Trends Toward Underestimating Prophecy

Something I just posted on Facebook:

Grasping for the divine

"Grasping for the divine" (Esther O'Reilly)

Some observations about the riots

(Thanks to Jitt Teng for helping to restore this post!)

1. Will people be as outraged about 77 year old retired police captain David Dorn's death as they are about George Floyd's? Will, say, CNN cover the brutality of rioters as much as they cover police brutality? Otherwise it sounds like some black lives matter less than other black lives. (Not to mention other injuries and fatalities.)

2. Also, I guess property damage is acceptable, but not when it hits too close to home.

3. As others have noticed, it may be one thing if the rioters are the poor who have no voice, or if looters are stealing out of hunger, but many rioters appear to be from affluent backgrounds and stealing high-end goods. It's not as if they're all stealing bread because they're starving.

4. Related, many of them are taking selfies of themselves participating in the protests with their own smartphones, then immediately posting their photos or videos on places like Instagram or TikTok. I guess to show that they've done something? I guess they're virtue signaling? Some of it may even be fake. Like this woman.

5. Many rioters seem to be led by liberal whites from middle class or better socioeconomic backgrounds. This makes one wonder if liberal whites are the ones really in charge. Consider Antifa.

6. If it's really the fact that there's systemic racism against blacks by whites, then it'd make sense to think the racism is largely led by rich and powerful whites. As such, why not call for protests at places where rich and well-connected whites live, like Beverly Hills and the Hamptons? Why not destroy their property, like slaves destroying their masters' plantations (cue Django Unchained)? Why not call for the overthrow of rich and powerful politicians? Leftist politicians, professors, and Hollywood entertainers are more than willing to support the "revolution", but why couldn't they be viewed as part of the system and part of the problem too?

7. Finally, it looks like liberals regard large crowds gathered to "protest" as necessary and morally justifiable, but church services are somehow "non-essential".

Is the church on the wrong side of the Establishment?

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/analysis-can-bishops-lead-the-faithful-and-follow-the-lawmakers-69691

Suspending church services

Two related stories:

https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2020/03/11/washington-virginia-dioceses-to-close-all-churches-including-national-cathedral-over-coronavirus/

The ECUSA should have closed shop long ago and returned property to faithful Anglican congregations. 

@Trent_Horn

Suspending mass because of a pandemic shows prudence, not faithlessness. Charity demands we not unwittingly infect others and God gave us intellects to discover how to stop diseases. As the Bible says, "There is a time when success lies in the hands of physicians" (Sir. 38:13).

Would you agree sick people shouldn't go to mass? If so, then what do we with people who are sick without symptoms and don't know they are infecting and possibly causing grave harm to others?

https://twitter.com/Trent_Horn/status/1237998888386093057

i) Not what the Bible says, but OT apocrypha. Medical care during the time of Sirach wasn't notably successful. Usually did more harm then good. 

ii) I don't take the position that weekly church attendance is absolutely obligatory. This post is more about the motivation to justify church closures during an epidemic. 

iii) Life isn't risk-free. Christianity isn't risk-free. In India and the Muslim world, Christians take their life in their hands by going to church. 

iv) There is, of course, an important moral distinction between a necessary risk and a gratuitous risk. But due to the corporate nature of Christian, there's the additional principle of shared risk, shared suffering, and shared reward.

v) Refusing to attend church during an epidemic, or suspending church during an epidemic, betrays a lack of faith. I don't mean you should count on God to protect you from infection, even fatal infection. Rather, you should have the faith to attend church during an epidemic, not because it's risk-free, but because, even if you did contract a fatal inflection, you died because you were acting faithfully. That's good way to die. There's no better way to die. You were acting faithfully by continuing to fellowship with God's people, share in corporate worship and prayer. 

vi) That said, I'm fascinated by the assumption that it's safer to be outside church than insider church. Among other things, the church is a house of prayer. Isn't that the right kind of place to go during an epidemic? And to join with others there in prayer. 

Is your church just a building with religious furniture, or is God present where his people are present? Does public worship confer no blessing? Is it more dangerous to be in church during an outbreak than to absent yourself? Only go back when the coast is clear? What do we expect to find when we go to church–in ordinary times? Does church make any appreciable difference? 

vii) Where did some professing Christians ever get the idea that we're supposed to shun the sick? Think of those mission trips sponsored for church teens. They go off to some exotic location for a week or two to do mission. What if one of them develops the symptoms of a highly contagious, life-threatening illness. Should his roommates abandon him to fend for himself? Or should at least one of team risk his own life to stay behind and nurse him back to health? 

viii) To some extent I think we've developed a mentality where we contract out the dangerous or distasteful jobs to "professionals". A number of doctors and nurses are at an age where they are more susceptible the infection. Some of them aren't even Christian. Should we expect more courage from them than from Christians? 

Many modern-day Americans have never seen anyone die. In the past, that was commonplace. 

By the same token, visitation ministry can be a valid alternative. But once again, that doesn't mean we should act like we pay the clergy to do take on the hazardous activities. That's not a proper view of Christian vocation generally. 

ix) In fairness, Trent raises a valid question. Sure, if you have the flu, it would be more considerate to stay home. Likewise, Typhoid Mary shouldn't attend church. Indeed, she should be quarantined.

Yet this isn't about individual discretion, but a blanket ban. Moreover, he extends that to folks who may be sick but asymptomatic. Their illness hasn't manifested itself at that stage of the incubation process. 

But consider what an extreme and paranoid principle that is. I shouldn't attend church if I might be sick but asymptomatic, and I should avoid church because other parishioners might be sick but asymptotic. Well, who's left? That could apply to everyone?

x) In fairness, he's talking about an epidemic, where there's a greater presumption of asymptotic people with a contagious, life-threatening disease. Yet there's a paradoxical sense in which it's more important to go to church the worse things are. Where Christians can pray with each other and not simply for each other. 

What about hosting church services especially for the sick and dying. Those who are still able to come on their own or be brought? Pray over them. Sing together. Read Scripture together. That would be risky for the clergy, but so what? That goes with the territory. That would be risky those who brought them, but so what? Religion is ultimately about death and the world to come. 

Suppose we had a recurrence of the Black Plague, only this was a new, incurable strain. Suppose 80% of the population succumbs. Should they die in overcrowded hospitals or die in church? Would it not be better for plague victims to take refuge in church? What better place to spend their final hours of life? What better place to die? 

xi) There's an opportunity here for a Christian witness. The real or perceived threat of the pandemic has shaken up lots of folks who don't normally think about death. Thanks to modern medicine, we in the west haven't been exposed to pandemics for decades. That makes it a lot easier for folks to be worldly and suppress existential questions about the meaning of life, death, and the afterlife. Evangelical churches should take advantage of the crisis, and swim against the tide.

Sorry, bud, but your loss isn't my loss

Celebrity apostates are the flip side of celebrity converts. Recently there's been a spate of celebrity apostates. From what I can tell, these are fair-weather Christians who lost their faith (such as it was) when Christianity ceased to be hip and cool. As the power elite turns against Christianity, there's a natural winnowing process.

These most recent, publicized case is Rhett & Link, whom I've never heard of before. I don't have anything to say about them. I just don't care. You're just one of 7 billion people, many unreached, who never had the opportunities you squandered. 

I'm simply using it as an occasion to make a general observation: Christianity has some aspects of a team sport as well as an individual sport. The team aspect is the church. The corporate dimension of the Christian faith. The fellowship of believers. Ideally, we drawn strength from one another. Share our joys and sorrows. Pray for each other. Encourage one another. The church is meant to be a spiritual family. 

So that's true up to a point. There is, though, another sense in which Christianity is more like an individual sport. In a team sport, no particular player, even if he's the star player, wins or loses. The team wins or loses. 

That cuts both ways. On the one hand, weaker players lower the ceiling of what stronger players could achieve. On the other hand, stronger players raise the ceiling of what weaker players could achieve. If you have loads of athletic ability, there's a sense in which it takes a certain amount of humility to play a team sport because you could go farther on your own. Less able teammates slow you down. They fumble opportunities. 

In an individual sport, you win or lose on your own. When you lose, that's not a loss for the team.

I suspect many unbelievers are gleeful about celebrity apostates because they think this is demoralizing for Christians. As if the Christian team takes a hit every time a teammate walks away from the Christian faith. Especially a  high-profile figure.

But theologically speaking, that's not how it works. This isn't a competitive team sport. You cross the finish line individually or you drop out of the race individually. The "winners" and "losers" are ultimately independent of each other. 

Salvation and damnation are individual outcomes. Tragic for the individual, and sad for onlookers. The apostate will suffer as an individual. 

A passenger ship is a traditional metaphor for the church. If you jump overboard, the ship won't sink. The ship won't stop. It will keep right on going to its appointed destination. 

Publicly recanting the Christian faith can be exhilarating for celebrity apostates. Temporarily, they get lots of kudos from infidels. 

But as you're splashing around in the water, you watch the stern of the ship recede towards the horizon. You're alone. The sun is edging towards the horizon. Soon it will be night. You will splash around in the silence and darkness and isolation. 

Unbelievers can gloat all they like over celebrity apostates, but Christianity continues to sail full steam ahead. Christians aren't hostage to apostates. We each have our own pilgrimage. 

The ship doesn't wait for you and me. I must be on time or be left behind. 

Christians are there to help each other on the journey. But there's always been an attrition rate. Some travelers begin the journey as unbelievers and finish as believers. Others begin the journey as believers, then end up as unbelievers. Some travelers suffer a crisis of faith during the journey, but return to the faith. 

Go to the seaside

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (July 1927):

People complain about the dwindling congregations and how the churches are going down. Why are people ceasing to attend places of worship? Why is it, that last Sunday night I noticed that, while the places of worship in Cardiff were only sparsely attended, the trains coming from Porthcawl and other seaside places were packed out. Why did these people spend their day at the seaside and other in places rather than in the house of God worshipping? Well, the answer is perfectly plain. They obviously prefer to be at the seaside and feel that they get more benefit there than in their chapels and churches. Now it is no use our arguing with people like that, it is no use our telling them that they really do not get greater benefit there, because they honestly believe they do.

...What I feel like saying to these trippers is this: If you honestly believe (and remember it is your responsibility) that you derive greater benefit by spending your day in the country than you do by attending a place of worship, well then, go to the country. Don't come here if you honestly feel that you could do better elsewhere. Unless you feel that something is being offered and given to you here which no other institution can offer or equal, well then, in the name of Heaven, go out into the country or to the seaside. The church of Christ is a church of believers, an association of people banded together by a common belief and a common love. You don't believe? Well, above all, do not pretend that you do, go to the country and the seaside. All I ask of you is, be consistent. When someone dies in your family, do not come to ask the church in which you do not believe to come to bury him. Go to the seaside for consolation.

(Murray, Iain H. The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899-1981, pp 90-91)

Going to church

I started attending church around the age of 5. In the past 55 years I've attended a wide variety of churches. I'll just comment on the most significant or interesting examples. 

I've done hundreds of posts critiquing Roman Catholicism. However, I don't critique Catholicism entirely as an outsider observer. Although I'm not a cradle Catholic, after my evangelical conversion as a teenager I did look into Roman Catholicism. Initially, I attended Mass at Saint John Vianney, up the hill from where I lived. At the time, it rented the chapel of the defunct St. Thomas Seminary, adjacent to the defunct St. Edward Seminary. Both closed after the priesthood shortage in the 60s. It was located on a sprawling, scenic, parklike setting, with wooded trails leading down to the shores of Lake Washington. The chapel itself was elegant. However, the celebrant was a guitar-strumming hippie priest. 

I found the folk Mass so off-putting that after a few visits there I took the bus into Seattle and attended Mass at Blessed Sacrament, on the outskirts of the U. District. It had a tasteful, capacious sanctuary and decent music. In addition, the church was staffed by Dominicans, so the homilies were more intelligent. Mind you, that doesn't mean they were exegetically accurate. On one occasion the homilist talked about how wine is a living substance, and drew theological parallels. But that's completely off-base. In Scripture, sacrificial blood doesn't represent life but violent death. Shed blood.

I sometimes attended Mass downtown at St. James Cathedral. It had a large handsome sanctuary, although it was no match for European cathedrals. Music was fairly good. Sometimes had a dulcet cantor to lead the congregation in song. The homilist was Fr. Gallagher. He had a charming, avuncular demeanor. 

This was during the stormy tenure of Archbishop Hunthausen. Ironically, Donald Wuerl, who later rose through the ranks to become the disgraced Cardinal Archbishop of DC, was tasked by the Vatican to curb Hunthausen's progressive agenda. 

Of course, attending Mass isn't the only way to evaluate Catholicism. You need to study the theology and assess the arguments. At a later date I used to do research at the Seattle U. library up the hill, where, among other things, I read many volumes of Rahner's Theological Investigations. Rahner had an interesting technique of replacing traditional, but obsolete Catholic dogmas with modern substitutes. It was revealing to see Catholicism defended by throwing away the offending parts and reconstructing the remainder with newfangled parts. A backdoor admission that traditional Catholicism was indefensible.  

However, there are Catholic apologists who think you can't properly evaluate Catholicism as a detached observer. It's something you must experience, in community. Having sampled Catholicism, I was ultimately unpersuaded. For one thing, I was too Bible-centered to warm to it. 

In addition, I think Catholic piety, even among the faithful, is about professing or affirming Catholic doctrine, not from any sense of direct conviction, but from the sense that as a good Catholic, it's your duty to affirm these things. So there's that underlying disconnect. 

For several years I attended a black church down in the hood. The pastor was an extemporaneous preacher. In addition to that church, I befriended some black guys at a church up the street. We were about the same age.

It was an instructive experience, musically and socially. That's when I cultivated an interest in black Gospel music, which I still listen to, on occasion. 

I saw a lot of talent that wasn't properly fostered and focussed. I saw young kids in church who were on the way to becoming juvenile delinquents, because the adults were preoccupied with having an ecstatic worship experience. I saw one guy I got close to revert to drug addiction. 

The church I attended had a Filipino guy who became a policeman. Some of his friends disowned him because he crossed over to the enemy side!   

The same church had two sister who belonged to the Lummi tribe. Both of them natural vocalists. One of them told me a story about how a relative had been hexed. The indigenous witchcraft was still a force to be reckoned with. 

After that I attended a messianic congregation: Beth David. Saul Wallach was the pastor. As I recall, he was originally groomed for the Rabbinate before he converted to Christianity. Despite many years of Hebrew instruction, when he first went to Israel and ordered something in Hebrew, the cashier responded to him in English!

The worship service had sacred dance, to Eastern European melodies. Tasteful. Not something you see in the average Presbyterian church. 

However, the preaching had an emphasis on the modern state of Israel. The restoration of Israel. The ingathering and all that.  While that's natural for a messianic Jew, it's not something I can relate to personally. I support the state of Israel, but that's hardly central to my theological outlook. And I have no emotional attachment to the land. 

Presidential church attendance

An exchange I had on Facebook (slightly edited). 

It would be very impractical for a president to attend church. He'd instantly become the center of attention, which subverts the focus of a worship service. The pres. has a huge obtrusive security entourage, motorcade, &c. It would be extremely distracting to worshipers.

Prescinding the predictable knee-jerk reactions, nothing in Scripture requires Christians to worship in a building constructed and designated for Christian worship. I have no problem with that convention, but it's just a tradition. A Christian president can fulfill his religious duties by worshiping in a more private setting. It doesn't have to be "a church". He could have service in the White House Chapel. A chaplain could officiate. And if the White House doesn't have a chapel, some room could be used for that purpose.The original places of worship or house-churches or out of doors. Architecture isn't what makes something a worship service. 

BTW, it's an interesting question whether a Christian president should patronize the National Cathedral. That's a church building affiliated with an apostate denomination.

The passage from Hebrew sis not a general command to all Christians, but a command to mid-1C messianic Jews, perhaps in Rome, who were disassociating themselves from the Christian faith for fear of persecution. There's certainly a general principle there to be had, but it's different from the facile appeal you're making.

Actually, there are two limitations to the injunction: 

i) It has reference to messianic Jews who are on the brink of apostasy. 

ii) It has reference to Christians who forego public worship for fear of persecution.

It doesn't address other reasons.

The only implicit qualification for elders in Hebrews is people who knew Jesus or knew people who knew Jesus. That's not transferable to the 21C.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/08/church-leaders.html

"You’re confusing observations about the context of the epistle for limitations on its instructions to the believers or to its applicability today."

You suffer from a simplistic, robotic view of biblical paraenesis. On the one hand, some commands and prohibitions reflect moral absolutes. On the other hand, some commands and prohibitions address typical situations, but don't cover atypical situations. Take the sole caregiver of a senile, bedridden spouse or parent. Or a parent at the bedside of a dying child. Or the parent of an autistic child who's dangerous to himself if left unattended. Christians in situations like that don't have the same freedom of action. Moreover, there are circumstances where we have competing obligations. In case of conflict, a higher duty temporarily overrides a lower duty. If you don't wish to be a Pharisee who rigidly applies biblical injunctions without regard to necessary exceptions or priority structures.

Fear of persecution or martyrdom is not a justification to repudiate the Christian faith or disown fellow Christians to avoid risky association. There is, however, an elementary difference between acting out of cowardly self-interest and acting out of consideration for the sake of others. Motivations can be relevant to the licit or illicit character of an action. 

Church architecture

The fire at Notre Dame raises theological questions about the value of Christian art. At one end of the spectrum is the Puritan position. I disagree with that. It's a principled position, and I respect the Puritans, but it's reactionary. Nevertheless, it merits a respectful hearing. 

A sketchy Christian argument for high art might go like this: We should save the best for the best. We should reserve the best art, music, architecture, poetry, &c. for what's most important. That's a way to remind ourselves of what is truly significant. Insofar as religion is intrinsically the most important thing in life, and the thing that lends value to everything else, insofar as religion is the good that makes everything else good that is good, we should lavish some of our greatest talent on Christian expression. 

Now, I don't necessarily mean in the narrow sense of worship or God directly. The principle includes that, but is broader. Insofar as religion consecrates life in general, we are warranted in lavishing some of our best our talent on other things as well. Take a Christian filmmaker whose movies reflect a Christian worldview. They aren't generally set in church, although there might be scenes of worship. He can bring a Christian touch to everyday life. As a rule, we experience God through the medium of what he has made. 

But to treat everything alike flattens and trivializes what is most important. Many things are ephemeral or inconsequential. 

There's still a place for the plain style. There's a beauty and nobility distinctive to simplicity as well as a beauty and nobility distinctive to complexity. 

Too much high art runs the risk of artificiality, where it becomes too far removed from normal experience. Likewise, there's the danger–often a reality–of substituting aesthetics for sanctity. Moreover, great art (or good art) shouldn't be confused with ostentation. But it's needful to have something higher for mind and heart to aspire to, which lifts us out of the drudgery and humdrum–not to mention ugliness–of ordinary life. So it's a question of balance. Like climbing a mountain for the view. Not necessarily the best place to live year round, but life needs peaks as well as plains. 

What is salvation?

There are different concepts of salvation. How we define salvation is crucial to the vision and mission of the church. 

1. Alienation from nature

According to secular environmentalism, humans are simply animals. Technology alienates humans from their natural surroundings. In addition, technology upsets the balance of nature. Humans become too dominant and destructive to the ecosystem. 

"Salvation" is to regain our sense of where we belong in the natural order. Our place. 

To sacrifice human flourishing for the common good of the ecosphere.

2. Escape from divine punishment

In traditional theology, one of God's duties is to punish wrongdoers. That's what makes God a just God.

In liberal theology, a punitive God is unthinkable. The doors of hell are locked from the inside. 

3. Divine alienation

It's common to say man is alienated from God. More controversial is to say there's a sense in which sin alienates God from man. In liberal theology, the impediment to fellowship is entirely at man's end, not God's end. 

4. Deliverance from death and physical impairment 

That awaits the afterlife

5. Emancipation from demonic influence

Especially in cultures dominated by witchcraft. 

6. Deliverance from destructive passion

Reason is often the slave of passion. Unbridled passion destroys relationships. Results in violence.  

7. Deliverance from depression, self-loathing, and mental illness

Sometimes that happens in this life although complete healing may await the afterlife.

8. Escape from the wheel of reincarnation

According to Hinduism and Buddhism

9. The state becomes the church

In secular ideology, the state saves humans from their destructive and self-destructive impulses. 

Cat fight in heaven

It's common for Catholic apologists to cast Mary in the role of the Queen Mother of Heaven. The unstated inference seems to be that if Jesus is the king, and Mary is his mother, that makes her the Queen Mother of Heaven. 

Some Catholic apologists take this a step further and infer that Mary is the power behind the throne. Jesus must forever honor his mother by submitting to her whims. So Mary dictates cosmic policy. Mary wears the pants in heaven.

There are several problems with this inference:

i) Grown sons are not supposed to be subservient to their mothers.

ii) Christ's relationship to his human mother is significantly different from normal filial relationships. The Son is Mary's Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. 

iii) Catholic apologists also like to emphasize the church as the bride of Christ. But that raises interesting questions regarding the power dynamic.

A marriage in which the mother-in-law overrules the wife is a marriage on the rocks. In marriage, some mothers are valued counselors, but mothers-in-law aren't supposed to outrank wives. 

A marriage establishes a new authority structure. There was the authority structure of your parents' marriage, but when you grow up you should outgrow that. And your own marriage replaces the old authority structure with the new authority structure.

If Catholic theology is true, then heaven is an acrimonious marriage in which Jesus must duck to avoid the flying pots and pans as his mother and his bride vie for dominance. Not a happy marriage, that's for sure. Thankfully, the solid dome provides soundproofing so that we don't hear all the yelling upstairs. 

Identical strangers

Catholic theology is centered on "the Church". Catholics try to co-opt discussions about the church. The church is less central to Protestant theology, not because the church is unimportant, but because the church is the effect of other things. In traditional Catholic theology, the church is the source of grace, whereas in Protestant theology, grace is the source of the church. (That's a bit overstated, but it highlights a fundamental difference in orientation and theological starting-points.) 

But this doesn't mean that the church is peripheral in Protestant theology, or experience. One of the striking things about the Christian faith is the Christian community. How you can go to different churches, in different parts of the country or the world, run into people who at one level are complete strangers, yet you share the same core experience. How God draws folks from all different backgrounds and walks of life. At one level they all have different stories, but at a deeper level, they have the same story. Same spiritual encounter. Same inner life. Same experience of God's call. 

Like accounts of identical twins separated at birth, reunited in adulthood, who are startlingly as if one and the same person in parallel worlds. Raised apart, in different settings, and yet they exhibit preestablished harmony, like synchronized clocks. Vacation in the same places. They share an invisible, intangible affinity. 

This is true in time as well as space. When we read Christian literature from different centuries, or sing their hymns, they tell a common story. Awakened at different times and places. 

Or, to vary the metaphor, like a lighthouse that draws people from all different directions to itself. From north, south, east, and west, the lighthouse guides them to the same destination. To a family reunion. As we meet on the journey, as we find each other, we discover that we're bearing on the same destination. We started from independent points of departure, but are converging along the way, as we head to our journey's end. 

Or to vary the metaphor yet again, like people on the same wavelength. A radio frequency that's inaudible to outsiders, but something insiders can hear. By grace, we've been tuned into the same channel. 

Or to vary the metaphor a final time, like homing pigeons released at different locations, that return to a common location. Somehow they sense the way back, through an inner map. 

Sky High reunion

Christians often attend a variety of churches over the course of a lifetime. One reason is our mobile society. If they move out of town or out of state, they find a new church.

I've attended a number of different denominations over the years. Partly this is due to curiosity, in terms of exploring different worship styles. Although I'm a stickler for theology, I'm quite flexible about church attendance, within basic boundaries of orthodoxy. 

For a time I attended in Anglican church. One time I was sitting in church, watching the priests, altar boys, and acolytes prepare for communion. The altar boys were cute elementary school age kids. The acolyte was an older teenager. Made me reflect on me when I was his age, some 40 years ago. I will predecease the acolyte and altar boys by decades. 

It also made me think of all the Christians we encounter, inside and outside of church, in the course of a lifetime. Some of them we may briefly meet, while others we come to know for months or years. But as we move around and they move around, they pass out of our lives. And in some cases they die, which is why we don't see them anymore. And we don't normally think about them.

Occasionally and unexpectedly we bump into people we knew years ago. Suddenly, from out of the past, our paths cross once again. All the dormant memories awaken. 

All of this prompted me to think of what it will be like, after we die, to see all these people again. Christians we met in this world, at one time or another, whom we will see again in the world to come (or intermediate state). Many of whom we lost track of.

Some of them will be waiting for us when we die, while we'll be waiting for some of them when they die–which ever comes first. Like an everlasting high school reunion for Christians!   

Separation of church and state

An interview with Matt Chandler

I thought this interview with Pastor Matt Chandler was a valuable and edifying read. For example:

Man, let me tell you, when I got sick with a brain tumor, I was the least sexy I’ve ever been. All my hair was gone. I had a gnarly scar on my head, and I was lying on the bathroom floor trying to get the strength to vomit in the toilet again. Praise God my wife’s view of love wasn’t just about what I could do for her. If Lauren were to leave me in that moment, when I was sick and dying with cancer, no one, not even the worldliest person, would think that what she had done was right, good, or should be emulated. And yet, they’re fine with someone leaving under far less difficult circumstances. It’s crazy. It’s a total failure to understand what love is.

Another:

The litmus test I’ve always used on whether or not you really grasp grace is what you do when you blow it. If you blow it and you run from the Lord to try to clean yourself up and then come back, you do not understand grace and what God has done for you in Christ. But if you blow it and you run to him, that’s an evidence of grace. Ed Welch said, “Everybody thinks sanctification looks like strength. Really what it looks like is weakness.” It looks like failure. Sanctification looks like darkness and difficulty and pain and suffering. Show me someone who blows it and runs to the Lord and cries and snots and lays that before the Lord, pleads forgiveness, rests in it and gets up and continues to walk, and I’ll show you someone who understands grace. You show me someone who blows it, pulls way back for a season until they can either forget about what they’ve done or at least get some kind of control around it, I’ll show you somebody who doesn’t understand grace. They are their own functional savior—I can clean myself up.

The entire interview is well worth reading.

To every nation and tribe and language and people

Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ there's no doubt many Bible-believing Christians (including myself) can happily describe their church in the same or similar ways:

"The Most Happily Multi-Ethnic Church I Know" by Tim Challies.

Most Americans Don't Think Transgenderism Is Immoral

See here. If you go to the main article cited in the post, you'll find further details. For example, Protestants are significantly more opposed to transgenderism than Catholics are.

As I've said before, most Americans are highly persuadable on issues like these. But the large majority of parents, pastors, and others in positions of influence aren't making much of an effort to persuade people on these matters, if they even address the issues at all. Our priorities are desperately false, our time management is horrendous, and we're often intellectually apathetic, if not anti-intellectual.

The Potential For Apologetics Is Enormous

I've cited polling showing that a majority of Americans can't name the four gospels. That's how ignorant they are of the Bible and related subjects. I've also cited polling showing how ignorant Americans are about homosexual issues, even as they're in the midst of changing their moral standards, altering marriage, and rearranging the legal landscape of the nation on those issues they're so ignorant about. Most Americans think homosexuals make up at least twenty percent of the population.

Those are just a couple of examples among many others that could be cited. (See the first link above for more examples.) One thing we should take away from such statistics is that most Americans ought to be highly persuadable on topics like these. Their beliefs aren't based on much. They haven't done much research. Their views can change rapidly and without much intellectual effort on the part of the people seeking to persuade them. On a lot of controversial issues, most Americans aren't prepared to put up much of a counterargument to the Christian position. Even among the minority of Americans who are more informed, there's a lot of ignorance. On many issues, being more informed than the average American isn't much of an accomplishment.

Changing people's views isn't just an intellectual matter. But it does involve the intellect, to different degrees with different individuals. And intellectual substance isn't all that moves people. So does intellectual reputation. If you don't put up much of an intellectual fight, people will doubt your position even if the evidence is on your side and even if they don't have much of an understanding of the issues involved. That's part of the reason why Christians and their allies have been losing the battle over homosexual issues. A small minority (e.g., Robert Gagnon, Michael Brown, James White) have addressed homosexual issues with a lot of depth and persistence, but the large majority of parents, churches, radio programs, television programs, etc. have been silent or have addressed the issues in an astonishingly shallow way.

The church in the book of Acts is often held up as a Christian ideal. But we're rarely encouraged to emulate that church's apologetic work, even though it's such a major theme in Acts. If we want revival, and we want to be more like the church of Acts, one of the things we ought to do is repent of our intellectual neglect.

A Collection Of Studies On Christianity And Young People

See J. Warner Wallace's post here on the extent to which young people are leaving Christianity, the reasons they give for leaving, and related issues. Two of the problems that stand out in my mind are parents and churches' intellectual shallowness on religious matters and their lack of apologetic work. One thing that's helpful is to ask what schools are expecting from their students and compare that to what parents and churches are expecting in religious contexts. Are we to believe that students can handle trigonometry, chemistry, and American history in high school, then go on to get college degrees and doctorates, but can't handle anything beyond an elementary school or junior high level when their parents or churches are addressing religious subjects? And it's not just a problem with young people. Most churches treat middle-aged and elderly adults as if they can't handle anything beyond a junior high level, if even that. We're living in an unprecedented information age, and the anti-Christian apologetic efforts of our culture operate far above a junior high level. We need to adjust accordingly.