Beneath the Fundamentals. - Comments (1)

Category: Articles,Doctrine
Author: John Malone
Date: 18th September, 2007 @ 01:13:46 PM

“Fundamentalism” has taken a serious beating by people to whom faith is not serious.

In fact, we hear about “fundamentalists” of every stripe – Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Christians – as a pejorative, meaning, essentially, someone who is non-sensical, fanatical, and anti-social.

On the other hand, if we hear that a baseball coach, or a football coach is focused on “fundamentals” we consider him prudent, right-minded, and properly focused.

In the Bible, there are a collection of “fundamental truths” – predominately concerning the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ – that are sometomes singled out. It’s a risky business, to be sure, to single out certain truths as “fundamental” unless the Bible does it for us.
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How – and How Not – to Deal with a Heretic. - Comments (4)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,GES: Hodges, Wilkin, et.al.
Author: John Malone
Date: 20th August, 2007 @ 05:14:35 PM

I’m a bit surprised at how poorly my brothers understand about how to deal with a heretic. It could be there is too little shepherding to go along with their teaching, and the lack of “laboratory” experience is paralyzing – even crippling – them.

I am up against being sorely misunderstood – not that I will allow that to deter me – in the matter of the Hodges-Wilkin-Bryant-Niemela (HWBN) heresy, which is sometimes known as the “Crossless Gospel,” as dubbed by Tom Stegall (a brother of like mind and like background with me – we were each formerly in the Roman Catholic Organization (RCO)), a pastor in the Milwaukee area.
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“Now Faith.” - Comments (0)

Category: Articles,Doctrine
Author: John Malone
Date: 7th August, 2007 @ 10:49:43 AM

To the believer, faith is not now what it once was. That simple truth is so basic – indeed so fundamental – that one wonders how this simple idea has escaped the consideration of so many of God’s people. {An enemy has done this!|Mat 13:25-28} {“Now faith”|Heb 11:1} adjusts our viewpoint. It takes our thoughts from the past to the present. (more…)

I Lose Zane Hodges: Spring, 2005. - Comments (10)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,GES: Hodges, Wilkin, et.al.
Author: John Malone
Date: 2nd August, 2007 @ 06:20:08 AM

Due to my position with respect to Robert Wilken of the GES, and the conclusion that he is a heretic – a schismatic person – I considered that it would provide useful background to publish this email exchange I had with Zane Hodges shortly after the 2005 GES conference.

While at the conference, I appealed to Wilkin in connection with a workshop conducted by Bob Bryant. I attempted to draw the attention of others to this problem, including Dr. Elliot Johnson and Rene Lopez, but I consider that I was pretty much alone in being outraged at Bryant’s position, and, as I look back on it, his devious behavior that decorated it.

While Wilkin did not at that time simply tell me that Bryan’s position was also his (and Hodges), he emphasized that it was merely “a workshop” and that it thereby did not represent the position of the GES.

Such duplicity!

Subject: GES Conference Workshop, 2005

Zane,

I have some few things to write to you about, and the better part of them will be in an email or emails to follow.

This one is about something very disturbing to me that came from two of the final workshops of the conference earlier today.

The first workshop – and the one I attended – was conducted by Bob Bryant, and was named “Eternal Security: Do you have to Believe It?” Frankly, I thought the premise posed a useful exercise, and was a {reinforcement of 1 John 5:10-11.|1jo 5:10-11}

But in the course of the session, Bob ticked off a few doctrines that he was not addressing – the Deity of Christ, the resurrection, and maybe a couple of other truths – and disposed of them as not saving truth. I interrupted him to say, “Do you mean necessary but not sufficient?” He refused to answer that in the affirmative or negative, but more or less told me to shut up, perhaps more politely.
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GES’ Bob Wilkin: A Heretic’s Vagaries and Intrigue. - Comments (11)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,GES: Hodges, Wilkin, et.al.
Author: John Malone
Date: @ 12:27:34 AM

Friday night, as promised, I attended the “Regional Conference” of the Grace Evangelical Society (GES) hosted by Community Bible Church (CBC) in Omaha, a church my family and I formerly attended in Omaha. I was among the 100 or less in attendance, and so were a half dozen of my friends. Perhaps 20% of the attendees were from the host church.

I went to this conference to expose Bob Wilkin. It’s one thing to teach what he does. It’s a whole different thing to disguise it, slip it in, and be guileful about it. And it’s even another thing to do it here where I live, among people I know.

As George, the former temporary head coach in Hoosiers told Head Coach Norman Dale, “Look, mister, there’s two kinds of dumb. A guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, a guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don’t matter. The second one you’re kinda forced to deal with.”
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A Protestant in the Midst of Apostasy. - Comments (4)

Category: Articles,Doctrine,Roman Catholicism
Author: John Malone
Date: 25th July, 2007 @ 02:38:48 AM

Peter Smagacz is 58 years old and glad to have left the Roman Catholic Church. He left it 35 years ago.

I read an article sent to me that was published on Omaha’s daily newspaper, the Omaha World Herald, that described Smagacz’ one-man “protest” at a Luis Palau “Heartland Festival” in Omaha. The event was said to have attracted 105,000 visitors, a record. I suppose, hyperbole being what it is, the crowd was likely half that size, but still large.

Palau is known among Bible believers to be “soft on Romanism,” and far too ecumenical to be Biblically sound. Many of us consider that ministries like Palau’s yoke themselves with unbelievers, contrary to Bible principles set forth in {2 Corinthians 6:14,|2cor 6:14-17} and {Revelation 18:4.|Rev 18:1-5} The more skeptical among us – call us jaded – know that men like Palau don’t become prominent in this country without somehow accepting that Roman Catholics are essentially Christian.

Otherwise, Romanists would have destroyed him by now.
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Surgery and After - Comments (1)

Category: Behind the Lines
Author: John Malone
Date: 27th June, 2007 @ 12:25:11 AM

For as traumatic as the news of Karen’s cancer and its immediate consequences was, the surgery itself was pretty anti-climactic.

Two hours, and she’s done. The eye is gone. As one brother said, “It’s like removing a tooth.” The surgery itself was so simple, the doctor said “I can do these in my sleep.” Karen said, “We want you to stay awake.”

The eye removal surgery – enucleation – is apparently a simple one. Karen walked herself into the operating room. The doctor took the eye out, and placed a plastic steering device in its place, wrapping her right eye muscles around it. They place a silicon “conformer” in the eye socket to retain its shape during a six-week healing process.

In the mean time, we will find an ocularist who will hand-design a prosthetic eye that will be moved by the steering piece powered by her muscles.

Her removed eye will be studied in pathology during the next week, and we will get some information about the cancerous tumor. It was large: “very large.”

Karen has been ambling around with the sight of one eye for six weeks, so the advice she was given about dealing with loss of vision was very hollow. They taped a huge bandage on her right eye, and it was too tight, pinching her skin. I mentioned it, and they said, “The doctor can fix that tomorrow when you come in.”

But the doctor said we didn’t need to come in “tomorrow,” and we elected to just leave Iowa City and come home. Home to our family, and responsibilities. While I drove the 4 hour return trip way too fast, Karen adjusted her bandage until it no longer pinched her, listened to music, and rested her eye.

When we got home, she used a mirror and a pen to write “Jesus Is Lord” in blue on her bright white bandage.

She’s not taking her pain medication. Her blood pressure is very high.

We are hoping the grand children will understand, because this all is complicated for them We have 18 of them 8 and under with two more on the way.