Tom and I pre-empt our scheduled Hollywood & The Vine podcast on “Hollywood’s Crazy Christians” (which will air next week) to discuss the big story out of Hollywood this week, the arrest of Roman Polanski for a crime he committed 30 years ago. Just when you think Hollywood couldn’t sink any deeper, they top themselves again, this time in defense of a man who admitted to drugging and raping a 13 year old girl. We also take on Harvey Weinstein for his statement that, “Hollywood has the best moral compass”. Be sure to tune in.

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My new review is up at Hollywood & the Vine. Check it out…

Review: The Stoning of Soraya M.

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Reaction from around the blogosphere:

Rev. Albert Mohler has an excellent piece up on Christianity Today about the Episcoplian descent. The Orthodox Are Finished.

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod member Professor Gene Veith also blogs about it. Episcopalians defy world Anglicanism with new pro-gay actions.

And the comments at Stand Firm say a lot about what traditional Anglicans are feeling. Episcopal vote on gay clergy widens Anglican split.

Sad times, my Christian friends. Keep in mind there are still many faithful in the Episcopalian Church and I’m sure their hearts are broken today. Keep them in your prayers.

Update: N.T. Wright, Anglican Bishop of Durham, weighs in too:

The Americans know this will end in schism.

Granted, the TEC resolution indicates a strong willingness to remain within the Anglican Communion. But saying “we want to stay in, but we insist on rewriting the rules” is cynical double-think. We should not be fooled.

Indeed, Bishop Wright. Indeed.

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Well, as predicted the other day, it’s a done deal. The Episcopalian Church in America has gone over the cliff…

Episcopal body gives final ok for fully inclusive ordination

“Fully inclusive ordination” – that Orwellian corruption and twisting of language by the radicals is just stunning. Apart from the tragedy this is for all Christians to see a once great denomination like the Episcopal Church descend into heresy, it’s a very personal issue for me. Though I am a Lutheran, my great-great-great grandfather was an Anglican priest who received his doctorate of divinity degree when he was 70 years old. He was the first of my family line to come to North America – first to Canada, then to the United States. The family still has letters from him written to the Church Standard where he argues brilliantly against the “higher critics” who were leading the church astray with their liberal theology (and this was at the turn of the last century).

In his letters, my g-g-g-grandfather warned about the dangers of this approach to the Scriptures, and given this move by the Episcopal church his words seem eerily prophetic and prescient today. I’m sure he would be stricken to see this happen to his beloved Anglican Communion. This event should stand as a dire warning to each and every denomination about what happens when a church body, desiring to follow the whims of culture and society – desiring to please men rather than to please God – places itself over and above the clear teaching of Scripture.

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We’re going to be touching on many cultural issues that are on a collision course with orthodox Christian faith, and no subject is more volatile, right now, than the issue of gay clergy and same sex “blessings” within the church. First the news, which isn’t really a surprise considering the trajectory the Episcopalians have been on for some time: Schism closer as US Anglicans vote to overturn ban on gay ordinations

Clergy and laity in the US backed a motion that “acknowledges that God has called and may call any individual in the Church to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, in accordance with the discernment process set forth in the Constitution and Canons of the Church”.

The article goes on to explain that this motion opens the door and that the bishop’s vote, expected in the next few days, will seal the deal on a formal schism in the Anglican Communion.

The Episcopalian Church in America is about to go over the cliff and descend into outright and open heresy. This situation with the Episcopalians is representative of the terrible path many Christian denominations are on as they reject orthodoxy in favor of following the culture and allowing the “social gospel” of liberal theology to completely blind them to their own error. This is the consequence when Christians stop listening to the Word of God and start following their own “itching ears”(2 Timothy 4:3) and the “doctrine of demons”(1 Timothy 4:1). And make no mistake, there are many mainstream denominations in the United States that are just one step behind the E.C.A. on this one – maybe even just a half-step.

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The central teaching of the Christian faith is that Christ died for our sins and that there is no salvation apart from faith in Him. This often generates a heated and hostile response from the world, whether it be from unbelievers or other world religions. Typical of the “deeds not creeds” current that is rippling its way into even once orthodox denominations and congregations is this belief that Christians should somehow tone down, suppress, or compromise the the exclusive truth claim of the Christian faith stated concisely in the message of John 14:6,

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Christians these days are suffering a renewed sort of Pelagianism – a works based (or works focused) righteousness that not only becomes very “me” focused, but makes it very easy to water down the message of the gospel for fear of offense, “in the name of compromise”. They quickly jettison the exclusive claims of the faith – compromise it – with a misguided belief that they are somehow contributing to the greater good through lots of “good deed doing”. In the end, they deny the gospel message its full weight and power – they so muddy the waters that it is unclear to the unbelieving person why they even need to believe in Christ if they can just go about doing good deeds. Essentially, they are presenting an example to the non-Christian that says they can save themselves through their own works. There’s no need for Christ in that scenario.

A supreme example of this just occurred when Rick Warren spoke to the Islamic Society of North America over the weekend. You can read about it here:

Rick Warren Stresses Need for Christians to Build Bridges

The article quotes a Steve McConkey of 4WINDS ministry. While I don’t know anything about Mr. McConkey or 4WINDS, he sums it up very well:

“Rick Warren envisions coalition of faith,” McConkey wrote on his website following Warren’s appearance Saturday evening. “Where in the Bible does it say we are to combine with false religions to do good works? In James 2:14-26, faith in Christ is first and works second. In Warren’s theology, works are first and faith is second because as he does his works, he is not telling people that Christ is the only way!”

McConkey nails it. Warren is so focused on works that he does scriptural contortions with the story of Jesus eating with the tax collectors and claims that what he is doing is a parallel example of reaching out to the lost. But it is not a parallel. It is not the same thing at all. Rick Warren isn’t building bridges he’s muddying the waters of the gospel and the exclusive truth claims of the Christian faith in the presence of those who need to hear it. Mr. Warren should start reading the New Testament as a whole and taking the entirety of it into consideration. Here are the words of St. Paul who brings it home in this passage from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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