By Spencer Gear [1]

    Any Bible teacher who makes theology a dry-as-chips experience for the listener or reader has missed his or her calling.  The study of theology must not be dry and boring.  "Theology" is based on the Greek, "theos" meaning God and "logos" meaning word or study.  To put it simply: theology is the study of God and all of his works.  It is meant to be lived out in experienced, prayed through, and most certainly sung.  Great theology leads to great praise of our Almighty God.
    You will notice that this webpage deals with very practical issues.  It is designed to promote theology that agrees "with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness" (I Tim. 6:3).  The foundation for sound theology is  2 Tim. 3:16 (ESV): "All Scripture is breathed out by God and [is] profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
    Therefore, this investigation and application of theology begins with the belief (based on solid evidence) that the Bible is completely true, trustworthy, and is absolutely authoritative in all matters that it adddresses.  Why?  It is inspired [breathed-out] by God himself.
    Read on for theology that matters and its practical application!

Liberal Theology

Distorting the Gospel (Spong)
Does the Bible need to be rescued from fundamentalism? Does "old time religion" disenfranchise the homosexuals, women and others in the church? Or is Bishop Spong promoting another agenda?

John Shelby Spong & the Churches of Christ, Vic., Australia 

    
When I read Merrill Kitchen's favourable article towards ex-Bishop Spong, in "The Future Church and Bishop John Shelby Spong," I wondered if Kitchen and I were reading the same author. This is only one view by a leader within the Churches of Christ in Australia, but she is the principal of a theological college of influence in Melbourne, Australia.
    I thought I had read an adequate sample of Spong's views in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Born of a Woman, Resurrection Myth or Reality?, and his latest which he claims will be his last -- Spong's swan song -- A New Christianity for a New World.  But I was not ready for the sanitised version of Spong in this article.

[John S. Spong photo courtesy Episcopal Diocese of Newark, NJ, USA]

Spong's Swan Song 

    Review & Analysis: John Shelby Spong, A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born.  San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.
   This is a shocker! It is vintage Spong – extremely readable but heretical at its heart! He throws out core Christian beliefs such as the atonement (an "offensive idea", p. 10) and the bodily resurrection of Christ, yet still wants to say: "I am a Christian. I believe that God is real. I call Jesus my Lord. Yet I do not define God as a supernatural being. I believe passionately in God. This God is not identified with doctrines, creeds, and traditions" (pp. 3, 64, 74).
    He rejoices that "the blinding idolatry of traditional theism [read, supernatural Christianity] has finally departed from my life" (p. 74). More than that, he proclaims, "Theism is dead, I joyfully proclaim, but God is real" (p.77).  Is theism dead or is it Spongism with the killer instinct?

Spong's deadly Christianity 

It is with sadness that I must disagree profoundly with Noel Preston's assessment of  Bishop Spong as having "the positive impact . . . on behalf of Christian faith" (Journey, Letters, Nov. 07).    While Spong was Bishop of Newark, NJ, the Episcopalians voted with their feet.  Membership dropped by more than 40%.  That redefines "positive impact."

Marriage & the Family

Are there apostles in the 21st Century?
Why is it that some Christians are so strong in their opposition to the gift of apostle as one of the gifts of the Spirit for people in today’s church? I interacted on a student bulletin board (on the www) with students who were cessationists. They used verses such as Ephesians 2:20 and 3:5 to prove their views. They believe that the gift of apostleship ceased with Christ’s apostles.

Do you need to speak in tongues to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
    Some pentecostal Christian denominations and para-church agencies of a similar persuasion have Statements of Beliefs that conclude: We believe "the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, according to Acts 2:4, is given to believers who ask for it".  The meaning is that speaking in tongues is the initial physical evidence of the baptism/filling with the Holy Spirit.  Those who are Spirit-filled will speak in unknown/other tongues, is their view.
    Although I accepted this view for about 13 years, an examination of the Scriptures and Christian experience has forced me to question this understanding.  Since I am committed to the inerrant Word of God, I have sought answers from a careful study of the grammar and context of Acts 2:4 and other Scriptures.

Divine healing without fanaticism
 With so much fanaticism and extremes associated with so-called divine healing ministries around the world, how is it possible to expound a sound theology of healing for the church today?  Some want to call it "faith healing" and dismiss it.  Others claim that God's supernatural ability to heal the sick ceased with the Jesus' apostles and God only speaks through his still, small voice today.  After examining the biblical evidence, we conclude: We can pray for healing (some may be gifted with a ministry of healings, I Cor. 12:9); the elders are called upon to pray for and anoint the sick with oil (James 5:14-15); we can use  medicine and medical procedures. But it is God who proclaims, "I am the Lord, your healer" (Ex. 15:26, ESV).  Come with us on the journey!

St. Augustine: The man who dared to change his mind about divine healing
This famous bishop and theologian of the church during the 4th and 5th centuries was a man who considered that the gift of healing had ceased with the death of the twelve apostles.  However, towards the end of his life miraculous healing began to happen in his parish.  This caused him to change his mind about divine healing.  Take a read.

The cover story in New Life Christian newspaper (Melbourne, Australia), "Tennis great aces crowd", should have come with a warning.  The headline should have read, "Tennis great also serves faults, even double faults, to the crowd." This was from a testimony by Margaret Court, former international tennis champion, from Perth, Western Australia.  Find out why this preacher included spiritual poison in her testimony.

We examine four themes:

Salvation, Heaven & Hell

Children & Heaven
  After the death of a child or following an abortion, thoughtful people have asked, "What happens to children who die?" Where does a baby go who dies before he or she can understand right from wrong? What about the death of a person with a mental disability who is incapable of rational comprehension? Are aborted foetuses nothing more than scrap heap refuse? Is there any after-life for them?

    "When I die, I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive," said the late British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, who died in 1970.  We can hardly argue with his statement.  It is obviously true concerning the physical body. Three years after he published that statement, Russell died. But is it the whole truth? Does the real 'me' disappear? Epicurus, the Greek pleasure-loving philosopher, said long ago, "What men fear is not that death is annihilation (complete destruction), but that it is not."
   Bertrand Russell said more than when he dies he rots. He sailed into Jesus when he said: "There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment."
    Hell is more than a swear word.  It is reality for those who refuse to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord.  Link to "Hell & Judgment" to find what the Scriptures say.

Once saved, always saved OR once saved, lost again?
    Is it possible for a born-again, evangelical, saved Christian to reach a point where he or she can lose salvation? This question has caused some of the greatest theological minds in the history of the church to disagree. In fact, it is one of the most contentious subjects in today’s evangelical church.  You might be surprised with the biblical evidence.
     St. Augustine wrote: "He that made us without ourselves, will not save us without ourselves"  Thomas Oden's modern adaptation is: "God who made you without you and atoned for you without you  is determined to save you only with your free consent (Eph. 2:8-10)." 

Theological Issues

Theology I learned in a hospital cardiac ward
    On 28th February 2003, I was released from the cardiac ward of an Australian hospital after my 4th valve replacement open-heart surgery. From a number of different staff people and a visitor, I received some profound reflections on life and life-after-death issues that need to be examined and/or challenged: After death -- nothing! Christianity the crutch; Beat up on the church; I don't believe anything anymore; The happy wanderer; Now what?
    This is theology from the cardiac ward.

    Raise the issue of women in ministry, particularly women pastors or women preachers to a mixed audience of men and women, and you are likely to be howled down in many evangelical churches.  That has happened to this preacher on a number of occasions when he raised his views in support of women's giftedness, teaching and preaching, being expressed publicly in the church.  This anti-women-in-ministry view often comes with the accusation, "You wouldn't be thinking like this if it were not for the way the contemporary feminist movement has influenced you."
    That view is challenged here.  You night be surprised at what the Bible says.

    God’s Word states that women can speak in the church – they can pray and prophesy according to I Cor. 11: 5, "But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head -- it is the same as if her head were shaven." Here a woman in the church is able to pray and prophesy. The head covering is another issue, but not considered here as it is not relevant to the primary topic of the validity or otherwise of women in public ministry.
    It is possible to pray without opening the mouth, but I do not know how a woman can prophesy in the church gathering with her mouth closed.
    We know what is involved in praying, but what does the Scripture mean when it says that a woman is able to prophesy? Surely that can’t be done through silence! Here is not the place for a detailed examination of the gift of prophecy. Let’s check out a few evangelical commentators for their views.

The Truth Challenge (homepage)

Notes:

1.  I am an Australian family relationships' counselling manager, doctoral student in biblical studies, an active Christian apologist, and may be contacted at: P. O. Box 3107, Hervey Bay 4655, Australia.