Communiqué of Convictions Regarding Contemporary Issues:

Positions on worldly issues that have infiltrated, and/or interfered with, the Church in one way or another….

Abortion

The purposeful abortion of conceived humans is wrong when used as a preferential method. Only in the case of the mother’s life being in danger can this option be considered.

Xeno-sexuality

Xeno-sexuality (strange sex) includes all forms of affectionate emotions, interpersonal desires, sexual feelings, and sexual activities that are not proactively approved in Scripture, such as pre-marital sex, sexual harassment, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality, polygamy, androgyny, pornography, rape, prostitution, adultery, dirty talk, irreverent dirty jokes and anecdotes, profane language that refers to sex, etc. Xeno-sexuality is against God’s intended use of sexuality for human beings. Xeno-sexuality is sinful, causing impossibility of fellowship between a xeno-sexual person and the holy God. Xeno-sexuality is harmful to those who practice it, damaging to families, and destructive to societies.

Tolerance

The proper definition of tolerance from a dictionary is “the capacity or the act of enduring; a disposition to be patient and indulgent toward those whose opinions or practices differ from one’s own.” To be tolerant is not to be accepting or embracing, but to differ and remain distinct, allowing for the opinion or practice while disagreeing with it.

Christianity was born and grew up in a very immoral and corrupt world. The Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles modeled for us the exercise of having a strong position against sin, while not forcing that position on an unbelieving world. From their very teachings Christians were instructed to teach the truth in love.

The unbelieving world wants Christians to accept and embrace many forms of sin, and call this “tolerance.” However, if one accepts and embraces something then they can no longer be tolerant of it simply because they can no longer “be patient and indulgent toward those whose opinions or practices differ from one’s own.”

While believers are tolerant of the sin that surrounds them, we are to live distinct (holy) lives that are marked by a total separation from worldly patterns of thought and from sin, and take a firm vocal position against the same.

Materialism

The Lord Jesus Christ made it very clear that one “cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Mat. 6:24). Mammon is money and the lifestyle it buys. When money and the lifestyle it buys becomes primary in our lives, it becomes a god, and Jesus calls that god by the name of Mammon. Jesus taught that Mammon was a direct enemy to God.

The apostle Paul stated that “the love of money is a root of all evil” and that it could cause people to be “seduced from the faith” (1^st Tim. 6:10). The love of money includes love for what money represents – the things and lifestyle one can buy with it. Paul’s advice, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is to “flee these things” (v. 11).

Materialism is one of the biggest obstacles to believers living a life that is completely given to God. It is easy to identify what people value by the amount of time they give to a particular thing. Too many believers today spend most of their time working to earn money, countless hours planning what to do with that money, indulging in shopping for their things, and using money to simply spend time away or in some form of recreation.

Contrast this exuberant amount of time surrounding money and what it buys to how much time is spent in the Word, in personal prayer, attending and participating in church, edifying believers and evangelizing unbelievers.

Christians must be admonished (lovingly rebuked) with the questions, “What does your time tell about what you value? Who is your god?” Christ calls us to a life of simplicity and of complete dedication to Him. Reliance on Him for all our needs is a significant part of the Christian lifestyle.

Marxism and its Variants

The extreme Leftist political movements, based on Marxism, are more than political preferences. They are a set of beliefs that form a philosophy, a worldview and even a secular “religion.” As such, it is in stark contrast to biblical Judeo-Christianity.

One of the very evident premises for Marxism and similar worldviews is envy. It is a constant looking at what the other has and coveting it. In the Marxist worldview classes of people are created in which some have and others have not. This distinction between those who have and those who have not is essential to Marxism.

This is in contrast with the Bible which teaches believers that envy is a very ugly sin. The Bible also teaches that coveting is a sin; it is one of the Ten Commandments!

Marxism teaches that humans have evolved and are evolving. The Bible says that humans were created by God directly and immediately. The Bible leaves no room for the evolution of humanity. Adam was created from the dust of the earth and Eve was made from Adam’s side. Since the creation of humanity, we have not evolved at all. In a way, because of sin, we have been deteriorating, both physically and morally. The evolution of humanity is essential to Marxism and its variants, or its worldview cannot exist.

Marxism teaches that the poorer people should revolt against the richer ones, taking from those who have to distribute to those who have not. The idea of taking from the rich is also diametrically opposed to the Word of God. God forbids stealing – the taking from someone without their voluntary approval – and the prohibition from theft is also one of the Ten Commandments!

Marxism teaches that the people of any nation should revolt against the State, toppling their governing authorities in order to take from the rich and spread the wealth to the poor. Again we see a contrast with Scripture. The Bible teaches believers to obey their authorities, and further to honor them (from the heart). A believer is even to pray for the authorities!

All forms of Marxism reject the existence of God. A Christian believer can never agree to that.

Marxism promotes the idea that quality of living involves less work and less effort. Marxist philosophy teaches people to revolt, rebel, strike and even use sabotage and other acts of terrorism to hurt places of employ. Any time a local cause arises, anywhere in the world, that involves a group who wants to work less, accomplish less, do less, or do nothing at all while receiving payment, Marxism and its political groups are there to defend them. Marxism is against good work ethic. The Bible encourages diligence and an excellent work ethic.

This may seem self-contradictory for Marxism, but in reality it focuses on quality of life being primarily materialist! Even the primary historico-philosophical basis of Marxism is what Marxists call the Dialectical Materialism in which material wealth is cyclically exchanged from the rich to the poor. Marxists insist that for humanity to evolve properly, Dialectical Materialism must happen everywhere! A close examination of this proves that Marxism sees materialism – distributed to the poor – as the goal of Marxism. Marxism goes so far as to say that the rich use religion to make poor people think they should be satisfied with emotional and spiritual contentment, so that the poor do not revolt against the rich. Scripture teaches us that true joy in living is not obtained in material goods but in spiritual maturity and intimate fellowship with our Creator.

Marxism encourages work strikes around the world, even when the cause is far from just. Yet, the Scriptures teach Christians to honor their masters.

Marxism teaches a doctrine of human equality that is not accurate. The extreme equality of Marxism does not take into account the differences between human beings. A human being who has the same working capacity as another but chooses to work less, according to Marxism, should receive as much as the man works harder and longer. This is actually unfair and is not true equality.

Marxism indoctrinates its followers in certain attitudes that are in opposition to the Bible’s teachings for us. Some of the attitudes with which Marxism promotes and brainwashes people are rebellion, disregard for authority, disdain for hard workers who are successful and satisfied without help from unions, hatred toward those who do well financially, laziness and complacency in the workplace, and repugnance toward God and anything related to God, among others.

The teachings of the Marxist worldview are in opposition to the Bible. As such a Christian believer cannot accept Marxism and its variants.

Gender Domains (Male Chauvinism, Modern Feminism, and the Church)

This has become a hot topic in contemporary society primarily because of Modern Feminism and homosexual propaganda that has pervaded the media, political lobbies, and public education.

Followers of the Lord Jesus Christ find the basis of their beliefs in the Bible and not in society. The Bible is not silent about the nature of the genders, their function and respective domains.

The Bible does not say that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, or that a man can treat his wife as an inferior being. These are historic and cultural worldview frameworks that were prevalent in almost all people-groups, cultures and religions around the globe. Even secularists in the past have held these constructs. Yet, ideas such as these are not necessarily supported by the Bible.

The Bible goes deeper than these notions of the role of men and women in the home. The Bible cuts into the very nature of what it means to be masculine and feminine. It traces these defining traits back to the very image of God that He burned into the soul of men and women.

In Genesis 1:27 God creates the first man and woman. God states that He is going to make them in His image. Immediately after that statement, the Scripture says that He made them male and female. The direct meaning is that masculinity and femininity are part of what it means to be made in God’s image. Although God has us calling Him by masculine pronouns, He has aspects of masculinity, gender neutrality, and femininity all within His infinite self. In making us in His image, He made certain aspects of Himself (which we consider, in humans, to be gender related) more prevalent in one sex, and certain other aspects more prevalent in the other sex. We call these “gender differences” masculinity and femininity. Men were made masculine while women were made feminine.

Since God burned into the souls of humans masculinity and femininity respectively, to understand the nature of masculinity or femininity, we are encouraged by the Bible to look at what the majority of women are like and what the majority of men are like. We can then see clearly what it means to be masculine and feminine. As such, we are to look at the nature of men and women, in the vast majority, and easily see the clear gender differences.

In addition to God’s general revelation in nature (specifically in the majority of men’s and women’s natural propensities), God also gives us some guidelines in His specific revelation, the Holy Bible. This was perhaps necessary because human beings, with their sinful nature, have the capacity to sear their consciences, callous their hearts to sin, and abandon the natural way for perverted ways. So God prohibits men from appearing and behaving as women, and vice versa. God forbids homosexuality and other perspectives and lifestyles that confuse or alter the natures of masculine and feminine in men and women respectively.

Men who claim that on the inside they are feminine, and women who claim that they are masculine on the inside, are in essence countering the image of God within them. We cannot go into the reasons for this rare situation, but all we can say is that the Word of God cannot be changed. God will give anyone who truly wants to be a believer and follower of Jesus the grace to trust and obey His Word, including respect for and adherence to the appropriate gender distinctions, and to live a life of joy as well.

Christ Jesus our Lord gave Himself up on the cross for the salvation of the world. For those who believe in Him, He created the Church which exists worldwide in the form of local churches. Within the Church He restored positional equality between men and women, but He never discarded the natures He created in them at creation. Men, among other things, were made to lead; women, among other things, were made to nurture. These distinctions are maintained and even emphasized in the local church. Each believer is being restored to what he or she should have been like had sin not entered the world. This is an ongoing process, called sanctification, in each believer that started at his or her initial spiritual regeneration. In Christ a man becomes more manly and a woman becomes more womanly, while each holds equal position in the family of God and each has equal delegated authority in the world.

However, the Church still exists in a fallen world, and has not been completely sanctified. It will only be completely sanctified when all the Church is called up to the presence of Jesus in Heaven. The Church then still has to deal with the consequences of the Fall, such as human error, moral sin, and so on. When a local church is congregated, the Lord placed a few limitations on women because of two reasons. First, the order of Creation. She was created after the man. And, second, because of the order of the Fall. She sinned before the man. For these reasons, within local church meetings, women are given some limitations. Outside the local church meetings, however, women have all the rights, responsibilities and privileges that men are given.

Ecumenism

Ecumenism is the effort made (mostly by mainline, traditional church denominations) to unite all the groups that call themselves “Christian.” Some Ecumenicals go further and work toward uniting all monotheists (Christendom, Judaism, Islam, etc.), and some go even further and desire to unite all religions. The strongest and largest Ecumenical Movement is the one that is trying to unite Christendom.

(“Christendom” is a rhetoric grouping [into one classification for simplification] of all those who call themselves Christian. Christendom is a word that includes Evangelicals, other Protestants, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and other groups that call themselves “Christian.” “Christendom” is merely a word used when one is referring to all who call themselves Christian. The Ecumenical Movement is an active effort to bring all churches into one, whereas the word “Christendom” does not imply unification. We use “Christendom” in contrast to “Biblical Christianity” which includes only born-again believers who respect the Holy Bible as the Word of God and as the only spiritual authority for their lives; adherents of Biblical Christianity follow the teaching of Jesus and His apostles as closely as possible. Biblical Christianity is comprised mostly of Evangelicals.)

The word “ekklesia” is the word for church in the New Testament. It means “a calling out of” and by definition requires separation from sin, the world, any religious error and false doctrine. The church is not a place of unity but a place of separation, distinction.

The Lord Jesus made distinction between His Way and the religions of the pagans, Judaism in general, Pharisaic teaching, Sadducee teaching, and other religions and worldviews. He made it clear that His way was different, and called for separation from all other groups.

The apostles constantly and relentlessly called for purity in the church, necessitating complete separation from churches that taught false doctrines, from false teachers, from false prophets, and from unrepentant sinners.

There is no basis from the Bible for unity between Bible-believing churches and other churches who do not believe in the sole authority and credibility of the Holy Bible.

Ecumenicals will often state their mission as “restoring” unity to the Church. This gives a misleading notion that Christendom was at one time unified. It was not. Even in the apostles’ days there were many churches that did not follow the apostles’ teachings (Nicolaitans, Judaizers, three different types of “Christian” Gnostics, etc.). There were always a variety of beliefs among churches, some quite far from the teachings of Jesus and His apostles.

The danger of the Ecumenical Movement is that each church and individual must sacrifice some beliefs in order for there to be union. One must sacrifice truth for unity. Scripture teaches the opposite: sacrifice unity for truth.

Nature of God

The world has many varied theories about God. Even many secular people who have not taken the least amount of time to study about God have come to conclusions about God that they themselves follow as though true. The nature of God – who He is, what He’s like – has taken on a new twist that has pervaded our society, and this new “God” is taught in the media, politics, and casual conversations.

One thing is certain. No human being, from within him- or herself, can know what God is like, or even if He exists. This kind of knowledge is impossible from a solely human standpoint. Any ideas or notions about God from a solely human standpoint is nothing more than speculation and imagination.

For us to know anything about the Supreme Being, He would have to reveal it to us. Without His special revelation, we would be completely in the dark in regard to His Person.

Thankfully, He has chosen to reveal Himself. Today, we have the Holy Bible in which God explains to us who He is and what He is like.

Some of the notions about God that are prevalent in society include: perceiving God to be powerful but not all-powerful, thinking of God as similar to humans in attitudes and motives, believing God to be loving, sympathetic, and incapable of disciplining and of justice, considering God to be someone with whom they negotiate, regarding God as a Supreme Being who evolved from something inferior, and so on.

Most of these incorrect ideas about God remount to little more than creating a god in one’s own image.

The characteristics of God as He describes Himself in the Bible are very different from the modern notions about God. The number one thing God wants us to understand about Him is that He is infinitely different from anything we can imagine. The word He uses over and over again in the Holy Bible to describe Himself is “holy.” The word “holy” is an ancient word that simply means “distinct.” God is distinct, distinct, distinct. There is none like Him. What few characteristics we know about Him, we must comprehend that they are true of Him only in an infinitely exponential way that we cannot grasp.

His love is infinitely distinct. His justice is infinitely distinct. His grace is infinitely distinct. His wrath toward sin is infinitely distinct. He does not think like we do. He does not feel like we do. His values are infinitely higher than ours. His moral purity is infinite. His repugnance for wrongdoing is infinite. His sensitivity for hurt caused to others is infinite.

What He considers to be appropriate consequences for our deeds are extremely different than what we would consider. Our slightest, least offensive sin is to His infinite sensitivity a heinous crime.
Any departure from His infinitely high standards of goodness can only be compensated by infinite punishment.

When it comes to the nature of God, one is best to leave casual meanderings alone and start reading the Holy Bible with avid interest. For in the Bible one discovers the absolute, infinite moral purity of God, and His unrelenting justice with which He will judge every human being. In the Holy Bible one also discovers a God of grace and love. A God who wants to save every human being from His own justice that He has to enact. This God, to satisfy both His infinite, unrelenting justice and His infinite, tireless love, became a man and allowed Himself to be unjustly crucified. On that cross, He voluntarily took upon Himself our sins, and received the spiritual punishment – His infinite punishment – so that we would be free from the eternal punishment that awaited us.

God gives us the option of salvation from His wrath of justice if we repent of our sins and have faith in Him and in what He did for us on the cross. A believer who does that enters into fellowship with God and begins a new life of many new and wondrous things. Those who do not accept this option wrought by God, will be one day judged by His infinite justice and sentenced to an infinite punishment. God has done all the work. He gives us the choice: His infinite justice or His infinite love.

The little we know about the nature of God is found in the Bible. Popular notions of God are irrelevant and can be dangerous to one’s soul in the long term.

Cults, Eastern Orthodoxy, some Eastern Religions, Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Spiritism/Animism

All these religions have several things in common, and not all of them are good. Two things that they have in common and with which the Bible disagrees are as follows.

(1) That spiritual authority can be found outside the Bible. These religions all claim to have spiritual authority from certain leaders in their religious systems, from man-made traditions, and/or from holy writings other than the Holy Bible.

(2) That spiritual salvation (and this has many different meanings in their respective systems) can and should be obtained by one’s own efforts and/or by one’s efforts combined with specific activities of their respective religion.

Some of these religions have another element in common, which is the worship and petitioning of objects representing a higher entity – idolatry. This is strictly forbidden in the Holy Bible (both the Old Testament and the New Testament).

The Holy Bible teaches that only the Old Testament and the teachings of the apostles (preserved in the New Testament) have spiritual authority in our day and age. The Bible also teaches that salvation from our sin is found only by repentance (a change of heart regarding our sin) and faith in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

Some Eastern Religions, New Age, Positive Thinking, Psychologized Metaphysics

All these religions and philosophical systems have several things in common, some of which is not in agreement with the Holy Bible.

(1) That the nature of God is either impersonal or evolved from a lower form of existence.

(2) That spiritual authority can be found outside the Bible.

(3) That sin is non-existent, redefined to something other than disobedience to God, or relative to one’s own sense of dissatisfaction.

(4) That reality is relative to one’s experience.

(5) That salvation (and this has many different meanings in their respective systems), if even necessary, or self betterment, can be acquired through good deeds and/or by the power of one’s disciplined mind.

The Holy Bible teaches that God has always existed with no beginning in eternity past. God is a personal God with self awareness, free will, personality, individuality, intelligence, wisdom, emotions, and power to make His will a reality in any way He desires. The Bible is the only spiritual authority for humanity in this age. Sin is disobedience to God’s directives and anything that is contrary to the character of God. Reality is determined by God who is the Creator and does not deceive. Reality is the physical universe we live in and the spiritual realm which overlaps with our universe. We can know reality in our universe through our five senses and the logic with which we understand the information our senses experience. We can know of spiritual reality, that is currently unknowable through our senses, by the information given us in the Bible. The Bible also teaches that salvation from our sin is found only by repentance (a change of heart regarding our sin) and faith in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a post-Christian worldview which primary premise is relativism and pluralism. Postmodernism throws conventional logic out the window and insists that even contradictory philosophical/theological statements can both be true. Thus, it follows that Christianity is as true as Buddhism and Satanism. Truth is relative and is dependent on the individual’s experience and beliefs. As such, all belief systems (and non-systems) are credible and legitimate.

This is not reality because all religions are in one way or another exclusive of each other. Even the most ecumenical, relativistic and plural of belief systems excludes those who are not as ecumenical, relativistic and plural.

Behind the façade, the claim that all religions are legitimate and true is really a subversive statement that all religions are bogus. It is a way to excuse oneself from seeking the truth and making a commitment with one belief system. This is an insult and a discrediting of all religions and belief systems. The façade of Postmodernism is that it is also a harbinger to prohibiting proselytization or evangelization. The end result would be the end of religion and faith belief systems.

Christians have a God of absolute values, a historical record of interaction between God and humanity, a Holy Bible with absolute spiritual truth, an absolute standard of morality to live by, one Judge of all humanity, one Savior to all who believe, and one way to eternal salvation. There is no room for postmodernism in the true believer who is sincere about his or her faith.

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