kent lee's blog & ramble

The term "evangelical" was popularized by Martin Luther ("evangelisch" in German), which meant a follower of the gospel. The term was originally a very good and useful term, as it referred to someone who believed in a religion based on faith and following the teachings of Christ, rather than man-made religious rules. It was meaningful enough but also broad enough to encompass a general theological orientation and religious lifestyle. It could include and accommodate somewhat different views or interpretations of Christian belief, including those who focused more on the grace, spirituality and lifestyle of Christ. As such, it was not the exclusive property of one religious group or theological orientation. The meaning has been generally positive in modern church history. However, in recent decades the term has been hijacked by fundamentalists who insist on a narrow interpretation of the term, insisting on a set of specific theological beliefs, while ignoring the C...

In Jesus’ day, a disciple was a follower, a student and an apprentice of a rabbi (a spiritual teacher). If one wanted to become a rabbi, one trained as a disciple-apprentice to a rabbi, learned from him, followed him, and then started to do as the rabbi did. Jesus, by the way, was a self-taught rabbi; as God’s son he did not need to learn from a human rabbi. Jesus commands us to be his disciples. We follow him, we learn how to live the spiritual life that he wants for us, we learn his teaching, and we spread his teaching to others and encourage them to become disciples of our Lord. Being a disciple, then, entails a cost, because we must give up everything to become his disciples [Luke 14.33]. There’s no room for the sort of easy-believism that has become popular today. One could be a faithful disciple, or a disciple who is ineffective or inactive (just as one could be a good or bad student, but a student nonetheless; in fact, ‘disciple’ and ‘discipline’ come from the Latin word f...

I recently read Why Churches Die by Mac Brunson & Ergun Caner. It’s a very easy to read book for the layperson – in fact, I read it thru in one day. The authors are pastors and write from their own experience about types of problems in the spiritual and social dynamics that kill or hinder churches spiritually. Each chapter presents a common problem with real life examples, and then attempt to connect it to a biblical example. Sometimes the discussions of biblical examples could be more succinct and to the point, and at times, they are forced, e.g., the example of Demas deserting the apostle Paul – forced, since very little is known about Demas, so applying it to specific church problems is forced. Otherwise, they do a good job descriptively of pointing out some common problems, and that’s the strength of the book. Some of the common problems described include legalism, bitterness and unforgiveness, the spiritually dry and coasting syndrome, spiritual atrophy, gossiping, spiri...

Faith is not like the simplistic illustrations we sometimes hear in sermons. It is not like sitting in a chair ("it's like sitting in a chair" some say, "you can believe it will hold you, but nothing happens till you sit down in it"). It is not like getting on an airplane ("faith is like flying - you may believe the jet can safely transport you, but nothing happens till you board the plane"). Those are cheesy illustrations that I used to hear a lot. Give me a break. Since when does sitting in a chair transform your life? Parking your rear in a chair is not a life-changing experience! Such illustrations cheapen faith. Thank God my church doesn't use such cheap illustrations. In an apologetics discussion in a Bible study at an evangelical church years ago, I even heard faith being equated to intellectual belief, to mere acceptance of propositional claims of a religious nature, no different than accepting other intellectual facts. Such claims cheapen ...

As a person with charismatic leanings, I have come to prefer Catholic / Anglican / Episcopal forms of charismatic Christianity. As mentioned in my last post, charismatic Catholicism goes way back to the early church, under the rubric of Christian mysticism. The reason I prefer these forms is because they are more balanced. Protestant charismatics and Pentecostals greatly overemphasize things like speaking in tongues, which are really a minor gift. Tongues have been practiced throughout church history, and there is no historical or scriptural basis for the claim that tongues and other charismatic gifts ever ceased*. But they have never been considered "a big deal" or in any way a sign that a person is more spiritual than another who doesn't do tongues or such gifts. Only with the advent of modern charismatic movements did such an extreme emphasis get put on tongues and charismatic gifts. St. Paul commanded us to desire the better gifts - in that context, he was referring t...

As I've read about church history in the past year, I've come to learn about mystical traditions that have been an essential part of the history of Christian practice. What we call mysticism refers first of all to proper, biblical forms of mysticism, which generally correspond to charismatic Catholicism (and related movements in other churches) in more modern terminology. It may also refer to some types of theology and practice that can be aberrant, speculative, and heterodox, which tends to give mysticism a bad name. But 'mysticism' should be understood primarily according to "mainstream mysticism". Mysticism is essentially a lifestyle and theology of direct, personal experience with God, and thus, is emotional, passionate, and engages the person intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. It is grounded on a biblical understanding of the fear of God and the love of God, and thus, mystics approach God as a Being to be held in great awe and respect, yet one ...

A common question posed by skeptics and non-believers is why we Christians insist on religious orthodoxy. Aren't other things like "love" (whatever they mean by that) more important? Well, true Christian love without a proper foundation is hollow. Christian living without a proper foundation is pointless. In fact, without orthodoxy (proper belief) and orthopraxy (proper lifestyle), it is no longer biblical Christianity, but a human-made religion, an idolatry, a god of one's own making. This is the case if we deny that God is transcendent, holy, beyond our understanding; all-powerful, all-knowing; immanent and ubiquitous and omni-present, always at hand and near us at the same time he is transcendent; that he exists as a trinity of Father, Christ, and Spirit, which is how he revealed himself to us; that he is love and loves us, but is very unhappy with how we ignore him and how we treat him and how we treat each other; that Christ as God died for our sins so we could b...

An ancient writer once wrote that if horses had gods, they would look like horses. Likewise, in the various religions of the world, when people create their own gods or idols, they look very human like. The ancient Greek gods were scoundrels and perverts. So were the gods of the ancient Near Eastern religions - Molech, the various regional forms of Baal, Ashtoreth / Astarte, and such. When people invent their own religions, they can only create gods in their own image - or in the image of animals and people, with human (a)moral characteristics. No man-made religion was created in which its god or gods were not created in man's image, in the likeness of humans, with human limitations or human-like nature. However, the God of the Bible is completely different. He is always shown to be a loving, holy, just, and even wrathful God, equally in both Old and New Testaments (those who claim otherwise either don't know the Bible well enough, or are reading it thru their own cultural filt...

Fear of God in the biblical sense is not fear in the average psychological sense; but there is no adequate word in English that is strong enough to describe it. Fear of God means a profound awe, respect, and reverence of God. It's profound, heavy awe in light of who he is, his holiness, and how infinite, magnificent, omnipotent, loving, incomprehensible, and totally different he his, that he is beyond our understanding. Fearing God is the ultimate realization of worship and loving God with all our hearts, soul, and strength, and leads us to love God in such a way, more than ever before. Fearing God is the beginning of wisdom, for only then do we begin to realize who we are and what God is like, and what that means for us. Fearing God means approaching him with deep reverence, focusing on him rather than ourselves. It means our minds cannot handle how infinite, other-worldly, different, holy, and transcendent he is - our minds are boggled when we contemplate who he is. We can only ...

God is God. There are no words to describe or define him adequately. There is no way our minds can comprehend him, no way our natural minds can grasp him. His ways are not our ways. He exists outside the cosmos, i.e., he is transcendent, as the cosmos is merely his creation. He exists in a sense that we cannot understand; it is not any sort of existence that we can understand. For instance, his existence and essence are infinite, and he is self-existent. We can only grasp whatever exists in a temporal sense - that which begins at some point, is created, and ceases to exist (only the human soul does not cease). But God justs exists. Infinitely. We cannot wrap our minds around that. We can sort of imagine our souls not ceasing to exist, living forever into the future, because we haven't died yet. But can you imagine existing without having ever been born, without ever having a beginning? Of course not; it blows your mind. But that's how God is. We cannot grasp his existence or es...

God is God. There are no words to describe or define him adequately. There is no way our minds can comprehend him, no way our natural minds can grasp him. His ways are not our ways. He exists outside the cosmos, i.e., he is transcendent, as the cosmos is merely his creation. He exists in a sense that we cannot understand; it is not any sort of existence that we can understand. For instance, his existence and essence are infinite, and he is self-existent. We can only grasp whatever exists in a temporal sense - that which begins at some point, is created, and ceases to exist (only the human soul does not cease). But God justs exists. Infinitely. We cannot wrap our minds around that. We can sort of imagine our souls not ceasing to exist, living forever into the future, because we haven't died yet. But can you imagine existing without having ever been born, without ever having a beginning? Of course not; it blows your mind. But that's how God is. We cannot grasp his existence or es...

Jesus is fully God and fully man, together*. That is a mystery that we cannot really grasp, another aspect of God of which we can only stand in awe and wonder. As C.S. Lewis stated, there are only three options to Christ, three ways to respond: that he is Lord, a lunatic, or a liar. And that is how people in his day responded. At one point, his family came to take him - in that day, that meant to take him away, because they thought he was crazy, and some of the people thought he was crazy: "And when his family heard about it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, 'He is beside himself [i.e., crazy]. He is possessed by Beelzebub'" (Mark 3:21). The Pharisees viewed him as a liar, accused him of blasphemy, and even attributed his powers to the devil. Clearly he claimed to be God, for that is why the religious leaders hated him and wanted to kill him; such was clearly stated at his trial. He claimed to be God, a fact that cannot be argued away. No sane human...

Faith is what Jesus described as choosing to give up everything to follow him, to be his disciple. That means absolute, full commitment. St. Paul described it in terms of salvation and justification by faith alone. The Old Testament described faith and salvation in terms of the covenant, and also described faith this way: Hear Oh Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. [Dt. 6] The Hebrew word for 'strength' [meh-ode'] is broad in meaning, including "intensity, vehemence; exceedingly, utterly, great(ly)". Biblical faith is passionate, and requires giving your all to God, loving him with your whole being - mentally, psychologically, intellectually, and emotionally, with passion. Faith or belief in the biblical sense is not just intellectual assent or intellectual belief. Look at the Latin word for 'faith', which gives you a better sense than our modern Western...

To sum up, some basic principles of orthopraxy discussed so far are: 1. Public confession of faith and witness 2. Grace-based practice of faith - spirituality and lifestyle based on grace; not only is salvation based on faith, but so is sanctification 3. Observing the sacraments or ordinances (baptism, communion / eucharist) 4. Observing spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, attending church, quiet times, reading Scripture 5. Love and fear of God 6. Love of others - believers and non-believers The list above adds spiritual disciplines in addition to what was discussed in the previous posts. These are considered essential for a well organized, balanced spiritual life, are commanded in Scripture, and have a long history of importance and primacy in Christian practice throughout church history. I may be missing something important, but for now this will do as a starting point. Now when we consider the basic tenants of orthodoxy, these principles of orthopraxy shoudl follow from them, and...

In this post on orthopraxy, again I'm kind of rambling, shooting in the dark, just playing with what might be essential elements of Christian orthopraxy. So I welcome your thoughts and critiques on this. The epistle of James talks a lot about how Christians should live, that our faith is properly demonstrated and proved ("justified") by our works, and without proper lifestyle, our faith is dead. But when we talk about general orthopraxy, we don't want to get bogged down on a bunch of rules, a rule system - that leads to legalism, and avoiding legalism is an important goal here in developing the concept of orthopraxy. That's why I want to develop principles of orthopraxy, to provide a coherent framework for practicing Christianity, Christian lifestyle, and the relationship between faith, orthodoxy, and practice. So a logical place to start is with the Ten Commandments, which are foundational to biblical morality and lifestyle, but not with individual commandments,...

[Today's post begins a new and perhaps somewhat rambling theological thread over the next few days.] Evangelical and orthodox Christianity (be it Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or other denominations) is defined by several crucial, fundamental beliefs, namely: [1] the triune, omnipotent God who create all things; [2] the full deity and humanity of Christ; [3] Scripture as God's authoritative, revealed word; [4] Christ's death and resurrection; [5] salvation by faith in Christ alone; and [6] Christ's imminent return. Christianity differs from other religions by its unique, faith alone basis for salvation, and its conception of God. It also differs from other religions in that what makes a person a Christian is not intellectual acceptance of these points, but a personal relationship with Christ, by faith and surrender to him as Lord and Savior. The spiritual relationship makes a person a Christian, but this necessarily entails full acceptance of the above six ess...