My friend Warner commented toward the original post and I’d like to address some of what he said here. Please do not fail to read the end of the post.

There is Church, and church. The first, with the big “C” denotes a building, denomination and so on. For instance, there is a Presbyterian Church, a Church of God, the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and many more. The church, with the small “c”, is not a building; it is the body of believers in Jesus Christ. The members of the church attend Churches, but there is a difference between the two. You can be a member of a Church without being part of the church.

I don’t dislike Michael Moore so much for his politics as for his fraudulent, skewed film making. MTV’s Kurt Loder casts a critical eye upon Moore’s latest Socialist manifesto and finds it flawed. By the way, Loder does not make mention of it but I read elsewhere that Moore and his patients did not travel to Cuba by boat; that was staged. They flew by commercial airline.

Last night we watched part 4 of the video series we’ve been watching at our Church on Wednesday nights. This series was taped in 2003 (I think) at a youth conference hosted by John Piper’s Church in Minnesota. I already linked to Piper’s site, and the explanation of Christian Hedonism therein, but I wanted to revisit it because for me this concept is drastically reshaping my faith. Here, again, is Piper’s explanation (which is surely better than my own).

In his explanation of why we are not to approach obedience, and all that glorifies God, as a obligatory duty, Piper cites scriptural texts and offers insight to why this is wrong. He points out that throughout the history of the universal church there has been a tendency to state that we are duty-bound to obey God, and any joy that might accompany that is frosting on the cake. Piper used another analogy: joy accompanying your duty is like the head on a beer–it can be blown off and what remains is just the beer. Thus, duty is an obligation on our part, but God is not required to offer us joy in return. Does that sound correct to you? It did to me, and always has. And, frankly, it has made long-term obedience difficult for me.

The story helps illustrate several truths at once. Firstly, we give more charitable donations than any other nation on earth. Thus, we are a charitable people.

About 65% of households with incomes less than $100,000 give to charity, the report showed.

Care to guess where the largest chunk of that amount goes?

The biggest chunk of the donations, $96.82 billion or 32.8%, went to religious organizations.

Of course, this overall group would include such undesirables as Benny Hinn’s ministry, but I’m still not surprised that the largest chunk is donated to religious groups.

The report also proves that we are a deluded people.

The second largest slice, $40.98 billion or 13.9%, went to education, including gifts to colleges, universities and libraries

Actually, donating to libraries is good. However, we have huge amounts of donations being given to educational institutions atop the public monies already funding them. And we continually bemoan the state of education in this country. Clearly, throwing money at it doesn’t help. In fact, education (as an entity) simply becomes more and more bloated, constantly hungry for more and more money. It models the government that has created this monster. All the while the entity does not improve; it simply becomes more rich.

Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7%. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73%, while France, with a 0.14% rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.

Where are the fabulously rich Arab nations? Where are Islamic nations to be found? They must be too busy giving all of their money to terrorist organizations. I bet all of the haters of the U.S. hate this report. It shows flaws, but it shows that we seem to have a kind heart nationally.

The term has been coined by John Piper. It sounds odd until he explains it. The definition of hedonism is a doctrine that pleasure or happiness are the sole pursuit of life. Worldly hedonism is bad, and the word “hedonism” is always associated with the bad connotation. Piper explains that if our pleasure and happiness come from doing the will of God, how can hedonism be bad? He spells it out better than me, so I’ll let him do it.

There are folks who believe that we must perform certain actions in order to find favor with God. A theological debate over this topic has gone on for centuries, so you would think that the matter would be settled by now. In fact, you would think that if God demanded that sacrifices be made to Him, He would have made that clear somehow. In fact, God has done just that.

So I took this theology quiz and here are the results:

You scored as Anselm. Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man’s primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read ‘Cur Deus Homo?’ Anselm 100% Karl Barth 93% Jonathan Edwards 73% John Calvin 73% Martin Luther 73% Friedrich Schleiermacher 40% Jürgen Moltmann 40% Paul Tillich 27% Augustine 20% Charles Finney 7% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

So I’m reading Al Mohler’s blog, and he has a post about why Hollywood seems skittish about pro-abortion plots in movies. And that begs the question: When was the last time you heard the topic of abortion spoken of from the pulpit? Have you ever heard it mentioned by your pastor?

Millions upon millions of unwanted, inconvenient babies are being murdered in this country each year, let alone around the globe. Why isn’t the church speaking out about this more? Dr. Mohler’s post is titled “Why is Hollywood Afraid of Abortion?”. Perhaps we should ask why the church is afraid of abortion.

There are certain truths—fundamental doctrines—that every true church is committed to. These doctrines are unalterable; they cannot be compromised in any way. They are non-negotiable. Yield on any one point, and the church ceases to be a church. Here are five foundational truths that distinguish all authentic churches.

I agree with each of his five points, and that they are all non-negotiable. There are just some things that a Christian Church cannot compromise on. If God has absolute truths, and He does, then the church will be required to agree with those. How can you have a Christian Church that does not agree with its Founder?