Western Man Abolishes Himself

 “So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. 

"Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct.”

- Malcolm Muggeridge, from "Vintage Muggeridge, Religion and Society"

No Such Thing as Religious Neutrality

'Augustine knew there was no such thing as spiritual or religious neutrality. People are for or against the Bible’s God. All humanity, he observed, belongs to one of two societies— one city that “lifts up its head in its own glory” and “loves its own strength as displayed in its mighty men,” and another city that “says to its God, ‘Thou art my glory and the lifter up of mine head’” and “‘ I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.’”

-- Jonathan Leeman, "Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ's Rule (Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture)" InterVarsity Press

What will we do with our liberty?

“The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.”
— Edmund Burke

The Sad Superficiality of CCM

The world needs true Christianity, a profound and powerful faith and vision -- but so much of American 'Christendom' is anything but....see for example the lyrics of one of the most popular "Christian" songs, 'Hold Us Together', which does not even mention God or Christ, barely alludes to Scripture ("brother's keeper") and drones on with repeated platitudes: 'Love will hold us together...' 'This is the first day of the rest of your life', lyrics that are more reminiscent of The Captain and Tenille and a kitten calendar than of the Biblical Gospel which announces our only hope -- 'Jesus is the Lord who saves'.

Are Feelings of Offense Self-authenticating?

It seems we have come to the place where we automatically think that every person who claims to be offended actually has sufficient reason to be (and that the very feeling of offense is self-authenticating). But surely this can't be true, in view of this exchange between Jesus, his disciples and the Pharisees (in Matt. 15:12-14): "Then the disciples came to him and asked, 'Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?”

"Jesus replied, '...ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.'” (NLT)

So no doubt it will be very hard work to discern such situations, but surely we should give up the notion that every offended person, every time, in every situation 'has the right' -- has sufficient reason -- to be/feel offended.

Billy Graham's 97th Birthday

On Billy Graham's 97th birthday, an appreciation....

First of all, years before I came to faith in Christ, it was Dr. Graham’s preaching via his televised ‘crusades’ that planted the seeds for me in terms of coming to know that I was lost and needed a Savior.   Then as the Spirit drew me to faith, it was his book, “Peace with God,” that helped me to understand how to respond to the Gospel in repentance and faith, and what it meant to follow Christ as a new believer.

Also, his own powerful preaching was an early lesson to me about the centrality and efficacy of preaching God’s Word — a lesson that has stayed with me in my own pastoral ministry.

Of course he is not perfect, and I haven't agreed with all his ministry decisions, but overall his integrity, authenticity and faithfulness (along with that of his late wife, Ruth) has always been a heartening example to me. And when there were times that non-believers would point to the failures and hypocrisies of other ‘televangelists’ in order to cast reproach on the Gospel, I could always gently remind them of Billy Graham.

And so I’m sure there are so many, many others who are like me when I say that, when it comes to Billy Graham, I thank God every time I think of him.

Our War Against Reality

"...First, we need to remember—we must always remember—that the war against sexual purity and the family is a war against God. And that means it is a war against reality. Wars against reality cannot truly succeed...."  Very insightful cultural analysis from Dr. Brian Matson in this article.

Freedom of Religion

Heartened to hear Pope Francis, in his speech from Philadelphia, affirm the crucial reality that the right to religious freedom (affirmed in the very first amendment of our Bill of Rights) is by no means restricted to the 'freedom to worship' (the phrase characteristically used by President Obama and Hillary Clinton), but also the freedom to practice and live out one's religious commitments in every sphere of life -- "in the public square", culturally, politically, vocationally, etc.

The conclusion to his speech: "May this country and each of you be renewed in gratitude for the many blessings and freedoms that you enjoy. And may you defend these rights, especially your religious freedom, for it has been given to you by God himself...."

"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." -- "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights' (via the United Nations"

Religion: Indelibly Part of Human Life

"Religion is more than dogma and rules. It is a mixture of worldview and praxis that permeates all of peoples’ lives. We should remember that religion has had a prominent place in Australian history, and religious organizations form the backbone of our welfare network. Faith communities and the state can work together for the common good, and religion is an inalienable aspect of human existence, like music, art and literature. What’s more, religion is remarkably robust – it is not going to disappear. So it is far better that we treat religion as indelibly part of human life than as something to be begrudgingly tolerated and excised from public life...." -- Michael Bird

-- from "Whose Religion? Which Secularism?"

The Message That Counters Everything

"...The gospel is the one message that counters everything we want to believe about ourselves and about God. It counters the message of Pride Toronto, it counters the message of liberal Christianity, it counters the message of atheism, it counters the message of Mormonism, it counters the message of humanism, it counters every single message outside of itself.

"We want to believe that we are autonomous, but the gospel assures us we are under the jurisdiction of God...."

For the rest of Tim Challies' article, click here.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn versus Anthony Kennedy on the Nature of Liberty

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's view of human freedom, rooted in historic Christian thinking, is just about diametrically opposed to the view espoused by Justice Anthony Kennedy in his recent Supreme Court opinions...

Consider this quote from Solzhenitsyn:

"...in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of his whims.

"Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere in the West; a total emancipation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming ever more materialistic. The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even excess, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to the world has reached its peak and the world has found itself in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century's moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the nineteenth century...."

-- "A World Split Apart" — Commencement Address Delivered At Harvard University, June 8, 1978

July 4, Inalienable Rights, and the Creator

“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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As we celebrate July 4, there are some striking things to take note of in this most famous sentence from the Declaration of Independence. The founding fathers regarded these to be among the ‘self-evident truths’ that were foundational to our republic: “that all men are CREATED equal”, and that “their Creator” (not any human government or governmental institution) was the source of their “inalienable rights.”

So if the Creator is the source of our rights, surely he must be the one who defines them, which makes this statement from Jesus seem especially relevant in our time: “Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,….” (Matthew 19:4).

I am not one to claim that all the founding fathers were orthodox believers, but who can doubt that they and Jesus had the same Person in mind when they refer to the Creator?

It seems that Secularists today are determined to re-define historic cultural institutions, but to do so they have to attempt what even they cannot actually and legitimately do -- which is to re-write history. As John Adams himself said, "Facts are stubborn things...."

The American Experiment

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -- John Adams

Sez who?

Whenever an individual or a society faces some crucial cultural, ethical issue there is, looming in the background an absolutely critical question:  Sez Who?   That is, if you assert that  marriage is [fill in the blank], then who's to say you are right in your assertion?

Theists -- people like our Founding Fathers who believed in a Creator -- can plausibly answer the Sez Who question by saying, "God says....."  (And that's just what Christians do on this matter, relying on passages like Gen. 1:27; 2:24 and Matt. 19:4-6).   Now of course secularists don't find this convincing, nor do they accept this answer to the Sez Who? question.  But what almost always seems to go unnoticed is that they do not appear to have a coherent and compelling answer themselves to "Sez Who?"

Is their answer to, "Who says your concept of marriage is the right one?" -- is their answer merely, "I do...I and the people who agree with me"?   Would that be Justice Kennedy's answer?   So are we down to merely "we do, and majority rules"?  But our founding documents' understanding of inalienable rights (endowed by the Creator, and recognized, but not given, by Government) -- that understanding was precisely intended and designed to protect these fundamental rights from the dictates of the majority.

And yet, it seems like "majority rules" is what has happened here.   There is, in this world-view, no transcendent "Who" (God) -- Justice Kennedy's opining does not, because it cannot, go there.  There is only 'us' -- and so, "majority rules" after all.  And it's not the majority of the populace (via referendum) nor the majority of duly-elected legislators (via political process) -- no, it's the majority of Supreme Court justices.

So 'who says' that marriage is what we were told yesterday that it is?  Five judges, that's who.

Christianity's American Problem

"In the current age, not only has Christianity lost its hold on America, but America, rather, is conquering Christianity.

"...the Vanity Fair cover image of Caitlyn Jenner is a true icon of Americanist Christianity, which is to say, of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. "

For the entire essay from Rod Dreher, click here.

"The Logic of Classical Marriage"

A wise and helpful essay from John Dickson.

God's Kingdom Isn't a Democracy

The kingdom of God is not a democracy (thankfully). "...the way to shalom they do not know." -- Romans 3:17

How has it come to this?

Crucial cultural analysis from Kevin DeYoung:  "Three Cheers for Bill and Hillary Clinton"

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Fellow-Countrymen:

  AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

  On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

  One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

  "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

-- President Abraham Lincoln

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html

Freedom of Religion and Secular Humanism

One of the most damaging and far-reaching mis-beliefs that is confusing the current 'conversation' on crucial ethical issues today is the idea that 'secular humanism' ought to be the default position -- and then perhaps some extra accommodations should be tacked on to legislation for 'those who are religious.'

But even though secular humanism as a belief system typically lacks a deity, it is still, for the purposes of our national conversations, an all-encompassing 'world-view' that speaks to the issues of ethics (what is right and wrong...what people, or the government, OUGHT or ought not do). It is just at this point that we need to recognize that, in this sense, secular humanism, as a comprehensive system of beliefs, should not be advantaged or favored by governmental legislation or policy, to the detriment of those whose comprehensive belief system does include God.

The U.S. Constitution is concerned to preserve freedom in the practice of one's religion (not merely a private activity of worshiping), and for that there must be a true and thorough freedom of conscience. In short, a-theism (belief systems that do not include a deity) is not to be preferred or advantaged by the government to the detriment of theism (belief systems that do include a deity).

It is worth considering too that the Declaration of Independence found the source of inalienable human rights in the endowment of the Creator. If a belief system does not include a Creator, how can it securely maintain inalienable human rights that have their source in Him?