By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors
Bill Phipps is the moderator of the United Church of Canada. In an article published in the Ottawa Citizen, Phipps revealed a total lack of belief in the crucial doctrines of Christ.
Perhaps some Christians do not realize how seriously unfaithful Mr. Phipps' statements really are. Some Christians may want to be able to refute such attacks on the Christian faith, but do not know how to counter such nonsense. I provide this article to show that Mr. Phipps is a false teacher whose belief system must not be adopted by anyone who names the Name of Christ.
"I don't believe Jesus was God, but I'm no theologian," said Mr. Phipps.
You don't have to be a very learned theologian to understand that Jesus is God. You simply have to accept the direct statements in the Bible that prove this is true.
I will provide just one example here, for the sake of brevity. Jesus said, "I and My Father are one." (John 10:30) Some inferior Bible versions render this as "I and my Father are in agreement"; this is a modernist interpretation and a sure sign of an unreliable Bible version. The NKJV (quoted), the NIV, the KJV, and the NASB all render the word as "one". The NASB's footnotes point out it meant Jesus and His Father were "a unity, one essence". The actual Greek word is the literal numeric "one". Why would the Jews want to stone Jesus for saying He and His Father agreed? (John 10:31) No, the "heresy" was in Jesus' saying that He and His Father were actually "one", a belief that Mr. Phipps and many other false teachers deny.
If you have difficulty with this belief, please see our article Who Is Jesus? which logically proves Jesus could not be anyone other than Who He said He was.
"Biblically, it's an abomination that there are any poor people in Canada at all," said Mr. Phipps.
Eliminating poverty was not one of Jesus' Biblical mandates to the church, in that He never prophesied that poverty would end in this world. Quite the contrary, Jesus said, "For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always." (John 12:8)
Having the poor among us is an unfortunate consequence of our loving Father in heaven allowing us humans to have free will. Many people use free will for evil ends, and this results in all sorts of evil, including wars and poverty. Yes, we are to give to the poor, but we are not to somehow, magically eliminate poverty. It is beyond our power as humans in this world to do so.
The "free ride" Mr. Phipps seems to be advocating has no Biblical basis. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says, "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat." Canada is not an impoverished country with no opportunity. Most of our destitute simply refuse to work for a living, whereas most of the poor in other nations work their hearts out for the meagre rewards they receive. In Canada, the poor are well provided for by our nation's social programs, as long as they spend their windfall on necessities rather than gambling, booze, and cigarettes. These sorts of false poor rob funding from the true poor who truly cannot fend for themselves, some of whom are in Canada, but most of whom are in other nations around the world.
"I have no idea if there is a hell. I don't think Jesus was that concerned about hell. He was concerned about life on earth," said Mr. Phipps.
About His disciples, Jesus prayed, "I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours." (John 17:9) Jesus wasn't much concerned about the world, but He is very concerned about those who truly believe in Him.
Jesus was also very concerned about hell, and strongly conveyed how awful it was and how desperate we should be to stay out of it. Matthew 5:29 says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell."
"Is heaven a place? I have no idea. I believe that there is a continuity of the spirit in some way, but I would be a fool to say what that is," said Mr. Phipps.
John 14:2 says, "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."
In his statement, Mr. Phipps is saying that anyone who preaches the Christian doctrine of heaven is a fool. He has called Christ a fool, because Christ certainly preached that heaven is a place. "If it were not so, I would have told you," said our Lord. Phipps has called every true Christian preacher in the world a fool!
Matthew 5:22 says, "But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire."
"We've got enough problems trying to live ethically and well here, to have any knowledge or understanding of what happens after we die," said Mr. Phipps.
It doesn't take a lot of knowledge or understanding to know what happens after we die. We can simply believe what the Bible says about it.
"And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:12-15)
"I don't believe Jesus is the only way to God," said Mr. Phipps.
John 14:6 says, "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'"
"I don't believe He [Jesus] rose from the dead as a scientific fact. I don't know whether those things happened. It's an irrelevant question," said Mr. Phipps.
The resurrection of Christ is not irrelevant, it is absolutely critical to the Christian faith. 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 says, "Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up_if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable."
"The whole concept of the nature of God is broader and wider and more mysterious and more holy than could be expressed in Jesus," said Mr. Phipps.
John 14:7 says, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." There are more verses I could use to prove this, but for the sake of brevity, I will leave this topic; I believe Mr. Phipps' bald contradiction of a plain Biblical teaching speaks for itself.
"It [South Africa's racist apartheid policy] was put in place with all the Christian rhetoric by Christian individuals who loved Jesus," said Mr. Phipps.
Here, Bill Phipps is trying to excuse his unfaithfulness by pointing out that he's not the only false Christian in the world. This is meaningless. Jesus has a warning and a plan for everyone who claims to be Christian but does not do His Father's will. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matthew 7:21-23)
The people who conspired with the State to come up with apartheid were by no means true Christians. James 2:8-9 says, "If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors."
After Bill Phipps got into hot water for his anti-Christian statements, he prepared a response that was posted on the United Church of Canada's web site. His statement included the text, "I believe that nothing I said is outside the broad mainstream of United Church belief. I believe my faith is well rooted in scripture and Christian tradition, although it is not frozen in the language of early creeds for example."
We have already proven conclusively that his beliefs are not rooted in Scripture (which I capitalize, though the United Church does not), and Christian tradition is meaningless apart from Scripture. But do his statements actually gibe with the United Church's "broad mainstream" of belief? The United Church's statement on what they believe includes these words, "Membership is not related to the specific acceptance of a catechism or creed, but to a general acceptance of the central truths presented in the gospel."
Mr. Phipps denies every central truth of the gospel, but he is still not only a member, but the "moderator", the highest office in a Presbyterian-style church government. His statement about being within the stated mainstream of the United Church is untrue. Unfortunately, theological liberalism has reduced the United Church to the level that they simply don't care.
I would exhort the true believers in the United Church of Canada to no longer allow their faith to be belittled by false teachers who are being paid handsomely from money taken (dare I say, stolen?) from the collection plate. There are real churches to attend, in which the leaders really believe the Word of God. Any church that teaches something its leaders disbelieve is a cult. Don't be a member of a cult! Don't finance something that contradicts Christ!
"He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad." (Matthew 12:30)
A Biblical Refutation of Bill Phipps' Statements is Copyright © 1997 by Compass Distributors
All Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc.), 1982