Last Friday I went with my small-group to a friend's birthday party at a popular mexican restaurant in Brisbane.
Our friend brought "Jim" (not his real name), and I immediately sensed from the Holy Spirit "be ready, put on the full armor of God." Jim had originally been a prominant member of my immediate fellowship who had been rescued from a debauched lifestyle of witchcraft and satanism. He came into my church roughly the same season as I did and it was actually he who got me hooked on Ray Comfort's "Way of the Master", which in turn led me here to SI. However, two years ago when we were starting to climb up the ministry ladder, it became a case of the wheat among tares. I was passionate about the church experiencing revival and seeing a return to Holiness. He on the other hand, did a complete U-turn and turned to the modern gospel of humanism; his interest in Ray Comfort's teaching merely being a temporary phase of rebellion against the status quo that ended the moment others got pro-active.
I also noticed that his weblog had started to include endorsements of pre-Emergent Church literature until one day he wrote a scathing confession of total unbelief towards what constituted biblical christianity. I printed out the blog entry and discreetly approached my church leaders, after which Jim quickly left the church.
When we sat down, he said to us "I saw on Facebook that 'Ellen' is at [insert other local chur. So it'd down to you now?" Ellen was my former small-group leader who had to step-down from ministry and relocate to another church due tohealth reasons. It sounded as though he found Ellen's departure and my succession amusing. Later when the food was being served, our friend asked me to say Grace, and when I said "Amen", Jim proceeded to give his own prayer saying the opposite, thanking the earth, etc. He began speaking with about the reasons why he "escaped from Church", saying that it came to the point where he had to choose between what God was saying and what His own mind was speaking; in the end, he picked the latter on the grounds that it seemed to him more favourable and that if there was such a thing as truth, it would at least be something he would find pleasant (in direct contrast to God's call to surrender). He then began to share all these weird philosophical ideas with our non-christian friends which he boasted came from his own thinking (gnosticism!). I wanted to engage him, but I knew it would be pointless as he openly demonstrated complete contempt for Christianity (although holding onto his conversion testimony and claiming the title of "post-Christian").
It was like having dinner with 2 Peter 2 and the book of Jude personified. :-(