Calvin Bontrager:

See [religions.pewforum.org]

Point and click on the selection "Evangelical Churches."

The drop down statistics will then appear.

Note that a very small percentage of evangelicals are in independent and/or nondenominational unaffiliated churches.

Amongst those independents many churches have democratically elected church government according to their bylaws.

And many Protestants are in the "mainline" denominational churches, which have democratically elected government at both the church and denominational level.

Totalitarian churches without democratically elected church government, which essentially have dictatorial leaders, are a small minority.

Most evangelical churches belong to denominations, which affords greater accountability regarding educational requirements for staff, doctrinal issues and ethics. Typically denominations also have democratic government through elections at conferences and conventions, e.g. Southern Baptist Convention.

If people wish to sit under an authoritarian pastor or pastors that lack such constitutional and institutional safeguards that's their choice, but that choice is potentially unsafe and there is a long history of serious problems regarding abuse in such authoritarian churches.

Anyone can readily identify if their church has meaningful safeguards by asking these basic and rather simple questions.

Does the church have a constitution and/or corporate bylaws that require regular elections in which the general membership votes by secret ballot to elect board members that serve fixed terms and must regularly stand for re-election and the end of their terms?

Does the elected board and its officers control the church finances and have the power to fire staff, including pastors?

Is their an annually published budget that discloses in detail all salaries, compensation and expenses paid out from the church funds?

Are the church finances independently audited by an outside accounting firm?

If the church doesn't have these typical safeguards it is neither genuinely democratic nor meaningfully financially transparent, in any objective structural sense.

Quote
Calvin Bontrager
Hey brother there is absolutely noting wrong with the use of Scripture in this way.... We are not a part of the prosperity group and I will not ignore one scripture over another just because ther is a false prosperity doctrine out there.... the purpose of this page is to encourage people to know that God cares about them and loves them and the Bible clearly states that He has a plan for each of us..... I do not believe that God intends everyone to be rich and I do not hold to prosperity preaching... I actually am completely against it..... I realize there is much that could be said on an opening page of a web site but Jesus said the entire Word could be summed up in Love.... His love for us and ours for one another. Personally I will start where Jesus did and work from there. I preach repentance and righteousness all the time so for me to use this verse as an encouragement to people is completely solid.....if I was using it as a prosperity guy and followed it up with a bunch of crap about God wants you to be rich....then you would have a point but that is not who we are or what we preach...

Dear Calvin, thank you for staying on the forum! I have a qestiontion for you. Are you willing to kick off the city church person off your board of the fake bible college (SOMA) PNBC? If you look on the web site at city church under statement of faith you will find that they believe the Prosperity crap. also how come you did not confront false apostle Mike when he was pushing the Prosperity crap with all his crappy false word-faith movement buddies like Casey Treat, Dr. Increase Dr. Favor etc. I am just curious if you are trying to pretend you where living on a another planet when you decided to be false Apostle Mikes plant church? and if you think the prosperity crap is crappy then how come you have power to produce prosperity xTPCWOC Market Place ministry guy on your facebook as your interest.He is clearly a false word-faith movement positive confession crappy prosperity teacher. Look forward to your response . thank you



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2011 02:34AM by buddy.

Dear Pastor Calvin
I am sure you don’t realize but you just made my point, demonstrating your approach to the holy words of God [the Bible] and how you read the text.
You are NOT practicing good Exegesis, examining the data or passage to make a conclusion and then application.

You are coming up with your preconceived conclusion and then you are finding verses to use to support you belief.
This is EISEGESIS.

Remember context, Context, CONTEXT! You’re sounding a bit like Joel Osteen here.

Pastor, I beg of you to look at the passage of Jeremiah 29 (all of it!)

let me give you a basic hermeneutic class?
Look at the context of that passage, who is this passage written to? What is the context? What is the reason for writing? What is going on? War, Famine, Feast, Traveling etc. What is life like? What are the circumstances? What is the culture?
When was this written, OT or NT? and where was he writing?

We can not understand the text differently than the original audience.
If our understanding is diffident than the original audience, WE ARE WRONG.
Ask yourself what is the meaning of this passage? What is the principle in general terms?

Read it right, what covenant are the people under? How does that apply to us today?

Old Testament vs. New Testament
Old Testament: Quid Pro Quo Covenant; Example Isreal behave like this, I will bless you, Isreal behave like that, I curse you. And when you are blessed nations will want to know me.
New Testament: Spiritual
How does the New Testament alter the principle of this Old Testament text?

Remember one word can have a lot of meanings but can only have one meaning in the text.
Never read a bible verse without reading the full context!

Please have some reverence for the word of God.

braveheart, your response to calvin really blows my mind. we have never met or talked about scripture, but I have been saying the same thing, God spoke to certain people and we take the stuff we like and try to apply it to us. never actually hearing from Him. the church I now attend is going through joshua, he mentioned jerico and stated that God told them to walk around and shout, and they won the battle, he mentioned that God never used that stratigy again, this statement openend my eyes to how God is specific to people and situations. Ive heard pastors take that story. and tell people to walk around their problems and shout like jerrico. and were dumb enough to do it. the fact that calvin justifies himself with the words its ok to read scripture that way, to me shows a certain arrogance that runs rampant in these churchs. The pastor thinks he has some kind of special understanding of how God works, and he is going to tell us. never placing himself in the position of still seeking, I often say the bible says Gods ways are not mans ways. but somehow leaders in the church not all but may. think that since they now have a title, now Gods ways are their ways. now they have some special understanding that sets them apart from mortal man. I think the pharisis had that same spirit , wise in their own eyes, selfrighteous, to the core, what I keep noticing out of this is calvin chooses only to answer certain questions. I think its probably useless to think there will be real transparency, all we will get is justification.

Calvin
What are your thoughts about the points razed in that video? You can PM here or respond to one of my emails to your church.

I am not sure if you have been following the new promo video for Rob Bell's new book "love-wins" but after several people have watched it,
We understand that Rob Bell believes that every soul on the planet will be saved.
We know that the bible does not teach that, so who is wrong? That would be Mr. Rob Bell!!!

This is why and how theology is so important to the Christian, today!
The one who will compromise the truth or waters down the words of God, to avoid a conflict, or to appear relevant, hip and cool, according to the Bible a person who becomes pragmatic to the word of God is an anathema!

Charles Spurgeon said something like ‘I would not intentionally teach any passage from the bible, out of context, even if that could some how win thousands to follow God.’
John Wesley said; “I would not tell one lie to save the souls of all the world.”
Spurgeon also said;
“I hold one single sentence out of God’s word to be of more certainty and of more power than all the discoveries of all the learned men of all the ages.”
“Saints not only desire to love and speak truth with their lips, but they seek to be true within; they will not lie even in the closet of their hearts, for God is there to listen; they scorn double meanings, evasions, equivocations, white lies, flatteries, and deceptions.”

Pastor my prayer for you is to "come-about" (an old sailing term) to turn around and strengthen your theology and your use of the Bible and the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe each messages to the seven churches in Revelation applies not only to your church but to us individually!!! Read the word of God and show yourself to be a steward of these Holy words.
When somebody is theologically wrong, Christians need to be the kind of believer who would say friend you need to GET OUT OF THAT CULT because it diminished the character, nature and glory of God and the souls that are in it!

Respect the words of God, so that in 100 years your words would be counted as being biblically theological, correct and true, not some charlatan wrangling for the attention and homage a few fools.

Sure man I will try to get to it soon.... I have been really slammed and am launching a new ministry center...I value your opinions and am quite willing to walk through some of this stuff together if you can be patient and a bit kinder in your interactions.... I am a comopetitive guy and when you come at me dogmaticly I tend to get my fighting gloves on... I have posted several things in reply to the comments on the site but the monitor said he has not gotten them....

I got in late last night so I have not had a chance to see the video yet. At some point I would like to get together personally and chat

Working on it
Calvin

buddy

I have tryed over and over to reply to your questions and the questions of others... I have posted more than 12 typed pages to the forum over the past week .... none of it is being let through ... If you get this I will be supprised

Calvin Bontrage:

Your claim that you are supposedly trying "over and over" to answer questions seems quite strange.

No one is stopping your posts from getting through.

Your posts have been repeatedly approved and appeared on the message board.

You are capable of answering questions.

Please don't attempt to use false claims about moderation of this board as an excuse for not answering questions.

Brother,

you do not know me nor have you been around my teaching. My prayer is that you will not make judgments about me or anyone else without following the Biblical design for doing so. I am happy to enguage in theological discussion with you and I am quite fine if at the end of the day I learn something new and find out I was wrong. I have neiter attacked you with unfounded accusations or presumed to tell you what you stand for because I do not know you. This type of harsh unloving approach is exactly what keeps many people from the table of clear thinking and sound doctrine. I can only assume you believe me to be a false teacher that is working against the Kingdom, but if you were to talk to people who know me or look at the fruit of my life, or actually sit down to a reasonable conversation with me you might find out that you have judged incorrectly. I am by no means perfect but I am not a false teacher nor am I tearing down the Church. I do not need to repent of false teaching because I have not been teaching falsly. I may yet have much to learn and my theology I am sure will grow in understanding but I am a soild believer.

In my ministry thus far I have not had the time or leading to keep up on what everyone else is doing or saying. I am working hard at carrying out the plans God has for me and the things He has ask me to do. This is not to say that others may be called to "watch dog" over the church but that is not me. I have no idea what Rob Bell is up to or any of the countless other people you are upset with. I do not keep up on doctrinal trends or cult activity. I just try to listen, and obey what God is calling me to do through His WORD and Hid Spirit. There are points in Wesleys life that could be pulled out and we could declare him unfit and a false prophet. His theology changed from where he started to where he ended. I would say he ended well, but I would not say that he started poorly but that through God's grace and Wesley's love for God he found his way home. We are in a growing relationship with God and one another. That means we are going to change and grow....but the foundation of all that God is doing and has done is that we Love God and Love each other. I want to know what is true in God's Word because He I love Him but more than anything I want to know Him. Let me ask you, what did the early church do without a Bible as we know it? How did they function and succeed for hundreds of years before the cannonization of scripture? What did they argue about or exegete? from what Biblical context did they draw there arguments from? You want to know? The living active Word of God. Hmmm what does that verse translate to exactly? and what Word was being refered to there?

Lets keep going but not with unfounded accuzations but as true seekers of the truth.

If we proceed are you willing to find out that you are wrong in some areas?
Can we continue from a position of love without accusation before discovery?
Are we committed to learn from one another?

I have posted to several areas including directly to you over 12 typed pages of answers.... one post that was around for or five pages and another that is around 8 none of that info is getting posted but all of my shorter work is going through fine.....explain