Written by Dave Burchett

Once the word gets out that I am a practicing “evangelical,” I get lots of comments about the church. I hear about hypocrites in the church and about national leaders whose lives fall far short of their rhetoric. A lot of the comments are true. So how do you handle those accusations? Ideally you can reach a point where you can explain the Christian theology of original sin and that redemption is only because of Christ and not because of works. But the old bumper sticker argument that “I am not perfect . . . just forgiven” is not a compelling defense for those who don’t understand the gospel and who witness the daily shortcomings of Christians.

I thought about a church in my town that decided last fall to own up to their failures. They made a bold decision to confess in humility and see what might happen.

The headline in an ad that ran in The Dallas Morning News screamed out in big, bold letters:

We Were Wrong

We followed trends when we should have followed Jesus. We told others how to live but did not listen ourselves. We live in the land of plenty, denying ourselves nothing, while ignoring our neighbors who actually have nothing. We sat on the sidelines doing nothing while AIDS ravaged Africa. We were wrong; we’re sorry. Please forgive us.

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan.

Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion.

Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, who said "I can now confirm that the Bibles shown on Al Jazeera's clip were, in fact, collected by the chaplains and later destroyed. They were never distributed."

According to the military officials, the Bibles were sent through private mail to an evangelical Christian soldier by his church back home. Reuters says the soldier brought them to the Bible study class where they were filmed.

The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told a Pentagon briefing Monday that the military's position is that it will never "push any specific religion."

With everything today such as atheism, easy believism and prosperity gospel, Christians need to defend the Word of God. Let me start by saying that the Bible is very clear that we need to contend for the faith. Jude 3 says "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."

Moreover, how can we as Christians not? 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 proclaims "For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." The love that Jesus has for us should move any believer to defend Him at any cost.

However, we are not to be contentious. The Bible is consistent in this area as well. Ephesians 4:15-16 states "but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." This does not only apply to fellow Christians, but everyone. Titus 3:2 "to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men." This can certainly be a challenge at times. Sometimes people can be bit contentious and others can be too soft and miss an opportunity to defend the faith.

Often times I see people weary and apprehensive that somehow their action will not be viewed as contending, but rather contentious. Let me end by quoting John MacArthur from his book Hard To Believe.

"No matter how many features or enticements you add, and how many difficulties you remove, all except the true believers will turn you down in the end. But as Jesus' example so compellingly shows, that very rejection is proof of the power of the gospel. To the degree it is watered down, it ceases to be a threat to a sinful and self-absorbed world; to the degree it remains powerful, the unrepentant and proud will flee from it in fear. And rightly so." (page 162)

I posted about Rev. Robert Schuller back in October when he decided that his son would not be his successor (post). Now the 82 year old pastor is watching his work fall apart. This included the Hour of Power broadcast which has been on the air for over three decades.

The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million worth of its Orange County property to pay off debt. Revenue dropped by nearly $5 million last year, according to a recent letter from the elder Schuller to elite donors. In the letter, Schuller Sr. implored the Eagle's Club members - who supply 30 percent of the church's revenue - for donations and hinted that the show might go off the air without their support.

The church blames the recession for its woes. But it's clear that the elder Schuller's carefully orchestrated leadership transition, planned over a decade, has stumbled badly.It's a problem common to personality driven ministries. Most have collapsed or been greatly diminished after their founders left the pulpit or died.

Members often tie their donations to the pastor, not the institution, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion at Boston University. "Viewers are probably much less likely to give when it's not their preacher they're giving to," she said. "There's something about these televised programs where people develop a certain loyalty."

The elder Schuller, who called his weekly show "America's Television Church," founded his ministry in a drive-in theater after moving to Southern California in 1955. He studied marketing strategies to attract worshippers and preached a feel-good Christianity, describing himself as a "possibility thinker" and spinning his upbeat style into a 10,000-member church and a broadcast watched by millions worldwide.

In between my last post and this news the church announced on Nov. 29 that Schuller Jr. had resigned as senior pastor, just a month after he was removed from the church's syndicated broadcasts. In a news release, Schuller Sr. said: "Robert and I have been struggling as we each have different ideas as to the direction and the vision for this ministry."

The church has since instituted a rotating roster of high-profile guest preachers, including Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church, the Chicago-area megachurch, and evangelist Luis Palau.

On the church Web site, concerned members and TV fans have posted hundreds of comments protesting the upheaval, with some indicating they have stopped giving or will leave altogether. Several angry viewers have launched petitions to get the younger Schuller back. Others said they felt betrayed that the Schullers couldn't put God before their family spat.

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I was just made aware of a recent poll done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the USA Today published a story on it about a month ago. The results will be shocking to any Bible believing Christian. The question was not some deep, theological question. The question was as simply asking how many ways are there to heaven? The result "an overall majority (54%) of people who identified with a religion and who said they attend church weekly also said many religions can lead to eternal life. This majority included 37% of white evangelicals, 75% of mainline Protestants and 85% of non-Hispanic white Catholics."

In addition, "Pew's new survey also found that many Christians (29%) say they are saved by their good actions; 30% say salvation is through belief in Jesus, God or a higher power alone, which is the core teaching of evangelical Protestantism; and 10% say salvation is found through a combination of behavior and belief, a view closer to Catholic teachings."

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, calls the findings "a theological crisis for American evangelicals. They represent at best a misunderstanding of the Gospel and at worst a repudiation of the Gospel." Mohler sees behind the statistics the impact of pluralism and secularism in U.S. society and the challenge of facing family and friends with "an uncomfortable truth... We are in an age when we want to tell everyone they are doing just fine. It's extremely uncomfortable to turn to someone and say, 'You will go to hell unless you come to a saving knowledge of Jesus,' "

In my opinion this is clear repudiation. How can someone misunderstand John 14:6 "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." I think Mohler is spot on. It is a combination of pluralism, secularism, postmodernism and political correctness that is distorting the gospel.

This word unlike the word "Christian" defines more of a characteristic. In one of my classes I have to write a paper contrasting white evangelicals to black evangelicals. In my readings I discovered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rejected Jesus' virgin birth, rejected Jesus' resurrection and rejected the inerrancy of the Bible.

This recent knowledge has uncontrollably altered my view of MLK Jr. I cannot consider him an evangelical because the things listed above are foundational principles required for believers.

Was anyone else aware of this? Does this effect the way you view him?

(Disclaimer: This is a reaction to his theology and not a reflection of his achievements during the civil rights era.)