The End of Evangelism

[Originally presented March 10, 2015]

There is general fear being widely expressed among evangelicals today that we are not reaching people the way we used to. Certainly the numbers of people in the modern West who are becoming Christians seems to be slumping, and a lot of us are a bit nervous about the trend.

Is the Age of Evangelism Ending?

According to Bible.org, one problem is that the professional clergy people and leaders are not stepping up, and that church ministries and programs are not going out to reach people. Meanwhile, The Evangelism Institute has found that while 85% of evangelical churches have a pro-evangelism statement in their constitution, less than 5% of the people are actually involved in doing something with it. All these worriers are agreed that Christians do still have a message worth getting out to the world, but for some reason we’re just not getting it out. So while this may not yet be the end of the church, it’s starting to look like it’s the end times for outreach, for evangelism, for the gospel.

Repent or Perish

[Originally presented July 12, 2014]

Most people understand (or intuit) as they read a Bible that its chapter and verse divisions are choices made by translators or copyists. They may be good choices or bad ones, but they are not part of the revelation of God. They are not ‘inspired’ in the sense the Word itself is.

Usually they are pretty decent. However, I probably would’ve broken up the Lord’s speech in Luke 12 and 13 a little differently.

Just saying.

Scientific Materialism and the Good Wife

[Originally presented April 15, 2014]

Popular culture is an ocean of leftist muck, propaganda and uncritical thinking.

Still, there are rare occasions when you run across something so thought-provoking and strikingly out of place in its lucidity that you just can’t believe it’s actually on TV.

It is sadly common these days to leave entirely unexamined the real life implications of one’s philosophical and religious beliefs, or the lack thereof.

There are about 100 comments that come to mind about the following scene, but maybe I’ll just let it speak for itself.

Courtroom drama from The Good Wife:

Alicia: When we left off, Professor, you said you believed in right and wrong, and that it was wrong to hurt people. Professor?

Promiscuous Freedom and Enslavement

“… promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption …”

[Originally presented April 11, 2014]

Imagine yourself sitting in the center row of a darkened theatre, in an evening performance of a show entitled Cabaret. Tonight’s offering is a musical, and yet it is a musical unlike most others. It’s almost entirely devoid of the kind of cheerfulness that is usually associated with that particular genre, focusing as it does on the excesses of the Weimar Republic in the days just before the outbreak of World War II. Such humor as the play has is heavily ironic, filled with innuendo, and ultimately black.

As you may recall, the government of the Weimar Republic was a notorious failure. Beset by massively complex political challenges, splintered by factions, weighed down with incompetence and undermined by corruption, the Weimar administration dragged Germany through a period of widespread economic, social and political debasement. This debasement was felt on many levels, from the heads of state all the way down to the social conditions and private lives of the citizens. Cabaret revels in some of the more unsavoury aspects of this society, which became truly sick with sin. Using the metaphor of the infamous cabaret shows of the ’30s, the play follows one society’s decline into unrestrained individualism, indulgence and debauchery.

In the two hours in which you have been in the theatre you have been dragged through the bowels of German interbellum night-life.

Inbox: Dawkins and Calvin Go to Hell

Or not. Tertius writes:

“Our Lord spoke three parables in Luke 15. They form His three-pronged answer to the criticism, ‘this man receiveth sinners and eats with them’ found at the end of the previous chapter. Jesus protests that anything lost (a sheep, a coin, or a son) evokes grief but the finding of them calls for celebration. I have heard subpoints of teaching made from the illustration of the two sons which miss that emphasis and I remember a discussion as to whether the prodigal was a lost sinner or a backslidden Christian!”

Tom Takes a Breather

You’re currently reading our 568th consecutive daily blog post since December 2013.

Whew! That’s a lot of writing. Too much, some might say. We’ve done a little recycling of older material now and again when surprised by life, but by my count that only represents a little over 3% of our output.

I’m going to take a couple of weeks to recharge the batteries and work on a few pieces without an immediate deadline looming. We’ll hope to have new posts for you next Saturday and Sunday (the regular Too Hot to Handle exchange between me and Immanuel Can moves to Saturday instead of Friday for two weeks only).

That’s so we can use our next ten weekdays to count down ...

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Fatal Friends: Dawkins and Calvin

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Snakes, Mistakes and Better Takes

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Quote of the Day (5)

Last week, Tertius and I discussed the first chapter of Romans, comparing its language to statements about faith in Hebrews. Specifically, we were interested in how much about God may be known from nature, and how that knowledge is different from what may be known by faith.

Paul says in Romans, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”

Tertius and I agree that “eternal power and divine nature” takes in quite a bit.

Between Boredom and Bedlam

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Power of Two

How do we make decisions in the church? What is the teaching of the New Testament?

In his book Reimagining Church, Frank Viola contends that the normal method of making major decisions in the church is by consensus, not just of leadership but of every believer in a local church. (You can find my review here.)

He uses the council at Jerusalem in Acts 15 as his sole scriptural evidence.

Reimagining Decision-Making

How does your church go about making decisions?

Perhaps you don’t actually know. In very large churches, the process of deciding what is going to be done may be quite opaque to those who meet there. Where there is a very distinct hierarchy in place, perhaps decisions are made unilaterally, or maybe they are initiated by a ‘head pastor’ or equivalent and signed off on by a board or council of elders. Then again, maybe they are arrived at by discussion among elders and presented fait accompli to the congregation. Or perhaps opinions are solicited and discussed, and a decision is later made with the promise that “all voices have been heard and all opinions considered”.

Maybe there are lots of ugly politics involved that nobody really wants to talk about. I don’t know your church, so I won’t presume.

Reimagining Church

I wouldn’t normally be the type to start writing a positive review before completely finishing a book, but I’ve been enjoying Frank Viola’s Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity immensely.

Viola is not merely a theorist. In 1988, he left what he calls “institutional Christianity” and began meeting in “organic churches”.

Organic churches are not the latest vegan trend. They are local gatherings mapped to what we read in the New Testament. They seek to practice Christianity as it was practiced in the first century, minus any details that were merely a product of the culture(s) in which the early church grew and thrived. The result is a church that, at least on paper, seems both relevant and authentically “New Testament” in ways I’ve never seen before.

What Sort of Heart?

This quote has stuck with me over the past couple of weeks, maybe because it is not just those who would like the Bible to teach universal salvation that see this type of thinking as the ultimate expression of moral goodness:

“What sort of a heart could approve of eternal death for some? The doctrine of Universal Salvation teaches that all will have eternal life, including Satan and the demons. And that one day, all will have the same nature as God. What sort of a heart could not approve of Universal Salvation, eternal life for all?”

It boils down to this: anyone who wouldn’t grant eternal bliss, joy, happiness and God-likeness to Satan, Hitler, Stalin and every liar and murderer in human history that hates and rejects the Son of God is, well ... insufficiently morally developed.

Too Hot to Handle: Hmm … What Should I Wear to Church Today?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Keeping It Relevant

Is this old enough for you?

In a previous post, I set out the evidence from scripture that elders ought to be, well ... older.

Bit of a disappointment, I know. It is the nature of our society to obsess over youth: to make a big deal of energy, enthusiasm and an absence of wrinkles.

That’s actually a pretty modern quirk. Societies all over the world used to have great respect for the wisdom that comes with age, even though such sagacity was rarely accompanied by a six-pack or a pretty face.

No more. We’re so happy to see young people contribute in our churches that even if what they offer is mediocre and half-hearted, we’re pole-vaulting over each other with joy and pronouncing them the next big thing.

Almost always to their detriment, and ours.

Get the Message

“I am the Lord.”

That’s Ezekiel summed up in four words.

God has a point he wishes to make, and we are wise to hear it in a day when most recognize no final authority beyond their own opinions, prejudices and desires.

The phrase “they will know” (or “you will know”) that “I am the Lord” occurs 72 times in Ezekiel. Only 11 of its first 39 chapters don’t have it. It’s the bottom line to every declaration God makes to his people through the prophet. It’s a message we need to internalize at the very core of our beings. Until that happens, we do not really understand our place in the universe.

Without it, our assessment of reality is warped and disproportionate. We think it’s all about us.

The Sound of Salesmen

The above line comes from a couplet in a Rush song called “Spirit of Radio”, one of the few classic rock tunes I could stomach during my post-punk phase. Neil Peart’s lyric goes like this:

“For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall;

Concert hall echoes with the sound of salesmen.”

It’s actually a rather ironic subversion of Paul Simon’s words in “Sound of Silence”, but that is neither here nor there. Peart once said, “The Spirit of Radio was actually written as a tribute to all that was good about radio, celebrating my appreciation of magical moments I’d had since childhood, of hearing ‘the right song at the right time.’ ” What Peart didn’t say is that it’s a wistful tribute: it ends in his disappointment with the ubiquity of commercialism.

I had a “Spirit of Radio” moment in church the other night.

Blink and You’ll Miss It

The “Rapture”, I mean.

Or maybe the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats. Or both.

Has the Church failed to notice the return of Christ to earth to judge the nations?

Or more specifically, did his prophesied return actually take place in AD 70 when, under Titus, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually conquering the city and sacking the temple, thereby fulfilling the word of the Lord about it that “not one stone will be left upon another”?

Some Christians certainly think so.

Elders Are Older

... though not necessarily THIS old.

I recently participated in an online discussion on the subject of elders that generated a significant number of responses. Some of these were more on point than others, but there was enough muddling of the issues, inadvertent straw-manning and anecdotal meandering to make me feel that it’s worthwhile addressing at least one aspect of the qualifications for elders that we find in scripture.

That aspect is age: Elders are older.

Sorry, that’s my understanding of New Testament teaching. It is, evidently, not the understanding of many of my fellow believers.

Defining Terms

One problem with online debates is the tendency to talk past each other because we have not agreed on what we mean, so I’d like to be as clear as is possible.

Let’s Play ‘Spot the Agenda’

Daniel B. Wallace is a Bible scholar with a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary who has been teaching Greek at graduate school level since 1979. That’s just in case credentials matter to you.

In this article he attempts to referee a (very polite) disagreement between two other equally educated men about a verse in Ezekiel that I happened to read again this morning.

Everybody involved has an agenda.

Too Hot to Handle: Beatles Buddhism

The latest version of this post is available here.

This Ain’t Wrestling

With all due respect, I’m not convinced this’ll be terribly effective:

“If you are in need of more prayer than your schedule seems to allow, shoot me an email and our leadership team will pray for you by name. You don’t even have to write anything; just ask us to pray and we will.”

Paul Santhouse is VP of Publishing for Moody.

Ushering In Armageddon

It was probably Michael Ortiz Hill, author of 1994’s Dreaming the End of the World: Apocalypse As a Rite of Passage who started it with a comment in a January 2003 essay for the political newsletter CounterPunch.

Hill said of George W. Bush, “The man is delusional and the shape of his delusion is specifically apocalyptic in belief and intent”.

Twelve years down the road, conventional wisdom may have settled down a bit. The Bush legacy, so far as the mainstream media is concerned, may be that of a bit of a goofball, an accused liar, an incompetent or even the architect of multiple foreign policy disasters.

But what the Bush presidency demonstrably failed to do was to usher in Armageddon, if indeed that was ever his intention.

Power and Perfection

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

This is not an incidental, one-off observation from God to the apostle Paul about his personal situation; it is a principle evident in God’s dealings with man from the very beginning.

A sociable, charismatic, intelligent and attractive person who is active in the service of God can be loads of fun to be around, but one can never tell whether he or she is winning over hearts with personal charm or by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sinning Against Whom?

Most people know the story already.

King David, consumed by lust for Bathsheba, commits adultery with her while her husband Uriah is out fighting the Ammonites on David’s behalf. When Bathsheba informs David she is pregnant, the king contrives to hide the evidence of his sin by recalling Uriah from the battlefield in hope that he will sleep with his wife and believe the child his. But Uriah is a loyal servant of the crown and a patriot. He declines to go home to his wife and enjoy the benefits of peace and family while his nation is at war and his fellow soldiers still in danger.

Knowing discovery is certain, David then compounds his wickedness by ordering Joab, the commander of his armies, to put Uriah in the most dangerous possible position and allow him to be killed in battle. The plot succeeds, and after allowing her an appropriate period of mourning, David marries Bathsheba.

Done and dusted, as they say.

A Matter of Moral Indifference

The setup is this: in Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax approach Simon Peter to ask if Jesus is in the habit of paying it.

Presumably, like the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, they are looking to catch the Lord out in some way. Or, like many officials, they are simply being officious. Or more charitably, perhaps they are merely doing their job.

In any case, Peter says “Yes”, the Lord pays the temple tax.

Why Are We So Easily Shaken?

The most current version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Reforming Islam

The most current version of this post is available here.

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You know how it goes: you find a blog or website you enjoy, with writers who grab your attention and content you can really sink your teeth into. You devour everything you can find in their archive, bookmark it and wait expectantly for more of the same.

Then ... nothing.

Okay, this may not be everybody’s experience; not everyone reads as voraciously as I do. But if you do, you recognize the creeping feeling of disappointment when something you like doesn’t appear predictably, when the quality becomes spotty or the posts are so short they don’t even merit a “[Read More]” link.

Circumstantial Evidence

You found and got approved for just the right apartment even though you weren’t exactly qualified. You were admitted to the internship program you really wanted. That girl you have your heart set on seems to be showing the character qualities you were hoping to find.

You prayed about all these things. Must be the Lord, right?

Maybe.

Quote of the Day (4)

One wonders exactly how long the present social order can sustain itself in North America.

If you believe the pollsters, public trust in government is at an all-time low, the influence of religion is waning, the wealth gap in America between middle-income and upper-income families is currently the widest on record, race relations are getting worse, families are falling behind on the cost of living and almost nobody believes what they read or see in the media anymore.

Accusations from Islamic leaders that America is corrupt are difficult to rebut when U.S. business analysts seriously contemplate whether America is as corrupt as the third world.

An Exercise in Moderation

Last Supper, Cologne Cathedral

A diversion: I happened the other day across a Tumblr discussion that batted around the issue of the age of the disciples.

This is a question I had never considered. I have a “default” picture in my mind, of course, as most semi-creative people tend to, probably comprised largely of impressions from classical art. Only three of Duccio’s apostles in The Farewell Discourse are clean shaven; the rest range from middle-aged to positively ancient. The disciples in Da Vinci’s ubiquitous Last Supper fare even worse: only two are without significant quantities of facial hair (and some argue that one of these, for reasons unclear, may have been intended to represent Mary Magdalene).

Short version: these guys look pretty weathered.

The Symbol Is Not the Point

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Flirting with Fatalism

I read a column this morning by popular Christian blogger Ben Corey in which he makes a spirited defense of his support for government programs to help the poor on the basis that Christians simply don’t given enough voluntarily to make a meaningful dent in poverty.

It’s an interesting argument, but it begs one obvious question.

What do we do when the poor can’t be helped?

Too Hot to Handle: The Unfair Advantage of a Loving Family

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Feeding the Dogs

Sometimes God is silent.

We've all experienced it. Looking for answers and receiving no immediate response. The absence of any sense of direction, often when a decision is urgently needed. A total lack of clarity. And all the comforting scriptures we quote to ourselves suddenly sound like clichés.

Those of us who have been believers for a few years may find ourselves taking our own spiritual inventory in an effort to diagnose the problem. Have I failed to confess sin? Am I perhaps asking selfishly rather than with the glory of God in mind? Am I lacking faith? Have I been persistently inconsiderate at home?

Could be, but not necessarily.

Human Nature Is What It Is

The false prophets condemned by God through Ezekiel are an interesting bunch — and not just because they were ancient, mysterious wise men believed by many to be heralds of truth when in fact they were spinning webs of lies that affected thousands.

No, they interest me because they remind me of people I know. Circumstances change. History moves on. But fallen human nature does not improve itself, even thousands of years later. Many of these false prophets could make a decent living today: as religious gurus, philosophers, authors and respected media figures.

And not all of them seemed aware that their pronouncements were untrue.

Getting Sucked In

As a Christian, how do you know when an argument is not worth getting sucked into?

The titular head of Roman Catholicism clearly doesn’t. Feminists, the media and the political Left (admittedly there is some redundancy in those categories) walked him right into five miles of social justice quicksand when he felt compelled recently to weigh in on the subject of equality.

Running is No Solution

You remember the line, I’m sure.

You’re a teenager and you’ve just gotten deeply invested in a relationship that you are convinced is the real deal. Everything is going swimmingly, and then he or she says those dreaded words:

“I think we need to take some time …”

The desire for time and space apart may be framed in all manner of imaginative ways: “I was on the rebound”, “It’s too soon”, “My parents don’t approve” or “I have to concentrate on school right now”. The inexperienced take it at face value, or at least try to. But those of us who have heard it before know exactly what it means.

It means you’re done.

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The book of Revelation is mysterious and more than a little daunting to many believers. Two common errors easily present themselves, and Mel Lawrenz identifies them.

I am completely unfamiliar with Mr. Lawrenz. Other than this single blog post at BibleGateway.com, I have not read anything he has written, so take the following for whatever it is worth.

Franchising the Gospel

It looks more like a brand than a denomination.

Or really, it looks like any corporation with franchises all over the continent. All its churches use common fonts, a common logo and similar website designs. They’ve applied for a Canadian trademark and they’re opening a training centre for church planting in Europe this fall, where they already have a presence.

It ain’t Burger King, but this is a franchise.

Too Hot to Handle: The Christian Nation

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Painting A Target

If you haven’t read it, Bernie’s previous post on this subject, Reading the Tea Leaves, may be found here.

There remains among many the rosy view that life for the church in North America will continue as it seemingly always has done. There certainly was a time in the not-too-distant past in which church attendance was commonplace, prayer at schools or before city council meetings was far from unusual and the public square welcomed, if not encouraged, Christian ideals and ideas. In those days, only a generation or so ago, a politician was respected for his or her beliefs rather than derided. Today — in Ontario at least — the political litmus test for a candidate is whether or not they marched in the last Gay Pride parade.

It isn’t even worth discussing what happened or why it happened — but those halcyon days where faith and unbelief could co-exist peacefully are very much gone.

The Obvious Answer …

… is not always the correct one. We all make assumptions. With our limited grasp of the big picture, we take many things for granted.

Ezekiel did this. He saw a man — an elder, a symbol of authority in Israel — struck down before his eyes. Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. It appears the man keeled over right when Ezekiel was in the middle of prophesying about his wickedness.

Is Your Church Irrelevant?

As Jesus died, the heavy, ornamented curtain of the innermost sanctuary in Jerusalem’s temple was violently and miraculously ripped in two from the top down. In that single moment in time the religion of Judaism became utterly irrelevant to the plans and purposes of God for centuries to come.

Nobody knew that, of course. Not at first.

Things carried on just as they had before the Jewish religious authorities conspired to crucify God’s son. The temple services took place as usual. We’re not told, but it’s almost inevitable that temple servants, blissfully unaware of the significance of the miracle in front of them in all its profound and wonderful symbolism and determined to maintain a 420-year tradition, took the torn curtain, repaired and restored it to its place.

I Want to Die

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Counting the Cost

Following up on Bernie’s post from a few months back, David French at National Review has a few notable things to say on the subject of the looming hot-button issue of tax exemptions for charitable organizations, including churches (and presumably parachurch entities as well) in the U.S.

Canadians should note that we are rarely far behind on such developments.

My Daughter Says I’m Going to Hell

Cary Tennis at Salon fields a question from an atheist dad whose 13-year old girl is concerned for his soul. It’s an old post but a familiar problem for any Christian who has worked with teens. Tennis’s answer is intriguing, to say the least, coming from an advice columnist, former rock journalist, recovering alcoholic and avowed progressive. 

The letter writer is a single father with shared custody. His daughter is a professing Christian who has attended an evangelical church with her mother for most of her life. When dad broaches the subject of religion, evolution, homosexuality or other hot-button issues from his own worldview, he finds he is distressing his daughter, which is something he’d prefer to avoid.

Hence the request for advice.

Too Hot to Handle: Where There is No Vision ...

The most recent version of this post is available here.

A Mark on the Forehead

Three rather obvious lessons from a fairly obscure passage of scripture.

Ezekiel the prophet is sitting at home with a group of Judah’s elders around him when he has one of those very intense visionary experiences that seemed to characterize his relationship with the God of Israel. Some prophets heard voices and others dreamed, but Ezekiel saw overwhelming heavenly splendor — in the middle of his own living room, one assumes.

Do We Need More Church Meetings?

Christians love the church of Acts 2.

Now they’re not wrong about that. The church in Acts 2 is certainly lovable. It looks, at least potentially, like a solution for many of the world’s societal and culture-related ills. It looks like a community steeped in the teaching of Christ and demonstrating practically the various spiritual truths about which he told the world.

It looks, to nick the words of someone or other, like a foretaste of heaven.

Quote of the Day (3)

James Bartholomew of The Spectator on the subject of modern virtue:           

“No one actually has to do anything. Virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs. There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things: by helping the blind man across the road; looking after your elderly parents instead of dumping them in a home; staying in a not-wholly-perfect marriage for the sake of the children. These things involve effort and self-sacrifice. That sounds hard! Much more convenient to achieve virtue by expressing hatred of those who think the health service could be improved by introducing competition.”

Star Trek, Salvation and Sermons

A more current version of this post is available here.

Sins and Dominos

The consequences of sinful acts are rarely limited to the life of the sinner. A series of sinful acts can issue in ongoing repercussions. Like dominos.

Many of the circumstances we face in our lives are the product of choices made by our ancestors, by government, neighbours and even our fellow Christians. Much less obviously, in a democracy they are increasingly the result of decisions made by unelected administrative functionaries, more or less by fiat. To dominos it is not apparent what starts the chain reaction that causes their fall.

Dogs, Sorcerers and Saints

I have a Catholic friend who is not a fan of the name Peter. She almost flinches at it. The name has associations, you see.

I think she’s sorta half expecting to meet him someday. Maybe.

In the tradition in which she was raised, Peter stands at the gate of heaven as an endless stream of the dead parade before him. As the man with the keys to the kingdom, she was taught, he personally gives the final decree on whether you go “up” (in her words) or “down” (presumably with his thumb, being the hip fellow Peter is reputed to be), all on the basis of the things you have done in this life.

Too Hot to Handle: Generation Z and Unbelief

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Quote of the Day (2)

Walking home in the rain this morning, I passed a sun-faded, comprehensively rusted-out, seedpod-covered sports car.

The fact that I can’t even hazard a guess as to its make and model is probably a dead giveaway as to how little I’ve ever thought of a vehicle as anything more than a means of getting from Point A to Point B. Nobody but a starry-eyed auto buff with a serious mechanical bent would tolerate this thing in his garage, even for spare parts. It didn’t look salvageable to me.

And yet at one point it was somebody’s dream. Not mine, but if I haven’t fantasized about cars and can’t relate to theirs, I’ve certainly had plenty of dreams of my own.

Ritual and Validation

There is an idea in circulation that has become increasingly popular, and it is that God needs or is somehow validated by our attention, our acts of worship or our fawning, groveling subservience.

In this view, man speaks well of God or prostrates himself before him because God has a well-developed taste for burnt offerings and ritual; because he wants to rub in our faces how magnificent he is and how horrible human beings are by comparison.

Two Suppers

The most recent version of this post is available here. 

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John Lennox is an Irish mathematician, philosopher of science and Christian apologist.

The latter two are instantly evident from any visit to the home page of his website, where a plethora of interviews, videos and articles demonstrate his interest in atheism, creation, evolutionary theory and the coexistence of faith with science, among others.

That Lennox is a mathematics professor is not as obvious until you get into the articles and video, but his Irishness is inescapable.

The “Cultural” Argument

What do we mean when we say a particular passage of scripture is “culturally limited”?

It’s a pretty common argument these days, used to dismiss everything from apostolic teaching about the respective roles of men and women at home and in church to New Testament instructions about sexual purity.

The assertion at its core is that any particular command, principle or example being debated was intended only to address a particular local situation for a limited period of time, not as a directive for the church throughout its history.

But the cultural argument is a powder keg. We need to be careful how we handle it.

Trained or Gifted?

A few posts back I promised to try to answer the question How can we recognize teaching gift?

In one sense the title of this post represents a false dichotomy: why not be both trained AND gifted? In fact, many gifted men are trained, whether in Bible schools, seminaries or less commonly through private mentoring, or discipling. Still, there is a distinction to be made between what can be supplied by a seminary (good study habits, recognition of logical fallacies, general principles of homiletics, familiarity with Greek and Hebrew, etc.) and what can only be supplied by the Holy Spirit of God.

It is the latter set of qualities I’d like to consider.

Too Hot to Handle: Enforcing Conformity

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Consensus and Truth

Truth is an interesting thing.

If every intellectual, expert and scientist in the world could be simultaneously brought to consensus by some particular piece of evidence, would that constitute “truth”?

More importantly, how would we know?

The climate change folks attempted to convince us their popular theory has just about that level of consensus. Motherboard ran an article in 2014 that insisted “0.01 Percent of Climate Scientists Reject Global Warming”.

Hey, if only 1/100 of 1% of climate scientists are against global warming, that must mean everybody important is already on board. So break out the sunblock: anyone who disagrees with us must be nuts!

Babel’s Antidote

Monsù Desiderio, The Tower of Babel

I’m thinking about human relationships, specifically the way we communicate.

I used to take great delight in my facility with language, a skill developed largely because my father read to us incessantly as children: Lewis, Tolkien and other writers consistently above our grade level. As a result, we paid little attention to grammar lessons in school; they were largely redundant. We didn’t need to know a word was a gerund or an adjective to use it aptly in a sentence or to spell it correctly. Such things were innate.

You know the old saw: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. I figured language was the key to pretty much everything. If one were only logical enough, if one could only make a convincing argument, then everything was potentially within one’s grasp. You could manipulate, coax, coerce or persuade anyone to do just about anything you wanted.

As Relevant as Today’s Headlines

In an opinion piece for The Claremont Independent, Taylor Schmitt waxes eloquent about “How Campus Progressives Ruined Liberalism for the Rest of Us”. 

Coming from a self-avowed leftie and supporter of the legalization of both marijuana and gay marriage, it’s an interesting read. Mr. Schmitt is obviously not about to embrace conservatism, but his lucidity and willingness to call a spade a spade are bound to create serious distance between him and his fellow liberals.

Nothing To Fear

Some years ago I drove through upstate New York on my way to visit a client in Massachusetts. The road rose and fell as we wove our way through the Adirondack Mountains and I was amused to see signs like the one pictured on a regular basis; there were dozens of them. I wondered about them a fair bit as we drove because really, if you’re driving a car over a mountain pass with vertical drops on the immediate left and right side of the car and you see a plane approaching the front windshield, well, what exactly does one do aside from brace for impact?

Where I live and work there is not a single one of these signs. There never has been and I dare say there never will be and the reason is pretty simple: There are no mountains here at all. So even though it is always good advice to be wary of low flying aircraft, the warning is only needed and provided when there is an actual risk that there could possibly be an impact. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?