discipleup podcast Louie Marsh

Disciple Up #301
Gospel Betrayal & a Hiatus
By Louie Marsh, 4-10-2023
 
Links Used in the show
 
https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/04/pastor-nashville-shooters-trans-identity-jesus-crucifixion/
 
Pastor Compares Nashville Shooter’s Trans Identity To Jesus’ Crucifixion
 
A Lutheran pastor appeared to compare Jesus’ crucifixion with the transgender Nashville school shooter in a sermon delivered just days after the attack.
 
Pastor Micah Louwagie, who leads the St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Fargo, North Dakota, delivered a sermon on Palm Sunday discussing Jesus’ crucifixion and how it was “baffling” that “someone’s existence can be so threatening” that they should be killed. Louwagie then claimed that those who point to 28-year-old Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale’s transgender identity as a potential motive for the shooting are calling for the “eradication of trans folks,” just like those who called for Jesus’ death
 
“The chief priests and the whole counsel were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, those leaders were looking for any excuse, valid or not, to crucify Jesus,” Louwagie said. “They would kill the one whose reputation as a teacher and healer and whose mission of love and dignity was so very threatening to their own reputation that they needed to kill him in order to preserve their own good image. There are a significant number of people who have deemed that the fact that the Nashville shooter happened to be a trans person, so it’s been reported, is just the excuse they need to call for the eradication of trans folks.”
 
I wondered if the mainline response to Nashville would be a little less crazy than usual, but nope, we’ve already got a tortured analogy linking Jesus’ crucifixion to the transgender mass shooter pic.twitter.com/ULm1xi9BoV
 
— Woke Preacher Clips (@WokePreacherTV) April 3, 2023
 
Louwagie later went on to criticize the lack of focus on “gun violence” and that “six people were dead.” The pastor said that the desire to cause “harm” to certain communities “has happened before,” citing the Holocaust, Japanese internment camps during World War II, racial segregation and “migrants being held in cages.”
 
“Jesus did not die for this,” Louwagie said. “Jesus did not die so violence could be perpetuated in God’s name, Jesus did not die for access to guns. God incarnate did not die on that cross so that people could value money, power, and the preservation of their own image over the bodies and lives of people. Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s what Jesus died to free us from, so why are we still not free?”
 
Second Link Used: https://www.milarch.org/walter-reed-national-military-medical-center-terminates-catholic-pastoral-care-contract-during-holy-week/
 
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Terminates Catholic Pastoral Care Contract During Holy Week
Move violates First Amendment Right to Free Exercise of Religion
APRIL 7, 2023
 
WASHINGTON, DC – Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has issued a “cease and desist order” to Holy Name College, a community of Franciscan Catholic priests and brothers, who have provided pastoral care to service members and veterans at Walter Reed for nearly two decades.
 
The government’s cease and desist order directed the Catholic priests to cease any religious services at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. This order was issued as Catholics entered Holy Week, the most sacred of days in the Christian faith, in which they participate in liturgies remembering Jesus’ passion, and leading the Church to celebrate the Resurrection on Easter morning.
 
The Franciscans’ contract for Catholic Pastoral Care was terminated on March 31, 2023, and awarded to a secular defense contracting firm that cannot fulfill the statement of work in the contract. As a result, adequate pastoral

Disciple Up #300
God In Drag – Drag Is Holy?
By Louie Marsh, 3-29-2023
 
Link to article below: https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/03/21/oh-my-god-n538175
 
Oh. My. God.
DAVID STROM 12:31 PM on March 21, 2023
  
I am not a theologian, nor do I play one on TV.
 
I didn’t even stay in a Holiday Inn Express.
 
Still, as a convert to Catholicism, I was catechized as an adult, and have a passing familiarity with Christian theology. I also, I hope, am not a complete idiot, and it takes a complete idiot to take the new theology being pushed by the Left seriously.
 
Two different videos I ran across inspired me to write this piece. The first was a video of a progressive preacher explaining why drag performances are holy. Not just acceptable. Not even a wonderful expression of the diversity of human experience.
 
Holy.
 
‘Drag is holy’? Get help buddy. pic.twitter.com/l8tmlOfAsE
 
— 🇦🇺🇳🇿 ♀️Emma ♀️ 🇭🇺🇬🇧 (@TheCynicalHun) March 20, 2023
 
Holy doesn’t just mean “good,” “fun,” or even “excellent.” It means sacred. As in a sacrament. It has a specific theological meaning that even those with the meanest of intelligence should be able to understand. Certainly, a pastor should be able to.
 
But no. This particular pastor, The Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines, believes that Jesus is God in drag, and hence drag is holy.
 
At first, I was certain this was a parody since no Christian pastor (nor, I would imagine, any other person schooled in any of the Abrahamic faiths) could possibly make this argument. Jesus is God in drag? Who would say that?
 
But no, this dude is real, and people actually pay attention to him.
 
The Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines is an ordained minister with standing in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. He currently serves as the Senior Minister of University Christian Church in San Diego, as the Co-Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, and as the Co-Host for “The Moonshine Jesus Show.” He has a passion for pursuing social justice for the marginalized, demonstrating the Good News of God’s radically inclusive love, and proclaiming a relevant message for today’s ever-changing world. At the time he was called to his current church, Caleb was the youngest Senior Minister in his congregation’s history.  Within three years, the congregation had already grown by over 50% and experienced much revitalization; a trajectory that continues.
 
Caleb’s views on the intersection of religion and public life have been featured in diverse publications, such as The Nation Magazine, The Economist, The LA Times, Disciples News Service, Chalice Press, The Christian Left, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, The Center for Prophetic Imagination, the Convergence Leadership Project, and Sojourners.  He currently serves on the national boards of ProgressiveChristianity.org and Jubilee USA Network. Caleb has served churches and nonprofits in Missouri, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. Caleb is the author of The Great Digital Commission: Embracing Social Media for Church Growth and Transformation (Cascade Books, 2021), which quickly reached #1 on Amazon’s New Releases for Church Growth and was awarded a Silver Medal Illumination Book Award in Ministry/Mission.
 
So Caleb has some minor claim to fame, and clearly, there is some real money behind him and his message.
 
Drag is holy. Jesus is God in drag.
 
Lord help us.
 
PLAY VIDEO, the respond.
 
Drag is Holy
 
Jesus mother hen - “37“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38See, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Disciple Up # 299
Rethinking the Quiet Time
By Louie Marsh, 3-22-2023
 
Intro. Sorry for mix up and briefly posting Sunday’s sermon on this feed! State of the podcast, what about next week? We’re hitting number 300! That’s quite a run. What would you like to hear on that one?
 
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/april/quit-quiet-time-devotions-bible-literacy-reading-scripture.html
 
Is It Time to Quit ‘Quiet Time’?
Effective biblical engagement must be about more than one’s personal experience with Scripture.
DRU JOHNSON AND CELINA DURGIN
|
MARCH 13, 2023
 
I began to realize that their poor grasp of Scripture wasn’t necessarily due to a lack of reading, although that’s also a large problem in the US. From 2021 to 2022, Bible engagement—scored on frequency of use, spiritual impact, and moral importance in day-to-day life—fell 21 percent among American adult Bible users. It was the American Bible Society’s largest recorded one-year drop in its annual State of the Bible study. And almost 1 in 5 churchgoers said they never read the Bible.
 
But for my students, many of whom read the Bible daily and have chosen to attend a Christian college, their poor grasp on and application of Scripture seems to be due to the way they engage with it. It is a way many American Christians have been reading the Bible for decades: through “daily devotions” or “quiet time.”
 
The way daily quiet time is typically practiced today is unlikely to yield the fluency required to understand and apply biblical teaching. Only when devotional time is situated within a matrix of Scripture study habits can it regain its power to transform our thinking and our communities.
 
How could my students be reading the Bible so much yet have so little understanding of the Torah, pay almost no attention to its focus on the new heavens and new earth, and be confused over concepts like salvation and evil? CT previously discussed the Lifeway Research statistics that reveal this trend of Bible illiteracy among the wider population. Their daily devotion to Scripture seemed to distance them from understanding key parts of it.
 
My students were not Bible literate. They didn’t really know the stories, characters, ideas, and themes in the Bible, much less how the literature itself fits together and argues for a particular view of the world. And as Christians, we must aim beyond basic literacy. We hope to know and practice the thinking and instruction of Scripture fluently, extending its wisdom into all the areas of life that it doesn’t directly address.
 
Johnson traces the modern practice of quiet time to the 1870s, when American evangelicals merged two previously separate Puritan devotional practices: private prayer and private Bible study. This fusion of prayer and Bible study morphed into “morning watch,” which emphasized intercessory prayer. From there it became “quiet time,” which deemphasized intercessory prayer in favor of quiet listening or meditation. This new emphasis on individuals receiving daily insights from God transformed the nature of the Bible engagement taught to generations of American Christians.
 
Daily devotions have been characteristically solitary and have not usually involved rigorous study of Scripture. Instead, readers often focus on one chapter or even a few verses per session, from which they may expect to receive God’s guidance for their personal life in that moment. Daily devotions typically include a period of prayerful “listening” for God’s voice, which is believed to manifest either in the verses read that session or via direct communication to the mind of the listener.
 
Though this listening may be expectant, it is essentially passive. It’s often guided by a tacit belief that God’s Word speaks and transforms through sudden insights directed at individual readers, rather than through sustained study and active questioning in community.

Disciple Up # 298
Dishonest Christian Publishers
By Louie Marsh
 
Links used during this Podcast
 
https://estephenburnett.lorehaven.com/pssst-christian-endorsers-of-bad-books-may-not-have-even-read-them/
 
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/march-web-only/christian-publishers-book-endorsements-authors-tgc-butler.html
 
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/meet-donald-trumps-new-evangelical-advisory-board-6a5bfc5460d7/
 
Excerpts from CT article:
 
The Problem with Christian Book Endorsements
Publishers and authors have played along by pushing celebrity blurbs—but it’s time to rewrite the rules of promotion.
KATELYN BEAT
 
As an editor at a Christian publisher, I review multiple book proposals each week. Authors pitching a new project will share a table of contents, a sample of their writing, their bio, statistics about their platform, and—always—a list of confirmed or potential endorsers.
 
It’s a strange detail, since most trade nonfiction books aren’t already written when the author goes under contract with a publisher. This means that endorsers have agreed to endorse something that doesn’t exist.
 
Authors and agents are simply playing the rules that publishers set, and in Christian publishing—as with all book publishing—it’s about who you know.
 
Many authors hate seeking endorsements; it feels self-promotional and vulnerable. But endorsements are simply part of the deal, going back to at least 1856, when Walt Whitman had Ralph Waldo Emerson’s letter praising Leaves of Grass published in the New-York Tribune prior to the book’s second edition.
 
It's a risky thing to do—especially when an endorser hasn’t read the book.
 
Last week, The Gospel Coalition published, then unpublished, an excerpt from the forthcoming book Beautiful Union: How God’s Vision for Sex Points Us to the Good, Unlocks the True, and (Sort of) Explains Everything. Readers criticized the author, Joshua Ryan Butler, saying he misconstrued the marriage metaphor in Ephesians 5, making it pornographic, male-centric, and ripe for abuse.
 
As criticisms mounted, ministry leader Dennae Pierre and pastor Rich Villodas publicly retracted their book endorsements. Pierre said she had written hers “based on training Josh had done for local pastors” and had done a “quick skim” of the book. Villodas said a mutual friend had invited him to endorse the book: “I agreed to the favor, but in poor judgment, read only 25-30% of it.”
 
It was good for Pierre and Villodas to admit they hadn’t fully read a book that will feature their names, at least on the first printing. Their retractions are a wake-up call for book buyers: Endorsements aren’t always about quality of writing or theological soundness. In practice, they aren’t even always an honest assessment of someone else’s work.
 
Rather, in an age fixated on platform, endorsements are about establishing the market appeal of an author based on their connections to famous people. As such, endorsements are usually driven by celebrity, mutual back-scratching, and power consolidated through loose social, professional, and ministry networks. There’s a reason that endorsements come through the marketing team (not editorial): Endorsements are marketing tools, not editorial reviews.
 
Of course, many endorsers offer blurbs for good reasons. They want to support friends and acquaintances. In a market where sales often boil down to platform, many famous people want to share the spotlight, or shine it on emerging voices. Plus, a Christian culture of niceness—and the blurring of lines between friendship and commerce—make it hard to say no to endorsement requests. (Note that Villodas said he agreed to a “favor.”) After all, whoever blurbs sparingly will also be blurbed sparingly, for God loves a cheerful blurber.
 
I consider it a red flag that some faith-based publishers will write an endorsement for a celebri

Disciple Up #297
The Gospel Coalition’s Sex Article
By Louie Marsh, 3-8-2023
 
An article was published on the Gospel Coalition’s website last week. It immediately drew criticism, even from people who don’t engage in online criticism like Rick Warren. In response TGC published a PDF of the intro and first chapter of the as yet unpublished book to help “give context.”
 
That only drew even more criticism and so as of March 6th, 2023 the link to that PDF became a link to an Open Letter.
 
I’ll be reading the letter and then reading some excerpts from the PDF which I downloaded and is no longer available. In the show notes you’ll find a few excerpts from the article but not the PDF since I don’t own it and don’t want to break the law. The link to the letter of apology is below.
 
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/sex-wont-save-you/
 
Dear Readers,
 
Thank you for your feedback on the Keller Center’s book excerpt from Joshua Butler posted on March 1, 2023. And thank you for your patience while we took the time to listen to our critics and the serious objections from concerned fellows, as well as discuss this matter with our Board of Directors and care for our friend Josh.
 
Earlier this week, we accepted Josh’s resignation as a Keller Center fellow. He will no longer lead an online cohort with the center nor speak at TGC23. While he will no longer participate in these events, Josh remains a beloved brother and friend whom we respect and care deeply about.
 
To our fellows and our readers, please forgive us. The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics is a new effort by TGC, and we are still learning how to work with our directors and our fellows to produce content that will serve our readers in a way that is trusted and wise. To ensure greater accountability with our fellows, we will develop better review systems for our work together. We will also review our publication processes more broadly at TGC and develop plans to ensure greater accountability to you, our readers.
 
Again, thank you for your patience with us. At TGC, we want to provide a venue for healthy dialogue and robust debate on important matters that affect us all. We want to model grace-filled conversations, and we want to learn from one another. In this case, we failed you and hurt many friends. Thank you in advance for your continued prayers.
 
For Christ and his gospel,
 
Julius Kim
President
The Gospel Coalition
 
Excerpts from the article that started it all
 
Sex Won’t Save You (But It Points to the One Who Will)
MARCH 1, 2023
JOSH BUTLER
 
I used to look to sex for salvation. I wanted it to liberate me from loneliness; I wanted to find freedom in the arms of another. But the search failed.
 
Sex wasn’t designed to be your salvation but to point you to the One who is.
 
Union with Christ
 
Sex is an icon of Christ and the church. In Ephesians 5:31–32, a “hall of fame” marriage passage, the apostle Paul proclaims, “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (NIV; I’ve translated proskollao as “cleave”).
 
Paul says both are about Christ and the church.
 
This should be shocking! It’s not only the giving of your vows at the altar but what happens in the honeymoon suite afterward that speaks to the life you were made for with God. A husband and wife’s life of faithful love is designed to point to greater things, but so is their sexual union! This is a gospel bombshell: sex is an icon of salvation.
 
How? I’d suggest the language of generosity and hospitality can help us out.
 
At a deeper level, generosity is giving not just your resources but your very self. And what deeper form of self-giving is there than sexual union where the husband pours out his very presence not only upon but w

Disciple Up # 296
Is It Right to Accuse an Elder (Pastor)?
By Louie Marsh, 2-27-2023
 
Link to podcast on YouTube.
 
Youtube.com/@discipleuppodcast9019
 
Response to last week – name redacted.
 
·       "Oh Lucifer, the great accuser and slanderer. Praise Jesus Christ the living Son of the living God. I'll stay focused on the cross and Christ's redeeming blood, I suggest anyone…
·       "Oh lofty one, you're not an elder in this church, merely a Karen seeking for yourself your own vanity."
·       "Your post is in direct rebellion against the will of God, Mr. Pastor"
·       "Forgive me, I'm arrogant. But nonetheless, this doesn't belong on public platforms for all to see."
 
What the Bible Says:
 
“19Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.” (1 Timothy 5:19, ESV)
 
Against an elder (κατα πρεσβυτερου [kata presbuterou]). In the official sense of verses 17f. Receive not (μη παραδεχου [mē paradechou]). Present middle imperative with μη [mē] (prohibition) of παραδεχομαι [paradechomai], to receive, to entertain. Old verb. See Acts 22:18. Accusation (κατηγοριαν [katēgorian]). Old word (from κατηγορος [katēgoros]). In N. T. only here, Titus 1:6; John 18:29 in critical text. Except (ἐκτος εἰ μη [ektos ei mē]). For this double construction see 1 Cor. 14:5; 15:2. At the mouth of (ἐπι [epi]). Idiomatic use of ἐπι [epi] (upon the basis of) as in 2 Cor. 13:1.
- A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), 1 Ti 5:19.
 
A Red Herring:
 
“15saying, “Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!”” (Psalm 105:15, ESV)
 
In the verses leading up to God’s command “Do not touch my anointed ones,” we read this:
 
“19When you were few in number, of little account, and sojourners in it, 20wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, 21he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, 22saying, “Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!”” (1 Chronicles 16:19–22, ESV)
 
This passage refers to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When “they” (the patriarchs) were few in number, they lived as wandering strangers in a strange land (see Hebrews 11:9). Through all their travels and travails, God protected them, increased their number, and prevented the powerful rulers of the lands where they stayed from harming them.
 
David applied it to himself:
 
1 Samuel 26:9–11 (ESV): 9 But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless?” 10 And David said, “As the LORD lives, the LORD will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish. 11 The LORD forbid that I should put out my hand against the LORD’s anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go.”
 
Remember: There’s a big difference between questioning what someone says, and questioning their character.
 
“16Rejoice always, 17pray without ceasing, 18give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19Do not quench the Spirit. 20Do not despise prophecies, 21but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22Abstain from every form of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–22, ESV)
 
What should our attitude be towards our leaders?
 
1) Respect them – or if you can’t respect them you respect the position they hold
 
2) Approach them in love and with witnesses.
 
3) Have the goal of finding the truth and restoration foremost in your mind