Our Response to
"Lady Fingers" &
"The Jello Church"
It is ironic that a Protestant ministry we otherwise have great respect for, and even recommend on our website, should produce such a distorted caricature of the New Covenant Church of God (NCCG), and resort to sarcasm, cynicism and mockery to win its readership. When a Christian turns to such methods he has lost before he has even started. It was for this reason that we did not bother to make a response to Holding's two essays [1] [2] and it is only because they are being used by many now as a standard critique of our beliefs that we felt it was time to put some things straight.
The Trinity
As New Covenant Christians, we do not have a problem with orthodox Christians believing in the Trinity Doctrine. Even if we believe the later Trinitarian creeds to go far beyond what the Bible actually teaches, we do not believe that a Trinitarian will be damned. Salvation is through Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) and Yah'shua the Messiah alone. We are recruiting for Him, not for an organisation or for an extra-biblical credal formula. We believe in the absolute Deity of Messiah and accept all the Christological teachings of evangelical Christianity. We believe that there is only one Elohim (God), as the Shema teaches, consisting of three Persons - Father, Son and Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). And although Holding claims we teach the Ruach was created and is therefore a 'creature', that is totally erroneous - and in that (and in some other matters) he has misinterpreted and misrepresented our teachings. We have always taught - and will always continue to teach - that the Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is eternal and uncreated, and pre-existed the Creation and all divine creative activity outside of itself.
The real beef of Tectonics and other 'orthodox' Christians is that we do not accept the Trinitarian Creeds as Scripture. And though they would vehemently deny that they are, they nevertheless treat them as such and cry 'heretic' at anyone who does not accept them. It is enough for Holding to call us 'snakes' ... or at least potential snakes. Who, I ask, is being snakey here? If the Trinitarian Creeds are not Scripture then they are not a rule of thumb for the Messianic Community (Church) - they remain the interpretations of men. They may, or may not, be true but since salvation is predicated upon accepting the infallibility of the original Bible autographs as being true, and particularly the Messiah of which they testify, then a Christian cannot be 'hereticised' because he does not accept an ex cathedra pronouncement made by Catholic councils. In this matter NCCG is both more Protestant and more faithful to the Sola Scriptura mantra of evangelicals than evangelicals themselves. And we have never historically anathematised anyone for accepting other creeds or burned them at the stake as both Catholics and Protestants have been guilty of doing when men have dared to challenge their golden calves. In this matter I have to say that I detect a spirit of hypocrisy - and no wonder Holding has to resort to unchristian behaviour to blacken our reputation and paint his own beliefs in a brighter light.
Our View of the Catholic Creeds
In his search for a straw man, Holding decides to categorise us as Montanists because we believe that the Ruach haQodesh is our Heavenly Mother and because we accept modern revelation. Another category he tries to slot us into is Mormonism. But let's begin by focusing on Montanism.
Holding has the advantage over me inasmuch as I do not know what denomination he belongs to though judging from the way he writes he is not charismatic and probably belongs to one of the older Protestant denominations (like the Lutheran or Reformed Churches) or possibly the Baptist Church. At least his belief that there was no more revelation after the last book of the Bible was written (3 John - though doubtless he would go for Revelation and try to imply that the closure on the latter indicates a closure on the whole Bible canon) seems to be his principle gripe against us. Doubtless he believes the 'Credal canon' has been closed too. At any rate, he - like others - will find it not only difficult but totally impossible to find a reference in his 'closed canon' to the coming forth of such a 'closed canon' - the Bible nowhere predicts itself in any concrete way. It simply says that Yahweh's Word cannot return to Him void. To justify closure he must make other appeals - like a good evolutionist, he ascribes to 'time' the honour of being the ultimate sifting net. Time, he claims, has weeded out the non-inspired books - not a single direct Word from Yahweh on the matter, but the consensus of believers of many stripes over a very long period of time. This must mean that time determines truth in some way, or at any rate what Yahweh permits as His Word. Needless to say, no book of the Bible indicates a methodology for canonisation or even if canonisation should be undertaken. So long as living prophets and apostles were alive, there was never a need for a canon, the subsequent coming into existence of a canon demonstrating both that such ministries were dead and that they were dead because of apostacy. In the days when the prophetic ministry was alive, and the temple was standing, whatever was collected and stored in the way of scripture in the temple was de facto and de jure 'canon', because the true prophets said so. Thus it was in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi that some systematic form of Old Testament canon began to be assembled, though it was not completed by them but by the 'Great Synagogue' in the inter-testamental period. But by then canonisation had become the province of scholars and not of prophets. Our new Testament 'canon' was assembled in similar circumstances in a post-apostolic and post-prophetic dark age..
As Holding knows, though, New Covenant Christians restrict themselves to the same canon of Scripture as He does but not because they accept the authority of historic conclaves of Talmudic or Catholic ecclesiastics. We do so because it is vitally important that all born-again Christians have common ground. It is, if you like, the common denominator of our belief. There can be no proper measure of unity unless we have a similar starting point. For New Covenant Christians, that commonality is the Protestant Canon and the Apostles' Creed. The latter, though not scripture, does confirm that we are committed to the earliest historic - and therefore 'mainstream' -
belief of all Christians, which includes such distintives as accepting the Deity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the physical resurrection, and the Universal Body of Christ. These alone create an enormous chasm between us and groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and others who reject some or most of these fundamentals. And they are properly considered as fundamentals because every single one of them can be unambiguously verified in the Protestant Canon. Scripture validates them. On the basis of the Apostles' Creed we separate ourselves, at a stroke, from what most orthodox Christians would consider to be 'heretics', including many Messianics and Sacred-Name observers who may reject, for example, the Deity of Messiah. And we have no hesitation in placing ourselves in the 'orthodox' camp. Given a choice between a Torah-observing Messianic group that rejects the deity of Christ and an antinomian Trinitarian evangelical denomination that asserts that He is Elohim, we would choose the evangelical without hesitating. However, in saying this, New Covenant Christians are not giving orthodox Christians carte blanche any more than we are to the Catholic Creeds that they have bound themselves to and which they have used historically to persecute and even murder those who refused to accept them as either authoritative or binding.
The Montanist Red-Herring
The Montanists were a second century sect led by a charismatic called Montanus. I use the word 'charismatic' deliberately because many rightly compare them to Pentecostals. And if there is one thing NCCG is not it is 'pentecostal'. A careful study of New Covenant Christian teachings demonstrates that we repudiate most of their tongue-speaking, their claims that you are not baptised in the Ruach (Spirit) until you speak in tongues, and their claims to the prophetic gift. And whilst we accept the gift of prophecy, we have always spoken strongly against Pentecostal-type prophecy which we have either claimed to be soulish or demonic. So in what way are we similar to the Montanists, as Holding insists? The resemblance is superficial - Holding wants to compare us with them because the Montanists believed that the Ruach was female and they believed in the prophetic gift of revelation. But by the same logic we could classify Baptists and Pentecostals as 'Mormon' or 'Jehovah's Witness' because all of them practice baptism by full immersion. Holding's painting us with a broad Montanist brush is not honest.
What did the Montanists believe in which New Covenant Christians don't? An awful lot. In fact there about as much like us as we are to Pentecostals. Montanus' two principal women helpers (Priscilla and Maximilla) claimed to be embodiments of the Ruach to such a degree that they claimed to be the very Paraclete of John 14:16 - in effect, they claimed to be the incarnation of the Ruach (Spirit) in the same or similar way that Yah'shua (Jesus) was the incarnation of the Elohim (God)! The effect of not only this but also of their teaching of contemporary revelation split the early Church much as the rise of Pentecostalism has split evangelicals today. Both the Montanists and contemporary charismatics have gone to excesses - in many cases it can be shown that they have rejected fundamentals of the Apostles' Creed. Holding's writings reflect the uneasy alliance, or perhaps 'tolerance', that Baptists and Pentecostals have of one another because of their shared creeds even if they disdain some of their respective doctrines and practices. Finding a group like ours to vent that pent-up frustration which ecclesiatical correctness prevents them from unloading on each other must be relief for Holding but it's bad analytical technique. At least they can unite as unhappy allies against a 'common enemy' who would dare challenge the all-male complexion of the Catholic Trinity.
The thought of modern revelation terrifies the 'Bible-only' mindset of non-charismatics. At least the charismatics accept that Yahweh still speaks. And in truth we are very little different from them in one respect - we do accept modern-day 'words' from Yahweh but the only difference (aside from whether it is actually inspired or not) is that we dare write it down in scriptural format and claim it as secondary canon. The Pentecostals and other charismatics may not go that far but they do actually write their 'words' down and sometimes publish them in essay format and, if the truth be known, most of them actually do treat them as a form of secondary scripture even though they would not dare call it that. Such is how New Covenant Christians view their collection of revelations called the Olive Branch. But for the non-charismatic orthodox Christians to admit to this possibility would be to shatter their fragile alliance - they would then have to come out against Pentecostals and other charismatics and call them 'cults' too.
The Female Gender of the Ruach
The first of Holding's articles [1] is an all-out attack on the female gender of the Ruach haQodesh. Ironically, he quotes Messianic James Trimm who says:
"...English has three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter (i.e. he, she and it). Hebrew and Aramaic have no neuter gender. In Hebrew and Aramaic everything is either a "he" or a "she" and nothing is an "it". Also gender plays a much more important role in Hebrew and in Aramaic than in English. In English gender is usually only an issue when dealing with pronouns. But in Hebrew and Aramaic nouns and verbs are also maculine or feminine. And while there are no true adjectives in Hebrew (nouns are also used as adjectives), noun modifiers must agree in gender with the noun. Now the Hebrew word RUACH (Aramaic RUCHA) is gramatically feminine as is the phrase Ruach haKodesh. This is matched by the rôle of the Ruach haKodesh as "comforter" (Jn.14-16) and the identifier of the "comforter" with YHWH acting as a "mother" (Is.66:13)".
All of this is perfectly true, of course. These are the plain facts of the Hebrew language. But then Holding goes on to quote what he thinks is 'me' and proceeds to debunk it - but it's actually more of Aramaic scholar James Trimm's own words:
"...it is very clear that the gender of the RUACH has been revised in many passages of the Aramaic to agree with the Hellenistic concept of the Holy Spirit as being either a he" or an "it". Thus the pronouns used for the Ruach haKodesh in Jn.14-16 in the Peshitta are all masculine. However, the hand of revision is very clear. For example while both the Peshitta and Old Syriac have "he" in Jn.16:8 the Old Syriac has "she" just a few verses further down in 16:13 while the Peshitta has "he". Moreover there are many passages in which the Peshitta itself pairs the Ruach haKodesh with feminine verbs and/or feminine modifiers".
He accuses us (in fact, Trimm, whom he has used to support himself earlier) of a 'conspiracy' because he thinks these are our own words and not Trimm's! However, that is a small aside - what's important is to point out how easy it is to get a person in your gunsights and lose objectivity. This is, after all, supposed to be a discussion of principles and theology.
Holding makes the debate a question of sexuality verses grammar. We certainly don't debate the grammatical truth. There is, however, an inbuilt fear of sexuality in most orthodox Christians that stems from the Augustinian theology that shaped Roman Catholicism which came to imply that it was inferior or 'dirty' in some way. A good many Protestants have picked up the bug whilst paying lip-service to its blessedness in marriage. Having demonised sex, Catholics transferred their need for an intimate female figure to the virgin Mary whom they virtually elevated to godhood. Pressure is now afoot to make her a Co-Redemptrix with Christ. Protestants, having no Mary figure, have simply shelved the matter and accepted an all-male spiritual universe. The New Covenant Christian case has never, in any case, rested, as Holding intimates, on 'sexual organs'. Indeed, if he had bothered to make a proper and exstensive study of our writings, he would have known that for the most part New Covenant Christians, too, are mostly interested in offices, functions and spiritual positioning.
The best Holding can do to debunk the Ruach as being the personification of Wisdom is to point out that such things as the "spirit of fear" and the "spirit of bondage" aren't actual persons. Well, quite apart from the fact that Deity could never be represented in negative terms such as these anyway, Holding forgets that if he takes his thinking to its logical conclusion, he must ultimately deny the personhood of the Spirit and become a Jehovah's Witness or someone else who just views the Ruach as simply an 'impersonal force' or 'divine electricity' (of whatever grammatical gender). What, then, would be the 'spirit of Christ' or the 'spirit of God'? An impersonal atmosphere or presence? What of the 'spirit of man'? He is playing with words here - this is semantic fencing. Obviously if the Holy Spirit is a person then She (or He, or whatever you believe) must have certain 'spirits' too like compassion, wisdom, love, etc..
I am a spirit inside a body (unless you are a soul-sleeper like the Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and some Messianics) and I carry with me different 'spirits', moods, atmospheres or dispositions. I can have the "spirit of wisdom and revelation" (Eph.1:17) - I can both have this 'atmosphere' as well as the third member of the Godhead - The Spirit - who gives me these 'spirits'. A spirit can have a 'spirit' just as the Spirit can have a 'spirit' whether it be of truth, wisdom or whatever. And yes, Yah'shua (Jesus) can, and does too. The whole Godhead is echad or one, so naturally these spirits would apply to the Father and the Son as well. We are not as ignorant as he thinks.
It is bad enough that the Scriptures could be speaking of a female Holy Spirit (because that trashes part of the Trinity doctrine - it upset another critic of ours - a Baptist - so badly that he spilled far more snaky venom on me than Holding ever did) but to suggest that there are seven just upsets Trinitarian mathematics. Not that it should because NCCG believes they are echad or one, so we can still speak of Three Persons in the Godhead. It's just that the Third has seven parts, aspects or persons too.
The Nature of Revelation
Holding is very anxious that all revelation conform to Deuteronomy 18's criteria and be tested. He declares that unless a revelation fits these criteria there is no way of knowing whether "a psychiatric condition in need of medication" is what one is dealing with. He then proceeds to quote experiences I have had with Yahweh and pretty much ascribes them to a pathological condition. But how will he measure or test Paul's Damascus Road experience? He saw a light and heard a voice. Other witnesses heard a sound but saw no light (Ac.9). I am sure there are plenty of atheists who would happily claim that Paul was in need of medication.
My statement: "Revelation is never complete. It is geared to our capacity and concern. And it always promises more than it gives" gives Holding much concern. He asks for Deuteronomy 18-testable revelations. If he had spent time studying our website, he'd have found plenty. They're being fulfilled all the time. Things spoken in Yah'shua's Name subsequently happen, not just a few times, but hundreds of times. Many of them are recorded. But the problem is not that revelation and prophecy are being fulfilled but that Holding's 'tradition of his denominational elders' doesn't believe in any more revelation after the Bible canon was shut, so ipso facto, according to him, they must be false, so he must do his level best to falsify them. Same problem the Jehovah's Witnesses have - they don't even accept that the Ruach can move people in tangible, concrete ways - have an 'experience' and they'll cry wolf. Seems Holding and the Witnesses have some things in common.
It is perfectly true that revelation is "never complete". Even a well known Protestant hymn testifies: 'The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from His Word'. Admittedly, the 'Word' is only the Bible to close-canoned and the
close-minded though remember Yahweh nowhere so much as hints that there will be a collection of books called a 'Bible' in the Bible itself. He just hasn't limited Himself to a book. Indeed, Paul tells us that we need all the gifts and offices until we come to the fullness:
"It was He (Yah'shua) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare Elohim's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of Elohim and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Messiah" (Eph.4:10-13, NIV).
Well, has Holding attained to the "whole measure of the fullness of Messiah"? Have Baptists and Pentecostals all "reached a unity in the faith"? If not, guess what? They still need apostles and prophets, the very folks who decide was canon is. To put that into Grade 1 English, they still need the prophetic gift - i..e. Prophecy - and the apostolic anointing, i.e. the anonting that equipped Peter, John and Paul for their ministry ... which included receiving prophecy, seeing visions and - yes - writing scripture. It's really quite obvious unless you're wearing a pair of blinkers which, given enough time (four centuries) must prove it's right since a lot of Protestants are agreed on it and have canonised their convictions.
Are We Anti-Semites?
One of the most effective barriers to free discussion these days is to slap a label on someone and accuse them of being 'politically incorrect' or the purveyor of 'hate-crimes'. We saw how Holding was willing to label us as Montanist but he is even more willing to imply we are anti-semite too.
He's also got the wrong end of the stick as to what we believe about race and salvation and would like to lump us with British Israelites, even though we have publically repudiated and opposed their teachings. The bottom line of our teaching is that everyone who accepts Yah'shua as Lord and Saviour is either a direct descendant of Israel and becomes an Israelite by spiritual birth, or he is not a direct descendant of Israel and becomes an Israelite by spiritual birth anyway. In the case of the latter, an adoption takes place. In the former, an estranged and cut-off Israelite is brought back home and is restored like a prodigal son.
Whether Holding is a Zionist or not I don't know. We aren't. We don't believe there are 'two Israels' but one, and that the only 'Israel' is the one that accepts Yah'shua as Lord and Saviour. All other 'Israels' are just counterfeits. That may upset some Jews (and not a few Christian Zionists) who believe their republic in the Middle East is the restoration of biblical Israel, but that is my personal belief - and the belief of NCCG - and I have the right to believe that. If Israelis want to call themselves 'Israel' that's up to them - I am not going to persecute them or endorse Muslim terrorists who hate them. In the same way, if the Greeks want to protest that the neighbouring land of Macedonia has no right to use that name because they have a province of the same name - and were Luxemburgers to protest against Belgium having a province called 'Luxembourg' - that's up to them. The fact that only the Greeks are upset with the Macedonians and in their pettiness call their country, 'The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macdeonia' (FYRM), is of no interest to me or to the rest of the world.
The only reason the anti-semitic label is thrown around indiscriminately against not only genuine, murderous hatred of Jews but also perfectly legitimate criticism is because they have the influence, backed up by money and power, to do so. It's good to stand up to murderous intent but not to smother criticism. That may make some cringe and bow the knee, and others may fall for the hype, but it does not stir us. We aren't 'anti' anyone - we love the Jews as much as the Arabs but just don't buy into the myth that they are all the legitimate descendants of Abraham or have an automatic right to the land of Palestine. They may believe that they are, and some non-Jews like Christian Zionists may believe that too, and that's their right. But we won't have anyone's beliefs forced down our throats, no matter how much political clout they may have. The Anti-Defamation League (ADF) may be powerful and we may be small but we won't be muzzled or threatened into retracting a negative opinion about some of their practices, beliefs and claims. And that goes for radical Islam too, or anyone else.
For some reason Holding is upset that I don't give Jewish claims carte blanche so he is more than prepared to associate us with white supremacist racists who hate Jews. Well we aren't white supremacists and we don't hate Jews. We believe that the seed of Abraham is in all nations and in all so-called 'races' (the truth is there is only the race of Adam). Simply because we believe that there is a strong concentration of the blood of Israel in Northern Europe doesn't make us racists. We don't discriminate against people anyway. It is enough for us that a soul has been born again - then we'll embrace him and call him an Israelite whether he's descended from Jacob or not, whether he has black skin or white. Whether he's 'original vine' or 'wild vine' is immaterial because he is, by New Testament definitions, a child of Abraham. He is my brother.
And for Holding's information, I am not as ignorant as he supposes regarding history. I don't know where he got his idea from that I had said that all African countries were colonies of Britain except Ethiopia - I should like to see that reference. The fact is, I am the author of an historical atlas of Europe and Africa called, An Historical Atlas of Modern Europe and Africa: 1871-1978, and probably know my African history far better than Holding. I would never say something so preposterous. What I'd like to know is what the missing words said:
"To say that Ethiopia was the 'only African nation never to be colonised by ... Britain'"
And even if I had made such a blunder (and who doesn't make blunders from time to time), is that enough to invalidate a whole theology or ministry?
So one more straw man downed. If he wants to go for an anti-semitic throat, I suggest he begins with the Great Reformer, Martin Luther himself. He knows what I mean I am sure.
'Mainstream' Christianity
I have always wondered what that is. It seems some Protestants use 'mainstream' in much the same way as Mormons wield their 'one and only true church' club - and the Jehovah's witnesses their 'true organisation' - they even have the gall to call themselves 'the truth'. 'Mainstream' is a word that's convenient if you're in the numerical majority but majority doesn't necessarily mean right. Communists were, after all, 'mainstream' in Eastern Europe for nearly 50 years. Seems they're a minority now. The Anglican Church used to be the 'mainstream' branch of Christianity in England until a flood of East European Catholic immgrants in the 21st century from countries like Poland and the Czech Republic suddenly made the Church of England a minority. Things change.
Likewise, the 'mainstream' in the first century during and after the apostles was unquestionably 'Messianic' - there weren't any Protestants about then. If Paul and his colleagues had been antinomian as the Protestants claim, the Jews would have rejected their teachings on a far broader front than the Talmudists ever did.
The Sacred Greek Cow
Holding does not like the idea of Hebraic primacy for the New Testament and has plenty of opponents to draw comfort from. But I don't think he's abreast of modern scholarship, or if he is, dismisses it because of either the 'majority' or 'time' factors (they just haven't been around long enough). He needs to read James Trimm's superb introduction to his Hebraic Roots Version of the Bible - that alone is worth purchasing the version for (pp.vii-lx). Like ourselves and evangelicals, Trimm is an unwaivering advocate of the inerrancy of the original autographs of Scripture. The problem is, we don't have the originals any more. And there are important differences between Hebraic and Greek versions. I can only recommend that Holding gets a copy of the HRV. Failing that, he can read the introduction online at:
www.isr-messianic.org/downloads/hov_intro.pdf
- it's definitely worth the read.
Unlike some Messianics, New Covenant Christians do not regard the Hebrew language as 'sacred' because language evolves. It is most unlikely that the language Adam spoke was the same as Malachi did. Nevertheless, it is more accurate than Greek. At least its Semitic (shhh - we're pro-semitic).
Pre-Existence
Holding claims that pre-existence can't be gleaned from any Bible text and only emerged as a later doctrine viâ Hellenistic corruption. That sounds very scholarly but Jeremiah 1:5 really silences that claim. If you follow traditional Baptist practice and read the passage literally, it can only mean that Jeremiah was known in a one-to-one relationship before he was formed in the womb of his mother and set-apart or made holy before he was born - in other words, Yahweh didn't ordain a mass of embryonic cells but a real person. If he wasn't then as one NCCG member remarked, Jeremiah must have been a member of the Godhead!
Jeremiah was known (yada) by Yahweh - he was recognised, comprehended, as one object to another. He
was not, as the Protestant and other apologists would have it, a mere 'thought' - you can't have a relationship with your own thought. Jeremiah had personhood before he was conceived.
Mormons may well - and do - use Jeremiah 1:5 as a proof-text for pre-existence. Good for them. Baptists and Pentecostals used the same biblical prooftexts for water baptism by immersion. Good for them too. Even heretics get some things right.
Sanctification
Holding's last quibble is over our teachings on sanctification. This is admittedly a large subject and one we can't do justice in a couple of paragraphs. But in a nutshell, sanctification (Heb. qodesh) is to be seen in two aspects. The first, is 'set-apartness' or the more familiar 'holiness' which depicts a positioning of man relative to the world and to Elohim. Another way of describing it would be 'dedicated' or 'consecrated'. It's an action like being 'born again'. But qodesh is more than that: it is also a condition or a process which is derived from the other aspect of qodesh which means 'brightness'. This is brought out more forcefully in the New Testament where it is viewed as an inner transformation that takes place gradually, leading to a state of purity, moral rectitude, and attitudes expressing themselves in an outward life of goodness and godliness. As the soul becomes progressively purified, so it takes on a greater spiritual brightness. It becomes a spiritual light.
Holding sees the two aspects as a contradiction but then there are many theologies of sanctification in the Protestant churches. Most seem to think it is something instantly conferred when a soul believes or is born again. That's half true. There is a setting apart at the new birth - a separation of the holy from the profane - and there is an instantaneous lighting up inside the heart that takes place too, but this must percolate through the whole being. It must be sustained and expanded, and allowed to leaven the whole soul. And the vessel for that spreading is obedience to the Torah, the spontaneous response to the initial saving act as the heart swings ever wider, admitting Yah'shua to more and more of the soul. Sin issues still have to be resolved, and as they are, so the inner lighting up increases as the Kingdom manifests more strongly within.
Conclusion
So I do wonder what snakes Holding believes we already have, or soon will have. He certainly has a few lawless ones of his own. Evangelical Protestantism gets believers off to a good start and we want to cheer it on. But half way through the race it starts hamstringing its runners and telling them not to be obedient to the rules of the track - the springboard that started the racers is enough, they say. The new birth is good and essential. But unless you change gear from milk to meat, you'll never finish the race. Holding wants to stay with his milk-bottle. That's his choice. As for us, we intend to go on to maturity.
References
[1] Tectonics, Lady Fingers at http://www.tektonics.org/qt/shespirit.html
[2] Tectonics, The Jello Church at http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nccg01.html
Postscript
Holding was obviously upset by the reply given above and posted a detailed reply. Observing that he is too proud to ever admit that he has misquoted us, correct himself, or give us the benefit of the doubt where he was unsure, made me realise that an honest debate with him was never going to be possible and that he is, sadily, a divisive, not a constructive, critic. So I have decided to leave what I have said stand and let Yahweh and the honest critic be the judge. May Yahweh bless him to be more truthful in future.
