The Presiding Bishop, Katherine Schori, finally stated outright her answer to the question of whether she thought that Jesus is the only route to salvation or are there other ways. In the past her reply as been that she “does not keep God in a small box” but this time she answered in a manner that squelches any speculations about her beliefs. She said the she believes that there are other ways for man to achieve salvation. She claimed that she could not elaborate on the mechanism and that how it worked did not concern her, she was simply positive that there are multiple avenues to salvation, that God would not create just one path (I guess that this is regardless of what He actually says).This statement follows on the heels of her comment at the opening of General Convention 2009 that salvation was not for individuals and that it was arrogant for an individual to claim a personal relationship ship with his or her creator. I ask now, as I asked then, “now who’s putting God in a small box?”

I have to wonder where she comes up with these views. They are not found in scripture no matter how liberally you wish to interpret the Bible. Just as Jesus (God incarnate, remember?) teaches us that salvation is granted on an individual basis to those whom God gifts with His precious grace, Jesus (God incarnate, remember?) tells us explicitly that

“No one comes to the Father except through me”
(John 14:6).

In making her statement she denies not just Holy Scripture but the words of Jesus Christ himself. She is not simply setting aside the authority of Scripture she is implying that Jesus (God incarnate, remember?) is at best not telling us the whole truth and at worse he is bold face lying to us. I’m sure she won’t see it this way but if one honestly reviews her words how else can they be taken and still truly reflect what she claims to believe?

Is Presiding Bishop Schori proclaiming heresy or is she only guilty of misinterpreting and misunderstanding the intentions of God as He has revealed His intentions to us in scripture or is she deliberately ignoring the Word of God and replacing His plan for the salvation of man with her own? That is a question I would like to explore and share with you, gentle reader, my thoughts. First lets us start with her belief that salvation and a relationship with God is not about the individual. Her words:

“The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”
“That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.”
“We are our siblings’ keepers and their knowers (sic), and we cannot be known without them – we have no meaning, no true existence in isolation”

In Genesis 15:6 “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” That bit of scripture sure sounds like Abram had a right, individual relationship with God. Not only did Abram have a right relationship with God but God credited Abram as righteous because Abram believed the LORD. Admittedly, Abram is a special case in that God had called him away from his home and leds him to a land that God promised to give to the offspring of Abram. What about the average Joe? Does the average believer need to be concerned about his individual sins or with the sins of the group or clan he belongs to? Scripture answers this for us as well.
The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

“But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live.
(Ezekiel 18:20-22)

Here we have God dealing with the individual not the group or the clan. The sins of the father are not visited about the son. The father is held accountable for his sins on an individual basis and the son is held responsible for his sins. If either should turn from their sins and call upon the name the Lord they will be accounted as righteous. These are two of many quotes from scripture that completely dispute the Presiding Bishop’s declaration of “the great Western heresy” God dealing with me as an individual does not put “me and my words in a place that only God can occupy” It puts me and my choices in the exact spot that God wants them to be, where he can judge me based on my individual faith for my sake and my sake alone. Is the god that Presiding Bishop seeks to have us follow so limited that he cannot be with all men at once? Is the god of Bishop Schori incapable of being infinite and omnipresent? That does not sound like the God of the Bible who knows all things and is everywhere and every when. How can the God who tells me that

“even the very hairs of your head are all numbered”
(Matthew 10:30)

be so limited in his dealings with his creation that he cannot take time for me, one on one? How can a God who knows that level of detail about every human being that lived, lives and will live not deal with his creation individually? How could God be a just God if he judges based on the group? Did not Abram barter with God to spare Sodom if 10 righteous people (individuals) be found and did not God agree to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous people?

Perhaps Bishop Schori worships a different god than the God of the bible. Perhaps she pays homage to a god who is neither omnipotent nor omnipresent but is instead a limited god who is incapable of being with his entire creation at once. Perhaps her god is not even a creator god but one who wishes to be a usurper god and a destroyer of creation?

Of course One True God deals with us individually and offers salvation to us on an individual bases. To suggest otherwise flies in the face of scripture as it is read. To suggest otherwise denies the revealed plan of God for the salvation of man and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. To deny God’s ability to save individuals and to have a right relationship with individuals slams shut to door to the Kingdom of God. It slam shuts the only door to the Kingdom, Christ Jesus.

Bishop Schori would have us believe that there are more avenues to salvation and the Kingdom of God in defiance of the Word of our savior Jesus Christ. How can she claim to be a Christian when she disputes the Word of the one upon whom our faith is based? If there are other ways to salvation then it would be completely unnecessary for Jesus to be crucified in the first place. His atoning death upon the cross would have had no meaning and his resurrection would be reduced to astonishing parlor trick and nothing more. What would it say about a god who sends his only son, perfect and sinless, to filled with the all sins of mankind, to order his obedient son to be beaten and humiliated and then to suffer an agonizing death upon the worse instrument of execution ever devised by man, all for absolutely no reason. Who would wish to worship such a god as this?

For that reason and that reason alone Bishop Schori is guilty of heresy and perhaps of even worse. Her words reduce the kind and loving Creator God who seeks to heal His creation in to a sadistic monster who finds amusement in the torturing and killing of his only Son, presumably for His own entertainment and no other reason. This is the god that the Presiding Bishop is offering her church. The gospel she has concocted is no gospel at all but the promise of certain damnation for anyone gullible enough to accept her words at face value. Just stop for a minute and think of what her words imply and what promises are held forth in them.

She is distorting the truth of the gospel to appease some unknown force that motivates her. Sadly, she may even believe the words she speaks and does not realize the implications of her “new thing”. Perhaps she should sit down and read a little more closely at what Christ tells us.

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”
(John 14:6)

That seems cut and dry to me. It does not end with “or one of these other ways.”

She wonders how she can tell a Buddhist or and Muslim that they are facing eternal damnation because God only created one way to salvation. Since she claims not to be concerned with the mechanism, perhaps she should be equally unconcerned about God’s reasoning for creating only one way to redemption. Besides, the offer of redemption is open to everyone. Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or atheist need only to reach out to Christ and accept his atoning death upon the cross to be given the gift of salvation and the right to call oneself a child of God. God is not excluding anyone. When Christ died upon the cross for the sins of all mankind, the invitation to each individual in the world was extended to join with the resurrected Son of God as the people of God. The only requirement was the RSVP of belief.

Bishop Schori, however, views this as an example of the intolerance of Christian belief. It is ironic that in her quest to be seen as an accepting and tolerant person of God who will show everyone the real way to salvation she is in fact putting up a detour sign on the narrow path that points to the broad road that leads to destruction. She tells us that the belief that Christ is the only way is a work and that salvation is by faith along but this is self-contradictory. Belief in Jesus as mankind’s only hope is not a work because one can only believe this if the One True God calls that person to belief with his gift of grace. If the Muslim does not believe then it is because God has not called him. This is the word of the Lord:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. (John 6:44).

Bishop Schori recognizes that one must have faith in something so is she implying that simply believing that we are saved gains us salvation? Can we believe just any old thing and that is good enough to see the Kingdom of God? Can I commit any sin I want just as long as I believe that I’m going the heaven or are the specific sins that it is ok for me commit and others that I cannot. If this is the case where do I find the list? How do know what is acceptable and what is not. If it feels good can I just do it? What if it feels good to walk in to a crowded café with a bomb vest on and set it off so that I kill about twenty or thirty innocent people? Will I still be saved because I have faith that I am being saved?

Her whole view of spirituality and Christianity is a contradiction and an appeal to be all things to all people. It is truly a postmodern theology that deconstructs itself upon closer examination and offers no true salvation. All it gives to the believer is faux sense of rightness with something other than themselves and a false validation that their sins are not really sins but gifts from God. As long as one does not delve to deeply into questions that those who promote this false doctrine do not want to be asked, a follower of Schorism can sleep at night with a false confidence that everything is going to be okay. If you love your sin so much that you are unwilling to cast it away for an eternity of bliss then I guess this is the way to go.

If anyone would bother to spend a little time examining the Schori Doctrine of Salvation they will quickly come the conclusion that it really leads nowhere, especially to salvation and the Kingdom of God. It has no basis in scripture or in any Christian tradition. It is nothing more than some feel good ideas strung together on gossamer threads. At best it is Gnostic but probably it is more demonic than Gnostic. I remember John Lennon telling us that whatever gets us through the night is alright, alright. From my current perspective I do not believe that this is true. Eventually a night will come in which the darkness will never go way but there will be a large contingent of people waiting for the dawn. Waiting and waiting and waiting. Thank you Ms Schori.

In a previous article (The Renewing of Our Minds), I kind of implied that the lack of good Biblical education and quality Bible study habits by many in the Church laity was in large part at fault for the heresies being introduced and practiced in many of the traditional mainstream protestant churches. I think now is the time to say it out right. If every day, average Joe Christians had been picking up and reading their Bibles daily, taking God’s word to heart and then living out those commandments it would have been a lot harder for the invaders from secular society to infiltrate the Church. By not truly knowing or understanding what Christ’s message is and relying solely on someone at the pulpit to educate the masses then the curse of false doctrines taking hold within Christianity was inevitable. The divide that we now see between those who adhere to the gospel as it came down from Christ Jesus though the Apostles and those who claim that God is doing some previously unannounced “new thing” was inevitable.

Those of the secular liberal clergy who lead many of the churches realize that anyone who has or gains an understanding of Biblical teaching and principles will be able to challenge the authority of the minister’s words using sound Scriptural arguments. Paul verified this when he wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). To counter this, the first thing that worldly Church leaders tend to do is question the true authority and authenticity of Scripture and when they deem that the time is right they replace Scriptural authority with Church traditions which are open to a more ambiguous interpretation by clergy. Once again in Scripture the apostles warned of this the author of Jude reminds us, “They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the spirit.” (Jude 1:18-19). What these supposed servants of the Lord are saying is “the Bible got some stuff wrong and we will tell you what it really means based on what the Church believes.” Because many Church goers have been relying on the pulpit to explain things to them for so long they do not question this heresy or even see it as a heresy. It is just the status quo to them. Just sit in the pews and let the minister tell them what is and is not God’s will.

Now this is where the worldly fun begins as the liberal clergy starts looking around at society and examining what is going on. Their efforts here are to make the Church conform to societal norms and worldly behavior. When the world decides that killing the unborn is a good thing then the worldly church leaders jump on the band wagon. Many farfetched claims are made to justify what many consider out and out murder. They claim that it is better to terminate the child than to have it grow up unwanted in an abusive environment. They claim the mother will have a better life if left unimpeded by a child that will bring her standard of living down.

One I hear a lot is that the fetus is in reality just a parasite in the woman’s body. It is a simple clump of cells that use the woman for nourishment and development and are doing this against her will. Funny but I’ve never heard of a parasite that contained half of the host’s DNA and the other half being generally a voluntary donation to the mother’s reproductive system. I am no biologist but I don’t think that this fits the true definition of a parasite. Anyways, they cannot have a bunch of pious Christians running around talking about sin and damnation and pointing out to everyone that abortion is an abomination in the eyes of God. It is murder of the innocent and anyone who has any honest understanding of Scripture will know this.

How a Christian Church, a place where God’s word should reign sovereign, could consider this abominable doctrine a valid Christian belief and then preach it to its members as something acceptable to God is beyond me. Even more astonishing is that many people who claim to be members of the Body of Christ can accept this deviation from God’s law as a valid exception to the “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) commandment. Admittedly I’ve only been studying the Bible for a couple of years but I have yet come across any exceptions or mention of extenuating circumstances in which God will authorize the breaking of one of the commandments in the Decalogue.

Another area where the Church has looked over society and said this is good is the area of same sex marriages. When society seeks to establish same sex marriages then the secularly led Church must seek to do the same and looks first for ways in Scripture to justify this. The Lord, however, is very specific when it comes to marriage. He tells us in the opening chapters of Genesis, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Since that will not work they look to science and genetics and tell us that since people are genetically predisposed to homosexual behavior then God the Creator must approve. After all He created the DNA that caused someone to become a homosexual. We are told that if Moses had known about genetics when he wrote Leviticus then he never would have put the prohibitions on same sex sexual relations in the law. Moses may not have known about genetics and DNA but I’m fairly certain that the Holy Spirit did as He guided Moses in the writing of the Pentateuch and moved Moses to include restrictions on this type of behavior.

Still many mainstream Churches are telling us that we are not behaving as Jesus would have us behave. We are not being tolerant of our homosexual brothers and sisters and we should welcome them into the Church with open arms and tell them that it is just fine and dandy if they want to participate in an act that God has strictly forbidden. They do not have to repent from such behavior because even though God told us that it was wrong He apparently was only kidding because He genetically made them to desire this sort of activity. I hate to break the news to the heretics but science it determining that God seems to have made alcoholics and drug addicts genetically predisposed to over indulging in alcohol and drugs but they are still expected to repent, ask forgiveness of their sins and renounce the sinful behavior. I do not think that the Holy Spirit would be able to live and function in a practicing alcoholic. Once the alcoholic repents and renounces his sin the Lord removes the urge to drink and strengthens him to remain alcohol free.

God seems to have created all of us with various difficulties in our nature that He expects us to overcome in order to show Him our love and to bring Him glory. For some it is lust, for others it is alcohol and drugs and for others it is homosexual desires. God is not telling homosexuals that they are barred from the gates of Heaven. He is simply telling them to renounce their sinful nature, give it to God for Him to deal with and “go forth and sin no more”. The Lord expects the same thing from all sinners who seek the grace and forgiveness of God. No one is exempt for this, “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘If any man would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’” (Mark 8:34). Christ is telling us that we (the Church) must be more like him.

Somehow the liberal clergy got things turned around. Instead of the Church being a example of Christ’s virtue and a witness to the world, the Church decided that its views and behaviors should closely reflect that of society at large. The Church was supposed to remain separate from the world even at the risk of persecution. Christ told us “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19). Lately, however, the Church’s response to this seems to be to pull away from Christ and seek for the love and adoration of the world. This is a true heresy and the path damnation. Unfortunately an uneducated laity does not know any better and responds to the liberal Church’s heresy with acceptance and approval.

Now what is left to do? It will be difficult of not impossible for even the regenerate to change the direction that the visible Church is now taking. Many have accepted the heresy and pronounced it good. The liberal clergy have embraced the very things that the Lord our God warned them not to and now teach that these things are in harmony with the will of God. However they cannot produce the Scripture that validates this interpretation. They tell us it is ‘a new thing’ given to us by the Holy Spirit but Paul warned us about new things that have no Scriptural basis. He reiterated, “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:9). If it were just the teachers of heresy who were bringing eternal condemnation upon themselves that would be one thing. Unfortunately a lot of people will be taking the fall with them. Oh for the want of a desire to read and study the Bible, the souls that could have been saved.

What is left to do? We regenerate are limited in our abilities. God, however, is not so constrained and may have ideas of his own…

The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
Isaiah 29:13-14