Voddie Baucham on T.D. Jakes & the Elephant Room Controversy

I've had great respect for Voddie Baucham for a long time now and greatly appreciate his perspective on the "Elephant Room 2" controversy. Of course, since I'm kind of a nobody, no one is really asking me to weigh in. However, I believe that those of you in my audience need to be aware of the situation. The doctrine of the Trinity is, without question, the central doctrine of the Christian faith. Everything else hangs on it. ER2 appears to suggest that we can afford to compromise or even "agree to disagree" in this area in the name of unity. As my readers know, unity and a greater missional collaboration in the body of Christ is one of my central calls to the Church. But, not at any cost. I believe strongly that the oneness of the Church is an essential Christian doctrine. However, it hangs on the doctrine of the Trinity. We must have our priorities straight.

So, I commend to you Voddie Baucham's recent post related to his own experience with the Elephant Room crew. I believe you will find it interesting and challenging. He has done an excellent job of getting at the issue and explaining graciously why he chose not to participate in ER2.

Blog | Grace Family Baptist Church: "This past week a firestorm erupted over the recent “Elephant Room 2.” The controversy centers around the decision to invite Bishop T.D. Jakes to participate in the event. The central questions in the debate are 1) whether or not Bishop Jakes holds to the historic, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, 2) whether it was appropriate to invite (and feature) him without first having clarified his position on this cardinal doctrine, and 3) whether he cleared up the matter. I was scheduled to speak at Harvest Bible Chapel on the weekend following ER2 which raised significant questions about my stance on the matter. While I do not consider it my responsibility to comment on every controversy, I do recognize my duty to clarify matters with which I am involved directly, and/or those that impact the congregation I am called to shepherd. Hence, my explanation now.

Tongues Debate: Who won? James White v. David Bernard

Well, I found this to be an interesting debate.  Very interested to get your feedback.  Probably, as I, you don't find yourself in complete agreement with either.  But feel free to leave your comments below.

James White v. David Bernard

By the way, the fact that Bernard denies the Trinity is kind of an elephant in the room.  Seems to lend credence to the idea that tongues can be faked by non-Christians.

Christocentric Satsang: TriEak Parmeshwar Vandan (Mantra)

In our Nepali and Hindi Christocentric Satsangs, the following mantra is always used at the beginning of the service. Ringing the bell and then beginning this Trinitarian chant provides a great and solemn call to worship.  It is called a “vandan”, that is, a salutation.  We begin our time of devotion and worship by saluting and acknowledging the one Triune and living God – our creator and savior.

I have provided below written forms of this mantra both in Sanskrit (both Devanagari [Pooja font] and Romanized scripts), followed by Nepali and English translations (Romanized).

f=,d ijes'oj oUnu (TriEak Parmeshwar Vandan) 'kkykse~ lukru Jh firk] iq=] ifo=kReus ue% lukru Jh firk ijes'ojk; ue% lukru Jh ;g'kwvk elhgk[k ue% lukru Jh ifo=kReus ue% lukru Jh f=,d ijes'ojk; ue% lukru Jh firk] iq=] ifo=kReus ue% A

Romanized Sanskrit: Shalom Sanatan shri Pita, Putra, Pavitra Atmane namah Sanatan shri Pita Parmeshwaraya namah Sanatan shri Yeshua Masihakh namah Sanatan shri Pavitra Atmane namah Sanatan shri TriEak Parmeshwaraya namah Sanatan shri Pita, Putra, Pavitra Atmane namah Romanized Nepali Translation: Shanti Anantan Pita, Putra, ra Pavitra Atma, Hami topailai pujan gardaychoo Anantan Pita Parmeshwar, Hami topailai pujan gardaychoo Anantan Yeshu Abishekakaran, Hami topailai pujan gardaychoo Anantan Pavitra Atma, Hami topailai pujan gardaychoo Anantan Tin-Ekma Parmeshwar, Hami topailai pujan gardaychoo Anantan Pita, Putra, ra Pavitra Atma, Hami topailai pujan gardaychoo English Translation: Peace Eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, We worship you Eternal Father, We worship you, Eternal Jesus Messiah, We worship you, Eternal Holy Spirit, We worship you, Eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, We worship you

These chants have been taken from the booklet “Christocentric Satsang" compiled by anil yesudas. “Christocentric Satsang” contains chants in Sanskrit, with translations in Hindi and English. These booklets are available through the website adhyathmavatika.org. For the sake of our Nepali and Bhutanese friends, in this blog, I have added translations in Nepali.

Highlights From Global Christian Blogosphere

Today I want to provide some links to some of the most interesting stuff I've seen posted around the web recently.  I'd like to start doing this regularly.  Let's see.  Let me get right to it:

• The Deity of Christ Debate (Pt. 2) - Produced by the Jewish Voice Broadcast, this four-person debate is between 2 Trinitarians and 2 Unitarians. Only brief clips are provided here and they're broken up by pleas for financial support by JVB, but what is there is good.  I particularly enjoyed one moment when James White whipped out his iPad and utterly silenced Sir Anthony Buzzard who had been misrepresenting the Hebrew of Psalm 110.
• Graham Crackers, Silverware & Rocking Chairs - Christian Historian Maxie Burch had a very interesting post a few weeks ago.  In it he shows how American Christian sectarianism has been responsible for giving us "Tony the Tiger".  Seriously.
• From the Lausanne Movement Blog - there is a seemingly never-ending stream of good, inspiring stuff coming from this blog.  I suggest checking out 3 brief videos. One is something you may find useful in your own church. It features several church leaders from around the world saying the Lord's prayer in their heart languages.  Another gives some behind-the-scenes insight into the table groups at Cape Town 2010.  I have had many conversations with Lausanne delegates and leaders.  Another yesterday confirmed yet again that the use of table groups at the congress was the most universally appreciated and valued component of the entire event.  I believe there is a tremendous lesson for the Church in this, so check that video out.  A third video is simply an inspiring highlight video from the congress as a whole.  Finally from this blog, if you have participated in the congress in person or online, I suggest taking a look at Jon Hirst's posts (pt. 1, pt. 2) about debriefing.  
• 10 Things I Learned About Myself at Cape Town - Mary DeMuth is a fellow U.S. Lausanne delegate that I met in Dallas and then saw again several times in Cape Town.  I like this post. She wrote another featuring 20 things she learned about God in Cape Town.  
• From the Lausanne Global Conversation - Just yesterday, my good friend and co-worker, Talargie Tafesse and I were commenting about how deeply impressed we both are with the missiology of Latin America.  Neither of us really have anything to do with Latin America, but the more I get to know about missions and missiology arising from that region of the world, the more convinced I am that God is doing a truly remarkable thing.  On that note, I commend to you this video of Samuel Escobar and Rene Padilla sharing at Cape Town as two of the great fathers of Latin American missiology.  Also, preparations are getting underway for the U.S. Lausanne follow-up meeting in Orlando, Florida in April 2011.  Information is posted here. I will also point you to one of the most powerful presentations of Cape Town, this one on the subject of HIV/AIDS.
• Cell Phones and the Brave New World of Hyperinformation - I'm always encouraged to see the Church engaging this incredibly important information .  John Armstrong shares some information stats here.  I also really like what John says about contextualization and Native Americans in this post.
• How to Plant a Church - Ed Stetzer featured this ironic video on his blog. I thought it was funny.
• From Answering Muslims - as usual, the Acts 17 folks have dug up some mind-blowing stuff to share with us.  Check out this article about British schoolboys who were punished in school for not praying in Islamic fashion.  And then there is the stunning "raisin-defense" from ABC news that David Wood capably responds to.

Okay, so that's what I have for you today.  Hopefully going to get some more posts written for the coming days.  I trust these will keep you busy on the web for a while.

Blessings!