pilgrim people

There is an interesting article in TIME regarding the prosperity-gospel's misreading of Providence and the subprime mortgage mess.

The Pope and the Christian Reformed Church. Read about it here. (HT Shane Lems and Kim Riddlebarger)

No, those are not representatives from the CRC kissing the pope's ring in the picture to the left, but hopefully the picture makes the point. The question is this: Does the CRC believe the Three Forms of Unity or not? If so, will someone please give a copy to Rev. Dykstra? Apparently, he has forgotten what it says with regard to justification sola fide and the marks of a true church. Our unity as Christians is in the truth we confess. Attending the Pope's ecumenical prayer service led by Pope Benedict XVI does NOT "demonstrate that unity." And what exactly is this nebulous thing called the "Reformed world and life view"? How about a Reformed confession? You know, that thing to which Reformed ministers subscribe and promised before witnesses to uphold and defend.  

I realize that there are still some faithful ministers in the CRC, but as far as I am concerned, the sooner the denomination drops the title "Reformed" from their name, the better it will be for everyone.

According to Sybal MacBeth, a mathematics instructor who also teaches workshops on prayer, Christians can pray by doodling. That's right. Doodling. Check out Christianity Today's article here.

I am not sure what I find more disturbing: the fact that this person is promoting a false form of prayer that invites idolatry (note what she says about carrying the visual images with you throughout the day) or that Christianity Today finds this interesting enough to run it as their headline story in "CT Direct," their daily cyber-magazine. It seems that in our narcissistic culture, we never tire of finding new ways to express ourselves, even if it means neglecting what our Lord taught us about prayer. I guess the Incarnate Lord teaching other humans how to pray wasn't completely useful in helping us to be "transparent, accessible, and human."

For a limited time you can skip purgatory, says Pope Benedict XVI. Just make a trip to Lourdes, France and get a plenary indulgence! See this video clip from MSNBC. Hey, this is a great offer!

Here is a small news piece about an Idaho man who cut off his hand and microwaved it because he believed he had the mark of the beast. While we do not want to make too light of this person's tragedy (he may, although it is unknown at this point according to the short article, suffer from some sort of mental illness), it is a fact that the popularized dispensational interpretation of the Book of Revelation has done a lot of harm to people in more ways than one. Aside from those of us who are still in therapy from seeing Thief in the Night too many times as a kid, many suffer from a lack of assurance that they will not make the "rapture" cut, while others have a false assurance that if they don't make the cut they will still have a second chance as long as they don't receive the mark of the beast.

Still others suffer from intoxicating sensationalism and newspaper theology, remaining greatly confused about the point and purpose of the Bible and redemptive-history. In this fellow's case, the erroneous dispensational interpretation of Revelation played a part in the physical loss of his hand. Thankfully, he didn't think the mark was on his forehead!