Reading the sermons of wolves in sheep’s clothing so you don’t have to!

False teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie took a break from taking little girls to gay pride parades to preach a “sermon” about John 18:33-37.  He is symptomatic of the theological Left and their anti-Christian teachings.

I wrote previously in Heretics ‘R Us about Chuck’s abuse of John 14:6 (Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”) and how Chuck’s key points were to claim that Jesus was not the only way to the Father (despite the Bible claiming that over 100 times), that other religions such as Islam should inform our view of the Gospel, and that the Bible is not accurate or reliable — specifically that the Gospel of John was written 100 years after Jesus was crucified for being such a nice guy.

Never minding that even Liberal scholars concede a date around 100 A.D., and the case for a pre-70 A.D. dating is very strong, Chuck is now claiming that it was written 200 years after the crucifixion.  (Note that his dating is relative to the crucifixion, not the resurrection, because “Reverend” Chuck and other theological liberals don’t believe the resurrection really happened.  We have a name for those who hold that view: Non-Christians.)

Via Thy Kingdom Come:

In our on-going Sunday night adult education group we’ve come to know that the Book of John was written nearly two hundred years after the death of Jesus and far from recording historical accounts of his life it reflects theological understandings of his ministry and existence.

Well, there you have it!  Chuck now says it was 200 years, not 100 years.  So his view is that the author(s) were complete liars, because the Gospel of John explicitly claims to contain eyewitness accounts and evidence for believing that Jesus rose from the dead and is the source of eternal life.

Chuck seems to make up things as he goes along, kind of like Benny Hinn.  But even if Chuck was right, why on earth would he do an entire sermon on a book he “knows” is thoroughly fraudulent?

Sadly, as the latest of the Gospels, it also reflects the reality that by this point in history the early Christian community is becoming separate from the Jewish community that Jesus was apart of.  With this separation comes persecution of early Christians and the narratives of Jesus death change in ways that blame the Jews more directly as a people for the death of Jesus, when the Romans where truly responsible.

Knowing all this we can sit back from our vantage point and see how it was that Pilate must have been confused about Jesus.

This lowly son of a carpenter was actually wildly popular with the Jewish people and word had reached Pilate that some referred to Jesus as King.

So Chuck seeks to absolve the Jews of blame for the crucifixion, even though all the Gospels record that Jewish people were the cause of Jesus being killed.

Luke 23 18 But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”– 19 a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. 20 Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, 21 but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22 A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” 23 But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. 24 So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. 25 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

Chuck & Co. will claim that is anti-Semitic, but there is another more accurate term: Fact. No one claims that all Jews killed Jesus or that Jews should be persecuted.  We just point to the obvious truths of the Bible.

The church too quickly forgot the lessons of Jesus.

But wait — Chuck & Co. insist that the documents containing Jesus’ words are hopelessly flawed.  He and his (apparently former) employer the “Jesus Seminar” insist that Jesus only really said a small fraction of the words attributed to him — and of course they deny that He is part of the Trinity and on board with the entire Bible.

We spend too much time in the Christian church debating what happens to us after we die and not enough time talking about how to improve the world we live in.  Jesus was never obsessed with death and salvation the way he was obsessed with building up the Kingdom in the here and now.

Again, Chuck refers to a Jesus that he made up.  The real Jesus spoke plenty about eternal matters:

Mark 8:36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Back to the false teacher:

We pride ourselves on being places where all points of view are accepted.

Uh, sure — views like pro-real marriage and pro-life?

But I also agree with Martin Luther King, Jr. who once preached at Riverside Church that: “…I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.”

Wait — does Chuck actually believe in Hell?

There are too many great moral issues being debated in our community today – in our state and the world – that require the attention of the church.  These issues – whether it be the coming debate over marriage equality or more life threatening issues concerning global climate change – that demand that we not be silent but take stands, not just as individuals but as a church community.

“Marriage equality” is a fiction.  “Same-sex marriage” is an oxymoron.  Unions that can’t produce children or provide a mother and a father to children are not equal to unions that can.

As a play on the favorite line of pro-gay theologians, “Jesus never said anything about marriage equality,” so their pet issue must not be very important.

Global climate change = made-up Leftist power grab.

What would Pilate think of us?  This is a serious question.  If we dropped Sunnyside Church and University Park Church through a time warp and into Pilate’s time would we been seen as a community that was at all threatening?  Or could we easily be ignored?

He’d probably think they were a bunch of fake Christians, especially since their #1 issue in the election was forcing pro-lifers to pay for abortions, because Chuck & Co. think our biggest problem is that not enough babies are getting killed in the womb.

We need to be marching alongside workers at Wal-Mart calling for livable wages. We need to be demanding of our President and our Congress a carbon tax and other measures to dramatically shift the way we all live to save God’s creation.  We need to be demanding of our local community permanent funding sources to create affordable housing and standing with those facing foreclosure.

“And we need to do it by taking the money of other’s by force!  Because Jesus would never expect us to use our own money!  And it would take way too much work to open businesses ourselves to compete against Wal-Mart and pay those “livable wages.”  And besides, we don’t have any business skills!  We just need Caesar to solve all of our problems!”

And Sunnyside Church and University Park Church should be the first churches to Oregon to publically endorse a ballot measure calling for marriage equality in 2014.

Well, sure, go ahead and make your Romans 1 Poster Children picture complete.

If we do these things and more, we can stop being the church of Constantine and start being the movement of Jesus.  We’ll be controversial.  New people will come to worship with us and others will mock us.

Yes, some people will worship (Satan) with Chuck & Co., but not many.  Just look how much Chuck’s apostate employers (the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church) continue to shrink.  Why get up early on Sunday to go hear what MSNBC tells you  for free 24×7?

Here’s the final irony of Chuck’s “sermon.”  The last line of his text — you know, from the book Chuck says was full of lies and not written by John and adopted by the early church — says this:

John 18:37 Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Chuck & Co. explicitly do not listen to Jesus’ voice, and they miss the self-parody of quoting that verse. By their own words they do not belong to the truth.

Make no mistake: If you follow people like this you are lost. You are like the people in Romans 1 who God gave over to their sinful desires. You are like Pharaoh, who continually hardened his heart until God finished hardening it for him. Get out of those fake churches while you still have time.