The Protestant smackdown

By Adam Graham

Orthodox Catholics love to praise the new Pope for putting the "smackdown" on heresy. While most would resist the same tight control on doctrine that Pope Benedict exercises, it's time for Protestants to get serious about rank heresy and fraud perpetuated in the church, as well as the disunity that has sprung up in the body of the Christ.

Start With the Basics

In taking action against out of control clergy, it's important that it be done in a spirit of love but that resolve be firm and action be decisive.

The focus of those concerned with liberal clergy has been on social issues like gay marriage, but I suggest a closer look is required at the fundamentals of the faith. If we look at the mainline churches, we find something quite remarkable. There's a large number of people who don't believe in the Resurrection of Christ ministering in "Christian" Churches. This is the root cause of many of the church's other issues, as once you've denied the fundamentals of the faith, it frees you to follow after whatever humanist idea is presented at the moment. According to a 1998 Jeffrey Hadden poll, here's the % of mainline Protestant ministers that don't believe in the resurrection:

1) Lutherans-13%
2) Presbyterians-30%
3) American Baptists-33%
4) Episcopalians-35%
5) Methodist-51%

It's time for churches to challenge ministers with simple questions of basic truth such as, "Do you believe in the resurrection?" If the answer is no, you have no business being a minister or lay leader of a Christian denomination.

Also leaders of the "take down the cross" movement who worked with known cult leader Sun Myung Moon to take down crosses in churches across the country have no business holding positions as Christian ministers and they should be defrocked. Nor do those who will stand by and watch him crowned Messiah deserved the title of Reverend by their name.

If churches won't submit their leaders to basic doctrinal tests, they're not really Christian. They're a social club with a religious pretext. If ministers embrace false prophets and deny fundamentals of the faith, they should get an ordination from a non-Christian denomination or leave the ministry entirely.

Secondly, abuse in protestant churches has to be addressed, particularly in regards to well-known national figures. Benny Hinn has been accused of faking healings, and he and Robert Tilton have both been accused of fraudulently getting people to give them money in hopes of obtaining God's blessing. In Tilton's case, there's evidence that he convinced poor people to send them their money with the promise that his prayers would cause them to prosper and then had people at his ministry take the cash and throw away the letters.

For such people, there should be an interdenominational court empowered to hear charges of malfeasance and dishonesty against televangelists and others, so that warnings can be put out and people can avoid throwing their money away on charlatans. Obviously, the court's power should be limited to issues of malfeasance and not denominational disagreements.

Unity

Once you get rid of the people who deny the basics of the Faith, it's past time for Christians to seek unity across racial and denominational lines.

There are 121 separate Christian denominations with 5,000 or more members including 15 separate Baptist denominations, 14 Orthodox denominations, 9 Lutheran denominations, and 17 Pentecostal denominations.

At some point, we have to get together and talk, really dialogue about issues, determine what matters and what doesn't. The splintered and divided Church is, in many cases too much at war with itself to handle issues of great moral, cultural, and religious importance.

When we take the stand that we'd rather see millions perish and our country fall away rather than risk being contaminated by people of other Christian denominations, are we truly living Christ's command to love one another or is hatred blinding us to a dying world?

Martin Luther King, Jr. bemoaned the fact that eleven o'clock on Sunday Morning was the most segregated hour in America. We've made progress, but not enough. Clearly, we've come a long way when a Black Catholic like Alan Keyes can speak in a White Bible Baptist Church in Illinois. There are also multi-ethnic congregations springing up across the country.

There's more we can do. We must reach across racial lines to Christians of all heritages to bring the church together. The cloud of racial disunity so encouraged by modern liberals must dissipate, so we can see that we are truly brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Christians in the 21st century must bridge racial and denominational divides to come together on the common ground of the Faith in a hostile world. We must hang together or as Ben Franklin quipped, "assuredly we shall hang separately."

© Adam Graham