Best Christian-Based Charities to Donate To

Hey everyone,

So, as you probably noticed since my first post I've dedicated a grand total of about three posts to "real" writing outside of the Pr. Yang situation. I had big plans for writing all sort of things, but between a ridiculous fourth quarter work schedule and being a new dad, those plans have sort of "gang agly".

For those of you who did read that serious of posts on Pr. Yang, obviously those were meant for more for people internal to the church. My goal in writing that was to hopefully open some eyes and at least start to make people think very critically about what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 4:1. In the place of judgment--wickedness was there and in the place of justice--wickedness was there. It just happened that I had lots of time to write all that during my paternity leave, mostly in the hours between 1:00 AM and 6:00 AM :)

Those of us on the outside looking in can't do much anymore--our voices have been pretty effectively and methodically silenced by the church leadership. So it's going to be up to the "rebels" within the church to shake things up (having seen it yesterday, I'm fighting the urge to make a "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" reference at this point :P). So just another reminder to any of you inside the church who read it and are thinking "something's wrong". Not to speak is to speak.

That said, I've seen the outpouring of comments and emails about how so many of you would love to read other kinds of writings and encouragement on this blog, and so with your continued encouragement and prayers I'm going to make sure in 2016 I write some things that hopefully can help you provide food for the journey and a constant reminder that you're not alone. There are shepherds out there who do care for the lost, and seek the young, and heal the injured, and feed the healthy. Let's use the Internet to look for them--and to be them for each other. And as for the worthless shepherds out there, God will deal with them, there's really no need for us to think too much about them anymore.

There's one last thing. Now that the year's coming to a close, one of the things I usually ask myself is where to donate my tithes. As sad as it is to say, I can't bring myself to tithe to my local churehes anymore, at least not right now.

It's not out of spite nor to "teach anyone a lesson", and it's not even all about Pr. Yang's situation. Admittedly, even before that situation arose, I had reservations--it seems that the only times churches called for donations was to buy bigger church buildings. That always rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, when Moses was building the tabernacle and when Solomon was building his temple they called for donations and sacrifices from everyone and all their efforts went into building material and labor. But that was under the old covenant, right? Under the new covenant, people met in each other's houses. Not to say that having service in a church building is inappropriate, but I always thought to myself...are we as churches spending so much time on real estate that we neglect widows and orphans?

But it was the Pr. Yang situation that made me realize that my tithe money was going to support things that were downright contrary to my values. Did you know that when you donate to your local church, a huge chunk (it was about 50% if I recall correctly) doesn't go to your local church but is "taxed" by the IA and GA? The IA and GA of course do some important work (paying ministers' salaries, paying for RE textbooks), but there is some stuff that is downright wasteful (e.g., spending tens of thousands of dollars to fly their board members and their delegates to national and international meetings when a lot of that can easily be done remotely these days).

And worse, I realized that I was subsidizing something downright wrong when delegates to those conferences did nothing but rubber-stamp things that the IA and GA boards have already decided--something I had known for years after having been a participant but something that my eyes were really opened up to after the Pr. Yang situation. Hopefully, if the IA and GA feel a pinch financially, they'll begin to be wiser about how they spend our money.

In any case, here's how I dealt with it. I looked into the best Christian-based charities out there. In the last few years, that's where my donations have gone.

I had two very simple criteria for coming up with these charities.

• First, they had to have a four-star (top) rating at CharityNavigator.org. This means that there's a good chance that the bulk of your money goes directly to the causes they say they're helping. If I'm told my money is going to feed the hungry, I want to know that it turned into a spoonful of rice into a child's mouth, not a plane ticket for someone to fly around the world.
• Second, they had to not just be Christian-based, but to acknowledge God and the name of Christ boldly on their Web site. To me this was important because we live in a world where more and more are being "shamed" into denying the name of Christ just as Peter was and for the same reasons--out of fear and terror. The majority of charities out there were started by a Christian in the name of Christ, but have obfuscated or even obliterated Christ's name from their mission. That's not to say you shouldn't still support them, but I wanted to acknowledge those who kept try to their original mission. 

Here are the three charities I found that fit the bill, to whom I try to send donations every year.

World Vision - World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the root causes of poverty and injustice. Working in nearly 100 countries around the world, we serve all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.

Samaritan's Purse - Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Compassion International - In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists as an advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.

There were others like Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity which are great, but just happen to have less than four stars on Charity Navigator--hopefully they're working on that.

I know what some of you are thinking. Can I really "steal" from the tithes I give to the True Jesus Church and give it to some other charity that's run by people who don't have "the Truth"?? Let's put it this way. Say John donates $100 to Samaritan's Purse and that ends up buying clothes for a orphan in a war-torn country who's struggling to stay alive, and say Joe donates $100 to the True Jesus Church and that ends up paying for a fifth of a plane ticket of someone to fly to a World Delegate's Conference. If you were God, with whom would you be more pleased? Who would you shower more blessings on?

Don't take my word for it--put God to the test. Or, just give to both and receive both blessings if you want to cover your bases. :P

One last one a little closer to home. If you've read the postings on Pr. Yang and want to continue to support his ministry, there's another option you can take. The Lily of the Valley Community Outreach is a charity that was started by some of our church members, but has no relation with the church whatsoever. They do a lot of wonderful work in the Dallas area that's unrelated to buying new church buildings or flying their management around the world for meetings, but rather practicing the "true religion" that James talked about in James 1:27. Some of the great work they did in 2015 can be found here. And as a bonus, you can also ask them to earmark part of your donation to support Pr. Yang and his ministry; since the True Jesus Church has stripped him of his salary and his means of traveling to preach the good news of salvation, it's up to us to lift him and his ministry up.

All of these charities (LOTV included) are registered as 501(c)(3) charities, meaning that if you pay income taxes in the United States you can deduct your donation from on your tax return if you itemize donations. So if you're in a 25% tax bracket, for example, and donate $100 to one of these charities, your taxable income does down by $100 (and you probably end up getting back about $25 as a tax refund). People often scoff at me when I bring this up, but the point is, you can turn around and donate that $25 right back to the charity instead of "donating" it to the federal government (which has raised wasting money to an art form). As long as the charity receives your donation before 11:59 PM on 12/31/15, you can write it off in April.

Have a wonderful New Year...

The True Jesus Church in China - Reviewing the Case Against YM Yang: Epilogue

Admittedly, as I was diving into this whole thing something struck me as odd. Why is it that so many are so opposed to Pr. Yang? Maybe the whole thing did start with a personal affront in a spiritual convocation in Europe many years ago, maybe it didn't. But how did it get to the point where so many people felt so adamant about destroying this man's livelihood and kicking him out of the church? As you've seen, these charges of "heresy" are really tenuous at best and in my opinion sometimes reveal more about the accusers than the accused.

One of the paragraphs early on in Pr. Chin's analysis is very telling, and may shed some light on why so many are so vociferous in seeing YM Yang out of the True Jesus Church. I should preface by saying this is only wild speculation, but it's the closest things to an explanation I can think of right now. Take it with a shaker of salt.

In 2013, between June and July, I was in Adam Road church conducting the China Members’ Fellowship. There was a sister from China who came to visit her relative. I heard that YM was in China attempting to unite the churches not affiliated with the north or the south. I asked this sister if this was true. She said that she knew this but that the Elder that YM seeks to associate with had already gone against the truth, conducting baptism in a dug-out pool. She asked, why does he still want to unite with them? So I thought even a young girl like her understood this .

It's pretty common knowledge that Pr. Yang has been communicating with some of our brothers and sisters in mainland China and there's been talk about him trying to find ways to bridge the gaps that have come between us in the 60+ years where we were separated from each other. And I can completely understand why he felt such a passion for this, as his own father was a member of the church in Nanjing before he went to Taiwan and became one of the church's most respected elders there.

Now I know that a lot of you may not know the full history of our church in China. I'll share what I know here briefly; I can't say this is the definitive story but it's what I've been able to piece together from history and from various accounts.

Our church was established in Beijing in 1917, only a few years after the revolution that ended 2000 years of imperial rule in China which established the Republic of China. Our church flourished and grew rapidly from 1917 to 1949, with churches in cities from Beijing to Nanjing to Shanghai.

But in 1949 a civil war happened in China, with Mao's communist forces defeating the armies of the Republic of China. Many of our church members fled with the Kuomingtang to Taiwan. But others had to stay behind.

The government of the new People's Republic of China moved fast to close the borders. Once that happened no one could come in or out. One of the tenets of this new government was to staunchly defend themselves against foreign influences. Part of that meant that outlawing freedom of religion.

During this time, our church moved underground. In the face of unimaginable hardship they continued to worship God as best as they could. From my understanding, it was the churches in the northern cities of China that bore the brunt of the persecution, most horrifically during the Cultural Revolution that resulted in 1.5 million people in the country being killed and millions of others suffering imprisonment, seizure of property, torture and general humiliation. My understanding is that the churches in the southern cities were largely spared of much of this persecution during this time.

Word has it that at one point the Northern churches faced a situation much like the ones the German churches I alluded to a few posts ago--some of the churches apparently were taken over by leaders who started to impose rules and regulations of man which, if not obeyed, would lead to members getting excommunicated. And through this there were among our members those who, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, kept the faith and became stronger amid persecution and corruption both inside and outside the church.

Between 1972 and today, China started to embrace some free market principles in its economy, and with that came a loosening of government control in certain areas. By the 1980s our church members were once again able to connect with our churches in the mainland. One of those members was Elder John Yang, who visited those he had served God with as a young man after over 40 years of separation.

Today, I hear stories of believers in these Northern regions who, against all odds and all logic, have adhered to the Five Basic Beliefs, who today practice baptism according to the Bible the same way we do, and who continue to receive the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues, signs, and miracles. Their membership which reportedly stands at 1.2 million brothers and sisters is larger than that of all the other True Jesus Churches around the world combined. 

If that's happening, it should be cause for rejoicing, right? But then again, I hear rumblings--including in that very passage that Pr. Chin wrote--that some in the IA and some in the Southern churches look disparagingly upon their brothers and sisters in the North and look upon any talk of "reunification" with disdain, as if finding common ground in our faith were somehow tantamount to lobbying for secular political unification instead of trying to find unity in Christ. 

Again, I'm not close enough to the situation to know any more details than this. I'm sure that if you talk to different people they'll have differing accounts. But if anything I say is even remotely true, I find it profoundly tragic.  

Pr. Yang seemed to be making inroads at reconciliation, carrying on what was started by his father, before he was stripped of his ministry and then stripped of his church membership. And then sure enough, the rumors began to be spread throughout the churches in China to have nothing to do with him as he was a "heretic".

And I cannot help but speculate, was his efforts in China somehow tied to this whole mess we've been talking about in the last 12 posts?

You might wonder why I, a member who was born in the United States and who doesn't even speak Chinese has such strong opinions on this.

Here's why. 

My mother was born in Nanjing in 1925 and grew up a member of the church there. I mentioned in an earlier post her testimony, but it bears repeating here.

As a teenager she went to a boarding school but was at the point of death to the point where her classmates carried her home so she could die there with her family. Elder Isaac Wei, the son of Paul Wei, came to visit. He prayed over her and lay hands on her, and she was healed. Elder Wei said to my mom, every Sabbath day, you should fast to remember the grace that God gave to you. And until the day she died, my mom would wait until 4:00 PM to eat or drink anything, even a cup of water.

My grandmother had a similar story. After Mom was born, my grandmother had a late term miscarriage--a boy. Her health deteriorated to the point where she was dying. But God healed her and she went on to have three more children, my aunt and two uncles.

Grandma was ordained a deaconess of the church in Nanjing, and she was loved very much by the brothers and sisters there. Mom said that our church brothers and sisters protected her; it was years later that I'd learned about the horrors that went on in Nanjing around that time and learned what she must have meant.

The Communists won their civil war against the Nationalists in 1949, and many who had ties to the Nationalists fled the country, including my grandfather and my aunt and uncles. The time then came for my mom, who was in college, to leave too. My grandmother sent her to the train station. And my mom remembered exactly what was to be their last conversation.

"Tell your brothers and your father and your sister--if you miss me, pray. If I miss you, I'll pray."

My grandmother chose to stay in China to continue to take care of the church. And then the Communists sealed the borders. No one could come in, no one could go out. And once that happened, aside from a few letters that were smuggled into and out of China my grandmother never saw nor communicated with my grandfather nor her children ever again. My grandmother passed away in 1967, just as the Cultural Revolution started to get into full swing.

A lot of people come up to me to this day and tell me about how faithful and loving they remember my mom was. Some old-timers who went to the Taichung church in Taiwan tell me that they remember my grandfather as a man of great joy. 

But no one ever talks to me about grandma. What I know about her I know from my mom.

My mom told me the story of the love our church members showed for her after she passed. The government forbade its citizens from burying their dead—all bodies were to be cremated. But in the darkness of the night our church members smuggled her body into a remote area in the woods and buried their beloved deaconess, placing a tiny headstone to mark her final resting place. I can only imagine the planning and the risk that these brothers and sisters went through, especially during that time when even any hint of defiance against the government was met with swift torture, imprisonment, or execution. And this definitely fell into that category.

Years later, when China finally opened its borders to allow travel from the United States, my mom went back for the first time after almost 40 years. This is what grandma's final resting place looked like, untouched after almost 20 years.

And this was the tombstone that our church members had made for her, still standing precisely where they had put it two decades earlier.

I never met my grandma, but she had a huge impact on my life. Whatever blessings I have today, and there are blessings in abundance, I can trace back to her and her faithfulness and love to God.

When mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer at first we went through the usual mourning process as we knew we were going to lose her. But very soon after I could see in my mom's eyes almost an excitement, because she knew that she was going home, and after 54 years of being separated the first to meet her at the gates of heaven would be grandma.

And so you see, when I think of the churches in China, whether the North, the South, or churches that are unaffiliated with either, I don't look down on any of them as somehow being second class citizens or members of a rogue church. These are my brothers and sisters, not just in terms of my ancestry but more importantly in the body of Christ and in the kingdom of God. Even though 66 years of separation may have come upon us, when you consider those among them who have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith, can anything separate us from the love of Christ that we shared in common 66 years ago before the borders were closed? 

While I don't know the details of Pr. Yang's attempts to reconcile the Northern and Southern churches, I can sense that there's fear and distrust and disdain for his attempts to do so. Frankly, I don't know what's driving it.

I think on a surface level, sure, there are those who are concerned with "the doctrines being corrupted". But to these people I'll repeat something I said a few times now. What is it that you're afraid of? If you truly believe that you have the promised Holy Spirit in you and in your church, and Jesus Christ himself said that when the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide you into all truth, what is it that you're afraid of? Does God need you to protect him? Is your job to guide us into all truth, or is that the Holy Spirit's job? If the 10 Basic Beliefs are truly God's immutable truth, then why are you afraid of letting them stand on their own?

And on a more sublunary level, I have to wonder whether any of the resistance is of a more mundane nature. Are there those who feel that their "positions" or "prestige" will somehow be diminished if we looked upon the Northern churches as long lost brothers and sisters rather than as a deviant sect? I dare not speculate. But in the off chance that this is the case the question is still the same. What are you afraid of? 

I don't doubt that the Holy Spirit is with the churches in the South, as well as the churches of Taiwan, southeast Asia, and the western world.  However, I do not dare say that the Holy Spirit is not also with the churches in the North, whose faith unlike the others have gone through 66 years of testing under fire.

At the very least, I would want to hear their stories, and learn how the Holy Spirit led them during their most desperate times. I would hope that I would be humble enough to learn about their history and to hear what they received from the Lord with an open mind and not instantly brand anything they preach that sounds different than what we preach as "heresy" or "deviant". 

I believe that God would be very happy with the church if all of the True Jesus Churches everywhere could put away any human emotions, any precepts of men, any bigotry, any secular geopolitical biases, and any close-mindedness and come together like children in front of the Lord, asking for his wisdom and guidance on how to reconcile over 66 years of being separated.

Did imperfect teachings infiltrate the North during this time? Did imperfect teachings infiltrate the South during this time? Did imperfect teachings infiltrate the churches in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the western world? The answer is, probably yes in all cases.  Like I said, I have no idea what is going on as far as talks of reunifying the churches but I do know one thing—if anyone on any side stubbornly clings to their own opinions without leaving any room for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these people are doing a monumental disservice to the church and to the kingdom of God.

How much would the heart of God be moved if on the 100^th anniversary of the founding of our church less than two years from now if with humility we as one church were to approach Him and ask Him to once again guide us into all Truth and into perfection as one body, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead? 

I want to close with the English translation of something that Pr. Yang posted to Facebook a few weeks ago. I'll preface by saying that Pr. Yang tends to use literary devices like hyperbole, irony, imagery, and metaphor in his writing, so read it with that in mind.

Oh! My brethren of the North!

Living in the southern region, one often hears from pastors of the South that you've deviated from the truth; that your gospel is impure, and that you are no longer the beloved people of God. There are testimonies of you being punished by God because you invented your own versions of the truth. 

Thus, I am afraid to get in touch with you; fearing that I will be contaminated by you and in the process, lose my own salvation.

Like a porcupine facing a threat and bristling all my stiff quills in order to protect myself, I remain defensively prickly lest you lure me into losing my chance at salvation.

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That night, you who belonged to the Northern faction, upon hearing of my entry into the ----- region, traveled many long miles under cover of moonlight, cloaked in starlight, trailing clouds of dust to arrive at the place where you insisted on meeting me. 

Although we had no prior knowledge of each other's existence nor had any contact before this, you were adamant that in Spirit, you just could not believe the baseless rumors about me being bandied about in China.

Your face, though shadowed with deep lines of hard living, still shone with the intense love for God that is long absent from the eyes of the shepherds who pastor to the South. You did not have much time to chat because of the long journey ahead of you to get back home. But once we met, I wished that time could stand still so that I can listen intently to your insights of the many ways to unite the churches of the North and the South, and how to effect changes for the betterment of the church as a whole.

After you departed, I was left to toss and turn in sleeplessness, thrashing in the whirling eddies of TJC histories of the North and South.

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That night, you who did not know me at all, came to -----, a mutual meeting place. Even though we were merely 3 meters apart, you exclaimed loudly, "Little brother!" upon seeing me! Grasping my hands tightly, you declared that we were old neighbors! How could we now be split into the South and the North?! You said your father and my father were colleagues 60+ years ago. Our two families were neighbors in Nanjing, close to the GA headquarters.

After 1989 and the end of the revolution when China was finally open to visitors, my father went back twice to your home and asked to visit his Northern co-workers whom he had lost contact with for 40+ years. They talked about uniting the two factions in the Lord. You implored me to continue my father's heart desire, and to do my utmost to help reunite the Southern and the Northern churches into one loving entity. From that fateful night on, we were lock step together in traversing this vast land from the North to the South; later, you became the first Northern woman preacher to speak from the pulpit of a Southern church, and I was able to conduct a few Sabbath services in your church to the North.

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You, an Elder who wanted badly to withdraw yourself from the governing organization of the Southern branch, sent word to me via mutual friends that if I am to pass by your neighborhood, I must find a way to come and meet you secretly, away from prying eyes. 

After exchanging a few words when we finally met, you stopped and stared at me intently for a long while. Then in a trembling, emotional voice, you turned to the people around us and said, "how is it possible for me to believe that Elder Yang's child is capable of preaching heresy?"

You asked that I keep in contact with you from now on; and from your teary gaze I could sense the ponderous turning of the tides from both sides: a field long laid fallow, welcoming the influx of differing systemic organizations and factions.

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The first time I stepped into a Northern church, I was secretly amazed. The interior was reminiscent of the traditional Chinese hall in style, with a flag of True Jesus Church hung high behind the altar (pulpit), and written banners of the Five Doctrines, Ten Commandments and Twelve Standards adorning the side walls of the chapel. Following the sonorous, booming announcement from the service leader, "In the name of Jesus Christ we begin the service! Men, remove your hats; women, cover your heads!", the congregation did so simply and decorously. In all reverence and silence before the Lord, they begin their daily worship and praise. I too, joined them in prayer, facing the west, and sang songs of grace before meals.

(Image of TJC flag: Five Doctrines, Ten Commandments and Twelve Standards, to be preached to the whole world with the power of the Holy Spirit)

Workers of the Northern faction are fundamentally more praiseworthy compared to the South. They are less prone to find excuses when the Southern faction condemns them of wrongdoings at every turn; especially because they know full well that it was the Southern faction that deviated from the collective decisions with regard to the doctrines and regulations, achieved via the guidance of the Holy Spirit, during of the original national TJC meetings. The elderly members of the Northern churches were baptized in the deluge of the Cultural Revolution, their belief harshly persecuted and tested. In contrast, the Southern members were spared of such hardships. 

At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the church was controlled by foolish men, whose agenda kept it in perpetual darkness for years afterwards. 

Thank God, the Northern members remained loyal to the Lord and refused to bow to the follies of those foolish men in charge, even in the face of being threatened with excommunication one after another or even en masse! Amazingly, those who doled out the excommunications suffered the rapid disintegration of their flock, whereas those who were excommunicated were embraced by the mercy of God. They sought to gather back members who were lost or scattered, and evangelized broadly to all. An extraordinary phenomenon ensued, even to today, the year 2015: those who were excommunicated or ostracized by the church, no matter from the Northern or Southern factions, continued to thrive and attract new believers at a rate far greater than the churches who excommunicated them! These are the Northern churches who firmly believe in the five doctrines, 10 commandments and 12 standards; and who practice the customs of head covering, praying facing the west, and footwashing prior to imminent death. Their membership occupies a majority within all the TJC churches combined, a staggering 1.2 million!

The situation of the present-day TJC can be simply summed up: God has entrusted the rebuilding of a spiritual TJC to those who were excommunicated by the secular TJC!

An excellent demonstration of this scenerio is found in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the church at Xiushan, Fujian in July of this year. The church board members who organized the anniversary celebration were the same members who were excommunicated en masse by the Council of Elders in Fuqing a mere five year past. 

The two elders who blessed the congregation were ones excommunicated by the Wei clan of the North 10 years ago. The Sacrament of Holy Communion, the consecration, the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the cup, were conducted by a preacher who was excommunicated by the IA as recent as April of this year!

The Northern workers steadfastly refused to be cowed by the threats of hellfire from those in power -- although they themselves suffered alienation from spouses and friends, and riddled by slanderous slurs -- they remained unwavering and true to the cause of the Lord. Ten years later, God turned the humiliation of their excommunication into a glorious symbol of 'non-conformity with the secularized church, and thus remaining untainted'. Holy God, His love, mercy and righteousness are supreme!

It was never observed that any Northern believers who receive the Holy Spirit, did so only after collective, numerous, and protracted prayer sessions. Almost to a man, they speak the spiritual tongues as soon as they were baptized, and many miracles and wonders followed. 

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When the hymn and prayer are done, you gently and reverently untie the kerchief from your head with a practiced hand. I was astonished by your beauty! As lovely as the bride in the Song of Songs, the Beloved of God! 

After the solemn sermon of worship is delivered, you speak to me with forthright sincerity, punctuated by joyous shouts of laughter! How delightfully at ease is your frank and open heart; your guilelessness is a balm to all!

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The separation of these past 10+ years have not severed the loving ties forged in God's family. Although the South may appear to be more clever by comparison, your righteousness surpasses them by far. 

Oh, my brethren of the North! The weighty task of rebuilding the house of God is placed on your shoulders. Come! Let us carry this cross together, for the Lord will be our guide. 

God bless!

As I said, I don't have enough knowledge of the North nor the South nor this history of either to comment about either.

But one thing I do know. If we do have brethren in the North who are faithful to Christ and have kept the faith for over 60 years, and if Pr. Yang were indeed a vessel chosen by God to somehow work towards reconciliation but the recent actions against him somehow thwarted those plans, this would be a tragedy of monumental proportions. I would really fear for those who were behind those actions. And I would pray that it's not too late to undo the damage.

Again, I pray that God may have mercy on us. Something is not right here. But again, I have said my peace and now I leave it up to Him.

Why the IA and the WDC were absolutely wrong - Reviewing the Case Against YM Yang: Part 11

As I promised, here are my thoughts after poring through all of this analysis.

First, as I said in a previous post, I will not cast aspersions on the motives of Pr. Chin in Singapore. I have no doubt that he approached his task with a genuine heart that loves the church. And in the same way, I hope anyone reading this does not doubt that I approach mine with the same.

Here are my thoughts after spending many, many hours on this.

1) Despite the accusations, no one ever suggested that it is unnecessary to receive the promised Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues. I listened to hours of Pr. Yang's classes. Over and over again he stresses that nothing he says in any way, shape, or form states or even implies that it is not necessary for one to pray for dórea, the gift of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues. And yet for whatever reason, those who seek to accuse him of "heresy" return to that accusation over and over again.

2) The core issue, as I see it, is one of semantics. Pr Yang says that when someone is baptized, they become a child of God and the spirit of God is in him or her. Is this a valid point of view?

When someone has their feet washed, we say they have a part with Jesus. There's no controversy there.

When someone takes the Holy Communion, we say that he abides in Jesus and Jesus abides in him. When they eat the flesh and drink the blood, they have life in them. Again, no controversy.

If it's not considered "heresy" to say that Jesus Christ abides in you when you get your feet washed and when you take the Holy Communion, why is it suddenly "heresy" when you say that He abides in you when you get baptized?

When someone is baptized, they belong to Christ and are led by the Spirit of God. They have clothed themselves with Christ. Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. They were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. When they say "Jesus is Lord," it is by the Holy Spirit. They serve in the new way of the Spirit. They have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in them. They can receive gifts from the Spirit to help the church. When they are insulted because of the name of Christ, the Spirit of glory and of God rests on them.

Scripture says clearly that when we are baptized we are brought from death to life. We were dead in our transgressions and sins but made alive with Christ. What is it exactly that gives life? Isn't it the Spirit?

Is it really "heresy" to take all these verses and conclude that once someone is baptized, the spirit of God can be in him or her?

And if anyone insists the answer is yes, I'd challenge them to look at it from the other side. Are those people bold enough to preach unequivocally that once someone is baptized, the Spirit of God is absolutely NOT with that person unless and until they received the promised Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues?

When the IA gave Pr. Yang an ultimatum that in order for him to keep his job he needed to pledge to "stop preaching heresy", what's the reason that he refused to do so? Was it because he was truly a heretic? Was he, as some say, a tool of Satan? (And if he truly were an unrepentant apostate, wouldn't it have been easier for him to just lie and pretend to accept the pledge? If he were already caught in a pack of lies, what difference would one other lie make?). Or, did he simply refuse because he disagreed with the accusation that any of what he preached was "heresy" in the first place?

I'll be honest, I see truth in both sides, and I see both sides backed up by Scripture. But what I find sad is that instead of coming together in a spirit of unity and love to discuss even trivial differences and to humbly seek God's guidance, what seems to have prevailed is a spirit of mutual destruction.

When Scripture commands us to live in unity, I don't think that means willfully and methodically silencing all voices that don't agree with you through intimidation, subjugation, or political power. I think it means everyone having the humility to discuss these things together in love and peace and then approaching the Lord together as one.

3) While I've said repeatedly that I will not cast aspersions on the motives of Pr. Chin nor even this character "RAWLS" that Pr. Chin makes reference to over and over again, I admittedly find the choices of "evidence" highly questionable.

You'd think that if Pr. Yang were truly a reprobate that you'd be able to download any sermon of his and find clear and repeated evidence of his deceit. But despite the fact that there are hundreds of hours of his sermons freely available to download on the Web, and despite that there were "moles" planted in all of his lectures for the past few years listening to every word he said trying to find something to attack him on, I can't help but notice that the "evidence" consists of only a few minutes of extremely selective audio.

And out of these few minutes, why is the preponderance of this "evidence" focused on what are ultimately unanswerable questions? Will members who did not have access to living water but still performed baptism still be saved? When Jesus comes, if there are little children who never knew how to pray for the Holy Spirit will they still be saved?

These questions simply have no answers. Pr. Yang was giving his personal opinion on them--and in virtually all cases he prefaces his comments by saying exactly that. He says that he's speaking his personal opinion, encourages the members to take it as reference only, and encourages them to do their own search for the truth.

Those who cry out "heresy" should be very careful, because if they insist that Pr. Yang's answers to the questions are absolutely wrong, they're essentially asserting that their own answers to those same questions are absolutely right. But how can they be so sure? And if they're not absolutely sure (and unless they received a direct revelation from God, they aren't), should we be judging them by the their own measure they use to judge others?

I remember I was at one Bible Seminar years ago in Elizabeth when Elder S.T. Hsieh was asked a question: are there dogs in heaven? I remember distinctly the elder saying, yes, he was pretty sure there'd be dogs in heaven. I smiled because there was just something within me that felt there was truth to this statement. Those who don't own dogs may not get it, but if you've ever owned a dog you've probably felt the kind of unconditional love that comes from your dog's heart. And how could heaven not have that kind of love?

But of course there's no verse in the Bible that you can point to that "proves" it. But did the brothers and sisters stand up, point to Elder Hsieh, and shout, "heretic!" and "deviant!"? No. And because this was an elder whom I'd admired and trusted as one was speaking straightforwardly and sincerely from his heart, I took him at his word that his opinion was guided by the Holy Spirit. But of course, you, I, or anyone else won't know the absolute truth until we reach the shores of heaven. The same is true for all these "unanswerable" questions. Should we really be telling ministers and members not to express their personal opinions nor discuss these things? Isn't this putting a limit on the Holy Spirit's power?

4) I found particularly revealing how Pr. Yang's message on visions during baptism was portrayed. I don't know if we were listening to the same message, but what I heard as an excellent message on the very real issue of habitual, dead worship was clearly misrepresented by "RAWLS" as one that depicted Pr. Yang as a horrible person, "repulsed" by those who saw visions and "repulsed" by the visions themselves.

Again, I will stop short of passing judgment, but I ask you to re-read the "evidence" and reflect for yourself, Did this characterization from "RAWLS" sound like the analysis of someone who wanted to do an honest and objective analysis, or did it sound like someone desperately fishing for "evidence" in a witch hunt to paint Pr. Yang in as unfavorable a light as possible, irrespective of the facts? And if the latter, why is the IA repeatedly using this person's opinions as prima facie evidence of Pr. Yang's alleged false teachings? In fact, if this person is so sure of his/her veracity, why is it that he/she feels it necessary to hide behind a false name when the rest of us are using our real names?

5) While I've been tough on the IA, I don't hold Pr. Yang blameless in this whole ordeal. Yes, I do believe that he was treated very unfairly. I believe these charges of "heresy" are at best myopic and at worst a calculated effort by a few people to discredit him.

But regardless, I feel he should have maybe been less defiant in his reactions to those who accused him, regardless of how unjustly or unreasonably he was treated. I would have liked to have seen him display more of the "compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience" that Paul spoke of in Colossians 3:12, not just to those who supported him (which he does) but to those who opposed him as well (which I sometimes fear he does not as much as he could). Yes, it must have been difficult beyond belief to conduct sermons and classes knowing that in every venue there were those who came solely to trap him with his words, but then again, Jesus Christ dealt with that and much worse.

And I perhaps would have liked to see him show a little more wisdom as far as discerning what might be easily misunderstood or twisted by those who may not have reached the level of understanding he did, both in terms of the things he said and the way he said them, understanding that to the "weak" he needs to be "weak" in order to win them over.

But all these are simply personal faults that are completely between him and his God. I absolutely believe that they do not rise to the level of offenses that merit excommunication nor even removing his position as a minister. If every member that offended others were excommunicated we'd have a very small church indeed.

Conclusion

I will conclude this series of posts the same way I started them. I believe that the True Jesus Church was wrong to excommunicate YM Yang. I have cited all the reasons above, and all the "evidence" is there so you can decide for yourself.

I conducted this analysis with as open mind and prayerful heart as I could, and after all that I still found the "evidence" to be dubious. I don't believe what is being characterized as "heresy" and "deviant teachings" is anything but either mere differences in semantics or examples of honest, legitimate questions. And I don't believe that personal foibles in a minister are enough to warrant stripping him of the role of minister, a title that ultimately was not given to him by man but by God.

As for the actions of the IA and the WDC, can I explain how so many brothers and sisters who are leaders of their respective churches around the world could have taken this "evidence" and made the decision they did? No, I can't. Did some in the meeting accept the case against Pr. Yang simply because they did not want to show disrespect to the people who brought the accusations because of their positions? Did some in the meeting not even bother to read this "evidence" because they felt the accusers were "filled with the Holy Spirit" and thus anything they wrote was to be trusted at face value without questioning? Was it that some simply didn't want to "rock the boat", perhaps sensing that something was wrong but telling themselves that "God would take care of it"? Did some feel that just because it was a lengthy document that there had to be at least some merit to it? Or was it a "perfect storm" where all these things happened at once?

I can't speculate any further because I just don't know. But one thing I do know. It wouldn't be the first nor the last example of "groupthink" in a True Jesus Church administrative meeting.

So What Do We Do From Here? 

1) To the ministers of the IA and the GA

I will first address this to each of you as individuals, and then to the group as a whole.

I know many of you personally, if not most of you personally. And I know you well enough to know that you must have been bitterly disappointed to hear that Brother Steve Liu had published a blog like this. While there are some of you who I suspect were enraged to read what I wrote, I think most of you were just saddened. I sense that some of you even prayed for me because of the love of Christ we have shared over the years both in our time together in New Jersey as well as the few years of my service in the IA.

For those of you who know me, you know my faith is not the sort where I will fall in line behind a cult of personality. In fact, as I wrote a few posts ago, my writing of this blog was never about Pr. Yang. At its core it is about an argument that a preacher and an elder had many years ago.

If someone has been baptized into the blood of Jesus Christ and becomes a child of God, if that person does good deeds but has not yet received the baptism of the Holy Spirit will those deeds be remembered by God? 

That's the question that started this whole thing, and that's the question you need to answer. Don't wait for the translation. Don't refer it to the Truth Research Committee. Don't even make lists of all the verses in Scripture that "prove" it one way or another. Tonight in your evening prayer, just ask the Holy Spirit that is within you--what is the answer? Yes or no? Which answer is closer to the gospel of Christ?

I would also ask you to please go back and read every word of the last 10 posts. I know on the pulpit many if not most of you have already been warning your congregations to stay away from blogs like this, which is your right to do. But even if my blog could somehow "brainwash" the more impressionable members of your flock, surely I cannot "brainwash" you. So please, read carefully and decide for yourself--were my words written with a spirit of fairness, accuracy, honesty, a pure heart, and a sincere desire to find out the truth?

If so then ask yourself this. How did we get to the point where we are following the example of the people and the elders and the teachers of the law by producing lines of witnesses who provide testimony against your fellow worker for God that if not is "false witness", is certainly specious at best? How did we get to the point where we are following the example of the rulers, the elders, and the teachers of the law and forbidding our own members from speaking words, regardless of whether these words might be from their own mind or from the Holy Spirit?

I know there are some in the IA and GA who are digging in their heels. They're the ones that did not and will not read one word of anything I wrote but have already warned their congregations that I am a "tool of Satan". They are the ones who quench the Spirit's fire and have gotten so used to protecting and defending the integrity of the International and General Assemblies of the True Jesus Church that they have forgotten that their job was to do that for the gospel of Jesus Christ. To them I have nothing to say except, I am praying for you.

But I know there are others in the IA and GA who did take the time to read this, to pray on it, and to reflect on it. Maybe you agree with what I wrote, maybe you don't. If you feel after reading it that there is no merit to what I wrote, I do still thank you for at least having taken the time to read and consider it and not treating my "prophesies" with "contempt".

But if you read it and the Spirit is telling you that something--anything--that I said raises a red flag, then please do not quench the Spirit's fire. It may be difficult. You may be scolded or censured. You may even lose your reputation, your position, or your livelihood. But as Peter and the apostles said, "We ought to obey God rather than men". The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. You have been entrusted with much, so much will be asked of you.

And now I speak to the IA and GA as a collective group. If you examine the actions of the group over the past few years, do these words accurately describe the group's actions in this matter?

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Or on the flip side, among your ranks, have you witnessed the kind of bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, and slander that Paul describes in that same chapter of Ephesians with regards to this incident? Think of those individuals in your ranks who first raised the idea to punish Pr. Yang. Look beyond their years of service, their titles, and your own personal relationship with them. Look objectively at the things they have done in your name in this incident, from the first accusation to the ultimate vote by the WDC to kick him out of your church. Did their actions really reflect the words above?

That's not a question I can answer nor can anyone else except for you. And if you as a group examine your actions and find yourself wanting, what will you do about it? You can warn your members not to read my blog, or Albert Chen's blog, or anyone else's blog. But the one thing you cannot do is ask your members not to look upon your fruit and upon the deeds that were done in your name. Those are clear for all to see, and if unchecked it's those things that will do far more damage to you, your organization, and our church, far more than any blog post out there.

The thing you need to understand is that people like he and I write what we write because we love you and we love our church. The simplest thing for folks like him and me to do would be to stay silent and watch you destroy yourselves from within. But something, whether our own consciences or the Holy Spirit I'll let you decide, is compelling us to speak. And if it is the latter, you'd do best not to ignore it.

I've heard rumors now that some in the church administration are talking about censuring, denouncing, or even excommunicating anyone who supports or even speaks out on behalf of Pr. Yang, which presumably will include people like me. If this is the way it must be, may the Lord's will be done. But to those who may be contemplating this, please just remember one thing.

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? 

As it is, there are many parts, but one body.The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

There are many "lost sheep" out there that have been baptized by the same Spirit as you have and who have been given one Spirit to drink who would welcome returning to a church that was filled with love and life and mercy over judgment. There are many "bruised reeds" out there who would gladly lend their enormous God-given talents to serve the church if they could be convinced that they are ultimately serving the kingdom of God and not a human organization of administrators. There are many souls who ache to come home to a place whose eyes are fixed firmly on Jesus Christ, but don't feel that the church that God entrusted you to lead is that place. Amputate them if you must, but know that with each amputation the body just may be one step closer to death.

On the other hand if you, with a humble, self-reflective heart. welcome them back and nurture them you may be surprised at what this could do for your church.

2) To the members who support YM Yang

While most of the comments left on this blog and around the Web were done in a spirit of love and constructive criticism, I've witnessed that clearly there is a minority who are bitter against the church for their own selfish reasons. They really don't care about the church, they're just taking this incident and piling on in hopes of seeing the church punished or destroyed. To them I have the same words to said to that other group I mentioned above. I am praying for you.

But to the bulk of you who have love the body of Christ and have had your hearts broken and your hopes shattered by what you've witnessed happen to YM Yang, I'll say a few words.

I have the luxury of a few things. I cannot read nor speak Chinese, so I cannot read the vitriol that has been directed towards you for many years on discussion forums, in church literature, from the pulpit and even seeded among your extended families and social circles. I have witnessed for myself how some of you have been personally insulted and attacked in the most vituperous ways by "holy workers" who really should have known better.

Up to now I have had the luxury of not having had my own name thrown around in conjunction with slanderous words like "Satan", "evil", and "excommunication" (although I suspect that will change shortly). But for those of you who have gone through years of this, I cannot imagine the pain you've had to endure.

And I suspect that when you read the last 10 posts, you got angry. And you know what? So did I. Just as our Lord did in the temple, I wanted to just start turning over tables and shouting. How is it that our beautiful house of worship has turned into a place where one cannot worship God except in the most stiflingly rigid of ways?

But in our anger, let's not sin. Don't let unwholesome talk come from your mouth but only what is good for building up. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. And above all, do not become cynical, lose hope or give up. We normally don't think of those last three things as "sins", but that's exactly what they are because when we do those things we deny the power of God, who is a God of justice.

Now is the time for us to practice the words in these verses.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I happen to agree with you that a grave injustice has been done. But now's the time for you to put the words of Christ into practice. If you feel you've been slapped on the right cheek, let yourself be slapped on the left cheek, not in defiance but with the same humility your Savior displayed on the road to Golgotha.

With all due respect, calling yourselves names that imply that only you are correct and everyone who doesn't agree with your viewpoint is like someone who worships Baal--that doesn't help anyone. In Philippians, Paul tells us to let our gentleness be evident to all. In 1 Peter, Peter tells us to speak with gentleness and reverence...so those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

When we exhibit the exact same behavior that we decry in the church leaders we disapprove of, we're not helping our case one bit. On the other hand, let your light shine and along with it will shine the righteousness of your cause.

3) And to the rest of you

You've seen with your own eyes evidence that either corruption or ignorance or both happened in the highest level of the True Jesus Church's administrative system. So what do I suggest you do about it? 

Nothing. 

Yes, that's what I said. I'm not calling for anyone to vote out all your church councils, nor to recruit and vote for certain people during your next NCC elections. I'm not calling for those "lifetime members" of the IA and GA to step down in disgrace. I'm not calling for boycotts, or demonstrations, or petitions, or to withhold your financial contributions or for anything that would otherwise continue down this path of mutual destruction. Those are all human weapons which are useless in a spiritual battle. Those kinds of efforts will come to nothing. 

The first thing I would recommend is that if you're tempted to be shocked or dismayed to find that there is corruption and/or ignorance among your church leaders, don't be. If reading these things has shaken your faith in the church, it means that your focus has always been on the wrong thing. It means you've been putting your faith in man instead of in Jesus Christ. It means you've been conflating the physical organization of the church with the spiritual body of Christ. Learn what the difference between the two is. If there's no other positive result to come out of this, let that lesson be the one thing that does.  

Ministers, elders, and administrators are human beings just like you and me. They can make mistakes, And as with anyone else that makes mistakes, Scripture tells us exactly how to treat them when they do. We can gently correct them. We can pray for them. But the one thing we must absolutely stop doing is this practice of putting them onto a pedestal. As I said in an earlier blog post, find out the line between "respect" and "reverence". They are not to be venerated and they are not to be despised. They are to be respected, not because of their title or their longevity but because of their service for the Lord. And remember, even King David showed respect for Saul as God's anointed even after Saul was filled with evil and tried to kill him. Regardless of whether you feel in this case that it's Pr. Yang or the IA ministers who "stumbled", they both deserve your continued respect as God's anointed. 

As for the situation between the IA, the GA, and YM Yang, while I would have loved to see these posts result in some kind of reconciliation between the IA and Pr. Yang and for both sides to do a little introspection I don't hold any illusions that this is going to happen. Too much damage has been done at this point on both sides, too many bridges burned, too many insults, and too much backdoor vindictiveness in a predominantly Chinese culture where "saving face" always seems to prevail over all else. While our God is powerful enough to move mountains, he also gave human beings free will, and quite frankly I don't see either side here being humble enough to admit their faults and reconcile with the other. I'd love to be proven wrong, of course, but that's just the way I see it. And it breaks my heart.

And my heart is not the only one which is broken. I think of the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think of His prayer in John 17:23 that we may be brought to complete unity. I think of the words He inspired through Paul and Peter in Ephesians 4:3, Colossians 3:14, 1 Peter 3:8, Romans 15:5 that beg us over and over again to attain unity, not through using bullying tactics to silence opponents but through the bond of peace. 

So if you can spare just one more prayer, pray for this situation, that all parties involved can do the impossible, somehow find common ground, and somehow start a healing process. And I don't mean spending 10 seconds in prayer mentioning it to God. If you care for the church, get on your knees and beg God for his mercy with all your heart. Because the very life of your church may depend on it. 

I said it before. If the last 10 posts I wrote are from my human mind, they will come to nothing. I will have wasted a few weeks of my life and a few minutes of your time, but I'll move on with life. But if there's even the slightest chance that anything I wrote was from the Holy Spirit, I urge you to not focus on me and to go back and focus on whatever you read that resonates with you. Pray on it, and ask God what He wants you to do with it.

Specifically, I know there are those of you out there whom the Holy Spirit is burning within to take the next step. I pass the torch to you.

As for me, I've done all I can. I still hope and pray all the time that I can find a church where Christ is truly the head, where the brothers and sisters live together in love and unity. I hope and pray that one day I can bring my wife to a church where she can experience for the first time in her life what genuine Christian love really is, and where I can raise my daughter to know Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior. If you've been wondering what my motivation for writing all these posts are, wonder no longer. That's all this is and has ever been about.

May God have mercy on us all.

Should we follow the guidance of the Spirit or adhere legalistically to the letter of the 10 Basic Beliefs? Reviewing the case against YM Yang: Part 10

Hopefully you made it through the last nine posts. As I said, my focus here was on the most serious charges, that he preached heresy against the Holy Spirit. But for the sake of completeness let's also address the topic of Foot Washing that was covered in the first document.

In many ways this commentary mirrors Part 4, where the commentator said that just the act of asking a question about a doctrine automatically brands someone as deviating from the faith. Case in point, not once does Pr. Yang teach anyone that "foot washing does not pertain to salvation". In fact, ironically in the passage here he very deliberately poses the statement as a hypothetical knowing that people are actively looking to use his words against him (which they do anyway).

And once again, this Q&A session was presumably within a group of believers whose faiths were at a "solid food" level, who had the promised Holy Spirit in them and who finally found a forum where they could talk about deeper spiritual topics themselves, using the Spirit of Truth that was within them, This group of brothers and sisters chose to do this rather than doing what the rest of us tend to do--avoid even thinking about difficult spiritual topics altogether and delegating such "advanced understanding" to a select few that could discern the "real" truth hidden in Scripture.

As I said in that post, the assertion that merely asking questions is tantamount to "heresy" is a dangerous concept. Why? Because it has a chilling effect.

It has a chilling effect on the believers. People who do have questions, whether a new believer or a long-time minister, are conditioned over time to stay quiet and keep their questions to themselves for fear of being "exposed" as "deviant". And as a result so they need to put on the outward appearance that they don't have questions. And this leads to institutionalized hypocrisy, as people feel compelled to pretend that they fully understand doctrine instead of allowing them to feel free to ask honest questions, much less challenging ones.

It could also have a chilling effect on our church's doctrines. How?

If you look at our church's history, our church didn't receive the 10 Basic Beliefs on stone tablets on Mount Sinai. No, over time the Holy Spirit revealed new things about the truth to our church. The commentator comes close to mocking "new discoveries" about the truth, but if you look back at our church's history what we have come to accept as truth today has gone through many changes. Oh, and by the way. That's okay.

I remember years ago I came across my mom's collection of old Holy Spirit Times which dated back to the first issues. I thought to myself, what a great activity for Senior Class if I were to ask them to translate them all into English. It sounded like an exciting thing to do, like finding old historical texts in an archaeological dig and using it to uncover history.

When we started transcribing it, though, a sister came up to me and said they were finding a lot of things that just seemed odd. And surely enough, when we looked at what the church called their basic beliefs back then, there were a lot of things that we just don't ascribe to today (I mentioned the proscription against seeing doctors, but there were more).

We decided to stop the project, not because our faiths in God or the church was shaken (thank God, the Senior Class youth of the Elizabeth church were all quite mature spiritually), but simply because we didn't see much value it in. We understood that over the years, the Holy Spirit has continued to be with the church and to lead the church into new understandings of the truth. "New discoveries", if you will.

This doesn't mean that the truth changed--there always has been, is, and always will be one truth. But as humans we do not have a complete understanding of the truth. Yes, there may be aspects of the truth that have been revealed to our church--solely by the grace of God and not because of anything we did to deserve it--that may be more complete than other churches. But we still need to constantly rely on the Spirit of Truth to continue to lead us into all truth.

In fact, that's one of the reasons we call ourselves the true church, right? Because we believe that we've received the one Baptism according to the Bible, that allows us to receive that Spirit of truth.

But simply viewing the Holy Spirit as a birthright isn't enough. We need to be open to the Spirit to reveal the truth to us, help us gain a more perfect understanding of the truth, and most importantly, live out that truth in a way that glorifies God and helps man.

What do I mean by this? Let's look at the doctrine of foot washing as an example:

The sacrament of footwashing enables one to have a part with the Lord Jesus. It also serves as a constant reminder that one should have love, holiness, humility, forgiveness, and service. Every person who has received water baptism must have his/her feet washed in the name of Jesus Christ. Mutual footwashing may be practiced whenever is appropriate.

We say we're a church whose articles of faith are all "based on the Bible and extracted from it", but if you look carefully in Scripture can you find anywhere where it says that foot washing is to take place just once in someone's life, after water baptism, and in the name of Jesus Christ? And in fact, if we were to really follow Scripture more precisely, couldn't an argument be made that "mutual footwashing" be the norm and not the exception, since Christ commanded us to "wash one anothers' feet", not "have an ordained minister wash your feet"? And for that matter, where is the scriptural basis for the phrase "whenever is appropriate"?

These additions were not from the Bible. Does that mean they're wrong? Of course not. We take it on faith that the Spirit of Truth revealed these truths to our church members over time. But that only came after they asked questions. A lot of questions.

And as you can read from the commentary in our church's early history different churches had different opinions on this doctrine. Since I can't read Chinese, I can't view the details of the disagreements they had. But from what I can tell they didn't shut each other down nor start excommunicating when they asked questions or had different opinions. It seems that they were still in a place spiritually, 15 years after the gospel revival and the descent of the promised Holy Spirit, to allow for the Spirit's guidance instead of imposing speech codes to stifle any opinions other than what was documented.

In other words our early workers didn't draw a line in the sand and declare that on a certain date and time they suddenly had a complete understanding of the truth and that no questioning was permitted after that.

And for those who say that these things should be left solely in the hands of the IA and WDC taking "democratic votes", as I've stated, as troubling as some find Pr. Yang making off-handed remarks about his questions on foot washing (again, all posed as personal opinions and questions to think about and not official edicts), isn't it even more troubling that as the result of a "democratic vote" our long-standing doctrine of the Holy Spirit was changed in a closed-door meeting to something clearly inaccurate like "speaking in tongues is the sign of someone being filled with the Holy Spirit"? Despite how many people in that room were "filled with the Holy Spirit", why would the Spirit tell us to reword our doctrine to something that clearly contradicts Scripture?

When I first read Pr. Yang's words saying "I really do not know whether the foot washing sacrament is that important" I admittedly cringed as I'm sure many of you did. Why? Because from the time I was born, like you, I've been indoctrinated with the teaching of foot washing. And let's make it clear--when I use the term indoctrination I don't use it as a pejorative. I don't mind being "indoctrinated" if the doctrine that's being inculcated in me is at its foundation the truth. I'm very thankful that I received this teaching and each time I'm privileged to witness the act of foot washing I'm reminded of the Lord's actions on that night.

But as I looked at what he said more closely, I'm beginning to realize that what others see as heresy is simply honesty and humility towards God. If in his heart he has legitimate questions about our current understanding of the truth and encourages the believers who have similar questions to not just blindly pretend to understand it but to work hard to come to a deeper, more genuine understanding of it, what's the harm in that? As I said before, if we truly believe that our doctrines were given to us directly from God (which I happen to believe) then why are we afraid when questions arise about them? Shouldn't every question be seen as an opportunity to explore and understand the truth on a deeper level, using the Spirit as our guide? What does it say about our own confidence in the Spirit of the living God when we forbid any questioning?

Asking questions leaves the door open for the Holy Spirit to work. Again, except for the one line of Scripture and one verse in 1 Timothy referring to widows washing others' feet, the Bible doesn't mention foot washing as a sacrament at all. Remember that at the time of the apostles, foot washing was something that happened every day. You walk into someone's house with dust on your sandals and the host or hostess would wash your feet.

Yes, Jesus set a new pattern that night when he washed his servants' feet. But are we 100% sure that we are implementing our sacrament in the precise way that the apostles did?

There are plenty of accounts of baptism in the New Testament, and enough accounts of the Holy Communion for us to understand the basics of how to perform it. But for foot washing, we have no idea. Did they really practice it after baptism? Did they really practice it as part of a separate rite vs. something they somehow did in conjunction with their every day foot washing? And regardless of the the answers to these two questions, what does it all mean concerning our practice of it today? We have to rely on the continual inspiration of the Spirit of Truth to reveal these things to us.

Since there are so many things about this doctrine that cannot be directly validated in Scripture I see this preacher as just giving his honest opinion that even though he accepts this doctrine on faith he simply doesn't fully understand it. If you see this as grounds for dismissal, ask any True Jesus Church minister if they have achieved perfection in their understanding of the complete truth. If any one of them answers yes, here's a news bulletin: they're either lying, misguided, or certifiable.

And once again, nowhere do I see him say he will stop practicing foot washing or instruct others not to practice it. Nor does he even suggest that it's not worthy of being practiced. To the contrary, he says that those who do practice it had best not just perform the physical rite but much more importantly live out the meaning of the sacrament.

And that's what I find the most ironic about this whole thing. Even as the church leaders condemn Pr. Yang for his "heresy" against the doctrine of foot washing they are completely ignoring the teaching behind the doctrine itself. If the IA sees themselves as "more powerful" than Pr. Yang, to the point of wielding their massive authority to give him ultimatums, remove his position, and ultimately expel him as a member from the church, then as the "masters", shouldn't they instead have poured water into a basin and washed his feet, both figuratively and literally, instead of using their "power" to destroy him? If the Lord Jesus Christ could wash the feet of the man who betrayed Him, why is it that the IA cannot show the same humility and forgiveness that the Lord they worship showed? Instead of covering their ears and yelling at the top of their voices to drag this man out of the city, why not try to understand the questions he had and prayerfully and humbly approach the Lord together as one for answers?

And let's just say, hypothetically, that one day we were to find another church that held to all our Basic Beliefs except perhaps they conducted foot washing differently than we do or not at all. But let's say we found that they too seemed to have the abidance of God, the presence of signs and miracles, and most importantly members whose lives we could witness were transformed by the power of the Spirit? Would we be willing to at least hear from their perspective how they got to this point and be humble enough to admit that perhaps there were truths that the Holy Spirit revealed to them just as much as He revealed them to us? Or would we circle the wagons and say that just because their interpretation of Scripture was slightly different than ours they're "heretics"?

What is the Purpose of the Holy Spirit? Reviewing the Case Against YM Yang: Part 9

For context behind this posting, please read the first post in this series. 

(20130623Taipei, 歌詠從思愛成病到乳香崗的全然獻上1)(55:00-56:10)(mp3.8)

Many things, as I think about it, feel a little odd. I do not deny its efficacy but I somewhat doubt its necessity. For example, praying for the Holy Spirit. We say that the Holy Spirit is promised, isn’t that so? We say that God will give you the Holy Spirit. Is that not right?... I have not spoken wrongly, have I? …Since the promised Holy Spirit will be given to you, I’m thinking, someone says, yes, I’m going to wants to give you this, and you are happy, and then, you keep knocking at his door every now and the, give me! Give me! And I say, yes I’m going to give you, but why do you keep knocking on my door? We even plead so earnestly, give me! Give me! Hence I feel it’s funny, eventually it feels funny to me. We spend a lot of time pleading, we are not conversing, between us and God, there is no loving exchange.

Analysis:

1. Prayer is a communication and an exchange with God. But if one has not received the promised Holy Spirit, all the more he should pray to receive.

-We will not doubt the necessity of praying earnestly for the Holy Spirit since the teaching of the Lord is: How much more will the heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask?

-Didn’t the Lord use the parable of the loaves and the parable of the unjust judge, to teach us that in the face of rejection, we should not give up but should instead pray earnestly?

2. Yet YM doubts the necessity of praying for the Holy Spirit since it is a promise.

3. Isn’t such a saying a deviation from the Lord’s teachings? The Lord promises the Holy Spirit but it is not gotten automatically. You have to pray and ask Him for the Holy Spirit.

-The Lord’s instruction was for the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem to wait for the promised Holy Spirit. The disciples did not just sit down by faith and wait for the Holy Spirit.

-By faith, they prayed in one accord patiently. They did not come every now and then to pray to the Lord. Rather, they earnestly prayed until the tenth day, the Day of Pentecost, when the promised Holy Spirit finally came upon them.

4. With regards to praying and receiving the Holy Spirit, YM calls it grace upon grace., without the speaking of tongues, you can also enter heaven., he does not deny  its efficacy but doubts its necessity. Such statements have already deviated from our church’s basic beliefs.

Going back to the words of Pr. Yang that I transcribed in my last post, let's look at the context of what he said. And again, remember that many of his sermons focus on the issue of rote, mechanical, habitual faith, faith that's "for the sake of faith" rather than faith that helps you grow and become more like a reflection of Jesus Christ.

I've seen for myself the same phenomenon he's describing in my own local churches. Children as young as E1 class are forced to attend Prayer Services where they are forced to kneel down for a 45 minute prayer. They're taught that there is one thing they need to pray for. Ask God to give you the Holy Spirit. And they're taught how to pray. You kneel down, close your eyes, and repeat Hallelujah over and over again.

Sometimes I observe these kids as they pray. Their eyes are tightly closed. They have pained looks on their faces. Some of them are just repeating "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah" over and over. Sometimes you'll see little kids screaming at the top of their lungs, "Give me the Holy Spirit! Give me the Holy Spirit!" over and over again. When the prayer is over and they haven't started speaking in tongues yet they are despondent. They think to themselves, what sin do they have within their little seven year old souls that has prevented God from giving them the Holy Spirit? They see their little friends to the left and to the right receiving the Holy Spirit. And especially when you're a kid, that's tough to take.

I thank the commentator for reminding us what the definition of prayer is, and of the unjust judge, and of how the disciples prayed in one accord on the Day of Pentecost. It's nice to be reminded of these stories. But these stories are completely irrelevant to the point here.

Let's say you had a little 7 year old child and someone convinced this kid that they should ask you for a car. So every day this little child screams to you, "I want a car! I want a car!" Every day you wake up and hear the same thing. "I want a car! I want a car!"

Years pass by. In the years when this child could have been asking you all other kinds of questions and making all other kinds of requests to you, there's only one request he's been making. "I want a car".

Wouldn't this have been a waste? You knew the child's needs and when the time came that he needed a car, you'd have given it to him happily. But in all those years there were so many other questions he could have asked you, so many other things you and he could have communicated about that would forever go unsaid.

A few of you are going to run off now and spread the word that I'm preaching heresy because I compared the precious Holy Spirit to a car. Go and do what you have to. But for the rest of you, here's the point.

As I mentioned, I was 10 years old when I received the Holy Spirit. Here's how it happened. There was a minister who was describing, in great detail, what would happen when the world ended. I was terrified. I knelt down to pray and knew that if I didn't have the Holy Spirit I couldn't go to heaven. I prayed with focus and great emotion. And suddenly my jaw started moving and weird noises started coming out of my mouth. Later they told me I'd received the Holy Spirit.

While others have complained that this kind of preaching is cruel, in all honesty to this day I thank God for the minister who preached these words. Because probably for the first time in my life I felt my own mortality, even at age 10. And that's not a bad thing for anyone at any age to do.

Here's the problem, though. To this day, perhaps because we limit our preaching to the letter of the Ten Basic Beliefs and not the infinite truths behind them, the church places the bulk of its emphasis on "getting the Holy Spirit". You pray and pray and pray until one day you speak in tongues and then it's game over—you have the ticket to heaven. You can check that box off.  Because that's what it says in the Ten Basic Beliefs.

While I of course don't disagree with our Basic Beliefs, to even imply that this is the totality of the teaching of the promised Holy Spirit is the false teaching here. And yet that's what we seem to do. 99% of our preaching about the Holy Spirit seems to be about the importance of merely receiving the Holy Spirit.

Here's how that affected me personally. At age 10 I was praying in tongues. But from that time I really only heard two kinds of messages preached about the Holy Spirit. First, I heard about how to get it. And second, I heard about how you can lose it.

And so as I entered my tumultuous teenage years, I didn't really know how to rely on the Spirit in my day to day life. Thank God, I still had a mother who helped keep me grounded in my faith. But in those years I never found myself really knowing who the Spirit was nor how I as a teenager going through rough times I could rely on the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and deepen my relationship with Him.

I remember years later I spoke to another older brother. In a moment of total honesty and frankness I said to him, I almost wish God hadn't given me the Holy Spirit. Because I felt such a burden. With so many temptations and new opportunities to sin in my teenage years, I felt that at any point God would take the Holy Spirit away from me because while maybe I "deserved" the Holy Spirit at age 10, as I grew into my teenage years I wasn't doing what I needed to "keep the Holy Spirit" (as you can see, I didn't have an understanding of "grace" either).

This brother had a puzzled look on his face. He'd received the Holy Spirit later in life than I had and he told me very simply that he felt that the Holy Spirit had guided so much of his life. And I realized at that point that for so many years I'd had the Holy Spirit but didn't know anything about Him or how He could work in my life as a comforter, counselor, and guide.

Now don't get me wrong, I cherish the fact that God had given me the Holy Spirit at such a young age, and I believe that even if I wasn't consciously following the Spirit as best as I could during those years, the Spirit was still guiding me. But in a way I almost envy those who get the Holy Spirit later in life. Because I think in many ways they cherish it more, and they have more of a reference point of what their life was before they received the Holy Spirit and afterwards.

Is the purpose of the Holy Spirit solely so you can earn a ticket to heaven?

No.

Receiving the Holy Spirit is just one of the first steps along a long, long journey of faith. Receiving the promised Holy Spirit isn't the end, it's the means to an end. Because in addition to receiving the promised Holy Spirit you need to grow in the Spirit, attain perfection, be more like Christ, and bear fruit for God.

So what's the takeaway here?

First, let's think about those kids at the front of the chapel who are pleading and begging at the top of their lungs. "Give it to me! Give it to me!" On the surface, it looks like they're praying the same prayer as the widow to the unrighteous judge. They're asking and seeking and knocking.

But on the other hand, for a little 5 year old who is just aping the words that someone told him to repeat, how much is this prayer from their hearts, and how much is it a learned behavior that they're taught they need to do?

Let's put in another way. When my daughter cries out for her bottle, I can see from the depths of her being that she's hungry. She has a need, and she feels this need so desperately that she needs to cry out for help, even to the point where tiny tears come out of her little eyes if I don't grab her bottle quickly enough. And as her father, I have such compassion for her and know her needs so much that I drop everything that I'm doing to get her bottle for her.

Shouldn't this be the same spirit with which the 5 year olds, and 10 year olds, and 20 year olds, and 50 year olds in our church pray for the Holy Spirit, or for anything? And if they're just practicing rote behavior, what's the difference between that and the "vain repetitions" that Jesus so harshly criticized in Matthew 6:7? When we teach them to cry and to beg like that, are their prayers really authentic and from the heart, or are we teaching them to pray like those whom Jesus scolded for disfiguring their faces to show others they were fasting?

How can you tell whether their prayer is genuine or forced? It's quite simple. Compare the prayer they make in front of the chapel with the prayer they make at home alone kneeling by their own bed. Is it the same prayer?

Finally, the commentary here claims that when Pr. Yang said that he "does not deny its efficacy but doubts its necessity", he was talking about "praying (sic) and receiving the Holy Spirit". In other words, the commentary here once again asserts that Pr. Yang message was that "receiving the Holy Spirit is unnecessary".  But if you go back and read the commentators own words describing exactly what Pr. Yang said, isn't it clear that he was just talking about prayer for the Holy Spirit that is forced and inauthentic that he's describing as  "effective but questionable as to its necessity", and NOT about receiving the promised Holy Spirit itself? Has this analysis gotten to the point where it's grasping at straws to try to "prove" the false thesis that Pr. Yang claimed that one does not need to pray for the promised Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues?

Again, good people can disagree on the substance of the answers, but let's not misrepresent what those answers are. When I listen to Pr. Yang's message here, I don't hear heresy or deviancy. I just see a man of God who has noticed a real, practical problem in the church and provides his own perspective on it.

Maybe you agree that little children should be conditioned from birth to beg for the Holy Spirit from the time they learn to pray. Or maybe you feel that maybe it's best for the kids to grow up to the point where they can understand a little more about what the Holy Spirit is and how He can work in their lives before you teach them how to pray for it. Personally, I see some truth in both perspectives. But to shut down one perspective completely and call it "heresy" does a severe disservice to all who with pure hearts are seeking the perfect Truth.