The Tangent College
Hello Colleagues,
I’ve been struggling with the best way to word my next two emails which are turning into a part two and part three of my previous post entitled “Religion Versus Secular – Secular Humanism Is Now Religious Humanism“. This is a must read as it lays down some foundational axioms of the Tangent College. I implore you to open your mind and put aside your religious preconceptions and consider the arguments that I make. It will free you and pull you into reality and a more genuine relationship with God.
Embrace reality and abandon religion. Religion is a man-made crutch that can take you only so far. The question you must ask yourself is do you really want to know the real God? The God of reality? The One who made all that is real? This is why I call myself a secular Christian and I plan to explain this in much greater detail in future letters.
This is what it truly means when someone says they have been “born again”– that they have embraced and accepted God’s reality. Nicodemus, a very religious Pharisee, could not understand what it meant to be “born again”. Throughout my Christian life, since I was “born again”, I have met many supposed Christians who are very religious but do not seem to grasp the reality of God. They go through the motions of their religion, and yet they seem to have little personal relationship with God. And more so, fail to perceive God working in the real world all around them; and wishing to join Him in that work .
God is as much in the streets and in the bars, in the courthouses and in the prisons as He is in the religious “houses of worship”. Is this not what greatly offended the Pharisees? That Jesus would hangout with tax gatherers and sinners rather than sit and be taught in the temple by the great religious leaders. It seems that Jesus was not very religious as he broke many of the religious traditions of the scribes and the Pharisees. But have you not read what Jesus said? “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5:20. On a number of levels, statements like this strain contemporary evangelical theology.
As I said in my prior letter, we are overwhelmed with Christian leaders but men of God are few. They are career men taught how to run their churches, but they do not know how to hear from God, recognize what He is doing, or discern the signs of the times. And the few that can are given no voice in the contemporary church. They say in their heart “Speak to us pleasant words only; tell us the religious stories again and again with words of love and encouragement.” and repeat dogmatically “there is nothing that you must do, or can do, to obtain salvation.”
I remember attending a church many years ago in which we were frustrated that no one was relating the Bible to the evils of the world and the issues of the day. When we attempted to share this frustration with one of the members, comparing these evils with John Lennon’s atheistic song “Imagine”; the response was a cloistered child-like ignorance of this song. I perceived the blank expression on this 40 something-year-old man and asked, “you don’t even know what song I’m talking about do you?” He shook his head and with a smile on his face said “I’m just praising the Lord”. I left utterly bewildered how anyone of his age could have lived his life in such a Christian bubble as to have never have heard this very well known popular song and considered its atheistic message. We were both Christians and yet we lived in very different worlds; he in a religious world and me in the world of reality. The Bible is a book about reality. It is not a religious book.
This remains with me as a perfect example of the new Amish-like communal escapism that characterizes so much of the contemporary evangelical church. They do not know all that they do not know.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” – Hosea 4:6
God rejects priests and children? Does this sound like the God of your evangelical religion that you’ve been taught?
As with the American Empire which has passed its zenith and now is struggling to maintain its hegemony, the evangelical movement reached its monumental zenith and is now laboring to keep from sliding down the inevitable slope and becoming a mausoleum. Religion is thickening in every church I attend and reality is lacking. The spirit is contrived and synthetic. We’ve experienced some spirits that I would label “strange”, as in demonic, as they invoke a deceiving feminized Goddess of love.
There is no talk by the church leaders of the growing tyranny that gradually envelops and controls them. The only thing they might mention, if anything, is their religious liberties being violated which causes them to play victim and seek to escape from the world they fear. They play victim in a country that is overwhelmingly Christian in its founding. Of all places on earth, this should be the easiest country to win back the culture. But it requires courage and for the Christian church to care and stand up en masse against the tyranny and moral degradation. But the church prefers to play victim; to cower and to retreat into “safe” religious communities.
As a take off on CS Lewis’s line from the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when speaking about Aslan (Christ), it is asked if He is “safe”. The response is “Safe?… Who said anything about being safe? Of course He isn’t safe. But He’s good.” This should also be our attitude as Christians; not striving to be safe but striving to be good. This is another way of stating that we are to be in the world, where it is not safe, but not of the world, where we are not good.
The term they use now is “freedom of worship”, In which they rejoice, and yet which is more restricted than even “freedom of religion”. The world has imprisoned the church in its own safehouses. The world is completely happy with the church that stays out of their business.
As I mentioned in my previous piece, religion is the problem and must be replaced by reality, but recently I’ve been understanding that some of the problem lies in evangelicalism itself. I say this as someone who would generally consider them self an evangelical. What started off as a legitimate movement by the Spirit of God to win souls for Christ and His kingdom, has now morphed into a man-made religious monument winning church members to fill the seats in the established houses of prescribed worship. The body of Christ use to be united in its recognition of the truth and its opposition to the world, but now, as you will hear from many pastors and church leaders, it is now united in its love of God, love of people, love of sinners and love of the world. I’ve heard it preached, “for God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son”; this is proof that we are to love the world just like God so loved the world. Does this sound right to you? Or do you recognize the error? Let us read another Scripture which is a bit more to the point “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” – 1 John 2:15 But of course this scripture is not quite as popular, and rarely mentioned, in the evangelical church as John 3:16.
The world certainly is pleased with the church that loves them and does not judge them. The church has gradually assimilated itself into the trap of Judas and the devil.
Evangelicalism has become a caricature of itself as it becomes an end unto itself. All that matters is winning more souls to Christ and adding to their number. They do this by appeasement, relaxing standards of repentance, defining deviancy down, and making church as comfortable as possible.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” -Matthew 23:15
Did you ever consider that the Pharisees were evangelists? – Fishers of men? The evangelical church, which claims to be carefully following the Bible, will miss how evangelism can also be practiced by the devil himself. As with faith, it is not enough to simply be evangelical, but what matters is the truth for which you evangelize and in the veracity of what you place your faith. Truth is king, and one must know the truth if one is to evangelize for it. Does the evangelical church preach much truth about the world? I never hear it. I’ve quoted a lot of people and linked to many articles in these emails over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever linked to a single religious article or message. I quote the Bible all the time but the religious leaders, the contemporary scribes of the Bible, not at all. I used to say that I learned more from Rush Limbaugh in 10 minutes then I learned in 10 years of religious messages. Simply because he talked about reality and not religion. But in doing so, unwittingly perhaps, he was more biblical than the religious.
Again, The Bible is not a religious book. It is a book about reality. Most of it is simply a narrative of what happened with little commentary. Much of it is history. It is largely left to the reader to draw his own inferences. For this reason I call myself a secular or nonreligious Christian.
And who is more religious and evangelistic than the Mormons or The Jehovah Witnesses or the Seventh-day Adventists? Each of these groups sends out teams of evangelists to win people to their own religion. Mormons evangelize to grow Mormonism. Jehovah witnesses evangelize to fill their “Kingdom Hall”. Each of these groups proselytize for their own sect and their own gospel. They each hide away in safe communities lest their religious beliefs be deemed foolish. The Mormons trekked all the way across America settling in Utah so they would be safe to practice their bizarre cultish version of Christianity. The Amish escaped to their horse driven farms. Have not evangelicals done the same? They evangelize in order to expand their local church family while they hide away fearful of, and disengaged from, the world around them.
But consider the Mormons or the Jehovah witnesses, where it has become a ritualistic practice to send out the faithful, as a right of passage into the church, door to door preaching their gospel. Evangelicalism to them is part of their religious requirements. And yet, does it yield any fruit? No. How many people are converting to Mormonism due to their walking door to door? Hardly any; as most new Mormons are simply born into Mormonism rather than being converted from non-Mormons. These movements have long since become monuments of religion. The evangelical church is following in the same manner.
And who is even more evangelical than the Mormons or the Jehovah witnesses? Is it not the world itself which on a daily basis evangelizes, with dogmatic cocksureness, its religious superstitions on every media outlet, in movies and TV shows, on the web, in advertisement, on the news, in “the science” – the Scripture of the religious humanist, with blanket coverage in academia and in the government? Does the evangelical church ever counteract or expose the nonstop lies of this religious humanism? No! Instead it escapes and buries its head in the sand believing that by doing so the monsters of the world will somehow go away. But the truth is that the monsters of the world will eventually devour the church that refuses courage to fight. God has given you the power and God has given you the land, but you must rise up and take it. We should be on our way up to Canaan land but instead we are wandering and cowering in the wilderness saying “the land is filled with the giants”. “Run away! Run away!” The Lord was very displeased with His people.
This is the call of the church, this is the work of God, to unite and stand up to evil. The psalmist says, “I hate and despise falsehood, But I love Thy law.” Psalm 119:163 – is this what the church says? It is to present a righteous standard in the community. It is not to build safe nests and then meekly call to the world to come and join them in their religious community.
It is a good thing the Christian founders didn’t feel this way because then there would not have been an America from which the “loving” evangelical pacifists could escape. But they remain unaware that much of the evil from which the church is currently attempting to escape was the result of its previous disengagement with the world.
To those who are fighting to hold on to our liberties, the evangelical church will claim it is futile to try to change the culture. But is this not the purpose of the church in society, to set a moral standard within the culture? It is not to run away and stay safe. It is to occupy and stand firm until Christ comes. But whether the culture turns around or not is of no consequence. The calling remains the same. Did any of the people that saw Noah building the ark repent and join him? No. As an evangelist, Noah was a complete failure. Perhaps he should have mentioned that there was free food and beer on the ark, and Starbucks coffee, and comfy seats, and flavorless family friendly entertainment; perhaps that would have persuaded a few. But this was not God’s plan. Noah was to be a testimony to God’s judgment upon all flesh. Many believe that we are living in the end times which according to Jesus will be like the days of Noah.
The evangelical church plays the part of Lot in Sodom. The Angels wished to stay in the square to observe and confront the wickedness of Sodom, but Lot implored them to come back to his home to escape the wickedness. But we must also note, that despite them having escaped to the “safety” of Lot’s home, the men of the city soon surrounded the house. There is no safe space within the city!
It pains me as I go to church after church and I find the same shallowness and disconnectedness from reality. They claim to be evangelical and yet they hold at arms length those who are truly standing against tyranny and go into the public square and challenge the world’s foolish policies and religious pronouncements. This is what terrorizes the devil, that you challenge him on his own turf. These are the true evangelists who are actually in the world and convicting the world of sin. This is what evangelism is supposed to looks like. It is not becoming a Meals on Wheels socialist program in order to show love and lure people into the church. There is no competing with the world which has much better funded food giveaway welfare programs; not to mention much better music and entertainment.
I recently heard a sermon about how we are all to be fishers of men, evangelists, while not so subtly devaluing other ministries and works. And how does one argue against that? How can one say that there is something as important or even more important than winning souls to Christ? To say such a thing would be to sound unchristian because the winning of souls is the be all and end all of evangelicalism is it not? To those who hold the office of evangelist, this is so.
Remember David, the man after God’s own heart? He was a conqueror and a king. He was very much involved in the affairs of the world and in governing his people. Solomon passionately sought wisdom; neither would be considered an evangelist.
Today’s contemporary church is controlled by two offices; pastors, protecting their flock from the world, and evangelists, expanding the flock by birthing new babes in Christ. From an evangelist’s point of view there is nothing else except to keep giving birth to new baby Christians. Because of this, evangelicalism begets shallowness. The most extreme example of this would be the seeker sensitive churches like Willow Creek – evangelicalism gone mad. Baby Christians are made comfortable in cozy seats with Starbucks coffee watching gigantic telescreens of the worship leaders far away on stage. It’s all quite thrilling until you grow up and desire something more than simply pablum.
The true purpose of the evangelist is to convict the world of sin and call people to repentance. It is not their general calling to be leading churches. The old fashion classical evangelist is one who comes into town, sets up a tent with chairs on sawdust and preaches a fiery message by the Spirit of God causing people to confess their sins and turn their lives over to Christ. He then leaves town and the new baby Christians are to be nurtured and matured by the local church. But today’s evangelical church has become a caricature of that, where which, by love, free food, community, appeasement and promises of a joyful and purposeful life the people are drawn into the church community– or, like the Mormons, mostly not. And then, like some multilevel marketing scheme, are then sent back out as new evangelists to draw more into the church in the same manner. The church grows horizontally forever and vertically very little.
Because there is a continuous influx of new baby Christians that need to be nurtured, the evangelical church stays in an immature state. The church is never weaned.
To an evangelist, because it is central to the simplistic teaching oriented around winning souls, all sins are considered the same. It is understood that the newborn Christian needs to know that his sinful state, as opposed to his individual sins, are what separates him from God. This is called the “milk” of the word. Yes we must become like children in order to be born again but that does not mean that we are to stay childlike forever. The evangelist is so oriented around newborns that he dares not delve into the deeper truths and deceptions that the newborns cannot stomach. As we grow to maturity in Christ we must be weaned off the milk and learn how to digest the meat learning how some sins are far more devastating, far more in entrapping, far more damning, and carry much higher consequences than others. But it seems apparent that the evangelical church is incapable of growing up, as it clings to these child-like beliefs and then establishes them as religious dogma. To the evangelist all other ministries and activities are considered superfluous to the winning of souls. We are all to be fishermen, continuously catching more fish and throwing them in a two inch shallow pool of increasingly rancid water and expecting the fish to thrive, while the fishermen – which means everybody in the evangelical church – return to catch more fish and throw them into the church pool which is decidedly cut off from the fresh sea water. The ultimate purpose being to fill up and expand the shallow pool with more and more and more fish thereby validating the fisherman’s business (the business of evangelicalism) which is the ever-growing, ever shallowing, child-like church. The fish never grow or thrive, but they are merely allowed to exist in community and live in the shallow pool in which the same water is repeatedly filtered and piped back in. This is what the youth pastors who turn into senior pastors are taught in their Bible schools, as well as how to appease all the baby Christians. Basically, how to run a Christian day care church.
As the Bible says “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 1 Corinth. 12:17-21 If everyone is to be a fisherman, who brings the fish to market? who ices down the fish? who sells them in the market? who hauls them to market? Who eats them? Are we to eat nothing but fish, forever? Who makes the oven that we cook them on? etc. etc. etc. etc………..
And most importantly, who establishes a stable government and monetary system where the fish can be sold. The evangelical church wishes to wash it’s hands of politics, philosophy, rationalism and human affairs rather than truly winning souls by engaging in these secular pursuits.
If evangelicalism is so important, why is it so rarely referred to in the Bible? Jesus talks about it only sparsely and the epistles focus mostly on church affairs, righteousness and holiness, rather than on nonstop evangelism. There is barely a mention of it in the entire Old Testament, which is one of the reasons that the evangelical church finds itself disconnected with the Old Testament. Apparently God throughout the first of 4000 years of history did not understand the importance of evangelism. The evangelical church which claims to be so Bible-based fails to recognize this. It views the Old Testament as essentially outmoded and old-fashioned, while cherry picking a few scriptures to fit the narrative of the day, rather than understanding it deeply as to how the church is to relate to the world and be in the world but not of the world.
I say all this not to invalidate evangelism as a valid office and gift, but rather to keep it in a healthy perspective. Do you want to evangelize? Then tell the truth and get involved in the secular world, which as I said in my last piece is no longer secular but quite religious; confront the devil, discern the signs of the times. Become the wise church that is always way ahead of the world.
But until next week, follow the path of righteousness, practice discernment, be in the world but not of the world, dismantle the lies, and stay far from the camp of the Covidites.
Thank you Lord for helping me finish this,
Bill Ward