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put on the site 04/29/2004

The Practice of Idolatry within the Church

Indifference or ignorance

by Richard Bennett and Randall Paquette

 

            Praise for Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," has resounded from pulpit to pew. It is evident that there are many Christians who, without reservation, are prepared to accept movies about "Christ", even one in the Catholic tradition. The question therefore that must be asked is this: in the light of Scripture, is their position defendable or do they fall under the condemnation of Almighty God ?    

 

No revival without the true Gospel and a righteous anger against Images.

 

            Evangelicals have discovered themselves confronting crisis upon crisis. After decades of endeavor and aggregate growth, moral turpitude and the apparent demise of marriage like corrupt weeds, blossom before their face. The modus vivendi embodied in the 1994 "Evangelicals & Catholics Together" (ECT) still confuses and deceives. Its ecclesiastical endorsement has further led many Evangelical churches to believe that there is no essential difference between Catholicism and Biblical Christianity. The dramatic "Passion" movie perpetuates the lie. In the Evangelical camp, the carnal pandering of "seeker sensitive" churches loiters unquestioned. The unregenerate fill the pews, and silence, the pulpits. There is no conviction of sin, because the Gospel is unavowed. Within the Reformed churches there is division, contention, and strife caused by the "Auburn Avenue controversy" and the "New Perspective on Justification." Revival has been preached, pursued, and prayed for and still remains aloof. »We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were, brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen."[1] In the soil of "another" Gospel can spring no revival! In the temple of images and pictures can come no renewal! From Moses unto Hosea, those who sought to revive the spirit of the nation and would have hearts return to a true worship of God, condemned images. And that which is condemned in the Old Testament is not justified in the New Testament.[2]   The great revivals in Christian history have flourished under the true Gospel and the denunciation of idolatry. So it was with the Vaudois, the Waldenses, the Lollards, the Bohemians, and the Reformers. In the Dark Ages, luminaries such as Girolamo Savonarola, John Wycliffe, and John Huss attacked the corruption of idolatry and preached the Gospel.

 

            In the Great Awakening in the USA, preachers inspired by George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and William Law, sought to glorify God in the Gospel by uniting veracious worship with the censuring of images. "If Jesse Lee had not come into Massachusetts, some one else pressed in spirit, like Paul at Athens 'when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry', would have found utterance and would have had followers."[3] Following Jonathan Edwards' publication of the journal of David Brainerd, "The revival had greatest impact when Brainerd emphasised the compassion of the Saviour, the provisions of the gospel, and the free offer of divine grace.  Idolatry was abandoned, marriages repaired, drunkenness practically disappeared....Their communities were filled with love."[4]  The witness of this testimony must not remain unheeded if we are to receive the blessing we long for from On High, for "what agreement hath the temple of God with idols ?"[5]

 

Christ's Divine Person is revealed only in One human body

 

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