Sitting Down with J.I. Packer
Perhaps my favorite time in Orlando was spent in a small group with Dr. J. I. Packer. It is hard to overestimate Packer’s impact on evangelical Christianity. The graciousness he afforded me to sit on a couch and ask him questions for more than an hour was humbling and helpful. He is very clear minded at age eighty-two and he remains incredibly conversant, insightful, and witty. Impressively, his words are impeccably precise.

On Homosexuality
As we sat on the couch together, he explained that Anglicanism is patterned after the ancient Roman governmental system so that a bishop has jurisdiction over a geographic area. However, this long-established ecclesiological pattern has been breached because Anglicanism is suffering from “heretical bishops.” By “heretical bishops,” Packer was referring to those bishops who sanction homosexual activity. He explained that the “heretical bishops” won support for their position following much lobbying. This sadly required Bible-believing Anglican churches to come under the authority of other orthodox bishops outside of their geographic area rather than remain under “heretical bishops.”

Homosexuality: A Heretical Issue
When asked about calling those who support homosexuality and profess to be Christian “heretical,” Packer very carefully and insightfully explained what he meant. He began by saying that as Christians we are tempted to sin in many ways, including homosexuality. However, because God has saved us through Jesus and empowered us with the Holy Spirit, we are to practice ongoing repentance of sin and rejection of sinful desires. He explained in great detail that he perceives the approval of homosexuality to be “heretical” because it denies a fundamental aspect of the gospel—namely repentance. Packer explained how for six years he called his Anglican Diocese to repent of their sinful support of unrepentant homosexual activity, to no avail. Eventually, his own archbishop sought to pull his license (essentially his ordination or credentials) as a punitive measure. In the end, Packer, along with roughly thirty Anglican churches, came out from under their “heretical” leadership to form a new Anglican alliance.
Returning to the issue of denying a fundamental aspect of the gospel (repentance), he explained that 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 says,

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Packer was clear that those who do not call Christians to repent of homosexual activity are, as Scripture says, “deceived.” He told me that the first of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses was that the whole of a Christian’s life is to be one of repentance of sin. Any Christian who does not practice and promote repentance is denying an aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I asked how the denial of repentance merited the label of “heretical,” Packer said, “ “‘Heresy’ ought to be used when an aspect of the gospel is being denied.” He further explained that because God through Paul warns the Corinthians that those who practice homosexuality unrepentantly will be damned to hell, “Souls are put at risk every time homosexuality is tolerated.”

Starting a New Religion?
In keeping with Packer’s line of reasoning, I asked him if those who are “heretical” in promoting homosexual activity while declaring themselves to be Christian are in effect promoting a new religion based upon a false gospel, like Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He said, “You could describe it that way and it’s what they are doing.”

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My Time on the Road
I recently spent a packed week preaching and teaching in London and Brighton, England, with Newfrontiers Network and other organizations. It was a grueling schedule, but Pastor Scott Thomas, who directs the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, and I learned a great deal and met some amazing people whom we thoroughly enjoyed.
On the way home we stopped over in Orlando, Florida, at the International Christian Retail Show. I did my first-ever book signing there, which was fun since Crossway Books was gracious enough to give away over two hundred copies of Vintage Jesus, which I penned with Dr. Gerry Breshears. We ran out of copies and I shook hands, prayed for people, and signed books for more than two hours.
I was also honored to speak on “A Passion for People” from Matthew 9:35–38 at the 70th anniversary banquet for Crossway. They also debuted the English Standard Version Study Bible due out in the fall. Jerry Bridges, Wayne Grudem, J. I. Packer, and Lane Dennis spoke at the event as well. In attendance were R. C. Sproul, Jack Graham, Roger Nicole, and others whom I had the honor of meeting. I was one of the only people in the room not in a suit, as I somehow missed the dress code, but everyone was gracious despite my black button-up shirt with skulls and crossbones and matching Affliction boots covered in serpents. The entire night was very moving, and the debut of the ESV Study Bible is incredibly exciting as it promises to be the most thorough and helpful study Bible ever produced.

More to Come...

Influential Bible scholars pour a lot of their intellectual gifts into tearing up the roots of biblical Christianity. This is not new, but in our culture, the effect of "critical" biblical studies is multiplied. A general suspicion of "organized religion" finds confirmation from "the experts."

Such an expert is Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, recognized scholar, and author of the award-winning Gnostic Gospels (1979). This book convinced many that the early Gnostic heretics, who introduced pagan spirituality into the Church, represented a genuine Christian alternative, suppressed by a cold, calculating Church institution. In Beyond Belief (New York: Random House, 2003), Pagels expands this message.

Mars Hill Bible Church opened its doors in February of 1999 with a stated desire to exist as a "church where scripture would be taught in a new way, a way that would reach a changing culture."

Gary Knapp and his wife, Becky, were among the first members of the Grandville, Mich., church, which now numbers more than 1,000 members and some 10,000 weekly attendees. Knapp taught an adult Bible class at Mars Hill and led a small group in the church for more than two years.

On September 21, 2007, Mark Driscoll was invited to speak at the Convergent Conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In this session listen at Pastor Mark explains the major streams of the Emerging Church and specifically, the sub-set of of the Emerging Church, known as the "Emergent Church".

Remember that bucolic vacation in the countryside when a rooster's crowing gently raising you from sleep to one more delicious day of sheer joy, away from city noise, surrounded by the reassuring sights and sounds of nature?

It was not like that at all. The third time the rooster crowed, it was like a time bomb exploding in your face. Peter, sheepishly warming himself over the garrison fire, having lied to save his skin, was shaken to the depth of his soul-by a rooster! (John 18:27). "How could Jesus have known with such accuracy? What have I done? My life is over." The eventual first apostle was brought very low before the pieces were put together again, and he became a worthy and courageous servant of his Lord.

Roosters crow throughout our lives, bringing good and bad news. In my teenage years, I lived with the constant fear of going bald. (My adolescent fears were justified!) The rooster that woke me every morning was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that kept me awake, but unable to crawl out of bed, since it paralyzed me with fear of the future and of inevitable social failure.

At CWIPP we take seriously the notion of a pagan planet and of the need for Christian witness to it. Such witness becomes more difficult as Christians discover the all-encompassing planetary nature of our world.

As they say, a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the globe and a violent storm arises on the other side. Acid rain observes no national borders. The "market" never closes, and red-eyed investors can follow global economic trends 24 hours a day, while Google Earth shows you the license plate numbers of the cars parked in any street you choose to observe. Big Brother is no longer fictional!

Supporters of gay clergy are impatient and want changes right now. They believe that traditionalists are too slow in responding to their appeals for justice and mercy. They do not intend to stop short of making as many changes as quickly as possible in every ecclesiastical setting that will hear them out and accept their views. Last week the goal of the gay advocates was to change the present policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) at its annual meeting in Chicago. By the time you read this article a decision will have been made.

It's as if we were back in the second century! Irenaeus, an elder of the Christian church of Lyons in Gaul (France), went to Rome in A.D. 177. He returned to discover that forty of his fellow church members, including the old pastor, Potinus, had been executed by the pagan Roman authorities. He became the pastor, and spent the rest of his life protecting the flock both from the pagan authorities on the outside, and denouncing the Gnostic "Christians" and their heretical writings on the inside.

In our day, the once "Christian" society of modern-day America now looks more and more like pagan Rome. Indeed, not since pagan Rome has homosexuality been accepted in history as normal behavior, but even in pagan Rome, there was no such thing as "gay marriage." In our liberated, "secular" though actually religiously-pagan society, Christianity is silenced and pushed to the margins. That is on the outside. On the inside, we face serious apostasy. We face a form of Christianity that is nothing more than a new, virulent strain of the heresy Irenaeus labored to denounce.

My last NewsCWiPP was delayed because Jim Garlow and I were writing Cracking Da Vinci's Code: You've Read the Fiction, Now Read the Facts, a response to Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, which has 7 million copies in print, representing some 30 million readers. Ron Howard, producer of Beautiful Mind, is making the movie version, slated for 2005. When Dan Brown finishes with America, evangelism will never be the same.

Previously, I discussed Brown's attack on the historicity of the Christian faith, but his promotion of a "new" spirituality is even more explosive. This is when the feathers begin to fly. On the "Deborah Norville Tonight" show, my co-author discussed our book in the company of two formidable Gnostic scholars, Karen King from Harvard, and Harold Attridge from Yale, who buy into Brown's views of feminism and spirituality. The conflict is out in the open.

Gospel of Thomas sounds far more misogynist than anything found in the Bible.
For some months I have been getting questions about the "Gnostic gospels" and The Da Vinci Code, so it seems right to give readers of this newsletter a bit of guidance. This is by no means a definitive response or analysis—it is more like pastoral counsel— but I hope it will clear up a few things.

The Gnostics' Jesus
In 1945 a red earthenware jar was found buried near Nag Hammadi, a town in upper Egypt. Within thirteen papyrus books dating from A.D.350 were discovered. The writings were those of believers in the philosophy/religion of gnosticism. Gnosticism is heavily influenced by the Hellenistic understanding that the material world is evil and the spirit is good. Gnostics believed that the ultimate supreme God did not create the world, but rather a lesser god, a 'demiurge,' created the world poorly and imperfectly. The result was a material world filled with decay, weakness, and death. But Gnostics believed that human beings, though locked in this material body, have a spark of the higher spiritual reality within. This spark, if fanned into a flame, can liberate us and help us evolve back into spiritual perfection. This happens through a process of self-discovery, in which you discover your divine identity, you separate from the world by 'stripping off ' the consciousness of the physical body, and you finally experience the kingdom of light, peace, and life.