Ed and Patsy now live in Athens, Alabama and are members at the Pepper Road church. As administrator of this blog, he enjoys sharing thoughts about spiritual maters. Not only his thoughts but good articles from other authors. He is also thankful to have been able to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ for over sixty years.
Californian preacher Francis Chan has become a folk hero to a lot of folks, especially younger Christians who are, for whatever reason, disenchanted with “religion” as they view it. These folks have become to the church what the hippie movement became to society in the mid-1960s and continued for several years – a means of demonstrating their aversion to the establishment (the traditional, the conventional). Both the older societal and newer religious hippies develop their own unique appearance, lingo, and demeanor.
Is not a Christian to be unique or different? Yes, but different from what? It is not different just to be different. One’s loyalty to Christ, and the behavior He teaches, forces him to come out and be separate from the world (2 Corinthians 6:17) – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16). Throughout so-called church history there have been extremes on the subject of worldliness. 1) The Gnostic heresy promoted a life-style that allowed them to engage in sins of the flesh without its affecting the salvation and purity of the spirit. 2) At the other extreme, the Amish consider all modern inventions and styles as being “of the world.” We would do well to avoid movements toward either extreme. As Christians, we can adapt to conventional appearance and behavior of the day only if it is not unlawful (sinful) or inexpedient. Nor does becoming all things to all men mean that we should seek to become mirror images of those we are trying to reach.
If one wants to see the subtle perversion of the gospel by Chan he can go to the following web page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiII8uuyV-s&feature=related. It shows how he takes some truth and uses it to weave a web of error. The title of this YouTube clip is: “How to Recognize False Teaching.” He takes a few extreme examples of “church people” arguing and judging others, rather than “focusing on Christ” and “our forgiveness.” He almost had me saying “amen” to his teaching, then it hit me that this is just the warm up to the real purpose of the video – to teach a freewheeling Christianity that focuses on Christ without being bothered by rules of any kind and without judging another in any way for his conduct in or out of the “church.”
He perverts Colossians 2:14. “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross …” He subtly substitutes “the written code” for the law of Moses – no doubt influenced by the New International Version but makes no reference to its being the Old Testament law. He then goes on to poke fun at a whole litany of things (rules) about which he says people argue and judge one another – rather than “focusing on Jesus.” Some are silly and frivolous but others are very serious. He includes in his list of things from the drinking of alcohol to occasionally using a grossly vulgar word in sermons in order to reach certain ones – after all the ones he is trying to reach use the word often in their daily conversations. And how he used to think Christianity was about not swearing, not drinking, not smoking and not having sex before marriage. It is not that he necessarily approves such, but they are not a big deal to him now.
He correctly points out that part of the epistle to the Colossians is dealing with rules and regulations imposed by those among them influenced by Jewish sects and Greek philosophers. Then he takes off from there and ridicules any idea that Christianity is about any rules to be kept but just about accepting the forgiveness of Christ. Accordingly, the Cross not only forgave those who have broken the “written code” but with doing away with all rules and regulations. At one point he tells his audience, when they come together in the church, don’t let anyone tell them that they need Jesus and “ritual” and lose their joy in Christ.
If some of the things he says does not shock the moral sensitivities of any, who profess be New Testament Christians, to the point that they recognize this man is a loose cannon that needs to be rejected and exposed, then I doubt that there is any more that I could say that would help them.