Monday, June 3, 2013

Predict Your Congregation's Future by Watching These Groups

Predictions are free at Ichabod.
The Apostasy Train

The Apostasy Train has all the cars hooked up, so it is only a matter of time before your sect arrives at the station. The most advanced get there first. The others follow.

Unitarian-Universalist Association. They began by rejecting Anglicanism and Congregationalism, so they are the first car after the engine. The others always follow their lead. Notice how they no longer call themselves a church but an association - far-sighted. Many Lutheran congregations have followed their lead already.

United Church of Christ. They formed from the remnants of Calvinism but now are almost indistinguishable from the UUA.

Mainline denominations (liberal Pietists) - Roman Catholic, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, liberal Baptists.

Conservative Pietists - WELS, LCMS, ELS, micro-mini sects, Church of Christ. They pretend they are not mainline, but they covet the size and money of the mainlines, thinking they would do better if everyone admired them.

Separatists - Babtists, some Pentecostal, etc. They smell the rot and stay away, but Fuller and the Emergent Church crackpots are pulling them in, one at a time, often through brainwashing at Fuller, Trinity, or Willow Creek.

Litmus tests. The UUA folks have arrived. The others will follow in the order above.

1. The Trinity is denied, then any belief in God is clearly rejected. Fellowship with Humanists and the Ethical Society follows
2. Men occupy church offices. Women are never pastors but very active in mission societies and other work. As women's ordination takes hold, men drop out of most responsibilities in the congregation.
3. Homosexuality is "understood," then welcomed, finally homosexual clergy are ordained and praised.
4. The Scriptures and the relevant confessions are the norms, but this changes into all world religions (except Christianity) being the norm.
5. Actual relief work morphs into social activism, where offerings are used to fund lobbying in DC and state governments.
6. Children are valued and protected - but later abortion is promoted and defended as a right.

Fuller Seminary was founded to maintain
Biblical inerrancy but really grew after that was repudiated in print.