The Establishment of Religion
September/October 2009
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Preaching has an important place in God’s purpose, and it is basic to the life and health of the church. If the church is faltering or straying, the preaching is clearly at fault.
All thinking about God based on abstract ideas of God is idolatrous. They violate the first and second commandments because they first create (even if only conceptually) a false, fictitious deity, one separated from the self-defining God of Scripture.
The premise of semper reformanda is that the people of God are to be continually reforming and revising their viewpoints ever closer to the teachings of the Scriptures and away from unbiblical formulations and conceptions that have crept into both doctrine and practice.This is a process that could entail swinging the pendulum back, away from one extreme to another: the truth might possibly lie in the middle.
The fact of the matter is that establishment is an inescapable concept, because both religion and law—the foundations of establishment—are inescapable concepts. We either have an establishment of a humanistic moral and intellectual order or we have a Biblical one. We either have an establishment of righteousness or an establishment of wickedness.
The law-word of God should be the staple by which the family gets its spiritual nourishment and bearings.
“The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience … Instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency1…” – The NEA’s 2008 Resolution on Homeschooling
Christianity alone provides real reality. This is so true that when other faith systems arise that deny Christianity, they inevitably ape Christianity despite their denial.
“Mom, I’m in New York City.” It was my sister Dinah’s cheerful voice from 3,000 miles away. “I had a great conversation on the plane.”