Bel Bows Down, Nebo is Stooping

Modern Idolatry

A minor brouhaha has flickered in Gore where a Christian church has honoured the Lord by exercising discipline over an errant, unrepentant member.  The former member has been living with a man not her husband.

In terms of the historical Christian faith there is nothing remarkable in this; it is, after all, what the Scripture commands.  (I Corinthians 5:1-2; I Corinthians 5: 9-13).  Any faithful, believing Christian church would do what the Calvin Community Church at Gore has just done.

What is far more instructive is the reaction of the pagans.  Many blog commentators have railed against the whole notion of judging.  How dare anyone judge another.
  It's evil, apparently.  Strangely, this abhorrence of judging disappears when the law courts are in purview.  Suddenly, judging is OK. Judge that murderer!  Condemn that thief!  Worse, the pagans, like hollow, blinkered men they fail to discern the irony of their implacable judgement upon those whom they indict for judging others.

Those immediately involved have another take.  Stuff provides a summary:

The woman said she was told "out of the blue" she had to either marry her long-term partner, leave him, or no longer be a church member.  She was still able to attend the church, but she has declined to do so because "they have discussed my private life around the table".

"I was shocked. I was very upset at the way it was put to me, someone just phoned me out of the blue and I was told I had to either marry him or I can't be a member of the church."  This is 2014, not the 1950s, times have changed."

Then the reaction of the man she has been living with, not her husband:

The woman's partner Bruce Laird, of Gore, said the church's view was "archaic".  "I understand this is the year 2014. Modern Christianity is supposed to be about acceptance and understanding."

It is true that the modern world, controlled in almost every respect by secular humanism and evolutionism, believes that times have changed and that standards, rules, the Church, and God must change with them.  This is the unchanging truth of the modern.  The modern world also believes deeply in the ultimacy of one's self-professed identity.  In this case, the woman in question wants cohabit with a man not her husband.  Therefore, Christianity should allow her to do it, because "modern Christianity is supposed to be about acceptance and understanding."  Times have changed, and the Church is naturally an evolving institution, along with the whole cosmos, including God, the Messiah, and, therefore, the Church.

What is plain is that those involved, along with their cheerleaders, neither worship, nor reverence the God Who has revealed Himself in the Scripture.  Their worship is a construct of the modern secular humanist world.  They have reconstructed the Christian religion so that it is remade in the image of evolutionary ideology.  They believe that "the times, they are a-changing".  This is their ironic unchanging truth. Its 2014, not the 1950's.

Their god is a projection of themselves.  Their god is an idol of their own vain imagination.  Their god has been made in their own image.  To put the matter in plain terms, they are idolaters, no matter how much they profess to believe in god.