Too Hot to Handle: Culture and the Gospel

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Immanuel Can: I’m going to temporarily suspend our self-imposed five-sentence limit, Tom, in order to tell you a story about something that happened last year when our provincial standardized test was performed.

You need to know that teachers are all given a specific script for what they are and are not allowed to tell students on the day of the test. They are expressly forbidden to go beyond this script, and doing so is grounds for firing. Teachers cannot add any directions, explanations, definitions or any other kind of information to this. They are not allowed to give any guidance once the test begins, no matter what a student wants or needs. It’s standardized, period.

One of the questions on the test asked kids to imagine a picnic, and then write based on their imagining.

Too Hot to Handle: A Dinner with Zacchaeus

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Last week in this space we were discussing a recent report sponsored by Wycliffe College’s Institute of Evangelism entitled Finding Faith in Canada Today, which surveyed Canadian Christians to find out how they got saved. One of the more significant takeaways from the report was the conclusion that, statistically speaking, the vast majority of new converts do not come to the Lord at evangelical rallies, traditional outreach programs, through websites or online church. A full 40% of new believers came to Christ because of the testimony of Christian friends, far more than any other reason given for converting. The report concluded that friendship is the single most effective environment for evangelism.

Tom: How about that? So tell me, IC, why don’t Christians make more unbelieving friends?

Too Hot to Handle: Saving Canadians

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

A new report sponsored by Wycliffe College’s Institute of Evangelism called Finding Faith in Canada Today offers (in their words) a “particularly Canadian take” on how adults are coming to know Jesus Christ these days.

Tom: I haven’t spent much time thinking about whether there is anything unique about the process of getting saved in Canada as opposed to getting saved anywhere else, but I am prepared to be schooled if necessary. Immanuel Can, what interested you about this report?

Immanuel Can: Someone sent it to me. She and her husband are heavily involved in outreach, so it’s not surprising she found it. What interests me is that it claims to explain something very, very important: how and when people are getting saved today. That should be of interest to any Christian, no?

Too Hot to Handle: Speaking Out of Turn

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

If the quotation in this Breitbart article is even close to accurate, the head of the Roman Catholic church has just thrown one of the most important principles of first century Christian faith under the bus:

“The last thing I should do is to try to convince an unbeliever. Never. The last thing I should do is speak.”

Tom: So now the most revered figure in one of the world’s biggest branches of Christianity insists all testimony to Christ must be non-verbal. What do you think of that, IC?

Too Hot to Handle: Friendship and Testimony

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Earlier this season, TV host Ellen Degeneres took some serious flack for sitting side by side with former U.S. President George Bush at an NFL game in Dallas, especially because she and Bush appeared to be having a good time with one another. Twitter promptly erupted into the usual outrage-fest, with commenters calling Bush a “war criminal” and so on, obliging Degeneres to defend herself:

“I’m friends with George Bush. In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have. We’re all different and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s okay that we’re all different.”

Tom: No shortage of Christians expressed approval of Degeneres’ comments.

Language Armageddon

Our thought life is a function of our vocabulary. Think about that ... assuming you are able.

Anthropologist and author Christopher Hallpike has observed that it is remarkably difficult, perhaps impossible, to communicate effectively or even think lucidly about something for which one’s language has no words. Societies do not generally have words for concepts they don’t use, items they have never seen or beliefs they haven’t developed.

A higher vocabulary generally reflects higher intelligence, and a shriveled vocabulary limits one’s ability to think and understand beyond the most basic level.

Too Hot to Handle: Abandoning Evangelism

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Relevant Magazine says the results of this new study by Barna are shocking.

Tom: I’m more inclined to nod sadly at the obvious, I guess, which is this: 47% of millennials believe evangelizing others is … wrong.

I’m not sure why anyone is surprised. We live in a society that prizes tolerance, inclusivity and a sort of pseudo-respect for the traditions and culture of others above all else. On top of that, the vast majority of Christians have allowed their children to grow up in an environment that propagandizes them from 9:00 to 3:15 five days a week for most of their formative years.

What exactly did we think would happen, Immanuel Can?

Making the World Sweat

“When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city.”

Progressives want to tear apart society, ostensibly in order to build a better one, though they can’t tell us how they plan to do that. But they are convinced the existing system is unreformably corrupt, and that oppressed humanity will prosper under a different and better one.

Postmillennialists believe much the same thing, really.

Media and the Gospel

“The medium is the message”, said the great philosopher of mass media, Marshall McLuhan.

It’s his most oft-quoted line, since it’s so often true. When you have a message to send, you’ve got to be very careful about the form (i.e. the “method” or “medium”) in which you’re sending it, or the message itself can become horribly distorted.

Lies, Myths and Misinformation: Missionaries Are Destructive

The modern, secularist, Leftist legend goes like this: missionaries are evil.

And why?

Because they were really nothing more than shock troops for colonialism. Being the first into remote areas, they led the way for merchants and the military to exploit vulnerable native cultures. And so, they conclude, we Christians should all be ashamed of the work done by missionaries in the past; and today, we definitely should not sponsor missionary efforts abroad.

Too Hot to Handle: Culture and the Gospel

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Witnessing and Misdirection

Most falsehoods don’t come with handy labels

Put them on the spot, and people won’t always tell the truth.

They may throw up smokescreens, use cover stories, ask questions they don’t really want answered, tell outright lies — engage in every variety of misdirection.

This comes as no surprise to anyone with the gift of evangelism, or anyone without it who tries to talk to people about the Lord. Where the subject of faith is concerned, it takes wisdom and experience to discern what really matters.

At least initially, people tend to be least candid about the things that mean the most.

Too Hot to Handle: Speaking Out of Turn

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Friendship and Testimony

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Globalism and Censorship

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

[This post is slightly over four years old, but is starting to look a bit prescient in some respects and a little naive in others — Ed.]

Two legal rulings I came across this week have implications not just for this blog, but for all Christians on the internet.

The first is a ruling from European Union regulators that internet users in its member states have a “right to be forgotten”. Google has complied by instructing all its Blogger users worldwide to post a notice giving EU users information about the use of cookies on blogs originating in Canada, the US and everywhere else. In Europe, 90,000 requests for the removal of links and stories are already being processed and European regulators are now arguing the removals should be global, not just in Europe.

Lies, Myths and Misinformation: Missionaries Are Destructive

The most recent version of this post is available here. 

Too Hot to Handle: Abandoning Evangelism

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Culture and the Gospel

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: EDM in the ‘Sanctuary’

The most recent version of this post is available here.

4GW and the Church

Have you read anything about 4GW? It’s an interesting study.

4GW is short for Fourth-Generation Warfare, a term first used in 1989 by a team of U.S. military analysts to describe conflict characterized, as Infogalactic puts it, by a “blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians”.

In simplest terms, a 4G war is any conflict in which one of the actors is not a state but a sub-population of some sort, ethnic or otherwise. 4GW’s goals are usually complex and long term, and may be achieved through guerrilla tactics, terrorism, psy-ops, economic pressure, media manipulation and/or other non-traditional means.