Natural Christian Art by Tom Graffagnino

Essays

"The Wolves in Lamb Woolies"
(Ode to Theological Liberalism)

   "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." -(2Timothy 4: 2-4)

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    "Christianity minus intelligible doctrine is simply unintelligible doctrine minus Christianity." - Gordon Clark

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    "Theology stands today in a comic relation to its subject matter....It is the most humorous of all disciplines because it has worked so hard to disavow its distinctive task. No other discipline has devoted so much energy to doing away with its own subject matter." -Thomas Oden

"The Wolves in Lamb Woolies"
(Ode to Theological Liberalism)

Meet the hungry wolf bullies,
Smartly dressed in lamb woolies...
Watch the faithful fall into their snare.
Nasty Gnostics with moxie,
   Who condemn orthodoxy...
   False teaching they're dying to share.

Fast flesh-walking talkers,
Newborn again stalkers...
   They will never give you
    A straight answer!
They deeply enjoy
The ear-tickling ploy...
   Their Doctrine Unsound
    Is a cancer.

They're progressively chic,
   While havoc they wreak...
   Always pushing the world's
      Liberal causes.
They croon the same tune,
   From bedroom to womb...
   No matter what God sez the Laws is.

They're polite and they're nice,
   Their sweet words entice....
    Their demeanor is stylish and wily.
But their thinking's malaisey,
    Their theology? Hazy...
    And their faces?
      ...Round, yellow and smiley.

But the grin that they're grinning,
   Is a grin born of sinning....
    Unbelief with a song and a dance.
Cheap Grace is their blight...
Their Christology? Lite.
   Lost in a pearl-trampling trance.

Compromising lukewarmers,
Tradition wall-stormers...
   Their mantra?
     "God's Word's not Divine!"
So they shift and they sway,
   As the winds blow each day...
   Self-Esteem they strive to enshrine.

Nicolaitan Kaballers,
The mythology scrawlers...
   Gnostic prowlers inside the Lord's Flock.
Weed seed sowers all,
   Who have answered the call....
    To dislodge those seeking The Rock.

Their doctrine's from hell...
   Man's Fall?...Never fell.
   While the seed of discord they sow.
These Straddle-the-Fencers,
   Are effective convincers....
   Their Christology? Done from below.

They're chock full of knowledge
   From Theology College....
   Often scholars of Hebrew and Greek.
They sure know their stuff!
   But knowing stuff's not enough,
    If the heart isn't broken and meek.

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When the watchmen lie sleeping,
   False doctrine comes creeping
    Quite craftily right through the gate.
When the Word is deposed
    The Body's exposed...
Lord, we pray that it isn't too late.

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"Liberalism may stimulate the mind; it cannot sustain a church." -Alister McGrath

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"Almost every contemporary proposal to bring freedom into the church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into the world." -GK Chesterton

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    "...The apostsy of Christian ministers and priests in teaching this false gospel is a scandal of the age and inexcusable because it takes no great theological subtlty to know better." --John Senior

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    "Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." - (Revelation 2: 15, 16)