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Living as a foreigner taught me how to live as a Christian
Living our faith requires vigilance, but it also requires fearlessness, Tucker Carlson told a crowd of Christians in Ohio earlier this month. //
Yet we cannot let that silence us, for our suffering will have become meaningless. If the word of Christ is destroyed by enemies of the church and replaced with edicts from government, darkness will cover the world and countless souls shall be lost.
There is much at stake, but be not afraid, my friends. Trust God, lean not on your own understanding, and preach the good news to all corners of the world in freedom from fear. Amen.
etba_ss JSobieski
3 months ago
That is the key. Be prepared, but do not let anxiety and worry rule your life. Do what you are supposed to do and let God handle the rest.
It is a bit off topic, but as Americans, we are so conditioned to avoid hardship and persecution that we think when our society turns against Christians (which is happening now) that the world is over. It might be. I don't dig too far into to trying to figure out when the world will end, as we are told that no one knows. We should be prepared for it at any time and prepared also for it to not happen in our lifetimes. The Apostles thought it would happen in their lifetimes. If they were that wrong about that and about how little of Jesus' teachings they got until after his death and resurrection, I hate to think of how much I miss and how much I have wrong.
At the very least, we are headed to a society where there is a real cost of being a Christian. For 250 years, we've had a country that accepted Christianity as the norm and at least pretended to have Christian morals as its underpinning. We are entering a time when that is not just no longer the case, but where society is in open and vocal rebellion against Christianity and against God. Short of a national revival, the question is not if, but when, this happens. We will see the wheat separated from the chaff when it is no longer easy or convenient to be a cultural christian.
Megan Basham @megbasham
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Unequivocal statement on disfellowshipping Saddleback from the Southern Baptist Convention. Good sign it may be possible to stop drift when messengers are informed and understand what’s happening. That’s where the work ahead lies—education.
11:11 AM · Jun 14, 2023 //
I think the SBC is right in principle, and I think the action by the SBC leadership was courageous. I have to believe that Rick Warren, author of arguably the best-selling book of all time not called “The Bible,” thought that his congregation was too big to be “disfellowshipped” and could do as it damned well pleased. The fact that he was proven wrong is a triumph for first principles. //
The key takeaway is that Jesus Christ had women in his inner circle, and they were critical to the Church’s work. He did not designate any of them as apostles or send them out to preach and convert because He chose not to. The argument that He didn’t because of the culture of the time is an argument that human customs limit God’s power. It is not a question of oppressing or undervaluing women because the same guy who says no to women pastors disagrees (Galatians 3:28). It isn’t saying that women are inferior to men in devotion because, on Calvary, Jesus was comforted by one man (St. John the Evangelist) and several women (see Matthew 27:55–56, Luke 23:49, Mark 15:40, and John 19:25). It is because Churches built upon Scripture cannot arrogate to themselves the rights retained by God. //
Will this cause harm to the SBC? I think that is doubtful. In times of repression, homogenous communities survive. Some churches will disaffiliate, but the SBC will be stronger. Besides that, religion is not a popularity contest. A smaller, hotter Church does more of God’s work than an enormous lukewarm one.
The real question is, why do people join organizations to create conflict and try to change the larger organization to accommodate them? Warren’s Saddleback Church has been part of the SBC since its founding in 1980. He knew what the Baptist Faith & Message laid out as a baseline for affiliation and basically dared the SBC to do anything when he ordained three women. Why didn’t he just announce that Saddleback was moving on and leaving the SBC? That would have been honorable and non-controversial. It is hard to say his decision to try to bully the SBC into changing its rules to accommodate him was principled. //
Consumer of toast
3 hours ago edited
When it comes to principled beliefs in faith, I think that that is something that should not waiver. Right now the Christian church in America is in decline. I'm sure there are lots of Christians who eat meat. PETA will call you evil, sick and disgusting for what you do, yet you ignore them and continue to enjoy your hamburgers. Yet, someone from the LGBTIA+ calls you a bigot, you alter your beliefs to try to be considerate of them in hopes that they stop calling you names. I find it pathetic. You stand more firmly in your belief of chicken nuggets than you do in your faith in God. Stand firm in your belief and faith in Jesus Christ. //
etba_ss
2 hours ago
It is because Churches built upon Scripture cannot arrogate to themselves the rights retained by God.
That right there sums it all up. It simply isn't our decision to make. You either believe Scripture and follow it or you don't. The moment you start cutting and pasting, you are creating your own religion with yourself as a co-ruler with God, which will rapidly descend into just you being your own god. //
etba_ss smagar
2 hours ago
Better to be irrelevant and faithful to Scripture than popular and unfaithful.
That's what Scripture says. Your debate is not with the SBC, it is with God, the divine author of Scripture.
Plenty of people reject parts of God's Word they don't like. Jesus himself told people things they didn't like and didn't want to accept. Why should we think that we should have a message everyone loves in their own sinful nature? Speak the truth in love and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting.
As I said above, the biggest issue isn't women pastors but the willingness of Saddleback and Warren to reject Scripture to fit in with modern culture. That is a slippery slope and it gets worse from there. If someone has had women pastors for 200 years, while still wrong, it doesn't open the door to rejecting Scripture for modern acceptance the way this would.
He also judged that the right was insufficiently concerned about social justice. Although it would be inaccurate to frame him as a champion of third-wave critical theory, he accepted enough of the second-wave progressive framework to take certain leftist narratives about race and power imbalances for granted. This inevitably created more blind spots and misplaced priorities in his sociocultural analysis, leading many conservatives to look elsewhere for more useful guidance. And the sad irony is that for all Keller aimed at fundamentalists and their influence, it is fundamentalists who have historically been on the front lines of caring for the poor and evangelizing nations. //
Yet, to remember him solely as a flawed thinker is to trivialize the sum total of a man who loved his family and friends faithfully, who never brought the shame of scandal to the bride of Christ, and who in his final days modeled how every Christian should face death — calmly, courageously, with eyes fixed firmly on the joy set before him.
Benedict XVI’s last words, reportedly, were “Jesus, I love you.” Tim Keller, in his final hours of home hospice care, said “I can’t wait to see Jesus.” May we all be so eager and ready to meet our maker, when our time comes.
A bestselling author who stepped down as Redeemer’s senior pastor in 2017, Tim always had something interesting, wry, witty, or wise to say. He had an uncanny ability to disagree without being disagreeable—an increasingly lost art today.
Despite pressure from numerous camps and causes, I also appreciated Tim’s unbending commitment to orthodox Christianity. Whether it was holding fast to a biblical understanding of human sexuality or his support for the sanctity of life, he was unwavering and unapologetic.
This courage and boldness should strengthen fellow Christians’ own resolve as we wade into the culture with our convictions and invite conversation and debate.
In Brentwood, Tennessee, Mike Glenn, senior pastor for 32 years at Brentwood Baptist Church, wrote a blog post in January after a computer-savvy assistant joked that Glenn could be replaced by an AI machine.
“I’m not buying it,” Glenn wrote. “AI will never be able to preach a decent sermon. Why? Because the gospel is more than words. It’s the evidence of a changed life.”
Also weighing in with an online essay was the Rev. Russell Moore, formerly head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy division and now editor-in-chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. He confided to his readers that his first sermon, delivered at age 12, was a well-intentioned mess.
“When listening to a sermon, what a congregation is looking for is evidence that the pastor has been with Jesus,” Glenn added. “AI will always have to – literally – take someone else’s words for it… it won’t ever be a sermon that will convince anyone to come and follow Jesus.”
“Preaching needs someone who knows the text and can convey that to the people — but it’s not just about transmitting information,” Moore wrote. “When we listen to the Word preached, we are hearing not just a word about God but a word from God.”
“Such life-altering news needs to be delivered by a human, in person,” he added. “A chatbot can research. A chatbot can write. Perhaps a chatbot can even orate. But a chatbot can’t preach.”
The mindset Keller has expressed — that most political positions aren’t absolute spiritual battlegrounds — was accurate in yesterday’s sanctuaries (and for most of Keller’s career, considering he planted Redeemer Presbyterian Church in 1989). It reflects what Renn calls the “neutral world” in what he’s dubbed the “three worlds of evangelism.” Following the pre-1990s “positive world,” in which most of Western culture looked favorably at Christianity and its values, the “neutral world” reigned until roughly a decade ago, when Western society’s attitude toward Christianity soured into a “negative world.”
In a neutral world where the most controversial political topics were tax cuts or foreign policy, the apartisan approach Keller has espoused was likely wise for the average Christian. However, American politics in the past decade has ceased to be chiefly about policies like taxes or welfare spending or even immigration — issues on which Christians can make good-faith arguments for a variety of political stances.
Fighting a Culture War in a Hostile World
Now, in Renn’s “negative world,” the political left has become the party of celebrating abortion on demand until birth; of chopping off the breasts and genitals of confused, manipulated children and ripping them from their objecting parents’ custody; of inflaming hatred based solely on the color of a person’s skin; of obliterating the nuclear family; and of inundating schoolchildren with pornographic books and the performances of cross-dressing male strippers. America’s leftist factions have used the highest office of law enforcement to terrorize a pro-life pastor, shuttered church gatherings, and continue to demand that Christians proclaiming simple truths like God’s design for marriage be excommunicated from their jobs and public discourse.
America is neck-deep in a culture war, and some of the most prolific instigators of it are in our highest political offices. Keller’s right that no political party is perfect and that Christians should not make an idol of a party or of politics in general. But unless we go the way of the early 20th-century fundamentalists, we’re going to have to meet the cultural onslaught — and some of the biggest arenas of the cultural fight have been made political. I’m sure Keller would agree that it shouldn’t be a partisan position to protect kindergarteners from being coached into sexual confusion by their teachers, but alas, that is where the political left has chosen to draw its battle lines.
With the announcement of the Keller Center, there’s hope Keller and The Gospel Coalition are catching up to what time it is. Keller’s narration in the announcement video mirrors the language of Renn’s “three worlds” almost verbatim:
We now live in a post-Christendom culture. For at least a thousand years, Western culture has been what you might call Christendom culture. Even if most people were not devout Christians, there was a positive understanding of Christianity in the culture. … The culture instilled in people a certain amount of background beliefs that the Bible assumes. … [But] now, you’re in, how do you win people to Christ in a post-Christendom era? And the church does not have any idea how to do it. //
Keller criticized evangelicals who are “turning to a political project of regaining power in order to expel secular people from places of cultural influence.” While Christians should not seek out power for power’s sake, we should defend the vulnerable from the harmful lies and agendas of those in positions of cultural authority.
Jesus rejected the zealotry of those who expected him to overthrow the Roman empire, but He also denounced the faux moralism of the Pharisees, the prominent cultural leaders of the society in which he lived. That faux moralism has a parallel in today’s false gospels that actively promote sin in the name of “inclusivity” or “a woman’s right to choose” — and one of the chief avenues perpetuating those false gospels is political.
Compared to the world, I’m wealthy. Compared to my neighbors, I’m not. So what does it mean to steward what God has given me?
Amy Medina November 30, 2022 //
I am compelled to think on these things, and I gasp for air, wrestling in the exertion of a fish out of water. I certainly fail, and grace always catches me when I do. But it’s that same grace, so lavishly poured out on me, that compels me to stay uncomfortable, unnerved, unsettled. May the tension keep me from bowing to a counterfeit master (Matt 6:24). If the throb pressures me to analyze every dollar, so be it. If the ache reminds me that America will never be my home, even better. May the burden excavate my true treasure—imperishable, eternal—and there also may my heart be found.
I’m concerned by this dynamic. I’m concerned that when stories of scandal ring in our ears and wring out our hearts, our vision for what the community of faith could and should look like becomes stunted and malformed by fear. I’m concerned that we despair, withdraw, and give up because our fear of getting it wrong overrules the command to love the brother and sister right next to us.
How, then, can we cultivate communities with healthy male-female relationships?
The gospel does instruct us to take an honest and unflinching look at sin, but it also calls us to look beyond it. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, and avoiding each other for fear of doing harm falls far short of what the Father envisions for his family.
Just as I ultimately want more from my marriage than to “avoid having an affair,” and I want more for my children than “not landing in jail,” so too the Scriptures call us to a bigger vision for church than “We had no sex or abuse scandals.” We are called to love one another, which includes but far exceeds the bar of “Don’t hurt each other.”
Any of us can become better at following Jesus by focusing on the demands and spiritual realities of our work. Rightly understood, work is the training ground where good Christians are made.
How does work make us better Christians? How can we “redeem the time” we spend laboring?
If the Christian life can be summed up as being made “partakers of the divine nature” in and through Christ (2 Pet. 1:4, ESV), then I think it could also be said that the core activity of the Christian is prayer.
As defined by one 19th-century Church of England priest, prayer is “the soul’s approach to God,” and the soul that approaches God takes on the characteristics of God. It’s similar to a copper pipe—cool to the touch and reflective of external light and eventually taking on the characteristics of the flame as it is made ready for the solder.
In his letter to the Thessalonian Christians, Paul says, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:16–18).
When do we pray? Always. At what frequency? Constantly. Even when turning wrenches? In all circumstances.
“This is how I’m praying,” Hibbs told Perkins. “Dear God, please expose the lies and falsehood that is tearing our nation apart. Reveal those; bring them to the surface. The Scripture says for us to expose wickedness. There’s no greater way than for God to do that. And so, I lean to Him to do that.”
“Secondly,” Hibbs continued, “pray that our leaders who know the truth stand up and speak up and use the God-given authority that they have inherited from the Lord as an elected official, to use that that opportunity rightly. And thirdly, I would say this: When we pray, we need to pray for God’s will to be done.”
Placing our nation in God’s hands risks receiving an answer we might not prefer. “You and I love the Constitution. We understand its origins, and how it honors God and honors the individual rights of every person,” Hibbs told Perkins. “But Tony, clearly, we have people in power today who do not believe in the Constitution, and this has been going on for a long time now. Is it possible, Tony, that we as believers are watching the death throes, as it were, of our republic? Lincoln made it very clear that we’re too strong to be destroyed from the outside, that if we’re ever going to be destroyed, it would be from within.”
“So, I’m praying, ‘Lord, expose the wickedness, but at the same time strengthen our leaders who are right with You. And Lord, please send revival to our nation,’” Hibbs summarized.
Guidepost’s findings include an email sent by the executive vice president and general council of the SBC’s Executive Committee, in which he comments on those bringing accusations against the SBC:
This whole thing should be seen for what it is. It is a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism. It is not the gospel. It is not even a part of the gospel. It is a misdirection play.
This line of thinking has played out on the mission field, too, as can be seen in published reports on the treatment of victims of child abuse overseas. For example, in 1997, the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s Independent Commission of Inquiry reported on claims of abuse at Mamou Alliance Academy, a boarding school in Guinea run by the C&MA from 1950 to 1971. About the students at Mamou, one missionary mother told the commission,
They were never allowed the freedom of expressing their hurts, their problems, their emotions to us. Each week the obligatory letter was not only read but censored, and forced to be rewritten if it appeared at all negative. This destroyed a vital link that could have helped maintain a fragmented family bond. They were repeatedly told not to share adverse happenings either by letter or by word on vacation with parents, lest it upset the parents and interfere with the work they were doing for God. The hidden message to the child was that God was more important, work was more important to the parents that [sic] one’s own child.
The commission summarized the reasoning behind censoring letters as “Children were advised not to upset their parents, lest their ministry to Africans be compromised and Africans left to their pagan ways.” //
We must be alert. Talking points for conversations with children—and adults—should include that secrets shouldn’t be kept, wrongs shouldn’t be hidden, and complaints shouldn’t be silenced in order to “protect the mission.” That needs to be said out loud over and over again to combat all the times that the opposite has been spoken or inferred.
Abuse in the church hinders the mission, not the exposing of that abuse. Silencing or shunning those who make accusations hinders the mission, not the act of hearing them out. //
There’s more to the mission of the church than just going and making disciples. There’s listening to and looking out for the oppressed and the vulnerable. There’s shining the light in dark places. And there’s speaking and acknowledging what is true.
The mission. The mission. The mission. The whole mission.
The John Wesley Institute hosted over 50 scholars for the Next Methodism Summit in January of 2022, producing The Faith Once Delivered: A Wesleyan Witness.
https://nextmethodism.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Faith-Once-Delivered-FINAL-1.pdf
Sixty-four scholars and theologians have signed on to a “Wesleyan witness,” a six-part, 62-page document they hope will shape the future of Methodism, define orthodox Wesleyanism, and ground more Christians in the story of sanctification and restoration through grace.
“This is classic, orthodox Wesleyan theology,” said Asbury University New Testament professor Suzanne Nicholson, who is one of the authors. “The power of the Holy Spirit is greater than the power of sin. It doesn’t matter your class, your race, your gender, God is at work among the faithful, and that leads us to a full-orbed devotion to who God is
“The Faith Once Delivered” was first drafted in January at a summit for “The Next Methodism.” Scholars allied with the evangelical wing of the United Methodist Church, as well as holiness and Pentecostal denominations, came together, formed five working groups, and co-wrote statements on five theological topics: the nature of God, Creation, revelation, salvation, and the church. A sixth section on eschatology or “the fullness of time” was added later.
For decades, the Supreme Court’s decision to hijack the abortion question blunted the moral impetus for secular and religious leaders alike. It allowed for a dishonest debate, and for the left to claim our elected representatives alone have jurisdiction over matters of life and death, while rarely exercising this jurisdiction.
For decades, from both the church pulpit and the bully pulpit, it allowed for cowardice. Soon that may be ending. It might not make for a less contentious time in American life, but it will sure make for a more honest one.
As to the specific things Harrison Warren advocates, they are primarily the same tired socialist proposals that were in vogue before LBJ’s Great Society; their objective is the infantilization of single mothers and the funding of a massive social service bureaucracy. We know that the government programs that attempt to implement these plans don’t produce anything but more poverty and more bureaucrats. What is more disturbing is that she is essentially pushing the same slander that we on the pro-life side have heard from the pro-aborts for years, that is, that we don’t care about the baby after it is born.
What is missing from Harrison Warren’s critique?
Family, for one. At no point does she encourage marriage or not banging everything in sight. Men are marginalized in our society. They earn fewer than half of all college degrees.
They are more likely to drop out of school, participate in the workforce, use drugs, and be involved in serious crimes.
The focus on “empowering economically disadvantaged women” totally misses the cultural genocide being wrought on our young men. If it “take two to tango,” maybe being married to a man who has earning ability is a better solution for father, mother, and child than being enrolled in a government program that will penalize the woman through loss of entitlements, if she does get married or improves her economic status. Maybe, hear me out, a committed relationship is better socially, economically, and psychologically than a hook-up app. Perhaps addressing the “demand” part of the equation instead of monomaniacally focusing on the “supply” issue is in order. //
Evangelizing is hard work, but the fact is that without some religious foundation, without changing hearts, trying to change the culture is a lost cause. I was stunned that a priest (even an Anglican) could approach an issue so profoundly intertwined with orthodox Christianity as abortion and not call for greater involvement by churches in assisting pregnant women. Totally anecdotal, but my experience is that those churches with the most robust pro-life ministries are also very likely to be actively involved in helping pregnant women in all aspects.
Perhaps making common cause with pro-aborts is a really, really stupid idea. Social movements are subject to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, the same as any government agency. That law is “in any bureaucratic organization; there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.” I don’t have to tell you in which category you’d find the pro-aborts and where those folks who’ve spent decades on the picket lines would be. Inviting pro-aborts into the pro-life movement, unless they’ve had an “Abby Johnson moment,” serves no useful purpose.
It is said that every cause starts out as a movement, then it becomes a business, and finally, a grift. Since Roe became law, the pro-life movement has stayed true to its founding vision (with some exceptions). There is a lot of work to be done, but, unlike just a year ago, you can now visualize a time when abortion will be illegal in most states, and normal people will recoil in horror at the idea of killing a baby because it is inconvenient. We should all look forward to that day when we can say our work is done. We’ve eradicated abortion and changed the culture so that families are stronger and single mothers have a safety net that does not involve a caseworker and a handout. And then we should lock the doors and turn out the lives and go back to our homes, churches, and communities and sustain what we have accomplished by how we live our lives.
No, reversing Roe doesn’t mean the work of the pro-life movement is over; neither does it mean that we become campaigners and salesmen for the administrative state.
A Liberian woman stood up at the annual church meeting in Tarkpoima, Gbarpolu County this past March. The Lofa River District of the Evangelical Church of Liberia is located in a predominately Islamic region, and I was there to preach. The woman testified that she had stood in the same meeting last year to ask for prayer for her Muslim husband's salvation. He often beat her for following Christ and refusing to attend mosque, and this time she stood to give an update.
our ministry succumbed to the temptation to explain away inappropriate conduct as misunderstandings—misunderstandings between men and women, or misunderstandings between members of different generations who have different expectations for appropriate workplace behavior. In other words, as Guidepost expressed so well, we overemphasized the intent of the perpetrator and underemphasized the impact on the recipient.
Divining intent is always a dubious enterprise, but sexual harassment is sexual harassment whether or not it is sexually motivated. It makes the person on the receiving end feel objectified, manipulated, and mistreated because of his or her sex. Rather than saying, “He doesn’t really mean anything by it,” we should have heard, “But it means pain and humiliation for her.” We should have responded more forcefully earlier to protect our colleagues and to communicate that such behavior will lead swiftly to termination. //
We have seen too many cases where Christian organizations cover up their failures because they believe the mission they serve is too important to be derailed by a few hurting people. This argument is tempting but wrongheaded. We cannot love the many by being cruel to the few. We cannot serve the truth by covering it up. It is because we are more committed to the kingdom of God than to our own institutional interests that we must be honest about our failures and share what we learn from them. We remain committed to rigorous journalism about ourselves and about others. //
In closing, we again encourage you to read the Guidepost assessment and to read Daniel Silliman’s independent report when it publishes. We hope the church can benefit as often as possible from things we do well. If the church can also benefit through us sharing honestly what we have done poorly, then to God be the glory. It is, after all, God’s glory and not our own that is the point of all we do.
“That’s a pincer movement. Religions themselves have failed and the secular world. It is the overwhelming dynamo of society. I’ve said for years, secular societies influenced religions much more than religions have influenced secular society in the last hundred years,” Prager noted during the interview.
Much of the loss of religion in our society, Prager observed, is based on Americans forgetting the influence of their faith.
“People forgot what their religion is about, you know. They went on automatic pilot. They didn’t teach their kids what America means. And so America doesn’t mean much to most kids. And the same with the religions, Judaism and Christianity. They didn’t teach their kids why the religion is so relevant to society,”
Prager notes, “I’m not blaming them.” Instead, he highlights, “I’m just describing a reality. That’s what happened. They didn’t convey the meaning, and so the kids just dropped it.” //
You know who opposed Soviet communism? Pope John Paul II from Poland, and Muslims in Afghanistan, and the Jews in the Soviet Union. These were the nemeses of the Soviet Union. You either worship the God of the Judeo-Christian world or the god of Marx. That’s what it really amounts to,” Prager shared. //
“I can tell you what has worked for me,” Prager answered. “For almost half a century explaining to people rationally why God and the Bible are necessary. That’s why I’ve embarked on this massive project of a five-volume commentary on the first five books of the Bible called the Rational Bible.” //
“My vehicle to God is purely through reason. I admit I don’t have a mystical bone in my body. I envy people who do, but I don’t. My vehicle to God and religion is purely through reason. But I have found that that is the most persuasive way to touch people, at least to the times in which we live,” Prager explained.