The preacher says, “All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). All created things, and all human endeavours related to them, are insufficient for yielding any true contentment. “All is nothing,” it could be translated, or “empty of any virtue as to the effect of making us happy.” This includes created delights such as riches, honours, and worldly pleasures, particularly as they are abused, and “subjected to vanity” (Rom. 8:20), by people seeking their chief good from them. Also “vanity” are all the efforts we make by human power or skill to make ourselves happy, or contented, whether in the contemplation or the enjoyment of created things. These are vain because they are unable to afford any thing but disappointment, and disappointment in the highest degree, “vanity of vanities.”
Spiritual Beings Need Spiritual Fulfilment
There are earthly and tangible delights which are in themselves good, and in their right use lawful, and subservient to us for attaining true happiness. Yet even these prove altogether unprofitable, and unsatisfying to us, if we seek to enjoy them as our chief good. They are so disproportionate, so inadequate, to the human soul. The nature of the soul is spiritual, and the soul is capable of enjoying an infinite good – God reconciled to through Christ as our portion. This is why our souls can never be satisfied with these fading and transitory things. All temporary delights, mainly because they are fading, and unable to satisfy the immortal soul, are here pronounced to be vanity of vanities.
The “Just a Bit More” Fallacy
Solomon continues, “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing” (Ecclesiastes 1:8). While people are pursuing earthly contentments as their chief good, they foolishly imagine that if they just had a bit more of them, they would then be satisfied. Yet, pursuing earthly things as our best portion always ends in dissatisfaction, not only in the pursuit but also when they are attained, as if by drinking you only become more thirsty. All the toil and wearisome labour that people have in pursuing these lying vanities, and all the dissatisfaction and even disgust they feel in consuming them, never in the slightest diverts them from spending themselves yet further in the pursuit! They still keep gazing at these unsatisfying sights, and still listen greedily to the voice of temptations and corruption, expecting to find happiness in these things. Even when their efforts are unspeakable weariness, yet still they labour in the same way.
The “Now We Know Better” Fallacy
In fact, people persist in this, so entranced with the apparent sweetness of earthly things, as if nothing like it had ever been tasted by anyone who ever lived before.
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After 2023, there is no clear path for United Methodist congregations to exit the denomination without losing their property. The 2024 General Conference could approve another exit pathway but it unlikely to do so. Paragraph 2553 was ratified by the 2019 Special General Conference by less than 52 percent, with traditionalists supporting and liberals opposing. Traditionalists are not expected to have a majority in 2024.      

United Methodist exits are accelerating, as at least 260 of 779 churches in the North Carolina Conference, or one third, have voted to disaffiliate or plan to next year, according to The Carolina Journal.  United Methodist churches, whose property is owned by the denomination through the local “conference,” can vote to exit the liberalizing denomination, with their property and a one-time payment, before the end of 2023.
Meanwhile, 118 churches, or 28 percent of the total, have notified the Peninsula-Delaware Conference that they plan to exit, the conference’s trustees announced. This number shocked conference officials, as the churches organized within only a few weeks when notified that Bishop Latrelle Easterling was going to impose a 50% real estate value surcharge on exit costs after the arbitrary deadline. The exiting churches contribute $1.4 million to the conference’s budget, which was $4.8 million in 2021. It’s believed another 75-100 churches would like to leave but failed to meet the deadline. Possibly some will litigate.
Additionally, Dallas-area St. Andrew United Methodist Church of Plano, with 6500 members, has voted to exit United Methodism. Its pastor is Arthur Jones, son of Houston Bishop Scott Jones, and nephew of former Duke Divinity School dean Greg Jones. “The historical Methodist theology and our focus on Jesus is what we aim to protect,” the church explained about its exit.
The church’s website notes that the church’s now deceased former longtime pastor had started considering disaffiliation years ago and asked church leaders to “monitor the inevitable fragmenting of the United Methodist Church.”  That pastor died in July but had left a recording urging disaffiliation.
At least 500 UMC churches in the state of Texas, including four of the top six by membership, have exited or plan to, according to The Dallas Morning News. St. Andrew is the state’s seventh-largest United Methodist church.
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We should not always be quick to dismiss each other. Instead, our comments should point out our concerns without jumping to the conclusion that the person on the other end of the keyboard needs to be abandoned because they are not infallible. Even if they remain stubborn in their error, we can agree to disagree if the difference is on secondary doctrinal issues. 

I recently had an experience that is common to all. After rushing to meet a self-imposed deadline, I hit publish on one of my articles, and I awoke the following day to an unpublished comment by someone who was literally shocked at the ambiguity of the article, its lack of biblical truth, and my dangerous practice. They then let me know that it may be time to unsubscribe.
I occasionally experience this kind of response from people who disdain Christianity, so I usually let the comments roll off my back, but this was different. Though I do not know the commenter, there was no indication that they held strange or heretical views. They seemed to be a fellow believer who valued the same things I value. On top of that, they made two critiques of my post, and both were valid.
The first critique was that I had made a controversial statement without backing it up with scripture. The second involved a misleading lack of clarity on my part, which I failed to see before I published the article. Using the commenter’s critiques, I made a couple of minor edits to my post to remove the sticking points.
Why do I bring this up? Because the internet, especially social media, has trained us to respond to things with moral outrage even before we know if moral outrage is warranted.
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Biblical Christians cannot embrace Eastern philosophy and religion and still be true to the biblical witness. While there might be some helpful teachings here and there, the overall scheme of things is in direct contrast to what Christianity teaches, including the belief that there is absolute truth, and there are falsehoods that stand against these truths. There are real spiritual and theological and moral opposites, not just two sides of the same coin.

Before I became a Christian I spent a fair amount of time looking into Eastern philosophy and theology. I read many of the key works, and tried to get my head around Eastern thought. But then I became a Christian and I very quickly gave up on that worldview and way of thinking.
But of course I still have encounters with folks who embrace Eastern thought – be they Westerners like me who have looked into it, or those from the East itself. When it comes to discussing Christianity with them, it often boils down to a debate between how Westerners and Easterners think.
The common claim is that the West is rationalistic and logical while the East does not embrace this way of thought. Logic, we are told, is simply a Western concept, and things like the law of non-contradiction are fine in the West, but have no application for those in the East.
But is this actually the case? Are there two radically different ways of thinking and viewing the world, and never the twain shall meet? No, is my short answer. And to tease this out further, let me mention a comment that came in to a social media post I had done. I had been discussing a common debate found in Christian theology. And with my morning Bible reading spurring me on, I had said this:
Hundreds of biblical passages speak to the fact that God is fully sovereign and in control. Hundreds of biblical passages speak to the fact that people are responsible for the choices that they make. How these two truths cohere will remain a mystery this side of heaven. But a number of times both truths are fully affirmed in a single verse, such as Mark 14:21: “For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
Since this can be such a hot potato topic with so many getting all hot and bothered theologically, I added a comment saying that those who want to start WWIII over this are advised to take it elsewhere. After all, with entire libraries devoted to these issues, we will just not get very far arguing in tiny Facebook comment boxes.
Well, things were going pretty good with folks seeming to respect my wishes. But then someone came along from unexpected quarters. I had expected an ornery Calvinist or a grumpy Arminian to write in, but it did not occur to me that I would get into a debate with an Easterner – in this case an Asian Christian friend. She sent in this comment:
“It’s a problem because western intellectual history is based on Aristotle’s non-contradiction theory. The Eastern mind has no problems accepting contradictions. In fact that ability is a sign of intelligence. However, in the west, it’s considered illogical. BTW the Bible is essentially an Eastern book.”
I thanked her and gave her a brief response, but assured her that a much longer piece would be needed to give this topic due justice. So what follows is an expanded version of what I had said to her. It was not entirely clear if she was saying that this is how Eastern folks tend to think (which is certainly the case), or whether she was saying that she as a Christian believed this as well. This then is my response.
God is a God of truth. And truth implies that there can be the absence or antithesis of truth – that is, falsehood. Lies and truth are not two sides of the same coin, of yin and yang. They are in fact polar opposites. God does not lie nor can he lie. And falsehood and truth can never cohere or live together in some sort of peaceful harmony.
Moreover, the laws of logic, including the law of non-contradiction, are NOT theories invented by Aristotle. He, along with others, may have helped to ‘discover’ and codify these laws (for which we can all be grateful), but he did not create them. In the same way Isaac Newton did not create the law of gravity; he simply discovered it.
The laws of logic have to do with the nature of truth, and our God is a perfectly true God, so he too is logical, and he does not contradict or repudiate himself. So these basic truths of thought and rationality are rooted in the very nature of God. They exist in God and he has revealed these truths to us. That God cannot lie or contradict himself is consistent with who he is. He is a God of truth, and we too are created to live this way – to live in truth and to confront falsehood.
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Written by Andrew W.G. Matthews |
Thursday, October 27, 2022
If the contemporary church is going to abandon all its theological territory and take a final stand for Jesus Christ, it better be for the real Christ. Be done with this palatable and tamed jesus and introduce the world to the real Lord Jesus Christ: the eternal Son of God sent into the world to save and rule the world, crucified, dead, and buried, but risen and exalted; the One who receives sinners and makes them saints. The Christ who created and sustains all things and will return once again to judge his enemies and make all things new. Any Christ less than this is not worth knowing.

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough! 2 Corinthians 11:4
As the evangelical Christian church has been pummelled by secular critics for being hateful for her biblical views on ethics, many church leaders have responded by shifting the focus from ethics to “Jesus.” They say that the main thing is “To know Jesus and make him known,” and not get broiled down in controversial ethical issues. To know Jesus Christ and make him known to the outside world is certainly a laudable goal. But as they keep name-dropping “Jesus” I start wondering, “Who is this ‘Jesus’ guy they keep talking about?” The more they talk about him the less I recognise him. It has made me question if we are thinking about the same person. I have this sneaking suspicion that many churches are promoting “another Jesus” than the one that is revealed in the New Testament (2 Cor. 11:4).
Taking a stand on the person of Jesus Christ ought to be the ultimate apologetic of every Christian for Christ is at the epicentre of our faith. Yet in our day simply alluding to the name of ‘Jesus’ is not enough of a witness to this world. We need to have a theologically sound understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ (Christology). Unfortunately, the “Jesus” that is being bandied about in the modern church has become a poor substitute for the true and glorious Son of God. How so? I see a few errors.

Name in Vain

What’s in a name? Many Christians seem to be on a first-name basis with Jesus. It’s always, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Why do Christians simply call their Lord and King, “Jesus”? If you were invited to Buckingham Palace would you say, “Good to meet you, Charles”? Consider the offence of not addressing or referring to the present king of England as “Your Majesty.” Terms like “Majesty” and “King” are titles appropriate to the office. If you would never disrespectfully address an earthly king, how much more should you reverently address the King of kings and Lord of lords?
After Jesus died, rose, and was exalted to the right hand of God the Father, he was anointed and was bestowed titles such as “Christ,” “Son of God,” and “Lord.” The apostles, who intimately knew him, consistently refer to Jesus Christ as “the Lord,” “the Lord Jesus,” “Jesus Christ,” “Christ Jesus,” “Christ,” or “the Son of God,” but they almost never call him “Jesus.” It is true that the Gospels use the name “Jesus” in their accounts of his earthly ministry and that the apostles referred to “Jesus” when explaining the significance of Christ’s ministry to their contemporaries (see Acts 2:36, Heb. 12:2), but believers should by their naming of Christ acknowledge his exalted, authoritative position over them. When people flippantly allude to “Jesus” it may betray an attitude that Jesus is simply your friend and equal. Christ is not our buddy or our mate, he is our Lord and God (John 20:28).
Demoted King
The misuse of Christ’s name is inexorably tied to the church’s failure to recognise the majestic rule of Christ over this world. Christians who regularly refer to just “Jesus” emphasise his incarnation and humiliation during his past life and ministry on this earth to the detriment of acknowledging his present kingdom and ministry from heaven as the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ’s suffering during his incarnation certainly enabled him to sympathise with all our weaknesses, but he no longer lives in that humiliated state. He retains the experience of his former weakness, but rules now with his present power.
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