The Move is dead (almost)

In my last post I pondered what makes a Christian church part of the true Church. And in a previous post I have referred to the Move with which our church has been loosely connected. There are a number of preachers who get invited to visit Move groups and one of these "travelling ministry" has recently spoken in our church here. Chatting with him, it appears that Move groups the world over are in a state of flux: that it is not just in our own group that foundations we thought had been laid good and solid are now being questioned and often torn down. And so I suppose that the end-time Move of God (to give it a fuller title) is near its end.

Am I bothered? In one sense no, and neither am I surprised, because the true Church is built on a better foundation. But I grieve for its effect on folk who have grown up under its teachings and have invested all their life, energies and funds in an edifice which is now crumbling. Personally, I do have unanswered questions but I have few regrets: I think the experience has left me stronger, wiser.

Here's one of the early Move songs. Ironically the founder of the movement was killed in a plane crash.

People of God, it is time to arise

And proclaim to creation we're not going to die.

Let it ring from the valleys and the mountains so high,

God's people proclaiming we're not going to die;

All heaven's rejoicing, now hear them all sing,

Grave, where's thy victory? O death, where's thy sting?

The saints down the centuries have all come to pass,

Each one fulfilling his God-given task;

To His sons God has spoken, and witness His cry,

And proclaim to creation we're not going to die.

The prophets of the Lord had a line that they laid,

Though they were steadfast they all died in faith,

But they spoke of a people that would one day arise,

And proclaim to creation we're not going to die.

So take courage now, brethren, and close in your ranks,

Stand on the promises, giving God thanks;

For Satan will fight us, or surely he'll try,

But he can't beat a people that aren't going to die.

Is the Church of god the church of God?

Here's another post that I write ages ago but did not publish at the time...

So - I was reading the books of the Pentateuch and trying to get my head around the many rules in the so called Law of Moses. Are all these rules still applicable today or do Christians only have to contend with the moral law (e.g. Ten Commandments) and, if so, what does one do with the 3rd commandment (keeping the Sabbath)? I checked this out in Google (as one does) and ended up even more confused (as one does). I got lots of hits but found that most if not all of them were Very Opinionated.

The presbytery of one "Church of God"

For example, there are Christian movements that assert that members should keep the Jewish Sabbath i.e. from sun-down Friday and through Saturday. One such is the Living Church of God with their impressive web portal for questioning outsiders like myself. They think the whole Law of Moses still stands although I'm not sure on their application of details like You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk which injunction is mentioned three times in the OT repeated presumably for its importance. Some consider any Christian movement worth its salt will have the phrase "Church of God" in its title because that's what the Bible says, although a quick search of the NT showed 80 instances of  "church" of which only 8 were "church of God".

Some say that, since all these things [recorded in the OT] happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come, we should interpret them "spiritually" i.e. to extract some lesson from them rather get embroiled in the literal gory details. In this way the gore can conveniently and tacitly be ignored. Try telling those Israelites of old that their brutal lifestyle was only ever meant as a picture for future generations of some Vast Eternal Plan...

Wikipedia's entry for "Church of God" lists a large number of disparate movements with this phrase in their title, each considering theirs is the bee's knees. Some are offshoots from Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God (renamed Grace Communion International after their founder's death when they repudiated most of his whacky beliefs) including the above Living... Of course Armstrong claimed that his was the only true church of God while all others were counterfeits. This argument appears to be a common denominator in such movements. Indeed, in the Open Brethren church I grew up in, I found it hard to believe that any non-Brethren people could be true Christians. It came as a surprise to me, when I left home for college, to meet folk who were undeniably Christian yet were not Brethren. But, full circle, I later became involved with The Move who also implicitly regarded themselves as the true church. Granted, they did concede that there just might be Christians in other movements that had the revelation but implied this was unlikely.

If a movement or even one of its local congregations is heavily dependent on or elevate a single man or his (or her) unusual Biblical interpretation, or if they are in any way exclusive (i.e. claiming alone to be God's chosen people or at least that they are elite), or if they have a special identifying title or denomination or are insistent on having no title, or if they are the result of a split over doctrine, or if they have a special dress code or other strange rules, then I say that movement is highly questionable. It's taken me several years to learn this lesson!  With, I suppose, the exception that (as I think I have observed elsewhere) main-stream Christianity itself is, of course, founded on the teachings of a single man.

What I find most disturbing is the multiplicity of Christian movements which have a substantial following and think they are right, but which are mutually in disagreement with each other. And, worse, that I have unwittingly been involved in two of them.

Don't get me wrong - it is not my intention to decry any of these movements. Let their own members decide for themselves. I say, along with the apostle Paul, that each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. It is both foolish and irresponsible to blame another person for one's state. The only trouble with this line is that I find that I am not yet "fully convinced". Indeed, the older I get the less convinced I seem to become.

In the grand Calormene manner

I was brought up in a conservative Bible believing home and thus read the book with the presumption that it was all literally true. I find I can no longer do that: I read with a more open mind and discover nuances that eluded me before. An example is the OT book of Job which seems to me to be a highly structured tale. The details of the plot can be taken with a pinch of salt but the underlying moral is clear. To me, realising that the book of Job is fiction does not detract from the power of the message - for sometimes fairy stories say best what's to be said. When applied to the rest of the Bible the effect is refreshing. Some might find it heretical saying: if Job is to be fiction then next you'll be claiming that Jesus didn't do all those miracles or rise from the dead, which logic I refute.

Hearing God speak

I wrote this post some while ago but did not publish it at the time, possibly because I was afraid of the possible repercussions of "coming out" in this respect. But since I am now working on a sequel I figured I had better publish this first so that I can refer back to it. The whole story that I want to convey will thus become rather long and drawn out, but so it must if I am to be faithful to my inner convictions (or lack of them). Let he be blessed who reads it all and can convince me otherwise.

She of the Green Kirtle

There are folk who live here that claim that God (or Jesus maybe) speaks to them on a regular basis. It is not my place to judge them - perhaps God does often speak to them which would of course be wonderful. True, there have been occasions when I have thought God was leading me - here I refer to an inner conviction (or at least a feeling), not an audible voice. But as I intimated in my recent post I now wonder if even this was in fact just wishful thinking, and thus I also wonder if these folk blessed by frequent conversations with Almighty God are also imagining it.

I am not talking about the word of God as in the Scripture which we understand is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, and in which long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. Such is God's general word to us whereas I am talking about specific direction from God to an individual.

A quick Google search on God's voice will uncover countless "Christian" sites - whacky and more staid and the sort that make you puke. These list the trad evangelical methods of "hearing God" that I had drummed into me as a young person and which include the supposed Still Small Voice. On the other hand, sites like this one claim that listening for God’s voice in your heart is a very new development and it’s deeply flawed.

The human mind is capable of all manner of strange artefacts - individuals we used to call "lunatic", now given PC euphemisms, who hear voices in their head; times when I have thought I had seen something "out of the corner of my eye" but then on looking more intently it is gone; vivid dreams that possibly have meaning, certainly have cause. And the "voice" of my inner conscience that deliberates my thought process, and with which I can (if I like) converse with. Perhaps this is what other folk think is God speaking? If so then it strikes me that it reflects a particularly poor sort of God, and this reminds me of the pretty poor world of She of the Green Kirtle.

Sure, you'll find many instances in the Bible of God, or an angel sent by God, speaking to this one or that. Like with Gideon. But if you consider the time period spanned by the Bible you'll find that these instances were relatively infrequent, indeed the exception and not the norm. Granted, Jesus said "my sheep hear my voice" and possibly meant this to include after his ascension, but he didn't say how often.

In this article, one that quotes Dallas Willard who seems to have been a big name in American evangelicalism, Bill Gaultiere writes "It’s hard to imagine an intimate relationship with Christ that does not include regular experiences of hearing his voice. An interactive relationship with God is conversational...". Later he writes "Today he is still speaking to our hearts in 'gentle whispers' (1 Kings 19:12)". The reference is to Elijah's "still small voice" often quoted by those who promote the personal relationship deal. But I am not at all sure that Elijah frequently heard God speak like this.

The thing is, having been brought up a staunch evangelical I feel like I ought to often hear God's voice even though my experience says otherwise. Which is sort of devastating in a way that a non-evangelical could never understand. My prayer life becomes less conversational. It becomes harder to take seriously those who really believe God speaks to them as often as their best friend. And I wonder if the foundations are cracking under my feet.

Bereavement

Bereavement is the experience of losing someone important to us and is characterised by grief. But losing anything of importance can result in similar albeit milder emotions. Although my retirement from Microlite began over a year ago, it is only recently that nearly all electronics and programming work has rather suddenly ceased. Then there was the decision to step down from leadership in our local church, reduced activity in helping home-schoolers, and even the loss of stamina associated with ageing. It feels a bit like those cartoons in which the ground is removed from under characters but it is only after a second or two that they start falling. I am beginning to feel that falling effect.

I’ve been re-reading Lewis’s “A grief observed”. He writes: if my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards.

It is all too easy to find temporary fulfilment in work, ministry, relationships, hobbies, but when those things are taken away we wonder what life really is all about.