God no longer male, Scottish Episcopal Church rules

As a former Anglican/Episcopal it has saddened and dismayed me for years to watch as Anglican churches as a whole, with some exceptions, have descended further and further into apostasy, particularly on the issue of dealing with homosexuality. 

However, now we're beginning to see more descent into doctrinal depravity as the Scottish Episcopal Church has decided to neutralize God's male-ness, and remove all male references to God in their worship. 

This is just political correctness run amok, being perpetrated by people who clearly do not know God or His word. Only God knows what will be the next step the Episcopals -- and the other mainline denominations-- will take next as they continue to lurch headlong into more and more error.


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From: Telegraph.co.uk 

A new order of service produced by the Scottish Episcopal Church has caused controversy by removing masculine references to God.

The new form of worship, which removes words such as "Lord, he, his, him" and "mankind" from services, has been written by the church in an attempt to acknowledge that God is "beyond human gender".

Episcopalian bishops have approved the introduction of more "inclusive" language, which deliberately removes references suggesting that God is of male gender.

Traditionalists have criticised the changes on the grounds that they smack of political correctness and because they believe they are not consistent with the teachings of the Bible. The alterations have been made to provide an alternative to the established 1982 Liturgy, which, like the Bible, refers to God as a man.

The new order of service, which can be used by priests if they have difficulties with a male God, has been produced by the church's Liturgy Committee in consultation with the Faith & Order Board of General Synod and the College of Bishops.

The controversial changes were discussed at the church's General Synod recently. The minutes of the synod reveal that female priests had asked why God was still referred to as a man.
The altered version of the 1982 Liturgy sees masculine pronouns removed when they refer to God and the new approach has even been extended to humans. For example, the word "mankind" has been taken out and replaced with "world".

Full article here:

No Such Thing As " Good Friday"

As churches worldwide observe Good Friday in a few days, it makes me just marvel that so many churches and believers just accept this man-made tradition... not realizing or noticing that Jesus died not on Friday, but on Wednesday!

Yes, Wednesday. Never heard that before? Mr Teno Groppi of kjv1611.org makes the biblical case clearly that Jesus died on Wednesday, and rose Saturday night.

Excerpts:

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be
broken, and that they might be taken away. (John 19:31)

The Catholic church sees a Sabbath day there and knowing that the body must be buried before then, they have Christ going into the tomb on Friday night to beat the deadline. They mistakenly assume it's talking about the Old Testament Saturday (At least they got that much right for once, but even when they're right, they're wrong!) and try to cram 72 hours into 36 or less.

What they didn't notice was that this was an high day, not a normal weekly Sabbath. The high day was the Passover!  It fell on Thursday, and the days of unleavened bread followed (Lev 23:5-7, Num 28:16-17).

Searching the Scripture, we find that the phrase "day of preparation" is never used in the context of a regular Sabbath day.  The day of "preparation" is always speaking of a special Sabbath such as the Passover.

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How could the Sabbath be past (Mark) if they had to prepare the ointments before the Sabbath (Luke)?  Easy, there were two Sabbaths, the Passover high day (Thursday), and the Saturday Sabbath.  The ladies bought the spices on Friday, between the two Sabbaths.  The Spice stores would've been closed on Thursday and Saturday. Friday was the only possible day they could've bought them.  The Catholic cramming of three days into one, and making two Sabbaths into one, makes this into a contradiction.


Full article here.

See also: The Good Friday Myth -- Jesus died on a Wednesday. 

Popular NIV to be replaced by New Version

Kiss your NIV goodbye. The New International Version of the bible as we now know it will not be published any more after it's replaced by a new revised version coming out in 2011. Of couirse, not everybody's happy about it -- me included.
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From Courier-Journal.com (Louisville, KY):

NIV Bible update may spark battle

Version would use more modern English

The Bible translation that has served as the, well, bible of the evangelical movement is getting an update.

Depending on how it's done, it could ignite the parent of all translation battles. Or it could reconcile a conflict that has pitted sibling against sibling.

More than 300 million copies of the New International Version of the Bible have been sold since it came out in 1978. It has become the translation of choice for many conservative evangelicals. And it has been packaged in countless ways — from standard study Bibles with commentary to a couples Bible with relationship lessons to camouflage-covered military versions.

But a quarter-century after its last revision, its copyright holder says it's time to bring it up to date with current uses of the English language. One noncontroversial example would be replacing “alien” with “foreigner,” but a conflict may loom over the use of gender in pronouns and other grammatical forms.

Controversy has surrounded two efforts to update the NIV — a New International Version Inclusive published in Britain in the 1990s and another that resulted in the Today's New International Version earlier this decade.

In both cases, translators used more “inclusive” language involving gender. (You need a scorecard to keep track of the versions.)

But some criticized those versions as more politically than linguistically correct. The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 2002 contending that the TNIV version “had gone beyond acceptable translation standards” in some cases where “father” was changed to “parent,” “man” to “mortals” and “sons of God” to “children of God.” Defenders said that as most English speakers no longer use male terms when referring to people regardless of sex, the Bibles they use should follow suit.

Full article here.

Related article (from USA Today): Update of popular "NIV" Bible due in 2011.

Great New Tool Added

I'm pretty pleased right now about a new tool I've just added to this blog, which will be a great plus on this site both for future posts, and those posts already on this site.

It's called ref tagger, and it makes all the Bible verse references on this site come alive. Bare references turn into hyperlinks when the reader hovers their mouse over the scripture verse posted. I came across it while browsing over at the Preterist Heresy Blog. Try it with this verse: Acts 2:38, or this verse: Daniel 12:3. Pretty nifty and convenient, I'd say.

Bloggers who want to add something like this to their site can get the code at this link: http://www.logos.com/reftagger.

Many thanks to Logos Bible Software for making this free tool available to me and the visitors of this blog.

I'll be looking to add more tools to improve the functionality of this blog in the weeks and months to come.

I havent posted as much the past month or so, largely because of a major transition I'm going through on a personal level at this time (a good transition). But I expect to be posting more again very shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Meanwhile, a happy holiday season to all, and a blessed 2009.

New Gay Bible Angers Christians

Straight from the bowels of hell...

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A gay version of the Bible, in which God says it is better to be gay than straight, is to be published by an American film producer.

New Mexico-based Revision Studios will publish The Princess Diana Bible – so named because of Diana's "many good works", it says – online at princessdianabible.com in spring 2009. A preview of Genesis is already available, in which instead of creating Adam and Eve, God creates Aida and Eve.

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.' And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed."

The film studio said it would also adapt and direct the revised Bible as a two-part mini-series, The Gay Old Testament and The Gay New Testament, once it is completed.

"There are many different versions of the Bible; I don't see why we can't have one," said Max Mitchell...

Full Article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...iana-gay-bible

The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict - (video)

This is an excellent video by the author of the bestselling book "Evidence That Demands a Verdict".
In this video, Josh McDowell defends the historicity of the New Testament.