Asbury, Hollywood Jesus, et al.

I watched the initial sermon that created the so-called Asbury Revival. I fast-forwarded through hours of repetitive, hypnotic music, hypnotized reactions to it, to dig out the actual Gospel preached there, the nuggets that would mirror the humility of the single sentence, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner." I found a lot of "you want more of Jesus" without the first lesson in what that means. I pictured Jesus actually arriving in that hypnotic confusion and demons scurrying away as people cleared their minds and fell silent in fear, awaiting his words. His words never arrived.

Bond Robin Writing a decade ago:

I can't help feeling sorry for those who believe in the error called "scripture only" (Sola Scriptura) who must constantly re-invent the Christian Wheel and create their own theology outlining an opinion on EVERYTHING. I'm not exaggerating. Here is a quote from a FB Friend I assume to be a sincere Christian, yet, he, like every other person caught in the error of Sola Scriptura, is lost in the minefield of creating a belief system and theology by his Bible and his "enlightened" opinion alone. That is "re-inventing the Christian Wheel." Would that these efforts truly created the beauty of the Christian Wheel, held most clearly by the Church, but instead, it creates millions of approximations, broken, bent, flat, warped, truncated, small, and inadequate.

Here is my friend's statement of absolute pride - after all, in Christianity, when we don't seek the teaching of the LIVING Body of Christ, which is The Church, it is an exercise in pride. It leads to cynicism and such statements as, "I, for one, am not interested in opinion or people's interpretation of what God is saying. I am only interested in what God says. And that can only be found in His Word and illuminated by His Spirit."

That sounds great until you look at the result protestants/evangelicals have produced with this very dictum - as if he alone has the power of perfect interpretation and explication of scripture. He also fails to realize the difference between God's Living Word, who is a person, not a book, and the Blessed Ikon of that person, Jesus Christ, that is the Bible. The Ikon requires interpretation.  

Submitting to Holy Spirit Placed Teachers requires some level of humility.

I, for one, am immensely relieved, as an Orthodox Christian, that The Church Teaches, and I don't have to create a self-invented theology and opinion about everything. I can say, "The Church Teaches," and she does and has preserved the Gospel intact for 2000 years.

This shifting sand of spirituality/theology has been on my mind a lot lately, as I have been watching Jimmy Swaggart's particular show called "The Message of the Cross." What is impressive is that he is giving (so far) a very Orthodox interpretation of the meaning of the Cross to healing/salvation, devoid of the sloganeering of the Evangelicals, and the myriad FALSE teachings on the subject, using the Book of Galatians to outline the struggle for purification, etc. It is evident that Swaggart's personal/public humiliation has produced an "understanding" most evangelicals do not share. 

Of course, Swaggart is framing the teaching as some "deeper revelation" when in fact, it has been the constant teaching of the Church for 2000 years. I assume he has secretly been reading some of the saints because he has adopted some of their language. He is talking about "distorting the image" of the Cross by false teaching concerning the Cross and false teaching (error), poisoning the means of healing salvation.  

There are five panel members; two have been offering very Orthodox explications (it may just be a fluke, I don't know), two have remained mostly quiet, and the last has struggled and struggled to try to place this correct theology within his anti-church/anti-catholic/anti-tradition evangelical theological "spirit-filled" construct. It is obvious comment after comment that he just does not grasp what was CLEARLY taught by Saint Paul.

Having met Jimmy Swaggart in his arrogant days, I have kept him on my prayer list for decades. And I don't mean that sentence in any superior way. I mean it in terms of one sinner concerned for another sinner. I hope that God continues to open Christian Orthodoxy to him and that he manages to overcome his evangelical pride and continue to be taught the Ancient Christian Faith.

What is sad and not Orthodox in his teaching is the "Context." They constantly reference "The Church" when they mean merely "differing evangelical schools of religion." Yet, the heresies they have been exposing, the errors contained in these self-invented theologies that different groups push, that distort the Cross and put barriers between people and its healing efficacy have been very insightful . . . so-far.

Update 2023: It was interesting to see the event witnessed above. I did not keep up with it, because it became repetitive, and the panel members grew increasingly polarized at loggerheads until one of them openly attacked the orthodox theology of the other, saying, "We have to remember who we are." He was implying "children of God" when in fact, he was affirming he was a child of heresy. Since then, a dedicated ex-protestant Orthodox priest has written an excellent book entitled "Rock and Sand: An Orthodox Appraisal of the Protestant Reformers and Their Teachings." This is a signpost of sanity if one can grasp it.

I remember the great "Jesus Movement" tied to Campus Crusade for Christ, similar to this Asbury phenomenon. It is not an exaggeration to say that these events in Protestant/Evangelicalism are flashes in the pan, poof, a lot of "light," and just as quickly, darkness and confusion. We can recount the fate of Promise Keepers and so many that were wounded in that movement.

For many years, Peter Guilquist was a Campus Crusade for Christ minister. He became concerned that the emotional "commitments to Jesus" that was the standard sort of "conversion" were not holding. The campus ministers did not have churches off campus. They were not an established "denomination"; they were, in fact, Evangelical Ecumenists, teaching some version of the "invisible" Body of Christ, some nebulous something that existed in all the Protestant Churches that despite their conflicting spiritualities, cultures, and theologies, united them. So the new converts were instructed to find a "home church," which in practice turned them loose in an array of church cultures and theologies that were very different and confusing. A survey proved that 90 percent of the "converts" lost interest pretty quickly, and ten years later, few even self-identified as Christian. They were building upon the sand.

So I would suggest to all the young people who the Asbury Revival Event has emotionally touched to read Rock and Sand, so you can understand the confusion of competing spiritualities and theologies that you will quickly encounter and to read "Becoming Orthodox." It will be like coming home if you are serious about and sincere in your conversion and promise to follow Christ.