#69 With the water of false doctrine

At five points this morning all traffic stopped. A fire engine’s siren could be heard in the distance. We waited, it passed, we proceeded with our day. Safe. When the Unification Church rolls through, blowing a whistle, sounding an alarm, Christians need to stop at a respectful distance and let it pass. This particular siren might be clearing the way to hell with the water of false doctrine that won‘t put out the fire. The man who wants to be Jesus for our generation now wants Christian churches to take down the cross. Over 200 pastors who claim (I assume) to be Christians actually got taken in by the oldest trick recorded in the Book--“Indeed, has God said. . .?” And on Easter, no less.

Moonies and the cross: “Christians have traditionally believed that Jesus’ death on the cross was predestined as the original plan of God. No, it was not! It was a grievous error to crucify Jesus Christ. Death on the cross was not the mission that God had originally intended for Jesus, his Son" (Outline of The Principle: Level 4, pp. 79, 81).

John Calvin and the cross: "Therefore, although the preaching of the cross does not agree with our human inclination, if we desire to return to God our Author and Maker, from whom we have been estranged, in order that he may again begin to be our Father, we ought nevertheless to embrace it humbly." --Calvin, Institutes, 2.6.1

Luther and the cross: "Luther's theology of the cross assumed its new significance [after the Second World War] because it was the theology which addressed the question which could not be ignored: is God really there, amidst the devastation and dereliction of civilization? ... Rarely, if ever, has a sixteenth-century idea found such a powerful response in twentieth-century man." --Alister McGrath, Luther's Theology of the Cross, 179-180