So...um, heresy. Amen?

This is what passes as the gospel at the largest church in North America. And it is. So distinctly. North American. I'm not sure that any additional commentary is needed. The video condemns itself.

Augustine on Scientific Knowledge

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens...and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn...If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Augustine in On the Literal Meaning of Genesis

in John C. Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 31.

Some Recent Articles on SSM

I've linked below some recent articles on same-sex marriage (SSM) that I have found helpful and interesting.

Kevin DeYoung - What a Difference Six Years Can Make

Christianity Today - Gordon College threatened over SSM stance

The Federalist - The Brave New World of Same Sex Marriage

Ryan Anderson and the Abolition of Marriage

TGC - Should the church get out of the marriage business? NO

Tom Lawson - Should the church get out of the marriage business? YES

The Unintended Consequences of Gay Marriage

Ryan Anderson - The Costs of Redefining Marriage

Dietary Taboos

So, tell me again about how crazy the ancients were with all of their dietary taboos. And we silly moderns mock those silly Hebrews for hunting for leaven in their homes.

Help! I've Got a Friend Who is an Atheist!

A brief journey away from biblical interpretation today and into the territory of apologetics.

I have conversations like these fairly frequently. It is a function of teaching a class on Christian Apologetics. The conversation usually begins with words like: “So, I’ve got this friend who is an atheist…” These are conversations that I usually love. Sure, there are those with questionable motives. I’m not much into supplying Christians with ammunition to use against their pagan “friends” and classmates. But most of the time there is a real and personal pleading in the question. “Help me! I hate to see my friends far away from God. I hate to hear them so hostile to faith. Their questions/accusations are breaking my heart, and, if I’m honest, they are freaking me out.” In short, I love to see Christians, especially Christian young people, passionate to provide some sort of answer to their skeptical friends (while also seeking answers to their own questions). This is a very human and biblical instinct. 

I had the opportunity recently to have this conversation in a somewhat surprising place and time. Every year I travel with our church’s youth group to Michigan to participate in Christ in Youth’s “Move” event. It is always an amazing experience for both the students and adults who go. Usually the last night of the event is spent by the boys goofing off in the dorms walking that fine line that all boys walk between having a blast with friends and getting into serious trouble. At about 12:30 I was summoned up to the rooms housing our sophomore boys. My first thought was that someone must have wandered over that line and needed correction. But when I got up to the room, I was asked by about 20 sophomore boys to spend some time teaching them some basic apologetics for some friends who were atheists. I’ve never taught apologetics at one in the morning, but it was one of the best hours of teaching that I can remember. They paid closer attention than most of my college students!

There were basically four points that I made with them about speaking to their atheist friends and I’ve decided to share them here. These are not specific arguments to be made. They are more like “rules of engagement” because specific arguments are worse than worthless if we don’t have the right approach.

1.       Do not be mystified. Sometimes young people treat a friend who has declared herself an atheist with a certain kind of celebrity. A high schooler who is an atheist – particularly in the Bible Belt – is treated as an exotic creature. We may find ourselves assuming then that this person is somehow more intelligent and has thought through the issues with much greater depth and clarity than we have. This may be true on occasion, but my experience is that most of the time it is not. Whenever the average high school atheist is asked to give the reasons for his faith (yes, it is faith when that word is properly defined), the answers are almost always disappointing. Their answers are filled with a shocking number of errors in logic, gullibility to false or sensationalized arguments (Thank you, YouTube.), and a general lack of philosophical, scientific, and theological knowledge. I don’t say this to demean the average high school atheist – only to demystify her. She is a high school kid trying to figure things out just like you. Don’t falsely believe that all of the burden of proof lies with you.

2.       Do not be hostile. We do present arguments for our faith. But we should always do so without being argumentative or hostile. I would hope that this would go without saying, but our job is not crusade against those filthy atheists by hunting them down and beating them up with our superior knowledge. Truth matters. It matters for eternity. But we should also take Paul’s (never one to shy away from an argument) words to heart that the greatest virtue is love. Be careful of gang apologetics and public shaming of atheists – this happens in schools, work, and also frequently on social media. Believe me, your arguments will be counter-productive. The best approach is the private and personal conversation.

3.       Do be a consistent friend and disciple. I always caution students to remember that more atheists have stopped believing in God for emotional reasons than for intellectual reasons. Deep within the heart of the average atheist – especially if they are in high school – is a great deal of brokenness. Often there is a sense of abandonment and despair. The intellectual issues are often a cover for deeper issues. What they need is not someone to continue to yell at them or threaten to leave them if they don’t start believing rightly. What they need is a good and consistent friend who will show them truth and love. They also need to see a consistent disciple. A life faithfully lived for Christ is usually a much better apologetic than a sophisticated philosophical argument. It is hard to make a case for Christ with a friend who is an atheist when there is precious little difference between your life and hers.

4.       Do be prepared. Timely answers come from a deep well. Take seriously your own development as a follower of Jesus. Study, read, and think so that you might know what and why you believe. There are far too many Christian young people who are unwilling or unable to think critically or deeply about the content of their faith. Be careful of easy and thoughtless Christian clichés. Instead develop a deep and seasoned faith of your own so that when the time comes you will be able to offer honest and thoughtful answers.

The Bible was ‘clear’…

Some really interesting historical illustrations from Rachel Held Evans of the pitfalls of a "the Bible clearly says" type of hermeneutic. I don't beleive that these examples should keep us from EVER making final statements about the meaning of scripture, but they do admonish us to be ever more honest and humble in our interpretations. So often that which we think is clear from scripture is really nothing more than our effort to justify our own culture with the words of scripture.





See the blog here: The Bible was ‘clear’…

Does a culture of individualism make us better at forgiving?

I just finished Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes this morning which is a very good and very readable book chronicling some of the ways that a western worldview affects our preunderstandings about scripture.

In the conclusion of the book, the authors made an observation that surprised me. American Christians are often impressed by the genuine community enjoyed by Asian Christians in places like South Korea. While Korean Christians "applaud American Christians for generosity and forgiveness.." I guess according to certain metrics Americans could be classified as generous. We have a long way to go if we are going to model biblical generosity, but Americans and American Christians specifically are a giving bunch. You may disagree, which is fine. But this post isn't really about American generosity.

This post is about the second part of that observation. Are we really a forgiving culture? Because so many of us are inclined to think the worst about our culture, our knee-jerk answer would be to answer negatively. Of course we aren't a forgiving culture! (These people would probably also be the first to protest that we are not a generous culture either.) As I think about it, however, it strikes me that we are a forgiving culture in general. As with generosity, we have a long way to go to model biblical forgiveness. We are far too often arrogant and patronizing or impulsive and violent. But I think that we are (relatively speaking of course) a forgiving bunch of people.

If you are tempted to disagree with me, I would point out that yesterday was December 7. A day that continues to live in infamy but not a day that lives in hatred or animosity. You read and saw a lot of remembrances of the awful events of Pearl Harbor. But what you didn't see were angry rallies against the Japanese people or mobs burning Japanese flags. I don't want to trivialize the complicated history that has happened since 1941, but for the most part, we have forgiven Japan and the Japanese for Pearl Harbor.

The authors of the book argue that the individualism that is characteristic of American culture actually has helped us to be a more forgiving people. It's an interesting thought. We are undoubtedly individualists - in our politics, in our economics, in our careers, in our families, and in our religion. We think of guilt as being personal, not collective. Therefore, we have come to see issues of salvation and forgiveness as also being personal. When Jesus says that God loved the world so much that he sent his son, we may hear "world" but we think "me." We talk of having a relationship with God through Christ, but we understand that relationship in purely individualistic terms. Jesus loves us all, but he loves us as individuals. This is a reason why so many western Christians struggle with the household conversion texts of Acts and the generational sin texts of Deuteronomy. We are each responsible for our own sin and salvation, aren't we? And our ecclesiology struggles under the weight of our individualism. The church exists for me, and for you, but most importantly, for me. I find myself typically struggling against this tendency in myself (and often failing!) and preaching against it in others. And for good reason. I don't think our individualism is biblical. Not only that, it isn't even "normal." Individualism has certainly been a minority position through history and still is in the world today.

But still...Might this individualism help us to forgive? Because we view sin and salvation as personal, we are not inclined to hold others responsible for something that they did not directly do. We are much less likely to feel lasting anger for a sin committed against someone not directly connected to us (usually in America that means only your immediate family). We find it highly unusual when someone apologizes for something that they didn't do. Added to this, we are not an honor/shame culture either. We get angry when someone hurts us, dismisses us, or treads on our freedom. We are not nearly as concerned about public honor and shame as most people around the world.

Most Americans today do not feel a direct impact by the events of Pearl Harbor. We don't feel the sting of shame or injustice. Our experience with the Japanese is completely different than our grandparents. We've moved on. We've bought their cars and their electronics. Americans also recognize that most Japanese today weren't alive during World War II. Why would we hold them accountable for their grandparents' sins? Pearl Harbor was treacherous. But it was a treachery committed by people two generations ago against our grandparents or great-grandparents. When our grandparents do say something awful against the "Japs" it shocks us. They were directly impacted. We were not. It is not in our culture to hold generational grudges against a people.

Some might bring up the events of September 11 as a counter-argument. It sure seems as if Americans are holding an entire group of people (Muslims) guilty for this act of treachery. But this actually helps to prove my point. Are there pockets of anti-Muslim sentiment in our nation? Of course! But we have heard almost from the day of the attacks the constant refrain that this was attack was perpetrated by individuals NOT by a people. I would argue that Americans as a whole have gone out of their way since September 11 to show their love for Muslim people.

Forgiveness is always difficult. But it is even more difficult in a collective, honor/shame culture. You must learn to forgive not just those who have shamed you but also those who have shamed your people. And not just those who happen to be alive today, but those going back generations. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, most of us think of an individual - my enemy. Jesus' original audience did not. They thought of "our enemies." So perhaps we have found at least one area where our individualism might help us. 

What do you think? Do you think that we are a forgiving culture? If so, is this related at all to our individualism?