Who Said That?

"I'm for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. . . Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past.  I will be in the future."

You know the drill!  Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no google searches!

Also, you can check out past "Who Said That?" posts by clicking on the "Who Said That?" at the bottom of the post.

Update on Sunday, August 17, 2008 at 03:43PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This was Billy Graham's response back in 1979 when asked why he had not joined Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.  Billy is trying to come up with something like the two-kingdom model, but is sure going about it in a ham-fisted way.

Who Said That?

"This then, is a plain proof that the doctrine of predestination is not a doctrine of God, because it makes void the ordinance of God; and God is not divided against himself.

[The doctrine of Predestination] directly tends to destroy that holiness which is the end of all the ordinances of God.  I do not say, none who hold it are holy; (for God is of tender mercy to those who are unavoidably entangled in errors of any kind;) but that the doctrine itself, -- that every man is either elected or not elected from eternity, and that the one must inevitably be saved, and the other inevitably damned, -- has a manifest tendency to destroy holiness in general; for it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after it, so frequently proposed in Scripture, the hope of future reward and fear of punishment, the hope of heaven and fear of hell."

OK, who said that?  Leave your guess in  the comments section below.  No google searches  or cheating!

Update on Friday, August 8, 2008 at 10:33AM by Kim Riddlebarger

As many of you correctly guessed, this comes from John Wesley's famous sermon "On Free Grace," (1740).

Who Said That?

"Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is entirely too secular.  The fact that we have freedom of religion does not mean we need to try to have freedom from religion, doesn't mean that those of us who have faith shouldn't frankly admit that we are animated by faith, that we try to live by it, and that it does affect what we feel, what we think, and what we do."

You know the drill!  Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no google searches or cheating!

Update on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 05:35PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This is from former President Bill Clinton (Morning Edition, September 24, 1994)

Who Said That?

"The biblical picture of a saving experience is masterful in its clarity and simplicity. A single, one-time appropriation of God's gift results in a miraculous inward transformation that can never be reversed.

Since this is true, we miss the point to insist that true saving faith must necessarily continue.  Of course, our faith in Christ should continue.  But the claim that it absolutely must, or necessarily does, has no support in the Bible . . . . It is sufficient to observe that the Bible predicates salvation on an act of faith, not on the continuity of faith."

Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please no google searches or cheating. 

Update on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 03:52PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This is a quote from Zane Hodge's book, Absolutely Free, (p. 63) which was a reply to John MacArthur's "Lordship salvation" position.  In one short quote Hodges succeeds in turning faith into a human work (a one-time appropriation), he denies the perseverance of the saints (faith need only occur, not continue), and he makes the act of faith (not Christ) the ground of our salvation.

Would that every theologian be able to accomplish so much in so few words! 

Who Said That?

"Mark's story [i.e. the Gospel of Mark] is most likely Mark's fiction . . . .The gospel was indeed Mark's creation, a narrative that brought together two distinctively different types of written material representative of two major types of early sectarian movements.  One stream was that of movements in Palestine and southern Syria that cultivated the memory of Jesus as a founder-teacher.  The other was that of congregations in northern Syria, Asia Minor and Greece wherein the death and resurrection of Jesus were regarded as founding events . . . . Mark fabricated his story."

OK, you know how this works . . .  Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please no google searches or cheating.  The whole point is to make a guess, not look up an answer! 

Update on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 01:48AM by Kim Riddlebarger

This is a quotation from Burton Mack's book, Myth of Innocence (11-12).  Mack is one of the Jesus Seminar crew, and he is also John Wesley Professor at Claremont Graduate School.  It amazes me that a guy who believes the gospel to be a myth, and that Jesus was merely some sort of pithy sage, could actually take a paycheck from a "Christian" institution.  Mack is a also Southern Baptist, who claims to remain a Southern Baptist only because it made so many of them mad.  Swell.

Jesus for President and Other Stuff from Around the Web.

This is what happens when young evangelicals--who are justifiably disgruntled with the movement's ties to the Republican party, but who have never heard of the distinction between the two kingdoms--start to leave the movement in great numbers.  They end up doing goofy stuff like this.   Click here: Evangelical movement touts 'Jesus for president' - CNN.com

 Better be nice to your monkey--he (or she) now has rights!  At least in Spain . . .  Click here: Spain set to give rights to apes | Baptist Messenger of Oklahoma

Here is the sad fruit of the "name it and claim it" theology--bitterness, disillusion, and the horrible feeling that "God hates you and has a horrible plan for your life."  Click here: Believer bitter over 'prosperity' preachings - CNN.com

More intrusion from the nanny state:  "eat your vegetables . . . all of them."  There is nothing worse than having your PM (or president) scold you like your mom used to do--when you were six.   Click here: As supermarket prices spiral Brown tells families: 'Stop wasting food' | Mail Online

Who Said That?

"Likewise, if I say that I had a vision of an angel, or encountered one or even spoke with one, but you haven’t doctrinally or experientially, come to terms with the reality of angels being in our midst, then you may not attribute it as valid. You may even tag me as someone who worships angels, seeks them for counsel, ministers under the power of, or misrepresents them in some way. In the case of the angel called “Emma,” who I described as having mother-like nurturing qualities, some have automatically assumed that my doctrine is that I believe in female angels. This has never been the case!

For whatever reason God chose to show me this angel in a female persona, He did. This isn’t to say that the angel was female. Angels are spirit and appear in many forms. Perhaps that’s the form God chose this angel to take for the purpose of the revelation He gave me. They are spirit beings of light, created out of God’s glory, without gender, and appear in whatever form God chooses to send them to us."

By now you know the drill.  Please leave your answer in the comments section below.  Please no google searches or cheating. 

Update on Friday, July 4, 2008 at 08:29AM by Kim Riddlebarger

The visionary who saw "Emma" is none other than Todd Bentley, one of the leaders of the "Florida Healing Outpouring."  This statement comes from a letter Bentley wrote on June 8, 2008, defending himself from charges of heresy.   In responding to his critics, Bentley only proves them to be correct.  Click here: Biblical Foundation for Revival « Christian Crunch

My question is "who would believe this guy?"   Sounds like a load to me.  But then thousands flock to his "ministry." 

Who Said That?

"It should never be forgotten that the faith that is the condition of justification, is the faith that works by love. It is the faith through and by which Christ sanctifies the soul. A sanctifying faith unites the believer to Christ as his justification; but be it always remembered, that no faith receives Christ as a justification, that does not receive him as a sanctification, to reign within the heart. We have seen that repentance, as well as faith, is a condition of justification. We shall see that perseverance in obedience to the end of life is also a condition of justification."

Leave your guess in the comments section below.   Please, no google searches or cheating!  The fun is in the guessing! 

Update on Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 05:49PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This comment comes from page 326 of Charles Finney's Systematic Theology.    Once again this demonstrates that there is nothing new under the sun, and that if you reject justification sola fide, you'll end up somewhere down the road towards a final justification based upon works.

The Evangelical Decline and Other Interesting Links

Here's yet another sad sign of the evangelical decline.  An amazing 57% of those who attend evangelical churches now say they believe that adherents of non-Christian religions might also be saved.  The more people anchor their faith in the subjective (religious experience), the less likely they are to see evangelical Christianity as a truth claim.  Some of us are hardly surprised by this news.  Saddened, yes.  But not surprised.  Click here: Religious Americans: My faith isn't the only way (OneNewsNow.com)

The PCUSA continues to lose members--some 57,000 last year alone (that's about the same number of people in the OPC/URC combined).  The loss is blamed on the church's liberal theology and blue hair--the church's aging membership.   Many congregations have left to join the EPC.  If you don't give people a reason to stay in your church, they won't.   The PCUSA isn't alone in this.  The Methodist Church has lost 23% of its membership since 1970, and the Episcopal Church is down 33% since the mid-sixties.  Of course, what these churches need is more liberal theology and "contemporary worship."

Here's a noted theologian/writer who believes that Jesus will return within the next 20-25 years.  That's not out of the ordinary.  The catch?   Harun Yahya is a Muslim (widely read around in the Muslim world) who believes that when Jesus comes back it will be as the Islamic Mahdi and a champion of the prophet Mohammed.  This is typical Islamic doctrine, but Yahya is as successful (in terms of sales) as Tim LaHaye.  That means a series of Islamic novels about the end times is sure to come.  Click here: Muslim creationist preaches Islam and awaits Christ - Yahoo! News

How many stories like this one will we read about before the presidential election in November?  Here's a preacher who told his congregation that God wanted them to vote republican.  That's bad enough.  It gets worse.  He was doing this to provoke an IRS investigation, hoping for a court fight.  Shouldn't a guy like this be looking for a new line of work?  He's obviously failed in his calling to preach the gospel.  And if he wants to change things so badly, why not just run for political office (an honorable calling), rather than commit such atrocious behavior in the pulpit.  Click here: ABC News: Pastors Use Pulpit to Challenge Election Law

Who Said That?

"The Word of God Himself . . . assumed humanity that we might become God."

Please leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please no google searches or cheating. 

Update on Monday, June 30, 2008 at 07:40AM by Kim Riddlebarger

This statement comes from Athanasius' On the Incarnation (Sec. 54).  Athanasius' statement  has given rise to the notion of theosis.

The problem with theosis is one of definition.  As several of the respondents pointed out, the concept grows out of 2 Peter 1:4 and takes a number of diverse forms--some orthodox, some not so.  There is the Orthodox trajectory (divinization), as  well as a Catholic/Augustinian trajectory (the final purification of the soul).  The Reformed understand this notion in terms of union with Christ and final glorification.  There is also a Wesleyan notion (Christian perfection), as well as LDS (man is eventually deified), and Word-Faith versions (man is a "little" god).