recommended books for marriage trouble

Here's another post that's off topic.

As alluded to below, my life this summer has been tied up with trying to revive my marriage without my wife's participation. I have been reading a lot of books. Some have been better than others. If you know anyone whose marriage is having trouble, (or if you want to prevent such a thing), here are some books I would definitely recommend:

Whoops! I Forgot My Wife

The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce

How One of You Can Bring the Two of You Together

Divorce Busting

The Case Against Divorce

When Love Dies

marriage = cohabitation with insurance benefits?

This is off topic. It has something to do with what I'm facing in my own personal life.

Yesterday my wife filed for legal separation. In the state in which I live, that means all the property is divided, child custody is determined, financial interests severed, etc. -- everything a divorce is, just without the name.

This was very unexpected.

Evidently my wife has been feeling beat up by me emotionally for a long, long time but has just been absorbing it. And I haven't given the complaints she has expressed the gravity they deserve. I found out in early May that she's profoundly dissatisfied with our marriage.

That wasn't good news to me. I welcomed the opportunity to get things healthy and seek counseling or something. But, surprisingly to me, she wasn't interested.

Basically, she's so distanced herself from me emotionally that she's come to believe that she will never again have feelings for me. And now that I've forced her to contemplate the situation by requesting we get help, she says she no longer wants to "live a lie" -- pretending to be happily married when really she isn't. My solution is to get the relationship healthy. Hers is to leave. At least that's how she's leaning right now. One of the real struggles I'm having is convincing her that things can get better.

For my own part, I'm deeply repentant and have entered into long term counseling to work on issues on my side. And I still have a little hope because she did file for separation rather than divorce (which she just as easily could have done). But I'm just devastated, because I really love her, and I really meant "for better or worse" for the rest of my life. And the thought of my kids growing up in a broken home is just horrifying to me. I never imagined this could happen. Especially so quickly. Especially without us both fighting desperately to save the marriage.

Not surprisingly, I've been researching divorce lately. In doing so, I came across a powerful argument by Maggie Gallagher in First Things as to the damage no fault divorce laws have brought on our culture. It describes very well the cause of my own deep feelings of betrayal. It underlines how our current laws not only do not affirm the sanctity of marriage, but in failing to do so, they make marriage potentially a cruel institution. I can certainly relate.

article link

Here are the highlights:

The right to leave ASAP is judged so compelling that it overwhelms the right to make (and be held responsible for) our commitments. For twenty-five years we have talked and written and legislated about no-fault divorce as if it represented an increase in personal choice. As the letters I received from divorcees suggest, this is a simplification and a falsification of our experience with no-fault divorce. For in most cases, divorce is not a mutual act, but the choice of one partner alone. "We might expect that both partners would be ready to end the relationship by the time one leaves," note family scholars Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. and Andrew J. Cherlin in their book Divided Family. "But the data suggest otherwise. Four out of five marriages ended unilaterally."

No-fault divorce does not expand everyone's personal choice. It empowers the spouse who wishes to leave, and leaves the spouse who is being left helpless, overwhelmed, and weak. The spouse who chooses divorce has a liberating sense of mastery, which psychologists have identified as one of the key components of personal happiness. He or she is breaking free, embracing change, which, with its psychic echoes of the exhilarating original adolescent break from the family, can dramatically boost self-esteem.

Being divorced, however (as the popularity of the movie The First Wives' Club attests) reinforces exactly the opposite sense of life. Being divorced does not feel like an act of personal courage, or transform you into the hero of your own life story, because being divorced is not an act. It is something that happens to you, over which, thanks to no-fault divorce legislation, you have no say at all.

The spouse who leaves learns that love dies. The spouse who is left learns that love betrays and that the courts and society side with the betrayers. In court, your marriage commitment means nothing. The only rule is: Whoever wants out, wins. By gutting the marital contract, no-fault divorce has transformed what it means to get married. The state will no longer enforce permanent legal commitments to a spouse. Formally, at least, no-fault divorce thus demotes marriage from a binding relation into something best described as cohabitation with insurance benefits.

Rather than transferring to the couple the right to decide when a divorce is justified, no-fault laws transferred that right to the individual. No-fault is thus something of a misnomer; a more accurate term would be unilateral divorce on demand.

What the current no-fault debate revolves around is the question: Is marriage less than a legal contract between two people? Is the marriage contract enforceable, and if so how? When we marry, are we making a binding commitment or a fully revokable one (if "revokable commitment" is not an oxymoron)? If the latter, what is the difference, morally and legally, between getting married and living together? Why have a legal institution dedicated to making a public promise the law considers too burdensome to enforce?

These are on top of the intrinsic cruelty of divorce itself; of saying to the one person one promised to love forever, I’m not going to care for you any more. Constance Ahrons' 1994 book The Good Divorce is a decidedly optimistic account of middle-class divorced couples. Yet she found that just 12 percent of divorced parents are able to create friendly, low-conflict relationships after divorce. Fifty percent of middle-class divorced couples engage in bitter, open conflict as "angry associates," or worse, "fiery foes." Five years afterwards, most of these angry divorced remain mired in hostility. Nearly a third of friendly divorces degenerate into open, angry conflict.

These statistics are matched by what Judith Wallerstein found in her (nonrandom) sample of mostly middle-class couples: Ten years after the divorce, fully half the women were still very angry at their ex-spouse.

Where once we seriously fretted over the possibility of breaking up marriages, today we are far more concerned about the dangers of discouraging divorce.

No-fault divorce laws may account for somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of the increase in divorce that took place in the seventies.

In other words, while there are many social and economic factors conspiring to weaken our marriages, no-fault divorce laws have pushed us over the edge from being a society in which the majority of marriages succeed to one in which (according to demographers' estimates) a majority of new marriages will fail. When divorce is made quicker and nonjudgmental, more marriages fail. And the story about marriage contained in the law---of marriage as a temporary bond sustained by mutual emotion alone---is becoming the dominant story we tell about marriage in America, eclipsing older narratives about stubborn faith and commitment, "till death do us part."

No-fault divorce is thus both a cause and a symptom of our current marriage crisis. When the law treats divorce as a unilateral right of one partner, culture can hardly take seriously the moral claims of marriage.

How will we know when America has begun to rebuild a culture of marriage? When the terror of a divorce delayed pales in our minds in comparison to the horror of seeing an innocent spouse dumped---then and only then will Americans have escaped the divorce culture we now inhabit.

blog is out of order

I am going to put the blog on hold for a while. I have some issues to address in my life that are a higher priority right now.

emergent delusion

I just read what seems to me like a good analysis of McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy, characterizing it as "a religion of perpetual doubt" and tying it in with Francis Schaeffer's teaching on what he termed "the line of despair." I haven't read A Generous Orthodoxy, but I am certainly on the same page as the author of this critique in regard to the nature of truth and such, so my guess is my take would be similar to his.

Emergent Delusion - A Critique of Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy
PDF version

God gave government for one reason: justice

I got a thank you letter from Stand to Reason today, a ministry I support monthly. The letter partly ties in with the principles I was discussing in my Steve Camp posts:

If the recent cultural clash over the fate of Terri Schiavo teaches us anything, it's that there is a difference between law and power on the one hand, and morality on the other. God gave government for one reason: justice, "for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right" (1 Peter 2:13-14). From God's perspective, then, law stand upon the necessary foundation of morality. The power entrusted to governments through law should be wielded to secure justice, not individual self-interest. This runs counter to the popular canard that morality can never be legislated. Morality is the only thing that can be legislated. Law not based on morality is despotism and tyranny.

What happens, then, when laws meant to secure justice are no longer moored to a moral foundation? What happens when morality turns out to be nothing in particular? What happens to law when morals dissolve into relativism? Not only is relativism a challenge to culture, it's a challenge to Christianity.

Please read May's Solid Ground carefully. It will give you the tools necessary to understand the moral underpinnings of law so that you can make sense both of justice and the cross of Jesus Christ.

punting to mystery

I thought this was great the other day. It's from Primitive thoughts of a Christian philosopher (or at least a modest philosopher -- I think he's very good).

Punting to mystery

I'm bothered by how often Christians punt to "mystery" when they can't resolve a contradiction in their own worldview. They do it so often, it's tempting to think "mystery" is just a synonym for "contradiction."

If there is a contradiction in our own worldview, then let's just be honest and say our worldview is false. If we have good reason to think that some apparent contradiction has a resolution that we just don't know about, then we should say what that reason is. Only then are we justified in calling it a mystery.

If we punt to "mystery" every time somebody brings up a contradiction we can't solve, then we are in no position to criticize other worldviews just because they contain contradictions. If punting to mystery is a legitimate way for us to avoid solving a difficulty in our own worldview, then what are we going to say to others who punt to mystery when they can't answer our arguments against their worldview? Let's be consistent and hold our own worldview to the same standards of logic we hold other worldviews to.

His follow up entry, The mystery of the incarnation is also worth reading.

I read a good book by R.C. Sproul a while back called Not a Chance. He had a good section in it on the difference between mysteries and contradictions. I don't recall the details, but I'll look it up and write on it at another time. (I did. See here.)

The fill-in pastor at the church I attend is a retired pastor, and he's great. But he does make this error of telling people that things are "a mystery" and "a contradiction," and that some things in the faith "aren't logical," but we still know they're true "by faith." It's just terrible, because some people listening (besides me) are going to recognize the fallacy of that, and think that, to be a Christian, you have to put reason (proper thinking) aside.

God weighs in on the topic of justice

In the book of Isaiah, God says, "Let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me."

This idea isn't one that would strike most Christians as unusual. But it might surprise them what God wants them to understand about Himself:

But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:24)

The part about kindness and righteousness rings familiar. But isn't it interesting that sandwiched in between them is the idea that God exercises justice? And it's justice, not specifically in His heavenly kingdom, but here on earth. God says He delights in this.

These days in America's churches, God's justice doesn't come up a lot in conversation. It doesn't come up a lot in teaching. In fact, I bet if a poll were taken, justice wouldn't make it in the top 40 of popular Christian topics. Yet, in this passage at least, God placed it in His top three. (When was the last time you saw a Christian book on the topic?)

I once visited a Reformed church where the pastor was doing a sermon series on God's attributes. I asked him if he was going to cover justice, and he gave me a puzzled look. "I don't think so. . . Boy, that would be a tough one."

About the only time I hear the topic of justice come up in Christian circles is when the Gospel is presented and it's explained why Christ had to die for us. And it's almost like "just-ness" is God's single negative, preventing Him from accepting us just as we are.

If our understanding of justice stopped there, it wouldn't surprise me if even Christians had a discomfort with this attribute which God says He loves, delights in, and thinks we should boast in the knowledge of.

Let's consider some strong words from Jesus in Matthew 23:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, `If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!

"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"

"How will you escape being condemned to hell?" Not the kind of rhetorical question one wants to hear coming from the mouth of God's Son! It goes without saying that we would do well to avoid what the Pharisees were guilty of.

But what often goes unnoticed is that, it's not just sins of commission that Jesus was angry about. There are also sins of omission, or neglect. Jesus calls these sins "the more important matters of the law." What may be surprising to some, (and most certainly missed by most), is that the first of these is justice.


I sometimes wonder if for many Christians, the idea of sin is the breaking of a law, or a rule -- that a person becomes guilty of breaking the rule, needs forgiveness, and that's the extent of sin's significance.

For me, it might not have been until I really gained an accurate assessment of what abortion is that I began to understand that a culture where injustice runs amok not only represents broken rules, personal guilt, and the need for forgiveness, but also carcasses of children in trash dumpsters. The victims are tangible. And suddenly justice doesn't seem so out of place in between kindness and righteousness.

When I hear some Christians belittle attempts by other Christians to facilitate the restoration of justice in our land, characterizing their attempts as "strong arming politicians to create legislation that moralizes our land" (link), I have to wonder if maybe they've never gotten past the idea of sin as merely broken rules. When you see the victims, I think you begin to understand God's passion for justice. And arguments like Steve Camp's begin to sound a lot like the men who objected to Jesus healing on the Sabbath. "And how shameful for them to hold a political rally with prostitutes and tax collectors! . . . I mean, Catholics."

I've assembled a page of Bible passages that relate in some way to the topic of justice and responding to injustice. I hope you'll take a few minutes to read them and contemplate the content and intensity of God's sensibilities on the topic. And consider what sort of response we should have to injustice.

"The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to intervene." (Isaiah 59:15-16)

Q&A on Steve Camp discussion

These are answers to a comment on the last post. I'm happy to have the opportunity to clarify my points.

Q: If Isaiah is to the community of God to clean house in the community of God, then what application does that have for a secular government? It has tons for the Church within the Church, but where do you see God telling Israel to clean someone else's "house."

A: Since when is America someone else's house? That sounds a little bit like the excuse given in Proverbs 24:11-12:

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?

In other words, God is not fooled. If we knew about it but did nothing, God knows. I don't think He's going to want to hear, "Well, it was someone else's house."

This is not a crusade for sanctification via legislation. (Don't get sucked into media spin... or even Steve Camp's spin, where he talks of a so-called attempt to "moralize our land.") This is caring about the welfare of our communities and caring that justice is done. Translated: People are being abused by those in power. God cares about it, and we should, too.

As far as the issue of secular government verses Israel, here's a thought: The book of Isaiah, as well as the other OT prophets, tell us how God views injustice in a nation. I have no reason to believe God’s character has changed in that respect.

Do we suppose God will give America, or any other nation, a pass because they have disclaimed association with Him? Wasn't Nineveh in line for judgment? Snubbing their noses at God never got Israel off the hook. In reality, Israel was frequently not any more faithful to God than contemporary America.

Q: I'm not sure why you think consistency in the doctrine of sovereignty means we don't do anything?

A: I don't. But I do think consistency to Steve Camp's argument means we don't do anything.

I believe God is sovereign. But I don't claim to know His sovereign will -- none of us do. Steve Camp says the Supreme Court does what God wants, but for that matter, so does Dobson. Where does that get us? It doesn't tell us anything about whether the political activism in question is right or wrong.

Q: That sounds more like fatalism than Biblical sovereignty where we are commanded to obey and love God by doing (but we are not commanded to alter the history as God has decided it).

A: I agree. How is Steve Camp's argument not fatalism? If I understand him right, he basically says, vote, write letters, participate a little, and then pray. God will take care of the rest, and we can be happy with that.

Well, there is more you can do. Dobson and others do more. I do more. Would anyone dare make a parallel argument regarding Christian missions? "We have lots of missionaries. No need to do any more. Now it's up to God. His will will be sovereignly done anyway."

As for altering history as God has decided it, if God has decided it, then we can't alter it, can we? If we influence a change, then I guess God wanted a change to be made. The thing is, often times faithful people are the means God uses to work in this world. The fact that God is ultimately in charge is no justification for inactivity.

Q: These two work together, not against each other, but once again, this is in-house. I don't judge an unbelieving homosexual, but one who claimed to be a Christian I would, so that is the difference.

A: Yes, I agree with you. But the issue being discussed relates to civil judges. It's their job before God, and the public, to judge. They aren't supposed to let any kind of criminal off the hook, Christian or otherwise. So this particular discussion isn't "in house," in my mind.

Remember what Justice Sunday was about: getting judges that follow the law. That's not radical. That's not disrespectful of anybody. That's not a cause Christians need to be ashamed of. And that's not an exclusively Christian cause. (In fact, part of Steve Camp's concern is that it's not only Christians that are backing this.)

Q: Let me ask you this. How does the Biblical distinctions between the kingdom(s) of the world and the Kingdom of God fit into this?

A: I don't know that it does. If anything, it's a distinction between different realms of God's creative order.

The government is one of God's institution, like the church and the family. The Bible calls the ruling magistrates "ministers." Their realm of responsibility is civil and criminal law. They can be negligent in that responsibility as much as any of us can be negligent in any of our responsibilities. A father can be a blessing to his family, or he can be a curse. A pastor can faithfully relay what God has said, or he can deceive. Why should we think it doesn't please God for Christians to be wholeheartedly involved in all three of these institutions? (Let's see, what men of God were ministers in government service? David, Joseph, Daniel, Moses, Joshua, Solomon...)

In my post tomorrow, I will list a number of Bible passages that have led me to the conclusion that justice is really important in God's economy. A lot of it is from the Old Testament. But remember, the OT was "the Bible" of the early church. We can learn a lot from it.

my exchange with Steve Camp

I sent a comment to former CCM artist Steve Camp on his website, and he actually e-mailed me to ask me to explain myself. (Very cool!) (Also see the entry on this blog: My Rebuttal to Steve Camp.)

Mr. Camp and I have been going back and forth a little, and his latest response referred me to an essay he's written entitled, "God Directs the Heart of the King." I'd encourage you to read it, and then consider my response to him:

Steve,

In regard to your points, I see a number of problems with the reasoning in your "God Directs the Heart of the King" article:

Now I'm going to do what Francis Schaeffer called "taking the roof off." Applying your logic with consistency, there is no reason for us to vote or doing any of the other things you encourage us to do. For no matter what the election outcome, God will direct things.

In fact, since we also know from Scripture that God determines the times and places in which we shall all live, it also follows that there is no reason for us to try and save another person's life, including the guy mugged in the Good Samaritan parable -- for it is God who determines when we shall all die. And why feed the hungry? They will die when God wants them to. And why criticize the Pope, for "there is no authority except from God"? God gives leaders in the church certain authority. The Pope is corrupt [Camp and I are Protestants], sure, but he's got authority. And he's no more corrupt than emperor Nero. God could remove the Pope if he wanted to. It's not our place to intervene.

Let me offer a position I think is a little more Biblically balanced: Authority is delegated by God. There is a responsibility that comes with that. The one in authority is not authorized to go against the will of the one granting that authority -- in this case, God. He is obligated to be a faithful steward with the authority he has been given. (Think of the parable of the talents.)

Let's take an example: I am the head of my household. I have been granted certain authority over my wife and my children. That does not mean I am authorized to be evil in the execution of that and go against God's revealed will. The same is true of a pastor or a king.

God's will is not that authorities be wicked. For instance, it was not God's will that certain Jewish leaders command the early Christians to refrain from preaching the Gospel as is recorded in the book of Acts. (Would it be God's will that the Great Commission be both obeyed and disobeyed?) Because these leaders were violating God's will, the Christians were free to disobey them and "obey God rather than man."

Steve, I know you know this (Isaiah 1), because I've heard you sing it. But consider the parts in bold that you didn't sing:

"So when you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide My eyes from you;
Yes, even though you multiply prayers,
I will not listen
Your hands are covered with blood.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless,
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.
...
Your rulers are rebels
And companions of thieves;
Everyone loves a bribe
And chases after rewards
They do not defend the orphan,
Nor does the widow's plea come before them."

Does it sound to you like these judges and rulers were doing God's will? Does it sound to you like these people could, as you say, "rest in the truth that God is sovereign"? By no means! God was telling them, You have no excuse! Clean house, or I will clean it for you!

This is the mandate by which something like Justice Sunday occurs. Steve, these are commands from God. We are commanded to reprove the ruthless. How exactly does one do that in our particular society without becoming a political activist? And how does one do it without, as you predict, "alienating the very ones we long to reach with the gospel"?

It seems to me, Jesus did not particularly worry about alienating people. Nevertheless, "those that had ears" heard Him. That is a truth we can "rest in," as you say. Those who God has called will come. We don't have to worry that obedience to God's commands will prevent people from receiving the Gospel. The fruit of the kingdom is not fertilized with the blood of the innocent.

Like I said in my blog, the Great Commission is not our only commission. It looks to me like you are encouraging us to neglect one of the "weightier matters of the law," namely, justice.

In this country, we probably have more influence than the population of any nation in history, in that we have a government that derives its authority "from the consent of the governed." To whom much has been given, much is expected. It's not like we don't have a say. I see you as asking us to do something akin to burying our talents in the sand.

I applaud our Christian leaders for leading! You should, too.

Mike

recommended Emergent Church lectures

Today I listened to three lectures on line by D.A. Carson, author of a new book called Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, which I plan to order tonight. The lectures were very good. The first two are posted at Apologetics.com. The third one, someone sent to me. I don't know if it's posted anywhere but here.

The three lectures are here:
DA Carson: What is the Emergent Church - Pt. 1, Dec. '04
DA Carson: The Emergent Church: Its Weaknesses - Pt. 2, Dec. '04
DA Carson: Final Lecture (title unknown) - Pt. 3, Dec. '04

Steve Camp rebuttal

I hesitate to discuss this because I don't want to provide additional publicity for former CCM artist Steve Camp's recent essay against Justice Sunday. However, I've seen it mentioned on a couple of other blogs, so I guess it's out there.

Justice Sunday is an effort by Christian leaders to challenge people from various religious backgrounds to put pressure on the U.S. Congress to vote up or down on President Bush's judicial appointments, as the Constitution requires of them. This voting is something the Senate has done faithfully throughout our nation's history, until this current body of Democrats decided to lay their bodies in the road because they want the courts stacked with judges who make up law themselves rather than rule on the law given us by the Legislative and Executive branches, our representatives.

At it's crux, Camp's objection is that in this effort, Protestants are allying themselves with Catholics and other sects who teach false doctrine. He thinks our ability to work together on a political cause in spite of our theological differences represents an abandonment of "the Great Commission" (evangelism). He also claims this is a move of postmodernism within the church.

This is really misguided thinking.

For one thing, this has nothing to do with Postmodernism. (Read Francis Schaeffer, as equally against postmodern thinking as he was in favor of social action.)

Secondly, justice is really important to God, and it's appropriate and right that it be really important to us, too. If that sounds like a weird thing to say, read the prophets.

"Woe to you, scribes and parish's, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others." - Jesus (Matthew 23:23)

Ironically, one of Steve Camp's albums was entitled JUSTICE.

We know from Scripture that governments are delegated authority from God to execute justice. Paul goes as far as to call the governing authorities "ministers of God." Government is God's institution. It is perfectly appropriate that Christians be involved in the process -- especially in governments "of the people." (In fact, if you aren't involved politically in the United States, you're really neglecting one of the ministries God has given you.)

But don't be confused. The ministry of governance is not the ministry of evangelism. They are not interchangeable, and one cannot substitute for the other. And contrary to popular belief, "the Great Commission" has never been the Christian's only commission. Jesus said, "teach them to obey all that I have commanded you." That implies there are other commands beyond just the command to evangelize.

Evangelism, contrary to what many Christians claim, is clearly not the solution on issues of justice. Evangelists don't incarcerate people. They don't protect the rights of citizens, or bear the sword to punish criminal acts. That's the ministry of government.

Also, when the government starts viewing good as evil and evil as good, it's not doing what God commissioned it to do. At that point, it is especially important that Christians step up to the plate and be "salt and light" in the situation. (If we refuse to, who do we suppose is going to?)

Be discerning! Don't lose sight of the big picture. We're trying to put pressure on the Senate to do what's right regarding justice. We're not pushing for a state church. We're not combining into a monolithic religion. We're not saying we agree with everyone on matters of faith. We're not abandoning the ministry of evangelism.

But what we are saying is, when it comes to something like abortion, if you're against judges stripping away all rights from a class of human beings based on age and location, we, as followers of Christ, will work with you on that, even if we think you're all wet doctrinally. And we'll do so with clear consciences. Such an action represents no lack of faithfulness to the Gospel on our part. It's a good work. (For Pete's sake, if we were forbidden from endeavors with people who are doctrinally wrong, most of us would have to quit our jobs!)

If we get just one more activist justice on the Supreme Court who doesn't limit himself to the meaning of the words of our Constitution and laws, prepare for a cultural earthquake from which we may never recover.

What Dobson and company are doing, in my estimation, is very God-honoring.

If you haven't done so already, call your Senators (phone numbers), regardless of their stated position, and tell them that you want them to adhere to our Constitution and have an up or down vote on all judicial nominees, as the Senate has always done.

a strong argument for the existence of God

While apologetics isn't the subject matter of this blog, I will probably throw it in from time to time.

I really liked a few recent posts on the Primitive thoughts of a Christian philosopher blog which present an argument for the existence of God which goes like this:

1. If there is no God, then there are no objective moral values.
2. There are objective moral values.
3. Therefore, there is a God.

My first exposure to this argument was in C. S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity. This argument played a big role in bringing me from being an agnostic after college to a theist.

The posts from the blog:
What is truth?
Are moral realists delusional?
Does anything really matter?
The moral argument for the existence of God

feeding the sheep or amusing the goats?

I found this Charles Spurgeon essay on the Emergent No blog. I don't agree with Spurgeon on everything concerning entertainment. (In another of his pieces Emergent No posted, he sounds like he was a "don't go to the theater" type, which I'm not.) However, I do think he raises some good points for consideration.

How prominent a role, if any, should entertainment take in the local church? (I grew up in a Lutheran tradition that disallowed clapping in church in order to avoid granting praise to anyone other than the Lord. "We've come a long way, baby!") All things being equal, I'm all for contemporary Christian music and such. But I think its presence in the place of worship can be abused.

For instance, I've attended Saddleback's Christmas concerts, and they really come across as big Hollywood productions, complete with snow machines, professional singers brought in from around the country, and very little in the way of an oral Christian message. And in all fairness, I suspect that that was the intent -- to create a comfortable environment for visitors. Is that okay? It might be. But there was also blatant self-aggrandizement by some of the key performers, which is one of the dangers one might fear could come with the adoption of such a mode of operation.

Based on this essay, I'm sure Spurgeon would have disapproved.

"Feeding the Sheep Or Amusing the Goats?"

by Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

An evil resides in the professed camp of the Lord so gross in its impudence that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate evil for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." That is clear enough. So it would have been if He has added, "and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel." No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him. Then again, "He gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry." Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the Church to the world? "Ye are the salt," not sugar candy-something the world will spite out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, "Let the dead bury their dead." He was in awful earnestness!

Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear Him say, "Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow!" Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of the gospel amusement. Their message is, "Come out, keep out, keep clean out!" Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon. After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, "Lord grant Thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are." If they ceased not for preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They "turned the world upside down." That is the difference! Lord, clear the Church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the Church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy-laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God's link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

I have reservations about the last paragraph, because I've met Christians who've come to faith via shallow evangelistic approaches. But, even so, I don't think that justifies this stuff.

there's a difference between descriptive and prescriptive

There's another point to be made regarding my Bible As Silly Putty posts. In the first post, I discussed a teacher at my church who took a historical account and drew from it a principle for behavior that wasn't contained in the text itself. Specifically, the teacher said that Christians should try to get themselves involved in ministries that are in line with their passions. This he derived from the Biblical account of some Israelites working on rebuilding sections of Jerusalem's wall near their homes.

The point I want to add is that there's a difference between descriptive accounts and prescriptive accounts. When we see descriptions of things in the Bible, it doesn't necessarily mean they're things we must copy, or would even be wise to copy. Descriptions are different from commands, even in the Bible. This is all part of reading things in context.

the Bible as silly putty (part 2)

Another example from this same church was when the pastor was teaching about the Wedding at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine, near the start of Jesus' ministry (John 2:1-11). This pastor asked his students, "Jesus transformed the water in six clay jars into wine [actually, the account says the jars were stone]. What was the significance of the number six?"

Of course, no one knew the answer because there is no significance. At least none revealed in the text. But he went on:

"Well, there's a few clues. Some scholars believe that, at this point in Jesus' ministry, He had only called six of the twelve disciples. So that corresponds. Now the text says these jars were made of clay [actually, stone]. What's the significance of that? Well, what did God create man out of? Genesis tells us, the dust of the ground. Clay, as we know, is a material also made from the dust of the ground. Is it all starting to come together for you?? The six jars were symbolic of the disciples, and just as the water was transformed into wine, so the disciples were about to go through a spiritual transformation themselves!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. But of a class of about 70 adults, no one objected.

I don't deny that the infused meaning is benign enough, but this pastor was modeling for his students a terribly flawed way of interpreting Scripture! There is nothing in the passage that hints of any sort of allegory. And for the sake of argument, let's suppose he's right about the symbolism -- and say Jesus shared that very information with His disciples later on in the day -- nevertheless, God did not choose to reveal those details to us in the text. So what are we doing here, reading God's mind??

I looked on the Internet to see if I could find someone who shared this interpretation of the Cana account. I didn't find anyone. However, I did find three other symbolic interpretations, all three just as disconnected from the text as my pastor's interpretation. (Which just goes to show how completely without a rudder you are when you navigate into such waters.)

Later that week I met with the pastor in private to share my concern with him. He actually took offense and accused me of nit picking.

One thing that really bothers me here is that, the Bible is a really big book. And there's a lot in there to learn from. We don't need to be making things up in order to learn from it. (And we're not learning from the Bible anyway if we're making things up.) In the Cana account, it ends with, "This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him." This is the significance of the passage. Jesus was revealing something about Himself, that we can learn also.

The concept of inspiration is that God uses the words of Scripture to convey information and ideas. Not that these words are supposed to be the starting point for imaginative speculation inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit communicates through the meaning of the words. So the first goal of Bible study is to accurately understand what the words mean -- the information and ideas they convey. That is how the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

Last week I ordered a DVD from Netflix, the mail-based movie rental place. The DVD never arrived, so I reported it lost, and they sent me another copy. (This is true.) Today it arrived, but the disc has a big crack in it.

Now, given that information, and only that information, what can you conclude? That Netflix has bad service? (That hasn't been my experience.) That someone is sabotaging their operation? That God doesn't want me to watch this particular movie, and that this is a sign? That I'm under a curse this week for something I did? Any of these interpretations are worthless speculation, bordering on superstition. We don't have adequate information to draw these conclusions.

Yet I regularly see Christians taking the liberty to come up with interpretations for Biblical passages that aren't supported by the information and ideas contained in the meanings of the words God chose to inspire. (In doing so, aren't they implying God left important things out?) We don't consider this practice valid in normal life situations. Why do we do it with God's word?

Maybe "the Bible as silly putty" isn't the best analogy. Maybe a Ouija board would be better -- but instead of channeling spirits, people think they're channeling the Holy Spirit.

[Note: I think Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason may have been inspired by this post. His September/October 2005 edition of Solid Ground is titled: Silly Putty Bible]

not wisdom, evasiveness

I got an e-mail from a friend a couple days after Terri Schiavo's death. It included this comment:

My pastor said in church this morning, that with the events of this past week, his only answer to other people about how he feels is that he loves Jesus with his whole heart, and Jesus is the only one who knows the whole story. Pretty good words of wisdom in this whole horrendous family matter. Hopefully Terri is now sealed in His arms.

Now I wasn't there, so I don't know if something got lost in the translation. But pretty good words of wisdom?? Not if they were as relayed here.

"Jesus is the only one who knows the whole story" is true with everything in life, so what is that but an evasive comment? A much more helpful response would have been to discuss some of the ethical issues involved and what the Bible has to say about the value of our lives, the value of the disabled, our obligation to honor our parents (in reference to Terri's husband's lack of honor for Terri's parents), the immorality of suicide, the fact that God is the one who really owns our lives, how legislators, judges and spouses are not above the law given by their Creator, etc. This could have been a great opportunity to provide instruction, but instead it sounds like this pastor skirted the issue, couching it in talk of "loving Jesus." But of course, part of loving Jesus means seeing His presence in the needy among us -- people such as Terri Shiavo (Matt. 25:40).

the Bible as silly putty (part 1)

One thing I've noticed in recent years is how many people read into the Bible things it doesn't say, thinking they're obtaining a "deeper meaning" from it. I'm sure most of it is done with good intentions, but nevertheless, it's a practice that treats the Bible's meaning as something we can be creative with, molding it into new shapes, so to speak.

I used to go to a church where the leadership felt at liberty to interpret historical accounts in the Bible as parables. As an example, I was in a Sunday school class taught by one of the elders that covered the historical account of Nehemiah directing the reconstruction of the wall around Jerusalem. The Biblical text describes some of the volunteers doing work on the sections of the wall near their homes.

So our teacher asked the class, "What's the significance of this?"

He got blank stares, and I said, "What do you mean?"

He replied, "What's the significance of Nehemiah assigning tasks to people close to their homes?"

I said, "Well, the text doesn't say, but I imagine it could have been for convenience."

He said, "Well, I think it's deeper than that."

He went on to explain that, in his reasoning, a person would be more passionate about working on the wall if it were close to his home because that part of the wall would be providing him direct protection.

Now, that’s a possible explanation, but it’s really speculation; the passage doesn’t contain that information.

But the teacher went on. He concluded that this passage teaches the principle that, in a church body, we should get people involved in ministries they "have a passion for."

Now, in and of itself, that might actually be a good principle. (It might not be, as well. You could imagine a strong case being made that ministry should be aimed toward areas of actual need more so than what could actually amount to nothing more than a narcissistic pursuit of one's personal passions.)

But regardless, this teaching of personal passions and ministry opportunities does not follow from this particular Bible passage. This teacher was reading something into the passage that simply wasn't there, as if the story were akin to one of Aesop's Fables or one of Jesus' parables. If the literary context was figurative writing, that might have been appropriate. But this is a historical account.

I asked the teacher about this after class, and he defended his interpretive method by saying that, since he believes all Scripture is given to us by God, each part of it must contain material we can apply to our lives. It was unthinkable to him that God would include any detail in a passage if there weren't some nugget of wisdom we could extract from it. (I would ague, historical accounts provide valuable context information for other writings, as well as serve to preserve Israel's history. Not every bit of the Bible is suited, nor intended, to be "devotional "material.)

But this, in my evaluation, really displays a low view of Scripture.

Here’s a guy who says, if he can't find a "deep" meaning in a part of the Bible, he just uses the text as a springboard for a meaning he makes up himself. In a very real sense, by adding meaning to the text, he's actually adding to Scripture. Yet he says he does this because he has the Holy Spirit working within him. Never mind the fact that this is not the kind of work Scripture says the Holy Spirit does.

The episode really concerned me. By his example, this elder was teaching the people in his church a faulty way of interpreting Scripture. The implication was that the mature Christian should embrace speculative teachings as if they are inspired, Biblical truth. In fact, one could even argue the message being sent was that speculative teachings are actually superior to the direct meaning of Biblical texts because, as was stated, they contain "deeper" meanings (presumably, as opposed to shallow meanings).

It seems to me, if this sort of "interpretation" were indeed the work of the Holy Spirit, one might wonder why we need the text of Scripture at all. Why can’t we just pick up any old writing and have the Holy Spirit read into it some "deeper meaning" for us that He wants to convey? If "the deeper meanings" aren’t contained in the actual meanings of the Biblical words, why even keep the Biblical words? Just listen to the Holy Spirit!

As I'll cover in a future post, this is actually where some contemporary Christian teachers (within otherwise orthodox circles!) have gone with this thinking.

[to be continued]

[Note: I think Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason may have been inspired by this post. His September/October 2005 edition of Solid Ground is titled: Silly Putty Bible]

"faith and trust and pixie dust" or "no one was ever argued into the Kingdom"

"No one has ever been argued into the Kingdom." Or, "No one was ever converted by an argument." Or, "An argument will never convert anybody, the Holy Spirit has to do it." I've heard statements like these in numerous Christian circles, most recently from my pastor in a Sunday morning class. I'd almost classify it as a Christian urban legend.

As I questioned my pastor, I got the impression that by the term argument, he really meant fight - as in, being argumentative, in a negative sense. To be sure, there are times when people argue, and it's more of a battle or struggle to "win" rather than an attempt to discover the truth of a matter. (A tell tale sign that this is happening is when a person reflexively switches to a different point when faced with acknowledging a weakness in his position.)

In this case, I'd agree that this is no way to win converts to Christianity... or anything else, for that matter. It's no way, because it's intellectually dishonest.

However, for those who understand disciplines that involve the exercise of logic or reason, the term "argument" can have an altogether different, even positive, meaning. Consideration of the merits of one line of argumentation verses another is a tool used to ascertain truth from fiction. (The fact of the matter is, everyone uses this tool with regularity, whether they realize it or not.) In the cases I've heard Christians make these types of pronouncements about arguments and evangelism, often times they really are referring to this sense of the word.

Is there something in the nature of the message of Christianity that makes it immune to being communicated using compelling arguments?

Obviously some skeptics would say yes. I don't think Christians should see it this way.

Myself, I went from being an agnostic after college to being a Christian, largely due to considering arguments in favor of the Christian worldview, appeals both to reason and to evidence. I had no desire to waste my time (and life) on a false understanding of existence. (And considering the fact that Jesus characterized Himself as "The Truth," I don't think He would necessarily frown on that attitude.)

Jesus Himself used arguments. "Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." (John 14:11) Expressed formally, the argument is: Only the Father has the ability to perform miracles. I perform miracles. Therefore the Father is in Me.


The big concern I have regarding the propagation of sentiments like, "arguments don't convert," is they imply Christianity is a worldview that refuses to (or can't) stand up under scrutiny -- that maybe, at its core, it's make-believe, or wishful thinking. The sentiment also dismisses the possibility that a skeptic's challenges might honestly be motivated by a desire to reject falsehood. Is it right for us to presume that, provided reasoned answers, the skeptic will not conclude, as we have, that Jesus is Who He said He was?

There's a sequel movie to Peter Pan that my kids watch called Return to Neverland. It features a song about "faith and trust and pixie dust," promoting the idea that making a blind leap of faith, in spite of evidence, is a virtue. I'll get into this more at a later date, but such a concept of faith is not what the Bible means by the term faith. Biblical faith is putting one's trust in God, just as one would put his faith and trust in a person he had reason to believe was trustworthy.

In my view, rather than an argument being a deterrent to conversion, I actually think many people have rejected the Gospel precisely because no one ever made the effort to argue with them intelligently. Christians should treat reasonable questions seriously. If we are unprepared with an answer, we should graciously acknowledge so, do our homework, and come back later prepared to present our case. There's a whole theological discipline dedicated to this very thing called Christian Apologetics, which means, "making a defense for the faith." There are a lot of good books available on the topic.

Resorting to, "Well, you just have to have faith," is the wrong answer. Not only do we not need to blindly believe, one could argue that it's inappropriate to blindly believe. For doing so makes us defenseless against the faulty arguments of the myriad of false religions and false philosophies out in the world. You and I can "just believe" in any number of false religious claims. The claims that are safe to trust in are the ones we have good reasons to believe are true.

We need to equip Christians to be able to lovingly communicate why it is reasonable and compelling to believe in Christianity. Not because we don't believe in the work of the Holy Spirit, but because we understand that it is through our communication that the Holy Spirit works.

Am I denying the necessity of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of a people to bring them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ? Not at all.

But what I am suggesting that not being willing to provide reasons for our beliefs can hinder people from considering repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Peter wrote, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15) In doing so, the Holy Spirit will use us.

There's a lot of deceptive messages competing for the hearts and minds of people today. Frankly, I'm not too disrespectful of people who have their guard up.

what's the central message?

My personal friend A.J. Murray posted the following comment:

The thought that keeps leaping to my mind when reading through some of these [posts] (especially relating to comments on Rick Warren's church and his books) are two-fold.

First, having been on mission trips with a sole purpose of reaching out for new believers I recognize two things...I'm not Christ and I do not have His ability/eloquence/insight to share the Gospel as HE does in the Bible, without losing the audience. By this I mean, I have tried what I call the "Campus Crusade" method of a sort of "hit 'em between the eyes with their falleness and need for a savior". For me, it's seldom if ever worked. What I took away from that is, it wasn't the recipient, it was the sender. It wasn't the message, it was the presentation.

What I have found is that in today's cynical, doubting world is that it's important for us to share the Gospel in such a manner as to attract new believers, then lead them to an understanding of their falleness, then (by the means of the Holy Spirit) to a pronouncement of faith.

Thus, while I yearn for the eloquence and straight forwardness of our Lord, or the directness of a Paul, I've found that creating a conversation which gently leads a person to make a decision for faith requires more finesse on my behalf. So, I guess I'm guilty of possibly "dressing up" the message so that the audience is receptive. Once they make a profession of faith, then, I find I have the ability to share and teach of the deeper subjects.

The second thing that strikes me is that each of us has a need for the relationship with Christ. Acknowledgement of our fallen condition is central to our recognition of who we are, but we're also (upon accepting faith) called by Christ, brothers and sisters, adopted by God. So, there is a duality that I believe necessarily exists between the "lite and fluffy" faith of the family, and the hardness of our fallen condition. Some churches err on one side or the other of this equation. To me, as a believer, this duality of being both family and fallen must be taught at the same time, in the same church. Therefore, if a church swings too far one direction or another we ought to be reaching out to improve that pastoral leadership.

Great comments, A.J.! And possibly I should clarify.

I've witnessed many presentations of the Gospel in my time. Most have been perfectly orthodox, and almost all have been gentle, which is fine. But there's another category that I've encountered, typical of the Rick Warren example below, that have been gentle, but not what I'd call orthodox.

For example, I remember going to Promise Keepers some years ago in Colorado Springs, and the first evening they had a call to come forward. As I recall, the guys who came up were led in prayer, but a call to repentance was never made. And afterwards it was announced to them that they were now members of the family of God. (At least this was my impression at the time.)

If you look in the Gospel of Mark, this is how the start of Jesus' ministry is described:

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.

These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff–no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.”

They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. (Mar 6:6-13)

"They went out and preached that people should repent."

If you examine both the Old and New Testaments, the message is consistent. Repentance is front and center. And a rejection of the message is characterized as an unwillingness to repent:

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. (Matt. 11:20)

There is nothing about relationship with God here. And I'll talk about this in a future post, but if you examine the book of Acts, which describes the spreading of the Gospel by the early church, the love of God is not mentioned once in the entire book! (Greg Koulk, of the apologetics ministry Stand to Reason, has prepared an excellent analysis on this topic called Preaching God's Love in Acts? which I'd highly recommend.)

This is what makes me suspect the church is out of balance in some sectors. I have no reason to doubt that intentions are well meaning. But I think that in a zeal to increase numbers, some have lost sight of the ball.

Like you, I'm all in favor of finding good ways to communicate the message. I would even say that marketing techniques are fine as long as they aren't ones that entail distorting the message.

But the bottom line is, if the people we're communicating with aren't coming to repentance (from an accurate understanding of their sinfulness and God's provision for forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice), then we aren't making disciples. And if we tell them they're saved anyway, we may very well be escorting them to damnation. And obviously, that would be awful.

I don't anticipate I'll have any impact on the heavy hitters in this arena. But I'm hoping these observations will at least help you and I to be more careful and deliberate about how we present the Gospel.

rambling reality check

Tonight I spoke on the phone with a good friend of mine from twenty years ago who is almost the last guy I would have predicted would become a Christian. Not that he was antagonistic to the faith, but when we were close, he just seemed to have an attitude of self-sufficiency -- no need for God. (Actually, I was pretty much of the same mindset, so I probably shouldn't talk. But isn't it easy to assume that your spiritual journey is not something any of your "old friends" would be able to relate to?)

As it turns out, my friend is not only a Christian, he's plugged into a good Bible believing church and was recently leading one of their home Bible studies. Wow!

It kind of shames me, because it highlights my guilt in forgetting that God can work in anybody's life. It also shames me in that I can't claim I had any part in my friend's journey to conversion, even though, maybe I could have.

I think sharing the Gospel to friends is a hard thing to do well. I'm not too bad at putting "pebbles in people's shoes," sharing points of apologetics and giving them something to contemplate. And while there's an important place for that, to be sure, it's also important to eventually share the crux of the Gospel. And I have a hard time working that in.

This is where I'm sort of schizophrenic about my critique of "seeker sensitive" ministry strategies. When it comes time for me to share the Gospel, I definitely try to frame it artfully to help get the hearer past negative preconceptions to a clear understanding the message. (And sometimes my motivation is a fear of rejection, which I think is clearly a wrong motivation.) But even so, I don't think I should ever change the content of the message in order to garner acceptance. For instance, I shouldn't say Christianity is fundamentally about having a relationship with God -- which a lot of Christians do -- when really Christianity is fundamentally about receiving atonement for my sins and living my life as Christ's disciple in obedience to His commands.

My friends need to understand the message accurately and then decide for themselves what they're going to do with it. And it's not appropriate for me feel responsible for that outcome because the responsibility is solely theirs. They need to reject the offer of forgiveness out of the rebelliousness of their hearts, not because they don't personally sense a need for "a relationship with God" or don't personally like the music or programs at some particular church. They've got a "disease" called sin, and the "cure" isn't "relationship." The cure is becoming repentant, pleading for forgiveness, and obtaining it. The message of this religion is not, "Love means never having to say I'm sorry," and we shouldn't imply that it is by deemphasizing the imperativeness of redemption in our message.

I will likely expound on this at some later date, but my impression is that one of the most effective "lures" for the Gospel is to demonstrate love for people by addressing their temporal, non-spiritual needs. Doing so gets their attention, because they see that the love we speak of is real. (And loving them in this way is commanded by God, too.) Wasn't this what Jesus did with His healings? He addressed not only the spiritual need of the person, but also the physical. When we meet people's needs, I think we find we have less motivation to cloak "the message" or be silent with it. "Those that have ears" will be receptive.

are you nicer than Jesus?

Randall Terry wrote a quite discerning book in 1993 titled Why Does a Nice Guy Like Me Keep Getting Thrown in Jail? How theological escapism and cultural retreatism has led to America's demise. The purpose of the book was similar to this blog's: challenging fuzzy ideas within the church.

In one chapter, The Idol of Reputation (Are You Nicer Than Jesus? Just Don't Speak the Whole Word of God!), Terry points out that, while it is indeed appropriate for a Christian to strive to have a good reputation, it should be a "good reputation" according to biblical terms, not on the world's terms. As Jesus said:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also." (John 15:18-20)

Rather than being discouraged, Jesus said we should rejoice when our reputation gets ruined on His account.

"Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets. " (Luke 6:22-23)

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:11-12)

From the book:

If your reputation is perfectly intact on every front, if you never irritate anyone, if you never make a stir, you might be doing something wrong -- or more likely, you're not doing something right. "Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for in the same way their fathers used to treat the false prophets." (Luke 6:26). The Bible has a crystal clear promise: "All who live godly lives in Christ Jesus shall experience persecution" (2 Tim. 3:12). If we never experience persecution, if we never make a single soul angry (as Christ often did), something is probably wrong. Probably very wrong.

When we stand for the Lord Jesus and the laws of God revealed in the Bible, it is inevitable that we will offend someone. And in that hour we must not shrink from our duty -- no compromise. In that hour of trail the unwholesome preservation of our reputation is of little or no consequence to God. In fact, He might be trying to smash the idol of reputation. The Prince of Life hung naked and shamed on a cross for you and me in the fulfillment of God's will. God has the right to require that our reputation be laid in the dust in obedience to His will. If we are mocked, falsely accused, berated, and maligned for doing or saying what our Lord has commanded, so be it. Blessed be His Name. He has given us the indescribable privilege of experiencing the trials with the prophets and of following our Savior's blood-stained steps. As the apostle Paul wrote, "For unto you is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for his sake" (Phil. 1:29).

(pages 56, 57)

Terry calls our tendency to please people "the idol of reputation." He says we should repent of this and ask God for courage. For me personally, this is a challenging lesson.

I sometimes wonder if the push to filter the Gospel is partially driven by this desire to be viewed favorably by those outside the church, on the world's terms. The temptation to compromise is great. But we need to set limits on our efforts for acceptance when it comes to presenting God's message. As God's ambassadors, we primarily represent Him, not ourselves. And as far as I know, God hasn't given us the authority to soft-peddle or embellish His message.

Not everyone is going to like the message. And those that dislike it will dislike the messengers, too. It's not fair, but it's always been that way.

book recommendations

Someone posted a comment recommending the following two books (thank you!) :

Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time
Marva J. Dawn

The Market-Driven Church: The Worldly Influence of Modern Culture on the Church in America
Udo W. Middelmann

I'll have to pick them up. Amazon also popped up these ones that look good on the "seeker sensitive"/megachurch movement:

Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts With Modernity
Os Guinness

Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World
John F. MacArthur

Hard To Believe : The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus
John MacArthur

This Little Church Went to Market: The Church in the Age of Entertainment
Gary Gilley, Gary E. Gilley

I wasn't aware these were out there. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

conversion by concealment

Last year I read most of the book Law & Gospel by C.F.W. Walther, first president of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. The book is comprised of transcripts from a series of lectures Walther gave in 1884. While I'm not in full agreement with the book, I think Walther's perspective on so called "sensitive" approaches to communicating the Gospel has merit. It's interesting that these techniques had their practitioners even back then.

"Even believing theologians of the modern type are frequently too timid to use terms that are fully warranted by Biblical and ecclesiastical usage, because they are afraid that these terms might prove offensive to their audience. They are averse to speaking of hereditary sin in their sermons or of the wrath of God against sinners, of the blindness of natural man, of spiritual death, in which all men are merged by nature. They do not like to speak of the devil going about as a roaring lion, seeing whom he may devour, because that would make them unpopular with their hearers. They are disinclined to speak of the everlasting fire of hell, of eternal torment and damnation; they prefer to speak of these matters to their hearers in terms that do not seem so strange, faulty, and offensive to them, employing phrases that are more in harmony with 'the religious sentiment of an enlightened people.'

"Now, there is no doubt that these men wish to convert people by using such false terms. They believe that they can convert men by concealing things from them or by presenting matters in a manner that is pleasing to men as they are by nature. They are like sorry physicians who do not like to prescribe a bitter medicine to delicate patients. . . Preachers who do not clearly and plainly proclaim the Gospel, which is offensive to the world, are not faithful in the discharge of their ministry and inflict great injury on men's souls. Instead of advancing Christians in the knowledge of pure doctrine, they allow them to grope in the dark, nurse false imaginations in them, and speed them in their false and dangerous path.

"The history of the Church shows how dangerous it is when theologians, otherwise reputed as orthodox, use wrong terms, which can easily be misunderstood. As a result, the most abominable heretics, to cover up their errors with a halo of sanctity, have appealed to phrases which men admittedly orthodox have used."

[pages 275, 276]

at what point does it qualify as a counterfeit?

Can Christianity be viewed as a group of product features that can be deliberately emphasized and de-emphasized and still remain the same religion? I guess that goes to the question of what exactly is a religion.

What delineates a false religion from a true religion? If the content of the teaching is a distortion of the truth, shouldn't it at some point cease to be considered a true religion? (How important is it that the message be "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"?)

Is it important that leadership and laymen believe the same thing? Is a church orthodox if the leadership's beliefs are orthodox, yet their teaching is a filtered version of orthodoxy? Are the converts being converted to orthodoxy, or to a counterfeit?

What if features are actually added to the religion? The Protestant Reformation was partly a rejection of new cars the Catholic church had added to the train. Is anyone concerned about Protestant additions?

Christianity in the bargain bin

We see in Rick Warren's presentation below an assurance that the listener will enter heaven. But can a person really have such assurance when the message presented is so ambiguous? Is not the sinner's prayer being treated here as something akin to a magic incantation -- repeat the right words, and you're automatically in? What are the possible consequences to the hearer if such an assurance is false?

One thing that strikes me is that Warren's message is so soft, it would be hard to imagine anyone rejecting it (except to dismiss it as mere nonsense). As it's presented, why not pray the prayer? There's nothing to lose. No costs to consider. Just tell Jesus you want to be friends and God will give you a ticket to heaven.

Did Jesus make it that easy?

The Cost of Being a Disciple
Luke 14:25-33

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."

spinning the gospel: Rick Warren's Saddleback Church

An example of what I think is God's message being changed for the sake of greater acceptance comes from the current epicenter of "seeker sensitive" ministry, Saddleback Church of Orange County, California.

Before I begin, let me just state that my fundamental fear/concern here is that the message of the gospel is being "spun" by these "seeker sensitive" churches in order to garner greater acceptance from potential converts. I struggle with this, because, with a lot of these churches, their doctrinal professions are within orthodoxy. Yet they present God's message in a skewed manner -- differently than God presented it in Scripture. They filter it.

Saddleback's web site has a video "altar call" on it given by Pastor Rick Warren. [This has since been removed. It used to be accessed via a link on their home page labeled "What's my purpose?"]

Here's an outline of the message (my comments in brackets):

[start of outline]

Saddleback's goal is to help you discover God's purpose, love and plan for your life.

God made you for a reason, purpose and mission in life.

Part of that is to establish a personal relationship with God, where you get to know God just like you know your best friend.

God wants to know you in a close and personal way.

This is not religion.

God knows everything about you, He just wants you to know Him the same way.

You were made by God for God.

He made you as an object of His love.

Our problem:
- We don't sense or feel God's love.

Cause of the problem:
- Sin has broken our relationship with God.
- We do what we want to do rather that what God put me on earth to do.

Jesus came to earth.
His mission was:
- Become the bridge between man and God
- Came in human form so we could understand Him and know what He's like. It's hard to understand God when you talk about God as being some impersonal force or some "spirit in the sky" -- we want to see what God is really like

The solution:
Simply trust [Trust in what? Warren doesn't say.]
It's nothing earned, it's a free gift of God's grace.

- God would like to take us to heaven.
- Heaven is a perfect place that can't accept anything imperfect into it -- if it did, it would then cease to be perfect.
- You and I are not perfect.
- Luckily, God came up with "Plan B."
- He came to earth himself, lived a perfect life, and said, "If you put your trust/faith in Me, then I will give you a ticket to heaven and be a part of My family."
- God has a ticket to heaven for you, but the only way you get it by being a friend of His Son, Jesus Christ -- having that relationship, getting to know God. [Has friendship replaced justification?]

You can take that step right now. You can make a commitment/decision. [A commitment to what, being Jesus' friend?]

"Pray with me, not necessarily the same words, but it's the attitude of your heart that counts."

Prayer:
- Thank you for making me
- I don't understand it all
- But I believe you exist
- And I do believe that you have a plan for my life
- Help me with all my doubts
- I don't have all the answers
- But I know I want to get to know you
- So as much as I know how, I open my life to you
- I want to begin a personal relationship with you
- I want to believe in you
- I want to trust you
- I ask you to forgive me for all the things I've done wrong
- I ask you to help me to understand your purpose for my life
- I pray this with what little faith I have

If you just prayed that prayer and really meant it, you have just become a part of the family of God -- a Christian, have crossed the line from seeker to believer.

Jesus has just done something good for you:
1. Every sin you have ever committed has been forgiven -- even if there were no heaven, it's still good that you can have a clear conscience. [I think I know what Warren means. But to a post-modern listener, this could easily be interpret to mean, "Even if this isn't all true, it's still good because it gives you a clear conscience." This is going to appeal to the post-modern who is seeking a spiritualistic hobby.]
2. God has guaranteed that you are going to go to heaven when you die - not because you deserve it, but because you've put your faith and trust in Christ. [Again, what is the person trusting Christ for? Based on Warren's message, one might conclude, he's trusting Christ to be his friend.]
3. You can now discover God's purpose and plan for you.

[end of outline]

Here are my observations about this attempt at sharing the Gospel:

- Nowhere is Jesus characterized as savior or sacrifice.

- No mention of the cross

- No mention of God as judge

- No mention of possible damnation

- The "bad news" is not, as Scripture teaches, that we stand rightly condemned before a holy and just God. It's that we don't "sense or feel God's love." It's also that heaven is a place that can't accommodate corrupt inhabitants -- which is crummy for us, since we're all corrupt. (Perhaps God needs a less picky dwelling place, one that doesn't have such strict requirements for residency.)

- The mention of forgiveness is really on the periphery, smuggled into the prayer. It's as if saying the prayer is considered magical, and that merely speaking the words, a person automatically receives forgiveness.

- The nature of Jesus' mission is characterized as an effort to show mankind what God is really like. Warren mentions "bridging the gap," but in the context of his presentation, this sounds more like a gap of friendship/relationship rather than an atonement for guilt.

- Is it correct to say that Jesus came to help us understand God and know what He's really like? I suppose, in one sense, Jesus did say He came to show us the Father. But to me, this way of talking implies that the manner in which God had revealed Himself in prior times had been inadequate, and maybe given man an excuse for his rebellion. I know Philip Yancey flirts with that line of reasoning in his book "The Jesus I Never Knew." But is this really Biblical? Would we have had no way of knowing what God was like without the Incarnation? If so, that implies that all of the Old Testament believers were in the dark. (It makes one wonder why God even bothered with the prophets.)

- It seems to me, the message being conveyed by Warren's presentation to someone without foreknowledge of the Gospel is that, at its crux, being a Christian means having "a relationship" with God. You become a Christian by praying a prayer to tell God you want to become His friend.


I visited Saddleback for one of their Christmas services last year, and my impression at that time was that the message was characteristically the same as above, which struck me as problematic.

I've studied Marketing, and what I think I see happening here is the practice of that discipline. You calculatedly compose your message. You emphasizing those things your target audience will find appealing. You de-emphasizing (or omit) those things your target audience will not find appealing. In some arenas of life, I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. The discomfort I have is that that is not the communication style I see modeled by God, or the people of God, in Scripture.

The question I have to ask is, if God didn't choose to characterize Christianity as being fundamentally about "relationship" with Him, where you and I get to know Him "just like we know our best friend," by who's authority do we do so?

I know it's not the strongest argument, but I don't think it's completely insignificant that the word "relationship" never appears in the text of Scripture. If "relationship" is "what Christianity is all about," shouldn't it strike us as odd that God never used the term Himself? Wouldn't it be more instructive for us to use the terms God actually did use -- like Lord, God, Master, Father, Savior, Judge, Redeemer, King, Lamb of God, Sacrifice, Friend, "I Am," Brother, and the like -- and consider their implications?


Am I being hyper-critical? I'm not positive I'm not. On the one hand, I don't have strong a reason to doubt the actual beliefs or motives of these leaders. And there are some dimensions of relationship and such in Christianity. So, in some ways, it almost looks like it comes down to tactics.

But what do you do when, in the name of tactics, someone decides to be God's editor, taking the message of God and massaging it to make it more palatable for the masses? Is that deception or not? Where is the line crossed between contextualizing the gospel and changing it? And isn't carelessness with the message also disrespect for the message?

Christianity lite (part 2)

Like I said, marketing messages generally emphasize the important attributes of a product and de-emphasize the unimportant attributes -- important being defined as the level of appeal to the target audience. The purpose of marketing is to increase audience receptivity.

Do Christians have a desire for people to be receptive to God's message? They most certainly do.

Are they at liberty to put a marketing "spin" on the message in order to achieve that receptivity? I think the answer to that is no. (The issue of whether "spinning" is actually what is occurring will be tackled in future posts.)

For anyone who isn't so sure, consider whether we have any examples of God using anything like marketing techniques to enhance the appeal of His message in Scripture. From what I see, the pattern is this: a message is delivered -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- and full responsibility for rejecting it is given to the listener. And even in Jesus' ministry, rejection was probably the most common response. Jesus didn't pad His message for appeal. Neither did the prophets. (Yet we mustn't ignore the fact that, some people still listened.) Far from predicting good PR, Jesus warned His disciples that their message -- the same as His -- would incite hatred toward them (Matt. 10:24,25, Luke 6:22,23, Mark 13:13) and that few would be receptive to it (Matt. 7:13,14).

There is no doubt marketing "spin" works. It can dramatically increase receptivity to a message. For pragmatic reasons, the appeal for Christians to utilize such techniques is understandable. But it increases receptivity because it alters the message. It makes it out of balance. And I think I have good reason to question the idea that God has authorized us to alter His message. (Has God ever asked us to make His message more appealing than it already is coming from His mouth??)

It seems to me, editing God's message should, on its face, be easily recognizable as improper. The principle is addressed in Revelation 22: 18, 19:

“I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.”

In my next post, I will examine an example of what I believe is the Christian message being changed -- by a very high profile Christian minister in fact -- in order to solicit a more positive response. (At least that's my guess as to his motivation; I don't suspect this particular minister isn't actually orthodox in his beliefs.)