What would the Bible have to say in addition to all the verses already in the Bible, in precise words, that would make you believe that Jesus was the only way?
Perhaps Mr. McSwain is a good friend of Brian Mclaren and Rob Bell. His postmodernism is showing.
I find it odd that people want to claim the label Christian but then deny all the particularities of Christianity. Wouldn't it be better if they just embraced some form of New Age thought or become a Siek rather than attempt to transform Christianity from what it has always been historically into what they want it to postmodernly?
The Golden Calf in this particular case appears to be the secular culture. The postmodern "Christian" worships the culture and denies the truth of the gospel. To please the culture in all it's politically correct, multicultural, tolerant grandeur Christians are supposed to stop teaching the historical faith, deny Christ as Lord and dress ourselves in the emperor's new wardrobe.
Mr. McSwain isn’t just saying that’s your interpretation he’s asking those that are speaking up about their interpretations, as it relates to Jesus being the only way (among other things), to just shut up. That’s what he wants. He wants certain Christians to simply stop saying things he disagrees with.
He believes he is doing Christianity a service in asking the majority of Christians to stop saying these specific things. You’re welcome to your interpretation, but you mustn’t speak of them. Got it?
I wonder, if Mr. McSwain was asked if he “believed in the Bible” would respond, “I believe in my interpretation of the Bible.” What an odd response for any Christian who believes in Biblical truths.
When we love, what more needs to be said?
The Bible says go and make disciples. But there's no need to get all dogmatic about it.
Pretty soon being a Christian in this "free" country, will be just as hard as being a Christian in other countries. I wonder how many people will renounce their faith once persecution begins in earnest.
Stay strong, everybody, don't let the PC postmdoderns push us around! God bless.
"The Golden Calf in this particular case appears to be the secular culture. The postmodern "Christian" worships the culture and denies the truth of the gospel. To please the culture in all it's politically correct, multicultural, tolerant grandeur Christians are supposed to stop teaching the historical faith,"
Of course you are right to identify these, but these are pretty blatantly obvious. I think that the church's concern should be that of a more subtle forms of wolfs in pious clothing,teaching by example and being encouraged through adulation and admiration. Since our culture has an unhealthy fixation on talent over character, it is easy to push gifted people over the cliff of self worship. There is a kind of imbalance of weight of emphasis being placed on intellect over wisdom and this is usually done through flamboyant display of intellect, thus giving greater emphasis on the intellect in the very act of preaching the importance of wisdom. It is kind of like saying, yeah...wisdom is the most highly prized, but...wink, nod, nod...it isn't really.
"Pretty soon being a Christian in this "free" country"
Good point! It's free if you can afford it.
" I wonder how many people will renounce their faith once persecution begins in earnest."
Good point but your timing is off. Persecution is already going on and it isn't just non-Christians that are guilty of it.
The truth of the matter is that we have a culture where the private sectors decides all the time that some lives are not worthy of life and enact their own Nuremberg laws to exclude certain people from their land of opportunity. The only difference between a capitalist state and a communist one is in who decides that some people can't have anything. In a communist state it is the government, in a capitalist one it is the private sector. The results are the same in both cases. Incentive is destroyed.
I do remember that you oft get around to slamming capitalism. It’s very off topic, but I’ll bite.
The only difference between a capitalist state and a communist state…
What about the political prisoners? Did you forget them? You know, the ones rounded up for speaking out against their oppressors (or as some might like to call them, the governing body)?
What about the ones that are tortured and kept in a ‘gulag’?
What about the ones that are forbidden from leaving their country?
What about the ones that go on hunger strikes and waste away in a horrible conditions?
What about the ones that simply “disappear”?
What about the ones that are taken from their families for the crime of having enough courage to want more freedom for the ones they love?
What about the ones that are lucky enough to be summarily shot?
Should we waste any time thinking about these people?
The results are the same in both cases.
How would the people in the prisons and their families respond to your post about these “results”?
Mr. McSwain, I want you to understand what you are asking me to do, especially regarding #3. Scripture is everything to a believer. It tells us about God, and about the glorious redemption of Christ, and is our rule of faith. Sure interpretations differ about some points, but in some areas the Bible is crystal clear. It is not just this one verse that points to Christ as the only way. There are many others that point to the same thing: Matthew 7:14-15, John 3:36, 1 John 5:12, Matthew 10:33, Acts 4:12, 1 Corinthians 3:11, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Romans 10:9…I could go on, as there are many more. I will be happy to if someone seeks more. At no point does the Bible point to another way. I implore you to try to find it!!!! The Bible is at the core of a Christian’s belief, yet I want you to ask yourself – who is drawing the line in the sand? What you are asking me to do is to say that “I believe Jesus is the way, but if you believe Buddha is the way, that’s cool, too.” My faith does not allow me to say that – the Bible is crystal clear!!! So you are asking me to give up my faith and take on your faith, which appears to be the faith of Pluralism. And you are dogmatically telling me your faith is superior to my faith, and you are seeking to convert me. I have no problem with that, except that that position is clearly hypocritical, because the very thing you are accusing and condemning in me is what you are doing.
This piece seems not to be interested in true scholarship, but in catering to the Huffington Post followers who are tired of Christians being “exclusive.” Just read the comments section, and see all the people who are saying “Amen!” It does not seem to matter what the Bible really says, or what Christians really believe, but instead what seems to matter is that Christians become more “progressive” and “with the times”. Maybe I am wrong, and if so please show me how!
The fact is Christianity is an exclusive religion. It is not subject to reform by progressive ideals. Trying to make it anything other than what it is, is what I would (and I believe correctly) call “proselytizing”. What the followers who are saying “Amen!” would like more than anything is to “convert” Christians from their religion into religious pluralism and progressive ideals. However, the fact is that at that moment the person ceases to be Christian, because what defines the Christian is the faith in Christ! I am not going to say anything about the author’s Christian faith, as I will not pass judgment on it, but I will say the position he is putting forth in this article is decidedly un-Christian.
I know the above may come off as somewhat abrasive, but there really is a wonder and a beauty to Christianity, and not just in the places where you expect it. Where there was no way to salvation due to our own depravity, God the Son humbled Himself, and became a man. He was human in every way we are (yet without sin). I know we like to think highly of ourselves, but when you are God, that is a great humiliation. Then He gave Himself up to the humiliation, pain, and death of the cross – all for us! So where there was no way to salvation God has made a way, and it was a way of humiliation and suffering – all because He loved us. As a Christian, I cling to that way as my only hope.
The Bible says go and make disciples. But there's no need to get all dogmatic about it.
I think that KWM was paraphrasing what McSwain might say...My response to McSwain, then:
Actually, the Scripture makes it clear that we are COMMANDED to be dogmatic in holding to the truths of the Bible. The Bible breaks it down this way:
there is a distinction between "non-essential" and "essential".
the Bible gives clear guidance on the manner of our conduct towards others for both "non-essential" and "essential".
the Bible makes it clear that that which we would call "essential" is known as "sound doctrine", a phrase Paul makes liberal use of.
the Bible further draws an unmistakable correlation between "sound doctrine" and the Gospel.
the Bible's guidance on the Gospel is paramount. there is no quarter given to those who would seek to pervert it. Instead, we are commanded to preach the Gospel in love, gentleness, and truthfulness, regardless of what anyone "feels" about it, and further, for those who are actively, publicly perverting it and preaching a different Gospel (such as McSwain), they are the ones that are to be silenced.
So, I will never stop being dogmatic about the truth of the Gospel and I will never be silent regardless of what McSwain or anyone says; my Master has instilled in me a love for Him too great to ignore His simple commands...
"I do remember that you oft get around to slamming capitalism. It’s very off topic, but I’ll bite.
The only difference between a capitalist state and a communist state…
What about the political prisoners? Did you forget them?"
That is an interesting thing to ask a son of a father who was a political prisoner in the former Yugoslavia on an island called Goli Otok. What do you think? Did I forget them?
" You know, the ones rounded up for speaking out against their oppressors (or as some might like to call them, the governing body)?"
Try speaking up in your workplace against the good old boy's club and see how quickly you will establish an employment record that includes a string of firings, even if you are right. The reason being that the only thing that matter to them is placing their vision of profits and success and how to get their ahead of people even when they get it dead wrong and pay for it later. Try to say something that is politically incorrect in your workplace and see where you go? It is the application of not what you know but who you know that is taken from the Church culture as applied to salvation that has twisted the business model to this kind of behavior. When it comes to god it is who you know, but try to apply that in business and you get nothing but a bunch of incompetents who happen to be some kind of buddies, sometimes from the pub down the street.
"What about the ones that are tortured and kept in a ‘gulag’?"
How about those who haven't yet been born. How many million by now have been sacrificed for the sake of remaining capitalistically successful? Is that better than a gulag?
"What about the ones that are forbidden from leaving their country?"
Strangely enough, I have seen plenty of people from communist countries that have left them working in this one. No one kept my family from leaving.
"What about the ones that go on hunger strikes and waste away in a horrible conditions?"
Why don't you go talk to the prisoners in Guantanamo and tell them to stop their hunger strike?
"What about the ones that simply “disappear”?"
I really don't know why you are complaining about all this, you folks were all to happy to support these alleged atrocity makers when it suited you during WWII. No one heard one thing about 30,000 of my people disappearing into unmarked graves in three killing fields in 1945 and it was your British friends that worked together with the communists to do them in after lying to them that they would protect them. So, don't think you are so high and mighty and beyond reproach. Your country has blood on its hands too. A fact that William Shirer never mentions in his huge documentation of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. That's right, why don't we just cherry pick those things that make us look good and ignore the uglier parts of truth.
"What about the ones that are taken from their families for the crime of having enough courage to want more freedom for the ones they love?"
You might want to take a look at slave auction history where wives and husbands and children and parents had the same thing done to them for the sake of building up capitalism.
Your country is not innocent in the eyes of god in this respect either. It is a good thing that god no longer deals with nations like he did in the old testament or you would have more than just California slipping into the ocean in judgment.
"What about the ones that are lucky enough to be summarily shot?"
I'm sure we can see plenty of examples in the Indian wars where that is exactly what happened. How many tribes were there that don't exist anymore that were killed off for the sake of the American delusion otherwise known as the American dream?
"Should we waste any time thinking about these people?"
If I've missed any, I am not alone in that. I have plenty of company.
"How would the people in the prisons and their families respond to your post about these “results”? "
Changing the goal post seems not only to apply to atheists I see.
Now let's see if you have enough courage to admit the truths I offered as you certainly had enough to challenge my views.
Louis, we have asked you not to bring up capitalism off topic here. It hijacks the whole thread, taking it wildly off topic. If you can't respect that rule, then you will be required to leave this forum. Any further comments on this in this thread will be removed. Thanks.
Mr. McSwain,
What would the Bible have to say in addition to all the verses already in the Bible, in precise words, that would make you believe that Jesus was the only way?
Posted by: KWM | April 10, 2013 at 09:46 AM
Perhaps Mr. McSwain is a good friend of Brian Mclaren and Rob Bell. His postmodernism is showing.
I find it odd that people want to claim the label Christian but then deny all the particularities of Christianity. Wouldn't it be better if they just embraced some form of New Age thought or become a Siek rather than attempt to transform Christianity from what it has always been historically into what they want it to postmodernly?
Posted by: Larry | April 10, 2013 at 11:13 AM
Golden Calf worship appears to be alive and well Larry. We always like the god we make better.
Posted by: WisdomLover | April 10, 2013 at 12:03 PM
You're right WisdomLover, even if the golden calf is our own over inflated ego. There are no great men of god, there is only a great god.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | April 10, 2013 at 03:41 PM
The Golden Calf in this particular case appears to be the secular culture. The postmodern "Christian" worships the culture and denies the truth of the gospel. To please the culture in all it's politically correct, multicultural, tolerant grandeur Christians are supposed to stop teaching the historical faith, deny Christ as Lord and dress ourselves in the emperor's new wardrobe.
Posted by: Larry | April 10, 2013 at 04:24 PM
Just a few more things:
Mr. McSwain isn’t just saying that’s your interpretation he’s asking those that are speaking up about their interpretations, as it relates to Jesus being the only way (among other things), to just shut up. That’s what he wants. He wants certain Christians to simply stop saying things he disagrees with.
He believes he is doing Christianity a service in asking the majority of Christians to stop saying these specific things. You’re welcome to your interpretation, but you mustn’t speak of them. Got it?
I wonder, if Mr. McSwain was asked if he “believed in the Bible” would respond, “I believe in my interpretation of the Bible.” What an odd response for any Christian who believes in Biblical truths.
The Bible says go and make disciples. But there's no need to get all dogmatic about it.
Posted by: KWM | April 10, 2013 at 05:15 PM
This article is screaming for attention and that is exactly what it will get. Too but it doesn't deserve any of it.
Posted by: CoramDeo | April 10, 2013 at 09:27 PM
Too bad*
Posted by: CoramDeo | April 10, 2013 at 09:28 PM
Pretty soon being a Christian in this "free" country, will be just as hard as being a Christian in other countries. I wonder how many people will renounce their faith once persecution begins in earnest.
Stay strong, everybody, don't let the PC postmdoderns push us around! God bless.
Posted by: John | April 10, 2013 at 09:49 PM
Larry
"The Golden Calf in this particular case appears to be the secular culture. The postmodern "Christian" worships the culture and denies the truth of the gospel. To please the culture in all it's politically correct, multicultural, tolerant grandeur Christians are supposed to stop teaching the historical faith,"
Of course you are right to identify these, but these are pretty blatantly obvious. I think that the church's concern should be that of a more subtle forms of wolfs in pious clothing,teaching by example and being encouraged through adulation and admiration. Since our culture has an unhealthy fixation on talent over character, it is easy to push gifted people over the cliff of self worship. There is a kind of imbalance of weight of emphasis being placed on intellect over wisdom and this is usually done through flamboyant display of intellect, thus giving greater emphasis on the intellect in the very act of preaching the importance of wisdom. It is kind of like saying, yeah...wisdom is the most highly prized, but...wink, nod, nod...it isn't really.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | April 11, 2013 at 05:40 AM
John
"Pretty soon being a Christian in this "free" country"
Good point! It's free if you can afford it.
" I wonder how many people will renounce their faith once persecution begins in earnest."
Good point but your timing is off. Persecution is already going on and it isn't just non-Christians that are guilty of it.
The truth of the matter is that we have a culture where the private sectors decides all the time that some lives are not worthy of life and enact their own Nuremberg laws to exclude certain people from their land of opportunity. The only difference between a capitalist state and a communist one is in who decides that some people can't have anything. In a communist state it is the government, in a capitalist one it is the private sector. The results are the same in both cases. Incentive is destroyed.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | April 11, 2013 at 06:20 AM
Louis,
I do remember that you oft get around to slamming capitalism. It’s very off topic, but I’ll bite.
What about the political prisoners? Did you forget them? You know, the ones rounded up for speaking out against their oppressors (or as some might like to call them, the governing body)?
What about the ones that are tortured and kept in a ‘gulag’?
What about the ones that are forbidden from leaving their country?
What about the ones that go on hunger strikes and waste away in a horrible conditions?
What about the ones that simply “disappear”?
What about the ones that are taken from their families for the crime of having enough courage to want more freedom for the ones they love?
What about the ones that are lucky enough to be summarily shot?
Should we waste any time thinking about these people?
How would the people in the prisons and their families respond to your post about these “results”?
Posted by: KWM | April 11, 2013 at 07:39 AM
Mr. McSwain, I want you to understand what you are asking me to do, especially regarding #3. Scripture is everything to a believer. It tells us about God, and about the glorious redemption of Christ, and is our rule of faith. Sure interpretations differ about some points, but in some areas the Bible is crystal clear. It is not just this one verse that points to Christ as the only way. There are many others that point to the same thing: Matthew 7:14-15, John 3:36, 1 John 5:12, Matthew 10:33, Acts 4:12, 1 Corinthians 3:11, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Romans 10:9…I could go on, as there are many more. I will be happy to if someone seeks more. At no point does the Bible point to another way. I implore you to try to find it!!!! The Bible is at the core of a Christian’s belief, yet I want you to ask yourself – who is drawing the line in the sand? What you are asking me to do is to say that “I believe Jesus is the way, but if you believe Buddha is the way, that’s cool, too.” My faith does not allow me to say that – the Bible is crystal clear!!! So you are asking me to give up my faith and take on your faith, which appears to be the faith of Pluralism. And you are dogmatically telling me your faith is superior to my faith, and you are seeking to convert me. I have no problem with that, except that that position is clearly hypocritical, because the very thing you are accusing and condemning in me is what you are doing.
This piece seems not to be interested in true scholarship, but in catering to the Huffington Post followers who are tired of Christians being “exclusive.” Just read the comments section, and see all the people who are saying “Amen!” It does not seem to matter what the Bible really says, or what Christians really believe, but instead what seems to matter is that Christians become more “progressive” and “with the times”. Maybe I am wrong, and if so please show me how!
The fact is Christianity is an exclusive religion. It is not subject to reform by progressive ideals. Trying to make it anything other than what it is, is what I would (and I believe correctly) call “proselytizing”. What the followers who are saying “Amen!” would like more than anything is to “convert” Christians from their religion into religious pluralism and progressive ideals. However, the fact is that at that moment the person ceases to be Christian, because what defines the Christian is the faith in Christ! I am not going to say anything about the author’s Christian faith, as I will not pass judgment on it, but I will say the position he is putting forth in this article is decidedly un-Christian.
I know the above may come off as somewhat abrasive, but there really is a wonder and a beauty to Christianity, and not just in the places where you expect it. Where there was no way to salvation due to our own depravity, God the Son humbled Himself, and became a man. He was human in every way we are (yet without sin). I know we like to think highly of ourselves, but when you are God, that is a great humiliation. Then He gave Himself up to the humiliation, pain, and death of the cross – all for us! So where there was no way to salvation God has made a way, and it was a way of humiliation and suffering – all because He loved us. As a Christian, I cling to that way as my only hope.
Posted by: Steve | April 11, 2013 at 08:57 AM
I think that KWM was paraphrasing what McSwain might say...My response to McSwain, then:
Actually, the Scripture makes it clear that we are COMMANDED to be dogmatic in holding to the truths of the Bible. The Bible breaks it down this way:
So, I will never stop being dogmatic about the truth of the Gospel and I will never be silent regardless of what McSwain or anyone says; my Master has instilled in me a love for Him too great to ignore His simple commands...
Posted by: g | April 11, 2013 at 11:53 AM
KWM
"I do remember that you oft get around to slamming capitalism. It’s very off topic, but I’ll bite.
The only difference between a capitalist state and a communist state…
What about the political prisoners? Did you forget them?"
That is an interesting thing to ask a son of a father who was a political prisoner in the former Yugoslavia on an island called Goli Otok. What do you think? Did I forget them?
" You know, the ones rounded up for speaking out against their oppressors (or as some might like to call them, the governing body)?"
Try speaking up in your workplace against the good old boy's club and see how quickly you will establish an employment record that includes a string of firings, even if you are right. The reason being that the only thing that matter to them is placing their vision of profits and success and how to get their ahead of people even when they get it dead wrong and pay for it later. Try to say something that is politically incorrect in your workplace and see where you go? It is the application of not what you know but who you know that is taken from the Church culture as applied to salvation that has twisted the business model to this kind of behavior. When it comes to god it is who you know, but try to apply that in business and you get nothing but a bunch of incompetents who happen to be some kind of buddies, sometimes from the pub down the street.
"What about the ones that are tortured and kept in a ‘gulag’?"
How about those who haven't yet been born. How many million by now have been sacrificed for the sake of remaining capitalistically successful? Is that better than a gulag?
"What about the ones that are forbidden from leaving their country?"
Strangely enough, I have seen plenty of people from communist countries that have left them working in this one. No one kept my family from leaving.
"What about the ones that go on hunger strikes and waste away in a horrible conditions?"
Why don't you go talk to the prisoners in Guantanamo and tell them to stop their hunger strike?
"What about the ones that simply “disappear”?"
I really don't know why you are complaining about all this, you folks were all to happy to support these alleged atrocity makers when it suited you during WWII. No one heard one thing about 30,000 of my people disappearing into unmarked graves in three killing fields in 1945 and it was your British friends that worked together with the communists to do them in after lying to them that they would protect them. So, don't think you are so high and mighty and beyond reproach. Your country has blood on its hands too. A fact that William Shirer never mentions in his huge documentation of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. That's right, why don't we just cherry pick those things that make us look good and ignore the uglier parts of truth.
"What about the ones that are taken from their families for the crime of having enough courage to want more freedom for the ones they love?"
You might want to take a look at slave auction history where wives and husbands and children and parents had the same thing done to them for the sake of building up capitalism.
Your country is not innocent in the eyes of god in this respect either. It is a good thing that god no longer deals with nations like he did in the old testament or you would have more than just California slipping into the ocean in judgment.
"What about the ones that are lucky enough to be summarily shot?"
I'm sure we can see plenty of examples in the Indian wars where that is exactly what happened. How many tribes were there that don't exist anymore that were killed off for the sake of the American delusion otherwise known as the American dream?
"Should we waste any time thinking about these people?"
If I've missed any, I am not alone in that. I have plenty of company.
"How would the people in the prisons and their families respond to your post about these “results”? "
Changing the goal post seems not only to apply to atheists I see.
Now let's see if you have enough courage to admit the truths I offered as you certainly had enough to challenge my views.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | April 11, 2013 at 12:01 PM
Louis, we have asked you not to bring up capitalism off topic here. It hijacks the whole thread, taking it wildly off topic. If you can't respect that rule, then you will be required to leave this forum. Any further comments on this in this thread will be removed. Thanks.
Posted by: Amy | April 11, 2013 at 02:30 PM