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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEB-SITE - http://www.takeheed.net |
Don’t take your cue from Steve Chalke
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In the Belfast Telegraph ‘Church News’ of
Outside of his TV interests he is the National Director
of a ‘Christian’ organisation known as ‘Oasis Trust’ that primarily
works amongst young people. In 1994 he was in Northern Ireland as the guest of Evangelical
Ministries when he spoke [daytime] in schools and in various locations
[evenings] around the Province. He also spoke at 2 Saturday ‘Youth Leaders
Survival Courses’ in Coleraine and
In the Vol.1 No.1 issue of Compass [The Quarterly Journal of Non-Religious Christianity], a magazine that was produced and edited by Gerald Coates [the hyper-charismatic founder of the Pioneer Churches and who was a co-founder of the Marches for Jesus] there is an article about Steve Chalke in which he refers to the so-called ‘Toronto Blessing’. The article said ‘Oasis Trust, it seems, was affected by this move of God relatively early. Arriving late for a prayer meeting just after Pentecost last year, Steve walked in to find all the staff lying on the floor. “I just sat down in the corner and thought – well it all seems to be under control in a strange kind of way”…Steve relates the present “refreshing” to the disciples’ experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. Anyone who in their judgement can equate the ‘Toronto Blessing’ experiences [‘animal noises, uncontrollable laughter, spiritual drunkenness’ etc] with the ‘Mount of Transfiguration’ experience [a foretaste of future ‘glorification’ - see Luke 9:31-32 & 2 Peter 1:16] is quite frankly seriously flawed in their judgment. In the same article we also read this disturbing account ‘He [Steve Chalke] did though have a unique experience after praying for God’s refreshing…I went back to my room. I had to submit a script to BBC1 by the next morning…but for weeks I’d just had no inspiration…This time though Steve sat down, picked up the pen and found himself beginning to write fluently…The whole flow of what I was going to speak about just came together…Steve was conscious of two things. First that he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Secondly that the script was perfect’. I would just like to say that if I, as someone who has been called to write on ‘things Christian’, penned something and then publicly asserted that [1] I had totally nothing to do with it in the sense that it was completely ‘authored’ by an unseen force and [2] that what I had penned was perfect, I would expect to be treated with both extreme scepticism and alarm by discerning Christians.
In the booklet ‘The Facts on Spirit Guides’ [by John Ankerberg & John Weldon] the subject of ‘Channeling’ is examined. The practice is defined on page 7 as ‘a New Age term for spirit-possession. This occurs when humans willingly give their minds and bodies to spirit beings. These spirits enter and control people and use them to give their spiritual teachings or other information’. There is then an interesting comment on page 15 in the section entitled ‘What happens during channelling?’ where we read ‘Another form is known as “automatism” where the spirit seems only to control part of the body such as the hands in automatic writing’. In his book ‘Occult ABC’ Kurt Koch, on page 200, gives this definition of ‘Automatic Writing’ as ‘In spiritist automatic writing, the medium must achieve complete inner quietness and must not concentrate on anything. Suddenly the compulsion to write comes over the medium’. These explanations of ‘automatism’ and ‘automatic writing’ bear an unsettling and uncanny similarity to Steve Chalke’s claimed ‘unique experience’ of how he wrote that BBC 1 script.
Perhaps you’re thinking that what I have just suggested is
somewhat ‘extreme’ and ‘over the top’ but I have found over the years that what
I would call the ‘shoots and buds’ of someone’s ‘heresies’ have a
tendency to develop and strengthen over time until they eventually ‘blossom
fully’. Well, in recent months I believe the scripture-contradicting views
of Steve Chalke have come into ‘full bloom’. As you may know we, as a ministry, are
shortly hosting a visit by Roger Oakland and many of Roger’s talks
will be in support of Biblical Creation as detailed in God’s inspired
Word. How does Steve Chalke view the Genesis account of creation? In the 20
August 2004 issue of the British Church Newspaper we read “Reformed
commentators have heavily criticised Steve Chalke, ‘Evangelical’ TV personality
and Director of Christian Charity ‘Oasis Trust’ for his strongly expressed
criticisms of the Biblical doctrine of penal substitution. He has now condemned
the accounts of creation in Genesis and Exodus as ‘rubbish’…Steve Chalke said
‘My personal belief is that those who wish to read into Genesis chapter 1 that
God made the world in six days are not being honest and scholarly. It won’t be
taught in the school [a new ‘Christian Academy’ to be opened by Oasis Trust]
because I think it’s rubbish. It’s a bizarre thing to claim the Bible suggests
that” [These
comments can be viewed on the website of CHRISTIAN
TODAY and the Internet link to follow to
view these comments by Steve Chalke is - http://www.christiantoday.com/templates/news_view.htm?id=66&code=soc].
I would simply ask -
Does Steve Chalke not believe the fourth commandment? – “For in six
days the Lord made heaven and earth”: Exodus 20:11.
In this quote mention was made of ‘penal
substitution’ and in a review by Andrew Sach and Mike Ovey [in
‘Evangelicals Now’ - June 2004] of Steve Chalke’s latest book ‘The
Lost Message of Jesus’ we read the following “If God is not angry and
humans are not essentially guilty, then what job remains for the cross?
Unsurprisingly, Chalke renounces a crucial biblical dimension of the atonement:
penal substitution. For Chalke this is unnecessary and offensive…But the
apostle John declares that the pouring out of God’s wrath on Jesus is the very
essence of love [“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and
sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins”: 1 John 4:10].
In ‘The
Ulster Bulwark’ [Magazine of the Evangelical Protestant Society] there is
an article on page 3 about ‘The Lost Message of Jesus’ and they quote
where Steve Chalke said about his views on ‘penal substitution’ as
expressed in his book- ‘In my view the real problem with penal
substitution – a theory rooted in violence and retributive norms of justice –
is that it is wholly incompatible, at least as currently taught and understood,
with any authentically Christian understanding of the character of God or
genuinely Christocentric world views – given for instance Jesus’ own
non-violent “do not return evil for evil” approach to life’ and he went on
to say "Hence my comment, in The Lost Message of Jesus, about
the tragedy of reducing God to a ‘cosmic child abuser’. Though the sheer
bluntness of my imagery might shock some, in truth, it is only because it is a
stark ‘unmasking’ of the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind such a
theology."
[These comments can be viewed on the website of EKKLESIA and the
Internet link to follow to view these comments by Steve Chalke is -http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news%5Fsyndication/article%5F040714cnsm.shtml].
The flaw in
this thinking is quite obvious – for God to JUSTLY punish sinners for their sin
would not be ‘evil’ so when God graciously punished His own Son on the
cross as a propitiatory substitute for His chosen people He was doing so in
order that “he might be just and the justifier of him who believeth in
Jesus” [Romans 3:26]. God’s Son is “the good shepherd who gave his
life for the sheep” [John 10:11]. Penal substitution is the ground upon
which God is able to perfectly pardon guilty, but repentant sinners and still
remain true to His own perfect standards of justice. It is clear that this
truth “is hidden” to Steve Chalke and he is “blinded”
to this truth at the heart of the “glorious gospel of Christ” [2 Corinthians
4:3-4]. Can anyone seriously doubt that Steve Chalke has “departed
from the faith” and is “giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of
devils” [1 Timothy 4:1]?
Cecil Andrews- ‘Take Heed’ Ministries – 14 October
2004