One simple way to differentiate Christianity from every other religion is this: In the Christian faith it is all about Christ; in human religions it is all about me, me, me. Christ is supreme in Christianity, while self is supreme in other religions.
Yet increasingly these lines are being blurred by people who claim to be Christian. They insist they are disciples of Christ, but when you get down to brass tacks, it is all about me, me, me. Their entire life is consumed with self, not with Christ. Their entire focus is on self. Everything revolves around them.
This is bad enough, but now we even have mega-preachers who have this as the very heart of their message. How many big cheese preachers like Joel Osteen offer us nothing but me, me, me. It is all about having your best life now, having a good self-image, being successful, wealthy and happy.
When you couple this me-first gospel with the spirit of the age, and what it currently is promoting, you get real bad outcomes. Take for example the various radical sexual agendas which have utterly swamped the West over the past 50 years. Pair this with a selfish man-centred gospel and you’re asking for real trouble. And that is just what we find over and over again.
Consider a major religious story making the rounds right now. Let me quote from it, and you tell me what you think about it:
To my fans and friends: Most of us reach at least one pivotal moment in our lives that better defines who we are. These last several months have been the hardest – but have also ended up being the most freeing months – of my life. To make an extremely long story short, I have come to be able to admit to myself, and to my family, that I am attracted to children…. I am never going to be able to change how I am, and no matter how healthy our relationship becomes, it’s never going to change what I know deep down: that I am attracted to children…. I know I have a long way to go. But if this honesty with myself about who I am, and who I was made by God to be, doesn’t constitute as the peace that passes all understanding, then I don’t know what does. It is like this weight I have been carrying my whole life has been lifted from me, and I have never felt such freedom. In sharing this publicly I’m taking another step into health and wholeness by accepting myself, and every part of me. It’s not only an idea for me that I’m attracted to children; It’s my life. This is me being authentic and real with myself and other people. This is a part of who I am. I hope people will hear my heart, and that I will still be loved. I’m still the same guy, with the same heart, who wants to love God and love people with everything I have. This is a part of me I have come to be able to accept, and now it is a part of me that you know as well. I trust God to help love do the rest.
Disclaimer
If the above story incensed you, you should be incensed. But it is not entirely accurate. The above story is completely true except for one small component. The person who said these very words said it about being attracted to other men, not to children. So does this change anything? Are you still incensed? Or does the fact that homosexuality is being discussed here make you much more sympathetic to the guy?
The person in question is Trey Pearson, a Christian rocker. His story is even being told – and celebrated – in various secular American newspapers. One begins this way:
As Trey Pearson toured all 50 states as a Christian rock star, he shared some of his truth – his faith in the Gospel – but not all of it. Pearson never told anyone – his fans, his conservative Christian family, his wife – that he was gay. Until now. “I never wanted to be gay. I was scared of what God would think and what all of these people I loved would think about me,” the 35-year-old singer wrote in a letter to his fans that was first published by Religion News Service on Tuesday… As the lead singer for the Christian rock group Everyday Sunday, Pearson is taking a risk by coming out. The band that he started has released several successful albums, including 2009’s “Best Night of Our Lives,” which not only did well on the Christian charts but also broke onto the Billboard Top 200.
And what I quoted above are the very words of Trey, except I changed the bit about his attraction to other men to an attraction for children. No, I am not saying that homosexuality and paedophilia are identical. What I am saying is that we are told that in both cases this is something you are born with, it is not a choice, and you must just accept it and embrace it. Yes they are saying this about paedophilia as well.
In both versions of the story I offer above, one key point stands out: this is all about self. Trey is saying look at me, at me, at me. It is all about him. There is nothing here in his letter to his fans about the liberating Christ, the clear teachings of Scripture, a holy God, and why Christ came: to set people free and transform their lives.
All that is completely absent here. Instead it is entirely focused on Trey. And he assures us that he absolutely cannot change and this is who he is. No, what he really is saying is he does not want to change. Sure, he may have tried to change, and he may have paid lip service to the gospel, but the moment you insist that you cannot change and you must remain in a condition which Scripture everywhere declares to be sinful, then you are shaking your fist at God.
You are saying God is wrong, the Bible is full of errors, and I, Trey, am totally right here. He has taken his own fallible and finite personal experience and feelings and elevated them above everything else, including Christ and the Word of God. This is a very dangerous place to be in.
While plenty of clueless, gullible and biblically illiterate believers will fall for this, everything about his letter is wrong – and from the pit of hell: God made me this way; this is who I am; I cannot change, etc. No God did not make you that way; no that is not who you are; and yes you can change.
But as I said, we live in an age in which it is all about me. And we live in an age which has bought holus bolus the entire diabolical deception of the homosexual agenda. So guys like Trey have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Of course he is not alone in this – not by any means.
The gospel of self has enslaved millions. And the dead end and high risk homosexual lifestyle has seduced many. As to Christian singers, celebrities and personalities, there have been a whole bunch of these folks who have caved in and bought the ‘I am homosexual and cannot change’ lie. And they have publicly championed this rebellion. See here for more of these folks: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/08/17/a-great-way-to-destroy-the-faith-of-millions/
As for Trey, we can and should pray for him. We should pray that he returns to truth, to Scripture, to God. We should pray that he realises this basic truth: our identity is not and never will be in our sexual attractions and feelings. Our identity is who we are as image bearers of God, and if we are believers, our complete identity is Christ, and Christ alone.
What he has done certainly should not be endorsed or praised or celebrated. His false testimony which tells us that God in fact is NOT in the change business will simply harm countless others who will be led to believe that homosexuality is innate, set in concrete, and unalterable. They will be abandoned to hell on earth and hell in the next life if they buy that lie.
The many who have left the homosexual lifestyle know that this is indeed a cruel lie. And anyone who believes the Word of God and not the counsel of despair of mere men knows this is a lie as well.
21 Replies to “It’s All About Me: Another Christian Celeb Bites the Dust”
A Dangerous stronghold.
That the fallible mind of man knows more than infallible mind of God.
True Bill, just more of Satan’s lies again. If you claim to be a Christian then we must be striving to live Christ Centred lives and if we are doing this then that entirely removes ME, Me and Me again from our lives. As Christians our Religion becomes a way of Life with Christ and his examples at the Centre and there is no room for selfishness and self-centredness, and desires for Self are replaced by the desire for our Wills to be swallowed by God and Christ’s Will and our desires and purposes to be one with God and Christ.
Leigh D Stebbins
“And he assures us that he absolutely cannot change and this is who he is”.
Is this indicative of the level of teaching in the Church today? Our responsibility is to repent of our sin, for a long as and as often as necessary, God will bring about the change within us.
And it keeps getting worse, as impenitent apostasy always does:
Indeed, the major missing piece is that we see ourselves as OK. At the heart of who we are, we think our feelings are reliable. But Jeremiah was right:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
– Jeremiah 17:9
Desperately sick. So, standing in front of God and demanding the infinite, perfect and holy Creator of the Universe bow to your temporal and corrupted desires is the height of arrogance. The correct response to God is to worship Him, not yourself. Trey is breaking the first, fifth and seventh of the Ten Commandments; I can’t believe his wife is supportive, this will negatively impact their children too.
“Oh Hi Dad, who’s your new boyfriend? Mum’s in the kitchen…”
How is it possible for a guy to see his union with his wife create two children he claims he loves, yet he wants to walk away from that to a relationship that cannot create life?
It’s the height of selfishness and rebellion; no Christian should be supporting this. This cartoon from Adam Ford sums up Trey Pearson: http://adam4d.com/heart/
I believe I remember a video-clip on-line somewhere with Larry Norman [who was allegedly no angel himself] saying that you can hit Number One on the Contemporary Christian music charts and totally miss the heart… When one believes in “me” instead of Almighty God, surely one is on dangerous ground – even verging on insanity…
So abominably tragic. It may be paedophilia for him next, anyway. ‘professing themselves to be wise…their foolish minds became darkened’ …and the further one descends into the spiritual realm of darkness, the more one will do to others if (s)he can; while the further one advances into the Kingdom of Light, the more one will do FOR others, if (s)he can. Saying that accepting/embracing, rather than confessing and forsaking his particular sin, is ‘what God created him to be’ is a pretty clear index, imo, of just how far he is descended into darkness…and what level of evil anyone who agrees with him in this will be automatically transported to. Dear God, bless ALL who call on Your name in truth, or who call themselves by Your name in identifying as Your followers, eyes to see and ears to hear Your voice, and grace to follow that voice and not the voice of strangers…AMEN.
And the absolutely tragic thing of course is that when they say ” I can’t change who I am” and so on, they are acknowledging Satan as their master from whose clutches they either do not want to escape or feel they can’t, because God says “though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow” if we repent of course which God says we are able to do and which he does everything to support us to do. This is a wholesale sell out to Satan – it makes me cry like nothing else.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Good to see the site up and running agin.
While I naturally endorse your remarks above, and the “me” outlook which it trenchantly criticises, I would plead for an important distinction: Christianised narcissism – and not all that Christianised, since it owes much to certain brands of secular psychology; and a deeply personal relationship with God. We see the latter in many of the Psalms, e.g.. Psa 30, 31, 40 and a host of others. We see the same very prominently in Charles Wesley’s hymns, e.g.
O Love divine, how sweet Thou art!
When shall I find my willing heart
All taken up by Thee?
I thirst, I faint, I die to prove
The greatness of redeeming love,
The love of Christ to me.
All this expresses the dictum of Martin Luther, that, “the heart of religion lies in the personal pronouns”. In some circles this emphasis is dismissed sneeringly as “individualistic pietism” (which, of course, that mindset doesn’t want). Hence I trust that in your justifiable concerns over the narcissism outlined above, we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
I don’t know Trey but I’m not going to put the boot in. I am more perplexed about why you should have changed that word. If a high profile Christian “came out” as a paedophile
(even if a celibate one) we would want to help that person.
Trey will pay a high price for his admission. I don’t imagine he thinks this will be career enhancing! But does it mean he will go to hell?
Thanks John, but one could be forgiven for wondering if you even bothered to read this article! Put the boot in? Really? Is that what defending biblical truth has now become?
And it goes without saying that such people of course need help. If you had carefully read my piece you would have seen that I said we must certainly pray for him. But no help can be given to anyone as long as they shake their fist at God, call him a liar, reject his word, and blatantly and proudly defend clearly defined sin. Until he repents and agrees with God, there is little help we can give him. Making cheap excuses for him and trying to defend him sure is not helping him.
Pay a high price? But homosexuality of course has been the flavour of the month for decades now. By turning on God and embracing the lies of Satan as he shameless claims God made him a homosexual, he cannot change, and this is who he is, he not only is going to be praised by everyone in the world, but probably most clueless Christians as well. He has gone from being a nobody to a superstar, being celebrated, honoured, praised and cheered everywhere, especially by the secular media. He has now guaranteed his career will be enhanced enormously from here on in. He even has a gig at an upcoming homosexual pride festival.
Your last question really has me scratching my head. Any biblical Christian knows exactly the answer to this – try reading 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 for starters. By spitting in God’s face he has not only endangered his own soul, but that of tens of thousands of others. How many vulnerable kids will he lead astray by his anti-biblical stance? Yet Christians want to defend this this guy?
As if he is just some poor victim who is being “honest” here. Yeah right, when someone makes excuses for known sin, rejects the clear teachings of Scripture, and calls God a liar for insisting he can radically change people, that is not honesty but defiant rebellion. There is nothing at all virtuous about such “honesty” – it comes straight out of the pits of hell. Repentance is his only hope. I have prayed for him – have you?
John B, you said:
“But does it mean he will go to hell?”
Unless he repents, yes. Just the same as we will go to hell if we don’t repent, and demonstrate the fruit of that change. .
If we don’t repent, we will continue to make decisions based on WIIFM (what’s in it for me) because our hearts are still desperately wicked.
CS Lewis said it most cogently:
At the judgement, the same sentence will be spoken: “Thy will be done.” The key question is who will say it to Whom?
If I say it to God, based on the finished work of Christ in the Cross and Resurrection, then God will graciously escort me into His heaven.
But if God says it to me, demonstrating that my will has dominated my life all through, then I am destined for hell.
Every time I fail and succumb to temptation, I wonder how my will is ever going to be submitted to God. 🙁
Yes thanks for this article Bill. This is nothing new. Look how many catholic clergy have bitten the dust in recent years. A glance at the Broken Rites site is enough to make any self respecting catholic rethink their situation and indeed many have. Forgiveness is one thing, staying in the job is another altogether. The offending priests who kept their job courtesy of the cover-up did not reach a required standard and should have been dismissed. Any other professional who fails to meet the required standard puts his practicing certificate at serious risk.
“Unless he repents, yes”.
Interesting answer to John B’s question “But does it mean he will go to hell?” John A.
On my understanding of justification I would have thought that the answer was “Not if he was born again”.
Thanks Adrian. But now you may be taking this discussion in another direction: one concerning whether a believer is eternally secure. That would have to be debated elsewhere. For our purposes here the focus should be a bit different: we should be asking about how ongoing defiant rebellion and disobedience can be squared with really being saved (or justified). Sure, it may be early days, and as I say, we must pray that he comes to his senses and resists the lies of the enemy and repents. But if he persists in this open defiance and rebellion then we can rightly ask about his salvation. Those who are truly converted will not continue in known sin and disobedience over time.
And to see how Trey keeps going further down the road of apostasy (indicating he may never have been a genuine Christian in the first place) see here:
In “The Inerrant Word” (recommended by you at https://billmuehlenberg.com/2016/05/24/review-inerrant-word-edited-john-macarthur/) we have said “…. exchanged the authority of Scripture for the authority of personal revelation and ecstatis experiences (p14)”. If you face temptation each day and your shepherd never teaches you how to deal with it; what chance have you got?
Yes quite right Adrian.
With this public letter Trey is only mustering up support from his fans. Reasoning that if he get approval for his so called unchangable life style from thousands of sympathisers, he will feel forgiven through his me, me, me theology.
The pages of Gods word are too harsh and uncompromising.
It’s much easier to get real life support from today’s culture.
Bill Heggers Bridgetown W.A.
If the above story incensed you, you should be incensed. But it is not entirely accurate. The above story is completely true except for one small component. The person who said these very words said it about being attracted to other men, not to children. So does this change anything? Are you still incensed? Or does the fact that homosexuality is being discussed here make you much more sympathetic to the guy?
A Dangerous stronghold.
That the fallible mind of man knows more than infallible mind of God.
True Bill, just more of Satan’s lies again. If you claim to be a Christian then we must be striving to live Christ Centred lives and if we are doing this then that entirely removes ME, Me and Me again from our lives. As Christians our Religion becomes a way of Life with Christ and his examples at the Centre and there is no room for selfishness and self-centredness, and desires for Self are replaced by the desire for our Wills to be swallowed by God and Christ’s Will and our desires and purposes to be one with God and Christ.
Leigh D Stebbins
“And he assures us that he absolutely cannot change and this is who he is”.
Is this indicative of the level of teaching in the Church today? Our responsibility is to repent of our sin, for a long as and as often as necessary, God will bring about the change within us.
And it keeps getting worse, as impenitent apostasy always does:
http://christiannews.net/2016/06/02/christian-rocker-who-came-out-as-gay-to-perform-at-pride-festival/
The spirit expressly says “Perilous times shall come. Men shall loves of self more than lovers of God.”
Hi Bill.
Michael Brown has now weighed in on this issue (in a good way, of course!).
Mick Koster
http://www.christianpost.com/news/gay-christian-rock-star-trey-pearsons-tragic-choice-164775/
Indeed, the major missing piece is that we see ourselves as OK. At the heart of who we are, we think our feelings are reliable. But Jeremiah was right:
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
– Jeremiah 17:9
Desperately sick. So, standing in front of God and demanding the infinite, perfect and holy Creator of the Universe bow to your temporal and corrupted desires is the height of arrogance. The correct response to God is to worship Him, not yourself. Trey is breaking the first, fifth and seventh of the Ten Commandments; I can’t believe his wife is supportive, this will negatively impact their children too.
“Oh Hi Dad, who’s your new boyfriend? Mum’s in the kitchen…”
How is it possible for a guy to see his union with his wife create two children he claims he loves, yet he wants to walk away from that to a relationship that cannot create life?
It’s the height of selfishness and rebellion; no Christian should be supporting this. This cartoon from Adam Ford sums up Trey Pearson:
http://adam4d.com/heart/
I believe I remember a video-clip on-line somewhere with Larry Norman [who was allegedly no angel himself] saying that you can hit Number One on the Contemporary Christian music charts and totally miss the heart… When one believes in “me” instead of Almighty God, surely one is on dangerous ground – even verging on insanity…
So abominably tragic. It may be paedophilia for him next, anyway. ‘professing themselves to be wise…their foolish minds became darkened’ …and the further one descends into the spiritual realm of darkness, the more one will do to others if (s)he can; while the further one advances into the Kingdom of Light, the more one will do FOR others, if (s)he can. Saying that accepting/embracing, rather than confessing and forsaking his particular sin, is ‘what God created him to be’ is a pretty clear index, imo, of just how far he is descended into darkness…and what level of evil anyone who agrees with him in this will be automatically transported to. Dear God, bless ALL who call on Your name in truth, or who call themselves by Your name in identifying as Your followers, eyes to see and ears to hear Your voice, and grace to follow that voice and not the voice of strangers…AMEN.
Then there’s this… http://www.onlinechristiansongs.com/2016/05/i-spent-30-years-in-homosexual.html
The unholy trinity: Me, Myself and I.
And the absolutely tragic thing of course is that when they say ” I can’t change who I am” and so on, they are acknowledging Satan as their master from whose clutches they either do not want to escape or feel they can’t, because God says “though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow” if we repent of course which God says we are able to do and which he does everything to support us to do. This is a wholesale sell out to Satan – it makes me cry like nothing else.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Good to see the site up and running agin.
While I naturally endorse your remarks above, and the “me” outlook which it trenchantly criticises, I would plead for an important distinction: Christianised narcissism – and not all that Christianised, since it owes much to certain brands of secular psychology; and a deeply personal relationship with God. We see the latter in many of the Psalms, e.g.. Psa 30, 31, 40 and a host of others. We see the same very prominently in Charles Wesley’s hymns, e.g.
O Love divine, how sweet Thou art!
When shall I find my willing heart
All taken up by Thee?
I thirst, I faint, I die to prove
The greatness of redeeming love,
The love of Christ to me.
All this expresses the dictum of Martin Luther, that, “the heart of religion lies in the personal pronouns”. In some circles this emphasis is dismissed sneeringly as “individualistic pietism” (which, of course, that mindset doesn’t want). Hence I trust that in your justifiable concerns over the narcissism outlined above, we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
I don’t know Trey but I’m not going to put the boot in. I am more perplexed about why you should have changed that word. If a high profile Christian “came out” as a paedophile
(even if a celibate one) we would want to help that person.
Trey will pay a high price for his admission. I don’t imagine he thinks this will be career enhancing! But does it mean he will go to hell?
Thanks John, but one could be forgiven for wondering if you even bothered to read this article! Put the boot in? Really? Is that what defending biblical truth has now become?
And it goes without saying that such people of course need help. If you had carefully read my piece you would have seen that I said we must certainly pray for him. But no help can be given to anyone as long as they shake their fist at God, call him a liar, reject his word, and blatantly and proudly defend clearly defined sin. Until he repents and agrees with God, there is little help we can give him. Making cheap excuses for him and trying to defend him sure is not helping him.
Pay a high price? But homosexuality of course has been the flavour of the month for decades now. By turning on God and embracing the lies of Satan as he shameless claims God made him a homosexual, he cannot change, and this is who he is, he not only is going to be praised by everyone in the world, but probably most clueless Christians as well. He has gone from being a nobody to a superstar, being celebrated, honoured, praised and cheered everywhere, especially by the secular media. He has now guaranteed his career will be enhanced enormously from here on in. He even has a gig at an upcoming homosexual pride festival.
Your last question really has me scratching my head. Any biblical Christian knows exactly the answer to this – try reading 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 for starters. By spitting in God’s face he has not only endangered his own soul, but that of tens of thousands of others. How many vulnerable kids will he lead astray by his anti-biblical stance? Yet Christians want to defend this this guy?
As if he is just some poor victim who is being “honest” here. Yeah right, when someone makes excuses for known sin, rejects the clear teachings of Scripture, and calls God a liar for insisting he can radically change people, that is not honesty but defiant rebellion. There is nothing at all virtuous about such “honesty” – it comes straight out of the pits of hell. Repentance is his only hope. I have prayed for him – have you?
John B, you said:
Unless he repents, yes. Just the same as we will go to hell if we don’t repent, and demonstrate the fruit of that change. .
If we don’t repent, we will continue to make decisions based on WIIFM (what’s in it for me) because our hearts are still desperately wicked.
CS Lewis said it most cogently:
At the judgement, the same sentence will be spoken: “Thy will be done.” The key question is who will say it to Whom?
If I say it to God, based on the finished work of Christ in the Cross and Resurrection, then God will graciously escort me into His heaven.
But if God says it to me, demonstrating that my will has dominated my life all through, then I am destined for hell.
Every time I fail and succumb to temptation, I wonder how my will is ever going to be submitted to God. 🙁
Yes thanks for this article Bill. This is nothing new. Look how many catholic clergy have bitten the dust in recent years. A glance at the Broken Rites site is enough to make any self respecting catholic rethink their situation and indeed many have. Forgiveness is one thing, staying in the job is another altogether. The offending priests who kept their job courtesy of the cover-up did not reach a required standard and should have been dismissed. Any other professional who fails to meet the required standard puts his practicing certificate at serious risk.
“Unless he repents, yes”.
Interesting answer to John B’s question “But does it mean he will go to hell?” John A.
On my understanding of justification I would have thought that the answer was “Not if he was born again”.
Thanks Adrian. But now you may be taking this discussion in another direction: one concerning whether a believer is eternally secure. That would have to be debated elsewhere. For our purposes here the focus should be a bit different: we should be asking about how ongoing defiant rebellion and disobedience can be squared with really being saved (or justified). Sure, it may be early days, and as I say, we must pray that he comes to his senses and resists the lies of the enemy and repents. But if he persists in this open defiance and rebellion then we can rightly ask about his salvation. Those who are truly converted will not continue in known sin and disobedience over time.
And to see how Trey keeps going further down the road of apostasy (indicating he may never have been a genuine Christian in the first place) see here:
http://christiannews.net/2016/06/07/christian-rocker-left-wife-children-after-embracing-homosexuality/
Don’t want to go in that direction Bill.
Elsewhere you lament about the lack of teaching in the church (https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/02/17/whatever-happened-to-teaching-in-the-churches/) and one of my worries is that a reason Christians don’t know how to respond when tempted to sin and so get caught up in it is that the teaching they’ve received is shallow (if existant).
In “The Inerrant Word” (recommended by you at https://billmuehlenberg.com/2016/05/24/review-inerrant-word-edited-john-macarthur/) we have said “…. exchanged the authority of Scripture for the authority of personal revelation and ecstatis experiences (p14)”. If you face temptation each day and your shepherd never teaches you how to deal with it; what chance have you got?
Yes quite right Adrian.
With this public letter Trey is only mustering up support from his fans. Reasoning that if he get approval for his so called unchangable life style from thousands of sympathisers, he will feel forgiven through his me, me, me theology.
The pages of Gods word are too harsh and uncompromising.
It’s much easier to get real life support from today’s culture.
Bill Heggers Bridgetown W.A.