David Westerfield

Gospel. Culture. Technology. Music.

Category: Culture Page 11 of 20


The Prodigal Sons, Tim Keller, Politics, and the Gospel

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On September 23, 2008

In Audio, Christian Culture, Culture, Politics, Theology

The Prodigal Sons – Tim Keller (MP3)

I’ve heard this sermon before, but listened to it again because it’s so excellent. I’ll admit: recently I’ve had a wrong tendency to want to blackball one political group over another. Keller reminded me (because I’m so quick to forget) that even deeper than all of that is an attitude of superiority.

In taking a step back from all of the nonsense going back and forth between camps at this time, I realized (once again, because I need constant reminders) that there are many unbelieving conservatives who are the elder brother in the parable. They influence much of what is heard and thought about in the conservative political sphere. This is also true in the liberal sphere.

As believers in the Gospel, we (I) really need to be careful about how much stock we put into what they tell us. Our priority beyond politics is the kingdom of Christ and His Gospel. How quick my own heart is to forget that … yet one more reason why I need to preach the Gospel to my own heart on a continual basis.

NY Times Writes on MSNBC Anchor Demotion

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On September 8, 2008

In Culture, Politics

Wow, a NY Times article that goes into detail on the demotion of the two MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann over the weekend. It seems some people in the journalistic world are waking up to the fact that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you don’t want to hear the opinions of the anchors, you want them to do actual journalism and reporting, not rambling on about their own views. If you want opinionated commentary, there are plenty of other readily available outlets for that, for both Republicans and Democrats. But a major primetime news network, reporting on major political events, is not the place to do that.

(Original): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/busin … f=politics
(Archived): http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/poli … /Part%201/
http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/poli … /Part%202/

In addition:

(Original): http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f1984d88-7cd5 … 07658.html
(Archived): http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/poli … 20respect/

A Response to an Anti-Obama Email I Received

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On August 27, 2008

In Apologetics, Christian Culture, Culture, Politics

Wow. Apparently being written from a self-professed Christian, I honestly don’t know what else I can say about this.

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“JACK WHEELER is a brilliant man who was the author of Reagan’s strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union with the star wars race and expose their inner weakness. For years he wrote a weekly intelligence update that was extremely interesting and well structured and informed. He consults(ed) with several mega corporations on global trends and the future, etc. I think he is in semi-retirement now. He is a true patriot with a no-nonsense approach to everything. He is also a somewhat well known mountain climber and adventurer. Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler the O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance. He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively. What he isn’t, not a genetic drop of, is ‘African-American,’ the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn’t a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it. Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves; he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah. It’s something Hillary doesn’t understand – how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Democratic nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is true religious cults, whose adherents rejects Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white. Thus Obama has become the white liberals’ Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White.

There is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed in Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because it is absurd. Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior. His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any thinking American.”

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Ah, what a forceful and convincing argument. If I were hypothetically voting for Obama, I surely wouldn’t now [wink]. And now my fed up response to those conservatives who send out such nonsense.

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“I don’t agree with Obama on a whole host of issues (not to mention his whole worldview perspective) and will obviously not be voting for him … But I could come up with a list of things in that article that are blatantly anti-Christian to even say. Just the way things are phrased reeks of blinding self-righteousness. Unfortunately, it’s that kind of rhetoric that makes conservative Christians look like a bunch of insensitive idiots to the rest of the unbelieving world.

My response to the assertions made such as “he’s half white,” and “The rest of him is mostly Arab” (even if true, which my question is, SO WHAT?): they reek of racism and a feeling of cultural superiority against all others, which is totally rejected and commanded against in the New Testament on many many occasions as an attitude not in line with a life lived out of the Gospel that has saved us poor desperate sinners who deserve only wrath. And Obama “has no real identity?” That’s just a blatant flaming ad hominem against Obama as a person. Yes, he’s a person, a human being, believe it or not. Of course he has an identity. Absurd.

Seriously, before speaking, Christian’s really need to read over basic proper argumentation logic and avoid falling into giant debating pitfalls such as the following http://www.carm.org/apologetics/fallacies.htm . “Obama is not the descendant of slaves; he is the descendant of slave owners.” Again, so what if he was or wasn’t, as an argument for or against him, on either side of the aisle? What relevance does any of this have to him as a valid Presidential candidate or not? Not once have any major political issues been mentioned, or ideological problems one might have against his own. The very fact of the matter is, whether white’s like it or not, race relations in this country have finally reached a point in our society where African Americans can now hold the highest office in the nation. And though I won’t be voting for Obama based on ideological, philosophical, and theological reasons, I for one am glad about that as a believer in the Gospel, in the fact that Christ is redeeming people from every, “tribe, tongue, people and nation,” (Revelation) not just from white “Christian” America.

Is anyone on the opposite side of the fence of us conservatives really going to listen to such non-arguments of hatred toward the guy? There is no place for that in a believers life. I’m convinced that for every conservative argument against liberals, there’s an equally condemning argument that could made against us as well. Articles like this prove that fact. Just the attitude with which many conservatives come at liberals just implicitly and explicitly asserts that we are somehow inherently better than them. But we’re not. We’re just as messed up as they are … sinners in desperate need of a Savior. However, we’re the “Pharisees” in this cultural picture, the one’s who are all cleaned up on the outside and dead on the inside, we just do a better job of hiding it (maybe) so we don’t look bad to our peers. And really? “Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian” … um, yeah, not with attitudes like this so much. We’ve become almost as non-Christian and adoctrinal as Europe was ten years ago, and yes, since they’ve gotten worse since then, it is likely we will as well, save by the grace of Christ. Again, we more resemble the Pharisees in Jesus’ time who hated other people, like the woman at the well, all Gentiles, and those begging at the temple gate … yet those were the people Jesus displayed His power and authority to, opening their eyes, healing their wounds and disabilities, and usually saving them with a mighty hand, something he needs to do for us as a group as well, apparently.

I hope Obama is not President, but certainly NOT for the reasons given in this article. I have disagreements with his policies on healthcare, economics, morality issues, defense issues, etc., but not him as a person. Why don’t you send this back up the chain to how ever many people were on the list …”

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Updated @ 11:32 pm

John Hendryx has some excellent answers on evangelicals and politics in this online interview, which I am excerpting. I figured this commentary would be good to add to the issue above as well.

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“10. What is your opinion of the evangelical interest in politics and the identification of many Christians with the Republican party?

While I believe we should be engaged in our civic duty to vote and be engaged, it appears to me that many evangelicals have gone beyond the call of duty and have bought into dominion theology. Some of us seem to hold the false belief that if we just changed the laws and made the US political system based on the Bible then all would be well while not considering the changing of hearts. My response to this is that the problem is not just OUT THERE, it is with us. If we lived like we believed the gospel ourselves, then God would use us to change the culture. While I can agree that civil law can be used to restrain evil, we often bludgeon our secular opponents with it as if they could somehow be saved through obedience to it. I believe the first table of the law cannot be legislated. Persons must be persuaded into the Kingdom by human instruments casting seed with the Spirit germinating it, so to speak, but not by the sword or by coercive legal measures. Contrary to my evangelical and Theonomist brethren, I do not believe that the civil magistrate has the authority to judge heresy. A little known historical fact is that the Presbyterian Church wisely invoked semper reformanda and removed chapter 23(?) on the Civil Magistrate from the Westminster Confession in the early 1700s. A move for which I am thankful. Instead, we are to take up our cross and persuade as Jesus did, through meekness, suffering, joy, helping the poor and loving others above ourselves.

I have no problem with Christians personally identifying themselves with a party, but I will emphasize that politics is not the solution to our problems by any stretch of the imagination. There is entirely too much emphasis placed on it, as if God’s plan could somehow be thwarted. We should vote and do what we can to eradicate injustice, poverty and to actively find ways to be involved in mercy ministries. This might mean entering politics on a local level or just merely spending time with hurting people. But if the Republicans don’t get elected next term it isn’t the end of the world. Maybe a little discomfort will begin to burn off the dross in our churches. We must remember that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass. If God wills that we should live in Babylon, we must serve the it with excellence, influencing it by being good stewards of the calling God has given each one of us. Though some may be tempted when things get real bad, we should never take up arms to further our political agenda.

I have lived in a communist country for 10 years and, I can tell you with certainty, that the gospel is not chained because of a political system. On the contrary, communism has been a key factor in raising interest in Christianity in that country on a massive scale for the first time in their 5000-year history. It seems that Christians have become so addicted to comfort here that there is very little awareness of how people are living in the rest of the world. But we Americans are of very little account in the big scheme of things.”

Taken from http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/theo … 20Hendryx/

Using the Gospel Message as a Means for Political Activism

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On August 26, 2008

In Apologetics, Culture, Politics, Theology

“I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice. Let Him be our example.” – Donald Miller, Opening Prayer at the DNC Last Night

More than anything I am saddened by Donald Miller’s recent statements both in an interview with ChristianityToday and his prayer last night at the DNC. I realize many I know are fans (some big fans) of Donald Miller and to say anything against the ideas or theology of someone who may have been instrumental in opening them up toward Christianity makes me somewhat of an outcast, which is hard. I pray by God’s grace you may see what I’m saying as well as my concerns. I want to affirm that I am indeed glad for the work Miller has done in bringing a new generation a different angle on things that has been used by God in order to bring them to the obedience of faith in Christ, for the salvation of their souls. I know personally of a few former high school students where this was indeed the case. And for that I praise God!

But for the sake of the purity of the Gospel we preach to the world, I cannot help but point out where we really need to watch ourselves and our theology. Most of the time, false doctrine historically has started out small, in things that are questionable, yet maybe not worth splitting over at the moment. But over time, that small error begins to snowball, and gets bigger and bigger, until what you are left with is exactly what Satan wants: a gutted, Christ-less, cross-less, dead Christianity that has nothing to say to the world by which people may be saved. Just look at the state of a majority of mainline denominations in both the United States and Europe. That is the fallout of gutting the Gospel in the 19th and 20th centuries of its essential message. We would do well to pay attention to this.

I am not questioning the intentions of Donald Miller in praying at the DNC, though I would question doing it in the first place from a true Christian worldview perspective (that goes for the RNC as well I might add). Regardless, I have no doubt that he means well, honestly. But more than the abortion statements he’s made recently (which alone are just blatantly inaccurate), more than the liberal political activism he’s engaged in (which is hypocritically doing the same thing he accuses conservatives of doing in the Republican party), this statement alone during his prayer at the DNC last night really gets under my skin, mainly for the sake of the purity of the Gospel. This is a case in point of why theology matters greatly. You don’t have to be a seminary student or prof to know at the very least the essentials of your own faith and the great tradition passed down to us over the course of church history. In fact, this is a necessity with the winds of doctrine whipping back and forth at hurricane force speed.

Now to the main point of my issue with Miller’s statement. Was the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God mainly “against the forces of injustice,” as an unbelieving world sees it? Or was it, in Jesus’ own words, “… to give [my] life a ransom for many?” Does Miller’s statement do justice to what was intended by the prophecy of Isaiah 53 as it pertains to the suffering Messiah, as well as the interpretation of the whole Old Testament in relation to the work of Christ in the book of Hebrews? What kind of message does this convey to 1) the DNC, and 2) the rest of the world about the main point, the heart of the matter of the work of Christ on behalf of sinners? It conveys the “Jesus died as our example” theory of the atonement, which is what the world naturally thinks when they look at the message of the Gospel without any investigation into what it’s actually saying. Yet the main point was not so much to give us an example to imitate (which is just law upon law, though of course He still is our example), but rather the main intention was to 1) show the righteousness of God in passing over former sins, and 2) to satisfy the wrath of God through His blood in the place of sinners in great unearned, undeserved love and mercy (Romans 3:21-26).

When a outspoken member of the evangelical community proclaims loud and clear, “I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice. Let Him be our example,” this falls right in line with what the world already naturally thinks about Christianity and thus confirms their false presuppositions concerning it. Therefore, Miller’s short statement of the intention of the cross is actually counter to the Gospel and does injury to it. This is the old-time [theologically] liberal action of attempting to make Christianity more palatable to an unbelieving world by lopping off the very heart of the message which is an offense or foolishness to the world.

If we are going to believe 1 Corinthians 1 about the foolishness of what we preach (foolishness in man’s eyes, not God’s), we must understand that the Gospel was never meant to be made palatable to the natural man, but that in the foolishness of what we preach (with all of its hard doctrinal edges, namely sin, wrath, death, hell, justice, election, love, mercy, sacrificial atonement, bodily resurrection, regeneration, faith, etc.), the power of God is displayed in Him converting souls to faith in Christ to a message that is counter to the world’s message. The very fact of the matter is the world cannot accept the Gospel as the truth until the Holy Spirit lifts the veil on people’s hearts, removes hearts of stone, gives people eyes to see it, ears to hear it (which is why we witness to unbelievers and pray for this operation of God, knowing only He can convert people). And in this way, God grants faith to those He wishes in order to display His glory in all the steps of salvation and the power of His might in bringing people to life from death who never would have or could have converted themselves.

But making the Gospel a message of “fighting injustice” and Christ merely as our “example”? Though I would hope, of course, that Miller would personally go on to say there was way, way more intended by the death of Christ on behalf of sinners than just becoming our example, the very fact of the matter is that the world does not implicitly get that from a “Christ our example” presentation of the Gospel. Even unbelievers can affirm that message, as they do every day in one form or another in our modern day of relativistic thinking.

Related Reading:
http://piercedforourtransgressions.com/

The Seeker-Sensitive Movement: Your Thoughts Al and R.C.

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On August 22, 2008

In Christian Culture, Culture, Philosophy of Ministry, Theology

And Willow Creek’s own assessment seems to fall right in line with R.C. and Al’s comments … http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outof … ek_re.html

A New Kind of Family?

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On August 4, 2008

In Audio, Culture, Theology

After you have a child, you begin to look at the world, entertainment, television, community, family, all sorts of things in a totally different perspective. At least I have. I noticed the other day in flipping TV stations that the ABC Family channel has a new slogan: A New Kind of Family. Maybe it’s not a new slogan, I don’t know. Regardless, it seems to me as if they are marketing to the millions of viewers who live in what our culture calls “non-traditional” or “progressive” families. Unfortunately now in this day in age, we live in a society of these kinds of families that are totally dysfunctional, where priorities are all askew, parents divorce and remarry like they are in middle school dating relationships, people in their teens, 20’s, and 30’s are having kids out of wedlock intentionally (and unintentionally through promiscuity), and what the culture calls a “traditional” family is now the minority. I myself grew up in a highly dysfunctional home. My wife did as well. We are still feeling the effects of that dysfunction to this day. Yet Christ has been gracious to reverse a majority of the damage through His power alone and continues to sustain us. All that to say, the individualistic tendencies within our culture are now getting the best of us. The very fact that ABC Family would go this route in their marketing points to this sad reality: their main tool for bringing in viewers is to make shows targeting this breakdown in the family unit, because that is now the majority of people in this country.

Our culture now not only views marriage in a distorted way, but is presenting this distorted viewpoint as what is normal. That is kind of frightening to me. God created us male and female and instituted a covenant marriage relationship between the two sexes as what is fitting and normal. Families just don’t work in the way God intended them to work unless they are structured in this manner. Any other ordering of a family unit is trying to perfectly fit a square peg in a round hole. Sure, people can make you think what they want by presenting their disordered family as something that is normal and as something that is “working,” much in the same way you can force the square peg into the round hole, but forcing it in still doesn’t make the square peg a perfect fit because the corners will get stripped off of the peg.

ABC Family is an example of the media presenting this distortion as normal, acceptable, because clearly their target audience is no longer the traditional family, but the new, progressive family. They feel that is the norm now, otherwise, wouldn’t they still be marketing to the traditional family? But the reality is families are dying from the inside out and this has adverse effects on the culture. Mothers’ and fathers’ lack of commitment to each other and their family’s, and their lack of God-honoring actions are ripping lives and relationships apart, particularly their children’s lives, whose relationships with their (married, not divorced) parents are necessary for proper mental, social, and most importantly, spiritual development. Living in a covenant marriage “’til death do us part” with one man and one woman is not just a preference for how we want our family’s to be, but rather it is the way God Himself designed it and sovereignly set forth as the way it should and must be. And not only is this so, but it is the only logically functional way for it to work in our lives. Any other way is a distortion of the picture a family was meant to point to: the reality of Christ and His bride, the church, whom He has purchased with His own blood.

What the culture calls traditional in regard to family is in reality that which God has instituted from the beginning and it has not changed, even with the winds of individualism sweeping our land and what our narcissistic Western culture sovereignly deems as right and true. Though we are more technologically enabled and knowledgeable than those from our not so distant past, and though there are some ways of doing things that can be changed and restructured for the better as a result of these advances, the truth and reality of marriage is not something that needs redefining or restructuring. God made it that way for a reason and to go against His design is to go against God Himself in rebellion against His Creator rights. In addition, God has so structured communities in His own design, using the family unit to constitute the group, that it is detrimental for our society to accept this new type of family as the norm. To do so will ultimately be our demise.

God-instituted families are the only kind of family structure that will truly work. Our culture calls the new kind of family progressive as if to distinguish it from a traditional family, as if it were just a matter of preference, like a flavor of ice cream or something. Yet, these new kinds of families will not work because God created things in such a way so that if the components of the family unit are disordered or taken out, things just naturally will inevitably fall apart. And I’m not just talking about gay marriage, though that is definitely a component of what I’m talking about. More specifically, I’m talking about the most common family disordering that is rampant among us: divorce and remarriage. Or as Al Mohler calls it, the “Divorce Industrial Complex.”

This disordering of the family unit and the rampant adultery that plagues our society wreaks havoc in all kinds of ways. It obviously breaks things down the family. But this breakdown works its way out into the society at large. It starts in small communities. Then it moves out further and further into the society, in all its different realms and facets. Most children now (this makes me honestly want to weep) do not know what a God-honoring marriage looks like now as they only know what a broken home looks like. A God-honoring marriage is foreign to most people now. This has tremendous effects on our culture. Just look at it now. We are a people who desperately need the Gospel once again; we need missions not just around the world, but here in our neighborhoods, down the street, at work, in the library, downtown! But this missions work starts in the family first and works its way outward by witnessing to the power of the Gospel not just with our words but our actions in relation to those that are dearest to us.

Divorce and remarriage has wreaked havoc in my life, my wife’s life, as well as countless numbers of you reading this. I realize that many of you have been through divorces, either children of a divorce or the divorcer/divorcee. I also know that many of you are remarried after your divorce. For those of you who were complicit in a divorce or are remarried after a divorce, I am not here to condemn you, for these things are between you and the Lord. That is not my job and I step out of His way in this. I do know that there is great mercy, love, grace, and kindness in Christ, if you will turn and embrace Him.

Yet I cannot escape the conviction that Jesus’ words on these matters are emphatically clear, even though a great majority of people inside and outside the church would seek to just ignore and suppress them. These truths don’t need any deep, Old/New Testament, theological, historical, hermeneutical, contextual analysis to understand. They are clear. And ignoring them does not make their truthfulness any less truthful. They are hard-edged truths (much in the same way hell or predestination are hard truths to accept) that took some working through. I realized families were bad off to a great degree, but did not realize how terribly marriage was esteemed in our culture until I was about to get married and had very wise counsel that guided both of us in our minds and hearts. The statistics shocked and really frightened me as to what I was getting into. I really started taking marriage more seriously than I ever had at that point. (To read more on this go here, thoughts on divorce and remarriage). Some of it was difficult because of the down-hill momentum against marriage in much of our culture that had infected our thinking. But what was difficult to work through has turned out to be a huge blessing in our lives together, by God’s grace and mercy in us.

Much of where we are now as a culture, as it pertains to the family, can be blamed on our cultures’ utopianistic worldview for how individuals should live in communities. It is believed by a great majority of people now that it is okay or normal to live in families that don’t have a father, or mother, or where they have two fathers, two mothers, an uncle, grandparents, or any other combination you can possible think of. Now, I don’t want to negate the fact that there are circumstances where a father or mother dies. That is not what I am talking about here. I’m talking about willful disobedience on the part of parents to what God has instituted in the covenant of marriage.

“‘Til death do us part” means what it says. I believe firmly this includes even if a spouse commits adultery against the other. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to deal with. But it does mean that a covenant was made and it should be upheld. Marriage is not a contract where there are stipulations that if not met it can be broken at will, but rather it is a covenant where the love is unfailing toward the other spouse, even in the midst of something so terrible and emotionally draining. Christ can heal all hurts and reverse the curse though, even when an offense on that scale has been committed against you. That is who we are to turn to, not the divorce lawyer.

However, much of this great problem in our society should also be blamed on the church (possibly a majority of the blame) and our lack of upholding the family as the ideal for what God intended as what will work in reality. And we do this not so much by the words we say, but by the way we live our lives. There is a lot of speak coming from the evangelical church about the family and how we should do things. But there is little action on our part in this regard. Before we point our fingers outward toward what others are doing, maybe we need to look inward and repent of our ways before the throne of God, in order to witness to the power of the Gospel, specifically in family life, that we may win this dying world for Christ.

Last time I checked (which was a few years ago), the divorce rate in the church was worse than the average divorce rate in the rest of society, at least according to Barna. Do you see a problem here? We claim to be the people of God, born anew, raised from the dead by the Spirit’s supernatural saving power in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, who (when we were pursuing nothing but sin) gave us a new heart, new affections, new abilities that we didn’t have before, all in order to do what is right in His eyes, to be pleasing to Him, albeit imperfectly. And yet in practice we live worse than the world we claim to have been redeemed from? I’m missing something here.

There is a giant disconnect in people’s minds between true saving faith and what results from a person born of the Spirit of God who now possesses that faith by God’s gracious act. It is a disconnect that points to a darker reality no one wants to consider: the fact that it is probable that many, many, many people in the church (yes, even Gospel-preaching churches) have not been born of the Spirit of God and live today as nominal Christians, or as Paul would say, who live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Being born again is not a political label you slap on yourself and claim at any given moment of your life when you so choose. Being born again is something that happens to you by the supernatural working of the Spirit of God in you, by His choice, on His timing, and it is something you will know has happened to you, for the inward testimony of the Spirit is better than all reason (Calvin, Institutes, Book I). God brings you to life from the dead, you don’t. Jesus made this clear in John 3.

This is what conversion is: being raised from the dead through the preaching of the Gospel by God’s power, in order that what results from God’s work in you is belief and faith in Christ, and that what results from this new life are works that are pleasing to God (namely because the works are no longer a duty that must be performed, but it is now your delight to do them, because of your newly regenerated nature). This understanding of salvation doesn’t jive with what I’m hearing statistically coming out of the church these days. God saves you and gives you the means to be saved: faith. To put it in theological terms, faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature (Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals). It is God’s work in us, it is His gift to grant. And as a result of this faith, though you will stumble and fall, you do that which is pleasing to Him and will return to Him again and again, for you cannot help but do so.

To be saved, we need this change to happen in us by God’s work, in order that with our eyes opened we may see and believe; with our ears opened, we may hear and understand with a renewed mind; with our hearts transplanted by God’s Spirit, we may love Him with a love created in us first by the Love of Christ. Until this message is preached and until this is a reality in the hearts of professing Christians, from both preachers as well as lay people, we will continue to flounder in our witness to the Gospel in the way we live our lives. And more specifically toward my main point here, we will fail in our witness to the Gospel in family life. The Gospel, salvation, and it’s infallible results (because of God) in people’s lives must not be disconnected any longer. In fact, the Scriptures are clear that for one to continue in willful disobedience points to an absence of saving faith to begin with. And man does this relate to marriage.

The reversal and healing of our nation is going to begin only when we, the church, repent of our wicked ways, seek God’s mercy upon us, and in practice uphold God-instituted marriage as what He has intended for family and community life, for every generation. Godliness starts in the home. This was a point J.I. Packer told Mark Driscoll recently of something that needs to be recovered in our generation. I do not claim to have in any way mastered anything. In as much as I speak to those reading this, I speak to myself and my own heart, for I know that if God were to let me go, I could fall further than I would ever have sinfully wanted to or believed I could go. I know I am wicked beyond what I can imagine or conceive, for I see glimpses of it every day in my constant wandering heart. Yet in Christ, there is great mercy, and conquering power over sin, for the joy and reconciliation to God that is in Christ’s work is greater than anything in the world. He is the source of change in relation to marriage, and is the One from whom and through whom all blessing and ability to do any of these things comes. Without Christ, we can do nothing.

Related:

You Must Be Born Again (MP3) – John Piper
Divorce and Remarriage – A Position Paper – John Piper

The Blurring of Evangelical and Catholic Distinctions

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On July 18, 2008

In Apologetics, Culture, Theology

Modern-day evangelicals are increasingly viewing Catholicism simply as another denomination within the totality of the Christian faith, much in the same way we have historically viewed Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian denominations as evangelical, for example. This lowering of theological arms is a clear indication that we are continuing to stray away from the Gospel path that has historically viewed Catholicism as a heretical eclipsing of the very Gospel itself, in the same way they view us as having heretically strayed from the authority of Rome over us. Much of that Scripturally informed conviction seems to be disappearing now, though.

Within the evangelical church, walls are coming down where more and more churches are participating with Catholic ministries on all kinds of fronts. In the theological realm, evangelical leaders are coming together with Catholic leaders in some form of unity (not sure exactly what kind to be honest). This has been happening for a while and is really nothing new, (based upon the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement, signed by ministers from both camps) in the 1990’s, but it seems to be getting out of control. Confusion abounds.

In the world’s eyes though, this is a good thing: moving forward past the highly divisive Reformation issues; getting over “pesky,” “outdated,” “hair-splitting theological” issues that keep us from the amorphous worldly “unity” that is exalted as a god in our culture. To stand in opposition to such unity, as I am doing, to the world at least, is foolishness. But the Gospel, that is the Biblical Gospel, is foolishness to those who are perishing and makes no sense to the world. To stand against a popular ideology for the sake of the Gospel is highly unpopular, even within the church now unfortunately.

Much of this has come about from a total disregard of theological (Biblical) understanding and education in both the evangelical and Catholic realms (though I will admit more in the evangelical world than the Catholic world, seeing as how Catholics actually require you to go through a confirmation class in which you must learn the faith). This also has to do with evangelicals folding to cultural demands for religious relativism. But this great confusion is also massively propagated by those in leadership within the evangelical community who are either openly in ministry cooperation with Catholic organizations (for a “good cause,” forget the Gospel distinctions) or who have left evangelicalism altogether for Rome.

This blurring of distinctions is highlighted the most in the departure of Francis Beckwith from his position as President of the Evangelical Theological Society in return to Rome. Interesting to note though is the title of his new book coming out in the next few months speaking to all of this: Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic. Evangelical Catholic? This type of language sends all kinds of mixed signals to a whole lot of lay people who are deeply confused as to how evangelicals relate to Catholics, both historically and in our modern day. This is just one more reason why theological education and training are vastly important, not just because it helps us grow in our knowledge of the Scriptures for the preparing of our minds for God’s glory, but also because it keeps us from error and grants us a great level of discernment when it comes to competing “gospels” out in the world.

The differences between evangelicals and Catholics are not minute: they relate to how we understand the very Gospel itself. They are not unimportant distinctions. We both believe each other, on matters of Biblical teaching concerning how we are saved in particular, to be teaching heresy and literally leading people astray to their eternal damnation (though even the Pope has made clear modern Catholics believe there are many outside of Rome’s authority who are saved but acting in disobedience to God by resisting the “infallible authority of The Church” over them … like me). Sounds like more folding to Western ideologies if you ask me, but nevertheless, it is so.

James White points out something important though on a recent blog entry concerning all of this, and in particular Beckwith’s statements, statements he also made on an entry I wrote a while back concerning N.T. Wright, here, that there is nothing new under the sun. I was slow to see this at the time when Beckwith responded to me. In calling himself an Evangelical Catholic, Beckwith, it seems at least on the surface, seeks to bridge a divide that has existed for centuries.

So to bridge this gap, he is attempting to show us “confused evangelicals” that the problem really isn’t as big of a problem as we make it out to be, that the issue at the heart of our debate is how we evangelicals view our justification through the lens of the Reformation imputation model (Christ’s righteousness is counted ours through faith alone) versus the infusion model (Christ’s righteousness is infused into our spirit whereby we are literally, in this life, made holy unto God, unto justification). Interestingly, N.T. Wright says basically the same thing, but I digress.

But as White points out, this itself, though Beckwith would seem to posit it as a new refining of the argument that we evangelicals haven’t already dealt with before, goes right to the heart of the very issue that has been debated between us for 500 something years now, doctrines that people died by torture for during the Reformation, doctrines that explain the very Gospel through which we may be saved.

So, yes, the divide between Catholics and evangelicals is not something to take in a light-hearted manner. Just as an example, evangelical ministry service work must be kept separate from Catholic ministries of service. Why, you say? The Gospel is at stake. How? Well, if we begin to compromise on the idea that there are strong enough Scriptural boundaries setup between us on how we are saved theologically (i.e. the Gospel, to put it bluntly); and compromising in this way in order that we may perform service work alongside Catholics whom we have historically considered outside of the grace of the Gospel … then it is only a matter of time before we too will slide back to Rome, just as Beckwith has.

Beckwith is a striking example of what happens when we compromise on the great eternal Scriptural truths of the Gospel, recovered from Rome in the Reformation. For Beckwith though, as he has said, this was just “confusion” of what Catholicism was teaching concerning justification … or rather, he never understood the point of contention to begin with and was always a Catholic maybe?

As far as the evangelical church is concerned, could it be, at least in this area, we are folding under a presupposed cultural norm of relativistic thinking that is now translating into how we view service work between evangelicals and Catholics, that we can come together as “one people” regardless of creeds (Creeds and Deeds – Michael Horton) for the sake of others, nevermind the Gospel by which people are either saved through faith alone or lost forever by unbelief? Should we not instead, with our own resources and talents, form organizations of our own to meet the needs of the poor and helpless, in order to bring them the greatest Aid of all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ that supernaturally changes us from the inside out by His work alone?

This seems to me to be the highest priority of the evangelical church: ministering the Gospel to a dying world. And we should do this through the means of service to others, but service as a means, not an end. Replacing the priority of the Gospel with service as an end is eternally dangerous. Using service as an instrument to further God’s Kingdom (which in reality is making disciples through the preaching of the Gospel) is ideal for it is what we see Jesus and the Apostles do over and over in the Scriptures.

We must, for the sake of the Gospel and the glory of God, be very careful, for we are treading on thin ice in regard to the evangelical/Catholic compromise that is taking place. May God, by His mercy in the cross toward us through the justifying work of Christ, continue to preserve us in the truth: that we are saved by grace alone (sola gratia) through faith alone (sola fide) in Christ alone (solus Christus). There is no other hope, for this is what the Scriptures have always taught, for they are the immutable Word of God. This Gospel hope is that God alone saves sinners. Catholics disagree. There can be no consensus on these things between us, for these are things we both believe will separate us for eternity.

Instant Gratification as it Relates to Theology

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On July 11, 2008

In Culture, Theology

We live in a society where we have almost anything at our disposal in a matter of minutes or seconds: mass amounts of clean water, mass amounts of clean food, transportation, smooth roads (for the most part), climate-controlled buildings, instant information via the internet, instant everything. We want news in bite-size chunks; we want food made in front of us as soon as we show up in the line (Chipotle? which I love by the way) or quickly available at a drive-up window; we want clothes that we like when we like. We don’t want to wait, on anything. We get extremely frustrated in traffic jams. We’re not a patient people. We live in a society where because of technology, we think in terms of convenience as it relates to almost everything.

I am including myself in this culture and not trying to make it seem as if I have successfully distanced myself from it, because I haven’t. By God’s grace, hopefully, I’m on the way. I’m simply diagnosing these things that are good in one sense (the ease of meeting our needs and our wants) and bad in another (what it has done to our character as a culture).

There are ways in which I am petty, short, impatient, frustrated when things don’t go my way when these convenient services or products are either cut off or made more difficult to obtain, either in the short-term or the long-term. I am a sinner in need of grace, grace to work in my heart to make me more like Christ, that these things our culture is absorbed in as behavioral patterns of operation would cease to be active in me. I suppose it will take a life time.

All of that to say that unfortunately it seems this instant gratification culture we are absorbed in has made it’s way into the Evangelical world, and in particular, Biblical thinking and understanding. Because of our instant gratification, pragmatic, practical, “break it down for me” modus operandi, we tend to think of theology in the same manner.

We are not patient when it comes to the difficult things to understand in the Scriptures. We want to get straight to a complete understanding without having to do the work to get there. “Just give it to me straight.” “All we need is Jesus.” “I don’t need to think through what it’s saying, that’s what theologians are for. Just give me the broken down, short version.” Christianity (the Gospel) doesn’t work that way, it just isn’t that simple. Now, in one sense it is simple, being that a child can understand it in its simple message that God saves sinners. Yet in another sense, it is infinitely deep, so deep even angels long to look into these things.

Even further though, many times people don’t even want the broken down version anymore, so they try to bypass theology altogether and skip straight to the “What should we do?” thinking instead of first thinking through the “What has Christ done to reconcile me to God?” as the basis for moving forward to the “What should we do?”

In many of Paul’s writings in particular, he starts with theology before getting to the “What should we do?” portion. Ephesians and Romans are primary examples of this. In Ephesians, chapters one through three are theological primarily. Then chapters four through six are about works and growing in them.

In Romans it’s the same deal. Chapters one through eleven are primarily theological. Then chapters twelve through sixteen are practical, or focused on our works in response to the theology presented in chapters one through eleven. Even then though, Paul is constantly relating works back to the Gospel. One necessarily and logically proceeds from the other and it cannot work in the reverse direction (though of course in works we can see that very theology being played out for sure).

Theology is for doxology, orthodoxy is for orthopraxy, or to break that down even further, right thinking and believing necessitates right living and doing. You cannot divorce the two and in addition to that, right living always proceeds from right believing (with the heart) and thinking (with the mind), just as wrong doing and living always proceeds from wrong believing and thinking.

In the American Christian culture, we want to skip the difficult thinking and go straight to the pragmatic, practical doing. But it just won’t work or last. We will burn out because our believing and thinking isn’t firmly grounded in the source of power and vast truth that is in Jesus Christ, revealed in the Scriptures. Skipping over proper thinking and believing concerning the Scriptures is, at its heart, legalism, or it will inevitably always give rise to that if it hasn’t yet. Why? Because then the focus of our faith is no longer the glory of what Christ has won for us at Calvary, but is now what we’re doing.

We don’t want to sit down, quietly, and patiently think through what the Word of God says and wait upon the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts and minds that which is true from the Scriptures. This has to do much with our convenience mentality. Or we don’t want to sit down and take the time to work through a theological work someone has put a ton of effort into to help us understand it.

So what do we do in place of this? We take single verses, many times out of their respective context, that are easy to understand and reduce the entire Christian faith to a few summed up statements in the Scriptures. There is so much more to it though than just a few commonly known verses like John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23 and so on. Those are great summation verses, don’t get me wrong, and they should be employed in the service of sharing the Gospel. Why? Because they are God’s word. But they certainly do not express all that is said concerning salvation. And for many of us, we just stop at these verses and proceed no further in understanding all that God has said to us.

That’s why there are chapters and chapters of Scripture speaking directly to these things, even if they are hard to understand at first. We must fight the tendency to conveniently sum up Scripture into these bite-size chunks and dig deep into His Word like a miner digging for gold. As much as we would like the Scriptures to be a few sentences, the fact of the matter is they are not and it is complicated. It takes us a lifetime to work through all that has been said to us. And even then, we couldn’t even begin to exhaust His Word to us.

Theology is careful thinking about what the Bible says to us concerning the truths of God in the Scriptures. It is also relating one passage to other passages. For instance, how do we understand Paul’s statements in Romans 4 and 5 with James’ statements in James 2:14-26? Paul says we are justified by faith alone. But James says we are “justified” by faith and works. Yet we believe Scripture does not contradict itself because it is the inerrant Word of God. So what are we to make of these passages in regard to justification? That is theology. And it is vastly important that we get it right. This is just one example. All of this is important because it shapes how we view Christ and His work on our behalf, which then, depending on our comprehension of it, ultimately works itself out into how we serve Him and others.

So at the same time that we’re pursuing people with works intentionally, that seek to show them the Gospel (ultimately), we need to constantly be diligent in studying the Scriptures and thinking through what others in our present day and in the 2000 year history of the church (that the Lord has graciously blessed us with) have had to say concerning them. You cannot skip over theology as if it can be ignored because it is difficult. No. Wrong thinking and believing about God, man, salvation, and a host of other points of theology will always result in works that dishonor Him, that esteem His value to be worthless.

You will always be doing theology in everything you say, even when you want to skip over it. There is no question about that. Every time someone asks you a question concerning what the Scriptures have said, and you give them a response, you have uttered theology, even if it is a summed up, shortened statement. As R.C. Sproul has said, the question is not whether you have a theology or not, the question is whether you have correct, truthful theology.

Now to be clear, this does not mean you need to study twelve hours a days like Jonathan Edwards or someone like that. Let’s be reasonable. Most of us do not have that kind of time with jobs, school, and the pressures of everyday industrialized, technology-saturated life in a world like ours. But this does mean that we all need to be diligent and persistent, everyday, in actively pursuing the truths of God in the Scriptures.

If we fail to do this, our thinking about God will not be conformed to the Scriptures and we will conceive of God in the way we want to think of Him (which amounts to idolatry according to Romans 1), not how He’s revealed Himself in Scripture. This will ultimately affect how we make decisions on a daily basis, which then ultimately affects all of what we do, practically speaking.

If we were as diligent in pursuing the unlimited spiritual knowledge within the Scriptures (given to us by God Himself!) as we are in pursuing business degrees, law degrees, masters degrees, careers, etc., think about how much we could mine that would be valuable unto eternal life, not just this life that is passing away before our very eyes according to Ecclesiastes.

Monergism.com is a great place to start with all of this. They have topics on possibly every area of theology or question you may have pertaining to our faith.

Totally Misses the Point of the English/Spanish Debate

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On July 9, 2008

In Culture, Politics

For Obama, it’s more important to learn English in order to be bi-lingual than to learn English in order to assimilate into a culture. Try telling that to the citizen’s of Miami where the people now speak a majority Spanish instead of English. Businesses are being forced to close because they don’t speak Spanish and are thus losing business.

For attempting to unify a nation, Obama is doing very little of it. As the issues come out here, the marketing fanfare is taking a back seat and the real Obama is being exposed. He wants to separate himself from all the other politicians, yet he is just like them. Yes, McCain is as well. They are both politicians. But my point is that Obama is attempting to market himself as this middle of the road kind of guy, when he is anything but that. He’ll say whatever it takes to get into office.

So, back to the video … Obama is more embarrassed by us, the American people, who don’t all speak multiple languages, than embarrassed by the tragedy of Miami and their majority use of Spanish instead of English? Or that someone like Barbara Walters considers the leader of Syria to be an honorable man? http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mcc … ntelligent Probably more so than her own President? Typical East Coast, elitist snobbery, coming from both Obama and Walters.

Only in America is this kind of non-sense permitted. And for that, Obama and Walters should be thankful. But instead they’ll just attack the nation where they find refuge from the extremist ideologies that exist in other parts of the world, through bad logic and a corrupted moral compass.

Why We’re Not Emergent – A Review

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On July 4, 2008

In Christian Culture, Culture, Reviews, Theology

This was a great read. The back and forth style between a writer for ESPN (Ted Kluck) and a pastor at a church in East Lansing, MI (Kevin DeYoung) has made for an excellent combination of perspectives on the emerging church movement. On the one hand, Kluck is coming at it from a very down-to-earth, journalistic, street level perspective, giving you a cultural view from all kinds of sources and personal interviews. And on the other hand, DeYoung is taking apart the movement from a theological point of view, affirming the things that are positive about it, and denying the things that are Scripturally contradictory.

Instead of just hearing one authors’ perspective and critiques, by having two authors with differing angles, it really gives you a more well-rounded understanding of what it’s all about. It is an easy read and really pulls you in. As D.A. Carson describes the book, it is “breezy.” It’s one of those books where you don’t get bogged down in a section because of its thickness. Points are explained with exceptional clarity and not made theologically overbearing.

By no means do they cover absolutely every single point of view in the movement (to do so would be next to impossible), but they cover the major teachers and forces driving the movement, both theological and cultural. The summed up thesis is that we have a lot to glean from the emerging church and their critiques of evangelicalism and where it’s gone, and yet they, like their liberal forebears 100 years ago, have swung the pendulum too far the other way. In many ways, the movement has the same taste as modernistic theological liberalism, and oddly enough, some of the almost exact quotes. Therefore the answer is not to “reimagine” Christianity under the shadow of postmodern (as the liberals attempted and failed at 100 years ago under the shadow of modernism), but to recapture historically faithful, evangelical (Gospel-centered), Reformational Christianity.

I don’t want to give too much more away because, well, you just need to read it yourself. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to know more or understand what this whole movement is about, why it’s appealing, what’s positive, but also show us all a better way. Get this book. You will not be let down by the content, nor the style.

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