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Who Should Repent and Why? 

By Carman Bradley

 
God will not be mocked by our rebellious nation.  Most important, God will hold Canadian Christians to a higher level of responsibility and accountability than non-believers.  After warning His disciples to be on 24/7 readiness for the surprise Day of Judgment, Christ went on to further explain the higher standard of conduct expected of Christians: 

 
And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.  For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they shall ask more.  I am come to send fire on the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! [iii]     

 
The candid appeal for change made in this article to my brothers and sisters in Christ comes with a heartfelt burden aptly reflected in this quote from Lamentations:

 
The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.  The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us that we have sinned!  For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.  Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.  Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; thy throne from generation to generation.  Wherefore dost thou forget us forever, and forsake us so long time?  Turn thou us into thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.  But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.[iv]  

 
Lord, open our eyes that we might see, that we might change, and that we might joyously and victoriously walk in the land of the living.

 
On February 25, 1879, an English burglar and convicted murderer was put to death by William Marwood, the public executioner and inventor of the "long drop."  The murderer, Charles Peace, was a notorious character whose exploits spawned dozens of novels and films.  On the bitter cold day of his hanging Peace calmly ate a hearty breakfast of bacon while awaiting the appointed hour.  Apparently the quality of the bacon was less than desirable, for after the cap had been placed over his head Peace asked twice, like a man who expected to be obeyed, for a drink of water; but his request was ignored.  He died instantaneously and was buried in Armley Gaol cemetery.[v] 

 
According to evangelist Leonard Ravenhill, on that fatal morning Peace had to take a death-walk from his cell to the gallows.  Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses.  The life-long thief and murderer touched the preacher on the shoulder and asked what he was reading; to which the cleric replied, “The Consolations of Religion.”  Peace was shocked at the way the chaplain unemotionally; yet professionally, recited the biblical horrors of hell.  Could a human being be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow-man there, and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this prisoner must fall?  Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, “You will be eternally dying in a raging fire and yet never know the relief that death brings”?  All this was too much for Charles Peace.  Addressing the prison chaplain, Peace preached his first and only sermon:

 
Sir, if I believed what you and the church of God say you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that![vi]

 
So what was absent from the prison chaplain’s witness?  And what is killing effective Christian influence today?  The answers to both questions are the same!  This cleric had no heart-felt, spirit-led burden to save the lost.  His actions were mere fruitless ritual, barren of divine unction - divine anointing and spiritual influence.  He was indifferent, spirit-dead to the peril of the unsaved, to the folly of the unbeliever.  Obviously, for all intents and purposes spirit-dead Christians do exist; yet the Book of Acts declares a universal “obligation” for all Christians, as ambassadors of God's kingdom on earth, to help win souls for Christ:

 
And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly; not to all people but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead.  And He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained by God to be the Judge of the quick and the dead.  To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins.[vii]  

 
So what is Christ to do with indifferent and apathetic Christians?  What about lukewarm, neutral or acquiescent believers?  What about heretical informers who propagate a false gospel of Christian liberalism and religious pluralism?  What is Christ to do with calcified reformers who tolerate any and all heresies, over decades of relentless apostasy, to remain loyal to their fallen denomination of birth?  What is Christ to do with so-called “post-modern free-thinkers” - Christians who are unconcerned about the politics of the nation, blinded by a false rationalization that compartmentalizes “church” affairs separate from “state” dealings, as if God’s will has no rightful place in parliament or in the voting booth.  What is Christ to do with double-minded believers - Darwinian-Christians, homosexist-Christians, pro-choice-Christians, part-time Christians?  What is Christ to do with the believers who do not care whether his neighbour, his work associate, his brother or sister, his mechanic or anyone else he knows gets saved? 

 
What is with Canadian Christendom’s hypocritical “zeal” to go abroad enthusiastically evangelizing the lost; but never a “burden” to say a kind word about Christ’s Gospel to the hell-bound next door neighbour?  Canadian Christendom’s longstanding retreat from the public domain has allowed the inherent opportunities in freedom of religion and freedom of speech to be contorted from a nation open to Christian evangelism (sowing of God’s Word and witnessing of His harvest of souls) to a nation indifferent to religious faith and more-or-less closed in the public arena to authentic (orthodox) Christian evangelism. 

 
Dr. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at King’s College in New York City and renowned Christian apologist, declares indifference to be one of the Devil’s most successful weapons against faith and salvation.  Kreeft argues that indifference drains away passion and light – not only the light of faith, but also reason.  He writes:

 
Indifference is stupid.  Indifference is more fashionable today than it ever was before…If there is a certain symptom of social senility it is indifference, shown in slogans like ‘anything goes,’ ‘do your own thing,’ ‘different strokes for different folks,’ or ‘live and let live.’[viii]

 
We dare not teach anything worth teaching – wisdom, morality, religion.  If the reasons for this are political – if pluralistic democracy is incompatible with learning true wisdom – then by all means and for the sake of saving our children’s souls, let us quickly sweep away pluralistic democracy.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world’s approval and lose his own soul? [ix]

 
Nowhere in scripture is God characterized by indifference.  Nor is His kingdom depicted by religious pluralism.  So why then are so many believers indifferent towards the unchristian paths traversed by Canadian society and our state for at least two generations?  An ironic path, don’t you think, given Canada’s reputation as a model of democracy and the fact that the vast majority (76 percent of Canadians)[x] claim Christianity as their religion?  Addressing the mismatch between the Gospel intent for our nation and Canadian realities, Leonard Ravenhill puts the blame squarely on Christians.  In his most notable book Why Revival Tarries (1959), he wrote:

 
We are told that, despite our sin and carnality, we are seated with Him.  Alas, what a lie!  We are Ephesians all right; but, as the Ephesian Church in the Revelation, we have “left our first love!”  We appease sin – but do not oppose it.  To such a cold, carnal, critical, care-cowed Church, this lax, loose, lustful, licentious age will never capitulate.  Let us stop looking for scapegoats.  The fault in declining morality is not radio or television.  The whole blame for the present international degeneration and corruption lies at the door of the Church!  It is no longer the thorn in the side of the world.[xi]

 
According to Ravenhill, the only reason we don't have revival (a national turning towards God) is because “we are willing to live without it!”[xii]  Amplifying the ills of indifference, Ravenhill believes the fundamental problem with Canadian Christendom is “dead fundamentalism,”[xiii] or in current jargon, the rise of Christian liberalism.   And here, although not the sole culprit infected with this malady, the United Church of Canada is undoubtedly the very worst casualty of its ill effects.  In 2005, on the occasion of the Eightieth Anniversary of the United Church, Moderator, The Very Right Rev. Dr. Peter Short gave a sermon titled “Roses Are Difficult Here.”   Dr. Short said: 

 
Suppose you had to choose a title for your life and your work.  Suppose you had to say in a phrase what it’s like to be inside your skin and to live the struggle you live.  Don’t you think that might be a good title, ‘Roses Are Difficult Here.’  [He went on…]   We’ve got a lot of problems in The United Church of Canada…People are all the time telling me that roses are impossible here…It’s not the presence of problems or the presence of stress that makes roses difficult here.  In fact, it’s not the presence of anything.  It’s an absence.  It’s an abandoned and boarded up heaven.  It’s the empty space in the soul where wonder used to live light in the spring.  It’s the silence of God and the aloneness in facing the world that makes roses so unlikely.[xiv]

 
Had the late Leonard Ravinhill been in attendance for this sermon, he likely would have commented drawing from the well-spring of his thoughts on “dead fundamentalism.”  Half a century ago, Ravinhill warned Canadian Christendom:

 
If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.[xv]  

 
Preacher, if your soul is barren, if tears are absent from your eyes, if converts are absent from your altar, then take no comfort in your popularity; refuse the consolation of your degrees or of the books you have written!  Sincerely but passionately invite the Holy Ghost to plague your heart with grief because you are spiritually unable to give birth.  Oh the reproach of our barren altars!  Has the Holy Ghost delight in our electric organs, carpeted isles, and new decorations if the crib is empty?  Never![xvi] 

 
The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.  Oh!  The horror of it.... Preaching without unction kills instead of giving life.[xvii]

 
The malady of indifference is a symptom of a diseased or dead spiritual heart.  Indifference is a sign of perilous distance from the voice of the Holy Spirit.   Indifference reflects an intellectual and spiritual blindness towards the truth – God’s Word!  Indifference amongst believers reflects disrespect and disobedience to God.  Indifference is one of the most common forms of rebellion, frequently unrecognized when masked by the popular cultural goal of social tolerance.  The trouble is too many Christians are acting with indifference in their day-to-day lives while hoping and expecting God to graciously and miraculously “keep our country strong and free!”  As Peter Kreeft warns, we demonstrate social senility by our indifference.  We fail the rationality test - i.e. praying to God that Paul Martin (or Jack Layton!) might have an epiphany and change his party’s position on same-sex marriage, while choosing to vote in the end for a party advocating the redefinition of marriage .  And we fail the integrity test – i.e. praying to God that our children will not be homosexual, while contentedly sitting in the pew unconcerned about the homosexist sermon being delivered and apathetic towards the openly homosexual and unrepentant person sitting next to us. 

 
Our holy God will not condone neutral or apathetic witness.  We are to "sow to please the Spirit" at all times.  Paul warned the churches at Galatia about this reality:

 
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.[xviii]

 
Regarding effective fruitful prayer, the Apostle John said:  

 
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him.[xix]   [My underline.]

 
And writing to the Churches at Ephesus, the Apostle Paul declared that "strength of faith" is key to fruitful prayer:

 
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.[xx] [My underline.]

 
Ignoring the impact of our poor public witness for the moment, it appears that the nation-wide failure of Canadian Christendom to experience revival in this country is because there is no unction in our prayers.  And there is no power in our collective prayers because we don’t do what Christ commands; thus, we don’t please Him!  The Holy Spirit is not petitioned through rebellion!  And if from an aggregate perspective, i.e. the level of local church, denomination or national association, your heart is not condemned, then you must be suffering some form of spiritual myopia – some failure to recognize the sinful realities, likely the result of acculturation to the post-modern Canadian society. 

 
In 1982, Ted Rendall, then VP of biblical ministries at Prairie Bible Institute, described his take on the failure of corporate Christian influence in Canada:   

As the church of Christ has become lukewarm, individual Christians have contented themselves with a doctrine of personal revival; that is we have told one another, amid the barreness of the church, that general revival may not be possible [In a post-modern, pluralist society where all religions are equal and the public domain is secular!] but we at least know individual revival. While we do not dispute the necessity and possibility of such reviving, we suggest that one result of such a position is that as believers we have failed to desire revival collectively.[xxi]  [My insert]

 
Both Ravenhill and Rendall share the view that we don't experience national revival because we have learned to live without it.  Yes there are some collective prayer activities - national prayer events, parliamentary prayer breakfasts and the Global Day of Prayer (all of which will be addressed later in this article), but the results have been negative. 

 
Our collective prayer lacks unction and our nation-wide witness lacks fire and effectiveness because Canadian Christendom is also divided.  Indeed, we are so fragmented in beliefs about the Christian worldview that even local congregations are split over the truth.  Conviction varies from absolute liberalism (full denial of Christ's divinity and His role as our exclusive Lord and Saviour) to pure orthodoxy (full affirmation of traditional Christian tenets).  Regrettably for Christendom, scripture reveals that divided kingdoms, competing against each other, will not stand.  The harmful divisions we experience today are not of the Holy Spirit.[xxii] It is a sad testimony that many professed Christians need to be reminded that the resurrected Christ is everything - the proverbial rivet of faith and life.  Apostle Paul advised and exhorted Christians:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.  But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.[xxiii]

Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.  That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the power of Him.  The eyes of understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.  And what exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.  Which He wrought in Christ, when he raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places.[xxiv]   [My underlines.]

Indifference is no longer an option for believers who are armed with knowledge of the salvation gift – confidence and experience in the power of the redemptive-sanctification process, and who are obediently engaged in an on-going personal relationship with Christ.  Nonetheless, there remains within Christendom a sleepy apathetic faction that rests on the notion that “God is sovereign, when He wants to move, revival will come.”  But this idea is only a partial truth.  Such a premise in the minds of the misguided can lead them to wrongly assert, if God wanted to prevent redefinition of marriage, liberal abortion laws, or any other anti-Christian governance in Canada, He would have done so (miraculously!).   Charles G. Finney pours cold water on such wishful naivety:

Revival is no more a miracle than a crop of wheat.  Revival comes from heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die – or if need be, to win and die![xxv]

The truth is God can do the miraculous; however, the more fruitful issue to ponder with respect to correcting the sick state of our nation is why would He choose to do so over the on-going rebellious conduct of Canadian Christendom?  The Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah do not detail miraculous restoration.  In both cases God graciously warns His chosen of their sinful condition and of their urgent need for change.  The unrepentant then face judgment followed by consequence, which eventually leads to brokenness and then repentance - the foundation stone for revival and restoration. 

Another part of the Christian body contends that the magnitude of rebellion unfolding nationally and internationally is part of the natural course leading to the at hand Day of Judgment; these events are simply fulfilling end time prophecies.  Some in this group have turned this understanding into a wholesome burden to sharpen their own witness and to do what they can for the lost in the short time remaining before Christ’s return.  They joyously anticipate the fulfilment of Christ's glorious promises.  Others delight in expressing their end times prophetic skills counting up possible indicators of Christ’s imminent return and forecasting whatever other disasters they think might unfold before Judgment.  The worst of these naysayers garner followings amounst the saved, all the while exhibiting an uncharitable burden of indifference to the impending unbeliever’s demise.  C.S. Lewis said of this latter group of Christians: 

We have the assurance of the New Testament regarding events to come.  I find it difficult to keep from laughing when I find people worrying about future destruction of some kind or another.  Didn't they know they were going to die anyway?  Apparently not....The world might stop in ten minutes; meanwhile we are to go on doing our duty.  The great thing is to be found at one's post as a child of God living each day as though it were our last, but planning as though our world might last a hundred years.[xxvi]

Which is more grievous to Christ: the rebellious non-believer or the believer indifferent to the lost?  The Book of Ezekiel offers valuable revelation on this question:    

So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.  When I say unto the wicked man, thou shalt surely die, if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.  Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he does not turn from his way, he shall die in iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

We are obligated to protest sin, whether discovered inside or outside of the church.  We are not to judge non-Christian sinners, for that is God’s purview.  However, the church is duty-bound to exercise spiritual discipline over professing Christians for the purity of the Body of believers.  When faced with unrepentant immorality within the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul put the Christian accountability obligation and the need for fellowship integrity as follows:

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.  And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.  For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed...deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.  Your glorying is not good.  Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?  Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.  For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.   I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.  But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.  For what have I to do to judge them also that are without?  do not ye judge them that are within?  But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.[xxvii]

 
The follow-on call to repentance; therefore, comes with brotherly “accountability” in mind and the goal to expose the chronic need to “purge out the old leaven” that we may celebrate Christ and His Gospel in national unity and with national unction, sincerity and truth.

 
Some 2450 years ago, a chronicler established the keys to effectively petitioning God to restore the nation.  He recorded: 

 
If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.[xxviii]

 
For more than a half century the status quo witness of Canadian Christendom has failed to entreat God’s intervention.  Is it not fair to say, short of the miraculous, if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting what we got (what we deserve).[xxix]  At the start of 2005, Brian Warren, executive director of Canada in Prayer and keynote speaker for the “2005 A Year of Prayer in Canada NATIONAL LAUNCH,” gave the following prayer guidance leading up to the Prayer Launch, which is a fitting critique of the “status quo” witness in Canada: 

 
Jan. 3 – REPENT AND PRAY AGAINST REBELLION

NATIONAL: Intercede that rebellious hearts will be turned toward the Living God.  Pray that the nation will be brought to its knees before the Almighty.  Ask God to break the spirit of rebellion even within the Church, and help believers across the country to surrender whole-heartedly to their Master and Savior.

 
Jan. 4 – REPENT FOR AND PRAY AGAINST HARD-HEARTEDNESS & DISOBEDIENCE

NATIONAL:  Agree that the Word of God will once again be obeyed in this nation.  Ask the Father to soften hard hearts that are far from Him and help them feel again and turn back to Him (Matthew 24:10, 12).  Pray for Christians who have succumbed to the ways of the world, that our Wise God will give them a revelation of the state of their hearts, and help them obey and love Him.

 
Jan. 8&9 – REPENT FOR AND PRAY AGAINST PRIDE & DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS

NATIONAL: ...Intercede for the ‘Pharisees’ of today, who preach and speak the Word, but don’t live it (Isaiah 29:13).  Pray that the People of God in Canada will begin to apply the Word and that it will get from their minds into their hearts.  Pray that they will humble themselves and live to please Almighty God, who is the only One worthy to be exalted, and who has a greater plan for this nation! 

 
Jan. 10 – REPENT FOR AND PRAY AGAINST UNHOLINESS AND PERVERSION

NATIONAL:  Pray for revival to sweep across this land and for great conviction of sin and holy cleansing to take place.  Cry out to God to bring an end to sexual immorality and adultery.  Pray that Christians will no longer distort the Word of God in order to fit their own agenda, and that purity will come forth first inside the Church.

 
Let us take a candid review of REBELLION, HARD-HEARTEDNESS, DISOBEDIENCE, PRIDE, DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS, UNHOLINESS, PERVERSION, and INDIFFERENCE within the Canadian church body.

 
Issue #1 – Apostasy Within Christendom

 
Rev. Dr. Allen Churchill said the following characterizing REBELLION within the United Church of Canada:

 
Our own United Church is in a state of free fall…76% of our theological professors think it is not important to affirm Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.[xxx]

What is God to make of the UNHOLINESS of the United Church’s heretical pronouncements and the Gnostic theological parallels with UCC beliefs, all in the name of Jesus Christ?  Should the rest of Christendom care about the PERVERSION of the Gospel by some 3,500 congregations across Canada that proselytize a re-imaged and homosexist Christ - a non-resurrected gifted sage? 

 
From what vine (Christ or DISOBEDIENCE?) did the UCC develop its Factum testimony on same-sex marriage declared before the Supreme Court of Canada? The denomination’s lawyers wrote:

 
However, unlike some other mainstream, established Christian churches which are interveners in the reference, the United Church both supports same-sex marriage and makes same-sex marriage ceremonies available to its members.

 
Theologically and liturgically, the United Church understands both opposite-sex and same-sex couples as sharing the same human dignity of being made in the image of God.  There is therefore no theological impediment that would prevent same-sex couples from participating in this union, which is one of the fullest expressions of the covenant between God and humanity.  To the contrary, excluding same-sex couples from this expression of the covenant relationship undermines their human basic dignity.

 
And what of the DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS and INDIFFERENCE of the “orthodox” Christian interveners during the court case.  Not one lawyer objected to the heretical testimony of the UCC by standing up for authentic Christianity.  No one cared to cross-examine the United Church to disprove their credibility as an authentic Christian voice?  On the other hand, in testimony before the Supreme Court of St.Lucia in 1996, Rev. Dr. Victor Shepherd, chair of Wesley Studies at Tyndale Seminary said on behalf of a Wesleyan congregation wishing to separate from the United Church of Canada: 
 

 
And what can be said of a denomination whose liberal HARD-HEARTEDNESS and PERVERSION of the Gospel leads to pronouncing its own self-serving theological pronouncements.  In a 1986 - Report on AIDS, under the title, “Theological Affirmation” the United Church declared:

 
We affirm that the Christian conviction that God loves and cares for all people includes persons with AIDS, and we reject the argument made by some that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuals.”  We call upon the church: “to affirm that the well-being of both individuals and communities requires not only social responsibility but also personal responsibility to refrain from high-risk behaviors and to adopt responsible behaviors, with a view to the care of one's own body and the care of those to whom we are bound in relationship, family and community.[xxxii]

 
Having replaced the Biblical Code with the Condom Code, the homosexist United Church is compelled to declare oral and anal sex sanctified behaviour, whether done responsibly or irresponsibly.  And according to the UCC, when these acts are not done in accordance with safe-sex procedures, and AIDS results, the disease is the accidental consequence of breaching the ecological laws of nature and not a divine judgment.  Some consolation to the victim dying of AIDS.  If a lifestyle can only be sustained by use of a prophylactic, is the behaviour not a PERVERSION of God’s intent and an act of gross REBELLION?  The UCC would be speaking the truth if they said AIDS is a likely consequence of the gay sexual lifestyle, behaviour which is an offense to God, and leave it to the individual to decide if the consequence is of divine or Darwinian origin.  Let the scientific facts speak for themselves.  Epidemiologists, Martina Morris and Laura Dean, at Columbia's School of Public Health, studied the effects of behaviour change on the spread of HIV. They found that if the average gay man in New York reduced his sexual contact rate to one “unsafe contact” per year, the level of HIV in that population would probably drop to less than 5 per cent in thirty-five years.  But if the average rose to two unsafe contacts per year, HIV prevalence would rise to 60 per cent.  Morris and Dean write:

 
The implications of temporary returns to unsafe sex practices [unplanned gratification] are not simply an increase in individual risk, but also the persistence of HIV transmission at epidemic levels in the population.[xxxiii]  [My insert.]

 
Andrew Holleran, an unrepentant man engaged in the homosexual lifestyle recognizes the UNHOLINESS of homosexual sex.  He writes:

 
The attempt of gay men to merge their Catholicism with homosexuality has always seemed to me touching but doomed. I used to walk past the church on Sixteenth Street in New York where I knew Dignity – an organization for gay Catholics – was meeting, but I never went in. I felt sorry for the men inside, sympathetic to their attempt, and superior to what seemed to me their naiveté. Don’t even try, I thought, as I walked past, on the way from the gym to the bath (my new church), you’re just kidding yourselves. There can be no commerce between, no conflation of, these two things. Fellatio has nothing to do with Holy Communion. Better to frankly admit that you have changed gods, and are now worshipping Priapus, not Christ.[xxxiv]

 
What is the impact of the homosexist witness within the Christian fellowship, on Canadian Christendom’s public example and on God’s favour towards our nation?  Homosexist theology is not something that Christians can just agree to disagree on.  James P. Hanigan writes:

 
And if there are other choices open to homosexuals, why should not these options be available to heterosexuals as well? Thus, homosexuality may well serve as the ‘testcase’ of Christian sexual ethics since it poses the clearest challenge to the universal and evangelical character of that ethic.[xxxv]

 
What is Canadian Christendom to do with the United Church of Canada, potentially the Anglican Church of Canada, and other liberal denominations, that adopt homosexist theologies?  Troy Perry, the founder of Metropolitan Community Churches (the dominant homosexist church for gays and lesbians in North America) said of pro-gay religious groups like the United Church:

 
I knew I would have few if any problems with the so-called liberal churches. Liberal churches do not usually deeply involve themselves with Scripture.[xxxvi]

 
And what of the PERVERSION in other United Church doctrines and the DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS in applying their theology?  As recently as 2005, the UCC made public doctrine statements denying that Christ is the only way to salvation and demonstrating once again INDIFFERENCE to Biblical authority and pursuit of the indivisible Gospel truth.  The denomination declared:

 
Our society is multicultural, our world is multifaith; our church community has varying theological perspectives within it.  Some make exclusive claims to absolute truth and find in these claims authorization to do harm…While believing that our faith is grounded in truth, our truth need not deny the truths of others’[xxxvii]  -  Question of Truth, Faith Talk II.

 
The United Church does not believe that the faith stance of a community which supports same-sex marriage undermines the faith stance of a community that does not.’  -  Choice Okoro, UCC Program Officer for Human Rights

 
The Apostle Peter warns of false teachers, apostate believers and corrupt doctrines:

 
The Book of Hebrews details the consequence of HARD-HEARTEDNESS, DISOBEDIENCE and INDIFFERENCE:

 
If we deliberately keep on sinning [NIV Study Bible: “committing the sin of apostasy”] after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that would consume the enemies of God.  Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sacrificed him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? [NIV Study Bible: to reject Christ’s sacrifice for sins is to reject the only sacrifice; there is no other.][xxxix]

The Apostle John said of pseudo-Christians and the impossibility of the Holy Spirit abiding with them:

 
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.  But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.  I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.  Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.  Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning.  If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.  And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.  These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.  But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. (1John 2:18-27) [My underline.]

 
The truth has nothing in common with deception, just as light has no fellowship with darkness.  The Apostle John warns believers of the sinful transgression and judgment brought on through fellowship with deceivers:

 
And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.  And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.  For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.  This is a deceiver and an antichrist.  Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.  Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.  He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.  If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:  For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (2 John 5-11) [My underline.]

No matter how sincere or mistaken the association, believers sin when they fellowship with organized apostasy,

which in Canada is the United Church.

 
What DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS and INDIFFERENCE blinded the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the National House of Prayer to the travesty of partnering for a national prayer launch with a United Church at the start of the most important year in the same-sex marriage struggle, at our National Capital?  Ironically (for the evangelical participants), the magnitude of this spiritual warfare blunder is highlighted by the importance of this prayer launch from the National House of Prayer perspective.  Their website tactfully refers to the: “2005 January 8, National Prayer Launch in Ottawa at Dominion Chalmers Church.”   Under the title ‘Why Ottawa?’ the website reads: 

 
Every decision that`s made in Ottawa affects each municipality in Canada.  A gate is a point of access; Ottawa is the spiritual ‘gateway’ into the rest of our nation... What comes through a gate has influence over what the gate was designed to guard.  In biblical times the gateway is a place where elders of the city met to make decisions and to settle disputes.[xli]

 
Such high talk of the wisdom of spiritual warfare, yet the participants are blind to the consequence of association with the United Church.  The website of Pray GTA (Greater Toronto Area) records: 

 
The church in the Capital region carries a torch for the nation and deserves our prayerful support. In addition to local issues, the church obviously carries a special intercessory burden for the government of Canada…The Saturday evening service at the Dominion-Chalmers United Church was the official launch of 2005 – A Year of Prayer for Canada. Brian Warren, of Canada in Prayer, led the congregation in a time of deep commitment to unite and pray for Canada. At one point, the congregation was on its face before God, crying out for God’s mercy on our nation… As I reflect back on the event I am struck by how fitting it was that we launched a year of prayer for Canada with our arms reaching around the world. It is so consistent with Canada’s prophetic destiny to bring healing to the nations.”[xlii]

 
The message by association – Dominion-Chalmers United Church is a “torch bearer for Canadian Christendom in the heart of Ottawa." But light has no fellowship with darkness!  And God will not be mocked.  The issue, what does Dominion-Chalmers United Church have to offer evangelical prayer warriors beyond proximity to Parliament and a large parking lot? 

 
Dominion-Chalmers United Church is congregation typical of their denomination and cannot be differentiated from the REBELLION, HARD-HEARTEDNESS, DISOBEDIENCE, PRIDE, DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS, UNHOLINESS, PERVERSION and INDIFFERENCE of United Church of Canada.  Dominion-Chalmers United Church has never been a member of the National Alliance of Convenanting Congregations (evangelical reform congregations within the UCC organized to stop liberalization of the denomination).  When asked directly in December 2004 whether the church supported the denomination’s policies and doctrines, the church declined to answer.  Through feedback from a member of Dominion-Chalmers, it was discovered that Rev. Robert Oliphant was guest speaker for the UCC Eightieth Anniversary celebrations at the church in June 2005 (four months after the Year of Prayer National Launch).  In fact, Rev. Oliphant's name is third on a list at an Equality For Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE) web site declaring ministers who have signed EGALE's Equal [same-sex] Marriage Clergy Endorsement Statement.  Now Rev. Oliphant is more than entitled to hold his liberal views and Dominion-Chalmers United Church is equally entitled to have him as their Anniversary guest speaker.  But the point is this.  One spirit tells evangelicals (and Apostle Paul!) that same-sex marriage is wrong and another spirit tells Rev. Oliphant, the United Church and other liberals that marriage redefinition is right.  Logic dictates on such a pivotal theological matter that one spirit must be false. 

 
Only nine days after the January 8^th event, the United Church Moderator petitioned (by letter) Members of Parliament to vote for same-sex marriage and to join him for a prayer breakfast paid for by the United Church.  The idea of lobbying MPs to redefine marriage raised a written complaint from eight UCC ministers in London, but no criticism came from Ottawa.  Dominion-Chalmers United Church or any other United Church can not be (nor be allowed to give the impression in public of being) a bridge between orthodoxy and apostasy.  The Holy Spirit knows past, present and future; and therefore, knew at the time that our “national” evangelical prayer hopes for 2005 were being petitioned from the pews of Dominion-Chalmers United Church, who would be their honoured anniversary speaker and from which vine that Ottawa United Church is rooted.  Moreover in 2007, the video clip from the 2007 GDOP at Dominion-Chalmers United Church shows one prayer warrior referring to the Holy Spirit as she: "I ask the Holy Spirit that she would send..." and shows a small group wearing the ritual dress of the First Nations playing what appears to be a Native Indian spiritual rhythm on traditional drums? 

 
“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump!”

 
Is there one tangible positive response to the prayers launched in the beginning of 2005? And what became of "Canada’s prophetic destiny to bring healing to the nations"?  2005 was an unmitigated disaster for Canadian Christendom bringing the enactment of same-sex marriage in June. 

The level of blindness, if not DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS displayed by evangelicals fellowshipping with a United Church, in crucial year, in national prayer, at the spiritual gates of Ottawa, is a costly spiritual warfare mistake.  Moreover, this error is compounded by the manner with which the EFC responded to the warning to not partner with Dominion-Chalmers United Church.  When approached in December of 2004 to point out in advance the mistake of a prayer launch with a United Church and to determine the EFC policy towards the UCC, their response was a short prideful “Our policy is to not have a policy on the United Church of Canada.”  Organizational PRIDE (don't tell us how to do our job) appears to have blinded the Fellowship to the message God had placed so powerfully on the messenger's heart.  Who, if not the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, is going to establish biblical guidance on relations with pseudo-Christians of the protestant profession and their apostate denomination?  Who, if not the EFC, should be setting the biblical example on relations with the apostate.

Better to go into spiritual warfare battle with only a few faithful, obedient and pleasing prayer warriors, then with a host of sincere but compromised participants.  All things considered there was little cause to Celebrate in 2005.  Indeed, has 2006, 2007 or 2008 brought Canada any closer to the desired day of Christian repentance and national revival?

 
Had Dominion-Chalmers United Church been a member of the NACC, this might have been mitigating circumstance for the mistake of evangelicals fellowshipping in a United Church; however, very similar and equalling troublesome spiritual warefare issues would have arisen as a result.  Members of the National Alliance of Convenanting Congregations belong to the United Church of Canada and have been accepted as affiliates with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.  These so-called "reform congregations" have maintained a bridge of compromised fellowship between the two (liberal and evangelical) theological realities since 1991.  It seems unlikely that Apostle John, who would not receive deceivers into his house, and who warned that anyone who fellowships with deceivers is "a partaker of his evil deeds," (2 John 5-11) would tolerate such a thing.  This NACC fellowship with their apostate denomination is now a decade and a half longer grace period then Christ entertained in His warning to repent or perish recorded in the Book of Luke.  Using a parable of a fig tree, Christ said: 

A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any.  So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any.  Cut it down!  Why should it use up the soil?’  ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.  If it bears fruit next year, fine!  If not, then cut it down’ (3:6-9).

 
Indeed, the Book of Hebrews (6:4-8) declares apostates to be beyond repentance and irretrievably lost, subjecting Christ to public disgrace:

 
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,  And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. [My underline.]

 
Are these NACC reformers not living in denial of the state of their denomination and of the burden the Holy Spirit has placed on literally hundreds of thousands of others to flee the United Church.  These congregations need a self-examination for HARD-HEARTEDNESS -  What heresy, if not the denial of Christ or same-sex marriage, would be catalyst enough for you to flee the United Church?  It is unbiblical to remain in this fellowship with apostasy and irrational, after seventeen years of unrelenting heresies and evangelical exodus, to claim to still be waiting for the Holy Spirit to release you from the United Church.  And the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada would be well advised to break-off their affiliation with these congregations until the NACC membership have severed their membership in the United Church. 

 
The above questions are equally valid for the Community of Concern (COC) within the United Church of Canada.  The tenacity of this group to not abandon their apostate denomination extends to beseeching disenchanted UCC members to not leave.  The article “WHAT SHOULD I – WHAT CAN I – DO?” in the June 2005 edition of Concern, reveals the level of dissonance, HARD-HEARTEDNESS, denominational PRIDE, DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS, and UNHOLINESS bound up in the COC situation.  Somehow since its inception in 1988, the COC has developed a comfortable, but no longer tenable niche; not unlike their fellow NACC "reformers."  And like the NACC, the COC needs to conduct a self-examination; a reality check.  Their June 2005 article read:

'What should I do?’

 
(1) No matter how betrayed you feel, don’t give up your membership in the United Church…Do you want to see Unitarianism become the lodestone of the United Church?  Do you want the ‘New Statement of Faith’ to be accepted without any critical discussion?  Every person who leaves weakens the cause of reform.  If everyone who disagrees with it abandons it, our Church will become isolated from all our fellow Christians in Africa and Asia who are unalterably opposed to the same-sex agenda.  And with those who disagree with its ultra-liberal theology gone, the United Church would have little more effect than a service club in setting a moral tone for society…So DON’T LEAVE. 

 
(2) If you can’t bear to listen to what’s being dished out from the pulpit, find a congregation - perhaps another denomination – that will accept you as a devoted visitor.  You’d be surprised how many are ‘stopping out,’ but still haven’t given up on their United Church.  To keep their sanity they go elsewhere on a regular basis but choose to devote a portion of their givings to reform and renewal. 

 
(3) Try inviting a few sympathetic church friends to your home for conversation and informal worship.  Share your grief at the direction the church has taken.  And tell them about COC, an organization that lives up to its name: a Community that has real Concern for its members.  (You would be surprised how many have never heard of us!)” [bold text is as found in the article] 

 
Can the Holy Spirit be burdening some members of the UCC to flee and at the same time be calling the COC to plea for them to stay?  The scriptural precepts of one spirit, one truth, one church, and the indivisible Jesus Christ, point to an answer of "no."

 
When asked in November 2004 to be the catalyst sponsor of a petition against same-sex marriage the Community declined.  The Chair of the COC Executive Committee wrote:

 
We believe as an organization that our main priority, given our slim resources, must be to hold our national church accountable, and as I am sure you know that in itself is a gigantic job.

 
At that time in November, there was a hope that the COC (20,000 individuals strong and placed all across Canada) might, at a crucial stage in the same-sex marriage debate, go public with what they were preaching to themselves about their unorthodox associates.  These declared evangelicals within the UCC missed an opportune calling which might have justified their longstanding membership in the fallen denomination.  Instead, they appear to be comfortable placing crippling boundaries on the degree of criticism (friction) they will entertain against their denomination and to ride out their membership in the United Church for as long as they live. 

 
Thousands expected for prayer day. ‘We may well outgrow the Saddledome this year,’ event co-director Rev. Murray Dodds said yesterday… ‘The Calgary event drew 11,000 worshippers last year,’ said Dodds.  ‘We were the second-largest in North America last year,’ Dodds said, adding Dallas Texas, was the only city to top Calgary’s turnout.

 
It is time that we stopped thinking of prayer “events” and stopped measuring success by the level of inclusivity, the quantity of participants, or even the emotional experience of the day.  Why would the Holy Spirit anoint a deliberately organized ecumenical prayer event where literally anyone from any church holding any breadth of theological views is welcome.  There is no scripture to support this idea and a ton of biblical evidence against the notion. Such INDIFFERENCE to the faith stance of the participants is symptomatic of spiritual blindness and DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS.  A key question for GDOP organizers in Calgary is what lessons can be gleaned from the outcome of the 2006 event?  The 2006 GDOP turnout was half of the previous year, as a result 2006 has been the last time the costly Saddle Dome has been rented for the event.  Future GDOP organizers should really ignore the issue of attendance; work on purity of participation; and search for “results” (answered prayer) as a measure of their success.  

 
One cannot help but ponder the irony in May 2005, when two days after the largest collaborative prayer rally in history (GDOP 2005), Belinda Stronach crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the Liberal Party of Canada and sustain the Liberal Government by one vote (153-152).  One month later, Parliament voted 158-133 in favour of the Liberal Government’s Bill C-38, The Civil Marriage Act.  The overwhelming message in this outcome is that the “status quo” INDIFFERENT and compromised witness of Canadian Christendom leaves Christ unimpressed and unmoved.  After all God is sovereign, and “if our hearts do not condemn us” and “we obey His commands and do what pleases Him,” we should have confidence before God and “receive from Him anything we ask.”

Common logic, if not scripture, dictates that we should reflect on our DISOBEDIENCE and UNHOLINESS if we wish to achieve more positive prayer results.  We don’t get national revival from our collective prayer efforts because we need to take ownership of our corporate REBELLION and repent.  The difference between a dead event of ritual and a spiritual event of anoiting is the condition of the participants hearts.  God will not be mocked.  If we keep doing what we have been doing, we will keep getting the same response.  The key measure for a successful prayer rally can only be answered prayer.

 
Issue #3 – Clergy Sexual Abuse

 
What follows under this category are facts taken mostly from American data; however, I contend that the information offered conveys a sufficiently accurate reflection of realities in Canada. 

 
The lay-led Office of Child and Youth Protection of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned experts from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York to research most of the 194 U.S. dioceses.  And in Feb. 27, 2004, a survey on the cumulative toll of sexual abuse inflicted on children by priests during the past 50 years was released.   The survey found that about 4 percent of U.S. priests ministering from 1950-2002 were accused of sex abuse with a minor - a total of nearly 4,400 clergy, almost all were priests, accused of abusing more than 10,000 minors. Three-quarters of the incidents took place from 1960-1984.  And in another report, addressing protestant denominations in the United States, 838 ministers were singled out for sexual abuse.  This included 147 Baptists, 251 Evangelical/Fundamentalists, 140 Anglicans/Episcopalians, 38 Lutherans, 46 Methodists, 19 Presbyterians and another 197 smaller denomination ministers.

 
All must agree that each case of clergy misconduct and abuse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, whether by Catholic or Protestant, perpetrates an odious PERVERSION upon the innocent victim and the UNHOLINESS weakens the credibility and anointing of the Body of believers.  Compensation and public apologies for the abused, although a needed step in the healing process, can never fully mitigate the effects of such sinful conduct.  Although the Christian sexual code has equal application to clergy and lay believers, God’s judgment upon clergy for such DISOBEDIENCE will be extreme.  Since they are our spiritual leaders, shepherds of our flock, ordained human examples of Christ’s anointing, their REBELLION grieves the Holy Spirit that much more.  Add to this the fact that the victums of their DISODEDIENCE are children and one can only imagine the measure of God's wrath.  The Book of Matthew records the special position of children in the kingdom and Christ’s judgment upon those leading them into sin:

 
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?  And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.  But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.  Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!

 
There is no way to overstate the need for collective repentance for sexual abuse within the organized churches of Canadian Christendom.  The Body of believers not only needs to seek forgiveness and make restoration with the abused; we need to seek peace with God.  Religious liberals, bearing a deceitful notion of cheap grace and spouting across this nation: "God is love.  God Forgives,"  have no idea of the servere consequences of the on-going sexual abuse calamity upon the Body.  And if our hearts do not condemn us, then we are INDIFFERENT - failing to accept just collective responsibility for this wrong.  After all, as collectively organized denominations and churches:

 
Congregations, parishes, fellowships and other Christian groups need to corporately place this huge transgression at God's feet asking for forgiveness. 

God will not be mocked.  No amount of compensation given to the victims, no matter how sincerely offered, will appease His wrath.  This is as much a gross spiritual transgression as it is an act of mental and physical abuse, and not until tears of genuine remorse flood the sanctuaries of all the churches across Canada, will God be moved.  

Issue #4 – Lukewarm Christians

According to the Book of Revelation, lukewarm Christians in the Church at Laodicea made Christ sick[xliv] [The NIV footnote uses the word “vomit.”].  Lukewarm Christians suffer DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS – they are neither hot nor cold in conviction, they waiver between conflicting beliefs.  Lukewarm Christians often compromise their faith resulting in weakened anointing and spirituality.  INDIFFERENCE can characterize many lukewarm Christians.  They are either apathetic, perplexed, or acquiescent in their convictions.  Others are neutral in opinion out of ignorance.  During the course of the Canadian same-sex marriage fight three categories of Christian response were identifiable: (1) “hot” for it ; (2) “cold” against it; and (3) “lukewarm” in between.  Nowhere in scripture do we find God characterized by INDIFFERENCE or find the Holy Spirit divided in guidance; therefore, the case can be made that the Holy Spirit could either be behind the “hot” for it burden or behind the “cold” against it conviction; but there is no scripture to defend lukewarm Christians stuck in the compromised middle.  

Every Christian falls victim to the transgression of compromising God's Word and Will, so let's be frank, this is no isolated or small problem.  We all need to accept responsibility for the many times when our witness was lukewarm, usually for self-serving reasons, and repent.  We need to remember that these transgressions, whether personal or corporate in nature, cause Christ to retch, to heave, to throw-up.  Lukewarm approaches to God's will are forms of REBELLION and Christ's healing power cannot be petitioned from a basis of DISODEDIENCE.   Imagine therefore, the surprise and disappointment in discovering  two devastatingly lukewarm witnesses from very respected and very senior evangelical clergy during two critical turningpoints in the national same-sex marriage struggle.  Even now, two years in hindsight, the matter of redefining marriage from the Christian worldview seems, dare one say, "fundamentally" clear.  If Leonard Ravenhill were alive (earlier quoted saying: "If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified."), the evangelist would no doubt remind me that Canadian Christendom suffers from "dead fundamentalism" and that I shouldn't have been surprised. 

These two occasions cannot be over-looked because there can be no national revival in Canada until the Christians living here, including Christendom's senior leadership, take ownership of their part in our weak and ineffectual witness.  The status quo can be overturned from the bottom - the grass roots; however, things would go much faster and simplier if those charged with influential roles amonst the Body, acknowledged the problem, accepted their due responsiblity, and confessed the need for urgent change. 

When we find that a top-level evangelical leader describes the same-sex marriage decision as a Christian dilemma to his followership, on the proverbial eve of the national decision, what can be said other than his sermon guidance is lukewarm?  And after years of ardent fighting by a myriad of believers and non-believers across the nation, and Christian and non-Christian agencies from every region of the country, it takes a lot of courage, if not PRIDE, to over-rule their arguments and describe the redefinition of marriage as a Christian quandary.  Moreover, to declare same-sex marriage inevitable before the struggle has climaxed, while so many believers and agencies are still fighting in the proverbial "trenches" for orthodoxy, is incredibly condescending, if not a bold act of INDIFFERENCE.  When a Christian leader fails in the crucial period of public debate over same-sex marriage to take full opportunity of the medium and audience that God has given him, to reach Canadians with the "Living Truth," what can be said other than his evangalism during that campaign was lukewarm?  Only a few weeks after his Sunday evening sermon, the Honourable Belinda Stronach crossed the floor of the House of Commons to save by one vote the Liberal Government and its same-sex marriage cause - hardly an inevitablility, but no less devastating. 

 
The election in January 2006 was the last potential turning point in the struggle to then reverse the redefinition of marriage decision.  Shortly after the election a concerned Christian asked an insightful question: 

 
I’m interested in your sense of whether pastors are a help or a hindrance in this [same-sex marriage] battle.  My sense is that many are concerned but don’t know what to do, or don’t want to appear judgmental against gays.  But others only care about their own church budgets, programs, etc. and don’t care about the marriage issue – they don’t think it affects them.

 
The short answer to this question is yes too many were lukewarm in their response.  Perhaps the most strking example of INDIFFERENCE and DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS over same-sex marriage is evidenced in the following statement given by the top cleric in an evangelical denomination only a few days before the January 2006 Election.  In his openning remarks under the title "A Comment on the Upcoming Federal Election" he told his pastors:

 
Some Christians appear to exercise their voting responsibilities as a matter of habitual secular bias, rather than biblically reasoned choice.  The INDIFFERENCE they show to voting preferences amongst the Body is central to Christendom’s failure to positively influence the direction of Canadian governance.  For too many, election time is like a period of “secular eclipse,” when the light of God’s Word is totally blocked and reception of the Holy Spirit’s counsel is fully scrambled.  At election time these secular-minded Christians voluntarily disregard their kingdom citizenship and responsibilities, preferring to recognize only their worldly residency and to consider only temporal interests.  The notion that God might have a specific will for our national governance is seen in this darkness to be lunacy, an affront to social pluralism, a breach of the dogma of separation of church and state, a blow to constitutional democracy, an expression of “dangerous” religious fundamentalism, faith taken too far, a threat to religious freedom, and for some a threat to secularism.  But they are wrong.  

For the lukewarm believer, Christian integrity - trying to act inaccordance with God's will in all aspects of one's life at all times, is breached.  In this mindset, notions that the Holy Spirit is single-minded in will, that the Holy Spirit does not divide God’s people with competing convictions, that Canadian Christendom can and should collectively discern the Holy Spirit’s will on particularly significant moral or theological governance issues are received with contempt.  But this outlook is rooted in DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS.  We don't allow our brothers and sisters in Christ latitude to follow their own conscience regarding their opinions about Christ's divinity or the sanctity of abortion, so why would we countenance diversity in Christian conscience on such a pivotal matter as the redefinition of the millenniums-old, God-ordained, heterosexual institution of marriage, unless of course we were in some way or other INDIFFERENT to the matter.  After the efforts of so many believers to keep marriage governance in line with the Christian worldview, it is incredibly disconcerting to find a senior evangelical cleric telling his following that he does not know how he will vote in an election which is the last democratic opportunity to stop same-sex marriage.  To avoid such a display of INDIFFERENCE, our clergy do not have to hang political party banners from their pulpits; indeed, they should not, but they do have a responsibility to adequately educate their congregation on crucial aspects of politics that effect Christendom, no matter how controversial.  

 
Christians in Election 2006, who voluntarily chose not to vote need to repent of electoral DISOBEDIENCE; some 30 percent of Canadians did not vote.  The dozens of ridings that were won by narrow margins may have had a different result; and thus, the anti-same-sex marriage effort may have had a different outcome if all Christians had expressed their will to not redefine marriage. Christians who voted for a party supporting same-sex marriage need to repent of DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS – failure to stand up for Christ in the voting booth.  Some of these people need to repent of HARD-HEARTEDNESS towards the political right.  If the same-sex marriage policy, a culture of entitlement developed over thirteen years in office and the Gomery Commission report on the so-called “Sponsorship Scandel” could not jar the believer to the political right, at least this once, what possibly could?  And the Christians who supported the political left in Election 2006 need to adequately inform themselves to recognize the UNHOLINESS of the NDP social agenda .  God will not be mocked.  

The bottom-line: 

 
We don’t get national revival because we have learned to live without it, for most Christians revival is not a serious spiritual burden.

 
We don’t get national revival because most Christians in their day-to-day lives are indifferent to the non-believer’s eternal fate.

 
We don’t get national revival because we place more merit in the politics of pluralism and global ecumenism than on evangelizing the Christian worldview.

 
We don’t get national revival because we have abandoned the state and the public square to secularism.

 
We don’t get national revival because we don’t do what God commands, we don’t please Him.

 
We don’t get national revival because Canadian Christendom is divided by false doctrines instead of united under the one true Gospel. 

 
We don’t get national revival because most Christians don’t think of themselves as God’s elect appointed to be faithful and obedient members of Canadian Christendom.

 
We don’t get national revival because most Christians view the unholy condition of the nation as the fault of non-believers and the Prince of Darkness, not the result of their own rebellion; not their responsibility. 

 
We don’t get national revival because of a mindset that sees the dismal realities of the day as part of the prophetic course of events to Judgment and as long as things don’t directly affect our churches, our families or our personal lives, we don’t care.    

 
We don’t get national revival because of our individual and collective REBELLION, HARD-HEARTEDNESS, DISOBEDIENCE, PRIDE, DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS, UNHOLINESS, PERVERSION, and INDIFFERENCE.

We don't get national revival because we fellowship with apostasy - members, congregations and agencies like The United Church of Canada, organized to promote religious liberalism.

 
We don’t get national revival because we do not acknowledge our individual and collective sins and because we will not truly repent!

 
If we keep our status quo witness, we should expect a status quo result.

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