Criteria For Apostasy

Father Dwight Longenecker begins a post on Apostasy and Advent with this line:

The major problem in the church today is when Christians exchange the Divine and supernatural economy of redemption for an attempt to change the world.

How would one determine such an exchange has happened?

Obviously, we see this in the world all the time. I was astounded just yesterday because I heard an Obama voter speaking about the banking industry in a way that would make you think he was a Ron Paul supporter. Clearly his vote had nothing to do with his beliefs on policy, rather it was the secular redemption found in skin pigmentation.

But this temptation reaches further into the Church, often reaching the most zealous. It is similar, I think, to the temptations of the prophets in the Old Testament. If they hadn't known the power of speaking for God, they wouldn't have been tempted to fake it.

A statement that is comforting to a people is usually the last thing they will give up.