men and women are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.Evangelical man and woman of God, let's leave the Metro-Sexual Evangelical behind and take a stand for Jesus Christ in our generation.

Let's know our God and know our Bibles and stand for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints even if its not the popular thing to do.

are you just another evangelical borg?

"Test all things, hold fast to the truth" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the Spirits, for many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).


"The Borg have a singular goal, namely the consumption of technology, rather than wealth or political expansion as most species seek. According to their spokesman, in the form of an assimilated Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the Borg only want to "raise the quality of life" of the species they "assimilate." (See "Best of Both Worlds") Androids, for example, they view as primitive and obsolete. Born humanoid, they are almost immediately implanted with bio-chips that link their brains to a collective consciousness via a unique subspace frequency emitted by each drone.

This collective consciousness is experienced by the Borg as "thousands" of voices — they are collectively aware, but not aware of themselves as separate individuals. Consequently, they never speak in singular pronouns, referring to themselves when required as merely "Third of Five," for instance. The Borg ingest only energy to drive their technological system via an energy conduit port. Their bio-chips synthesize any organic nutrients needed. Among the many advantages their collective consciousness affords them, the Borg hive-mind allows for instantaneous adaptations to shield and phaser frequency modulations in combat; they are also able to regenerate and repair their massive cube ship with the power of their collective thoughts alone. The hive-mind drones do not register as individual life-signs when scanned, only as a mass reading and then at a bare minimum. The sick and injured are not healed but "reabsorbed" by the removal of the receiver piece, which leads to self-destructive dissolve. When shipboard during dormancy in their regenerative mode, power is minimal and the vessel's EM field cuts off. They have a knock-out drug or procedure for humans, using a drill-tap placed behind the left ear, that works immediately but wears off in less than a minute" (From the Star Trek offical website).

You have been assimilated. These are the famous and insidous words of the "Borg" the infamous villians of Star Trek, the Next Generation lore who as the above article from the Star Trek offical website indicate, are the humanoid/android like creatures who assimilate all human life forms into their over mind, thus eradicating their individuality.


In this materalistic consumer orientated era of American Evangelicalism, most Christians have been unwittingly assimilated into the money making consumerism of the contemporary Evangelical cult of celebrity. That is, we have been duped into buying the latest book, music CD and other commerical items of profiteering Evangelical celebrity pastors and wanna be rock stars who live like hollywood moguls and divas, without any accountability, all the while laughing and taking your money to the bank on their way to living large on their beach front property in Malibu.


You have been assimilated into the Evangelical cult of celebrity. You are actually helping many of these self appointed Evangelical leaders, make their payments on beach front property and Hummers. Free your self from this deception.

We live in a time of American Christianity where so called "celebrity pastors" are living like millionare rock stars, living above any accountability, driving expensive cars, buying expensive homes all on the money of Evangelical Christian believers who send in their money in order to help further the cause of Christ. However, your hard earned money is actually not going to help further the Gospel, it is actually helping further the celebrity driven ego of media manufactured Evangelical prima donnas who are greedy for gain, prestige and power. Be warned, before you contribute your money to a ministry, actually look into the background of the celebrity pastor you are supporting. You may just find out that he may be laughing while taking you and your money all the way to the bank and his beach front property.

Know this, that the electronic media has made self appointed and annointed celebrities out of many pastors and ministers of the Gospel, who now live above the law and any sembalance of doctrinal, moral and monetary accountability. They become outraged when you dare to question their doctrinal and money making practices. Be warned lest you become an "Evangelical borg" where you cannot question their practices and are just assmilated into their schemes and scams to bilk you out of your cash and their desire for you to become their slave and follower. Buck the trend and do not become just another Evangelical borg.

Theologia Crucis and Extra Nos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czivCR1i5dU



Despite being in the thralls of medieval serfdom and Roman Catholic superstition and repression, the general populace of Western Civilization during the Middle Ages believed in the conception of a "theistic worldview" wherein men and women actually believed in the reality of God, demons, angels, heaven and hell and the basic cosmology detailed in sacred Scripture.

Imperial Roman Catholicism which demanded unquestioned fidelity to its doctrines and policies, greatly clouded the truth of Scripture however, and this Catholic suppression of the truth gave impetus for the German theologian Martin Luther to launch the Protestant Reformation.

Two of the most important theological concepts that Martin Luther recovered during his prolonged study of theology that ultimately gave Birth to his stand against the false teachings of the Catholic Church were known in Latin as Theologia Crucis and Extra Nos.

According to William J. Cork,

Martin Luther's first referred to a "theology of the cross" (theologia crucis) at the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, in a series of theses on the nature of revelation:

Thesis #19: "That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened."

Thesis #20: "He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross."

Revelation is necessary for Luther because speculation on the basis of what is visible will not lead one to a knowledge of God. Yet what God reveals of himself is, at the same time, concealed. God shows only his "back side." This revelation of the posteriora Dei takes place in suffering and the cross, not in common human morality or in the design and order of creation. And it demands faith--for only faith recognizes that the One on the cross is, in fact, God.

Luther's emphasis on the cross as the primary locus of God's self-disclosure is not unique to him, but goes back at least as far as the renewal of devotion to the humanity of Christ at the time of Francis (about which Ewert Cousins has written much). What is unique to Luther is his sharp distinction between the theology of the cross and the theology of glory, which he sees as mutually exclusive. As he says in of the Will (1525).

Faith has to do with things not seen (Heb. 11:1). Hence in order that there may be room for faith, it is necessary that everything which is believed should be hidden. It cannot, however, be more deeply hidden than under an object, perception, or experience which is contrary to it.
Thus, on this point, at least, the early Luther and the later Luther are in perfect harmony: "God can be found only in suffering and the cross." And the converse is also true: where there is not pain and the cross, but pride, wealth, and ostentatious display, one must doubt whether God is, in fact, present.

Luther's theology of the cross was the basis for his critique of the triumphalism of the medieval Church and the papacy. He "was convinced," says Eric Gritsch, "that the church may have to suffer the loss of its status in order to become a better instrument of the Gospel." Luther called the Church to embrace Christ's humility--he called it to the cross. There the Church sees its true vocation to be that of suffering servant. It is to be called by the world "Afflicted one, as well as storm-tossed, and not comforted, 'Miss Hopeless.'' Luther's theology of the cross demanded that the Church, like its Lord, be hidden under suffering. By this he did not mean the self-chosen discomfort of pious deprivation, but that genuine suffering which inevitably follows the faithful proclamation of the Word of God.

The Church, then, like the individual, is justified by faith alone. And, Luther argues, one can be reduced to such a faithful clinging to Christ only through humiliation. It is through a direct, intense encounter with the wrath of God, experienced as suffering and Anfechtungen, that the sinner comes to know "that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works, and depends entirely on the choice, will, and work of another, namely, of God alone."

This point receives its greatest elaboration in of the Will (1525), just cited, and Luther's 1521 Commentary on the Magnificat. Humility is said in the latter to be a necessity for justification--not in the sense of a "work," but in the sense of an utter repudiation of trust in works. Thus Luther distinguishes between "true" and "artificial humility." The latter he regards as an affectation which seeks reward through outward appearance. True humility seeks no reward. It is "nothing else than a disregarded, despised, and lowly estate, such as that of men who are poor, sick, hungry, thirsty, in prison, suffering, and dying."Those in such a state know they have nothing. Therefore they cling in faith to the promise of the Crucified One.

The participation of the believer in Christ extra nos (Latin for "outside ourselves")we place ourselves in the hands of God who is outside us.

This Reformational conception, which is a recovery and rediscovery of the Pauline New Testament doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer apart from the works of the law, utilizes the extra nos idea in that God demands absolute moral perfection from us, an impossibility due to our inherent sinfulness from the Fall of Adam (lapsus) but can be appropriated through the perfect alien righteousness of Christ, which is not intrinsic to fallen, sinful humanity but is aquired through faith.