Joel Hemphill’s “newest song” was on a live Hemphill project in the ’80’s and also on Candy’s first solo record. It’s an old song, but a good one!

Each and every part? I guess he missed the part about God The Father, God The Spirit, and God The Son.

If the lyrics of Hemphill’s songs are sound, there’s no reason to discard them. The revelation of his beliefs can cause you to look at them in a different light, though.

My choir was rehearsing “Jesus Built This Church On Love” this past Sunday…pure coincidence…and I glanced at the byline…hmm…Joel Hemphill. Seems like a good song to me…then I saw the line “trying to row in a different way” and I wonder what he meant by that.

Still, whatever he meant doesn’t change what I believe the song means. A songwriter, as Doug has said in his fourth paragraph, doesn’t define how the song will be taken.

On the other hand, if a singer/songwriter/preacher or whatever is making no secret of their unorthodox beliefs, writing books to further that view and then defending those views on the internet, etc., they should naturally expect Christians to denounce their views.

I don’t see how a Christian who has studied scripture and believes it to be true can just *shrug* about this notion Hemphill is laying out there.

Jesus was God. It’s not mere semantics.

Are any of you old enough to remember all the kerfuffle over Michael English’s fall from grace? Imagine how much greater the uproar would have been had he gone on the internet and said, “And furthermore, adultery isn’t a sin. That only applied in the Old Testament.”

I think some Christians delight in their own cleverness to the point that they sometimes get confused. When scripture is as clear as freshly Windexed plate glass on an issue, they’ll pat themselves on the back when they manage to pull seemingly contradictory scriptures together. Sometimes, they don’t keep those theories to themselves, and they dig a deeper hole when they try to defend their wrong opinion rather than admitting scripture is clear on the issue.

That’s what Hemphill has done in this case.

Ok, I’ve followed your advice and re-read. I still think the doctrine is not the point of the post. Doug, says specificaly he’s making two points and neither of them are defending nor excusing JH’s heresy. And yes, it’s heresy; yes I’m offended; and yes, he should be called out on it. So, please don’t be sad for me. I’m not some willing to sacrafice truth on the altar of unity. Again, the question (statement) seemed to be more of how this affects the music and our perception of it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s not necessary to expound further on the deity of the Lord Jesus. Send those posts to JH.

“How can you say there are ABSOLUTELY no ABSOLUTES”.

Hemphill will go to hell if he doesn’t accept Christ as the son of the living God.
Just because God will “USE” somebody doesn’t mean they are saved. He used Cyrus, Pharoah, Judas, and he’ll use the antichrist too. None of which are “saved” or Godly.

Please re-read what Alan has written, and what Doug has said.

Whether or not this affects his music or our continued appreciation of same, can probably be considered a moot point.

Doug has basically made this a non-issue, and many of the posters so far have agreed with him.

THIS is what is so tragic. If there is not a Trinity, and if Christ was not God manifest in the flesh, then we are all sunk. We are helpless, hopeless, unransomed, unredeemed, unsaved, unforgiven, unreconciled, and unadopted. Our eternity is as dark and foreboding as it has ever been.

And if so many who profess to be Christians actually can minimize this issue, then, as Alan wrote, the church has been so dumbed-down, it doesn’t know the difference between pure heresy and someone’s “personal theology”.

This is way more than sad. It’s scary.