Waiting Until You Feel Your Faith is Dangerous

It's no secret that we live in an age of instant gratification. Crave Mexican food? Restaurants are minutes away. Wondering what other films you've seen that celebrity has starred in? Simply pull out your phone and Google his name. How is your investment portfolio doing? You can log in anytime to check your stocks. I can even use the Internet to see how much electricity my house uses hour by the hour.

While there are clear advantages in living in an age where our wants can be met with ease, there are also dangers. Of course, many have written on the problem of distraction in our wired world, and how much more kids expect to attain a level of notoriety than in the past. But what concerns me more is the expectation of immediate satisfaction as the measure of truth. As our technology has advanced, we have become accustomed to having our desires accommodated immediately. We now expect to satisfy even the feelings of longing or relationship. Facebook provides the illusion of connection. So, what happens when someone seeking a relationship with God but doesn't feel him?

That is exactly the question I was asked a couple of days ago. One of the ministry opportunities I have is serving with the Harvest Crusade, a large evangelistic outreach that just wrapped up a three day event in Southern California. People watching the event online have the ability to request a chat with an online counselor. Some of those requests come to me and I will answer whatever questions or concerns they voice.

This last weekend, I was talking with a young viewer from Japan. He wrote that he was very disturbed because he felt his "troubled heart keeps me in dark" and that he couldn't see God or receive any good news. He basically explained that he couldn't know God because he couldn't feel Him. The idea that one must feel in order to believe is becoming more common; I'm hearing more of it all the time. But to limit one's understanding of truth to only that which one can feel is not only foolhardy, but dangerous! I may feel like I haven't spent much money this month, but if I go by my feelings, I'll soon be overdrawn.

As an illustration, I asked this young man if he was familiar with heat stroke. Heat stroke is a very dangerous condition that happens when people allow their bodies to overheat due to weather and activity. Mostly occurring during summer, folks will be busy participating in outdoor activities and forget to drink enough water or to cool down. They may not feel thirsty, but their body temperature rises to a point where their organs can be permanently damaged.Doctors will instruct athletes and others outdoors to drink plenty of water even if they don't feel thirsty. It isn't the feeling that matters; the body needs to cool down and consuming liquids is how it accomplishes that. Similarly, no one should rely only of feeling God's presence as a way to determine if they may be accepted by him. You can know that God cares for you because of the fact that Jesus died on the cross. We have the evidence to know that the resurrection is a real event in history. By looking at the facts that the Bible offers instead of your feelings, you can get a better picture of the truth.

Photo courtesy Markus Schoepke. Licenced by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Reaching Your Community by Intentionally Reaching Out (video)

There's a lot of worry in our churches today. Everyone is asking "How can we stop the tide of young people leaving the church?" Even Bible-believing churches have seen a decrease in the number of young people engaging.  But all is not dire.

In our relativistic culture, people generally want to find something that is more meaningful and more solid than the whims of amorphous spirituality that the world preaches. Young people want to take action! In this video I talk about how among Christians, interest in participating in community projects is escalating. That means the Church has a great opportunity to reach out in love, to touch the lives of others, and to show one way Christianity is still incredibly relevant in the world today.




For more on this idea, see my post here.

How to Get into Spiritual Conversations - Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote a popular post on how to start spiritual conversations (you can read it here.) There, I said that one way to begin discussing spiritual things is to listen and discuss topics where people are already interested, such as a news event or a holiday. Just this week, both the news and social media have been awash in stories about Robin Williams and his recent death. Certainly, thoughts about our mortality and whether there's an afterlife come into play. However, it isn't always best to force such a conversation, especially if the person had strong feelings towards the actor. People need to feel; they need to process difficult news and it would be offensive to jump in and immediately turn a tragedy into a sermon.

That said, once a few days pass, it may be appropriate to speak in more general terms about the cult of celebrity and whether our culture places too much value on the lives of the rich and famous. I remember when Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer, died. The day after his passing, the International Business Times published a story which led with "Steve Jobs is dead, but his legacy will live on for decades to come. It is impossible to overstate the impact his work had not only on the world of technology, but on the world as a whole."1 Time magazine included Jobs in its 2012 list of the 20 most influential Americans of all time.2 Not of the past century, but of all time!

Some of the stories released seemed to treat Jobs' achievements as if they were on par not with Henry Ford but Jonas Salk. Such gushing even caused the popular secular tech site Gawker to publish an article with the title "Steve Jobs was not God."3 Author Hamilton Nolan writes:

"So, Steve Jobs is dead. A tech genius has passed on. Sad. Certainly a devastating loss to Steve Jobs' close friends and family members, as well as to Apple executives and shareholders. The rest of you? Calm down.

Among my Facebook friends yesterday, more than one wrote publicly that they were "crying" or "can't stop crying" or "teared up" due to Steve Jobs' death. Really now. You can't stop crying, now that you've heard that a middle-aged CEO has passed on, after a long battle with cancer? If humans were always so empathetic, well, that would be understandable. But this type of one-upmanship of public displays of grief is both unbecoming and undeserved.

"Real outpourings of public grief should be reserved for those people who lived life so heroically and selflessly that they stand as shining examples of love for all of humanity. People like, for example, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth."4

For those of you who may not know, Shuttlesworth was a civil rights leader who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King.5 He happened to have died the same day as Jobs, but did anyone hear about it? The New York Times ran the story on Shuttlesworth on page A33, the story on Jobs ran on A1.

Although Jobs made products that many people love and use daily, I can easily picture a world not too different from this one without him. Further, although Jobs at his death was worth $8.3 billion, he didn't have a strong history of philanthropy. Jobs gave some personal donations to area hospitals and to AIDS support, but his gifts amounted to less than 1% of his wealth. Andrew Ross Sorkin even noted that as a company, philanthropy wasn't part of the Apple culture:

While many high-growth technology companies have philanthropic arms, Apple does not. It does not have a company matching program for charitable giving by its employees like some other Fortune 500 companies. The company did donate $100,000 in 2008 to a group seeking to block Proposition 8, a ballot measure that would have banned same-sex marriage in California. But over all, Apple has been one of "America's least philanthropic companies," as termed by Stanford Social Innovation Review, a magazine about the nonprofit sector, in 2007.6

So, in what type of esteem should one hold Jobs? Because he made popular products and had a keen eye for the future, does that merit the level of adulation he received after his passing? Does our culture place too high a value on things and people who make us feel good rather than how they may help others? How does it reflect upon us as a society if people "can't stop crying" after the death of someone they never knew? Does taking the Christian teaching on altruism and selflessness seriously change how people who are successful use their wealth?

There are many spiritual discussions that you can get into in this way. By using an example that's old news, you avoid the "raw" quality of attacking a recent situation but you can still make people think a bit about the reactions they see.

References

1. IBTimes Staff Reporter. "Steve Jobs Dead: 5 Ways His Legacy Changed the World." IBT Media. 06 Oct 2011. Web. http://www.ibtimes.com/steve-jobs-dead-5-ways-his-legacy-changed-world-321751
2. "The 20 Most Influential Americans of All Time." Time Magazine.24 Jul 2012. Web. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/25/the-20-most-influential-americans-of-all-time/
3. Nolan, Hamilton. "Steve Jobs was not God." Gawker.com. 06 Oct 2011.. Web. http://gawker.com/5847338/steve-jobs-was-not-god
4. Nolan, Ibid.
5. Norheimer, Jon. "Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, an Elder Statesman for Civil Rights, Dies at 89." The New York Times. 05 Oct 2011. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/us/rev-fred-l-shuttlesworth-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-89.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
6. Sorkin, Andrew Ross. "The Mystery of Steve Jobs's Public Giving." The New York Times. 29 Aug 2011. Web .http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/the-mystery-of-steve-jobss-public-giving/

Ann Coulter is Wrong-People are More than Numbers

I finally had the chance to read the column Ann Coulter wrote about Kent Brantly, the African Missionary doctor who contracted the deadly Ebola virus while treating others in Liberia. Entitled "Ebola Doc's Condition Downgraded to 'Idiotic'," Coulter's piece is not only confused, but also mean-spirited. However, I want to use Coulter's disparagement of Christian missionary efforts as an opportunity for Christians to learn something: how judging Christian efforts by worldly standards is mistaken. Coulter thinks her reprimand is clever, but she fails to recognize the value of human life and discounts the power of God.

Devaluing Human Life

Coulter's article, aside from the emotionally poisonous words, tries to make the argument that Christian missions should be approached from a utilitarian perspective. She complains about how the cost of treating the now infected doctor and his nurse "has cost a Christian charity much more than any services he rendered" and then asks "why do we have to deal with this at all?"1 The answer is simple and something that is largely forgotten in this day and age: Christianity values human dignity. Because humans are made in the image of God, Christianity has always taught that alleviating suffering at cost to oneself is a noble and worthwhile pursuit in and of itself. In Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, it is an enemy of Israel that provides comfort and healing to the victim on the street. The Samaritan even pays the poor man's caretaker's bill and tells the innkeeper "whatever more you spend, I will repay you."2

Throughout the history of Christianity, Christians have sought to model their Master's words. The Romans thought Christians were crazy for picking up indigent children who had been abandoned on the Tiber. In an agrarian society, a healthy child is an asset, another hand to help work the farm. An indigent child is a liability. It means another mouth to feed and more overall suffering in times of drought or famine, not to mention the additional work. However, Christians recognized the image of God that was reflected in each life and could not do otherwise than serve them.3 As I've previously written, missionaries such as Father Damien purposely risked themselves to serve in a leper colony, with death as a result.

Coulter has seemingly bought into the concept that human suffering can be somehow quantified into dollars and cents. By advancing such an idea, Coulter herself demonstrates how cheaply our society's view on human life really is. While her facts are a confused (when Brantly went to Liberia, it was not yet a country infected; It was only after he was stationed there that the outbreak began and he chose to stay and treat the victims), she still wants to measure the alleviation of human suffering by cost. That cannot be done. Christian missionaries demonstrate how invaluable human life is in such selfless acts. If suffering becomes only a bottom-line game, then we've lost our humanity altogether.

Underestimating the Power of God

The other major error Coulter makes in taking a utilitarian approach to missionary efforts is she simply doesn't understand how God works. In her article, she accuses missionaries of being "tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S... So they slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works, forgetting that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream. "I don't know how Coulter can read the minds of so many Christian missionaries to ascribe such motives, but she feels that it is more prudent to be missionaries here in America. She writes:

If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia. Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world.

If he had provided health care for the uninsured editors, writers, videographers and pundits in Gotham and managed to open one set of eyes, he would have done more good than marinating himself in medieval diseases of the Third World. 

Here, Coulter completely ignores 1 Corinthians 12:14 that the body of Christ has many members and each is called to a different role. Paul instructs the church "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable."4

My calling is apologetics. It involves interacting with people, discussing ideas, and possibly changing minds, which Coulter sees as essential. But that doesn't mean all should be so called. Brantly had always felt the call to Africa, even as a kid according to his mother.5 He did the thing that God had laid up on his heart, and that is the more important thing. Mother Theresa did likewise.

If God is in control, then we have faith that He may work it out for His good. And, while it may be that Brantly could make a movie mogul like Christians a bit more by providing him with medical services in New York, it is also possible that by contracting Ebola movie studios would be interested in making a movie of Brantly's life and heroism. It may even be possible that such a move would have a greater effect on the population of the country than Coulter assumes her path would take. It isn't like Chariots of Fire, Lilies of the Field, and even Molokai don't show such a result.

For Christians, pragmatism is not the primary model for action: obedience is. It is not to us to merely count the number of people we may touch, but to trust God and follow His will for our lives. That doesn't mean we don't take any kind of results into account, but it does mean that ministry efforts cannot be reduced to numbers.

I know Coulter is politically and not spiritually motivated. But even in this area, it has been proven that Christian missionaries are THE factor responsible for stable democracies forming across the African nation. Perhaps Coulter should look at the history of Christian missionary efforts a bit more carefully before she lambasts it so. People are not numbers; by her criticism, Coulter is in danger of becoming the very thing she says she stands against.

References

1. Coulter, Ann. "Ebola Doc's Condition Downgraded to 'Idiotic'." AnnCoulter.Com. 6 August, 2014. Online. "http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-08-06.html
2. Luke 10:25-37. English Standard Version. Crossway. Accessed online. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37&version=ESV
3. See my article "How will children be valued if Christianity is lost?" for several supporting cases.
4. 1 Corinthians 12:21-23. English Standard Version. Crossway. Accessed online. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12&version=ESV
5. Associated Press. "Mother: Doctor with Ebola sought to be missionary." LIN Television Corporation. 28 July, 2014. Online. http://wishtv.com/2014/07/28/mother-doctor-with-ebola-sought-to-be-missionary/
Photo courtesy Kyle Cassidy and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Thinking Less About Stuff and More About God (video)

Is pragmatism replacing piety in the church today? There are six megathemes—shifts in the way Christians think and act—that show how much the world's ideas are corrupting the church today. In the third of our six-part series, Lenny notes that growing numbers of people are less interested in spiritual principles and more desirous of learning pragmatic solutions for life. But by avoiding wrestling with ethical and theological questions, we are doomed to hold a very superficial view of both Christianity AND life. That is not only sin, it is a travesty of living.


 

Christianity Is Not a Private Party

Is Christianity stuck in a Holy Huddle? How can we reach the world if we're only talking to ourselves? There are six mega-themes—shifts in the way Christians think and act—that show how much the world's ideas are corrupting the church today. In this second of a six-part series, we look at the charge that Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented.

For more on this point, see the accompanying blog post here.

Photo credit: Cameron. Licensed through the Creative Commons 2.0 Licence.

The Danger of a Media-Driven Worldview

Television personality and journalist Malcom Muggeridge had a prescient understanding of the power of media. When addressing the National Religious Broadcasters, he spoke on how Christ may be communicated in a media-driven culture, one that Muggeridge characterized as "increasingly given over to fantasy." In this quote, he makes clear just why drawing one's worldview from popular media is dangerous.

Simone Weil wrote: "Nothing is so beautiful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good, and no desert so dreary and monotonous and boring as evil. But with fantasy it is the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied, intriguing, attractive, and full of charm."

Now the media, as it seems to me, strikingly bear out Simone Weil's contention. In their offerings it is almost invariably eros, rather than agape, that provides all the excitement; success and celebrity rather than a broken and a contrite heart that are made to seem desirable; and Jesus Christ Superstar rather than Jesus Christ on the cross who gets a folk hero's billing. Good and evil, after all, constitute the essential theme of our mortal existence. In this sense they may be compared with the positive and negative points that generate an electric current. Transpose the points, and the current fails. The lights go out. Darkness falls and all is confusion. It seems to me clear, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the darkness that is falling on our civilization is due precisely to such a transposition of good and evil, and that the media in furthering the transposition are a powerful influence—perhaps the most powerful in furthering the consequences.1

References

1. Muggeridge, Malcom. "Christ and Media." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 12/3 (Sept. 1978).
Accessed online. http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/21/21-3/21-3-pp193-198_JETS.pdf 195.

We Don't Know What We Believe

Is the Church letting itself get corrupted by the world? There are six megathemes—shifts in the way Christians think and act—that show how much the world's ideas are corrupting the church today. The first is the fact that the Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate. We have Christians who don't even know why we celebrate Easter! See the danger this represents and what we can do about it by watching the clip below.




To read more about these Christian megathemes and a few simple steps individuals and the Church can take to walk more strongly with Christ, click here. For the complete video series on Christian megathemes, click here.

Three Tips for Surviving the Job Cascade

How do you survive when you feel like you're drowning? Right now, my family as well as a family dear to us has been going through what I term "the Job Cascade." For those unfamiliar with the story, the first two chapters of the book of Job relates how righteous Job is attacked by Satan, first by an incredible series of events that target Job's livelihood, his property, and his family. However, Job proves his righteousness by pouring himself out before God, praying with the words "naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

In my human mind I would think that is enough. Job did not sin, nor did he charge God with wrongdoing. But life doesn't always go the way one expects and Job gets hit a second time, this time by being afflicted with sores over his entire body. That's the Job cascade. It's when you have been drowning in one bad situation after another, and just when you think you might be able to catch a breath, another wave slams down on you.

Why would God allow so much tragedy in the life of a Christian who only seeks to rest in Him? I truly don't know. In Job's case, we get a peek behind the curtain and see two different factors happening simultaneously: God is demonstrating to Satan that holiness is not self-seeking and we learn that Job had some misunderstandings about God's nature that needed to be corrected. But, that really doesn't help you, if you are the one going through the Job Cascade, so I wanted to provide three specific tips to help you if you are in a free-fall now or when you may find yourself there in the future:

1. God Exists and Jesus Rose from the Dead

The first point may seem a bit quizzical, but it is the most important one. Many faithful Christians when facing a crisis will turn to prayer. When another crisis comes on top of the first, they pray harder. But when that next wave comes and knocks them back under water, that's when people begin to doubt. They may ask themselves "Is God real or are my prayers only reaching as high as the ceiling?" "Do I really believe that Jesus saved me just so I can go through this?"

These kinds of questions happen frequently in difficult times, but those are the exact wrong times to be asking such important questions. You never ask the most difficult questions in an emotionally charged state, because you simply cannot think as clearly as when you are calm. That's why I have held that a discipline like apologetics is so important. If you've wrestled with questions like does God exist or did Jesus really rise from the dead—taking the most strenuous objections and working through them—then you can at least clear those doubts from your mind.

I almost lost my wife when our third son was born to us, and that was my exact experience. As soon as I began doubting in my prayer time, I was able to say, "Look, I've worked through those questions strenuously, and I'm convinced that the evidence shows there is a God and Jesus did rise from the grave." That confidence enabled me to quickly vanquish my doubts and change my question to, "I don't know what you're doing Lord, but I know that my hope is in you. Can you help me get through this?"

2. Other Good Christians Have Tread Your Path

A frequent question in times of turmoil is "how can I survive any more of this?" Your particular group of circumstances may be unique, but rest assured that other Christians have gone through each of them and survived. Of course it's hard. I understand it's REALLY HARD! But know that people have come through some of the most difficult trials and they still take joy in their relationship with Christ.

Find someone who you can talk with and cry with. Find a Christian brother or sister whose walked with the Lord a long time and ask them to tell you about their heartaches and how the Lord sustained them. We can receive comfort knowing that God has worked in the past and He will continue to work.

3. No Purpose of God's Can Be Thwarted

In Job's case, it was when Job confessed his hubris in assuming to know the Lord's mind that brought an end to his trials. Job 42:2-63 records his prayer: "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." That's an important idea for anyone hurting today as well. God's purposes cannot be thwarted, and God's purposes are clearly spelled out in the Bible. He is the unchanging Father of Lights, who give s us every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). He is the God who loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son for our benefit (John 3:16).

The verse that I cling to most in difficult times is Romans 8:31-32, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Meditate on that for a moment. God knows what sacrifice and pain mean. He had to give up His Son for sinners who were in rebellion against Him. If God would love you enough to sacrifice His only Son, then His purposes towards you are nothing but good. Do you hurt? Absolutely, sometimes with a pain that keeps you from breathing. But, God will ultimately bring glory to the events, either here or in heaven.

The Christian life is based on hope. It isn't the hope that comes from abolishing pain in this world, it is the hope that once we see His face in Heaven, that we would then realize our present sufferings are unworthy to be compared to the glories to be revealed there.

I know you feel like you're drowning and you may never surface. I pray deeply for you in your pain. But please hang on. There really is a God, and that means we have a hope that transcends this world. Hold on to that one thing, just that one thing, and know that all is not lost.

The Rise of the Anti-Hero

"If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."1 – Andrew Fletcher.

It is no secret that we're in the midst of a cultural revolution. As western society pushes more aggressively towards post-Christian secularism, we are beginning to see changes in more obvious ways than before, so much so that others are beginning to take notice.

An Op-Ed column by writer Greg Burke appeared  in today's Los Angeles Times entitled "Disney's 'Maleficent': Romancing the devil." There, Burke observes that the movie company known for its family-friendly fare is now "risking the wrath of monochrome Christians everywhere."2

Disney has portrayed evil with interesting specificity in previous films. Even in 1940's Fantasia, evil demons in the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence were clearly depicted, especially when juxtaposed with the hallowed blurriness of "Ave Maria" which is supposed to counteract the evil frivolity. For fallen men, evil is always easier to see than holiness.

But, as even Burke notes, in Malificent there's a fundamental shift in the understanding of evil. Not only does he claim that "Jesus has lost some reputational ground," but he believes "It's easier to identify with a Maleficent than a messiah."3 He writes:

Once a force of pure evil, the demonic Maleficent (played by Angelina Jolie) has morphed into a sympathetic Earth goddess akin to Demeter, cursing yet protecting her Persephone-like surrogate daughter, the sleeping beauty Aurora.

In endowing the horned Maleficent with motherly love, veteran Disney writer Linda Woolverton takes a stance similar to that of Scandinavian/European black-metal bands such as Immortal, Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth: They embrace darkness in order to align themselves against those who claim to represent the "Light" — the legions who invoked Christ while destroying primeval cultures and slaughtering the metal folk's tribal forebears. Maleficent's brutish screen opponents, crowned with medieval helmets, lack only crosses on their chests to identify them directly as Crusaders.4

The mistaken history and pejoratives aside, I think Burke is onto something and this change in the public's self-understanding is not exclusive to Disney. The anti-hero is the rule of thumb in entertainment today. One has to look no further than hit television shows such as Dexter, Breaking Bad, or The Walking Dead to see how heroes with moral clarity have been replaced by protagonists (if one can use the word) who week after week are playing by their own rules and using demonstrably evil means to achieve their individual ends.

In Book II of The Republic, Plato was deeply concerned with the popular entertainment of his day. He felt that the stories people told had a profound impact on the society as a whole. He states that the most stories were having a corrupting influence on those who partake of them by not only being false, but offering dangerous lies by making what is naturally bad good and vice-versa . He calls such corruptions "ugly and immoral as well as false—misrepresenting the nature of gods and heroes, like an artist whose picture is unlike the object he sets out to draw." 5

Unlike Plato, I don't see state-governed censorship as the solution. However, while our entertainment reflects our declining values, it also reinforces those "ugly and immoral as well as false" views on just what a hero should be. We know that children who watch these shows are affected in many ways,6and such representations are multiplying exponentially. I think it demonstrates that we are truly in an age that Paul warned us of in II Timothy 3.

We need good, educated Christians and apologist to not only debate Christianity's values in the public square, but we need more educated Christian artists to create thoughtful entertainment that can support and exemplify Christian principles. Otherwise, we may lose our culture entirely.

References

1 Fletcher, Andrew M. An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind. Volume 11. (Edinburgh, 1704.) 10. Available online at http://books.google.com/books/about/An_Account_of_a_Conversation_Concerning.html?id=Mg0VAAAAQAAJ
2 Burke, Greg. "Disney's 'Maleficent': Romancing the devil." The Los Angeles Times. 13 June 2014.LATimes.com. Web. Accessed 13 June 2014.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Cornford, Francis MacDonald. The Republic of Plato. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.) 69.
6 Wilson, Barbara J. "Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Altruism." Children and Electronic Media Volume 18 Number 1 Spring 2008. The Future of Children. Web. http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=32&articleid=58&sectionid=269 Accessed 13 June 2014.

Watching The Car Crash of Colleges Purging Christians

Imagine living in a town with a moderate population of 20,000 people. The town has several traffic signals that seem to take far too long to turn green. Townspeople complain that the signals are slowing down their commutes, even when no one else is on the road. Why should they be held up when they have important things to do?

The city council members, hearing from this vocal minority and wishing to be reelected, begin to justify the idea of removing the signals and selling the idea to all the townspeople. Drivers are smart; they will be careful when crossing the intersection, they argue, because no one wishes to get into an accident. They will slow down and stop, giving deference to others who were there first.

So, the leaders issue a command to take down the signals, proclaiming that everyone now has more freedom. They can now enjoy an unencumbered driving experience and they may make better time since they don't have to stop unnecessarily. They even begin to say that commerce should increase because of the time savings.

As you can imagine, that isn't going to be what actually happens. More people begin to traffic through these intersections because there are no signals and those in a time crunch think they can save a few seconds off their commute. Accidents at the intersections go up; sometimes this is because a rogue speedster simply didn't want to stop, but more often because everyone has a different opinion of who was to have the right-of-way. Stymied, city officials decry the actions of anyone who gets into an accident and set up special panels to fund out why drivers wouldn't stop. They then begin to focus more blame on sports car owners for being at fault because they obviously want to go faster than anyone else. Why else would they be driving such a performance-oriented vehicle? It's no matter, though. Accidents will continue to rise and people will continue to be hurt.

Today's Colleges Have Removed the Traffic Lights

This is what our college students are facing today. Institutions of higher education used to understand that they had a responsibility to educate the entire person. Part of that education included religious and moral instruction. Alvin J. Schmidt notes that even as recently as 1932, 92% of the 182 colleges and universities in America were founded by Christian denominations.1 However, things have changed. Not only have many of those institutions abandoning their Christian roots but, colleges across the country are forcibly pushing for amore liberal sexual acceptance policy. Even the New York Times is reporting, campuses are ejecting Christian clubs because their stand on sexuality is being classified as “discriminatory.”

At the same time, we are seeing reports that sexual assault on college campuses is rising.2 While some of this is due to sketchy reporting methods, there is no doubt that the number of casual sexual encounters has grown on campuses across the country.

One function of Christian teaching is that it provides certain guidelines on moral behavior. It is like those traffic signals in the parable above. The Judeo-Christian understanding of sexuality is that it should be considered holy and exclusively reserved for married couples. But such views make people wait instead of receiving immediate gratification. So, colleges have adopted a position to remove any traffic signals and allow everyone to judge for themselves when and how they should engage in sexual relations. Sexual encounters went up and so did complaints of unwanted sex. Colleges tried to enforce an idea of mutual consent, but what constitutes mutual consent can be interpreted differently by those involved. Policies have been revised (such as Cornell's and Yale's) to say that one must verbally say yes. So, to have sex, the college expects two twenty-year-olds in the heat of passion to go through the same motions as the assent one must give to sit in an emergency exit row of an airplane. But that consent doesn't count when one person is intoxicated. And this is considered rational and based in reality?

Will any of these gyrations matter? Of course not. Just like our imaginary town, there will be legal battles and squabbles, but it should surprise no one when problems go up and people get hurt. Colleges, just at the time where they need clear guidelines to restore order and protect all of their students are removing the last vestiges of restraint they had. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion.

References

1. Schmidt, Alvin, J. How Christianity Changed the World. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004.) 190.
2. Associated Press. “Sexual assault reports on U.S. college campuses increased by 51 percent in 10 years, report shows.” PennLive.com http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/06/sexual_assault_reports_on_us_c.html Accessed 6/11/2014.

Photo credit: Damnsoft 09

Let’s Change Our Message on Sex

This blog post is about sex, and it's the first time I've written about it directly in my years of posting. Is sex an apologetics topic? Absolutely. One's understanding of sex reflects one's worldview and many times actually helps shape the worldview of the individual. I think that the church hasn't done a very good job in expressing exactly what the Christian position on sex really is, and I'd like to try and provide a different approach from what you may have heard before.

In his Deeper Waters blog post this morning, Nick Peters talked about running across some online comments regarding sex and chastity. The poster said he was on "a bit of a 'sex' kick" and asked the mixed Christian and non-Christian audience "How important is virginity?" I think that both the Christian and the non-Christian are both really confused when it comes to understanding sex. Nick reminded me of the old joke, "I was told two things about sex growing up. #1. It's dirty. #2. I should save it for someone I love." Obviously, that sounds a little bit contradictory. How can sex be dirty and special at the same time?

Defining Sex as Holy

I think one of the real difficulties we have when trying to present the Christian viewpoint on sex is the language we use (maybe Wittgenstein was onto something!). Because sex is uncomfortable or embarrassing to talk about, we try to communicate its value by using words like "private," "special," within marriage but "dirty," "inappropriate," "foul" or some other negative term in public. I want to inject a new definition into the discussion. Ultimately, sex is holy. Now, some may recoil from that statement, but I believe it's true and it can be supported biblically. Sex is a God-created union that joins a man and a woman in a way that no other act or speech could. The Christians in Corinth had a sexually permissive attitude, but Paul tells them, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, 'The two will become one flesh.' But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him" (1 Cor. 6:15-17).

So, Paul says sexual relations joins people together in a spiritual fashion, just as becoming a believer joins one spiritually with Jesus. Sex is therefore a spiritual union. It's holy. This idea is not new; in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel would often sin by worshipping foreign gods. Their actions are consistently referred to by God as "playing the harlot." Even in the book of Hosea, there's an extended analogy of the prophet Hosea's wife sleeping with other men, and God compares this to Israel's idolatry. If worshipping foreign gods is harlotry, then it stands to reason that worshipping the one true God is akin to the sexual union within marriage. It is how God designed us to behave. Sex is holy, and it should only be exercised within a context of holiness.

How Seeing Sex as Holy Changes Things

If we define sex as holy, it can radically alter our perspective. Just as the desecration of a holy object should naturally cause shock and revulsion, so to taking the holy act of sex out of its context and using it casually, for recreation, or to see how many times one can score becomes repulsive. Pornography takes on a whole new dynamic as besmirching and degrading that which we should hold in honor. Even lust can be seen a bit more clearly as deviating from the way we should be looking at one another. Marriage is a holy bond, a covenant made by two people before God. In this context sex becomes exclusive and focused, and it serves the purpose of drawing those two people together in a way that nothing else will. To run it through the mud by saying that it can be used with anyone interchangeably makes no sense. Chastity sounds reasonable and appropriate.

The holiness of sex is why infidelity is so damaging to a couple. Even if one person no longer desires sex, to learn that his or her spouse had sex outside of marriage is devastating. Infidelity intrinsically violates the entire marriage bond between husband and wife. It reduces one's commitment to frivolity. It's considered dirty because it damages the relationship. In other words, the misapplication of sex is a corrosive that breaks down the very bonds of marriage itself.

A Good Start

I recognize that sexual temptation is an absolutely huge problem, inside the church as well as outside. This one blog post is not going to change that anytime soon. However, if we make a mental commitment to use the language of holiness whenever we talk about sex, it may actually help up to begin really seeing sex in that way. This won't solve the problem by itself, but the more we reinforce the concept of sex as holy, the more we will begin to naturally understand it to be such. Anytime we can see things more as God sees them, we're one step closer to holiness ourselves.

For Today's Youth, Life is Theater

This Sunday, I got into a discussion with a high school senior about the prom. She had a steady boyfriend and she knew they would be attending prom together, but she had grown anxious about him not formally asking her. Why would a formal invitation cause so much anxiety? They both knew they were going and they both knew they were going with each other. But for today's youth, being asked to prom is not what it used to be.

Kids today expect "promposals." If you're not familiar with the term, the promposal is a rather overt and showy way one would ask another to the prom and kids are using tactics that had previously been reserved for significant life-marking events such as engagement proposals. There are many examples. Fox News out of Boston just reported a teen enlisted the help of the local police to pull over his girlfriend so he could ask her to prom. One boy inflated 1500 balloons in his high school hallway and set up a 30' long sign reading "Will you go to prom with me?" and then carried his girlfriend blindfolded on his back to the location for the reveal, complete with a bouquet of roses. I would imagine that it took more hours to plan and execute the invitation than the dance lasted.

Why would kids today make such a fuss over something like a prom invitation? One reason is that it's become expected. The Washington Times reports the phenomenon of promposals really caught on because of two factors: the teen "reality" show Laguna Beach ran an episode highlighting some cast member making promposals and the advent of YouTube which allows kids to video tape their own promposals and get a bit of fame from them. The Times writes that "There are currently more than 40,000 videos tagged ‘promposal' and an additional 900,000 tagged ‘prom proposal' or ‘ask cute.'"

When talking with high schoolers, such as the girl above, a promposal of some sort is now expected. Junior Maggie Gitschier, who was interviewed by USA Today, expressed the sentiment. "Just a simple text asking to prom is not enough," she said. "Girls wait for this forever, so these guys need to keep up the good work and make sure it's cute." In the conversation I had, the girl had said that such acts "Make you feel special." She ended up making a sign to hang inside the pool at his swim meet and asked him rather than risking not having a promposal at all.

The Show's the Thing

The expectation of a promposal concerns me. Our culture has been accused of superficiality, but young people today are growing up in a world where they believe the media really is the message. They hold the production in high regard, but they lose perspective on the weight of the actual event. Kids are investing time, thought, and effort into asking someone to a dance, but acts that will have lifelong effects, such as intercourse after the dance are not given a second thought. According to the CDC, nearly 50% of high-schoolers reported to have previously had sexual intercourse.

I see the pervasiveness of the promposal another warning sign to say that even Christian kids can be more influenced by worldly values than we know. As Christian parents, we need to begin to ask our kids just how important a dance invitation really is. Are they giving it an appropriate level of attention? Are boys being pressured to make such a big display that their actions may be misinterpreted by their prospective dates? While kids like Maggie may think that being asked to the prom is something for which they've "waited forever," missing a high school dance won't change one's life all that much.

What do you think? Are promposals merely the latest youthful act of immaturity and nothing to worry about or are they more serious? I would like to think that we should be trying to teach our kids that big gestures match the big moments of life. Having a popular YouTube video isn't where we should place our emphasis. Developing authentic relationships with God and others should be. What message does a promposal really communicate and what are one's motives for so doing? I'd love to hear your views.

Why Holy Saturday Is So Important

Dr. N.T. Wright on the importance of Holy Saturday in the Resurrection Week:

After Good Friday comes Holy Saturday, the day of waiting, waiting without hope, without knowing what will come next. Go down deep into Holy Saturday, because once again you are called away from the public arena – extroverts in particular find this hard – and into the stillness where you don’t understand, you don’t have an agenda to work on, you don’t know what it is you want or expect God to do. Without the still, dark privacy of Holy Saturday, the new kind of public message which is the resurrection of Jesus could turn simply into a shallow or angry response to the taunts and violence of Good Friday, answering the world in its own terms. The church is sometimes tempted to do that, to huff and puff and charge off to 'defend' God and the gospel. Holy Saturday commands us to lay down our swords and wait: wait without thought, says Eliot, for you are not yet ready for thought.

Wright, N.T. "God in Private and Public" NTWrightPage.com
http://ntwrightpage.com/sermons/MaundyThurs08.htm 20 March 2008 Accessed: 4/19/2014

The Crucial Lesson Taught on Holy Wednesday

Today is Wednesday of Holy Week, the week of Jesus' Last Supper and crucifixion. Many scholars have worked through the Gospel narratives to provide a chronology of the events they record during this week. Most know that on Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as the crowds exclaimed "Hosanna to the Son of David!" proclaiming His messiahship. On Monday, He curses the fig tree and He then cleansed the Temple of the moneychangers, both actions showing how those called by God must be faithful and pure in their responsibility.

Tuesday was very busy, and the Gospels record several different exchanges of Jesus. First, he faced off against those responsible for the spiritual welfare of the Jewish people, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Jesus then takes some of His disciples up to the Mount of Olives and gives them a two-chapter overview of what they can expect at His second coming and cautions them to be ready. Of course, Thursday is the Last Supper and it kicks off a chain of events leading to Jesus' capture, Friday crucifixion, and His glorious Resurrection on Sunday morning.

What's interesting in all this is that today—Wednesday—The Gospels are pretty much silent on the actions of Jesus. The only thing we know about Jesus' day is that Mary anointed His feet at Bethany (Mark 14:3-9, John 12:1-8). There's nothing recorded about Jesus coming again to Jerusalem or even giving a sermon on this day. It seems a bit strange that, with all the action building toward the climax of Friday, none of the Gospel writes would tell us all that Jesus did this day, as they've done so far.

If you put yourself in the place of the disciples, you might have found yourself a bit confused by Jesus' lack of action on Wednesday. Here, they've achieved a lot of momentum in their ministry. I mean, Jesus has finally allowed Himself to be recognized as Messiah and the crowds were with Him. He faced off against the prevailing power structure and had beat them at their own game. Passover had caused Jerusalem's population to swell, but after tomorrow the Sabbath would take a lot of opportunity to reach even more people away.

Certainly, Jesus shouldn't waste this day and do nothing important, right? Ministry moments are fleeting! But Jesus knew what was ahead for Him. He had greater things planned than the conquering of Jerusalem. His plan was to conquer sin itself. The quiet He cultivated before His final events provides us with two good lessons.

First, quiet times are important in ministry. For most people, ministry isn't one's primary vocation, but a labor of love done in addition to the job that provides the paycheck. Even here, when there's so much to do, it's important to pause and refocus your attention and devotion o what Jesus would have us do. Mary's anointing was a pure act of devotion. It also showed her sensitivity to the things of God. Mark tells us that more than one disciple felt indignant about the costly perfume being "wasted", but Jesus corrected them. Mary had insight that they lacked. We, too, must cultivate our own worship and devotion to God first, lest our business miss the point of ministry.

Secondly, sometimes when God seems silent, bigger things than you realize may be coming! Don't imagine that God's silence means nothing is happening. Many times in apologetic ministry, we think all we are doing is posting things no one is reading or arguing with others who never change their minds. However, you can never know this side of heaven how God is using the faithfulness you show in those areas to His greater glory. Jesus said of Mary, "She has done what she could… And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."

So, minister, remember to pause and reflect on this week. Think about what Jesus has done for us and remember to take time out for Him. Don't lose faith because He seems still or your ministry seems to not be moving forward. God can do great things with the quiet times.

Are Apologists Hypocrites Because They Criticize Others?

Yesterday, I was labeled a hypocrite from a beloved family member. This wasn't because I had made a promise to him and then reneged. It wasn't because I said he should act a certain way and then I acted another. The reason for my being labeled a hypocrite was because I am a Christian apologist, which means I defend a particularly worldview. However, the charge of hypocrisy isn't limited to apologists only, but in today's culture, it can be levied against any Christian trying to honestly live out one's faith.

All Christians are commanded to be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15) as well as to "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thess. 5:21). In order to help Christians accomplish this aspect of their walk in Christ, I try to highlight issues and events in our culture that have significant moral or theological impact. While I do hold convictions on political matters, I really don't make a point of posting them unless they somehow has theological or moral stakes, such as the abortion issue. There is a lot of noise out there today. One of my goals in ministry is to inject clarity in these discussions and hopefully help other Christians be better equipped when they discuss them as well.

But as the issues become more contentious and as the modern culture moves farther and farther away from its Christian underpinnings, my commentary has become more critical, and this is where the problem comes in. I had recently posted about the reaction of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to the forced exit of Brendan Eich from Mozilla, who in 2008 supported California's Prop. 8. GLAAD issued as statement, stating "Mozilla's strong statement in favor of equality today reflects where corporate America is: inclusive, safe, and welcoming to all." My response was that it is neither inclusive, safe, nor welcoming to anyone holding a viewpoint that differs from GLAAD's. For that I'm charged with not being loving and not being Christ-like. In part, I was told "Your original comment about GLAAD not being inclusive, safe, and welcoming to those who disagree--- As if Christians don't do that all the time---so why even make this comment? It's hypocritical. If you are going to point out others' flaws, why not do it to Christians instead?" This was followed by "My point is that it's time to maybe take a break from pointing fingers. Lenny, as a church leader, does not reflect what the church is supposed to look like (like Jesus) when he makes those kind of comments, publicly. It fosters an us-vs-them attitude."

So, as I understand it, I am a hypocrite because 1)I criticize those outside the church instead of keeping my criticism directed toward Christians and 2)by offering criticisms at all I am somehow not reflecting Jesus. Both charges require a response.

Shouldn't Christians Clean Up Their Own Act First?

As I explained above, part of my job as a teacher and minister is to filter the milieu of daily events and help others try to make sense of them from a Christian perspective. Perhaps I don't do that well, but I do try through these blog posts, writing, podcasts, YouTube and social media. Because our society is now post-Christian, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Christians are increasingly faced with positions contrary to their beliefs. Jesus warned of such contrary positions when He would warn his disciples to "beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matt 16:6) or "When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues…" (Matt 6:5). Implicit in His instruction is a criticism of those who are outside the faith. Jesus is pointing out others' flaws while cautioning His followers not to do the same.

This doesn't mean that I shy away from criticizing those in the church, as the objection I'm answering here is lobbied more by Christians than non-Christians. But to assume that Christians should be perfect before we can ever examine the clearly immoral positions of others is ridiculous. Obviously my objector isn't perfect, yet he seems to feel completely within his rights to criticize me! So, that charge of hypocrisy cuts both ways.

Would Jesus Be So Unloving as to Criticize Others?

But perhaps it isn't using nonbelievers as a comparison that's the problem. Perhaps it's unChrist-like to criticize the lost directly. I mean, they're lost, right? Why should we expect them t do the right thing? But, I would turn this question around and ask "Why should we expect anyone to repent unless we show them that they are falling short of God's standards?"

Jesus did this all the time, too. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus asking for eternal life, Jesus criticized his love of wealth. "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor" was His command. When He was face to face with those Pharisees whom He used as a comparison above, He used the strongest language possible to tell them of their evil.  When He says that they are of their father the Devil in John 8:44, we may miss the impact of this; in that culture it is like using curse words to them.

We see similar actions by John the Baptist against Herod, Jesus telling the woman at the well that she did not know the Good she claimed to worship, and the Apostle Paul telling the Athenians that they needed to repent. further, Paul continues to warn the church that "neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Of course, in all things we must balance our criticism in love. The command for defense is always "with gentleness and respect" and any Christian who doesn't treat people as people first and foremost is sinning. But criticism of wrongdoing is not unChrist-like. In fact, it is doing the very thing that Jesus did.

Any parent will know that they tell their child "no" far more than they affirm them. If you don't, the child becomes spoiled, thinking that anything they wish is permissible. For me not to shout an alarm to the Christian who may be damaged by a view popular in culture today would be as neglectful as uncritical parent. It isn't hypocritical for me to call out to others when there's danger in society today. It's what Jesus did to protect His sheep.

Three Problems with the World Vision Decision

"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife."  1 Cor. 5:1

Yesterday's announcement by president Richard Stearns that World Vision will "allow a Christian in a legal same-sex marriage to be employed" at the ministry sent immediate shock waves through the Evangelical community. World Vision has required all of its employees to not only assent to a statement of faith, but also to abide by the ministry's Standards of Conduct Policy, which forbids any employee from participating in actions such as sex outside of marriage. Thus, making such an allowance for united homosexuals confused many supporters as it seemed completely out of step with World Vision policy.

In the official announcement, the company claimed to not be compromising their position. It reads:

Since World Vision is a multi-denominational organization that welcomes employees from more than 50 denominations, and since a number of these denominations in recent years have sanctioned same-sex marriage for Christians, the board—in keeping with our practice of deferring to church authority in the lives of our staff, and desiring to treat all of our employees equally—chose to adjust our policy. Thus, the board has modified our Employee Standards of Conduct to allow a Christian in a legal same-sex marriage to be employed at World Vision.

I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue. We have chosen not to exclude someone from employment at World Vision U.S. on this issue alone."

The notice also justified the policy change by stating "our board of directors is recognized as one of the leaders among Christian organizations in the U.S. It includes deeply spiritual and wise believers, among them several pastors, a seminary president, and a professor of theology." Interestingly, there is a biblical parallel here in the early church at Corinth. The Corinthian church also struggled with divisive theological battles. They also allowed people who practiced what the Bible clearly labeled as sexual sin within their ranks, and they also claimed themselves as wise. When addressing each of these issues in the epistle of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul took the church to task. "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute… When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things."

World Vision's Failed Foresight

Of course, World Vision is trying to claim that it is remaining neutral on issues where good Christians disagree. Note the claim, "I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue." My response is that it is impossible to claim neutrality by implementing such a policy. Here are some reasons why:

First, World Vision, in recognizing same-sex "marriage" while keeping their abstinence provision has made a theological judgment: they have concluded that marriage is not something designed by God, but is something that can be redefined in whatever way some denomination's whims take it. As I've stated before, natural marriage can be easily seen in the fact that men and women's bodies couple in a unique way and the natural result of that coupling is offspring. The Bible says "the two shall become one flesh" and that is exactly what happens if there is nothing to impede nature. Realize, there is no institution other than marriage to properly bring children into this world. None. However, by equating same-sex unions to marriage, World Vision says biology, God's design for family, and the right of a child to have a mother and a father don't really matter. Marriage is what a partner denomination says it is.

Secondly, by maintaining the abstinence component of the Employee Standard of Conduct, World Vision sends a strong message that individuals who violate the Bible's prohibition on premarital sex are committing a greater sin than those practicing homosexual intercourse on a consistent basis. Both acts are condemned in the Bible, but one must assume that same-sex couples who went through a ceremony have the intent to repeatedly engage in sexual immorality. There is no repentance in such instances, and it is clear that World Vision therefore is making a theological claim that there is then no sin.

Lastly, I understand that different denominations hold to different views on a variety of theological topics. However, no Christian denomination teaches that one is in habitual sin by holding to the perseverance of the saints or whether baptism should be full-immersion only. We recognize that Christians will differ on these issues. Habitual sexual sin, though, is clearly taught to be a factor in one's salvation. Paul warns the Corinthians "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." So, deferring to denominations on matters of disagreement is fine, but not where the action bears on what it means to be a Christian.

"But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!" 1 Cor. 6:8

Spears states that part of the reason for the policy change is to keep them focused on their mission. "The board and I wanted to prevent this divisive issue from tearing World Vision apart and potentially crippling our ability to accomplish our vital kingdom mission of loving and serving the poorest of the poor in the name of Christ." The Corinthian church was also successful. They were "not lacking in any gift" (1:7) and were even able to contribute to the collection Paul was taking up for the Christians suffering in Jerusalem. But, their ministry and abilities were considered secondary to their obedience. He says by allowing such immorality go unchallenged they Corinthians are harming the body of Christ.

Many Christians today have been taking a live and let live approach to same-sex unions. "I may believe that homosexuality is wrong, but I don't want to judge others." Such a view is wrong. We are called to be stewards of one another first, and our ministry to the outside world is secondary. Homosexuality is physically dangerous, and as Paul has stressed, it is spiritually deadly. World Vision seems to have focused so much on its ministry to the world that it has gone blind to its ministry to the church.

The Effects of Jesus on the Western World

"Even knowledgeable believers will be amazed at how many of our present institutions and values reflect a Christian origin. Not only countless individual lives but civilization itself was transformed by Jesus Christ. In the ancient world, his teachings elevated brutish standards of morality, halted infanticide, enhanced human life, emancipated women, abolished slavery, inspired charities and relief organizations, created hospitals, established orphanages, and founded schools.

"In medieval times, Christianity almost single-handedly kept classical culture alive through recopying manuscripts, building libraries, moderating warfare through truce days, and providing dispute arbitration. It was Christians who invented colleges and universities, dignified labor as a divine vocation and extended the light of civilization to barbarians on the frontiers.

"In the modern era, Christian teaching, properly expressed, advanced science, instilled concepts of political and social and economic freedom, fostered justice, and provided the greatest single source of inspiration for the magnificent achievements in art, architecture, music, and literature that we treasure to the present day."

  — Dr. Alvin J. Schmidt, Professor of Sociology
How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008). 8.

My Concern with One-Year Bible Plans

The New Year has descended upon us and many people have resolved to improve themselves in different ways. People are starting exercise regimens, cleaning out their desks, and hiding their credit cards (because cutting them up would be, well, a little too permanent!) Nicotine patches and diet books are flying off the shelves. I applaud the desire of people who want to better themselves. I know of many Christians who also desire to become more intimate with the scriptures and so they set themselves to read through the entire Bible. Some of them adopt various read-through-the Bible-in-a-year plans.

I think a more intimate knowledge of God's word is a very laudable goal. However, I have some concerns in the way the one-year bible reading programs are laid out. In fact, I think that many of the programs may actually hinder the goal of knowing the scriptures better. Here are my top three concerns:

1. One-Year Reading Plans Impose Artificial Breaks on the Text

There are several different ways the Bible is laid out by one-year plans. The oldest is to provide a section of the Old Testament, a section of the New Testament, a portion of Psalms and a portion of Proverbs. But this is a terrible way to read the Bible! The books of the Bible are written as just that, books that have a central purpose carried throughout. For example, January 7ths New Testament reading presents Matthew 6, but stops ten verses short. Those ten verses are the completion of the thought of Matthew 6. Jesus says in Matt. 6:25, "That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life" easily showing that verse 25 and following are connected to verse 24. By dividing the text up this way it become harder, not easier, to see what the author's intent and overall message really is.

Other plans, such as beginning-to-end plans or chronological versions are better, as you are at least not reading only a portion of a psalm. But because most of these plans are designed to fit within a specific time period, such as 15 minutes a day, they will still be forced to break the narrative. The books in the Bible were written to be taken as a whole. The New Testament epistles were initially letters to specific audiences. Would you ever read bits of a letter every day for a week and then writing a reply to your correspondent? You would want to read the entire letter so you would have the proper context to form a proper understanding.

2. One-Year Reading Plans Creates the Illusion of Verse Independence

One of the classic ways the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses twist scripture is to take certain verses that by themselves seem to support their teaching and use them as proof, ignoring the larger context of the entire text. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses will use Romans 10:9 to show that Jesus is not God. However, in the verses immediately following, Paul tells us that Jesus is "Lord of all" people, Jewish and Gentile, and he quotes Joel 2:32 to say "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13). Interestingly, that Joel passage uses the divine name of God, YHWH, where Paul writes Lord. This clearly equates Jesus as YHWH.

While Christians will rightly decry the JW twisting of scriptures such as these, the church has become complicit in such abuses by elevating Bible verses over Bible books. We take simple, quotable lines out of their context and use them in ways the writer never intended.

Unfortunately, by presenting the biblical texts as bits, the idea of the verse above the book is elevated. For example, we read about the feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew and we think it is only about what little thing can we bring to Jesus that He could multiply. However, if we were to read the full context of Matthew, we can see how he portrays Jesus as fulfilling Israel's mission: Jesus was "called out of Egypt" (Mat. 2:14), He wandered in the wilderness (Mat. 4:1-10), He delivers the law of God on the mountain (Mat. 5-7), and He relies on God to provide for Him and His flock as the feeding of the 5,000 demonstrates. This picture is hard to see with daily readings but reading Matthew as a whole will show it more easily.

3. One-Year Reading Plans Create Misplaced Goals

A last concern I have over one-year plans is I think it subtly shifts the goal of bible reading itself. As I mentioned at the top of this article, I believe that many people begin such a regimen in order to become more intimate with all of scripture. However, I know when I had previously attempted such a plan things began to get difficult after mid-February. Until then, the Old Testament stories are fairly familiar. One can suffer through a genealogy or two, but Abraham offering Isaac or the plagues of Egypt bring us right back to Cecil B. DeMille familiarity. When the reader hits Leviticus, though, it becomes tough sledding! All of a sudden my intent shifts from understanding the context of the passage to simply getting through it. My goals changed. I was only looking for checking off the box that I did my reading today, not necessarily on what part the passage plays in telling God's story, it essentially defeated the purpose for which I started reading-to become more intimate with the scriptures!

Please note that I'm not saying there is no benefit to one-year plans. Neither am I saying that everyone who engages in the Bible this way will fall into these traps. I'm only expressing my concern that structuring one's reading in this way makes doing so easier and may hinder the primary goal of true knowledge of the Bible.

Instead, I want to pass along a recommendation that was given by Dr. Walt Russell in his book Playing With Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in Your Soul. Dr. Russell is a bible scholar and he recommends creating a reading plan where you focus on one book each month. Start off with a gospel account, or even a short epistle such as Galatians. Once you've chosen your book, you should read it every day. At first, don't stop for the parts you don't have a full grasp of; simply read it as a complete work. After the second week or so, you will begin to notice refrains in the text—ideas that are repeated or reinforced. You can begin to see the work as a single message and then you can go deeper with a commentary or bible helps.

The goal is to master one book per month. On the next month, select another. One you get used to this approach you will find that it really doesn't take an incredible amount of time to read through a book (Galatians can be read in 20 minutes or so.) But you will be going deeper and truly understanding the scripture as God intended.

I'm indebted to Dr. Russell and his teaching in enlightening me with this approach. I think it will provide a very different experience for you. Read Playing with Fire and see how you can ignite change in your soul!

80% of the World's Poor Better Because of Free Enterprise

As Christians, what should our attitude be toward economics? Should our religion inform our economic model or are those two areas distinct? I believe that our Christianity should inform our entire understanding of how we live. Obviously, economic systems like capitalism, socialism, and communism have a moral component because they affect the common man. If unbridled capitalism causes the many to remain poor at the expense of a few who become super wealthy, then it may be that such a system is wrong. If, however, communism offers more suffering by knocking down any one who seeks to better him or herself, then that model is antithetical to the Christian worldview.

The reason I bring this up is not because of some partisan squabble within the United States. I try to keep this blog focused on issues of worldview, not partisan politics. This topic is larger than any one country, and Mark J. Perry, professor of economics at the University of Michigan, Flint has released some astounding findings. In the last 36 years, the overall level of world poverty has declined by 80%. That means that while 1 out of four people subsisted on $1 a day or less in 1970 (using 1987 dollars), now only one out of 20 people fall below that poverty line. In a world of seven billion people, that translates to about 1.4 billion people who are better off than they would have been had the decrease not happened.

At the same page, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute emphasized, "It's the greatest achievement in human history, and you never hear about it. 80 percent of the world's worst poverty has been eradicated in less than 40 years. That has never, ever happened before. In short, it was the free enterprise system, American style, which is our gift to the world."

The question now becomes what was the primary component that allowed so many more people to escape conditions pf poverty? Brooks states, "It was globalization, free trade, the boom in international entrepreneurship." As the Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports, "Much of this is the result of formerly Communist and Socialist economies becoming more market based. China, India and most of South America have been embracing capitalism for decades, while Africa also is moving toward freer markets in more recent years, according to the ‘Economic Freedom of the World' reports."

It is easy to take such an accomplishment for granted in our modern societies today, but we shouldn't. Such an achievement marks a fundamental change in the way all of humanity lives. As Nancy Pearcey, in her book Total Truth, wrote:

Throughout the vast scope of human history, most societies have lived at the subsistence level, with some 90 percent of the people's labor being required just to produce food for the community. This gave rise to an organic view of society, focusing on the survival of the whole rather than the liberty of the individual. With little defense against bad weather and poor harvests, "the survival of the whole was clearly linked to the diligence of each member," says one historian. And "with so many lives always at risk, concern for the public good predominated." The precariousness of life justified authoritarian control of economic relations.

With the rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, however, for the first time many people were freed from the fear of want and hunger—a truly historic benchmark. What's more, the new economic network crisscrossing the country was being created by ordinary men and women: farmers, craftsmen, traders, merchants, shopkeepers, cattle drovers. It began to seem that ordinary people were quite capable of making rational choices to advance their own interests. And when they did, lo, they created wealth all around. (Pearcey, Total Truth, 285)