OK, so I just read an article on a conservative Christian website entitled "Another Gospel." It was about how the devil is a counterfeiter and tells you how to spot "Satan's False Gospel." The following is an exerpt:
The gospel of Satan is not a system of revolutionary principles, nor yet a program of anarchy. It does not promote strife and war, but aims at peace and unity. It seeks not to set the mother against her daughter nor the father against his son, but fosters the fraternal spirit whereby the human race is regarded as one great 'brotherhood.' It does not seek to drag down the natural man, but to improve and uplift him. It advocates education and cultivation and appeals to 'the best that is within us.' It aims to make this world such a comfortable and congenial habitat that Christ's absence from it will not be felt and God will not be needed. It endeavors to occupy man so much with this world that he has no time or inclination to think of the world to come. It propagates the principles of self-sacrifice, charity and benevolence, and teaches us to live for the good of others, and to be kind to all.
Well, if that's the gospel of Satan, it sounds pretty good to me (except for the not needing God part). What is sad to me is that this article was published at a website with views that are very much similar to those I was taught growing up in church. No wonder people can't stand Christians. If this is our thinking, WE ARE THE PROBLEM, not everybody else.
You can check out the website here.
Keep it real,
Ben
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- Trying to get back into this blogging thing.
3 comments:
is this really the context of the article? does it go on somewhere to say that "even though all these things are good, it's pointless without God in the center." it's gotta... somewhere...
there's that old cliche' "satan's biggest lie is that he doesn't exist." or something like that.
and i think if the enemy wanted us to forget God, then yeah, he would use the tactics from this article. whatever it takes to get our minds off our God. that's how i see my enemy.
No, he never goes on to say "these things are good." The author is Arthur W. Pink, a famous evangelist from the first half of the century.
He was strongly Reformed in his theology and harped on the depravity of man (like most other reformers).
What follows is a high view of God (good) and a terriblly low view of man (bad). The contempt he and other reformed theologians show for the efforts of unbelievers to promote peace, charity, and kindness (all highly biblical) is just rude and arrogant.
When this is how you view man, it makes you considerably less peaceful, charitable, and kind. It's no wonder when we look at the time this thinking flourished (the Reformation) we see terrible bloodshed amongst different types of Christians. Catholics killing Lutherans, Lutherans killing Calvinists, everybody killing the Anabaptists, etc.
What we believe is important. Let's just make sure we don't exalt theological positions that do more harm than good.
"It propagates the principles of self-sacrifice, charity and benevolence, and teaches us to live for the good of others, and to be kind to all."
sounds like the Good News to me.
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