Short Term Mission Trips
Universalism Destroys True Mission Work
Christian News, July 2, 2012
“Mission Trips” is the cover story of the June, 2012 Lutherans of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The five page story includes photos of short term missionaries erecting buildings. This is their “missionary experience.” Nothing is said about proclaiming the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ to lost sinners, baptizing, and teaching God’s Word.
Since universalism has infiltrated the major Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Church, why should they spend time and energy preaching God’s Word? Universalism teaches that all men, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. are going to heaven without saving faith in Christ.
“Magazine Examines Potential Damage of Short-Term Missions” in the September 13, 2010 CN reported what “Unfinished ,” the quarterly publication of The Mission Society said about Short Term Missions “Universalism Marches On – Missionaries Losing Chariots of Fire” in the July 12, 2010 CN noted that most major denominations today have degenerated into social gospel work and not the preaching of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The chapter on missions in the editor’s Baal or God (1965) showed how “Universalism Destroys Missions.”
CN has asked the LCMS mission department if all LCMS missionaries (long term and short term) and all those on the mission staff are expected to confess that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and that non-Christians who die without saving faith in Christ are lost. Must they believe the word of Jesus in John 14:6 that He is the only way to heaven? Must they accept the Athanasian Creed when it says that all those who do not accept the Trinity as the only saving God “shall perish everlastingly?” CN received the usual response it receives form the LCMS bureaucracy. Zilch, mum.
“Why we can hope EVERYONE WILL BE SAVED,” the cover story of the June 27, 2012 Christian Century promotes “A Hopeful Universalism.” The author concludes “I’ve gestured here toward the legitimacy of hopeful universalism.”
“Hopeful universalists therefore have an opportunity to frame new discussions about the scope of salvation.” Pro-abortion Christian Century editor John M. Buchanan in his editorial “Grace before anything” agrees with “Why We Can Hope EVERYONE WILL BE SAVED.”
He writes: “As soon as I was old enough to think about it, I was uncomfortable with the idea that accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is an automatic ticket to heaven, and with the reverse idea—that failing to confess belief in Christ resulted in an eternity in hell, even in the cause of unbaptized infants and all the people who have never heard about Jesus. What about those who heard but were unpersuaded? What about my Uncle Harry? God consigning all those people to hell never squared in my mind with God loving us as a parent loves a child. I wondered how a parent could condemn a child to punishment forever.”
(The Christian Century, long a weekly, is now published bi-weekly (104 S. Michigan Ave. Suite 1100, Chicago, Illinois 60603; $59 per year. Individual copy $7.95.)
Universalist rejects the words of Jesus “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; No one comes to the Father except by me” (John 144:6). They repudiate the Athanasian Creed which says the Holy Trinity is the only true God and all who do not believe in the Trinity are lost.
Mission work in the LCMS has come a long way since the days LCMS missionaries believed Christ was the only way to heaven. They concentrated on the saving gospel of Christ, baptized, communed and taught God’s Word to lost sinners. This editor had relatives who served as long time missionaries in Brazil, India, and China. One served 60 years in Brazil. Another 40 years among the Muslims in India. They are buried in these countries.
After universalism and modernism infiltrated mission work of the major denominations, independent mission societies were formed to proclaim the saving Gospel of Christ to lost sinners. While they also helped with physical needs, hospitals, etc. the major emphasis of the independent societies was on proclaiming the saving Gospel of Christ.
In Africa last year, the Vatican launched an attack in the horn of Africa. I don't think the Protestants are mobilized to combat this onslaught. We must go and baptize in Christ, not cower as they are baptized by the hand of Satan. Look at Europe, Protestants come in third and nearly half the number of Eastern Orthodox. First of course is the behemoth of death and hell.
ReplyDelete#1 Christian Universalists DO NOT reject that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Instead, they believe that "18 So as one sin of Adam brought the punishment of death to all people, one good act that Christ did makes all people right with God. And that brings true life for all. 19 One man disobeyed God, and many became sinners. In the same way, one man obeyed God, and many will be made right."
ReplyDelete#2 Why are you putting the Athanasian Creed, a document written by man, full of interpretations made by man, on the same level as Scripture?