Christus Victor

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America, Christianity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture, Death, Fear, God, Hope, Jesus Christ, Life, Media, Pandemic, Resurrection, Salvation, Society

A few days ago, among the items in an assorted internet news smorgasbord came several headlines to the effect that the president had garnered anger by saying that people shouldn’t fear the coronavirus.  “‘Don’t Be Afraid of COVID,’ Trump Says, Undermining Public Health Messages”, ran the headline from the New York Times.  Surely they don’t mean to say that the public health message is that we should be afraid?  Or do they?

            The president’s tweet didn’t just say not to be afraid of COVID.  He also talked about how great he was feeling, and touted the drugs for treating the coronavirus developed under his presidency.  I won’t dispute that his message suggested COVID-19 was not a serious concern, and that such a message is both frustrating for health workers and painful to those who have suffered and lost because of the pandemic.  Human suffering should not be treated lightly.  When one man has a mild case of the coronavirus, or makes a recovery, it is an occasion for gratitude, not a time to neglect the awful consequences this virus has had for so many.

            But, in terms of the news cycle, anger seemed directly tied to the president’s urge that people not fear the coronavirus.  That, to judge from the news, was an outrageous suggestion.  The implication is that you are only taking COVID-19 seriously if you fear it, and anything less is outrageous.

            I am a cautious man, myself.  I take precautions; in some cases, I am perhaps over-cautious.  Yet I think it is mistaken to put forth fear as a virtue, or to promote a message of fear.  Fear of death may cow people, but it does not make us resilient or noble.  It is good to be wise and prudent.  There is nothing commendable about foolhardiness; but nor is fear a virtue.  For those who see in some dimensions of the various state governments’ coronavirus response an obtrusive overreach, and in the media a political dimension to the coronavirus coverage, this appeal to fear is certainly corroborative.  Another possibility is that they simply present the story as they understand it: this is a fearful time, and it is reckless and foolish to not be afraid.

            Christians have a different perspective.  We recognize that this life is short, and prolonging it as long as possible is not the highest good.  More importantly, we have a theologically informed and redemptively transformed perspective on death.  Death is a consequence of sin, and of itself is indeed a terrible thing; but it has been de-clawed by the atoning death and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Death is the gateway to one’s eternal destiny.  For those who don’t know Jesus, death should be a terrible and stark reminder that NOW is the time to repent and be saved.  But, for those who do know Jesus, death is the passage to the presence of their Savior. 

For the Christian, death holds no terror; this enemy has been disarmed, and pressed into service to carry the people of God to their rest with their Lord until the day of resurrection.  Our Lord has conquered death.  As Jesus said to John, when the apostle was confronted with His awesome majesty, “Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17-18, NIV).

Ultimate Authority

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America, Authority, Christianity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Freedom, God, Government, Pandemic, Progressive Christianity, Secularism, Truth

Back in August, RNS ran an article entitled, “John MacArthur believes the Bible trumps COVID-19 public health orders. Legal scholars say no.” Here, in a case study of church-state relations, we see the basic failure of a secular worldview.

RNS is, after all, a basically secular organization. “Wait a minute. RNS stands for Religion News Service. How can that be a secular organization?” Because it uses “religion” in the generic sense, various religions, without any conviction as to which religion is true; it is a secular platform for liberal religious views from various traditions, and thus represents a secular society’s approach to religion.

In a secular society’s approach to religion, there is an implicit relativism on spiritual truth, and an elevation of the authority of the state above the church. The separation of church and state becomes one-sided; it is invoked when there is an attempt to bring the church into the state, but ignored when the time comes to bring the state into the church.

A secular approach to religion is not the same thing as religious freedom. Religious freedom is a Christian idea, and happily coexists with the public acknowledgment of Christian truth–as was the case in America for most of its history. A secular society, we are beginning to see, actually impinges upon religious freedom, as atheistic ideologies become public orthodoxy.

We see this in the hypocrisy of certain government officials as they select which gatherings are essential and which are not during the pandemic. Thus we come back around to RNS and their assumption of secular authority: ‘Does the Bible trump COVID-19 public health orders? Let’s ask the experts on government orders.’ That is begging the question.

Of course, the opinions of legal scholars may vary. There is a legal tradition, evidenced in the founding of our nation, that rooted human rights in the authority of God. Then there’s the opinion of one scholar quoted in the RNS article:

“We have rights from the Constitution, not the Bible,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State. “Biblical duties don’t trump our laws. Period. Full stop.”

When confronted with that kind of attitude, what can a Christian say but “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, ESV)? God, not government, is the highest authority. Jesus Christ is Lord.

Legal experts cannot tell us whether the Bible has authority over legal pronouncements–though, if a legal expert is a Christian, he might know the answer. The most legal experts are equipped to tell us is whether or not the law acknowledges the authority of Scripture. If it does not–as is often the case–that tells us nothing about the authority of Scripture vis-à-vis human government. All that tells us is that human government claims to be the ultimate authority.

That is the case in a secular or secularizing society. But that doesn’t make it right.

In this pandemic, Christians have had to wrestle with how the church should respond to public health orders; in particular, we have had to wrestle with how the Bible’s command to submit to governing authorities does or does not apply in these situations. That is a valid and sometimes complex question to work through. But that is not the question RNS is asking; RNS is asking whether God or the government has ultimate authority in these matters–and that is an exceptionally easy question to answer.

The Bible is the Word of God. Of course God’s Word has authority over the word of the state. The state’s opinion on this matter makes no difference, except that it is a potent reminder that what our nation needs most is to return to an acknowledgment of the ultimate authority of God–an acknowledgment expressed at our nation’s beginning: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”

A Reckoning

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America, Christianity, Church, Faithfulness, Gospel, Religious Left, Same-Sex Marriage, Truth

Religion News Service, a hub of journalistic advocacy for the religious left, has had several rather telling articles lately. First on the docket is this piece from Ryan Burge, who urges Christians to abandon unpopular teachings of Scripture in pursuit of numerical growth.

The headline reads, “On LGBT and women’s equality, stark statistical reality is coming for white evangelicals.” The title alone has several notable features. First is the framing of the issues in terms of equality, which itself suggests that white evangelicals are bigoted in their views on these matters. Next, the liberal triumphalism: the future belongs to them, “stark statistical reality” looms before evangelicalism. Third, of course, is the focus on “white evangelicals”, a favored target for the left in recent times. Are evangelicals of other ethnicities significantly more open to sexual immorality or women preachers? I suspect not; in any case, Burge makes no effort to demonstrate that they are.

Through the course of the article, Burge notes some facts about the American social and religious landscape that are, indeed, important–but not news to most. The rise of the “nones”, and shifting opinions related to LGBTQ issues and women preachers are discussed.

Then he takes the data, and applies it towards the usual ridiculous but unsurprising liberal conclusions. Visualizing churches as businesses, he says that evangelical churches aren’t selling what the younger generations are going to want to buy. Our beliefs are outdated, like a Blackberry in the iPhone age. Our options are 1) to maintain doctrinal orthodoxy regardless of numerical decline, or 2) “evangelicalism could begin to slowly shift its stance on issues like women pastors and same-sex relations.”

To his credit, Burge grants some validity to option 1, stating “There is integrity in this path.” What’s ridiculous is his implication that option 2 would lead to numerical growth. He’s basically suggesting that evangelical take the path of the liberal mainline denominations: change doctrines and practices to keep in step with the times. But his own research shows the correlation between the rise of the “nones” and the decline of liberal mainline Christianity, and he describes his own projection saying that “The results indicate that the ‘nones’ will unequivocally be the largest group in America by 2029, and that’s largely a result of more mainline decline.”

Even in purely pragmatic terms, liberalizing evangelical doctrine and practice so as to be more like the mainline denominations is a terrible idea, and not likely to bring numerical growth. Burge says our ‘product’ is unappealing to young American ‘consumers’; but what his own statistics express much more pronouncedly is that the ‘product’ being sold by liberal churches–a watered-down accommodation of Christianity to secular culture–is precisely what American ‘consumers’ are rejecting.

It is true that secularism is on the rise in America. But what the religious left cannot seem to grasp is that the quickest way to kill your denomination is to liberalize it to meet (post)modern mores.

But the more fundamental issue is that this whole way of looking at things is flawed, one might even say idolatrous. The metaphor of the church as a business selling a product to consumers is natural to Americans, but it is offensive to the church and to the church’s Lord. And this sort of thinking has been a poison within the evangelical world for quite some time.

We are concerned about lost people finding salvation. But they are not consumers, Christianity is not a product, and the church is not a business. We are the body of Christ, the people of God in the midst of a world of darkness. The church has no right to cast aside God’s commandments in pursuit of popularity. It’s an understatement to say, as Burge does, that “there is integrity in this path.” It is the only path with integrity.

It is also the path with the most hope for Christianity in America. As the mainline denominations are strangled by their own compromise, evangelicalism may see another great awakening, if God so chooses. Burge says, “I’m sympathetic to the view that God can change hearts. But I see no evidence of divine intervention in the data.” That’s a remarkably short-sighted view of things. The history of the last two millennia has provides ample demonstration of God’s ability to change hearts. This is not guaranteed in any given time and place; it is possible anywhere, in any circumstances.

God can and does change hearts. The responsibility of the church is to be faithful to her Lord, to advance the kingdom of God in the dominion of darkness, and to pray Maranatha–our Lord, come. The “stark statistical reality” of shifting American opinions is not the reckoning people should be most concerned about.

Again–Chaos, Control, or Christ

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America, Christ, Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, Jesus Christ, Politics, Race, Secularism, Security, Society

The many grim headlines that have met us in recent days point to a nation caught in the tug-of-war between chaos and control, and remind us that we are in this dilemma because we, as a culture, have rejected the Lordship of Christ. We encounter grievous injustice, and try to deal with it with all the resources of pagan or secular worldviews; the results are what we see unfolding.

There can be no doubt that self-consciously Christian societies have often failed to live up to their own principles. But what should be noticed is that these failures were a contradiction of their principles, not an accordance with them. That means that such a society would have within itself the resources to address its failures with repentance and reconciliation. There is a divine standard of justice, pure and glorious, to which all men stand accountable; there is an identifiable spiritual root to all injustice, sin in the human heart; there is a means of challenging wickedness with the gospel of Jesus Christ, of calling sinners to repentance and of seeing change, reconciliation, healing, and love that transcends boundaries.

But a secular or pagan society–and are these different things, or only different names?–does not contain within itself the resources to address injustice. That is why the efforts to address it turn towards chaos or control. The way of Christ has been excluded from the start, in pursuit of freedom from God. But freedom from the Righteous One will never mean righteousness, nor true freedom. A society that rejects the God who is the divine standard of justice cannot be expected to arrive at justice in its social dimensions.

The solution to our situation is neither revolution nor authoritarianism. It is conversion. The price of a just and peacefully society is repentance. Repentance of what? Many things. But, in the first place, of our secularism. If we will not have Christ, it is control or chaos. If we do not want chaos or control, we must turn to Christ.

Transitions

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America, Coronavirus, COVID-19, God, Mercy, Pandemic, Prayer, Race, Reconciliation

Well, a lot has happened since my last blog post.

As a word of explanation, my family has undergone a major transition: new town, new home, new church. All of this has been wonderful, but it’s remarkable how much things have changed in the past couple of months.

Of course, this coincides with a major transition our whole nation and our whole world has been going through. The coronavirus pandemic has brought horrible death and suffering, and dealt an economic blow to people’s livelihoods that will perhaps not be fully realized until this is over.

On top of that, our nation has been grappling with the evil of our long legacy of racism, and the dark consequences of that, which show up in a number of ways. The horrible injustice done to George Floyd has led to unrest and destruction that will surely increase the suffering of the poor in these communities. If this, too, is a transition, we cannot see from here what the end result will be.

May God have mercy on us. May He, the great Healer, lift our world out of the grip of this disease. May He, the great Reconciler, grant us the mercy of repentance, reconciliation, justice, peace, and a brighter future to come. May He, the Lord of life, stir revival in our nation so that we will have His love for one another.

May He turn this dark transition to our transformation.

Really Urgent

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America, Christianity, Culture, Episcopal Church, Faith, God, Gospel, Humanity, Jesus Christ, Liberalism, Life, Progressive Christianity, Redemption, Salvation, Theology, Truth

Writing a couple days ago about the call of the gospel involved expressing that the gospel call is urgent.  It matters whether or not people hear the message of Christ, and whether or not those who hear believe; it matters because there is judgment to come, and where you stand in the day of judgment depends entirely on whether or not you are in Christ.

This is the perennial scandal of the Christian faith.  True Christianity will always be scandalous to the world, though different aspects of the faith will be scandalous in different times and places and cultures.  But the exclusivity of the gospel message is a perennial scandal, because it stands against every worldly ideology and religion, and because it is at the irreducible core of the Christian message: eternal life is found in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ alone.  You have to place your faith in Him if you are to be saved.

This claim is denied not only by avowed secularists, but by some who claim to be Christians.  I came upon the website of a liberal Episcopalian church in San Francisco, noteworthy (among other things) for how they use their sanctuary for a popular yoga program–the sentence “Colorful mats cover the labyrinth, the aisles and even the altar” has a certain resonance with 2 Kings 16.  I saw that they had sermons online, audio and transcripts; I wanted to see what their preaching was like, but didn’t want to give it a lot of time.  I needn’t have been concerned; my sampling suggests that, in keeping with typical liberal practice, their sermons range from fairly brief to very brief.  Given their beliefs, brief is probably for the best.

So here is a sermon from “The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clements Young.”  He’s the dean of the cathedral and has a Doctorate of Theology from Harvard, so no one can say I’ve chosen a straw man.  His text is John 3:16-17…and if you say, ‘Why just through verse 17? …aha, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

John 3:16 is quite understandable a beloved passage, a one-verse encapsulation of the gospel.  Dr. Young, in his short message, says a number of things, some of them good.  But things get particularly suspicious about halfway through–manuscript page 3, that is–when he turns to examine Jesus’ reference to the bronze serpent, a story detailed in Numbers 21.

The Israelites were complaining against God, and the text says, “Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them” (Num. 21:6, NIV), but Dr. Young says “God allows poisonous snakes to come among them”; perhaps the change from God’s direct action to divine permission is unintentional.  But stranger is Dr. Young’s assertion that “In both this exodus story and the Gospel of John sin is less a punishment from God than it is a self-destructive human choice.”  Well, yes, the sin of the Israelites is a self-destructive choice–and if that’s all he meant, that’s one thing, but we’re still going to have to grapple with Romans 1–but the punishment from God is clearly present: they chose to grumble against God, but God sent the venomous snakes.

Dr. Young brings this back to John 3, which is good, and Jesus’ statement that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (Jn. 3:14).  But this is Dr. Young’s comment:

“In this world which is poisoned by envy, greed, fear, betrayal and death – Jesus promises that we can be healed by experiencing him near to us in our suffering, and the hope that we have for the resurrection”.

Is that all Jesus promised, His nearness in our suffering?  Why no mention of the atoning significance of His death upon the cross?

After this suspicious beating-about-the-bush about the wrath of God and atoning work of Christ, Dr. Young makes his last point quite clearly:

“My last point has to do with what my friend Matt Boulton calls the “anti-Gospel.” Gospel means good news and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news for all people, not just Christians. It is the message that God does not condemn the world, but always reaches out to save us even when our choices have led us disastrously astray. But somehow many Christians warp Jesus’ words into an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”

The Gospel, for Dr. Young, appears to be a message of universal salvation.  Faith in Christ is not necessary, and those who say that it is are guilty of promoting “an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”  This is the rhetoric of the religious left, where ‘inclusion’ is good and ‘exclusion’ is bad, and where the other side is regarded as showing hatred or contempt.  But how does this message square with the very text of Scripture being expounded?  Dr. Young quotes John 3:16 in its entirety, so he has right there before him that the verse says “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It does not say that Christ gives life to everyone; it says He gives life to those who believe in Him.

How does Dr. Young deal with this?  He doesn’t, really.  He emphasizes that the text is saying this is a demonstration of the way God has shown His love:

“The Greek doesn’t mean to emphasize “how much” God loves us but instead shows us the character of God’s love, that God loves us in this way, through not even withholding his own son. The point is not that Jesus only saves the few who believe, but like the Israelites looking at the snake, everyone is healed by God through Jesus.”

Like the Israelites looking at the snake?  But it wasn’t all of the Israelites who were healed by the bronze serpent–it was only those who looked at it.  In the same way, it isn’t all people who are saved by Jesus, but only those who believe in Him.  The parallel seems to work rather against Dr. Young than for him.  Can he really justify such a shaky interpretation in the face of the clear teaching of the biblical text?

He can try.  Here’s the clincher:

John confirms this interpretation and writes, “God did not send his son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn. 3).

He’s quoting John 3:17, a wonderful verse about God’s love.  Jesus came to save.  God sent His Son to be our Savior.  And, if this verse was all we had to work with, we might conclude that it teaches a universal salvation, regardless of whether people know Jesus or not.

But this verse doesn’t stand alone, and a basic principle of biblical interpretation is that verses must be interpreted in context.  The verse before it, verse 16, says that it is those who believe who are saved.  What about the verse that follows?

And this is why it is so interesting that Dr. Young stopped with verse 17.  Now, I can’t read his mind.  Maybe he forgot what verse 18 said.  Maybe he just didn’t have time to bring it up.  But it is awfully interesting that he didn’t mention the verse that says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (Jn. 3:18).

So we have an Old Testament parallel and two clear assertions that a response of faith is required in order to receive the life Christ offers, sandwiching the ambiguous verse that Dr. Young tries to use to nullify the clear message.  It is overwhelmingly obvious that Dr. Young has misinterpreted the Scripture, and has done so in a way that shows either a remarkably careless disregard for the context or a deliberate desire to twist the message of the gospel.

He wants to do away with the exclusivity of the gospel.  In the process, he has thrown out the urgency of the gospel, for a message of universal salvation is not a message that anyone needs to hear; and, if heard, it is a message that perfectly suits the individualistic self-determination of the (post)modern west, because it means that how you choose to live your life doesn’t really matter in the end.

Can Dr. Young’s own charge be reversed?  Is he guilty of teaching an anti-gospel?  I think so.  Maybe he teaches that people should repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus, but he doesn’t preach that such is necessary in order to be forgiven and receive eternal life.

The true gospel is urgent, because it proclaims that God’s gracious offer of life is found exclusively in Jesus Christ, is received exclusively by faith in Jesus Christ.  You need this gospel, and you need it now.

And you may have it, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done.  Turn from your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ, who died for your sins and rose from the dead to bring you life.  Accept His mighty hand reaching down to draw you to Himself.  Be cleansed, forgiven, made whole, adopted as a child of the Most High.

The time is now.

 

What Did You Think a Sword was?

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America, AOC, Bible, Celebrities, Christianity, Church, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, Freedom, God, Gospel, Hope, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Scripture, Sin, Society, Tolerance, Truth

…or, “AOC, Theologian?”

From Christianheadlines.com, “AOC Says Religious Liberty Advocates Are ‘Weaponizing Scripture’ to ‘Justify Bigotry’ against LGBTQ Community“:

In a House Oversight Committee hearing to discuss LGBTQ rights, Ocasio-Cortez called out those who use Scripture to take away rights from gay people. She also compared religious freedom advocates to white supremacists.

“It’s very difficult to sit here and listen to arguments in the long history of this country of using Scripture and weaponizing and abusing Scripture to justify bigotry,” she said. “White supremacists have done it. Those who justified slavery did it. Those who fought against integration did it, and we’re seeing it today.

The most foundational problem in the congresswoman’s analysis is buying into the whole framework of the LGBTQ movement, in which matters of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ are treated as fundamental identity characteristics on par with race and sex.  That is the great con in this whole business, which has taken in all too many people.  It is only through that ruse that activists are able to regard sensible people as bigots, to put advocating religious freedom in the same category as white supremacy, and to paint their sexual revolution as a civil rights movement.

But the most interesting problem in the congresswoman’s analysis is her understanding of religion, and particularly of the Bible.  For her, religion would seem to be interpreted through the lens of secular liberation ideology; good religion, true religion, is as tolerant and non-judgmental (of liberal agendas) as she is.  And the Scriptures are supposed to be a benign message of tolerance.  For AOC, maintaining the Bible’s view of LGBTQ+ ideology, and wanting to live consistently with it, is somehow an abuse of Scripture.

Most interestingly, the congresswoman derides the use of Scripture in promoting sexual morality as “weaponizing” Scripture.

What?  Weaponizing the sword of the Spirit?

“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17, NIV).

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

One cannot weaponize a sword.  A sword is already a weapon.  The Scriptures cut us to the heart, exposing all of our wickedness and sin.  The Bible is not a feather that strokes our self-esteem.  It is not a tolerant cushion that accepts and affirms us just as we are.  It is a sword that cuts through all lies and convicts us of sin–greed, pride, hatred, sexual immorality, all of it.  The Bible speaks of God’s holiness and our wickedness, it speaks of the wrath of God upon the ungodly, it tells us what is good for human flourishing, and it points us to the only means of forgiveness, wholeness, and life–Jesus Christ, our crucified and risen Savior.

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

The problem in American Christianity is not that we are weaponizing the sword of the Spirit, but that we are neglecting it.  We take it out for our quiet time, and then put it back in its sheath, as though we could tackle our desperate social issues without it.  We blunt its edges, as though our soft words were wiser than God’s pointed conviction; it must be admitted that the Bible speaks more directly and severely of sin than many a Christian–and many a pastor–is willing to do.

Christianity calls for conviction.  God gave us a sword, and He expects us to wield it.  The stakes are higher than whether or not religious liberty will be preserved in this nation for awhile yet.  The eternal destinies of men and women are at stake.

Foundations 2: Truth

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America, Apologetics, Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, Epistemology, Foundations, Humanity, Life, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Society, Truth

Individually and collectively we need a basis for knowing what is real and right. Only with a knowledge of the truth can we make wise decisions that will lead to human flourishing.

But in a pluralistic society, competing truth claims vie for recognition. Sometimes this leads to a relativistic outlook, where truth is privatized. A person may defy absolute reality and claim legitimacy for “my truth”, which is personal and immune to challenge. This is untenable, because relativism is ultimately the rejection of truth—the rejection of reality. If there is no objective and absolute truth, there is no reality.

Truth exists, but how can we know it? If we cannot know it, we are blind in our pursuit of meaning and of a flourishing society. If truth is knowable, there may be several ways of discovering it, such as rational consideration and scientific examination. But truth discovered in these ways will always be limited by our own frailties and the finitude of our knowledge. Is there any absolute way to know the absolute and objective reality outside of us?

Jesus prayed to God the Father, “your word is truth” (John 17:17, NIV).

God is the absolute reality, Creator of the entire cosmos. He knows what is. He speaks the truth, and tells us what is good and beautiful. Divine revelation provides an absolute reference point for human knowledge of reality.

As individuals, our lives will only be built on truth if they are built on a proper relationship with God in Jesus Christ, who is “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). In submission to God’s Word, we will know the truth. As a society, we will only have the proper basis for human flourishing if the overall character of our culture is consonant with Christian truth. A Christian society will allow individual members freedom to believe untruth; but a pluralistic society, with no fundamental commitment to the truth or the source of truth, cannot be expected to promote human flourishing.

Flourishing, individually and collectively, requires receptivity towards the truth and rejection of all falsehood. We must love the truth if we wish to be free.

Pete Buttigieg, Theologian?

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America, Anthropology, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Humanity, LGBTQ+, Politics, Same-Sex Marriage, Society, Truth

I wrote a post the other day titled “Tom Steyer, Theologian?”, and now have encountered a liberal religiousinterview with a much more prominent Democratic candidate, Pete Buttigieg.  This transcript appeared in Sojourners Nov. 19, 2019, but I only came across it the other day.  No doubt there are similar articles out there, as Buttigieg has been quite vocal about his claim to Christianity.  While a thorough dissection of this interview could be instructive, I want to highlight two things I find especially noteworthy.

1. Human dignity/divinity(?).  At one point, Buttigieg says,

…so the radical message of the gospel includes this idea that every single person is of equal concern; it has the divine in them.

There is an initial difficulty in reading this remark because of the grammatical tangles that result from the sexual revolution.  I think Buttigieg is saying that every single person (“it”) has the divine in him or her (“them”).  That grammatical confusion is significant because you can see how depersonalizing–thus, ultimately, dehumanizing–the sexual revolution is.  People cease to be men and women, and they become objects and plurals–‘it’s and ‘them’s.  And this comes in the midst of a comment where Buttigieg is trying to promote the dignity of every person; but you can’t do that while promoting the sexual revolution.  You can only have one or the other.  Trying to have both is one of the impossible tensions of contemporary American society.

But when we move past the grammar and its implications, the statement is problematic for what Buttigieg is deliberately claiming.  Every person has the divine in them?  No doubt there are some religions that teach that, but Christianity isn’t one of them.  We are God’s creatures; we are made in the imago Dei, the image of God; but only those who belong to Christ and have come to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit may be said to have the divine in them–and, even then, it needs to be understood in the right sense.

2. The source of truth.  Concerning the elephant in the room with Buttigieg, part of what he says is:

…on an issue like LGBTQ equality, I really believe this is also a battle within people. I think it is sometimes a battle between what they have been told and how they have been brought up, and something very good inside them, which is compassion.

Notice what’s on each side of this debate in the way he wants to frame it: on the side of Christian sexual ethics is ‘what someone has been told’, and on the other side is the goodness inside them, in the form of ‘compassion’.  This is a twisting of the truth, which is why it’s so effective.  What’s true is that revelation stands on one side, and that feelings are used to pull people to the other side.

But the most important question is, for Christians who have been told that sexual immorality is sin: who told you that?  If the answer is that God tells us that, in His holy Word, then no emotional appeals should move us.  God is true, and His Word is truth.

And, of course, it is only by acknowledging the truth of the gospel that we can repent and believe and come into a saving relationship with the one true God; only by submitting to God’s truth do we come to have ‘something very good inside’ us, the Spirit of the living God.

Letting God in

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America, Celebrities, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Faith, Feminism, Holy Spirit, Repentance, Salvation, Sanctification, Sexual Immorality, Sexual Revolution, Society, Truth

One of the performers of the disgraceful Super Bowl half-time show has recently been in the news responding to critics.  Her response was not, of course, apologetic; this is not the sort of thing that one is expected to apologize for in mainstream American culture.  Instead, she defended her behavior, and referred to criticism as “silliness.”

So goes the blithe dismissiveness for those who would object to the objectification of women.

As expected, defense of the performance was based on feminism and appeal to culture: “a celebration of women and our Latino culture.”  Further, we should trust their character: “Both of us are really respectful performers.”  Respectful of what?

But the most interesting statement was this: “that small fraction of people who want to be negative about it, I can’t even let in.”

I think what she means is that she won’t let these critics and their criticism–framed as negativity–into her mind and heart.  She won’t let them impact her perception of herself and what she has done.

That is one of the mantras of the (post)modern pop-therapeutic mindset.  Keep negativity out.  Be yourself, and don’t let others’ judgment impact you.  Well, sometimes this is the right attitude; but other times it’s not.  And, in this case, what is being kept out is, at least in part, the conviction of sin.

We cannot be made whole if we do not let conviction in.  If we close the door against conviction of sin, we close the door against repentance–and ultimately against God’s saving work in our lives.  It is a terrible and tragic thing to resist the Holy Spirit.  This takes discernment, for there are all kinds of messages floating in this world, many of which we must reject.  But we must not reject the message of righteousness, repentance, and healing.

We must let God in.