All posts by Darrell

Sermons

Non-Charismatic Divine “Leadings” Redux

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preacher

Perhaps nowhere does the phenomenon of claiming non-revelatory non-charismatic divine leadings happen more frequently then when a fundamentalist pastor stands up to preach and informs the crowd that his message tonight comes straight from God for reasons totally unbeknownst to the speaker.

Here is a quintessential exemplar

Notice how the evangelist says that God is leading him to preach a message next week but that God may change His mind sometime before next week.

If you’d like to listen to the rest of this sermon entitled “Why Isn’t Someone Yelling Rape?” (which actually includes the use of the phrase “as frustrated as a bald-headed hippy” ) you can find it here

Websites

FWOTW: donaldcantrellministries.com

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donaldcantrell Is your preaching powerless? Are your sermons stillborn? Do your rabid rants require rejuvenation?

Never fear! For only $150, you can attend the Alliteration Institute!
Their goal is “to offer timely resources that will benefit those looking to become better at “Alliterated Sermon Design” and hopefully you will quickly see that we diligently achieve this goal.”

These courses have been crafted by master alliterator Donald Cantrell himself who not only studied at Tennessee Temple University and Covington Theological Institute but also just recently received his “Doctorate in Expository Alliterated Preaching” from CFEBP.

It’s amazing that we live in an age where technology can make such resources so easily available.

Doctrine

The Rapture

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timeoutraptureIf you’ve ever heard a train whistle as you’re lying in bed late at night and the first thought through your mind was “The Rapture!”, you may have been a fundamentalist.

To be sure, a fascination with the Rapture is hardly unique to fundamentalists. If nothing else, the wildly popular Left Behind series written by two very non-fundamentalist types attests to that fact. But the fundies have especially honed the skill of using something as glorious and anticipated as Christ’s return to terrorize the living bejeebers out of people.

“When Christ comes back, what will he find you doing?” is the ever-present question. One is forced to wonder whether fundamentalists think that Christ can’t see what everyone is doing right now and will have to actually show up in the flesh to set things straight. The fact that those sinners then be made perfect and get to avoid judgment is sort of forgotten in all this.

The worst of this is the notion that when the Rapture happens there may be people who will be unsaved and die in Tribulation fire because a fundamentalists shirked his duty and didn’t witness. Our sovereign God is evidently quite hampered by such human shortcomings. And to make things worse, fundamentalists teach that once the Rapture happens there will be no more chance for repentance for anyone who has heard the gospel. This is all found in Scripture somewhere or another but it’s hard to pin down just where.

As for all the Rapture-deniers out there, it’s likely you aren’t even saved and won’t know what hit you when that great trumpet blows and your airplane crashes because your pilot has been whisked away. Enjoy!

Doctrine

Defining What “Good” is.

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goodFor those times when the “weaker brother” or “appearance of evil” aren’t the right tool to force a person to follow the fundy’s rules, there is one final tool that can be put into use to apply the needed pressure: whipping out James 4:17. (for those of you who are not fundies that passage reads “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”)

The trick here is making sure that the “him that knoweth” is always a fundy leader since he alone is qualified to define what GOOD is. The argument is made thus:

1.  Sunday School is good.
2. You have not signed up to teach Sunday School this year.
3. You are in sin until you sign up to teach a Sunday School class.

It’s clear at a glance that this method of coercion has more uses than duct tape. What other seventeen words could give someone the power to draft free labor for everything from washing the church vans to bringing popsicles to VBS?

Funny how the rest of the stuff that comes before the word “therefore” in the verse doesn’t really get brought up in these conversations. It must not be that good.