Monday, December 25, 2006


Christmas is here but somehow I can't get into the "spirit of the season". Perhaps it's the commercialism and the material ostentation that assaults my better judgment? Or is it the fact that our world is still so deeply bankrupt - morally and spiritually speaking?

Perhaps it's a bit of everything–but one thing that definitely bothers me is that evil and apostasy continue unabated while sentimental versions of Christianity keep us from defending the truth.

Here is what I mean.

You've probably already received your share of Christmas cards all equating the season with "love and peace". "Love," it is said, "is the reason for the season." We've heard these sentimental sayings so often it's becoming a cliché to even call them a cliché (and that's one of the problems with sentimentalism - it devalues the significance of symbols, words and even truth).

Now, as today's Christians sentimentalize divine truth in an effort to be relevant to the culture, those hostile to genuine Christianity are taking advantage of our soft-pedaling by purposefully twisting and perverting the truth.

In what is usually a peaceful early morning perusal of the latest headlines with a good cup of coffee the other day, my mind soon felt like it was falling into an abyss. From out in cyberspace I got a very "timely report" about a lesbian author, Ms. Kittredge Cherry, who has written a book about Jesus' life.

Her book is called: Jesus in Love. She touts it as ground breaking literature. "Jesus life," as seen through the interpretative lens of this lesbian, is a triumph of "love" - erotic love, that is - with the apostle John.

In it she re-imagines "Christ's legendary life as an erotic, mystical adventure in first-century Palestine."

Addressing the reason for writing the book, Ms. Cherry said: "Every time a gay gets bashed, Jesus is crucified again. The anti-gay movement uses religion to justify discrimination, so even atheists can see the value in uprooting homophobia from Christian tradition."

Cherry is not simply a hyper-homosexual revisionist, she is a propagandist for the Metropolitan Community church and is using her position to purposefully twist and pervert divine truth and historic fact, deceiving people and mocking God and His Church at the same time.

Jesus was no mere man - He was the God-man.

But as a man, he lived a life of holy communion with God and therefore to suggest that his love for the disciples was anything more then agape love, is pure anachronistic perversion.

Such willful distortion of the truth needs to be categorically denounced as a blatant act of defamation and blasphemy.

Unfortunately, Ms. Cherry's blasphemy probably won't be challenged by contemporary Christian leaders. If she was mocking Mohammed, I think we'd have some idea of the kind of public outrage that would ensue from Muslims. But not when it comes to Christian sacred truth.

Why is this kind of mockery of the God of the universe met with silence by today's Western Church? It is because sentimentalism has effectively castrated Christian virility and courage. If we don't want to learn from Muslims about the importance of expressing public outrage against such mockery and filth, maybe we can learn from African and other Third World Christian leaders who are becoming increasingly outspoken in the face of Western perversion being promoted in their fellowships and denominations.

Sentimental Christianity has produced spinelessness - and a soulless Christianity. The fact that few are willing to challenge Ms. Cherry's hate speech (because it is really quite hateful to refer to Jesus Christ as a sodomite) indicates how far out of touch we are with genuine Christianity and the God who sent the Son of His love to the world.

Yes, God is merciful, forgiving and loving. Thank God that He is. But let's put things into perspective, shall we? While it is true that God loves the world and all those within it, if we could measure the quality and quantity of his love we'd quickly discover a very basic rule. That the Father, just like a human father, showers all of his love on his Son, Jesus Christ, so that Jesus in fact becomes the ultimate recipient of the Father's love. In other words, God loves his Son more then anyone else in creation.

Those of us who have children should appreciate this point. It is only natural, and in God's case, divinely natural that Jesus is loved more then anyone else, even though it is correct to speak of the Father's love for humanity (Heb. 1:5-6). Yes, yes, he offered him up for the world, but that sacrificial act served a purpose (humanity's redemption) it does not mean that God values and loves humans more then His own Son. It means that God's love for us is conditional and based on how we respond to the Son of His love.

And therefore it is a tautology to say that Jesus is more important then anyone of us, and furthermore that the Father is "jealous" for his Son's honour (Phil 2:9-10). And therefore, since Jesus is the ultimate recipient of God's love and honour, all those who defame, slander and despise the Jesus, whom the Father sent to the world will quickly discover that God's love is not a license to insult his pride and joy - Jesus Christ.

There is just no way God will tolerate the defamation and blaspheming of Jesus. What earthly father word? What father would tolerate the scandalous character assassination of his own child?

It is tautological to assume that God' love for his Son, necessitates his judgment of those who purposefully defame, shame and blaspheme the Son of His love.

"For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son…He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." (John 3:16-21)

This Christmas, remember that God's love is not sentimental. It's real, it is divine and it is ultimately reserved for Jesus Christ.

Yours for our culture,

Tristan Emmanuel

ECP Centre President