“Present spirit” provides understanding of the gospel – fallen, fallen

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Due to a certain thinness within the churches of the EKD, the officially represented “theology” is becoming increasingly clear. A senior media representative from the once Protestant churches reveals the gospel of the “Present Spirit.”

Mass exodus due to distance from the gospel?

The rapid decline in membership in the congregations of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) is not leaving its mark on the minds of many church representatives. The reasons for the massive decline in membership are varied. Be it the enforced church tax or the latent lack of communicating the gospel while simultaneously embracing left-green, basically atheistic rainbow attitudes. It is quite conceivable that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, because many (still) members of one of the EKD churches would be horrified at the idea of ​​how the collected church tax would be used.

Reasons for membership decline put into perspective

Of course, criticism against some of the colorful actions of one of these once Protestant churches is inevitable. On social media, people regularly express themselves with “greater courage” than in a one-to-one conversation or outside of anonymity in public. The formulations are correspondingly blunt. One of the (not offensive) accusations against the EKD institutions relates to following the spirit of the times.

The church panders to the current mindset and in doing so you inevitably come across rainbow mentality, queer, multi-gender and left-wing politics. The former Bavarian regional bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm recently demonstrated how heavily politically oriented the EKD already is. He is so bold and calls for regulation and control of public opinion (Info).

Supposed justification

Since the accusation of “zeitgeist orientation” cannot be credibly classified as “hate speech”, the only thing that helps is the motto “Attack is the best defense”. In this case in the form of a supposed justification. One of the Protestant Church’s senior media representatives and also a member of the “theological expert team” (Examples), Pastor Frank Muchlinsky, obviously felt compelled to take a stand on the Zeitgeist allegations.

The result is a complete revelation. This means that the pastor, who often expresses his “conception of faith” via video clips while busy nibbling snacks, has done his breadwinner a disservice (Source). The result is a complete revelation. This means that the priest, who often expresses his “conception of faith” via video clips while busy nibbling snacks, has done his breadwinner a disservice

A “Thoughtful Theology”

The Protestant pastor avoids confrontation with direct counterarguments. Instead of refuting the arguments of the zeitgeist accusations, Muchlinsky simply tries to explain “the” zeitgeist as not existing at all. Maybe this is just the creation of a fictitious accusation that you then immediately refute yourself. A popular tactic of so-called “fact checkers”. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter, because the theologian presents the light-year distance from the Gospel in detail. The accusation of wanting to pander to the zeitgeist is unfounded. For this purpose, the media man draws up a list of positions that he himself fully represents:

1. God loves every kind of family that treats each other with love.

2. You don’t have to believe in hell to go to heaven.

3. Doubting God is part of faith.

4. Jesus’ disciples were Jews, not Christians.

5. Jesus was not white.

6. God can also reveal himself in other religions.

7. God forgives and still wants sexual violence to be punished.

8. Yoga is not a sin.

9. Christianity is always political.

10. Christians are allowed to gender.

Without exception, these were statements that the pastor stood behind. This expresses his “piety” and also his “intellect”. He “thought theologically through” these statements and had “good biblical grounding.”

The approach itself is unmasked

This is probably where the fundamental error lies: “Theologically thought through”. Thought out according to what standards, what moral guidelines, what ethics? Is the standard perhaps what is contemporary, even the current spirit of the times? In any case, Muchlinsky did not use the gospel as a standard, and therefore neither did the Holy Spirit. One gets the impression that the Protestant “theologian” tried directly to place almost all statements in direct opposition to the Gospel.

The pastor emphasizes that all ten statements represent “a” spirit of the times and not “the spirit of the times”. The (individual) zeitgeist is an invention and this also suggests that it is a quasi-competitor with the Holy Spirit. It would be better to speak of a “present spirit,” since there is no “one” zeitgeist. Rather, what exists is the “spirit of the respective time”.

Everything adapts to the times

This spirit “with which we look at our traditions” changes just as “people’s knowledge, societies and laws” change.
“This also applies to our foundations of faith. This can be regretted and lamented, but it does not change the fact that it is happening, and above all: It cannot happen without the spirit of the present. It never happened without,” says Muchlinsky. This is what happened to the authors of the books in the Bible. They too were inferior to the spirit of their time. As an example, the priest cites the mandated subordination of women to men. As written in Ephesians 5:2-23. This is what it says in verses 22 and 23:
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.“

According to Muchlinsky, the contemporary spirit of the time suggested such a patriarchy. That’s why these lines were “written with full intention.” Christianity was still young and would otherwise have had no chance of being socially accepted. In the 19th century, the prevailing idea was that a family basically consisted of father, mother and their children. Anyone who today wants to subordinate women to men or “thinks rainbow families are unchristian” is still in the contemporary spirit of the 19th century. said the pastor.

The accusation of pandering to the spirit of the times is often linked to the suspicion that you want to seduce people, that you yourself have no real faith or that you are “to blame for people leaving the church.” With such allegations made, a dispute is hardly possible, says Muchlinsky. For this reason, “the zeitgeist accusation should disappear from the debate.”

The Gospel juxtaposed

Either the Protestant theologian doesn’t seem to know the statement in Revelation 14:6, or it doesn’t matter because it goes against the grain:
“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,“

The term “everlasting gospel” seems to cause a lot of irritation, because it doesn’t look at all like a “rubber word of God” that can be interpreted at will and according to the “spirit of the present”.

The points made by Muchlinsky regarding his (personal) faith can be verified or refuted fairly easily using the Bible.

to point 1:

Claim: “God loves every kind of family that treats each other lovingly.”
But it is true: God loves all people and the same God also dictated what a family looks like. A man, a woman and their children. Muchlinsky presents a statement in Ephesians 5 for the “presence of mind” patriarchy and adds a “conservative time window” of the 19th century. An argument that is completely pointless. In fact, this “patriarchal”, conservative idea of ​​family has been a “zeitgeist” from the beginning of human history (from the first fall) until the second half of the 20th century.

The first chapter of the Bible says:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28)

God formed man and then his companion, woman (Genesis 2). God established the hierarchy after the first fall, Genesis 3:16:
“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.“

Really a long time before the letter to the Ephesian church.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul not only described the absurdity of these “mixed relationships,” but also the consequences:
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” (Romans 1:26-27).

Here Muchlinsky tells exactly the opposite of what is written in the Bible.

to point 2:

Claim: “You don’t have to believe in hell to go to heaven.”
Not believing in hell is actually the right path. This “one” hell, i.e. the place of eternal torment, only exists in the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church and the convinced offshoots within the returned daughters of the once Protestant churches. The word “hell” may well be justified, after all you have to give “the thing” a name, but what this hell actually looks like can be clearly described using the Bible. There is no eternal place of torment – here.

Taking on His character by looking at Jesus Christ is a “golden rule.” What you constantly look at and emulate, you will one day become yourself. What kind of God would that be who tormented the lost for eternity? The very idea of ​​constantly torturing a victim, just keeping them alive with temporary medical treatment, blood transfusions and resuscitation in order to be able to continue torturing them, makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. But all people make God exactly such a tormenting torturer when they trust him to endure such a hell.

The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church looked to such a “God” of their imagination. And some of the pyres in Central Europe burned so fiercely that one could assume that people in Sicily were looking at what were supposed to be the Northern Lights. The current developments on the part of the Protestant churches, especially in the USA, whose declaration about the “mission of Christ” to seize global land to build his empire, are always cause for concern. They all look at the same “God” of eternal torment in hell.

Apparently Muchlinsky also believes in an eternally tormenting hell and the “God” above it.

to point 3:

Claim: “Doubting God is part of faith”
If you take the Gospel into your hands, this statement turns out to be an oxymoron. The doubt may apply to people who do not want to choose one or the other. With one foot in the “confessional circle of Christianity” and the other foot fully engaged in the world. This may continue to work for a short while. But then the decision must be made whether to follow the calls of the Holy Spirit (if they are still at work) or to finally throw the gospel overboard.

When the Protestant pastor speaks of “faith”, it could also be the “faith” in the cat in “Alice in Wonderland”. But the Gospel speaks of THE faith, i.e. having the same faith as Jesus Christ exemplified as the light of this world. Anyone who does not stand in their faith without any doubt will one hundred percent stumble. This person may believe himself to be in faith, but then it is a faith as exemplified by the institutions of the EKD, but not as exemplified by Jesus Christ.

The Bible also knows such “piety”, as Muchlinsky himself attests, 2. Timothy 3:5:
“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.“

Regarding point 3, the Protestant pastor also tells the opposite of the gospel.

to point 4:

Claim: “Jesus’ disciples were Jews, not Christians”
Well. That was them. Jesus Christ himself was a Jew, according to the original Greek text a Judean, even from the tribe of Judah. It may be that such statements lead to discussions, but where should they lead? The “flying change” to the designation “Christian” took place in Antioch. This can be read in Acts 11:26. According to the biblical statement, the disciples did not give themselves this name, but the people around them did.

to point 5:

Claim: “Jesus was not white”
A discussion about this statement would be as superfluous as goiter. White, brown, or black. The image of Jesus that has changed over the centuries certainly does not correspond to reality. Long hair and “pink-white” skin would correspond to a Central European, but not a Semite from the Levant region. It’s actually sad that this characteristic can lead to such a waste of time and energy.

to point 6:

Claim: “God can also reveal himself in other religions“.
The God of the Bible should (actually) be known to the Protestant pastor. Which religions does he have in mind in which the same God presents himself “just differently”?
Islam? This God has no son and Jesus Christ (Islam: Isah) is only a prophet in the Koran and did not die on the cross.
Hinduism? The one “same” God and tens of thousands of other gods beside him (1st Commandment – Info)?
Buddhism? In this religion there is no God at all.
(Orthodox) Judaism? There Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah already announced in Daniel 9:27 and Isaiah 53, is completely eliminated.

The Word is the truth (John 17:17), Jesus Christ is the truth (John 16:4), and the law is the truth (Psalm 119:142). To claim that God presents himself in different religions makes liars of the Word, Jesus Christ, the law and God himself. Even an (unconscious) reversal? Good to evil and evil to good?

to point 7:

Claim: “God forgives and still wants sexual violence to be punished”
With this statement, you don’t really know what philosophy could be behind it. It actually sounds Roman Catholic. The sin may be forgiven, but the punishment must still follow. All that was missing was the concept of purgatory. Here too the Bible is unmistakably clear. Anyone who repents of their sin (what is sin? – here), confesses it to God, asks for forgiveness and refrains from sinning in the future, will be forgiven by God. This is His promise, His promise. Punishment after sin has been forgiven is completely unknown to the gospel. As usual, a Roman Catholic concept.

Anyone who does not confess their sin remains sin and for the remaining sin there is only one consequence, death. Romans 6:23:
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.“

It makes no difference what type of sin it was. That’s why you can’t really make sense of the pastor’s “theology” on this point.

to point 8:

Claim: “Yoga is not a sin.”
Stretching exercises, stretching muscles and tendons, i.e. “physical exercise” are certainly not sins. But the concept of “yoga” speaks a completely different language. Yoga is not just a physical activity, but especially a spiritual activity. The roots lie mainly in Hinduism, with parts of Buddhism. So does the philosophy behind it. Roughly speaking, the goal of yoga is to bring body, mind and soul into harmony. This is usually combined with deep relaxation, breathing exercises and meditation exercises. A concept that is also expressed in the so-called contemplative meditation, a parallel to the “spiritual exercises” of the main founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius of Loyola.

Far Eastern philosophy has no place in Christianity. The very concept of “body, mind and soul” contradicts the gospel. The Bible does not recognize a separate soul (Info). The doctrine of an immortal soul appears only once in the Gospel, as one of the lies of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

The three lies of the serpent are part of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church (Info). The mother organization to which the institutions of the EKD have devoutly returned as repentant daughters and now dutifully represent motherly theologies within the framework of ecumenism (Info).

Yoga, pantheism, New Age, etc., completely contradict the gospel. Here Muchlinsky repeatedly tells the opposite.

to point 9:

Claim: “Christianity is always political.”
No, Christianity is not political. One wonders which gospel the Protestant pastor is actually talking about. The Old and New Testaments are certainly flooded with political actions; after all, they are historical processes. Be it the great empires according to Daniel 7 (Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome), Egypt, the Assyrians or the Phoenicians. Political powers are always at play. But where in the New Testament is there even a hint that calls for political activity? Nowhere.

The ambitions of the former Protestant churches for power and influence in the state sense are not only unmistakable, but are even predicted in the Bible. The unspeakable trio of Babylon, consisting of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, will one day wield the scepter on a global level (Info Babylon). Evangelicals in the USA in particular will still play an important role here (Info). But this only lasts for a short time. This is stopped by the one who is apparently also denied by the “theologians” of the EKD, Jesus Christ.

to point 10:

Claim: “Christians are allowed to gender.”
Christians can also pronounce “lager” and “shelf” backwards if it’s fun. But what sense does “gender” make if, according to the Gospel, there are only men and women and the development of the German language produced a generic masculine and feminine (and neutral)? Languages ​​develop and change over time, yes, but is that still the case with “gender”? Rather, it is an ideological dictate of a loud minority. The majority have long been annoyed by it.

The “gender” is a label of the left-green, atheist ideology and the Protestant media man clearly feels very comfortable with it.

Fallen, fallen – get out!

Almost all of the positions that Muchlinksy had “thought through theologically” are contrary to the gospel. You have to be grateful to him for revealing such a clear positioning. His theology has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the Word of God, i.e. the Holy Scripture, the Bible.

In view of his “creed” one believes that one recognizes the philosophy of the Bahá’i religion, founded in 1844. The proximity to the theses of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky can also be seen, as can the internal teachings of those “clubs” that regularly have a Bible, a Koran and the Bhagavad Gita on their altars together.

Summary: For all “remaining believers” in one of the EKD institutions, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, it is now high time to leave them as quickly as possible. Jesus Christ’s call in Revelation to “come out of there” (get out where? Info) is clearly stated because:

Bible verses from King James Version