Volume 45 | Number 2 | March–April 2017

Inglés Español

The Redefining of Christianity


By Dr. H. T. Spence

For Christians whose lives are exclusively based on the Scriptures, the days in which we live have become increasingly difficult to face because practically everything is being forcibly redefined. The world’s philosophy, its perspective of life, has been redefined even amidst a terminology of so-called political conservatism. Postmodernism has become an intellectual disease that virally plagues Western civilization. The past perspectives of conservatism in contrast with socialism have no viability for these times. So-called conservatism has become increasingly sympathetic and compromising with liberalism; socialism has been cosmetically redefined as the next natural step in democracy. Our nation’s foundational Republic government and its Constitution have been carefully and selectively discarded to reposition our country toward a redefined post-America existence.

Additionally, we grievingly have witnessed that Christianity and its identified Church have not been immune to this malignant contemporary mood and spirit of radical redefining. Theological terms of Christian experiences (such as the new birth, sanctification, the infilling of the Spirit) have all been redefined by contemporary Christianity. Other biblical concepts have equally been redefined: prayer, spirituality, worship, the purpose of the institutional Church, Christian education, and Christian music. It is heartbreaking to acknowledge that Fundamentalism likewise has succumbed to these redefining powers, producing far-reaching vacillations from the truth, and in turn redefining the very heart of its own historical existence.

The Redefining of Human Existence

In the past decade, the Postmodern era of Western civilization has philosophically and ideologically catapulted us into a realm of the absurd and the irrational. Perhaps a closer view of this current redefining of humanity may give us understanding of the extremity to which modern man is going in his quest to extricate a personal, Higher Being from any identification with his existence.

Through the unceasing lie of evolution, modern man has convinced himself that he is a product of himself rather than an objective, personal Creator. By alleviating the biblical God from any affiliation with man thereby creating his own closed world system, man can place himself in the seat of deity. He even believes he will eventually create some creature in his own image and likeness. This vain hope will be the consummation of his attempt to redefine the very concept of humanity. This includes redefining man’s beginning, his continuation, and his future hope of ultimately creating his own eternality of existence.

Amidst this bold “like-God” belief consuming modern man, we have witnessed the rise of the 2045 Initiative, founded in 2011 by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov. Itskov initially sought to bring together Russian specialists to create artificial organs and systems for the human body, including the adaptation of neural interfaces and robotics. This initiative has now become a global network of researchers in the field of what is being called “life extension.” The main goal of the 2045 Initiative is presented on their website:

To create technologies enabling the transfer of an individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society. (gf2045.com/about)

This is secular man’s hopeful discovery of a road map for the development of “cybernetic immortality.” The 2045 Initiative’s goal is the creation of personal avatars as a part of future humanity, which they are calling Evolutionary Transhumanism.

The term avatar appears early in Hindu religion designating the incarnation of a Hindu deity, such as Vishnu, or an incarnation in human form. Today, it has become a term for an electronic image “that represents and is manipulated by a computer user in a virtual space (as in a computer game) and that interacts with other objects in the space.” On May 27, 2017, Walt Disney World Resort in Florida opened to the public “Pandora: The World of Avatar.” In seeking to create an entertainment park based on James Cameron’s film (Avatar), Disney has pushed this concept into family acceptance.

In the 2045 Initiative, the timeline goal for a true humanoid avatar controlled by a brain-computer interface is to be achieved between 2015 and 2020. Then between 2020 to 2025 the goal is to “create” an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot; then between 2030 and 2035 there is the hope of creating a computer model of the brain and “human consciousness” with the means to transfer it into what is called an “artificial carrier.” The final initiative goal is by 2045 to create a “new era for humanity with holographic bodies.”

It is the goal of those who philosophically control this planet (through government, finances, media, and education) to create an artificial brain into which the “original individual consciousness may be transferred.” Also by 2025, it is their plan to “transplant” a human brain at the end of life into an avatar, with an autonomous system providing life support. Science believes it may successfully “upload” one’s personality to a computer for transfer to an avatar by the year 2035. It is believed that all biological diseases will be prevented by this new humanity, and ultimately the present concept of “bodies” will be needed no more—no need for fertilization and conception, and no need to face even death itself.

Transgenderism is another redefining being forced to the forefront in Western society. It must be clearly defined that God “created” male and female (Genesis 1:27). Physiologically and scientifically, there can be no other genders; human chromosomes are either XX or XY. There is no other natural identity of gender; there is no transgender existence. Transgender is purely a cultural construction. Man can dream it, declare it, and promote it, but he cannot create it. The God-endowed genetic structure of humanity will not permit any biological concept of transgenderism. Although the medical world can pump in hormones, restructure body parts, and transplant other parts, the genes and the chromosomes of that body still cry out only “man” or “woman.”

Transgenderism is “personal” suicide. It is the denouncing of what God has made; it is cutting off God from the reality of that person. This is also evident in the same-gender marriage thinking of our day; it is a denunciation of what God created. God selects each individual’s gender. To denounce it, to condemn the reality of it, is an open, defiant attack against God’s sovereign choice. It is the bold declaration, “I will define myself rather than accept what God has defined me to be.” Truly this attitude is the final stage of Romans 1:28:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge [even about their self-gender identity as God created them], God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.

This would be equally true of the ever-increasing surgeries being performed in the name of gender change. Such an act is a defiant attack against God’s wisdom, sovereignty, and plan for one’s life. All of this is part of the perversion, yea, the inversion of the end-time apostasy in declaring right to be wrong, and wrong to be right. The redefining of God and His creation has now boldly and defiantly overtaken the world in all the compartments of human existence.

The Beginning of Apostasy in the Visible Church

Prophetically, we believe that we are living in the worst Church age of history, an age that has shockingly followed the greatest spiritual move of God in Church history (the Revivalist movement and the Great Awakenings). Christ gave the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13) to prophetically reveal the powers of two messages that would grow closely together throughout history. In the light of the parable, it seems that the tares become publicly the predominant, controlling message throughout Church history, especially in the end of the Church ages. Christ Himself gave the interpretation for this particular parable (Matthew 13:36–43), indicating that there will be two contrasting seeds of messages. From these two seeds will come two different concepts of offspring: (1) the children of the Kingdom and (2) the children of the Wicked One. These two seeds abide together in the professing Church until the end of the age. In the vast “field” of this world, wheat and tares grow side by side. The roots of the tares are subtly interwoven with the wheat roots contributing to a greater deception as each reaches maturity. There are the believers and the unbelievers, the converted and unconverted, the children of the kingdom and the children of the wicked one all mingled together. Nevertheless, they are different and separate in their singular identifiable perspective.

The New Testament was given to us across only a fifty-year span, becoming the chart and compass given by the Holy Spirit for the Church during her journey through history. Though given in a historical context, much of the Bible became warnings to the Church concerning the changes that had already come during that first fifty-year span of her history as well as what would come to the Church. Many of the epistles in the New Testament give strong indication that redefinings of Christianity and its principles were already becoming evident.

The apostle Paul warned of the changes that had come during his lifetime. He warned of “another” gospel, the result being another message taking the place of the true Gospel (Gal. 1:6–9; 2 Cor. 11:3–15). The epistle to the Galatians clearly unveiled the Judaizers; Colossians and First John revealed the Gnostics; and most of the epistles warned of the apostasy that would take over the visible church. Nevertheless, there continues to be a remnant tenaciously maintaining the truth.

Before his martyrdom, Paul in his last epistle warned of changes that would come:

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (2 Timothy 4:1–4).

Out of redefinings come these fables or myths—truth viewed as error, and error viewed as truth. To these myths many will turn, turning away their ears from the truth. What will these redefinings produce? Second Timothy 3:1–9 presents the public testimony of the institutional Church throughout history resulting from the redefining of truth. Paul warned that the professing church’s actions and living would radically change (3:8).

The apostle John is the key author to speak of the changes and redefinings that already were coming to the church by the end of the first century. The message was changing. He wrote First John to clarify what is a true Christian. Although he declared the definition of the New Birth in John 3, in First John he gives the needed details of what is a truly born-again Christian, one “born of God” (1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18). He is also the writer at the end of the century to declare the detailed truth about the Holy Spirit (John 14 and 16) as well as the clarity of sanctification (John 17).

By this time in history the visible Church, the Kingdom on earth was falling into sacerdotalism. Sacerdotalism arises when outward form takes the place of the inward Gospel found through the work of Christ within the heart and life. Outward form was taking the place of the inward power.

The Church became institutionalized in the fourth century, between the rule of Constantine and Theodosius the First. Ecclesiastical hierarchy and human authority were the controlling powers of the Church rather than Christ (the Head of the Church). Instead of the Kingdom of God within, it became the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The public view of Christianity had fallen as Rome enlarged the view of its earthly kingdom, and the Church took the place of Christ. How sad that Church history reveals the carnal, worldly powers of the leaders becoming the enemy to the Kingdom of Heaven within the human heart.

The Growing Powers of Apostasy in Redefining

Thank God for the remnant throughout history; they saw the clarity of the message of the Gospel! At the same time publicly, the visible Church was quelling the Gospel through religious oppression, inquisitions, and martyrdom. In time God sovereignly birthed the Protestant Reformation. (Perhaps it may be noted that if God had not brought the protesting and reforming of the Reformers to such a proportion, the rapture may have taken place at that time. For history was coming to an end, like the days of Noah.) In the Reformation, God brought the truth of the Gospel back into the public arena.

By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the powers of Rationalism and the Enlightenment came quickly upon these reformed nations, birthing a strong, demonic confrontation of reason against the Revelation from God, the Book to which the Reformers had given their allegiance. These movements extensively affected many of the precious results that had come from the Reformation. The Reformation brought faith, trust in God, and belief in the Scriptures to the forefront of man’s thinking. Now there arose questions against the Word of God, as reason became the major revelatory power of humanity. The belief that God could be questioned by man and, therefore, the true doctrine of Scripture could be questioned spread wildly. These humanistic movements brought about the toying of reason against the Scriptures and any concepts that heretofore remained unquestioned.

In 1675, the theologian Calixtus openly began questioning the inspiration of the Bible. This attack on the doctrine of inspiration emboldened men within and without the Church to greater questioning. It became imperative for God to send another movement to the Church. This movement in the 1700s became the deepest movement thus far in Church history. It not only deepened the workings of God in spiritual insights of biblical doctrine (Holiness and the Spirit), but also the deeper working of the Cross of Christ in purity of heart and the personal living of the Christ life. Yes, it was a move of God to the heart rather than simply doctrine of the mind and belief, which brought the Kingdom of God back into a heart reality as well as the flowing out of that Kingdom in righteousness, holiness, and in the demonstration of power and joy in the Holy Ghost.

By the 1700s the Devil reacted to such a spiritual movement by inspiring strong enemies against the Faith. Such powers included the Encyclopedists, agnosticism, atheism, as well as the powers of Existentialism from without and Deism and Unitarianism within the churches. These influences began to snake their way within much of Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

By the 1800s another hostile movement from within the Church contributed to the growing redefining of Christianity that eventually came from the womb of Liberalism and Modernism. These satanic movements now invited the powers that were outside of Christianity to enter the sacred precincts of the Church and take precedence in belief and thought. This dual redefining was deceptively and intricately woven into the very fabric of public Christianity. These redefining movements birthed an emphasis upon a socialistic gospel for an outward kingdom. Simultaneously, any emphasis on a heart relationship with God was intelligently denounced. It is sad but true: every time an attack came against the Church from within, it weakened the fabric of public Christianity in the main, and over a process of time eroded the public definitions of true, biblical Christianity.

In the 1800s the Enemy of God and His people bombarded the public Church with new weapons forged against Christianity from within. Questions arose fostered by new discoveries of manuscripts, birthing Form Criticism. This approach became an open forum within the Church to question everything of the Bible—redefining interpretation, Bible words, texts, authors, geographies, etc. With the consensus of Christianity itself, the redefining of truth was accelerating.

Rising from another direction, in the exploration of logic, came the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who believed that reason was not the only form of logic. Existentialism stepped forward from the past speculations of Georg Hegel in secularism, and systematically denounced all absolutes. Man’s opinions, personal perspectives, and presuppositions became his truth. It was not long until dead public Christianity in Europe (through Liberalism) began looking to Existentialism as a viable alternative to bring some life (even if it was a synthetic life) into Christianity. Truth was now based on subjective experience. It was carefully woven under the guise of the theological system called Neo-Orthodoxy. This redefining did not come from Romanism; it came from within Protestantism. Initially called Neo-Protestantism, it declared the belief that Existentialism was what Martin Luther had originally given to the world, a new view of interpretation of the Scriptures. This new method of interpreting the Scriptures opened the door for the denial of absolute Truth of the Scriptures. Scripture was to be perceived from the subjective rather than the objective revelation from God. The Bible was simply a tool to aid humanity’s own subjective experience to reveal its own subjective god.

Present-Day Redefining

The past has brought us to the present-day redefinings that commenced at the turn of the twentieth century with the redefining of the Bible. The Liberals and Modernists destroyed the belief of inerrancy, the infallibility, and the historicity of the Scriptures. It is the present-day contemporary view that the inerrancy of Scripture is no longer essential to the Christian Faith. Neo-Orthodoxy’s existential system taught the Church to interpret the Bible according to one’s emotional whims at any given moment of life. The Scriptures are simply viewed as the existential stories of the feelings of people of the past and their subjective perspective of God.

Once a literal Bible had been destroyed, the Neo-Moralist stepped forward declaring there was only one law that must be followed—the law of love. Love for humanity, and natural help of humanity stepped forward in the Neo-Morality movement. This also opened the Christian world to a greater realm of pragmatism. What works for the present need is their temporary view of truth. We must remember that the Neo-Orthodox men were in reality atheists, and thus the forerunners of Theothanatology. In their scientific thinking of this physical world, there is no God; however, in the existential world any concept of “God” is permitted without the need of proof.

Redefinings continued with the birth of Neo-Evangelicalism in the latter part of the 1940s; it was a reaction to the “absoluteness” of the Scriptures as well as a reaction to biblical separation declared by the Fundamentalist. Fundamentalism, evangelism, and biblical separation were now redefined, doing away with the need of separation from both the world and Christian apostasy. Its pragmatic principle promoted the belief that we must become one of them to win them, we must dialogue with the enemy, and we must respect the right of others to disagree about the essential doctrines of historic Christianity, all while continuing Christian fellowship. This pragmatic “whatever-means-to-bring-about-a-good-end” promoted great compromise in methodology in order to “win” people to Christ. It justified any means of change and redefining of Christianity to accommodate others to become part of the Christian fold. Any and all redefining of absolutes was proper to bring the world to “Jesus.”

Birthed in the same year of Neo-Evangelicalism (1948), Neo-Pentecostalism under Oral Roberts, Demos Shakarian, A. A. Allen, and their protégés, began to take the fundamentals of the Christian Faith and alter them with Existentialism as the main ingredient. By 1967 the Charismatic movement (built upon the Neo-Pentecostalist movement) completely opened the door for every truth from doctrine to Christian experience to be redefined within the Existential premise. This new methodology of interpretation produced a Christianity that was not only independently defined but also purely subjective; as a result, no two Christians needed to profess the same biblical perspective. This eclecticism of the Neo’s and their redefining of every aspect of Christianity has truly taken over all of Christendom and ushered us into the postmodern era.

The Redefining of Faith

A final redefining in Christianity must be noted. The redefining of faith has not come overnight. It has become established through a steady process of intelligent redefining of terms, concepts, and principles within Christianity, which ultimately has brought forth a total redefining of Christianity itself. Faith is a foundational truth of Christianity. Within both the Evangelical camp and particularly the Charismatic movement, this term has gradually been redefined over the past forty years.

Faith has historically been presented scripturally from two perspectives: (1) The Faith presented by the apostle Paul as the definitive Word of God in its absolute, literal meaning and declaration; and, (2) Personal Faith, a firm persuasion which comes from hearing and obeying the Word of God, yea, no other word.

The contemporary concept of faith set forth by the Charismatic leaders is found in four areas. Their redefining becomes a “faith in faith.”

(1) There is the “force of faith,” in which one’s personal faith becomes a force and his words uttered become the container of the force. Thus, through the power of words, an individual can create his own reality. Since absolute truth no longer exits, it is simply what one says that brings one’s reality into existence.

(2) The “formula of faith” becomes somewhat the name of the game in the charismatic’s full concept of theology. What is this full concept of theology? It is “faith theology.” Through the many “formulas,” teachings, and existential maxims of self-faith, one can basically write his own blank check from God. Oral Roberts made several formulas popular: “Expect a miracle every minute,” or “sow a money seed and reap the harvest.” Such formulas were often presented in his “positive” gospel.

(3) The third is designated as “the Faith of God,” but this god is the god of the contemporary Christianity, which is no god at all. Their concept of God is merely a “faith being” who must operate in accordance to laws of faith. This God-concept does not work apart from faith.

(4) Finally, there is the “Faith Hall of Fame,” or what they believe to be the heroes of faith. These heroes are not those presented in Hebrews 11 or of Job in the Old Testament. In fact, the contemporary Charismatic leaders are ashamed of these biblical individuals, because they are identified with suffering, poverty, and affliction. Who are the heroes of their faith? Their heroes are the “faith healers” and “faith teachers” who promise health, wealth, and powerful impressive living. Faith, to them, is the reality of whatever exists in life, particularly its material evidences.

Conclusion

It has been said, and rightly so, that the moral stability of a nation is an index to its spiritual stability. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court struck down the state statutes prohibiting abortion. Since that decision, our country has lost more lives through abortion than we have lost in all the wars and traffic accidents combined. A parallel spiritual tragedy is the abortion of truth in churches, colleges, and seminaries throughout America. Schools such as Fuller Seminary, Wheaton College, and Moody Bible Institute (and the list is ever growing, including fallen Fundamentalist schools) have permitted the “neo” doctors to abort the truth and artificially inseminate the “neo” seed to pervade contemporary Christianity.

Oh, the pressure that is being placed on the remnant churches and Christian schools today to destroy them. Yet, thank God for those who are surviving the religious and political oppression. It reminds us of a story that took place in 1975, when God intervened in an incident that received brief nationwide publicity. A doctor endeavored to abort a twelve-week-old baby in the womb. Both the doctor and the mother believed the abortion was a success. To their amazement, however, the baby was born healthy and normal four months later.

This incident invariably underlines the fact that “if God be for us who can be against us.” As long as we stay in the womb of truth, there can be no power on earth, under the earth, nor above the earth, that can destroy us. The poised dragon will never be able to devour or abort the true child of God or local church that stands firm upon the Scriptures in faith and living; he will never devour a school that maintains its walk and fertility in the womb of the truth. As Bible-believing Christians, our only hope is to stay in the Scriptures and abide in the truth! Lucifer is a stark warning, for John 8:44 declares that he “abode not in the truth.” By departing from the truth, Lucifer’s slander against God his Creator birthed the Devil, this Satan who continues to inspire the redefining of all God’s truth.

In these days when men, ministries, and seminaries are falling away and redefining Christianity in order to cover up for their falling away, we must ever remain in the seed that gave us birth. We have been born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23).