Faith: May 2006 Archives

Our church sponsors a chapter of Reformed University Fellowship at the University of Tulsa, and as a result we've had an influx of college age, young singles, and young married couples into our congregation. (RUF is the collegiate ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative evangelical denomination.)

Along with the new people, the RUF connection has brought new songs into our worship service, or, more accurately, new tunes to old hymns by writers like Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, John Newton, and Augustus Toplady.

The tunes can be found in the RUF Hymnbook. The RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource provides PDF lead sheets, guitar chord sheets, lyric-only sheets (for overhead projectors), and brief demos (usually a verse and a chorus) in MP3 format.

Kevin Twit is the composer of many of the new tunes, and the RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource is a part of his website, Indelible Grace Music. Twit has a blog on the site as well, and one of his recent entries is "Thoughts on writing a new tune for a hymn text."

This morning I was on KFAQ to talk about SB 1324, but before we got to that subject, Gwen Freeman mentioned Carlton Pearson's new TV ads, which straightforwardly proclaim his embrace of universalism -- the doctrine that all are saved from God's wrath, whether or not they repent and believe in Jesus Christ. In that context, I said this:

I'm happy to say that because of [Carlton Pearson's] heresy, my son's school has a new campus. Regent Preparatory School has bought the old Higher Dimensions campus on South Memorial... So we've got a nice new big campus with some wild space, ponds, and woods, and it's going to be a great place for a school, and we owe it all to Carlton Pearson being a heretic.

It was said in a jocular tone of voice, and it provoked laughter from Gwen Freeman and Ron Howell, who was her sidekick this morning.

I got a call later from someone who had heard about the remark second-hand and was concerned that it might reflect badly on the school.

I want to make it clear here that I do not represent Regent Preparatory School in any way. My only affiliation with the school is that two of my children are students there.

For its first six years of existence, Regent has been a tenant of Central Assembly of God, which is located in the old Bates Elementary School building near 51st and Memorial. It has been a good location, but the classical Christian school has been searching for a permanent place where it can settle in and expand. At one point three years ago, Regent was poised to purchase the old Children's Medical Center facility on I-44 between 41st and Yale, but the effort was thwarted by then-City Councilor Randy Sullivan. (That area is now home to a Best Buy and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.) This new campus is an answer to many years of prayers.

I don't mean to be ungracious to Carlton Pearson, whom I met during the 2002 mayoral campaign. But Pearson turned his back on the historic Christian faith by embracing universalism. As a result, many of his church members left, and many of his fellow pastors and evangelists do not wish to give him a platform at their revival meetings and conferences for his false doctrine.

This decline in popularity, stemming from the rejection of truth and the embrace of falsehood, led to the financial decline of the church and the necessity of selling their facility near 91st and Memorial. The remnant of his church now worships Sunday afternoons at Trinity Episcopal Church.

For a minister of the gospel to turn his back on the truth and lead others astray is a grave thing, and I take no joy in it. Nevertheless, it is a happy thing that, as a consequence of one man's rejection of the truth, a school that is committed to the truth and is grounded in sound Christian doctrine now has a campus that will enable it to grow and to thrive.