Chick tracts

Some abolitionists recently wondered aloud whether Chick tracts are good to use. Here are my thoughts, which can succinctly be expressed in two words: No, no.

1) They feed into the sinner's prayer mentality.

2) They consciously teach KJV Onlyism.

3) The main message of at least two of their tracts is how the KJV is the only legit Bible and all the other ones are evil.

4) Thus when you buy Chick tracts you perpetuate KJV Only ism.

5) And you also perpetuate and reinforce their fundamentalism which is quite literally anti-abolition, for it is a call to remove oneself from the world and take shelter under the pastor and the local church.

6) And if anyone takes a Chick tract and should like it and think "this is good stuff", they would probably have thought the same about a tract that was actually good, and additionally now they might go looking for more Chick materials and fall under IFB sway.

7) The drawings of demons are more like children's Halloween costumes and their conversations are exactly what I'd expect in a 1950's era KJV only IFB church. Pretty much nothing like actual demons.

8) The storylines are clearly trying to be edgy, but, again, 1950s fundy kitsch. They're cheesy and laughable.

9) Thus you educate the culture on what Christians think is actually quality material. If you are handing these out, you are saying "This is material I believe in, and you should too", and so what else are unbelievers supposed to interact with and engage?
Personal anecdote - on a bus in Madrid two weeks ago, I glanced to my right and saw a guy looking up chick dot com on his cell phone. He got off at the same stop as me so once off the bus I intro'd myself and asked him if he was an evangelist, b/c I'm one and am looking for teammates. He said that he is anti-creationist and is into comic books as well, and he uses material he finds on tracts to prepare material counter to creationism.
...
dot dot dot
dramatic pause

So this educated cosmopolitan Spaniard wants to destroy creationism, and the best resources he can find to champion Bible ideas is Jack freaking Chick. It's disgusting and shameful. Chick is a placeholder for actual apologetics, and when people hand out Chick, they are NOT handing out GOOD material that they COULD be handing out.

10) Chick tracts are demonstrably inaccurate in numerous of their anti-Rome tracts. The stuff about how much of the Roman Mass is a direct derivative of Babylonian mystery religion and stuff is dubious at best, and it's not even close to a strong argument against Romish theology. Further, it's needlessly offensive to Romanists.

11) A very substantial number of their tracts pictorially represent God the Father, giving Him a vaguely human form, thus violating the 2nd commandment. God the Father doesn't look anything like that. How do I know? Because He doesn't "look like" ANYTHING. He dwells in unapproachable light, Whom no man has seen - 1 Timothy 6.

12a) I repeat that you could be giving out good material, but if you choose to give out garbage, you are neglecting the good you could be doing.
12b) For cheaper than Chick, you can print out tracts that I wrote myself - I'll give you the file for free.
For prices comparable to Chick, you can get AHAGear quads.
For decent tracts that are 100% free, check out http://www.wmpress.org/read-booklet/booklets-available/

There are no excuses for Chick tracts. I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble. If you should find one in public, take it for yourself but don't leave for anyone else to find, is my suggestion.

February at the Abortuary

It still is lonely work. It's hard to believe someone out there thinks that Christians are obsessed with abortion. Ain't seen the fruit of that obsession.

The Village Church Says the Gospel is an Agenda

*Editorial Note: Pulpit & Pen continues in unrepentant sin and enabling of the ongoing sin of Jordan Hall. While it is my understanding that P&P does not plan to take down the content I contributed, any role I can play in reducing their traffic until they repent, I will. Thus I migrate this article here.

It is always disturbing to find Christians who carry the name, label, or implication that they are Bible-believing, conservative, and doctrinally orthodox but who mess up in significant ways when given a visible platform. Obviously not all such mistakes approach the gravity of heresy, but truth-loving people should speak up to correct errors either way, if nothing else for the sake of those who might be led astray into perhaps even greater error once they have been badly influenced.

The Village Church’s blog features a recent attempt at an even-handed discussion of outreach to Muslim people in one’s local area, by one Sarah Long, a Ministry Assistant in Spiritual Formation at TVC’s Plano Campus. It would seem to be her first foray into blogging, but unfortunately while some of her insights are helpful, others are typical lackadaisical, sub-biblical, squishy evangelical advice toward how Christians are to attempt to reach the lost for Christ, thus matching the sub-biblical quality of TVC’s multi-campus ecclesiological organisation.

Particularly disturbing is the looming, though to be fair, unstated, spectre of the Insider Movement that is growing in popularity among the foreign missions community toward Muslims. The IM is a product of excessive grasping onto perceived common ground and accommodation of Islam, which leads to, among other things, the so-called Camel Method of evangelism, where the Christian leads a Muslim through the Qur’an to find truths about Jesus as the main preliminary form of discussing Jesus’ identity, telling converts to Christ from Islam that they should continue to perform the five times daily salat prayers in the mosque though praying to Jesus, or removing the phrase “Son of God” from New Testament translations. This is not to say TVC endorses the Insider Movement, but the thoughts by Mrs. Long definitely indicate these tendencies.
Particularly worrisome to me is the fact that Mrs. Long was invited to speak in a mosque. Why would a mosque invite someone to address them? Did they have no fear that she would testify boldly of the Gospel of Jesus, which makes exclusive claims that are incompatible with the claims of Islam? Were they justified in that confidence? Hopefully Mrs. Long defied those expectations, but the idea that she was invited to speak on “how He motivates me to stand against discrimination, hate crimes and oppression” remains problematic.

Why is it that a follower of Jesus stands against those things? Because Jesus is Lord! Further, Mrs. Long unfortunately seems to have ceded ground to modern political correctness in differentiating certain crimes as worse than others because they are from “hate”. It is certainly strange and unbiblical to imply that some crimes are motivated by hate whereas others are not.

Let me discuss two other serious problems in her offering. She recommends that upon visiting one’s local mosque, one should “(t)alk about Jesus, but carry no agenda. Human souls are not projects, and it takes time to build trust in any relationship.” While it is certainly true that souls are not projects, sharing the Gospel and calling people to eternal life and repentance of sin is not a business venture. It is the very mandate from the Lord Jesus Himself – Matthew 28:19-20 and Luke 24:45-49. The obvious implication is that having an “agenda” is a bad thing, but giving people the message that they need more desperately and urgently than any other message is not a bad agenda. It is the agenda of the Lord Jesus, of His apostles and prophets, which He Himself commanded as our main mission. Where did Jesus or His apostles or prophets take time to “build trust” before sharing the truth with anyone? Can anyone show me even one example thereof in the Scripture? Where did they command such a thing? Reading through the Scripture, one finds in fact the precise opposite – the command is urgent and the example is very one-sidedly in favor of urgent, direct, and precipitous proclamations of repentance and the kingdom of God.

Take for example Mark 1:14-15 –
“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'”

If you are fully convinced that people who die without Christ are headed for an eternity in Hell and that repentance and faith in Christ is the only rescue, how is it loving to withhold this soul-saving message for even an instant with someone you’re trying to befriend? Imagine that Mrs. Long withheld her Gospel proclamation for three years while she “built a relationship” with a Muslim woman, and that at the end of the three years, she finally told this woman about Jesus. Imagine this is what the woman has been waiting for, the Gospel resonates deeply within her soul, and she is converted on the spot. Imagine the woman then begins to read the Gospels and sees the way Jesus interacted with people He’d never met before. Imagine what her rebuke could very easily be toward Mrs. Long – “You knew about Jesus this whole time, you knew I needed Him more than anything else in the whole world and that I was blinded and lost in sin, and you never tried to free me from my chains? What kind of friend are you? How can you consistently claim to hold Jesus in first place in your life? Were you just faking it for three years, pretending to be my friend, not actually sharing with me who you are and what you love?”

And that’s the happiest ending. Imagine the perhaps dozens of lost people with whom Mrs. Long could have shared the Gospel but chose not to because she was “building a relationship” with them, and maybe those relationships didn’t work out or the lost people died before Mrs. Long thought it would be appropriate to fulfill the Great Commission toward them. Does she not share in the guilt of their eternal condemnation, for deliberately withholding the truth when she didn’t have to?

The second major problem here:

Follow the Spirit’s lead, not your agenda.

The Spirit has led, in His Word. What more leading does anyone need?

Far too easily in our limp-wristed churchianity, the “leading of the Spirit” is a baptised translation of “what you feel like doing”. Sharing the Gospel can be hard. It can lead to discomfort. It can lead to people rejecting you. It can cost you potential friendships that could have been founded on something other than Jesus and open and honest communication (which, otherwise stated, is a shallow and worthless relationship). In this sense, Mrs. Long’s article is misleading and actually negative, for her meaning is “talk about the lost person’s need for repentance if you feel like it”, but she couches it in such pious-sounding language that the reader can feel like they have a good excuse for ignoring the commands and urgency of the Scripture. Mrs. Long continues:

New relationships are not the place to debate in-depth theology.

So claims Mrs. Long. Perhaps someone should have told Jesus before He messed up His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.

Mrs. Long gives some good advice in the article that I don’t mean to minimise. By all means, mature Christians ought to take time to visit the local mosque and to read the Qur’an so as to lend credibility to their outreach to Muslim neighbors and friends. It’s definitely not as engrossing a read as the latest Koontz novel or something, but it’s much more useful. By all means, we must regularly reflect both inwardly and outwardly on the myriad failures of Western culture to demonstrate Jesus’ lordship, and we must be living out that repentance so that we may bear testimony of it to a watching and lost world. We must reach out in love to lost people. We must learn about cultural differences. Yes, all of that is true.

People need the Gospel. Do not deprive them of the light that is within you, even if someone on staff at one satellite campus of a big evangelical organisation tells you to hide your light under a bushel.

Matthew 5:13-16 –

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Take your light to the lost people. Tell them about Jesus. Don’t hide behind fear of being perceived of having an “agenda”. The Gospel is too pressing.

Relationship evangelism

Jason Engwer made the following excellent observation:

I recently heard somebody commenting on how Christians often use Facebook, Twitter, and other media to do things like post photographs of their children and discuss sporting events, yet say nothing about subjects like God and the Bible. I've been astonished by how many people's Facebook accounts are a form of evangelization for secularism... They have so much to say about their children and grandchildren, friends, music, movies, television, sports, their jobs, politics, travel, food, etc., but so little to say, if anything, about matters like God, theology, and apologetics. When people see something like your Facebook account, blog, or Twitter page, do they see a secular, or nearly secular, lifestyle?

I'd disclaim that there are very important matters we should be discussing, and a lot, other than theology and apologetics, such as national sin, Christian obligation in response, and how we are confronting the culture with the Gospel. But a charitable reading of Engwer's remark could subsume those things under his having mentioned God, so let's let that go.

A friend responded on my Facebook wall:

It is called relationship evangelism. I see Facebook as a tool to build relationships. When you build a relationship with someone and get a deep look into their everyday lives, then people feel comfortable coming to you and talking to you about other things including religious beliefs. Why would anyone want to come to you for support if they feel you are going to judge them?

We let others know we are sinners too and our hope for a better tomorrow doesn't come from what we do but instead because of what Christ did for us.

I am not a better person because I go to church, abstain from certain things, or preach more than someone else. I am a better person because my heart is right with God because of what He did, not because of what I do.

"In the last days many will come to Me saying, didn't we preach in your name, heal the sick, raise the dead, and I will say to them, depart from me I never knew you" Jesus said.

We have to be careful that we do not preach to be seen by men but only speak to people as led by God. If a person's motive for posting is so others see you as a "good Christian" they will have their reward with men. If their motive for posting is because the Holy Spirit put it on their heart, the reward will be from God.

I have serious, serious reservations about this notion of "relationship evangelism". A few reasons why:
1) By aiming not to offend with too much overt Jesus, you show that you are willing to not be all about Jesus pretty much all the time. And that provides an example for others to follow. They can justify also not being all about Jesus because you aren't.
2) Most of the time, "relationship evangelism" is used an excuse NOT to share the Gospel. People never get around to it.
3) When/if you do get around to it, how credible will your profession to love Jesus be since you rarely talk about His being the King of your life?
4) Relating to people is not exclusive to being overtly all about Jesus. What you're actually doing is relating to people who are not convicted of their sin, while those who just might be convicted of their sin don't know that you are all about Jesus because you don't act or talk like you're all about Jesus. You're dealing with swine, in that case, and not even finding out that they're swine.
5) How can you avoid talking about Jesus all the time if you belong to Him? Where is your heart?
6) Where in the Bible do we ever see anything that looks like the relationship "evangelism" you propose?
7) When *do* you preach the Gospel? When you said "preach", did you mean "talk to someone one on one"? Did you (God forbid) mean something that a "pastor" does on Sunday mornings within the walls of a church building?
8) How is it the act of a friend to withhold the most important message that you have ever heard from them, the only news that can save them from Hell and eternally suffering the wrath of God?

You said:
\\I am a better person because my heart is right with God because of what He did not because of what I do.\\

I'd be really careful with that sort of language. You're not better. Anything good that you have or are you received from God by pure grace. It would be far better to say "I am better off". Saying "I am a better person" calls attention to yourself rather than Jesus.

You said:
\\We have to be careful that we do not preach to be seen by men\\

True, but ironically, your notion of relationship "evangelism" *AVOIDS* preaching so as to be seen (and esteemed) by men.

The "Herald" Society

I keep hearing people use the word "herald". And they apply it to someone who goes to a building every single Sunday and lectures the same people over and over again about things that in many ways they should already know and be learning themselves (and teaching others [Heb 5:12]).

That's not what a herald is, folks. A herald goes forth from the King, bearing the King's message, and he gives it to ALL the King's subjects. He doesn't put out a sign, "Come hear the King's message. Once a week, for 30 minutes. Only inside this building. You know, if you want to," and then wait for the King's rebellious subjects to come to him.

There's a name for someone who lectures to a small subset of the King's subjects over and over again at a set time and place, but it's not a "herald".

I must admit that it is hard to see friends and acquaintances post and repost notifications about "Herald" Society get-togethers as if these were beneficial to the kingdom of God. I truly believe that there is a lot more bad than good about such things. Most of the reason why I think this centers around the hypocrisy that is more than evident in so many of the dealings of these men.

Take the "H"S meeting currently underway in Milton, FL as an example. As part of the buildup leading to this event, Tony Miano among others have put out some material encouraging people to attend. As this remains a topic of interest to me, I have followed some of that material, partly to see whether the "H"S has learned from previous errors which I have personally documented. To be more specific, the errors center around such things as

• forming a parachurch ministry, all the while decrying parachurch ministries.
• using the word "Herald" in the title of the society, all the while intentionally not doing the things that heralds do.
• using the word "Herald" in the title of the society and saying stuff like "No king but Christ", all the while putting obstacles in the way of those who desire to obey the Great Commission (like women for example) and doing all they can to force potential actual heralds to get permission from someone who acts like a king in demanding that people submit to his own rule before the herald obeys the actual King.
• teaching the sufficiency of Scripture, all the while imposing extrabiblical traditions on others, such as "the call to preach", requiring that men "be called" before they are permitted to engage in open-air preaching (OAP). 
• trumpeting the importance of the local church, all the while actually negating its importance (see more on that below).
• calling people to waste time and money that could have been put to use in their own localities, and in exchange giving them something (a series of lectures) that could easily have been communicated by an iTunes podcast.
• teaching Calvinist (and frequently cessationist) doctrine, all the while pushing a view of sanctification that I can only describe as charismatic Wesleyan, in that the "call to preach" maps quite well onto the "second blessing" that in other circles might be thought of as the "baptism of the Holy Spirit".

All of this is hypocrisy, but let's focus on that last item for a moment. The funny thing about it is that in charismatic theology, this "second blessing", this "baptism in the Holy Spirit", is usually pretty objectively verifiable - does the allegedly secondly-blessed person speak in tongues? If yes, they figure that the person has been baptised in the Holy Spirit.
And even leaving aside the fact that such a thing as the "call to preach" is not Scriptural, like at all, how do you figure out whether someone has received that particular second blessing? I keep asking the question. The most common answer would seem to be something like "the elders of your church tell you".

Which leads me to a video hyping the "H"S that Tony Miano put out, in which he reiterates some of the things he and Jeff Rose discussed in a recent podcast and in which he expresses more of this typical "H"S hypocrisy. Note that:

• attendees will listen to lectures for 20 hours, in 3 days. That's almost 7 hours of lecture per day, all in the name of "equipping". (As if anyone can remember a significant % of that amount of lecturing.)
• we should not expect a "caste system". And yet:
  --speakers speak from an elevated stage, from a thing called a "pulpit".
  --the centerpiece of the event is listening to these exalted figures.
  --the main attraction is the names they were able to attract to speak - James White, Earl Blackburn, etc.
  --there will be those who are "called to OAP" and those who aren't.
  --anyone can listen to lectures but only the "called" few get to put it into practice in the primary way that Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles did.
• Miano says that "speakers will speak of their love for the church, love for the bride of Christ, and love for reaching the lost with the Gospel". And I guess they'll demonstrate that by not modeling how the bride of Christ ought to be living, by implying very strongly that the mission of the church is to sit down, shaddup, and listen to Great Men talk, and by not even trying to reach the lost with the Gospel, because...
• there won't be any organised outreach to the lost during the entire duration of the "H"S meeting.
  Miano says, "don't expect a pep rally for OAP. Don't expect a lot of time on the streets. We want to focus on teaching, prayer, worship, the edification of pastors and their churches, and encouraging the bride of Christ to lift up the Gospel."
  So they're going to do that by not spending time on the streets, and by not proclaiming the Gospel, and by staying behind the walls of a church building, in a different city, just like most everyone does when they're at their own church. By not heralding.
  And then when, at the 6-minute mark of the video, Miano exhorts his listeners that "it is time for Christians to get out of the Christian bubble", the irony is intolerable.
• the excuse given for not modeling or training in OAP is because "that's the responsibility of the local church."
  --But teaching theology isn't?
  --People can't sit in pews at their own churches?
  --Wouldn't it be better to spend the time that attendees spent traveling and pew-sitting at the "H"S in deepening relationships at the attendees' own local churches?
  Wouldn't it also be better to put the traveling and lodging money the attendees used for the "H"S event to use at their own local church? Isn't the "H"S actually working opposite to its stated desires?
  --It's not the responsibility of each local church to teach about the Bible and talk about love for the church, bride of Christ, and reaching the lost with the Gospel?
  --It never occurs to the "H"S organisers that most pastors wouldn't have any idea how to train anyone in evangelism, let alone OAP?
  --Or that saying "only called people should OAP" gives a convenient out to anyone who has ulterior motives in not challenging fear or incurring the anger, slander, and scorn of worldly people?

All these things considered, it is entirely unclear why anyone thinks that putting together a "H"S event is a good idea. It is even less clear why anyone would want to attend, apart from the proffered opportunity to, I'm sorry to say it like this but I believe it is largely true, listen to heroes, Great Men, talk from an elevated position so they can consume more information. Because many think to at least some extent that their closeness to God is necessarily directly proportional to how much theology they know.


It seems like a far better name for the Herald Society would be the Pew-Sitter Society. They model during their meetings what they actually want Christians to be when they go back to their own communities and churches - pew-sitters until someone in a more elevated ecclesiastical position gives them permission to go love their neighbor and obey the King.

The Trinity as three-leaf clover

Recently a friend posted a video of street evangelism in which she was sharing the Gospel with a Muslim. This Muslim young man didn't know much about the Bible and in the course of the convo asked "What is the Holy Spirit?"

My friend used the words "it is..." in her response and went on to try to explain the Trinity as three-leaf clover. Here's the comment I left under her video:
------
Thanks for the video! Just a few thoughts:

1) Don't refer to the Holy Spirit as "it". He is a person.
2) You used the three leaf clover analogy for the Trinity. I would recommend against using such an analogy.
Here is a small tongue-in-cheek reason not to use that analogy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw

It's sarcastic humor. But it illustrates the underlying reason not to use that kind of analogy - the Holy Spirit is fully God, just as the Father and the Son are. They are distinct and yet co-equal, all sharing the essence of divinity equally and fully. The clover analogy does not express the godhead well enough. Of course any analogy fails, but where they fail in a really fundamental way, we should abandon them.

I much prefer to explain the Trinity to a Muslim like this - "The Bible is God's Word. The Qur'an affirms that it is. The Bible teaches that there is one God and only one. It also teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and that they are all distinct and yet there is only one God. This is a great mystery. We accept what the Bible teaches b/c it's what God told us." and kind of go from there, showing them in the Bible why we think that is true, if they ask.

A better analogy if you must use one is this: Imagine three balloons of equal size and shape. Each balloon is filled with the same air. Not the same AMOUNT of air. Literally the same air.
How is that possible? It's not, not in this physical universe. That's part of the point. The Trinity doesn't map all that well onto our physical, material experiences.

(HT: SyeTenB for the balloon analogy)

The Oklahoma City Satanic Black Mass

So this past Sunday in downtown OKC a group of Satanists rented a small event hall in the Civic Center to do a Black Mass. They had even somehow purloined a consecrated Eucharistic host but the threat of legal action made 'em give it back. Both of which events are really funny to me.


As I had expected, out in front of the Civic Center in the plaza, it was a chaotic, noisy madhouse. Pelagian street preachers (those who I've been told sometimes call themselves the "Pervert Patrol" from Tulsa) (see here what I think of them) with their bullhorns preaching a bunch of not particularly persuasive hate-filled screeds, Black Israelites bellowing at the top of their lungs, hundreds of Roman Catholics praying responsive prayers (mostly to Mary) (who else, right?) with their own amps and holding idols and large pictures of Mary, mainline Protestant groups singing milquetoast "worship" songs, some other Roman Catholics playing bagpipes, people blowing shofars...

Notice how the "My" is capitalised. This is supposedly Mary speaking, and she gets the divinised reference to a nomina sacra, as it were. And where is Jesus in the photo? Nowhere. Tell me this isn't idolatry so that I may have a good laugh.

Anyway, as I expected, virtually nobody actually attending the Black Mass hung around outside and talked to anyone. Like last time, all the paying attendees slunk in the side to enter and skulked out the side to exit.

Really, in a vacuum this event was not a big deal. According to press who observed the Black Mass on the inside, about 40 people attended. Seriously, who cares? The only reason this attracted so much media attention is because the Satanists played the Media Whore game and the local Roman Catholic archdiocese played their willing dance partner. Thus the Roman Catholics' efforts entirely backfired in my opinion. They were mad about this event.

But, happily, it attracted such a large crowd that some servants of the Lord Jesus were able to take advantage to outreach to them.

I prepared a tract centering around the Roman Mass. I was thinking I'd probably do some street preaching too. 

When we arrived, though, it was chaotic. The noise and clamor was astonishing. And then just as the Roman prayers were reaching their climax, a rainbow appeared in the sky. Not particularly surprising, since the sun was at a convenient angle for such and it had rained on us a little when we were a mile from the Civic Center. But many of the RCs took it for a sign from heaven. Probably the most interesting moment of the evening was when, right after I had turned to find what everyone was staring at and then spotted the rainbow, this lady materialised at my side and gushed about how we're winning and God is on our side and we have nothing to fear and isn't it awesome? I had no idea what to say and so just kinda smiled and nodded like a doofus. I belatedly offered her a tract and she smiled and shook her head as she walked away and I was just standing there like what just happened? What a weird environment!

The attitude of many of the RCs was best summed up in: "why are you talking to us when the real enemy is inside?" At which point I tried to remind them that they're the ones who are members of the religion that anathematised the gospel and perverts the Lord's Table.

My friend gave out a lot of the aforementioned tracts about the Mass; I had less success with that. I had some good conversations. I rebuked the Pelagian street preachers, who then rebuked me for wasting time rebuking them when there were hundreds of lost people just over yonder. I told one of them (this guy) I can do both and this is worthwhile, and he rudely told me to get on with it, like a schoolboy double-dog-daring me to preach, to show him how it's done.
There's only so much childishness a man can take before you just don't know what to say anymore. It's like it's hard to talk intelligently, like the dumb creeps into your own brain by osmosis.

But I figured I'd rather not waste the opportunity or let my 'yes' be 'no', so I fired up my brand new amp and preached about the Mass for a while at that point. The Pelagian guy had a camera on me pretty much the whole time as if to intimidate me or prove a point. The preach went well, and when I was done he came over, almost apologetic, and said "hey that was good stuff, solid preaching."

I wasn't sure I wanted his affirmation, but I smiled and said thanks before turning to talk to some Romanists who wanted to comment.

Aaaaaannnndddd also my camera malfunctioned and didn't record any audio. Disappointing, as there were numerous interesting incidents.

But at least I praise God that the Gospel went out to many. I am left dumbfounded at how few Christians were there to witness of the Gospel, in a place where hundreds of people are gathered in a place in order to publicly discuss a spiritual matter. Where are you, church of God?

Some Bad Advice From Tony Miano

UPDATE: Tony Miano is on a downward slide into a very dangerous spiritual position and is leading his family down that path as well. As I said in my review of his book, "I sometimes honestly fear for him at the time when (not if) the elder(s) of his church fail him."
Well, now I fear for him even more. See here and then more importantly here. Lord have mercy. He who has presumed to lecture so many, block them on social media, and sow division between them and other believers on the basis of ecclesiology, "pastoral authority", "the authority of the local church", and whether one has been "sent" to do evangelism has shown himself to be an immature nomad, tossed about by winds and waves of doctrine.
Psalm 9:15 - The nations have sunk down in the pit which they have made; In the net which they hid, their own foot has been caught.
Proverbs 29:6 - By transgression an evil man is ensnared, But the righteous sings and rejoices.

And yet...
Proverbs 24:17-18 - Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; or the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn His anger away from him.

Pray for the man. Pray he will repent of all his bombastic rhetoric and realise the massive piles of hypocrisy in which he has engaged the last few years.

============================================

Tony Miano, well-known street preacher, had this to say on Facebook recently:

Can't find a solid church that supports open-air preaching?
Then go to a solid church that doesn't support open-air preaching, and submit to the authority of the pastors/elders of the church. It is more important that you are a serving member of a local church than it is for you to open-air preach.
Christian Brother: God has certainly called you to be a hand, or foot, or arm, or leg in His Body. But He may NOT have called you to open-air preach. The fact that you want to open-air preach doesn't mean God has called you to open-air preach. You may not be finding a church that supports open-air preaching because that may not be the role the Lord has for you in His body.
So, get plugged into a local church; live in submission to the elders and in love with the rest of the congregation. Be willing to work the nursery, or scrub a toilet, or teach a Sunday school class (if you're qualified). Be willing to serve for no other reason than it is a fulfillment of the two greatest commandments--to love God and to love people.
The Lord may yet call you to open-air preach (if you are a man), and you will know that because your pastors/elders will affirm your call to preach the gospel in the open-air. And they will likely affirm that call once they see you are willing to submit to authority, serve the Body, can rightly handle the Scriptures, and once they see that the gospel of Jesus Christ is more important to you than hearing your own voice preaching it.
Give it some thought.

I gave it some thought, and I'd like to share a few.

Notice that Miano didn't frame the issue in terms of whether the church thinks the individual reader ought to open-air preach (OAP). It is plausible a church might not want a particular individual to OAP. For example, if the aspiring preacher is not very good at explaining the Gospel, or he hasn't mastered his temper yet and easily gets mad and challenges people to fistfights. But Miano is talking about OAP in general.

On the other hand, Miano seems to be referring to a situation where an aspiring OA preacher is not a member of a church because he can't find one that supports OAP. It is a pitifully sad commentary on the state of Reformedigelical churches in the West that this is a plausible scenario. I would at least agree with Miano on this - if you're not a member of a church, there had better be a really really good reason. Ie, you live in a location where despite faithful searching you have not been able to connect with anybody who actually loves Jesus.

On the other other hand (which I guess gets us back to the original hand), one might decide that until the Lord provides something better, he should probably just join the best church he can find and try to influence it toward following the Scripture. This may in some cases result in conflict between the person wanting to be faithful to Jesus and the leadership and/or the rest of the congregation who are all too happy doing their own thing, following their own autonomous desires and preferences, and ignoring major portions of the Scripture in so doing. What then?

Before we get into that, I'd like to ask this: What makes Miano so sure that a church that doesn't support open-air preaching is indeed solid? Evangelism and the Great Commission are kind of a big deal when it comes to properly obeying Jesus and fulfilling the two greatest commandments, and if a church is not interested in obeying Jesus, that's not a solid church. It doesn't matter what they confess, what they say with their lips. The Scripture is full of rebukes of false professors who say one thing and do another. Like the Pharisees. Like the Jerusalemites who said "the temple of YHWH! The temple of YHWH! The temple of YHWH!" Like the false prophets who said "peace, peace" when there was no peace.

Perhaps the church thinks open-air preaching is mean and nasty in and of itself. I would suggest in that case the OA preacher invite people from the church to come out with him, to show them how it's done and to demonstrate that, while of course someone can be mean and nasty in virtually any situation, OAP can be done in a way that is loving, kind, and understanding.

What if no one from the church is willing to go watch, and yet they continue to insist that OAP, a ministry that Jesus and Paul and Peter did a whole lot, is not good? Well, then, those people need to be called to repentance. Or I suppose you could leave and be a "nomad", but then that would leave the people in the church in unchallenged deception, which is not good for the church he leaves behind. It is actually the opposite of love for those people.

On the other hand, what if a few people go out with the OA preacher and everything goes well, and yet they continue to oppose OAP in and of itself? Would not the conversation then have to shift to their biblical reasons to justify their opposition? It may be that the leadership of the church would in that case lord it over the OA preacher, citing some imaginary "authority" to tell him that OAP is not OK, with no other reason than that they say so. Such person(s) would be deep in sin and rebellion against the role they're supposed to be playing in their local church. The OA preacher, being a part of that local church himself, would be obligated (not permitted, by the way, obligated) to get one or two other witnesses and rebuke that person, initiating church discipline for unrepentantly sinning against the OA preacher and against the rest of the congregation for refusing to teach the whole counsel of God.

1 Timothy 5:19-21 - Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality.

Miano later says this:

The Lord may yet call you to open-air preach (if you are a man), and you will know that because your pastors/elders will affirm your call to preach the gospel in the open-air.

There's a reason why he didn't include any Bible citations along with this statement. Nothing in God's Word would lead us to believe this is true. It also exhibits a puzzling naïveté. Does Miano really think that the most common reason why a pastor might oppose OAP would be that the OA preacher in question has a history of "rebelling" against the pastor's "authority"? What does "pastoral authority" even mean, in a situation where the pastor is not following the Word of God?

Let's continue with another statement from Miano:

Christian Brother: God has certainly called you to be a hand, or foot, or arm, or leg in His Body. But He may NOT have called you to open-air preach. The fact that you want to open-air preach doesn't mean God has called you to open-air preach. You may not be finding a church that supports open-air preaching because that may not be the role the Lord has for you in His body.

Miano is equivocating on the uses of the word "calling" in this paragraph. The first occurrence is fine - it is indeed true that God has called every individual Christian to be some body part in His Body. Miano seems to be assuming that 1 Corinthians 12's discussion of body parts refers to a given local church, which I would dispute, but let's leave that aside for now. How do we know that God has called us to be a body part in the Body of Christ? The Scripture says so.

So how does Miano propose that an individual can know that he is "called" to do OAP? I have asked this question many times and never received an answer. It is a major weakness in his book "Should She Preach?", which I documented in my review thereof. Which Scripture passage leads us to expect that God would continually send individual people specific callings to specific tasks or ministries, going forward throughout the ages during which the church would subsist? I have argued that no such Scripture exists. This is where the equivocation comes in - the first time Miano says "calling", he is correctly referring to biblical command. The second and third times, he is trading on a mistaken tradition of man that is sadly common in Reformedigelicalism.

Miano is doubtless aware of the Modern-Day Downgrade at work in the Reformedigelical churches of the West. Part of the Downgrade is the trend toward that which is easy and adds to the comfort level of the partakers. As an experienced street preacher myself, I know well that OAP incurs a very high level of discomfort, and Miano of course knows this too. Since it is uncomfortable, people don't want to do it, and this leads to their making excuses, twisting the Scripture so they can justify their apathy toward the lost. This is a far more plausible explanation for why someone might not be able to find a church that supports OAP.

So, get plugged into a local church; live in submission to the elders and in love with the rest of the congregation. Be willing to work the nursery, or scrub a toilet, or teach a Sunday school class (if you're qualified). Be willing to serve for no other reason than it is a fulfillment of the two greatest commandments--to love God and to love people.

Of course, Christians should be members of a local church; I don't dispute that. I would take issue with verbiage like "live in submission to the elders", however. If the elders tell you not to do a biblical thing, or to do an unbiblical thing, it is no virtue to obey. It is actually sin to obey these lesser voices in that case. Sin because you ought to be doing the right thing, and also sin because you are acting in a cowardly way, following the "overlord"'s orders rather than standing against evil and exposing it (Jeremiah 7, Ephesians 5:11) out of love for the deceived elder(s) as well as love for the congregation.

You can't actually love your congregation if you are sinning by knowingly withholding from them that which they need, that of which you know you ought to help them take hold.

James 4:17 - Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Taken in the context of the situation he is laying out, Miano is actually indirectly recommending a sinful course of action.

Also, because of the discomfort involved in OAP, there are precious few people willing to do it. Yet I challenge you to show me another ministry in which the Gospel can be spread so widely to so many people in such an efficient manner as OAP. I'm not criticising other methods of evangelism. I'm saying that OAP has its place, and Jesus chose it for a reason.

Mark 1:14-15 - Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Matthew 4:23 - Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
Matthew 9:35 - Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
Luke 20:1 - On one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him...

If your church meets in a separate building, far be it from me to suggest you not scrub a toilet. If y'all meet in a house, scrub the toilet there. Go for it! Doing that sort of thing and OAP are hardly mutually exclusive. I mean, unless your nursery duties are late on Friday night or something, which is often a really good time of week to do OAP.

The problem here is not whether an OA preacher in a church should say, "OAP is all I do within my local church." That would be foolish and wrong. But Miano is not only acting like it is better to do something that most anyone can and is probably willing to do (since scrubbing toilets is, let's face it, not too hard) than to do something that is hard but that results in tons of people hearing the Gospel proclaimed with boldness and power, for no other reason than that the OA preacher's church is in sin and thinks that OAP is bad.

It would be far better to say this: Be willing to OAP for no other reason than it is a fulfillment of the two greatest commandments--to love God and to love people. And it is love not only to the lost who hear it, but also to the church members who probably have an unbiblical worldview undergirding their unbiblical objection to OAP; the OA preacher has the chance to set them free from these wrong views. This is pleasing to God.

Two more notes:

The Lord may yet call you to open-air preach (if you are a man)

Please, again, see my review of Miano's book on the issue of whether only men are biblically warranted to OAP.

once they see that the gospel of Jesus Christ is more important to you than hearing your own voice preaching it.

True, the OA preacher must guard against pride in his heart. But when fewer than thousands of Christians are doing OAP in one's area and there is opportunity, it should be done in a biblical manner, no matter whether the elders of your church are sinfully suppressing it.

Speaking for myself, it matters not whether it's my voice. I want many voices proclaiming the Good News of the risen Savior. And if there are none, I want at least one. If that's me, so be it.

Philippians 1:15-18 - Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice.

Evangélisation en France

Are you depriving yourself and others of your witness?

“Cry loudly, do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins” (Isaiah 58:1).

Consider well, especially if you live in a city, that most of the people around you are not following Jesus, and are not headed for Heaven when they die. Consider also that, due in large part to the Modern Day Downgrade, most of them have never even heard the Law and the Gospel properly proclaimed or explained. Thus, humanly speaking, they have never even had the opportunity to repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus to forgive them their sin and give them the gift of a new heart that loves to do good works and magnify Jesus as Lord and Savior as well as the gift of eternal life in the kingdom of God.

Consider well how many you can reach with your preferred methods of evangelism. How is that working for you? Are you close enough friends with your lost neighbor that you dare broach the topic of their sin and the Gospel, knowing full well (when you think about it) that the Gospel is an offense, and that you risk the friendship in talking about the fact that every day they live, their very soul is at risk? And how many will you share the Gospel with in 10 years, in this way? 20?

I do not mean to demean a strategy of evangelism that focuses on relationship. In some areas and in some countries, this is the only way. Yet consider this – hit the streets and you can share the Gospel with dozens, hundreds, even thousands in a single day. Because of you, the Gospel can go forth! You are a servant of the Most High God and you have been commanded to make disciples in all the world.

Consider this, too. We live in a time and place in which hitting the streets to share and proclaim the Gospel is by and large permitted and even most of the time ignored by law enforcement and government officials. That wasn’t always the case! Remember how the Apostle Paul and his friends were treated for their open-air ministry? With rare exceptions, such is not the case today.
So what are you waiting for? Jesus told His disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send more workers out into the field. I have been praying that, myself, for years. You are the answer to that prayer! Go to your church, gather Christian friends, make a plan. Start by dropping dropcards (maybe like this one) during your daily life. Buy or make some tracts (or email me and I’ll give you a decent tract that I wrote), print them up, look around for a gathering of people, and give out your tracts. Invite people to converse with you about Jesus. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. “Hi there, my name’s Alan. I’d like to talk to you about Jesus for a minute. Would that be OK?”
What do you have to lose? Reputation? Standing in the eyes of the world? Suffering through anxiety leading up to the moment that you talk to your first person or hand out your first tract or, dare I say it, spit out your first open-air sermon? Count it all joy!

Do you have a testimony of how Jesus saved you from your sin? Do you know what the Bible teaches about how Jesus saves sinners? Do you think that people need to repent and trust Jesus? Then what’s stopping you from proclaiming such magnificent and glorious good news from the rooftops, or at least from atop a box or a street corner? (Yes, even if you’re a woman.)

Some years ago, I made a firm resolution that I was going to go out, on Halloween Reformation Day night and preach the Gospel in the open air. I didn’t want to, but I also did want to. I was terribly afraid. The day before, I had terrible anxiety and crazy stomach acid. I felt like I was developing an ulcer. The day of, the same. Fear, fear, fear, all the way up until I clambered atop the little stepladder I’d brought with me and belted out “Good evening, my friends, my name is Alan.” And then, just like that, the fear was gone. The grace of God flooded through me, and I thought “Whoa, this is awesome! I get to share the Gospel with 100 people at once!”

There has never been a time when the Lord Jesus has failed to bless me when I intentionally hit the streets to evangelise. The fear and anxiety have largely faded, such that sometimes I am barely even nervous.

Of course there are struggles. Of course one needs to know answers to some apologetic questions. Learn them!

Of course one needs to be accountable. Get accountable and gather a team or a partner, and go!

Of course one needs to go in a spirit of love. Pray, HARD, ask God to remove bitterness and pride from you, then go!

Of course one needs to know how to share the Gospel. Learn how, and go!
When will you ever get the opportunity to proclaim aloud / with people you’ve never met the glories of Jesus Christ, who bought you with His precious blood, if you don’t seek those opportunities out? How will you be better able to enourage other street evangelists who are, trust me on this one, usually quite desperate for others to join them as they hit the streets? How else will you be able to vastly multiply your outreach to the lost?

Let me just share with you a privileged moment I had just yesterday. I am currently in Paris, France on a trip that is half business and intentionally half mission, in cooperation with the good brethren at CEP Montreuil and other churches in the area. Here with my wife, kids, and an abolitionist friend, we got the opportunity to tract and preach at the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Mars in Paris last night. In a city of 15 million people, how can I be the only man lifting up his voice to glorify and magnify Jesus in the open air at one of the dozens of large gatherings of people? I don’t know, and I don’t mean to call others’ salvation into question or anything. I am asking you to examine yourself. Are you depriving yourself and others? Privilege and blessing await; God wants to pour out His grace on you when you step out in obedience.

What are you waiting for?

How to spend Halloween

Preach the Gospel!

Norman Abortuary Outreach Report, 15 March 2013

Today was a busy day at the abortuary, sadly.

At least three women were in tears as they went in or came out, but they would not come talk to us. One had to be carried out by the man with her.

A man escorted a woman in, came out and drove away, came back, came out to smoke (and I preached the law and Gospel to him while he was there though he never responded), came out and drove away, then came back and went in, then came out with his girl. He heard a lot of law and Gospel. He also accepted a New Testament but didn't seem very affected by anything.

A family went in with two young children, toddler and preschooler. This was heartbreaking.

Also heartbreaking was the young woman who was very visibly pregnant and yet flipped us off as she entered.

One young man escorted a girl inside and dialogued with me a bit about abortion and how he was an atheist.

One young lady was going in for a diagnostic procedure and she was not pregnant. We asked her to go to another doctor from now on. She said it's a woman's choice to abort. We spent some time breaking down that view. She accepted a NT with some material in it as she was leaving.

Another couple went in, cussing me out, and later emerged. Shane said something about how she was a mother and she responded with a sneer, "Not anymore."

WinterJam 2013 Evangelism

Shane and I went out to address the thousands of people waiting in line to get into WinterJam 2013 at the Oklahoma City Chesapeake Arena recently.

Norman Abortuary Outreach Report, 15 Feb 2013

I also spent the morning at the Norman abortuary on 25 January, but I wasn't able to write up much about it and my recording equipment ran out of batteries halfway through.

Not so this time, however. Numerous abolitionists of human abortion were able to join me this morning for a time that featured comparatively light traffic, some good fellowship, and some good opportunities to share the Gospel.

Here is the playlist:

The pattern that has emerged and which allows me to preach and proclaim the law of God and the good news of Jesus is that I or someone else on the team engages people as they arrive and park their cars. We ask them to come talk to us, etc, but sadly, most of the time they proceed inside the abortuary. I then engage in proclamation, and I know they can hear me inside there.

It is probably a consistent violation of the noise ordinance in that zone to use electronic amplification, but I should think it would be difficult to argue in court that the use of non-artificial amplification, like a bullhorn, should be legally proscribed. And I know they can hear me inside - once I started preaching through the bullhorn, the abortician's wife, who is the administrator and the business manager, came out of the front door to see what was going on. I preached repentance to her.

I pray these videos and testimonies will spur you toward doing what you can to take up similar activities in your locality. Where is the nearest abortuary to you? Go there and pray, plead, and/or proclaim!

Evangelism, University of Oklahoma campus, 07Feb2013

Shane and three other brethren and I went out to evangelise the OU campus today.
Here is my playlist.

Shane and me and last night's evangelism

I went out last night to OU Campus Corner with my buddy Shane, and we did some evangelism. I used my new Looxcie to record most of it. The picture is not great but the audio is fine.

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0yGHBb_QLw

Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxyg4vOp598

Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YKTt00zz-Y

Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6G2TW8xo-4

Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9dX5GeMnuQ

Part 6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88InJZqbGkQ

Norman Abortuary Outreach Report, 18 Jan 2013

It has become possible for me to take every other Friday morning off so as to spend time with fellow abolitionists and evangelists at the abortuary in Norman, OK.

Here is the report of today's activities. It was a time blessed by the Lord. 

Trey and Jeremy were out there about 7:15. I got there around 7:45. Numerous cars were already there, so I guess if we want to catch the employees, we'll have to arrive earlier.

We had an AHA sign and we were spending time in prayer and reading Scripture aloud. 

One of the first interactions, if not the first (I forgot already LOL) was a girl who came out and stood behind her car to smoke. As we were proclaiming the law to her, she at first activated the car alarm to drown us out. After a few minutes of that, we were agitating her and then a young guy came out, like 16 years old. Young face, high school student. As we proclaimed to both of them and were agitating them to go back inside and pull their friend out of the slaughter, the guy got very upset. He started cussing us out and telling us he would beat us if we didn't shut up. We did not shut up and expressed our sorrow that he was so angry and he continued to threaten us. then he came up quite close to us and raised his fist several times. We looked at him sorrowfully and told him we didn't want him to hit us but that we would not be silent. I think he came this close to taking a swing at us (at which point we were going to scatter and flee). Several times he was getting in our face, mostly in Trey and Jeremy's face, though we were all saying things. Maybe he didn't see in me a threat, haha. 

Eventually he turned away but told us that if we continued our proclamation when his girlfriend came out, he would attack us. he then went back inside with the girl. they later emerged with the girl who no doubt had an abortion and drove away without further incident. 

It left me physically shaken a bit... I guess the confrontation affected my body and I needed to hunch over to recover for a few minutes. But I got better quickly.

Shane arrived and commenced preaching thru his amp towards the abortuary door. We wondered if they could hear inside, and we found out later they could.

The rest of us prayed and as we saw people going in, Shane and we would engage them.

I preached later. Then Shane a few more times. 

A young man drove by with a drive-by comment, Shane invited him to come back and reason with us, and he did! We were surprised. He turned out to be reasonable and we had a short and useful conversation. Pray for David.

There is a window into the abortuary right next to the sidewalk. I decided to preach loud into that window for a while. the blinds closed about halfway through, though I couldn't see inside anyway, so I knew someone was listening! 

Three Romanists showed up to stake some signs into the public easement grass and to pray the rosary that abortion might be ended. This is the very definition of doing evil that good may result.

Four cops showed up later, took our names, and eventually told us that we could possibly be cited for disturbing the peace if we were loud enough to be heard inside the clinic. Obviously, any further info about whether that's actually going to hold up in court will have to be determined after consulting with an attorney, so we will do so. But we decided the heck with it and kept doing what we were doing once the cops left. :-)

Right at the end, we had an outstanding, amazing opportunity. A lady had brought a teenage girl and the girl had gone in and the lady was sitting in her car outside. I raised my voice to address her and shared the law with her and encouraged her to go in and get her friend. She said something I couldn't really hear, and when she stopped I went on a long impassioned spiel about God's law and the chance she had right now to go in and get her friend to save the baby. 

When I finished, she looked at me sadly and said, "But what if the abortion was a week and half ago?"

Ah, well, that changes things.

I then shared the Gospel of God's glorious grace because of Jesus. How Jesus frees us from condemnation, transforms us, gives us grace to say no to sin. Etc. It was great and I asked her to share it with - it turned out to be her daughter in there - her daughter once she came out. 

The daughter did come out and sat in the car for a moment before I realised that I should address her too, so I did. Both of these women's hearts appeared so soft to the Lord and so convicted of sin. Our hearts went out to them! I told Cherish that Jesus can forgive her, not to waste the opportunity to come into right relationship with Jesus, etc. 

In the end her mother, Jackie, took a 180 DVD and a "How to have eternal life" booklet from Shane. Pray for Jackie and Cherish.

Here's my preach. 

Me talking to Jackie and Cherish, mother and post-abortive daughter. 

"180" Movie

Quick drive-by on dealing with Oneness Pentecostals

An acquaintance emailed me, asking about Oneness Pentecostals in his area and any thoughts I had.  Here's what I said.

Blessings to you in the name of Jesus Christ.
Um, yes, anyone who might say that JWs are Christians don't really have a meaningful idea of what it is to be Christian.  David Waltz is a screwed up man, and I pray he'll repent.  Certainly not many RCs that comment on BeggarsAll would say that JWs are Christian, but DW is in a class by himself at this point, to be sure.

There are quite a few Oneness ppl around where I'm from, too.  I'd suggest some study over at CARM.org, and Matt Slick the CARM guy has done a few radio shows with a Oneness person, interesting listening.

Of course James White's The Forgotten Trinity would be a good resource I should think.

I haven't dealt with too many Oneness people, but I'd ask them if Jesus was talking to Himself in John 17 and in the Garden of Geth.  I'd ask them from a different (this one philosophical) angle the same thing I'd ask a Muslim - Is God love?  Is He eternally loving?  Is love love when it is directed only at oneself?  (Assuming they say yes, yes, and no) I continue:  So, before God created creation, how could God be a loving God?  Was He just loving Himself?  He needs creation to fulfill one of His attributes, even one of His most central attributes?  How is this possible?

You could ask them about the crucifixion, the death of the God-man.  How did that work itself out, exactly, when Christ was on the Cross and yelled out to the Father?  When He died, what happened?  

Why is it that the NT very clearly teaches the Trinity?  

Also, they're generally works-salvationists, legalists.  They'll say you have to be baptised in the name of Jesus (and that's the only way) to be saved.  Baptism is a pre-req for salvation.  That's a problem.  Share the law and the Gospel with them.

They'll say that you have to speak in tongues as a pre-req for salvation, b/c it shows that you're filled with the Holy Spirit.  that's a problem.  Share the law and the Gospel with them.  

Those are some initial thoughts.

Hate Outside

Hmm, I think it was just over a year ago that I attended a Love Won Out conference in Oklahoma City. I actually volunteered 'cause I was short on cash, wanted to help, and also wanted to get in free. So sue me. Anyway, got in free, got me a (nice-looking) T-shirt, and attended the all-day event. Quite good. And during a few free moments, I saw a familiar group of people across the street holding up signs. Familiar b/c I'd seen them at other homosexual-themed panel discussions and such in Norman, and b/c some of them were from a nearby church (which opens its arms and its theology to gay people and closes them to a belief in Hell) whose pastor used to preach at a less-obnoxiously-liberal but still liberal and still gay-friendly church where my grandmother used to attend and at which her funeral was held (and no, my grandmother was not a lesbian. She did say that the choir was really good there, though). I watched them hold up signs and get an occasional honk from passing cars. It was chilly and windy, so I hesitated, but then finally got the gumption to head out there to talk to them. There were about a dozen of these anti-"anti-gay" protesters, and they were about to pack it in at 1:30 pm. I asked why they were there and engaged them in pleasant conversation. One of them (who turned out to be an author of a mean-spirited book) was quite nasty to me, but he contented himself w/ a one-liner and left me to talk to some other people. I spoke at length w/ a young man named Jacob, who gave me his card. I later emailed him w/ some questions about how he justifies his homosexuality, but I never received any reply. After they headed back to wherever anti-"anti-gay" protesters go after protesting an "anti-gay" event, the rest of said event completed w/o further incident. No police were present w/ the protesters though there were a few inside the Christian university building where the event was held.

Contrast that w/ this demonstration in Boston over the same kind of event (w/ even the same speaker, Joe Dallas), the signs they held up, and what Boston's Finest did about it.
Read to the end of the article on the 1st link and ask yourself the same questions posed there: What if these had been pro-lifers outside an abortion-friendly church or an abortuary? What if these had been evangelicals - oops, sorry, I meant to say intolerant bigoted fundies - outside a lib church where PFLAG was meeting?
Just file this away in your mind - it is more proof that achieving a "neutral," value-free society where no one worldview is dominant in government or public thought is IMPOSSIBLE. Among many other things, the rise of the gay movement has provided backing evidence for this.