Do You Hate Me Yet?

I am about to reveal things about me that may cause you to hate me. I'm talking primarily to you Christians. It seems we have trouble with loving each other because we have differences with each other. I am going to give you the reader a test of your love level toward your brother in Christ. If you struggle with still accepting me as a brother after this you may have trouble fulfilling Jesus command of unity found in John 17. Here goes:

Preferred Worship Style: Contemporary completely. I like the old hymns when sung in a contemporary style. I do not like traditional organ music (I have sometimes joked that the organ was invented in Hades - my apologies to you organ lovers). I do not like southern Gospel styles of music (I don't like to OD on music about heaven which is probably about 75% of this style of music). Within contemporary styles, I'm not much on hip-hop or Chritian metal.

Political Involvement of Christians: Vote for sure. I believe in Christians holding political office. I believe preachers can comment on politics as long as it is relevant to their sermon topic. I believe Churches should not endorse candidates but also believe the government is wrong for making this practice illegal. I believe individual Christians should voice with freedom their political views and that definitely includes pastors. I do not believe that other Americans should have rights that a pastor would be denied.

Calvinism/Arminianism: I'm in the middle but lean closer to the Calvinists. Man is definitely totally depraved. Pre-destination and election are definitely in the Bible but I believe they do work together with free will which is also clearly there (I can't explain how this works anymore than I can explain how the trinity works). Christ's atonement only covers those who accept his grace yet it is not arbitrarily withheld from some. It's hard to argue for an irresistable grace when we have plenty of Biblical characters who rejected it (i.e. rich young ruler, Agrippa). On the other hand, the idea you can lose your salvation seems clearly to be ludicrous and makes your salvation dependent on your actions rather than God's. God is very much a sovereign deity!

For the record, I will note that I admire past Christians on both sides of this debate. I admire Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, William Carey, and C.H. Spurgeon who were all Calvinistic. I also admire Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf and John Wesley who were more Arminian in their theology.

Preaching Preference: INTERESTING!!! I am not as concerned with topical/expository debate because if your boring it doesn't matter which style you use. You will not communicate to your audience. For the record, I believe that both are needed in a church. You simply must go through the books and preach them to mature your people in the faith. It is also necessary from time to time to address what the Bible says about a particular issue in a topical format. There is a huge amount of junky stereotyping (i.e. Expository sermons are dry and boring, Topical sermons are shallow) of each side that is totally uncalled for and needs to be abandoned.

Prophecy: I believe in a pre-tribulational rapture of the church before the seven year tribulation period that precedes the millenial reign of Christ. I reject the idea that the seven churches of Revelation represent different eras of the church age. Postmillenialism is an idea that makes no sense to me and I don't see where in the world it comes from. On the other hand, it is inexcusable fro pre-millenial Christians to fall into hopeless cynicism about the world getting worse and worse and thus fail to work for social change when necessary.

That's just five areas of testing. I suspect that virtually noone in the world will agree with me completely on these issues. Please don't send replies trying to convert me to your view one way or the other (as the purpose of this column is not about engendering debate). This column is just a test to see if you can love a brother who has differences with you on some issue(s). It is also a test for me too on whether I can love those who disagree with me.