Thoughts on “Hell House:” An Evangelicalism Eager To Leave
November 3, 2008 by iMonk
I just completed watching the documentary Hell House with a group of my advanced Bible students. It’s giving us an opportunity to ask and discuss important issues about our own experiences of Christian evangelism. Several students have participated in Hell Houses, while others find it to be offensive and disturbing.
If you don’t know what a Hell House is, you might read this review of the film, which is much better than the wikipedia entry.
Hell House shows evangelicals at their most honest: We live in a world filled with demonic forces seeking to overwhelm us in a sea of despair, violence, destructive sexuality, abuse, divorce, homosexuality, AIDS and suicide. And it shows evangelicals at their most purpose-driven: Save people from hell by doing anything you can to get them to pray a prayer that indicates they have “accepted Jesus as their personal savior.” Anything including an amusement park quality haunted house depicting all the evils listed above in graphic, emotion-shaking live theater.
This is the evangelicalism of my youth ramped up with the capabilities and priorities of today’s evangelicalism. Preachers would scare you with stories of car wrecks, tragedies and sudden death. Satan was outside the walls of the church working full time to suck you into this world of sin. Hell was never far away, and only a few would make the right choice.
Such an understanding of Christianity is a dramatic story that lends itself well to presentations like Hell House and its more sophisticated progeny.
Thousands line up for this show. Many are evangelical Christians themselves, but many of them will be in the prayer rooms praying the prayer to “really” accept Christ. One character in the documentary has been working on Hell House as an adult volunteer for years. He’s a committed Christian, but at one point he goes on the Hell House tour like everyone else, and there he is in the prayer room.
Some of those attending Hell House are the mirror images of the very people portrayed in the dramas: stoners, atheists, gays, alienated rebels, liberals. One Catholic young man found himself torn between two sides in a post-tour discussion. He agreed with the basic outline of what Hell House was doing, but this was not his world either.
Hell House lets these evangelicals- Pentecostals actually- talk for themselves. A theologically sensitive person will wince more than once. A Biblically literate person will be shaking his/her head often. A person with reservations about what we do to young people and children may get angry.
Hell House features a number of interviews. They emphasize the sincerity of the participants and the power of the experience on those who take part in it.
But a person cannot watch Hell House without seeing a bleak, pessimistic and ultimately apocalyptically distorted vision of Christianity. This is a community of believers who are shaped almost entirely by the manipulative authoritarian spirituality of pastors who seem to have never heard of the doctrine of creation, the Kingdom of God, the present Lordship of Jesus or the church as the living body of Christ. This is a vision of evangelicalism that is loading a plane for escape from this world as quickly as possible.
The rapture and a strange rejoicing in the demise of the world into darkness loom over Hell House. A few souls will be snatched from the fires, and the church will bear witness to the truth in the waning years of the last days. But ultimately, the world is a lost cause and the church is a lifeboat operation.
There are various ways to live out this vision, and not every community of evangelicals would express their vision in the same way as the community observed in Hell House. But it is not hard to see that many would judge this kind of community the bitter leftovers of the Reformation. A church marginalized. A theology gutted by ignorance. Worship and mission methodology dictated by entertainment and pragmatism. The culture war dominating the agenda, with the Gospel reduced to the purchase of a ticket to escape the coming apocalypse.
This is a church that has openly made itself little more than a rescue operation for the rapture. If you look for the Christian tradition, the optimism to create, the foundation on which to build life, family, vocation and mission, you will find little of help.
Hell House has over 15,000 “decisions” for Jesus as of when the film was made. I suspect that, while some may begin a genuine walk with Christ in a Hell House or similar program, most of those decisions are invisible, redundant or non-existent.
The evangelicalism represented in Hell House would be disappointed if the rapture doesn’t happen soon, because they are clearly not counting on being here long.
Amen, amen, and amen. Thanks so much for this. It’s articles like this that give Canadians like me some hope for our American brothers and sisters. Keep fighting man, you’re a real inspiration.
Two years ago, the online comic Something Positive did a takeoff on Hell Houses.
The story arc starts here (10/4/2006) and continues for the next eight strips (until 10/19/2006).
I have not seen the film, so I can only comment from a distance, as it were.
The view of salvation portrayed in the summaries is the one with which the Orthodox most disagree. Living in the South, I can verify that “once saved always saved” means that the moment of commitment justifies any means used to get someone to that moment among some. [Note, not all, just some.]
Once you philosophically hold that if you can only get a person to commit then God has no choice but to ensure their salvation, it does not take long to conclude that the only really important point in the Christian life is the moment of “crisis” in which you “choose” God. [Anything you do after that will not affect your salvation, it will only affect your rewards.]
The problem with the methods used in a “Hell House” type of setting is that they happen to ignore Scriptures such as Matthew 25 and the Book of James (which Luther hated) and which appear to say that the basis of judgment will not be just personal commitment, but also personal behavior.
Jean Calvin insisted, wisely, on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Because of his doctrine of election, this was a proof of God’s sovereignty. But, even he had to admit that if there were no behavior consonant with salvation, then there probably would be no salvation. The Orthodox, like the original Methodists, would say that no behavior means you could lose your salvation. Either way, both Calvin and Wesley agree that behavior has a strong part in salvation.
Both the original Methodists and the Orthodox are so strong on things like discipleship (in the case of the Methodists) and fasting and prayer (in the case of the Orthodox) because we believe that what you do with your Christian life has eternal consequences beyond affecting your rewards. This does not mean that God will condemn the imperfect, for then no one would be saved, but rather that God does expect some practical commitment and effort in living out the Christian life. And, if that commitment and effort are not there, then, yes, you may very well be in eternal danger.
The Orthodox do not tend to argue about how little is needed in order to be considered a Christian, or to be saved. With our view of salvation that would be to argue about how close may I get to the fires before I am burned. To us that is such a slippery slope that even holding that attitude (of seeing how close I may get) might be just enough to tip you into the wrong lake.
Going with what Fr. Ernesto is saying, I’ve always been amazed at some denominations’ insistence on the conversion experience as an explicitly emotional one – it goes hand-in-hand with the idea that conversion to Christ is supposed to shatter the old self so you can put on a new one, but functionally, it just means that, to them, evangelism means trying to break people down. Hell Houses seem like a pretty aggressive, wearying tactic to try and get people to believe in God. Its an aesthetic you find all over American Christianity – from the shmaltzy “intensely personal” worship music to Left Behind. I don’t want to just bash Pentacostalism for being shallow and bankrupt of human insight, but I can’t think of any other way to end this comment…
“I don’t want to just bash Pentacostalism for being shallow and bankrupt of human insight, but I can’t think of any other way to end this comment…”
And yet you do…because no other denomination behaves this way or believes in The Conversion Moment. Ever seen the footage of the Baptist preacher standing in the bed of his truck screaming obscenities at people passing by in a mall parking lot? He calls it witnessing/preaching the Gospel. It’s really fun when his 8 or ten year old son starts doing it. Shall we discuss the group in Kansas that loves protesting at soldiers funerals because every soldier who dies is JUDGEMENT FROM GOD FOR GAYS!!!! (emphasis theirs)
Please.
Having been knee deep in Pentecostalism since I was saved, that would be 18 years, I feel confident to say that I have never encountered a Pentecostal church who embraced the Once Saved-Always Saved mentality. The Pentecostal revival/movement grew out of the Methodist “Holiness” movement of the late 1800’s-early 1900’s. The movement stressed not just conversion but showing works “worthy” of repentance. The fact that this quickly devolved into things not at all or scarcely covered by the Bible doesn’t render this untrue. While I am certain that there are Pentecostal churches who do believe the prayer is all that matters the majority that I am aware of do NOT.
Most believe that a repentant lifestyle is the key. Say a prayer all you want but if you’re not “living the life” you’re probably not saved. And yes, they do believe that coming to Christ breaks the power of sin over the believer and that you need to put off the old and put on the new or “shatter the old self so you can put on a new one” if you prefer. If someone could explain to me how that is not Biblical, I would appreciate it.
I will grant that when it comes to the process of becoming new, most of the churches I have been involved with fall dreadfully short on any real help to accomplish this. The advice usually amounts to: read the Bible, pray more, follow the list of do’s and don’ts (no, we don’t write them down anywhere), we’ll pray for you and , of course, quoting some applicable (or not so much) Bible verse as sort of an incantation to make you a better person. To be fair, however, this seems to be the American Church’s general concept of discipleship so I wouldn’t call Pentecostals out specifically on it.
DD
Dave is correct. Pentecostals believe that salvation can be lost and regained over and over. Of course many Baptists do this sort of thing, and they do believe in some form of OSAS. I have written elsewhere on this blog that Baptists aren’t confessionally tied to that language, but tend to believe that doctrine at the popular level.
I do commend the church in the documentary for their desire to evangelize and their commitment to evangelism. I did not “spoil” some of the film by describing the actual invitation portion, but it’s pretty high pressure. The sad fact is that this kind of church is so devoted to pragmatism that theology matters little in comparison to “what works,” and in that arena, the culture prevails.
This idea of “Hell House” reminds me of a play called “Heavens Gates and Hells Flames”. I not sure if any remember it well, I waited in line to read parts to be selected to act in it on a couple of occaisions. It was a shock and awe form of presenting the need of a Savior.
As of today I would not be involved with such as “Heavens Gates and Hells Flames”, for it is solely basis’s its outcome of non-believers, backsliders, and others on their emotion of needing a Savior. There is no real explantion of the Kindgom of God, or even the topic of Christ Lordship in our lives. Be that as it may, I remember getting my uncle to come see the play, at the end he came foward, I was stoked. But after those moments passed he was living in the same manner as before, there was no real change. I know someone will say why did you not teach hims such prinicples, my response, at the time I did not know what I know now. So in my personal life it is not so succesful.
Hear me, I am not discounting what the Holy Spirit can do, but the Apostle Paul used logic and reason to present the Gospel, not to mention Christ Himself did like wise. So the question is raised in me, why are we tring to re-invent the wheel in how we ought to present the Gospel.
I like to add I look forward to watching this documentry.
Be Blessed in Our Lord, peace
Mike
Where did you get the video of Hell House? I don’t know where to buy it.
Amazon.com
I look forward to seeing this. It seems pretty honest, compared to some recent documentaries like Jesus Camp, which I find to be a smear job on all of Christianity.
I struggle with this issue because I do like the spooky bits of our religion: the dance of death, passion plays, the ossuaries, charnel houses, crypt chapels, skulls, cemeteries, gargoyles, relics, the four last things, etc… I think I would like Hell Houses, too, although there aren’t many in Canada. I’m not too picky about denominations when it comes to special events like this – I take the good and leave the bad. One of the best Passion Plays I’ve ever seen was at a Pentecostal church, complete with dozens of people making decisions for Jesus at the end.
When I was younger, I watched a play at an AG church where people died and sometimes Jesus would come out as the “walked down the aisle” to judgment and sometimes the devil would come out. The play scared me to death and I prayed for years after that the devil would stay far away from me. I wasn’t really afraid of hell, I was just afraid of Satan. I was afraid that he was going to come into my ten year old room and scare me.
These plays don’t teach about Jesus, they teach fear.
I wonder if the movie is creating a similar thing.
Michael,
Like baregoofy I too was reminded of “Heaven’s gates and hell’ flames”. Not surprisingly, I saw it at a Pentecostal church. My best friend went, invited by another friend. He went forward, then shook it off the next day as being an emotional reaction to what he was hearing.
I do want to take issue with your comment that “Pentecostals believe that salvation can be lost and regained over and over.” In the years that I have been involved with Pentecostal churches I have never heard this. That is not to say that it is not out there, it just has not been my experience. I do remember having an extensive conversation about this topic with a Pentecostal Pastor in which I heard just the opposite.
He quoted from 2 Peter 2:20-21 and Hebrews 6:4-6
“If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them… It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
He is pointed out to me that yes they believed that genuine Christians could fall away from the faith and have a fate worse than if they had never “known the way of righteousness.” But, he concluded, the verses also speak of how hard it is to come back to repentance. “Impossible” as the Hebrews text states. He noted that all things are possible with God, so that it was “possible” to be saved, lost, and then saved again, but in his opinion to see it as a repetitive cycle just did not happen.
Mike Bell
I’ll resist the urge to post a bunch of theses explaining myself and just apologize. I didn’t intend to come off as dismissive of Pentecostalism as a whole. Sorry if I hit a sore spot, DaveD.
I share the reservations expressed by many here that using emotional means to get people to “say the prayer” falls somewhat short of the ideal, but there is this persistent nagging in the back of my mind:
If you see someone walking towards a cliff, oblivious of the danger of walking off it and falling into the abyss, would you not be justified in using ANY means to get them to stop and look?
And is the reluctance we have of using the more obvious and garish ways of making people pay attention a sign that we are either not really convinced that they are heading for destruction, or else that we don’t really care?
For those with Netflix (or know a friend with it), the movie is available for instant viewing.
To me, the “Wretched Urgency” of Hell Houses are bad enough with the heavy-handed, high-pressured salvation issues (7 seconds to profess Christ?!?) — the idea of selling eternal life without God as a night of entertainment is something that just seems wrong.
Like others, I was sometimes touched by the documentary — the now-single father clearly still reeling from his ex-wife’s affair (and the attempts to be very involved in his children’s lives), plus the young woman who came to forgive her rapist after seeing him in the crowd are both reminders of what true faith is. They may have been part of an embarrassing attempt to scare people straight, but both of those examples show more of Christ than all of those Jack Chick-like scenarios that surround them.
Mike Bell:
All the Pentecostals I know- and I know a lot, all over Ky- are Arminian. And most of them would follow without question the theological template that one can sin away salvation (though exactly how is a bit murky.). I think the approach to re-baptism may vary, but almost every Pentecostal invitation I’ve ever heard spoke directly to those who were once saved and now were lost.
If there are Pentecostals who are more reformation leaning in their view of salvation and sanctification, that would be a reason for rejoicing.
One of the reasons we only use a public invitation two times a year at our ministry is that the students from Pentecostal backgrounds want to get re-saved constantly.
But I don’t want to speak too generally, and I’d be happy to be corrected or at least have my experience supplemented.
peace
MS
iMonk,
I would personally argue that much of the experience around constant re-commitments, which I have seen (or heard of) in both “cannot lose” and “can lose” communities has more to do with lack of discipleship than it does with the theology espoused.
When one is attempting to follow the Lord, one becomes much more sensitive to personal sins and lacks in their life. If one has not been taught how to work through those sins and lacks so as to become more Christ-like, then one begins to suffer an internal tension that can lead to a crisis. That internal tension can either lead to severe doubts about one’s personal salvation or–in some cases–even to giving up the fight and dropping out of Christianity. Mind you, some people even learn to slowly ignore that troubling inner voice, become somewhat seared, and drop into a nominalism which we can find in our pews on any given Sunday morning.
Where there is good discipleship, where there is a community that provides guidance as to Christian values, behavior and growth-in-Christ, where there is a community that warns people about the difficult moments–the dark nights of the soul–, there is much less tendency towards recommitments, etc.
Wolf Paul, I think if people think they are walking towards a night of drinking, and you manage to convince them in one overpowering emotional moment that they are really on the way to the Lake of Fire, you’re going to have a credibility problem if their friends drag them out the next weekend and they have a decent time.
And Christianity has to be credibly spoken. I told my dad about Hell Houses and his first response was, “They can’t be serious…” To my mind, its almost a crime we’ve gotten this far removed from being able to converse bravely with non-Christians, to use cultural props like this. When people quote the verse to me about being ashamed of the Gospel, I think about the props the stage shows, and all the little conversation-steerers and conversion scripts and “real” Christians that sound like Amway-robots when they ‘put on the armor of God’ and go out to evangelize. That’s not confidence. People are scared when they preach that way, because they have no idea if the Good News is credible with other people. That’s not, in my opinion, digested, lived faith, which is, in my opinion, the only thing that convinces people that a persevering faith in Christ is ultimately possible.
I belie my youth here, but I don’t really buy into the “slippery slope” argument in support of coercive conversions. I just don’t see how the person of Jesus could have ever supported a gimmick or a tactic used in His name if he were alive. The emotional duress a lot of these ‘confessions of faith’ take place in would never stand up in court; with so many bewildered people second-guessing themselves about whether their conversion was “real”, I’d venture to say that the theology doesn’t stand up to human nature. And if not, it’s not edifying or coherent, no matter how much we talk about the surpassing Mercy of God. Far from not-caring, I think being uncomfortable with confrontational is evidence that we care a lot about what professing faith means, and the concept of ‘putting notches on our Bibles’ (and lying about how many notches you’ve got to brag that your ministry is oh-so-successful to those around you) is offensive to the part of us that cares about souls..
Having said that, I bet half the people on this thread could rip my observations apart with both verse and personal testimonies…
Are not many of the New Testament books written assuming the rapture would be coming soon?
Patrick Lynch
1Ti 4:12 You hit it. I know WWJD got over played, but is is our ONLY valid yardstick. Would Jesus approve? Maybe half the people on this thread could rip you, so what? You GET IT. IT IS ALL ABOUT JESUS.
Fr. Ernesto
Words of wisdom. I was working in an urban church with a seminarian Youth Pastor for a few months. He was tall and handsome and well spoken and the teens adored him, the girls all the more so, and he was their role model for months. He taught bible and youth class in a rough area. When one Monday he “confessed” that he had “not been saved” until Sunday’s evangelist convicted him, the teens became horribly confused. They were trying to be like this young man thinking that was a godly ideal and the bar got raised. Somebody moved their cheese.
If that bible college only had Fr. Ernesto’s wisdom, or a little less emotionalism, that fine young man would have been a much better witness.
This Hell House stuff is well intended nonsense. Why do we all feel the Spirit need so much help from our oratory, salesmanship, singing,etc.
Bill, I really wonder about that claim. This isn’t scholarship, but I think makes sense to imagine that the apostles weren’t stupid: there were twelve of them, and they spent their post-Resurrection lives starting churches in distant places and facing persecution and eventually martyrdom trying to get everybody, Jew and Gentile, to hear the Gospel. How many consecutive days of ministry do you think it takes to understand that you’re not going to be able to talk to everybody…
I tend to think they realized way early that the faith was supposed to outlive them and everybody they told, and the ‘apocalyptic urgency’ motif is just that – a motif, a teaching tool, and a way to bond and reassure their community in tough times.
Just a thought.
When I was a kid they liked to scare young people with a film called, “A Thief In The Night.” We also had a youth pastor who liked to get us in youth group and accuse us of all kinds of stuff I certainly would have never thought up on my own. The pastor of the church was Book of Revelations every Sunday where he would bawl and weep that we were all going to get left there when the rapture happened. The end result of this for me was that I believed God was just a mean old man looking for a reason to send me to hell. I thought, “If I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t, I’m gonna,” and I did. A lot. Every chance I got. The idea that God loved me was a truly alien concept to me, and honestly I still struggle with that misperception of God.
Then, when my son was growing up and they were trying to scare the kids with that rapture stuff. I told him that the rapture was nothing to fear. It was like when he was little and I’d leave him at daycare. If he was doing something wrong at the moment I arrived to take him home, I didn’t leave him there. He’s my son. I love him. It’s the same with Jesus. He’s left us here for awhile, but he’s coming to take us home. It doesn’t matter if we’re being perfect right when it happens as long as we’re his.
For the record, I don’t believe in OSAS, and I’m sorry to say that at this time I do not believe my son is saved. I pray every day that he will find his way home again.
First, the whole Hell House shtick and all of that pressure may be just what is called for and I would not presume to question anyone who has found Christ in this way.
I do question and will always question those who believe that we can add one single iota to the finished work of the cross.
Either His work is sufficient or not.
How is our behaviour after conversion adding to what He has already done?
for that matter how can what we do afterwards be worse than what has gone on before?
Is God not eternal? Outside of time?
We can talk forever about whether one’s behaviour indicates true redemption or not (only god knows for sure) but if you are saved by the blood you are saved by the blood. It’s power is more than sufficient.
I passed one of these Hell Houses at a local S. Baptist church this year. I thought wouldn’t be awesome if a church in town just put on the best freaking haunted house in the area. Not the hell house kind but just a haunted house that scared the fool out of the kids. They could charge and raise money for missions. I am willing to bet they would have a ton of kids from outside the church be interested in what is going on at that church and want to get involved with working with it year after year.
Rob, do you really think it’s called for?
Can you not imagine anything Else that might be called for instead?
Let me use an outlandish example.
“Not everybody who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom.”
Okay, lets say you don’t connect the serious meaning of that particular verse (Matthew 7:21 – Google it, baby) with any possible ramifications it might have to your “Candy Canes for Jesus” ministry – which, around Christmastime, happens to be VERY VERY SUCCESSFUL.
Can you see any other reasons why running a Candy Cane ministry year-round might not be a good idea?
Don’t Christians have a responsibility to, if only for the Love of our God, make sense to people?
“Don’t Christians have a responsibility to, if only for the Love of our God, make sense to people?”
Patrick has a real point here.
I think we, as Christians, have a responsability to do whatever it takes, without sinning, to reach the lost. If it takes a Saw-like “horror/passion-play” to get people to stop and reflect on their eternal destinies…so be it. However, if after they are reflecting and the Holy Spirit and their consciences are convicting them, we tell them just say this prayer and all is good…we’ve failed them.
We have a duty to explain to them why their deeds constitute sin, what the final end of sin is, and the only means to escape. We must also teach them that “believing in Jesus” is not just a confession, but a lifestyle. “Bring forth fruits meet for repentance”, etc. (Titus 1:16, 2:7, 3:14; Heb 10:24; James 2; 2 Cor 11:15 etc.)
I think evangelicalism in general has come to lean too much on the Conversion Moment/Prayer as the be-all end-all of Salvation. Deeds don’t matter for any number of reasons; they all have a verse. This is why less than 10% of all “decisions” are nowhere to be found a year later.
DD
Don’t misunderstand me, Patrick.
I agree wholeheartedly that the Hell House business and candy canes for Jesus and church camp conversions tend to trivialize a very serious matter.
I don’t presume to judge other’s hearts. I know many who have found
Christ in ridiculous places and gone on to live mature and fruitful lives.
I have also know serious people of faith who have fallen away and seem to be living lives of dissolution.
My complaint is that we can add anything to the finished Work.
Michael,
Thanks for the further info vis-a-vis Pentecostals.
I think I will do a little more research as to the regional variations.
Mike Bell.
My thing is, it doesn’t take a Saw-like horror play to get people to understand Jesus. It NEVER takes that kind of thing. Why do we think this???
People see how Christians act, and they know what we don’t want to admit: we don’t know how to act.
We talk this rhetoric, we got this music, we put on these shows and whatnot, but no matter how much we mean what we say, we don’t really do what we say – and LOTS of people think that our whole religion is just people thanking GOD that we don’t EVER need to do what we say, because Christ is sufficient.
Hell Houses are not real life. Theologies that connect the dots for things that only happen in church are not real life. All those other precious sensibilities about what is and isn’t ‘Godly’? When, as a community, we live the way we really do, NOBODY can take that seriously for too long. Christianity is either about real-life or it isn’t. It’s either a religious fantasy and is best understood in the context of Hell Houses, or it’s an ethical truth and therefore only makes sense in the street. It can’t be both ways.
The very IDEA that we could believe that we’ll do “what it takes” to create some spectacle on behalf of Jesus is evidence that we’d probably rather do anything than shut up and imitate the guy. People notice, and they don’t believe in us. And if they can’t believe that Christians know the God they’re talking about, they’re not going to trust Christians. So far, this attitude is paying off for the world pretty well.
People who are not Christians sense that we are not an example of our beliefs, but are in fact, a group of people who like to study our way to reassurance. Our leaders are guys like Benny Hinn and Cardinal Law and Ted Haggard? This is no problem, because we Believe in the Bible. No integrity? No problem! We exegete our virtues into existence. The Bible identifies people like us as tepid, faithless, and foolish? We’re Fools For Christ! We’re covered – see? That’s also in the book.
And so on.
I’ve had that argument like 60,000 times, and I’m tired of being looked at like an idiot because I say Christ and people think ‘Saw IV’ and videos on YouTube with little babies “preaching” into a microphone in front of all these clapping people.
Hell Houses are frightening. If the apostles went out and performed signs and wonders inspired by the Holy Spirit, and you build a haunted house to scare kids into praying – you’re not doing the same job. Only a True Christian could misunderstand that.
Be a fool for Christ all you want, but you need to be punched in the throat if you make Jesus look stupid.
.rant over.
(yeah, I know, get a blog.)
Senor Lynch.
Amen!
Preach on brother Lynch! The end, no matter how noble, will never justify the means.
There is no rapture. Sorry. There is a second coming, and Jesus said no man knows when.
“I do question and will always question those who believe that we can add one single iota to the finished work of the cross.”
Well, I guess that means St. Paul is in deep trouble. Colossians 1:24-25 says, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God. . .”
Yes, I know that there are alternative ways to explain this verse. However, I would point out that there are many verses which speak of our part in salvation, such as “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” and, “faith without works is dead,” and the verses I cited earlier in this post from Matthew 25, etc. These verses cannot simply be explained by an appeal to a philosophical argument about God being in eternity.
To say that we are expected to live a life of commitment and holiness under pain of losing our salvation does not negate the sufficiency or the efficacy of the Cross. No Orthodox would deny that we are with the Lord only by His grace, nor would we deny that we enter in only as a free gift. Our emphasis on the sacraments and the Liturgy is the open recognition that without His active and continual help we cannot keep out commitment to holiness. He is, indeed, all and in all and through all.
But, we deny that it is possible to enter in by living a life without effort, except in the rare instance of the person who accepts the Lord right before their death, as some martyrs did, and as the thief on the Cross did. The person who accepts the Lord and relies only on that and lives a life without a serious effort on holiness makes a serious, and potentially fatal, mistake.
There is a difference between the Christian who is struggling, even if they are falling continually, such as an alcoholic, and a person who is not even struggling. One shows the life that is in them while the other shows only the dead “faith” that is in them. I can say that because, indeed, the promises of God toward those who are seeking to follow Him is that He will not lose them. You will have to look hard in Scripture to find any promise to anyone who is not seeking to follow Him, yet claims to be His.
Sorry I think these horror turn or burn films do way more harm than good. There’s better reasons to follow Him than just fire insurance.
Fr. Ernesto,
I am in no way in your league so I find myself feeling deeply embarrassed to even be discussing this with you.
I would say the the person who accepts Christ and makes no serious effort at holiness was never saved in the first place.
The other citations you make I would say refer to our sanctification and maturing in Him.
Having said that the point is moot if we seek Him and His will in our lives.
Please excuse me for being obstinate and obtuse but my overwhelming belief that informs all others is the utter and complete sufficiency of Christ.
I believe the entire bible is God’s message to us of our complete and total inability to add or subtract anything from that sufficiency.
The life we now live is a substitutionary life. The life of Christ in which He has imparted His holiness to me by joining His Spirit with mine.
How can I add to that?
I may demonstrate it. But add? No.
“on 04 Nov 2008 at 12:44 pm iMonk
There is no rapture. Sorry. There is a second coming, and Jesus said no man knows when.”
Dang it!
Now I’ll have to pay all those bills!
Thank you Fr. Erensto for the truth of your first comment, “Where there is good discipleship, where there is a community that provides guidance as to Christian values, behavior and growth-in-Christ, where there is a community that warns people about the difficult moments–the dark nights of the soul–, there is much less tendency towards recommitments, etc.”
I see this as an element that is lacking in the Western Church. I am apart of a fellowship that strives to live this prinicple out.
This comment blessed my heart.
Mike
The view of salvation portrayed in the summaries is the one with which the Orthodox most disagree. Living in the South, I can verify that “once saved always saved” means that the moment of commitment justifies any means used to get someone to that moment among some. [Note, not all, just some.] — Fr Ernesto
And since “once saved, always saved”, you can do anything you want, commit any sin, without jeopardizing your salvation. Get Out Of Hell Free, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $500…
I think evangelicalism in general has come to lean too much on the Conversion Moment/Prayer as the be-all end-all of Salvation. Deeds don’t matter for any number of reasons; they all have a verse. — DaveD
Salvation should not be so cheap. “Say the Magic Words and that’s It” is so — PUNY and PETTY! YOu have a life to live above and beyond passing God’s litmus test to get beamed up! There’s a big Universe outside of that Punyverse!
I’ve always been amazed at some denominations’ insistence on the conversion experience as an explicitly emotional one – it goes hand-in-hand with the idea that conversion to Christ is supposed to shatter the old self so you can put on a new one, but functionally, it just means that, to them, evangelism means trying to break people down. — Patrick Lynch
Isn’t this the classic definition of Brainwashing? Break him in Room 101 until nothing is left and then fill him up with “He Loves Big Brother”? (And put another notch on your Bible for brownie points at the Bema…)
Dave is correct. Pentecostals believe that salvation can be lost and regained over and over. — IMonk
Which can be crazy-making in its own way. There’s a tract/booklet called The Calvary Road (cover is a crude drawing of a figure on knees with head in hands before a cross) which holds that any sin immediately breaks fellowship/contact with God and you immediately have to repent (and REALLY repent — see “Are You Sure? Are You Certain? Are You Sure You’re Certain?”) to get back in good with God. Until the next time a sinful thought crosses your mind. Add the usual accompanying Holiness list of taboos and you end up on a whipsaw back and forth until you just break. That booklet really messed me up back in the Seventies.
I passed one of these Hell Houses at a local S. Baptist church this year. I thought wouldn’t be awesome if a church in town just put on the best freaking haunted house in the area. Not the hell house kind but just a haunted house that scared the fool out of the kids. — Aaron Arledge
In other words, approach “Halloween Haunted House” with professionalism and focus on the goal to produce a quality product. (Like I’m doing starting out as an SF writer.) Might have been possible in the pre-Mike Warnke days, but not today.
There is no rapture. Sorry. There is a second coming, and Jesus said no man knows when. — IMonk
Then there are a lot of clueless Christians out there; Left Behind (Volumes 1`-22) were bestsellers.
Somebody — Give Hal Lindsay and his followers a reality check! Before they mess up anybody else like they messed me up!
I’ve had that argument like 60,000 times, and I’m tired of being looked at like an idiot because I say Christ and people think ‘Saw IV’ and videos on YouTube with little babies “preaching” into a microphone in front of all these clapping people. — Patrick Lynch
Dude, I’m an insider and those are among the first images that pop into my mind when you say “Christian”.
And if the YouTube video is the one I think it is, the “Child Evangelist” is preaching Hellfire-and-Damnation, Hellfire-and-Damnation, Hellfire-and-Damnation in Spanish, with a special Damnation for all who doubt Young Earth Creationism. What possesses these people that they do this to a little kid?
IMonk, Everybody:
This is one of the main reasons I swam back across the Tiber. (Well, that and the respective attitudes towards imagination and the arts.) If I had stayed in the Hell House/Left Behind/Calvary Road mentality, I am convinced it would have killed me. It’s a Death Cult. An End-of-the-World Death Cult. Chronicles of Riddick Necromongers without the baroque sense of decor.
And your posting here says it all, and says it much more professionally (if less colorfully) than I could.
Fr. Ernesto:
“The problem with the methods used in a “Hell House” type of setting is that they happen to ignore Scriptures such as Matthew 25 and the Book of James (which Luther hated) and which appear to say that the basis of judgment will not be just personal commitment, but also personal behavior.”
I am no expert on orthodox theology, so I don’t want to misunderstand you.
However, for one thing, Luther did not “hate” James. He just called it “straw” because the Gospel is not clearly articulated in this letter. The “faith without works is dead” needs to be always set in the right context. He exercised what is called “kerygmatic” criticism. James has to be harmonized with the kerygma.
The faith that is needed, is a faith that is free and joyful because salvation is true, accomplished and a gift. However, this faith, will be active without coercion, otherwise, we are under the slavery under which we started out. Just as God “loves a cheerful giver”, everything done for him that matters will be done from a free spirit, based on the Gospel message.
I don’t think Luther would have translated James if he “hated it.” I’m with Brigitte on this one. However, he had a very well founded suspicion of it’s place in the canon. This both because of how easily it is distorted to contradict the Gospel as clearly proclaimed in the letters of Paul, and the lack of witness regarding who wrote it. Lutherans have, as the church in general did up to the council of Trent, and later reformed councils, always regarded James as in second class of the canon. emphasizing that James has to be reconciled to Paul, subordinate to the Pauline corpus. Not the other way around. We derive our doctrine, and find the sedes doctrinae in the legoumena, not the anti legoumena.
Headless Unicorn Guy, not even!
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=9c69d4acc9dd49eaf89f
Also, I’ve been annoyed since 2006 that GodTube exists. Christianity reflexively creates stuff like this – the site, and the videos like this one to show on it.
I’ll let you all discover the context of this clip on your own. Ask yourself while you watch: did Jesus die for this?
The godtube thing almost made me blaspheme.
(Deep,deep and sad siggggggggggggh).
Headless Unicorn Guy:
I pretty much assess Hell House evangelicalism as you do, but I’m still here because scripture can correct us. Pray for Reformation is the call.
MS
iMonk, are you pre-, post-, or amillennial? Is there a Great Tribulation? Is the Church here during it? Since you say “there is no rapture” I suppose I need not ask you if you are pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib….
Don’t tell me “rapture” isn’t in the Bible. Neither is “Trinity”….
You can’t just drop your little pearls/bombs into the conversation and not explain yourself for the great unwashed mass audience out here. Or maybe you can, since it’s your blog….
If you mean rapture as “Jesus returns twice, once secretly, etc” that’s not in the Bible and it’s a recent and embarassing innovation. Look up Margaret Macdonald and John Nelson Darby. Please note the silence of Spurgeon, Wesley, Edwards, Calvin, Whitefield, etc.
Amil. Read/listen to Riddlebarger and Waldron.
We’re in the Great trib. It’s history. Ask our third world brothers if they think tribulation is coming.
The Trinity line qualifies you as “Roman for a day.” Congrats
peace
MS
Of course tribulation is coming. But we’re not in The Great Tribulation now. Just because things are bad, really bad, doesn’t mean it’s The Great Tribulation.
In my old fundy, dispy days, we didn’t believe in a “Jesus returns twice, once secretly” eschatology. There is only one return, but it occurs in two stages — first He returns *for* us (Christians) when we are caught up together to meet him in the air, “and thus shall we ever be with the Lord” and go to The Judgment Seat of Christ (rewards for the deeds done in the body, gold, silver, wood, hay, and stubble) and The Marriage Supper of the Lamb in the heavenlies while The Great Tribulation plays out on earth for seven years, then He returns *with* us when His foot touches the Mount of Olives and the thousand-year reign begins. Only at the end of the thousand years is The Great White Throne Judgment when death and hell are cast into the lake of fire. It was never “Jesus returns twice.”
I thought you knew all of this. To me, this is “Baptist belief” that I learned in the G.A.R.B. and it is also the belief in the classical Pentecostal denominations (AOG, COG).
Do you believe, as Scot McKnight does, that Jesus returned in 70 A.D.?
Bob,
As many times as I read this stuff, it still leaves me confused. How is it the church is spared the great tribulation, if the saints of Revelation 7, are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
I just don’t see how Christians can think they will be spared the great tribulation. I’m not sure that we in the west are living it right now, though I think the argument can be made. But I think this great tribulation has been with the church in various places at different times from the very beginning of the church.
I don’t want to high-jack this thread, but Luther and James keep on coming up in different contexts, it would be good to get it straight.
Here is a Luther quote I found today, an introduction to James, where he argues that James cannot be the work of an apostle.
“Though this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God. However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle; and my reasons follow.
In the first place it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works. It says that Abraham was justified by his works when he offered his son Isaac; though in Romans 4 St. Paul teaches to the contrary that Abraham was justified apart from works, by his faith alone, before he had offered his son, and proves it by Moses in Genesis 15. Now although this epistle might be helped and an interpretation 2 devised for this justification by works, it cannot be defended in its application to works of Moses’ statement in Genesis 15. For Moses is speaking here only of Abraham’s faith, and not of his works, as St. Paul demonstrates in Romans 4. This fault, therefore, proves that this epistle is not the work of any apostle.”
Also, I’ve been annoyed since 2006 that GodTube exists. Christianity reflexively creates stuff like this – the site, and the videos like this one to show on it. — Patrick Lynch
Hold on a minute while I stuff my brains back into my head… They all dripped out my ears like guacamole…
You know my first reaction when I first heard of GodTube? “Just like YouTube, Except CHRISTIAN (TM)!”
Another Christianized knockoff of some pop culture, a day late and a dollar short as usual. WHY CAN’T WE DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL? SOMETHING WITH QUALITY AND STYLE? SOMETHING PROFESSIONAL? WHY CAN’T WE BE THE ONES TO START THE TREND INSTEAD OF KNOCKING IT OFF?
We’re in the Great trib. It’s history. Ask our third world brothers if they think tribulation is coming. — IMonk
From what I’ve heard of the Third World, they’d answer “What do you mean, ‘Coming’?”
(Especially Africa, the Third World’s Third World — Earth’s hard-luck continent and continung disaster area for at least the past few centuries.)
As many times as I read this stuff, it still leaves me confused. How is it the church is spared the great tribulation, if the saints of Revelation 7, are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
I just don’t see how Christians can think they will be spared the great tribulation. — Bob
It’s an Escape Fantasy. Followed by a Revenge Fantasy.
Armageddon is not a spectator sport, with catered box seats for the season ticket-holders. The prophets called it “That Great and TERRIBLE Day.” If any of these glib End Time Prophecy types actually HAD a genuine vision of The End, I doubt they’d be grinning with glee — more likely they’d go silent with their hand over their mouth like Job and his know-it-all counselors.