This blog serves as an outreach for Pastor Randy Powell of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA. Feel free to ask questions or send me an e-mail at pastorpowell@hotmail.com
What does a Christ-like community look like? The Apostle Paul answers the question by starting with (1) sincere love, and then adding to that challenge by requiring that we (2) both hate evil AND do so while loving good (that is, oppose evil with righteousness, not with evil), (3) loving each other, and lastly (4) putting each other above ourselves.
This is what it takes to be Christ-like. That's what we need faith, grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish.
The Church was designed and created by God to be unity with diversity. The Gospel has always appealed, purposefully, to many different people. As a church then, whether we're talking about our local congregation or a grouping of congregation in a community or denomination, we have only one body made up of many different parts. These parts have been given gifts by God's grace of talents and abilities designed to make individuals usual in the life of the church and the completion of its mission.
Here's the key thing: Everyone in every church has a gift from God that they can share with the other members of the church. We all can contribute to the common cause, we all can make a difference.
Before explaining how the various members of the church (local and universal) fit together in God's will, the Apostle Paul offers a reminder that as Christians we need to look at ourselves with sober judgement. His primary emphasis is the danger of letting pride skew our self-view, there is an equal (hard to say if it is more/less common) danger in letting doubt/despair skew our self-view in the opposite direction. In both cases we can rely upon baseline truths to help us avoid self-deception: (1) We are all created in God's image, this creates a floor of self-worth, nobody is worthless. (2) We are all lost sinners, incapable of pleasing God on our own, this creates a ceiling of self-worth, nobody is perfect. (3) We are all saved by grace, this moderates both extremes by lifting us up because of our transformation in Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and reminding us that this gain is all a gift of grace.
A local pastor who received the letter below shared it with me out of concern about this effort, I am sharing it here with the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of the local Torah Club leaders blacked-out in order to avoid both the potential of inadvertently advertising this club, and the possibility that anyone would (against my wishes) harass the individuals that are involved in spreading this theology. I don't know how many local pastors received this invitation, I'm not surprised that I did not. My response to this letter will be below.
As the letter states, the group's leaders decided to not respond to our very detailed warning filled with direct quotes of First Fruits of Zion published materials. We, the collective pastors of the ministerium, representing diverse theological backgrounds, unanimously warned that this teaching is unorthodox. Rather than drop the sponsorship of First Fruits of Zion upon learning more about the plans and purposes of the organization they are championing (more on that later), the local leadership has decided to instead offer the exact same materials in private lessons to local church pastors.
Since the publication of our letter, further extensive research has uncovered much more damning statements published by FFOZ, including video proof from the 2022 Malchut Conference {that will be shared in my upcoming seminar: Warnings against FFOZ seminar} that the leaders of this organization are aware that what they're teaching is untethered from 2,000 years of Church History (this is actually a selling point, they want to jettison the traditional/received/orthodox Gospel in favor of the understaning they alone posses), amounting to a "different gospel" to use Paul's terminology {Galatians 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!}, AND that the primary target of their efforts are those already participating in local churches. In other words, FFOZ is purposefully aiming to entice people from local churches with a different gospel, that's not my accusation, that's their business strategy.
This is a significant charge, akin to the heretical teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons, but local Torah Club leaders are, as this letter demonstrates, sticking with the organization.
2. Having demonstrated a lack of understanding with respect to Christian orthodoxy, the local leadership has now offered to teach local pastors.
As James wrote, "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (James 3:1, NIV) I make no claim that the pastors of this county, myself included, need no further wisdom or understanding, we are fallible men and women who are prone to the same failings as the people in our congregations, but, and this really does matter, we have been called to serve our churches (through our various different process of training and ordination) and are responsible to the checks and balances on our beliefs and teachings that come from being part of a church.
To say that individuals who have left the oversight and discipline of a local church {as the local leaders offering to teach this class have done}, and are not therefore subject to any discipline for the apostasy of leaving orthodoxy behind, should set themselves up as teachers of church pastors is both shocking and highly dangerous. This is NOT how church pastoral leaders gain further wisdom and knowledge as they shepherd Christ's sheep.
To call this letter's purpose bold is selling it short.
3. I have read the HaYesod workbook, it fully embraces the FFOZ ethos, it is in no way an example of orthodox Christian teaching.
In my upcoming seminar I will quote this workbook a number of times (45 times in the full primary source document I created that I will be condensing for the seminar!!), demonstrating over and over that is contains false teaching after false teaching.
4. The promise of not publicly revealing the name of pastors who decide to participate is an important concession.
Again, when you're leading an organization that was unanimously called-out by the local pastors of an entire ministerium, and disseminating materials from an organization that believes the Church has been preaching an incomplete Gospel throughout its entire history {And, in fact, that the Church should never have existed in the first place}, it certainly wouldn't be unwise for local church pastors to knowingly sit under this teaching, it is the kind of thing that would upon up a pastor to ecclesiastical discipline, and rightly so. That being said, if any of the laity in our area are concerned that their pastor may be interested in learning from or joining this movement, please refer him/her to the many posts illustrating the dangers of FFOZ that I have written this year {clicking on the First Fruit of Zion tab in the topic list on the righthand side of the blog will bring them all up}.
5. While I appreciate that they "have no desire to continue in perpetuating harm within the body of Christ," and am willing to take this at face value, the further spread of this unorthodox theology WILL harm our local churches.
Sadly, I once considered the local Torah Club leaders to be, if not friends, certainly fellow laborers for the Kingdom of God {back when we worked together in the early days of Mustard Seed Missions, they left years ago}. That changed when the Franklin Christian Ministerium pointed out the numerous heretical teachings of FFOZ, but these individuals chose to maintain (and further promote) this allegiance. They chose FFOZ over the local church. We have gone past the point of calling this a misunderstanding, it is a choice they have made, and continue to make. At this point, my top priority has to be protecting my fellow Christians, both laity and clergy, from following this path into apostasy. I didn't want it to come to this, neither did the pastors I have worked with to defend the Gospel, but we haven't been given that choice, we must act, we must warn you of the dangers this organization poses to the Bride of Christ.
Every house needs a firm foundation. The church has built its entire mission on an incomplete foundation on a partial gospel. This process began early, early, early when church theologians intentionally, intentionally stripped away the Jewish context of the New Testament. - Michael Boaz, founder and president of FFOZ, 2022 Malchut Conference.
This is what we're up against.
This is why your pastor needs your support and prayers.
Full disclosure: I haven't seen the Barbie movie. If my 8 year old daughter hadn't been out of town with my wife Nicole since it came out, no doubt we would have taken her to see it (although with respect to Oppenheimer, I'm on my own).
When it comes to the culture that we live in, whatever nation or era that might be, Christians have four primary options when it comes to how they will interact with it: Promotion, Animosity, Withdrawal, and Engagement. Let me illustrate what these might look like with respect to the summer blockbuster that is The Barbie Movie.
1. Promotion
"The Barbie movie illustrates what God intended gender roles to be." Admittedly, I haven't seen anything like this in the many online commentaries and comments swirling around. Aside from a TV show like The Chosen, you don't often see commentary written from a Christian perspective that explicitly endorses cultural artistic expressions, but on the somewhat rare occasion that a particular song, play, show, movie, etc. does indeed reflect the Judeo-Christian worldview, it would be appropriate to point that out. {FYI, just because the content in question is produced by a "Christian" studio/writer/director, etc. doesn't mean it will properly reflect a Biblical mindset, such creations ought to still be held up to God's Word for evaluation on their own merits.}
2. Animosity
"Demonic plot of Barbie movie revealed!" "Liberals are trying to indoctrinate your kids through the Barbie Movie!" "Feminist Crap!" I have actually seen each of those headlines in recent weeks, in all cases the message is clear, "Don't watch this movie because it is liberal/feminist/demonic." An entire cottage industry has evolved, and is making a lot of money, creating just this sort of antagonistic response to most everything produced by the entertainment industry today.
A brief note on the problem with the "all animosity all the time" approach: (1) It has the tendency to convince both fellow Christians and non-believers that we have nothing to offer each other, that in fact we are enemies and should treat each other as such. (2) It quickly becomes a "boy who cried wolf" phenomenon. When everything produced by Disney, for example, is labeled as demonic by online pundits and cable news talking heads, whatever values such warnings may have ever had becomes diluted (and non-believers look even more skeptically at Christianity wondering what on earth we're thinking). (3) The end result of this type of response is that it becomes an exercise in preaching to the choir, those who shout "amen" are with you, but everyone else decides to keep their distance.
3. Withdrawal
"Haven't seen it, don't really care." Now, the Barbie movie is the example, and that won't be on everyone's must-see list no matter how much money it makes (after two weeks the answer is a whole lot of money), and certainly not every Christian thinker needs to weigh in on every cultural moment of import. The withdrawal impulse is reflected in the "moat mentality," as I like to call it. By that I mean the tendency of many Christians to view their neighbors and country as a lost cause and respond by digging a proverbial moat around themselves and ceasing to engage altogether.
This is, in the end, a self-defeating option, retreating to the modern equivalent of monasteries is not a viable option. No need to have an informed opinion on everything, but walking away entirely is not going to help anyone.
4. Engagement
"Our culture is struggling with questions about power, gender, purpose, and death. Barbie raises these questions brilliantly, but believers can point to the One who ultimately answers them: the Triune God who created all humans with purpose and for partnership." You probably noticed that the engagement option wasn't very headline worthy, that's part of the point. Rather than click-bait, true engagement seeks to look at something produced by human beings, flawed as we all are, and evaluate it through the lens of the Judeo-Christian worldview. In doing so, we hope to highlight that which is in keeping with the Word of God, point out that which is contradictory to it, and offer insight that illustrates how the Gospel would fill in the gaps or correct the shortcomings of the what is being evaluated.
The above quote was taken from the review of the Barbie movie by Professor Amy Peeler, professor of New Testament studies at Wheaton College. Having already written a book entitled, Women and the Gender of God, she was well positioned to offer insight into the issues about gender roles raised in the movie.
Neither Barbie Nor Ken - A Barbie Movie Review - by Professor Amy Peeler
Note: I have seen numerous people respond with animosity toward the director of the Barbie movie, and/or the movie itself, by attacking Professor Peeler as if writing a review of a movie (or book, song, show, etc.) automatically means that you somehow endorse everything in it. That is nonsense and immoral, but far too commonplace in the social media realm. For example, I mentioned the death of Jon Snow from Game of Thrones in my sermon on Sunday as an example of how characters with a moral code suffer when those around them live by a survival of the fittest mentality. It would be unfair to then smear me (so please don't) by pointing out non-Christian ideas that exist in Game of Thrones (of which there are plenty to choose from) simply because I used that as an example. To engage with the culture thoughtfully does not make you responsible for the entirety of that cultural expression.
That's the danger of participating in engagement. When one puts commentary out there, slings and arrows are often the primary response you see, often times from both the right and left of what you've written/spoken, no matter how far to the right or left your position actually may be {online there is always someone more to the margins willing to shoot at you}. Nevertheless, engagement is what true Christian apologetics consists of, it sometimes will be a positive review and interaction with the material created by others, sometimes it will be a negative review, the important connector will be honest and thoughtful responses.
Be honest, you'd rather see more kind dialogue than the endless stream of click-bait anger, wouldn't you?
Call me an optimist, I have to hope you're as sick of the endless invective as I am.
