Dee and I can hardly believe it! It was exactly one year ago TODAY that we published our very FIRST post on The Wartburg Watch. Most of you weren’t around way back then, so we thought we’d republish it. Here it is:
Are you sitting in your church thinking that something is amiss? Do you think you are the only one who feels this way? Did you try to express your concerns to your pastor? Did he claim you are the only one who has come to him regarding this matter? Did he seem annoyed that you are questioning him? Did he make you feel like you had done something unbiblical by speaking with him?
Well, join the club! You are not alone. There are HUGE changes occurring in evangelical circles, and they are drawing national media attention. TIME magazine just published an article on “The New Calvinism” in its March 23, 2009 issue. There are new websites and blogs written by average churchgoers who are very deeply troubled by these trends. A rise in authoritarianism and far reaching church discipline are having a detrimental impact on many congregations. When a little old lady is perp-walked out of her church for simply asking why the church she has attended for 50 years no longer has deacons, you can rest assured that something is terribly wrong in Christendom. We’ll link to the 911 call in an upcoming post.
This blog is dedicated to investigating these important faith trends. Hopefully, we will help to prepare you should these new strategies be implemented at your church. Our mission is to equip the priesthood of believers.
In the next week or so, we will elucidate a list of trends in the Christian world that we have noticed. Feel free to ask us questions or add your expertise to anything we may have overlooked. Please share this list with your Christian friends and family and ask them for their input. Once we have compiled our list, we will begin an in depth evaluation of each item.
Finally, if your pastor warns you not to read this or other blogs, tell him you are quite capable of making your own decisions. You see, they don’t trust you to use the brain your Creator has given you. Furthermore, they don’t believe the Holy Spirit can give you insight.
Today we will highlight two issues.
1. The rise of a new brand of Calvinism: This is not the Calvinism of your forefathers. This Calvinism is arrogant, often dismissive of others who do not share their extremely narrow view of Scripture. Frankly, it’s either their way or the highway! Unfortunately, this crowd may even question your salvation should you disagree with their excessively restrictive viewpoint. We’ll review the history of Calvinism and how today’s Reformed Movement is changing the face of evangelicalism.
2. The expansion of church discipline: There’s a new brand of church discipline being implemented across denominational lines. It’s not the kind of chastisement that should occur when a man leaves his wife for another woman and the elders pay him a visit. The discipline to which we refer can be used when you don’t show up at your newly mandatory small group Bible study or when you question why the pastor is building an expensive home. You might even get thrown out of your church after the pastor announces from the pulpit that you are no longer welcome. He may even call another pastor in town and tell him that you shouldn’t be allowed to join the new church because you are under ‘church discipline’.
We hope this whets your appetite, and we look forward to your thoughts and suggestions.
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The Wartburg Watch is dedicated to “the priesthood of believers” who, if certain trends continue, are becoming increasingly marginalized by church leaders and distanced from the decision-making in today’s rapidly changing churches. As a case in point, here is our post about a little old lady who was perp-walked out of the church where she had been a faithful member for almost 50 years! Something is greatly amiss within Christendom, and Dee and I are shining the light in some very dark places.
SEVENTY-ONE YEAR OLD GRANDMA PERP-WALKED OUT OF CHURCH – SAY IT AIN’T SO!!!
The following is a transcript of a 911 call made by a pastor from his pulpit on a Sunday morning.
This is NOT a joke!
11:01 am, June 17
911 Operator: Hello. Thanks for calling 911.
Pastor: Hello? Hello?
911 Operator: This is 911. Can I help you?
Pastor: Yeah. I’ve got somebody trespassing at the Allen Baptist Church. You need to send an officer out immediately.
911 Operator: What the address sir?
Pastor: 4215 North Eden Road
911 Operator: OK. Is it someone that’s been warned to stay out or what’s going on exactly?
Pastor: Uh, they’re no longer a member at this church, and uh they’ve been told to leave and uh they’re not welcome here and they refuse to leave.
911 Operator: O.K. and you name?
Pastor: Pastor Jason Burrick
911 Operator: And what’s the number of your cell phone you’re calling on sir?
Pastor: 23_ – _ _ _ 0
911 Operator: And what’s their name?
Pastor: Karolyn Caskey
911 Operator: O.K. And she’s just refusing to leave then?
Pastor: Yes
911 Operator: OK. Is she on the grounds or inside the church?
Pastor: She’s in the building and she’s been confronted and um she refused to go, and we need to uh have her out ASAP.
911 Operator: O.K. Well, I need to get the basics so I can send an officer. What’s the nearest crossroad?
Pastor: Route 12 and 49. We’re right on the corner.
911 Operator: All right. Very good.
Pastor: Bye-bye.
This emergency phone call should serve as a WAKE-UP CALL for all Christians. What’s going on here? According to The Wall Street Journal article “Banned from Church” in the January 18, 2008 issue, the pastor at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan placed a 911 call from the pulpit when he spotted Karolyn Caskey sitting in a church pew. Here’s the link to this alarming story:
Just who is Karolyn Caskey? As reported in the WSJ article, she’s a 71-year-old mother and grandmother of three who has been a member of Allen Baptist Church for close to 50 years. Mrs. Caskey has served her church as a Sunday school teacher and has been a regular contributor, donating 10% of her pension. According to friends and family, she’s a very generous lady who loves her church. When funds were low and the church couldn’t pay the electric bill, she sacrificed and gave money to meet these expenses. She even mowed the church’s lawn on occasion and contributed $1,200 to the church when she sold her van. Mrs. Caskey plans to have an engraved image of Allen Baptist Church on her tombstone.
Imagine the scene. . . This elderly grandmother, who has two artificial knees and a double-hip replacement, is perp-walked out of the church she has attended for half a century by a state trooper and a county sheriff’s officer. One of the officers handcuffs her, and the other carries her purse and Bible as she is removed from the sanctuary.
While Mrs. Caskey’s was taken to jail under the charge of trespassing, her real crime (in her pastor’s view) was questioning his authority. She and an older married couple had insisted that the pastor follow the church constitution, which specified that a board of deacons be appointed to help govern the church. Pastor Burrick claimed the congregation was too small to warrant deacons. After much conflict, she and the couple were expelled from the church. In August 2006 Pastor Burrick sent a letter to the congregation informing them that Mrs. Caskey and Patsy and Emmit Church (the older married couple) had taken “action against the church and your preacher”, and they had been dismembered (it probably felt that way to them)!
The WSJ article includes several other accounts similar to the situation at Allen Baptist Church. These stories provide a glimpse into a growing movement that is occurring in conservative Protestant churches. This sort of “church discipline” (or might we say “abuse”) is on the rise and may be coming to your church soon.
How does this newfangled church discipline work? Suspected sinners are privately confronted (Matthew 18) and if they refuse to repent, they are publicly castigated and excommunicated from the church. While church discipline seems perfectly reasonable when members commit adultery or child abuse (for example), it is sometimes being exercised for legitimate questioning (which is now called “gossip”), skipping a church service, and not participating in a “community/care group” (such as a small group Bible study).
We are kicking off a series that will take an in depth look at a fast-growing movement which is closely linked to the Calvinistas and other quasi-conservative groups.
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These are just two of our introductory posts from March 2009. As some of you know, we have changed blog formats and still plan to move our archives here.
Early this morning I was listening to Christian radio and heard the daily devotion from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. Here’s the Bible reference for the devotion I heard:
Congrats! I am so glad I found you!
Thanks Lydia! You are a tremendous resource who adds so much to the discussion. Dee and I are so glad you found us, too!
I concur with Lydia (as I often do in the blogosphere). All three of you ladies (Dee, Deb, and Lydia) are my heroes! 🙂
Congrats on the 1 yr anniversary of TWW. My prayer is that God would so mightily move in the churches of our age that the only thing you will have to write is praise to Him! Meanwhile, keep on faithfully shining the light of truth into the dark corners of today’s churchianity.
Junkster,
It’s such a privilege to read your comments because you always have such godly wisdom to share.
And if I haven’t mentioned it before, I love your moniker!
What a year. Thank you. You prove that the laity has a real role in the greater church as well as the local embodiment thereof. You prove that gender is an irrelevancy in regard to the ability to know, to study, to write, and even, at times this last year, to preach (in writing). And you prove that the Baptist polity of congregational democracy, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit informing the laity, thereby resulting in a local theocracy via lay governance, is an ecclesiology founded on a theology that is Biblical.
Happy Anniversary. 🙂
MIss ya.
ARCE
Thank you for your thoughtful note.I will be interested in seeing your responses to difficult Biblical passages that we will be posting on Fridays.
Dee and Deb,
Thank you for following God’s leading and shining the Light “in some very dark places.” I, too, am a Wonderland survivor and have been following WW almost since its beginning. You have helped me understand what I was seeing and experiencing but was unable to put a name to since I naively thought Christians would act Christ-like and pastors could be trusted. What’s more, you helped me get out fast from a church that I started to attend after Wonderland that turned out to be Sovereign Grace in everything but its name. I’m still leery of going to church again but am slowly recovering. How sad that we have to learn that churches (emphasis on the lower case “c”) do not necessarily reflect the heart of God.
Happy 1st anniversary! May there be many more to come!
Abigail
Congratulations!
http://www.newbbc.accura.net/FirstAnniversarySheep.JPG
Any word on “Purify the Church”?
I have called Doug but no return call. I hope nothing is wrong.
Abigail
I love that name! Thank you for your kind comment. We now know of a couple of churches that are not “nuts.” If you email me at dee@wartburgwatch.com, we can steer you in their direction. There is also a small group that is gathering a couple of times a month where you would be welcome. Let us know.
One of them left a comment on the Watchdog’s blog tonight. I can’t tell one from the other. 🙂
Oh, look. Real smileys!
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Dee,
I’ve tried twice to email you at this address and my emails are returned with an “address rejected” message.
Abigail
I am not too swift. It is now dee@thewartburgwatch.com. This changed from our old site and I didn’t realize it. I apologize.
Happy Birthday, WW! And thank you!
Thanks everyone for your wonderful wishes!
As mentioned in this post, Dee and I began TWW feeling much like Abraham when God called him out of Ur. We knew God was calling us to begin a ‘faith watch’ blog; however, we didn’t know where He was leading us.
Looking back, we believe God gave us a mandate to cover and evaluate current theological trends, which we began to do almost immediately.
As we embark upon our second year, Dee and I have a much better understanding of where our Heavenly Father is leading us, and our faith has grown exponentially.
Our goal for the upcoming year is to discuss thought-provoking issues along with theological questions that will hopefully give perspective to your faith.