Post Christian Era: Recent Episodes
Chris Saenz
This is a chaotic time. The Christian has been forced to think and rethink his or her deeply held beliefs and presuppositions regarding the many claims of systemic social injustice, sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
Let’s get one thing straight: any clearly identifiable act of injustice is rightly opposed and condemned by the Christian, regardless of whether it was motivated by race, sex, religion, or other social background. The details of George Floyd’s death appear to indicate an act of cruel injustice.
But opposing individual acts of injustice is a different task than that of the Social Justice movement.
The Social Justice movement — that is, the academia and activist backed social and political movement that makes most of the noise — are the folks that have rewritten the playbook on civil rights and are using more radical definitions of racism to move the hearts and minds of the American public to specific ends.
It may surprise some Americans that the Social Justice cause is so widely accepted in media, schools, businesses, and much of the public square. It may also surprise Christians to learn that Social Justice is accepted in many churches and Christian institutions.
What I wish for you, dear brother or sister in Christ, is to see the Social Justice movement as more than a group of angry young people or a grassroots campaign that has emerged recently. It is more than a political movement wishing to change a few policies.
It is more than a call for people of different races and backgrounds to treat each other with the same love and respect that we treat our family and expect in return. It is a movement that no longer works at the micro or individual level, but has demands at the macro or institutional level because it sees race as the primary force driving the world’s problems.
Moreover, the Social Justice movement has become a religion that is thoroughly in opposition to basic tenets of the Christian faith. And Social Justice is not only a religion, it is the civic religion of our day.
The Religion of Social Justice I feel the need to say again; there are well meaning individuals that have taken up the cause to bring peace among social classes and provide aide to those in need. These are not necessarily practitioners of the Religion of Social Justice.
Movements like Black Lives Matter, corporations like the New York Times, academic institutions like the Smithsonian Institute, and many prestigious universities are the ardent evangelists of the Religion of Social Justice.
Just turn on the news and you will see religious acts every night.
You will see the mass proselytizing on the streets of major cities in the United States.
You will see the iconoclasm of the Religion of Social Justice urging the removal of competing symbols.
You will see the raising of new icons of martyrs and symbols of the religion
You will see religious rites; symbolic or real gestures of religious significance.
More importantly, the Religion of Social Justice promotes an ideology. The ideology speaks to the minds and hearts of followers in religious and anthropological terms. The fact that dissenters of the ideology are punished so extremely turns the ideology into religious dogma.
First, the religion provides a framework for seeing the world, which traditional religions have always done for their adherents. In the case of Social Justice, it portrays the force driving the plight of humanity as class struggle; and the salvation from that plight as a dismantling of classes so that humanity can flourish. For example, in this view, the reason why there is poverty and crime is because one group (whites, males, etc.) have more power than others. Salvation would be to ensure that all races have the same amount of power, causing crime and poverty to naturally be eliminated.
Because class struggle drives the course of humanity, every aspect of life must be seen as something that either furthers or dismantles class struggle. It is either holy or anathema. For this reason, the new morality of the Religion is determined by your efforts (or lack thereof) to dismantle systems of class struggle. Every word you say, every gesture you make, every commercial interaction, every political policy or candidate you support, every historical figure, every academic article, every scientific discovery, every classic novel, every government organization — every aspect of life — is either encouraging class struggle or not; holy or anathema.
With the new morality comes new moral judgments and condemnations. First, the mob — I mean, the Magisterium — will punish a person, their family, or their business for sinful behavior. For example, a liberal yoga studio owner in Denver who employs homosexuals and people of color was accused of not doing enough to speak out against racism. Within days, the yoga studio, financially hurting from the effects of COVID, received hundreds of angry emails and cancellations of their support, forcing the owner to close all nine locations for good.
Sometimes, pure sacrifice of innocents is needed in the Religion of Social Justice. Consider the two employees of a Portland bakery who were fired for refusing to serve a black woman after the bakery had already closed. The owner admitted they were following company protocol and did nothing wrong. However, his reason for firing the employees was that “sometimes impact outweighs intent”.
A sin in the Religion of Social Justice is any act that does not give a minority race, ethnicity, gender, or social class whatever it is they demand. The Religion claims that any inequality of any circumstance for members of different classes furthers injustice amongst the classes and is punishable to the most extreme extent.
Recently, Tucker Carlson (conservative analyst for Fox News) has said that the New York Times (major media outlet for the Religion of Social Justice) will publish his new address, even though he moved from Washington D.C. to avoid death threats him and his family have received for his critical view against Black Lives Matters. The Religion does not look lightly at unbelievers.
Because there are so many examples of the Magisterium pronouncing judgment and enacting punishment to individuals, their families, and their businesses, many feel the need to placate this religious mob. They go out of their way to pronounce their faith in the Religion of Social Justice to avoid judgement. Companies like Amazon, the NFL, Marvel Studios, Coca-Cola, and a host of others have made public statements ensuring they’re on the right side of the Religion’s righteous anger.
pic.twitter.com/yI4MYEDz4C
— Amazon (@amazon) May 31, 2020
When one commits the sin of questioning the beliefs of the Religion, one must quickly repent and pay penance; often times they are not absolved of their sins.
Like the former Obama campaign strategist who tweeted data showing that race riots reduce Democratic voting. The mob was angry. He tried to repent, saying he was irresponsible with data, but he was not absolved and was fired days later. A Los Angeles soccer player was fired for views that his wife made public, suffering for the sins of the family. Or the liberal economics professor who lost his job because he didn’t think BLM asking to defund the police was a good strategy. Once a believer, excommunicated as an apostate.
These stories that are printed and repeated in our culture demonstrate that the Religion of Social Justice is the civic religion of the United States. The effect of repeatedly publishing these stories is, anthropologically speaking, a demonstration of who is good and who is evil in our culture. They set the terms for who is “us” and who is “them”. They teach members of our culture that to further this specific Religion is the right thing to do; and to oppose it will bring ruin.
Institutions from universities to companies and charities to churches have pathetically surrendered to the Religion without thinking through its tenets. For this reason, the mob feels justified in every act of its vengeance. The conclusion is that we have impassioned religious wars playing out on the streets of major US cities in the form of “protests”.
The Religion of Social Justice is Anti-Christian The Christian is undoubtedly seeing the rise of the Religion and considering whether it is compatible with the Christian faith. The societal pressure to adopt its tenets is immense.
There are many who have openly and simplistically syncretized the two seemingly well. After all, doesn’t God promote Justice? Didn’t Jesus command us to care for the least of these1?
While the Bible is clear that God desires justice in the form of personal treatment2 and civic rule3, the Religion of Social Justice is all together an entirely different thing.
First, it should be noted that Justice is not the goal of the Religion of Social Justice; at least in the traditional sense of impartially setting things right, or even the Biblical sense of holding individuals and groups accountable to the laws of God.
The goal of the Religion is Equity. Equity, which is kind of a new buzzword, is literally defined as all classes having all the same social-economic outcomes. In other words, everyone has the same material things and social privileges. From the Center for Social Inclusion:
we achieve racial equity when race no longer determines one’s socioeconomic outcomes4
Popular social justice author Ibram Kendi defines equity like this:
Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing.5
This is different from equality. Equality gives everyone the same rights and opportunities, but makes no determination of outcome. For example, the Religion of Social Justice says that more whites than people of color owning their own homes is an example of inequity. Even though legally all people have the same rights and opportunities to own their own home, the disparities in actual home ownership among people of different races needs to be fixed. And this can be played out in all areas ad nauseam; college graduations rates, individuals in jail, number of CEOs running big companies, number of teachers and law enforcement, percentage of doctors, number of lawyers, number of chefs, and artists, and bankers, and pilots, and on and on.
(Curiously, I’m waiting for the Religion of Social Justice to protest the inequity in racial makeup of major league sports like the NBA and NFL)
Never mind that the goal of equity is statistically impossible, the theory is also founded in a very radical principle. According to the Religion of Social Justice:
One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist.6
In other words, all of the world’s problems are somehow rooted in improper racial relations. In their view, (Kendi calls it Antiracism), if we wish to solve the problems within humanity, it can only be solved through radical equalizing measures, like forcing more people of color to be doctors, professors, bankers, politicians, etc.
It should be obvious by now that the Religion’s understanding of Humanity and its goal for Humanity’s progress is completely different from orthodox Christianity.
The Christian faith teaches that Humanity’s problems are due to the effects of a broken world and a Human race imbued with a propensity towards sin. Sin driven by race is only one facet of mankind’s tendency toward evil.
The curse that God has placed on this world7 in response to Adam and Eve’s sin is a world where resources (food, materials, etc.) require hard labor and cooperation with God’s creation (plants, animals, rocks, etc.). Many of the things that aid life — Buildings, electricity, engines, cars, or a single house — is the result of an amazing cooperation between Man’s labor and God’s creation.
This also means that there will always be the possibility of scarcity. Mankind has and will always experience the scarcity in the form of hunger, or poverty, or lack of physical care. Life will always have struggle; Christians have known and accepted this since the beginning.
The job of the Christian is not to undo that curse and bring about material salvation, for only Christ can and will do that. The job of the Christian is to work within the confines of that curse and care for every human being that they can because every human being is a creature endowed with the image of God8.
The Religion of Social Justice views humans as essentially moral and good and the world in full cooperation with mankind and itself. When classes are dismantled, mankind will naturally flourish. This comes from its Marxist roots and 18th century philosophy in the Religion of Humanity, but is ultimately in complete contradiction with essential Christian orthodoxy and Biblical teaching.
As long as there is sin, there will be violence and improper treatment of our fellow man. As long as we live in a broken world, there will be disparities in individuals and people groups’ resources and living conditions. This is not to say that the Christian should give up caring for one another, indeed our work on this earth is to bring the love, peace, healing, and beauty of God to broken individuals in a broken world. And we get to experience God ourselves as broken people now filled with the Spirit of the Living God.
But the salvation of the human soul is the job of Christ alone and his work on the cross. And the redemption of a broken world belongs to God at the return of Christ when he restores the world to the state of Eden.
I pray that our brothers and sisters in Christ who are deeply contemplating this new Religion will consider that the Christian faith has given us the answers to these persistent and global problems. Our job is to be obedient to the way of Christ and to patiently await the restoration of our broken world at the return of Christ.
The itch is the most innate experience of human desire. It is so well understood that to say you want to “scratch an itch” is synonymous with fulfilling one’s desires exclusively for its gratification; despite the well-known consequences. “Don’t scratch!”, we warn our children – and sometimes ourselves – for we know that scratching accomplishes no long term benefit. At the same time, scratching an itch will not only fail to relieve the desire, but make the desire to scratch more intense.
Those of us that live in the 21st century post-Christian era need a reminder of the effects of “scratching an itch”.
Morality from Desire Andrea Long Chu is a writer who specializes in gender theory. While born a male, he is transgender and considers himself a female. Last year, he wrote an article for the New York Times reflecting on his decision to have gender reassignment surgery, titled “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy“. His opening paragraph summarizes his opinion of his desire to remove his penis and manufacture a vagina:
Next Thursday, I will get a vagina. The procedure will last around six hours, and I will be in recovery for at least three months. Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain. This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to. That shouldn’t disqualify me from getting it.
Andrea Long Chu, gender studies writer receives fabricated female genitalia in 2018 The article argues that both conservative and liberal opinions on these medical treatments are erroneous. Conservatives say these surgeries shouldn’t happen because they feed a delusion and don’t heal the patient. Liberals say the surgeries should happen because affirming an individual’s convictions about their sexual identity is humane and leads to psychological healing. In Chu’s view, both approach a trans individual’s request as “little kings” over their bodies. So, Chu argues, both are wrong because they deny the individual the right to do what they want with their body.
In other words, a parent’s warning to their child, “don’t scratch that itch because it will damage your skin and make it itch more” is just as bad as encouraging “scratch the itch as much as you can, as often as you can, as hard as you can. You’ll feel better!” That’s because both deny the child the right to experience the itch in the way he or she chooses to experience it.
Chu’s argument is imbued with the spirit of our age. That is, the discussion about how an individual understands and lives with their desires no longer rests upon identifying and pursuing what is “good”; for both conservatives and liberals believe they are doing so. Chu argues that both are mistaken because their understanding of “good” does not include “desire” as a factor; to which Chu factors “desire” almost exclusively as that which is “good”
Although this argument is not mainstream, it has appeared on mainstream media and is being praised by the academics that maintain the ever evolving gender studies in modern academia.
More importantly, this view is born from a culture that has no connection to religion, which has historically been the institution that guides us toward the “good”, so it would be understandable that our culture as a whole will come to the same conclusion: what is Good is what I Desire.
Desire as Master The 21st century Christian is at a major impasse. On the one hand, Jesus proclaims that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”1. And St. Paul tells us that “all things are lawful”2. So, many Christians embrace the ability to live out the Faith attempting to balance their own desires with Christian discipline. This leads the Christian to simply refrain from the list of sins spelled out in the Bible and believe they have won the battle over sin. For if the Bible has no prohibitions on specific activities, leisure, or lifestyles, aren’t we allowed to embrace them as God’s good gifts? Why would God frown upon us if we enjoy playing basketball, or watching movies, or eating the foods we like, or drinking alcohol, or intimacy with our spouse?
What is often lost in our understanding of our desires is their unquenchable nature. Our “freedom” that Christ provides is from the “slavery of sin”3. Sin is not merely doing a prohibited activity, nor is it fulfilling a desire “too much”. Sin is being mastered by any activity, no matter how much it is done or not done. Jesus described this in the Sermon on the Mount4 where the spiritual trajectory (anger, lust, etc.) is the same as the temporal activity (murder, fornication, etc.).
This shows that any of our desires can easily become masters over us. It is for this reason that Jesus explains that “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”5. He warns us that “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.”6
Our battle with our desires is not a battle of moderation; it is a battle of mastery.
Desire in the 21st Century This problem has only accelerated in the 21st century. If our generation can be defined by any one thing, it may very well be defined by its overabundance. We literally have the world at our fingertips. We can obtain any commodity at any time. We can purchase any experience we can think of. On top of that, the Christian who has an obvious obtained abundance is thought to have divine favor, or simply be #Blessed (this can also be applied to our country).
Shouldn’t we at some point recognize the abundance as a curse? When years ago, most people accepted that not everyone will drive a sports car, or own their dream home, or have the perfect body, or experience the world, wasn’t it a bit easier to escape the “mad masters” of our desires?
Today we are told that “you can drive away in a new Lexus”, or you can turn your dream home into a reality, or you can have that body you always wanted, or that buying a ticket to this event will “change your life”. Does this not set our hearts up to be mastered?
Today, we can have anything we want, and its killing us. The ease of porn and divorce is ruining our marriages and families. The availability of loans and careers is making us less satisfied with what we have. Social Media is making us long for someone else’s life. The availability of food is making us sick. The availability of information is making us dumb.
And at this point in history, it seems the Christian is no better at understanding and wrestling with their desires than the non-Christian. We have embraced the “Morality as Desire” ethic.
Removing Ourselves from Vanity Fair Today’s Christian has a difficult time seeing their desires as all that harmful. First, as Screwtape reminds Wormwood, “In modern Christianity…I see few of the old warnings about Worldly Vanities, the Choice of Friends, and the Value of Time.”7 Second, modern Christianity often fails to see that we live in Vanity Fair; the town in John Bunyan’s allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress. The town is described as
“a Fair wherein should be sold all sorts of Vanity, and that it should last all the year long: therefore at this Fair are all such Merchandize sold, as Houses, Lands, Trades, Places, Honours, Preferments, Titles, Countries, Kingdoms, Lusts, Pleasures, and Delights of all sorts, as Whores, Bawds, Wives, Husbands, Children, Masters, Servants, Lives, Blood, Bodies, Souls, Silver, Gold, Pearls, Precious Stones, and what not?”8
Have we realized that we reside in a place and time that offers all manners of indulging our desires with the least amount of resistance? Or are we still operating under the assumption that the glories of American capitalism are God’s gift to humanity? Its time we see that the way our culture has ceased the economic potential is for the worse. The Open Market has opened the potential to fulfil each and every desire at a moment’s notice; a market of Masters.
Is it also possible that we have not yet realized when we have become mastered?
Let’s go back to the itch. When we indulge the desire to scratch an itch, relief comes but only temporarily. Our desire to scratch increases; perhaps also our disappointment in being unable to refrain ourselves from scratching. We don’t want to scratch again because we know the desire won’t be satisfied, but we can’t stop thinking about it. At what point do we say to ourselves, “the itch has become my master”.
In a personal example, it took me about a full year before I realized I was mastered by my desire for a Starbucks coffee. There is obviously nothing sinful about a cup of coffee, but at one point I realized that every morning I would think about that sweet Caramel Macchiato and be unable to stop thinking about it until I had one. Nevermind that the cup of coffee is expensive and way to sugary to be considered healthy, the more important fact is its affect on my mind and spirit. Its my understanding that my allegiance to Christ is under attack by this desire for a cup of coffee, for I can only have one master.
What I ask of you, dear brother or sister in Christ, is to reflect on all the ways in which you are mastered. I gave a simple example, but I assure you I am mastered by much more powerful and noxious desires than a cup of coffee. Its only when we realize we are mastered that we can allow Christ to remove the fetters.
Ruled By Christ My example gets replicated in all other areas of desire. We are mastered by our desires for food and sex, buying stuff and having experiences, gaining attention and procuring status. We can be mastered by our family, our work, our hobbies, and our good intentions.
Our desires generally come from a longing for what is good, which is to say, a longing for the things of God. But our sinful nature desires the gifts rather than the gift giver and so we let the gifts have mastery over us. In order for us to overcome the lords of desire, we must realize that only Christ offers satisfaction to the desires of life.
I asked my children once, “would it be good if God changed us to never need to drink water again.” They looked puzzled, so I asked again, “if God could change our bodies to continue being healthy without ever needing to drink a drop of water, would that be good?”. Their answer was something like “no, we need water!!”
To me this demonstrates that our human nature has conditioned us to see need and desire as necessary and good. But we know that to need water is a crutch; just ask anyone who has been dehydrated. And water is not really all that great a solution to the problem of thirst, because every time we drink water, we know we will need another drink sometime soon.
For this reason, Jesus said:
“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”9
We must realize that being ruled by Christ is the only solution to our desires; our itches. For as Augustin said:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”10
He points not only to Christ as a solution to our desires, but as the very purpose for our existence. Fulfillment and contentment are the natural biproducts of being ruled by Christ. They are indications that we are living the way God intended, not the goal in life.
I pray that we can truly see how dangerously our desires affect our faithfulness, and that we can be ruled by Christ, and Christ alone.
In a recent interview with Andrea Long Chu, she talks about her transition surgery:
Nearly a year after the surgery, she says she’s feeling more miserable than she’d expected. “It’s perversely vindicating,” she adds with a wry smile. Dressed in a jumpsuit patterned with blue-and-white flowers, she brushes a curtain of curls away from her face with a flip of her wrist, revealing a tattoo of a geometric vulva on the underside of her forearm. “It’s very dangerous to get what you want.”
Very dangerous, indeed.
Father’s Day was last week, and I hope many of us took the time to show our fathers our appreciation for their contribution to our lives. One of those contributions to the family has long been a father’s expertise with common household tasks, lovingly called “Do It Yourself” (or “DIY”). You know, household tasks like unclogging a drain, changing the oil in your car, painting a room, etc. Apparently, that contribution is in decline.
According to a report by Alarm.com, millennials dads do not have the same DIY skills that their father’s generation had. In it, they report that:
Millennial Dads are less inclined than their fathers’ generation to roll up their sleeves and tackle traditional DIY tasks, preferring to call for professional help on tasks ranging from unclogging sinks to assembling furniture.
They also report that millennial dads don’t have the same tools as their fathers. Amazingly, more than 30% of millennial dads do not own a hammer!
The report gave some of the survey respondents “explanations” for the millennials diminished DIY skills, which I would like to take a quick second to debunk.
First, some respondents said that modern technology makes DIY tasks harder and in more need of support; like smart locks and doorbell cameras. While these technologies usually involve another company “hosting” certain parts of the service, like the recorded video on a camera system, they still involve technical and mechanical skills to install and operate.
Second, they say that “handiness” now includes technology, so I suppose that means that millennials really are DIYers because they can do technology. That’s all fine and good, but what about the non-tech things? Can they still swing a hammer? Install a light? Change the brakes on a car? I don’t think just because things get more digital, they excuse you from having mechanical skills. We can expand the definition of DIY, but not outright eliminate the need for certain skills.
Using technology as an excuse to say a father doesn’t need to have other mechanical skills is akin to saying a father doesn’t need to know about his car because he can put gas in it.
Lastly, the respondents said that priorities have changed in a father’s life, so that “today’s time-pressed Dads are also faster to outsource time-consuming home maintenance to professionals”. That just tells me that today’s dads are too busy, not that it is necessarily a reason to ditch “old-timer” skills. It also tells me that tomorrow’s dads are going to be worse DIYers.
Hire professionals so you can have time for “Life” This last “explanation” also indicates that dads simply don’t value DIY skills. It speaks to what is valuable in our culture. I can see a father who hires a professional auto mechanic, let’s say, so that he can spend time with his family. But what is it he is doing with his family? Watching a movie? Going to Disneyland? Again, all fine and good, but there are plenty of fathers who spend time with their family doing DIY stuff; whether its common tasks or more complex hobbies. Contrary to contemporary thought, spending time with your family doesn’t always mean only doing things that are completely leisurely and passive. Some fathers and families actually enjoy doing things that require work. I know a father and daughter who spend time buying, restoring, and selling old furniture. So DIY activities do not always exclude family time.
This is the lie that usually gets sold with advances in technology. The argument sounds something like this: “buy this product/service/gadget so you spend less time doing task XYZ and more time enjoying life”. On the surface this sounds good, but what happens when we’ve hired out all of our chores and tasks? What is all this “life” that we are left to do? Is it all rock concerts and movies and vacations?
This is the sort of picture that gets painted in the movie WALL-E. In the movie, the humans of the future have had technology do all of their chores and tasks, so that what is left are chubby people who don’t even walk on their own two feet anymore and have screens attached to their face. I think we are slowly seeing this prophecy being fulfilled.
The fate of humanity, according to the movie WALL-E There was a time when life simply was menial task after menial task. This doesn’t mean that life was unfulfilled, but that every minute of life didn’t have to be filled with ultra-sensational life experiences to feel fulfilled. People understood their tasks and chores as the stuff of life and since they usually served one’s family, community, or other institution, the tasks were honorable.
I believe that part of the decline in DIY activity is due to what we value, as a culture. We usually value entertaining and sensational experiences that others have created. In an article by Dennis Prager, writing in the National Review about how millennials don’t have hobbies anymore, he quotes Dan Scotti of the Elite Daily as saying:
He (Dan Scotti) concludes: “The fact that hobbies may be a thing of the past is an eerie thought. I can’t honestly say that I see hobbies such as ‘carpentry’ making a comeback at any time in the near future. . . . As sad as it may seem to older generations, we genuinely have an interest in Instagram, Twitter and other products of the digital age.”
Dennis goes on to say:
Clearly, you don’t have to be a member of the “older generations” to think this sad. Here’s why: There is a world of difference between being active and being passive, between creating something and watching something, between doing something and being entertained.
This insight into today’s generation regarding hobbies is similar to the DIY findings. Hobbies require time, effort, patience, and persistence. They are separate from careers because they are not typically pursued for any financial gain, but often because they are worthy pursuits with little financial gain.
The addiction to passivity is a regression in humanity; its anti-life.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like a good movie as much as the next guy, but we have a culture that does not value anything that involves effort, time, sacrifice, skill, and labor. How can a person and a culture pursue goodness and worthy causes if it doesn’t value the disciplines required to achieve them?
Why Christians Need “Do It Yourself” and Hobbies The decline in DIY skills and hobbies is of particular importance for the Christian.
For one, DIY activities and hobbies, just like all other work, ties us to creation and the Christians mandate to cultivate our environment. When God put Adam in the garden, he gave him a command:
Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. (Genesis 2.15)
We are given a world to transform and provide order for the sake of God’s goodness and grace to be manifested within humanity. In our work, we participate in creations service toward humanity and God; and this does not stop when we go off the clock. In this most holiest of work orders, the most simplest task takes on a sanctity that can motivate one to excellence and gift one with satisfaction of a job well done, regardless of the scope.
Second, the model of a Christian is wrapped in the image of Christ, who is described as a servant:
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” (Mark 10:45)
As such, His disciples are called themselves to be servants toward one another and indeed all humanity:
As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” (Ephesians 4:16 NLT)
Therefore, our view toward the “menial tasks” of DIY projects and hobbies can actually join with the call of all Christians to be servants. We serve as though serving Christ and we give of our energies and labors freely with the same grace God served us with.
Lastly, something precious is lost when we do not see DIY activities as valuable. We lose community.
In his book The Careless Society, John McKnight describes how our culture has lost its ability to hold tight communities. One of the major reasons is one he calls the “Professional Problem”. The idea is that since our culture is saturated with “professional services” for every need imaginable (and even some needs you didn’t know you had), we have stopped relying on each other and have therefore less of a reason to hold tight our community. As an example, McKnight points out that years ago, at the death of a family member, the family would console one another through closeness and the natural grieving process. Today, we have a professional “bereavement counselor” who is trained and experienced in helping others grieve. After news of this professional sinks in with all the members of the community, McKnight describes what ensues:
“Finally, one day the aged father of a local woman will die. And the next-door neighbor will not drop by because he doesn’t want to interrupt the bereavement counselor. The woman’s kin will stay home because they will have learned that only the bereavement counselor knows how to process grief in the proper way. The local clergy will seek technical assistance from the bereavement counselor to learn the correct form of service to deal with guilt and grief. And the grieving daughter will know that it is the bereavement counselor who really cares for her, because only the bereavement counselor appears when death visits this family.”
What a depressing scene!
Equally depressing is this article from The Guardian which asks if houses in the future will no longer have kitchens:
One factor driving the gradual extinction of the kitchen is the explosion of food delivery apps. According to UBS, food delivery apps are now, on average, in the top 40 most downloaded apps in major markets. They’re particularly beloved by millennials, who are three times more likely to order takeaway than their parents. “As this generation matures, home cooking could fade away,” the report suggests.
The only thing that brings family together more than death is food. So many families and cultures gravitate around the home cooked meal that facilitates family connectedness across multiple generations. And now we are losing our connection to our communities – present and past – because younger generations don’t want to cook.
Think about this. Playing music for your family or community isn’t really a thing anymore. Even in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, Pa would usually play the fiddle for the family, and they loved him for it. There was a time when song was a universally accessible skill. You only need a little bit of practice and you could lead your family or community in bringing musical cheer to any occasion. But our culture only values music when produced “professionally”. Which is why at the family barbecue, we don’t bring our instruments, we bring the Bluetooth speaker; the 21st-century ghetto blaster.
I am grateful that my wife’s family cooks tamales during Christmas as an entire family project. I see community when my neighbor spends 4 months repairing his Harley, and calls his friends to help. I am glad that I have the ability to help my neighbor fix his garage door. I am thankful that my dad has so many skills that I am still learning from him. I know that my life has been enriched by learning to “do it myself”; to realize that work and creativity and ordering the world around me is a sacred task. And I have learned to rely on good people who have much DIY skill to pass down. My daily attempts to follow the way of Christ is strengthened by my modest DIY activities.
So c’mon dads…..do it yourself!
My family has a small tradition on Good Friday where we take the train to Downtown Los Angeles and visit the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The cathedral is modern, but still spectacularly beautiful, with worship-inspiring art and architecture as well as a restful garden with reflective elements all around (my kids like the bronze animals they can play on).
My wife, daughter, and mother reading one of Jose’s letters While there yesterday, we stumbled on a display highlighting the story of Jose Sanchez Del Rio. Reading the story makes me think of the state of Christianity today, what us Christians may face in the future, and ask “will Christians be willing to suffer for their faith”?
First, the story of Jose Sanchez Del Rio. He was a 14 year old boy from Mexico who wanted to fight in the Cristero Wars, a struggle in the early 20th century between faithful Catholics and the Mexican government who wished to reduce the Church’s influence on its people. A poster in the display in the cathedral in LA writes this about him:
A poster in the cathedral telling Jose’s story On February 5, 1928, the young boy was captured during a battle and imporisoned in the sacristy of the church in which he had been baptized. In order to terrorize him, soldiers made him watch the hanging of one of the other captured Cristeros. But Jose encouraged the man, saying, “You will be in Heaven before me. Prepare a place for me. Tell Christ the King that I shall be with him soon”
On February 10, 1928, the young man was brutally tortured. They sheered off the skins of his feet, and he was forced to walk on salt through the town to the cemetery, while being struck continuously. The young man screamed in pain but did not give up. The soldiers wanted to force him to renounce his faith, but they did not succeed. They continously stopped him and said, “If you shout: Death to Christ the King, we will forgive your life.” But he answered, “Long live Christ the King!”
Once he arrived at the cemetery, he asked where his grave was, and in heroic fashion, he stood at the edge of his own grave, to save the executioners the work of transporting his body. As he continued to refuse to renounce his faith, the soldiers rushed at him and began to stab him. With each stab, the faith-filled fourteen your old shouted: “Long live Christ the King! Long live our Lady of Guadalupe!” The captain then shot him in the head, and his body was thrown into the grave, bathed in blood, while his soul soared into heaven.
When we stumbled on this story, I seriously considered letting my children read through it; its pretty frightening. But I think it is important that our Christian communities hold up heroes of the faith like this young man. They are inspiring, and also force us to reflect on our own faith.
Not every Christian will be asked to sacrifice in the same way Jose Sanchez did. In fact, the martyrs of the early Church at the hands of the Roman Empire often felt as though dying in the Colosseum was there life’s calling; and not for everyone. But what are we willing to sacrifice? How much safety and security are we willing to give up to be faithful. We often talk about Christ as the King, focusing on His power to help and redeem us. But how often do we consider living in the kingdom a life of sacrifice in service of the King who is often time despised?
Mexican Religious Persecution of the 20th Century We may think about Communist Europe in the 20th century or modern day China and the Middle-East as places where Christians have been persecuted, but there are countries like Mexico who saw their own persecution. And they all follow the some fairly similar patterns. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 forced a rebellion because several articles were used in an anti-Church manner.
Article 3 prescribed completely secular-education. It read that education will be secular, free from religious orientation, and that “The educational services shall be based on scientific progress and shall fight against ignorance, ignorance’s effects, servitudes, fanaticism and prejudice”.
“Science” and “fighting ignorance” sounds like every university’s motto against religious influence. Also sounds like the #ExposeChristianSchools movement.
Article 130 separated the Church from State, much like the US. But also added “Churches and religious congregations shall be organized under the law”. Combined with new land laws (Article 27), this essentially meant that the State could regulate, modify, and close churches and church-run organizations at its own discretion. Ministers could be limited, removed, and have their rights to vote revoked by the state.
Like many other instances of governments suppressing religious activity, historians point to the governments desire for allegiance. It was believed that the Catholic Church (centered in Rome) held too much influence on Mexico. The government sought to essentially eradicate religion in Mexico because religious conviction and allegiance were seen to be anti-nationalistic and anti-liberal.
Richard Roman puts it this way; that religious institutions, like the Catholic Church, “was exercised through its control of education, oral confession, etc”1. This means that the only way to force allegiance to a nation to destroy religious education and its proliferation of ideas, values, and practices.
Our Allegiance to Christ the King A Painting of Jose Sanchez by Renee Martinez Valadez – Notice the blood on his feet Jose Sanchez Del Rio’s cries of “Long live Christ the King!” should be a reminder of our allegiance to the King. It is the opinion of many that the United States is starting down the same path that many other countries that have persecuted Christians went down, and we must question where our allegiance lies.
Although not only coming from government, academic institutions and popular culture all paint Christianity in anti-science, anti-liberal, and anti-progress lights. More and more religious freedoms are being attacked, and religious institutions are seen as propagators of misinformation.
The question is this: how do we build up Christians to have the faith to stay allied with Christ the King. Again, not everyone will face threats of death, but what happens when we are threatened with shame, ridicule, or disdain. Or what will we do when companies will no longer hire a Christian or schools will no longer accept Christian students’ views. How will we respond when being faithful means losing friends and family.
These days may be coming, and our investment into communities of faith (churches, Christian institutions, families, friends, etc.) that build strong and connected groups of believers will be the only way to resist any attempts to suppress our faith.
Fostering a Christian culture, in which every action of committed Christians springs forth from their faith, is the only way in which our faith will be of such high value that it is worth enduring any persecution.
I pray that this Easter weekend and Easter season is a time of fostering unbreakable faith within your community of Christians. And I pray we continue to build each others’ faith to be of undeniable value worth fighting for.
Whew! Quite a saga at Azusa Pacific University over the last 6 months. You can read about the previous events here, but the latest development is that APU has, again, removed a ban on same-sex romantic relationships; the latest in a series of flip flops for the self-proclaimed Evangelical Christian university. This is what activists, like Brave Commons, a group dedicated to pressuring Christian universities to approve of homosexual and transgendered lifestyles, had been pushing for since last year.
Some, like university Provost, Mark Stanton, point to the re-removal of the ban as a commitment to “uniform standards of behavior for all students”. I suppose that’s because if a heterosexual couple can hold hands on campus, a homosexual couple should be able as well. Still others, like Franklin Graham and Brett Kunkle, have questioned APU’s commitment to Biblical truth, and have advised that Christians “steer clear of Azusa Pacific University“.
What to make of the turmoil? As I’ve mentioned before, I am a current employee and Seminary graduate of APU. Having grown up in the area, and now that my family is growing, having the privilege of getting to know many new families and friends in the community, I see that APU has a big impact on the Christian community of the San Gabriel Valley and southern California. There are a lot of ties, dependence, and hope in this academic community. So I am certain that I am not alone in caring for the direction of Azusa Pacific University.
What the flip flopping of APU tells me is that this is an institution experiencing an identity crisis of sorts. The history of APU is one of shifting and repositioning itself within Christendom. The simple Training School for Christian Workers, which was a Bible school training missionaries, has become a liberal arts university with over 100 types of degrees that does not require its students to profess a belief in Christianity.
As living expectations and campus policies have evolved, this fork in the road has been approaching. What I mean is that APU’s ethos may be inherently susceptible to polarization. Its service to its Christian student body may be compromised by its service to its non-Christian student body; or vice versa. It all depends on what APU ultimately seeks to foster.
What is a Christian Liberal Arts University? In other words, how can a university be open to all, yet foster the Christian faith more than any other non-Christian school. In APU’s words, they promote “curriculum across academic disciplines (that) explores topics infused by faith”. I’m not sure what the means, but I can only see two options:
Does APU want to foster an unabashedly Christian community whose goal is to build the faith of its Christian students through community and scholarship, while allowing non-Christian students to taste the beauty and goodness of God and the Gospel?
Or does APU want to be a prestigious academic institution that draws students of all religious backgrounds, yet somehow expects to force aspects of Christianity into its curriculum and community activity?
The former appears to be the most faithful to APU’s commitment to Evangelicalism. The latter appears to be one that would only call for more and more aspects of the Christian faith to be compromised or trivialized for the sake of “inclusivity” and “fair treatment” of its students. For example, I could imagine a student who is not Christian argue that chapel attendance (a current requirement) is unfair or oppressive, then see the requirement be removed.
While its possible that a Christian community dedicated to fostering disciples of Christ can be a prestigious academic institution, this is becoming increasingly difficult with academia requiring Christians to leave more and more aspects of their faith at home before arriving at school. The identity of APU must be made clear and must be decided soon.
The Growing Plea for Traditional Evangelical Christianity Since this saga began, there have been plenty of external critics of APU’s changes. What I hope people understand is that there are a large number of current staff and faculty, as well as alumni, who are pleading for APU to make firm their commitment, in policy and practice, to traditional, orthodox Christianity, in more than just student policies on holding hands.
When the first major student policy change was made public, a leaked email of professor Barbara Harrington to the board was made public. In it, she states:
More and more, it seems clear that various spirits of the age are being raised up at APU, such that the God of traditional Biblical understanding, and what He asks of us, is being redefined. As Christian scholars – historians, theologians, philosophers, scientists – we know where this path leads. The loss of “God First” means APU stops progressing and loses itself and its defining character in a wave of change. It becomes a university indistinguishable from so many others who are sinking in the “messy middle” of post-modern confusion.
Professor Harrington laments that “that something very beautiful could be lost here at APU if something is not done soon to reconnect the university to its essential identity”
More recently, Brave Commons published another leaked email from professor Ryan Montague, who details some anecdotal, yet credible details of how the university has allowed its faculty and staff members to let APU drift from its mission of fidelity to the Biblical truth and Christian teachings. In it, he asks the question:
Do I work for a Christian, God First, university that stands for all that the Bible states and all that God instructs or do I work for a university that compromises with culture?
Do I work for a God First university that holds tightly to the Word of God or do I work for a liberal arts university that allows for Christianity?
Do I work for a university that fears the Lord or do I work for a university that fears people?
Because at this point, it seems like the latter. On paper, on the website, and on the trolley’s it’s God First. But in the midst of decision making it’s compromise after compromise with culture and fearing backlash from students or public.
Professor Montague expresses hope that, “hard times prime people for change”. And I am similarly hopeful.
I have also heard about communication within the Free Methodist Church to APU staff and faculty to encourage them to stand with the university in charity and love through these changes, but to advocate for the commitment to orthodox Christianity.
The more I talk to colleagues and alumni, I hear the same hopes: that APU would stop cowering away from taking strong stances on Christian orthodoxy and not allow the activist pressures to sway the direction of the university and its community.
All this to say that there are large numbers of Christians with attachments and commitments to the APU community who are not supportive of the deterioration of basic Christian principles within the university. Alumni who hope their time at APU was not in vain, current staff and faculty members who hope their work builds the Kingdom of God, and even parents who consider APU a potential college for their students, have all expressed and pleaded their desire for a university that will not shy away from fostering a faithful Christian academic community.
This is really the most that we could hope for; that anyone affiliated with APU would let the Board of Trustees know that this is not what the community wants. This is not what is good for the future of a university who seeks to put “God First”, and presumably, also His work and His will.
As always, I urge you to join me in emailing the Board of Trustees (president@apu.edu) and let them know your thoughts regarding the direction of APU. In the very near future (next couple of months), it is believed that the next president of APU will be selected. You can also email the Presidential Search Committee (presidentialsearch@apu.edu) and let them know your thoughts on the next president. A president who understands faithfulness to traditional Christianity as essential to the mission of APU can go a long way in working with the board to right this ship. Please pray for this community in this time. As the waves of modernity continue to hit different communities at different times, ask God to keep us afloat.
If you are like me and did not grow up in a Christian tradition that follows the liturgical seasons, Lent might seem like a ritualistic form of spiritual discipline. And Lent usually brings to mind simply abstaining from certain foods for 40 days. But I would like to argue that Lent is a necessary spiritual discipline for all the Church to participate.
Let’s start by unpacking what Lent is. Lent is the season of preparation for Easter. Easter celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the most important event in the history of the Church. Although Easter is a time of celebration of the blessing of forgiveness, healing, and adoption, those themes lack importance unless we understand — and experience — their necessity. Therefore, the season of Lent is the practice of bringing to our hearts, minds, and bodies, the experience of sin and suffering of our broken world.
Now one might argue, “Must I bring to heart, mind, and body the experience of sin and suffering? Doesn’t our world show us enough of those?” I would argue that it does not. We do experience sin and suffering, but it is often in a curated fashion. We know that we sin, but we find excuses (“I gossiped because she is so cruel”), or we trivialize it (“its just a small lie”), or we focus on forgiveness rather than repentance. Worse yet, we might even find ourselves sanctifying our sin (“God wants me to be wealthy/popular/successful/etc.”). The most disconcerting aspect of our post-Christian era is its ability to turn sin completely around and call it holy. This is how many Christian churches and denomination have turned sexual sin into activity to be celebrated.
Likewise, the world’s suffering is often experienced in a curated fashion. We are inundated with news about suffering as a result of violence , natural disasters, and political turmoil. But this often is trivialized into matters of policy or public welfare (i.e. “how do we stop gun violence?”); a talking point for talking heads. And we typically experience suffering through a type of media (television, radio, internet, etc.). Especially for us in the United States, the degree of suffering the average person experiences is particularly low. And we may be hurting from the blessing of well-being.
You see, without experiencing the brokenness of our world, our dependence on Christ weakens.
Living in arguably the most comfortable time and place in history, we grow accustomed to being taken care of, having our burdens removed, and having our desires fulfilled. And rather than recognizing this and realizing that it is only by the grace of God that we experience any amount of comfort and relief from suffering, we look inward and cling faster to our successes we foolishly believe are our own, our independence we believe we have obtained, and our pleasures we regard so highly.
A Christian may wonder when they are desperately asking for God to fix some aspect of their life, why it is so hard for the Christian heart to change. The answer lies partly in the self-absorption we have fostered in our hearts by our comfort-filled lives.
This is why the Church needs Lent.
For 40 days leading up to Easter, the observer of Lent enters an awareness of our finitude, our mortality, and our unrighteousness. This for the purpose of growing our dependence on Christ. The recipe for Lent is fairly simple and has been consistent throughout time. As the Book of Common Prayer states, the believer observes Lent,
“by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word”
By reading Scripture, we can focus on God’s word that convicts us of our sin, reveals the inmost working of our heart, and reminds us of God’s promise of restoration. By taking the time to reflect on our unrighteous condition, we grow our dependence on God, and strengthen our commitment to the way of Christ. And perhaps most importantly, by self-denial — whether fasting from food or other pleasures, or committing your time to prayer — we acknowledge Christ’s words:
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
(Matthew 4.4b)
This teaching reminds us that although we treat nutritional sustenance for ourselves and our families as vital, it pales in comparison to the need we have for God’s sustaining counsel and power. It is so very easy to maintain the belief that the work we do each day (laboring, learning, planning, etc.) is the most important. But if we are honest, I believe we will see that our human pursuits begin to occupy any room for God in our lives. The spiritual disciplines of self-denial undo these habits, and as Bobby Gross notes on fasting specifically, “(it) is much like sabbath-keeping: a restriction that creates space for God1.
Without such disciplines as those that are the cornerstone of Lent, I fail to see how the modern Christian has room for God’s word and spirit. We desperately need to be humbled by our brokenness and captivated by our need for God. The season of Lent helps accomplish that. We slosh through the muck of our sin for 40 days with our eyes firmly fixed on the cross of Christ as our most certain hope. And as if all of nature wished to agree with this impending grace, the days get warmer and the daylight grows more persistent as we approach the most holy day of the year.
How To Begin Observing Lent Now for those that don’t attend a church that observes Lent, but would like to begin doing it personally, there are several resources to be offered. First, Bobby Gross’s book, Living The Christian Year: Time To Inhabit The Story of God, is a great resource to give you an introduction to the seasons of the Church and some weekly meditations during the seasons. You could also follow the daily liturgies like the “Liturgy of the Hours” which will certainly guide your heart and thoughts through the Lent Season.
For a communal observance, you can use the following resources that I have prepared and used with my family and friends for weekly gatherings on Sundays leading up to Easter. They are a combination of hymns, scripture readings, prayers, and meditations (something for everyone!). Find them in our Resources section, or just click here: Lent Gatherings
“Evangelical” is a term that describes a branch of a branch of Christianity, encompassing many denominations and traditions, over hundreds of years. Today, there is a group of ex-evangelicals, calling themselves “Exvangelicals”, whose goal is to undermine this historic tradition of the Church.
Their dispute with evangelicalism is that it is not only false, but harmful. Following their Twitter hashtag, #Exvangelicals, reveals many stories of those who say they have been harmed by the teachings and actions done within evangelical churches and homes.
CBS Religion recently did a story on the movement. The video is only about a half an hour, but paints a fairly clear picture of the Exvangelicals’ gripes with evangelicalism. When you get a moment, go ahead and watch it; its part of a series titled “Deconstructing My Religion” .
Now before we get into the details of this movement, let me just start by saying that this stuff is important because if our youth and children leave the faith, it will be from ideas and attitudes of movements like these. This is not because their arguments are succinct or even logical; but only because they know how to speak the persuasive language of the day. Older people are not swayed by these ridiculous sob stories, but younger people are taught that anyone who claims to be oppressed are indeed victims; victims that society should avenge.
They use words like “shame”, the most egregious sin in our culture. They promote sexual freedom, the most prized idea in our era. And they connect evangelicalism to conservative politics, the most polarizing topic since 2016. The modern Christian would do well to become acquainted with these rhetorical devices of popular culture. If you pay attention, you will see these tactics everywhere.
The Case Against Evangelicalism The Exvangelicals follow the cultural playbook to demonize Evangelicalism. We start with the “shame” angle. The Exvangelicals bemoan the “shame” and anxiety they experienced in evangelical settings. As we will see, their shame is typically regarding Christian sexual morals.
Most people realize the benefits of shame — for instructing children, maintaining civility in culture, or to just convict someone of their guilt (I assume we would want a pedophile, for example, to feel shame about his feelings). And most of us understand the inherent nature of shame — that it is part of the human psyche to experience a break from positive feelings in response to one’s actions. Being unable to understand and respond to the consequences of your actions is the legal definition of insanity.
But today, to “shame” someone by disagreeing with their lifestyle is xenophobic, intolerant, and damaging to their mental well-being. You are supposed to accept everyone and every lifestyle as though all are good.
It is obvious why these people take such offense to evangelical Christianity. The evangelical tradition was born in the 17th century as a movement against nominal Christians who were only affiliated with the Church through family or region. The early evangelicals implored Christians to seek a “true religion”, where one’s lifestyle is deeply affected by one’s beliefs, and vice versa. The very essence of Christ’s evangelism was to “turn from your sin”1, even at the expense of one’s shame.
The Exvangelicals will cry “the shame I experienced is hurtful and damaging!” Well, I would agree that shame never feels good. And I am sure that there are a number of Christians who utilize shame in a tyrannical way. But this is not Christianity. The Christian view of shame is that it is indeed a teacher, but that we are imparted with the righteousness of Christ2 and therefore our value and worth as individuals is not diminished by our failure to keep moral standards.
Now I don’t imagine that the Exvangelicals felt shameful because they told a lie, or stole a pencil, or said a bad word. We know what they feel shame about: sexual morals. Stage two of the cultural playbook is to appeal to sexual freedom, and how oppressive it is to be told you should only have sex in a marriage relationship. Here is a description from Exvangelical Linda Kay Klein:
NARRATOR: While not all women raised in the evangelical movement find “purity culture” problematic, Klein found the culture toxic. Even after she left (Evangelicalism), she felt intense shame when it came to sex.
KLEIN: This manifested, for me, most poignantly, when I was in my early 20s, and I was with a boyfriend who I really loved, and I was ready to express my love for him in a physical way. And yet every time we got even close to having sex, I would break down into tears; I would end up — I have eczema, and my eczema comes out when I get stressed, so my eczema would be coming out, and I would be scratching myself until I bled, and I would end up in a ball in the corner of the bed.
It seems as though Exvangelicals wished their parents and pastors had made them feel good about sleeping around with people that are not their spouses. They probably wished their churches were more hip to modern sexual norms. They would probably re-enroll themselves in evangelicalism if only Christianity were on board with a sexual revolution that has led to lowering rates of marriage and high rates of STDs (costing the US $17 billion a year); a sexual revolution that aborts 2000 children daily (mostly for convenience), has made single parent homes prevalent, and porn use that accounts for 30% of all Internet traffic. But alas, Christians have too prudish an outlook on human sexuality for these enlightened souls. And this is the Church’s downfall at the moment. A culture that values sexual freedom above all else will never acquire a taste for Christian chastity.
Lastly, these activists employ the tactic of connecting evangelicalism with President Trump, perhaps the most hated man on earth. Its no secret that many evangelicals are the reason that Donald Trump was voted into office. The Exvangelicals would have you believe we voted for him so we can implement some sort of theocracy; or perpetuate white patriarchal society. But this shows just how uninformed these people are regarding Christians and Donald Trump. Here is Exvangelical, Blake Chastain, on how Christians voting for Trump hurt them…again!
One of things that I’ve seen in our community is, people, sort of — even if they left a long time ago, even if the left evangelicalism a long time ago, they were shocked, and in a lot of ways hurt again, by feeling like they were betrayed by a group of people and a society that helped form their moral ethic in a very profound way.
To see them sacrifice all of that supposed moralism for such a blatant power grab is devastating, and it made me very, very angry. It made me angry because, here I am trying to piece things together, one way or another, and trying to understand what’s my background and where I’m going from here.
First of all, I can’t tell exactly what he is trying to say, so I am going to have to construe a bit. It sounds like he is saying that Christians voting for Donald Trump hurt the former evangelicals because somehow evangelicalism still holds a place in their heart and that place was betrayed because Trump is such a bad guy???
The part I did understand is that Blake believes Christians voted for Trump because we want power. Again, they obviously do not understand the political dynamic within most Christians regarding Donald Trump. There are many things that President Trump does that embarrasses a Christian who voted for him in 2016. But it is not enough to keep us from voting for him again in 2020. That’s because he is demonstrably for religious freedom. He has been the most firm president in reacting to the gender identity nonsense that poisons our culture. And he has shown a commitment to protecting the unborn. Did you actually think that a Christian could vote for the party that is infatuated with killing unborn children at all costs? A party that uses tax-payer money to push transgenderism on children? A party that wants Christians to deny their deeply held moral convictions? You must be joking.
The evangelical movement is one born out of deep conviction, and its obvious that these ex-evangelicals do not have that conviction. That’s good for them. But do not be misled by their admission that they are a “support group” for those who have been hurt by the Church. These folks are activists, through and through, who want to bring shame to Christianity (ironic, isn’t it?). Chris Stroop, an Exvangelical that also complains about Christian schools, created an additional hashtag that makes it clear what their goal is: #EmptyThePews
True Evangelicalism There may be patterns of abuse in certain evangelical circles, which is awful. Religion has often been used with immoral intentions. True evangelicalism has always been a call for Christian devotion to Christ and his teachings. The Evangelical movement, starting in roughly the 17th century, is a broad collection of denominations and Church traditions that aimed to strengthen personal commitments to Christ by a definitive conversion, holy living, and a reverence for Scripture. Starting with English movements like Pietism and Puritanism, and following the likes of John Wesley and George Whitefield, evangelicalism called Christians to use their individual abilities to do God’s work, even as the world was quickly operating at larger commercial and political scales.
In an article for Christianity Today, Bruce Hindmarsh expounds on the spread of evangelicalism throughout the centuries:
The new “evangelicalism” (though this word was not yet used) evident in this spiritual awakening was international and interdenominational, characterized by focus on “true religion” over against nominal affiliation to church establishments and a religion of law and custom. Moreover, the evangelical movement had the mobility and democratic appeal of its modernizing context, gaining many adherents through itinerant preaching in open public spaces. Across this whole region, evangelical devotion centered on Christ’s atoning death and the necessity of personal conversion, drawing laypeople into practices of Bible reading, small-group fellowship, extempore prayer, personal testimony and hymn singing—all of which have remained central to evangelicalism throughout its history.
He quotes J.I. Packer and David Bebbington’s description of the tenets of evangelicalism:
Is there a doctrinal core to evangelicalism? Historians and theologians have sought to bring some sharper definition by trying to determine distinctive, universally shared characteristics. This can be done from inside, as it were, by an evangelical theologian such as J. I. Packer, who writes from conviction about what evangelicalism ought to be, or from outside, by a historian such as David Bebbington, who though a self-identified evangelical describes from a more empirical point of view what it seems the movement is. Packer identifies a syllabus of ten doctrinal convictions that ought to characterize evangelicals, such as Scripture’s authority, Christ’s supremacy as Savior and Lord, humans ruined and lost state in sin, and the necessity of faith and holiness; these convictions overlap considerably with what the historian observes. In practice, Bebbington argues, four particulars have distinctively characterized evangelicals throughout their history: emphasis on personal conversion, the Bible, the cross of Christ, and active Christian service. While evangelicals are orthodox, Nicene Christians with a Protestant heritage like that of many other Christians, these four characteristics together set them apart and hold them together as a movement through time and change.
It’s a great article on this history of the Evangelical movement; read the whole thing.
These characteristics of Evangelicalism are perhaps a concise definition of what is needed in modern Christianity. In contrast to the Exvangelicals point of view, we need more of evangelicalism. We need communities that are dedicated to Christ, his mission, and his way of life. We don’t need spiritually passive people who will give up on holy living and then cry about it on national television.
If you are reading this, I implore you to dig deeper into your community of faith. Bind more tightly to the people and the practices of your church. Live out your faith more expressly. Witness and serve those of your church, family, and friends first. If you are willing, able, and called to be a street evangelizer, by all means, pound the pavement. But if not, pour your life into the lives of your brothers and sisters. Serve the people of your local Christian community with fervency.
The old discussion point about when life begins — at conception, viability, a certain trimester — appears to be resolved by some politicians. Apparently, life begins when they say it does.
Senators were not able to pass a bill that would make abortion illegal in the “4th trimester”. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act was meant to protect babies that somehow had survived an abortion attempt by compelling doctors to provide care for these patients as they would any other patient.
But far be it for anyone who has a commitment to the ideology of uninhibited sexual freedom to let surviving babies ruin their access to “reproductive health” and abortions at any stage. From The Federalist’s David Harsanyi:
Senate Democrats unsurprisingly struggled to find an effective way to lie about opposing a bill that prohibits abortion in the fourth trimester. Some of them maintained that Sasse’s bill was superfluous because all the things in it were already illegal. Others claimed the bill would “restrict doctors from making case-by-case decisions about what is best for infants and mothers.” Still others claimed the practice never ever happens. Other Democrats, who support government intervention in every nook and cranny of human existence, argued that tough choices should only be the domain of women and their doctors, not the state. Many of them saw no conflict between these ideas and argued all these things at the very same time.
Sen. Patty Murray claimed the bill was “clearly anti-doctor, anti-woman and anti-family” and that “proponents claim it would make something illegal that is already illegal.” This is untrue, regardless of a full-court press from Democrats and the media. As bills in both Virginia and New York clearly illustrate, the practice isn’t illegal. Both bills specifically provide legal protections for doctors who terminate babies who survive abortion attempts.
Honestly, what the hell is wrong with these people?
Political causes are real, and often worthy of their effort. But let’s be honest, this is ludicrous. This is an ideology’s ridiculous conclusion being absolutely ignored. My best guess is that voting against this bill is being used to gain political clout (notice how many presidential hopefuls voted against it!). This is being done to be able to later say, “You see! I’m on the side of women’s rights!” Even though in my mind, I can’t understand how a child that is born, survived an abortion, and is living and breathing on their own is still the “right” of woman.
We have unfortunately given our government so much power and looked to them for so much “assistance” that they now have a firm grasp on many of the most important aspects of our life.
In Canada, when a 13-year old student started to believe she was a male, a psychologists recommended hormone therapy to accompany her gender dysphoric feelings. While both parents were coming to terms with their daughter’s feelings, they both were against hormones. However, their daughter’s doctors decided that in this case, their daughter’s treatment was not up to them. From Jeremiah Keenan of The Federalistquotinga statementtothe parents:
BC Children’s Hospital believed Maxine was a “mature minor,” who could receive treatment against the wishes of both her parents, according to section 17 of the BC Infants Act. Using Maxine’s male moniker, “Quinn,” Hursh explained:
“Quinn’s healthcare team has concluded that he possesses sufficient maturity and intelligence to be capable of consenting to his own medical care, notwithstanding the fact that he is only 14 years old. Furthermore, the team agrees that the proposed course of treatment is in his best interests. We appreciate that these conclusions differ from your own….We always strive to get parents to agree to support a proposed course of treatment, however, under these circumstances we are of the view that it is ultimately up to Quinn to give or withhold consent to his own medical care; neither you nor his mother can make this decision for him.”
Although the parents have brought this to court, it is not clear what will happen. This story is an example of the issue of parents’ legal protections for how they parent their children. There is almost no limit to where government feels they can or should dictate what is right and wrong.
Being hesitant to allow government to bring regulation into every area of our life might seem paranoid. But discounting concern as paranoia is a juvenile and short-sited point of view. You needn’t be all that mature to know that government is fallible and is often led by illogical arguments, or worse, improper motives.
For example, our government takes much advise from organizations like the American Psychological Association (APA). However, as Chris Ferguson, a member of the APA, explains, they and other organizations have ulterior motives. In an article regarding APA’s poor research on corporal punishment from parents, he writes:
Many people in the general public believe that organizations such as the APA or American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) are neutral, objective scientific organizations or that they are even part of the government. But they are largely professional guilds wherein members like me pay dues to support their profession (both, but particularly the APA, are also publication houses). As a result, such organizations tend to market their fields much like any business markets its products. Impressive sounding science brings the field prestige, captures the attention of policy makers and helps members with grants, newspaper headlines, and career advancement.
And…
Ideologically loaded statements have become more common in recent years. The APA has had a particularly bad run of it. Just this past January, the APA’s practice guidelines for men and boys became a polarizing lightning rod, beloved by some cultural progressives, but largely panned in the centre and on the Right as stereotyping and arguably sexist in their portrayal of men and “traditional masculinity.” The guidelines were long on progressive terminology but relied on weak evidence and ignored entire fields of research related to the biological roots of gender.
The bottom line is that professional guilds such as the APA and AAP have a demonstrable track record of unreliability when speaking on matters of science. This means that parents, the general public, and policy makers may base decisions on erroneous pseudo-scientific claims that can’t be backed by good data. Perhaps the most egregious issue is when such bodies simply pretend no controversy exists in fields that are, in fact, highly controversial. This behavior, known as “citation bias,” has been described by some scholars as one of the seven deadly sins of research scholarship. As professors, we would give a student a failing grade for such behavior in an academic paper. And yet professional guilds engage in such behavior on a fairly regular basis, at least with respect to behavioral research.
When our governments stop listening to a large number of people who are calling out their ludicrous judgement, all while they are still relying on organizations like the APA who routinely depart from scientific standards, we must realize what we are working with. Sure we must vote for leaders who do not have such blind faith in government and research organizations, but we must also prepare for a life of heightened alertness to the potential dangers of these groups. We have truly put too much trust in princes1
Lessons from Screwtape is a series of posts based on C.S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters, in which a principle demon, Screwtape, converses with a lower demon about their tactics to prey on humans.
Don’t worry, todays post is not suggesting that God’s goodness is limited; not in the least. But it will address why God’s goodness often appears to be limited from our vantage point. Think about it, why is it that we speak of a God of unlimited power, but only see His power in limited intervals? Why not simply reveal the completeness of His power unendingly for all the world to see? The answer has to do with God’s purpose in revealing Himself to Humans at all. Screwtape (C.S. Lewis’s fictional demon) helps us understand this as he trains Wormwood (another demon) how to use the changing perception of God’s presence in the lives of Christians; what he calls the “troughs and peaks”. The “troughs” are times in which God’s goodness is only faintly observable by the Christian. When tragedy strikes, when our hearts are shaken, when needs are not met, or when evil triumphs. The Christian life is full of instances and even phases where it seems that God’s goodness is faint. Its barely getting us by. We want the intense brightness of the sun to shine on us, but all we feel is a nightlight in the middle of dark times. Screwtape examines why these “troughs” are so important to the Christian:
Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.
Lewis, C. S.. The Screwtape Letters (pp. 38-39). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
The reason for these troughs, these times where God’s goodness seems limited, has to do with the nature of God’s desired relationship with His people. Screwtape loathsomely admits that God’s desires are different than his own and his Father Below (the devil). Whereas all demonic creatures want to consume and annihilate humans, God’s intention is to grow them into beings who share a life similar to His own. Adoption into his royalty is how the Bible puts it. The book of Romans tells us:
“All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8.14-15)
But how does God use these “troughs” to grow us into beings that can share in His glory? Would it not make more sense to make His presence overwhelmingly known to us? Would he not secure every soul if He would just be fully and eternally present? Not so fast.
We often forget that God is working with the human will. If it were God’s desire to simply have humans follow a set of rules, compulsion is simple; just ask any tyrant or dictator. And compulsion is what the fullest degree of His presence achieves, for, as the Bible tells us, no man can see God and live1. His presence is overwhelming, and compulsion is the least we could afford. But for God to achieve forming creatures that can participate in the qualities of His own being — that is, sharing in His beauty, truth, holiness, faithfulness, and love — mere compulsion will not due. God must transform us into beings that have the ability to actively participate in such qualities.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve.
Lewis, C. S.. The Screwtape Letters (pp. 39-40). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
God’s presence experienced by man is awful, in that it invokes awe, wonder, and fear. In God’s complete presence we are made aware of our smallness, our limitedness, our finitude. And God’s greatness is more clear — His vastness, his powerfulness, limitlessness. In our current state, His full and sustained presence does not lead us to love and adoration. One day we shall see Him face to face2, but for now we must live only experiencing God’s veiled goodness; the “troughs”. But through the timely tastes of God’s goodness we are entranced. Like a moth to light, we are drawn to love and serve Him because even his most faint unveiling is sufficient to captivate the human heart for a lifetime.
It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
Lewis, C. S.. The Screwtape Letters (pp. 40-41). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
As paradoxical as it may sound, we are drawn more powerfully to Him by His limited goodness. As Screwtape reminds us, faithfulness is not something that one can be tempted with; such as with sin. Faithfulness is something born out of the will and desires of the human heart. And in His mercy, He delights in our imperfect attempts, our “stumbling”, because we are slowly “learning to walk”, in preparation for the eternal stride we shall one day enjoy forever.
Its no secret that our culture wishes to dismantle Christian institutions; its been trying to bring down churches and Christian colleges and universities for years. You might think that Christian K-12 schools and homeschools are exempt from this attack; that smaller communities of faith would be understood to have more leniency with raising their children, but you would be wrong.
The latest way in which Christian institutions are being held up in our culture as institutions of hate and anti-science is through the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools. If you or your family have had the privilege of benefiting from a Christian primary school – be it Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Homeschool, or whatever background – this is toward you.
It was started by Chris Stoop, responding to Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, for her decision to teach at a K-8 school that can refuse to hire employees that are homosexual and enroll children whose parents are homosexual. This, of course, was an egregious act toward the American people that spawned the outrage of many that alleged Christian schools are harmful to our culture.
Hey fellow Christian school grads, let’s tell @VP and @DavidAFrench how traumatizing those bastions of bigotry are. Use the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools @amandablount2 @300ZXNA @TheCheekyGinger @msnbc#ChristianAltFacts #EmptyThePews #Exvangelical #LGBTQ #FaithfullyLGBT
— Chris Stroop (@C_Stroop) January 18, 2019
The goal of #ExposeChristianSchools is to show that these educational institutions are plagued with the stuff that our culture most vigorously despises. Go ahead and check Twitter for yourself. You’ll find many people tweeting about being oppressed, or sheltered, or shamed by Christian schools, but it all comes down to the same charges that we’ve heard before.
They say: Christian schools promote hate; hate against homosexuals, transgendered, anyone who is not white, anyone who is not rich, and anyone who is not Christian.
They say: Christian schools promote anti-science; teaching about Creationism, Intelligent Design, a spiritual world, religious stories as history, and a law discoverable in nature.
Let’s be fair, there are some things that happen in a private Christian school, or homeschool, that are awful. Just like every institution, Christianity can abuse its authority. But let’s not pretend that the #ExposeChristianSchools movement has in mind the academic success or even personal safety of young students. They are after the ideas. They want to demonize, what just a few years ago, was completely rational thinking. If you don’t promote homosexuality and transgenderism, you are hateful. If you don’t denounce white people and American history as oppressive, you are hateful. If you do not teach that science is the only way to know truth, you are an imbecile. If you do not teach that all behaviors are good and beautiful and to be applauded, than you are oppressive.
And don’t think that the movement is just a social media thing. There are efforts to slowly pick apart Christian schools. Last year, California tried to ban the sale of material that promotes “sexual orientation change efforts”, of which much Christian school curriculum would probably be considered; including the Bible. There are movements against charter schools, like in LAUSD and the state of New Mexico, where many home schools get their funding. How far are we away from becoming like Germany, where a parent’s rights to homeschooling are all but gone?
Responding to the Exposure Stuff like this is upsetting; I mean really upsetting. It seems that nothing is sacred in a culture with such vitriol toward religion. There is a tendency to want to fight back; with political power, with subversive action, or just in plain anger. So many families that I know have had wonderful experiences with Christian schools and homeschooling; but it seems the Christian upbringing that many of us enjoyed is at risk of going away. Is there anything to be done? I have only a couple of suggestions.
First, we must put our money where our mouth is. Many of the efforts against Christian schools will at first be financial; taking away any aid we receive from the state and convincing donors not to entrust their money with schools of bigotry. That’s step one in the tyranny playbook. So, we must be willing to pour our resources into our schools. For many of us, who don’t have a great deal of disposable income, this is a burden, but a necessary one. We must be wise stewards of our resources and be innovative in how we try to sustain our schools. Our time and efforts are also resources that must be invested in our Christian schools. Prioritize making your child’s school better, with every ounce of energy you can afford. And it is with great hope that Christians who normally make large contributions to charities and organizations would see the tremendous need for Christian schools, and be willing to take a chance on these strong communities of faith.
Secondly, I suggest that we expose Christian schools for what they really are; or at least, what they ought to be. Christian schools are the best places to take up the original pursuits of academics; those of the ancient Greeks and the medieval Christians, among others. Education is the pursuit of knowledge about God, His world, and His people. Its obvious that most public schools primarily pursue college, careers, sports, socializing, and of course secular ideologies. This creates the biggest appeal of a Christian school or homeschool community, because our pursuits are higher. This is not to say that Christian school students are unprepared for the job market or improperly socialized; or more importantly, unable to participate in sports. The opportunities for job readiness and socialization are perhaps better in a Christian school, for the Christians I know are the best employees I know, and exemplify the charity, truthfulness, and faithfulness needed for any type of social relationship.
But the pursuit of knowledge of God, His world, and His people summarizes a good portion of the reason for humanity’s existence and explains the presence of our mental faculties. Education contributes to our faith more than we realize. So, I suggest we show how our Christian schools are environments in pursuit of truth and beauty. Let me explain how we do so in the Saenz home school.
Through Christian education, we introduce children to authors who have expounded on truth and beauty. Our children have read Homer, Bunyan, Swift, C.S. Lewis, and Patricia St. John. They’ve seen the power of Aslan, the courage of Achilles, and the folly of Lilliput. They’ve been to Narnia, faced the Fire Priests, and crossed the River to the Celestial City.
Through music, we bring the goodness of God into our homes and into our hearts. Our children have rejoiced with Handel and Bach, worshipped with Wesley and Newton, rapped with Shai Linne and Tedashii, made a joyful noise with Crowder and Jimmy Needham, and joined Libera and the King’s Choir. Our home is filled with music that brings peace and rest and lends itself to the devotion of the liturgical seasons, like Advent and Lent.
Through history we see where we’ve come from, and God at work in frailty of human beings. Our children have been on the battlefields of the American Revolution, in the Mayflower with the Pilgrims, at the cathedrals of Europe, in the streets of ancient Rome, and through the pyramids of Egypt. They see history as God’s unfolding drama of redemption; in which our past is often hazy, but our future is crystal clear.
Through science we reveal the beauty of an ordered world. Our children have understood nature in its most explicable way, that it is created for God’s glory and our benefit. They have seen the vastness of the Rocky Mountains, the heights of the Sequoias, and hundreds of miles of the Pacific Ocean. They’ve seen the variety and beauty of wild life and vegetation; like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly, right before their eyes, and with no “evolution” required!
We’ve also laughed at the ridiculousness of our great-great-grandparents being monkeys. The kids get a kick out of that.
Our children have explored the universe at JPL and the Griffith Observatory, and they see design and intelligence; God creating order from forces that otherwise lead to disorder. Through science they see a natural world that informs us and can teach us about who we are. Our children understand that the ordered world shows us that men are different from women and that no matter how many surgeries one has or hormones one takes, a man will never be able to develop an egg into a fully human baby, and a women will never be able to fertilize anything.
Our children have been shown that nature’s order informs us that humans are special, above all other creatures, and that leads to special obligations — morals, if you will — and these obligations are the basis for our laws and government and a political theory that says that man is not subservient to government, but that government is instituted by God, and that we ought to respect it as such.
Our children know that the physical sciences have their limitations. They know that science cannot answer every question. Read this article from the Imaginative Conservative regarding world-renown physicists. Many have essentially come to the point, in quantum physics, where they question whether what they’re doing is still science. From the article:
Dr. Hossenfelder was “not sure anymore that what we do here, in the foundations of physics, is science,” making her wonder why she was basing her life on it. So she interviewed the top experts in the field to give her hope. Gian Francesco Giudice, manager of the world’s largest particle collider (16 miles long costing $6 billion) justified the rules for beauty and elegance as “universally recognized” between cultures. When Dr. Hossenfelder objected they were not, he responded: “it’s a gut feeling; nothing you can measure in mathematical terms,” what he called physical intuition, requiring “not only rationality but subjective judgement,” a “sense of beauty” that is “hardwired in our brain.” It is what makes physics “fun and exciting.”
“Subjective Judgement” and “sense of beauty” hardly sound scientific to me, but its understandable since science is not always sufficient to describe nature.
Our Christian schooling has taught our children, above all, about the sacred sciences. They’ve seen God through the wisdom of the Proverbs, the beauty of the Psalms, the history of God’s people, the spirit moving through the Prophets and Apostles, and through the visible image of God Himself in the life of Jesus Christ. We have prayed together, fasted together, rejoiced together, served together, and grown in righteousness and grace.
Our family and community are not alone. Christian schools around the world bring students and families close to the truth and beauty of God. Showing this is our best response to the #ExposeChristianSchools movement. Our culture will stand opposed to our schools for the foreseeable future, but that is does not mean we are defeated. Fear not, and do not lose heart. These communities of faith are simply an extension of the Christian life, and may the Lord protect them as such.
I’ll let Blair Linne tell you a little more about the Sacred Science.
The social dynamics of our modern culture often feel like a strange new game with new rules that often invoke odd behaviors. I have heard many people lament things like our culture’s victim mentality, the weakness of our generation’s men, fragility of young people in general, and how lazy and unintellectual our culture is. Psychologist […]
Lessons from Screwtape is a series of posts based on C.S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters, in which a principle demon, Screwtape, converses with a lower demon about their tactics to prey on humans. Our post-Christian era is defined by a diverse population with a plurality of ideas and values. One major obstacle to faithfulness […]
As our culture gets more and more hostile toward Christianity, we should come to expect attacks on Christian institutions like Azusa Pacific University. To summarize the last few months, in September, the Student Life department of APU changed its student policy. It removed a rule banning same-sex romance and relationships (not just sexual activity) which […]
Back in September, Clemson decided on a change of quarterback, awarding freshman Trevor Lawrence the starting position. While fielding questions about composure in big games, Lawrence acknowledged Jesus Christ’s role in his life, saying: “Football’s important to me, but it’s not my life. It’s not the biggest thing in my life. I would say my […]
It’s the 3rd day of Christmastide, and I’m sitting on a busy street in front of my parents place waiting for a tow truck. On this particular occasion, I had a lot of time to think. I often wonder about how my parents raised me, how I came to be who I am, and what […]
“My marriages, they’ve been very successful,” … starts Jennifer Aniston. That’s marriages, plural! She did an interview with eNews and was asked about her marriages and how she views them. In a few sentences, she manages to upend the sanctity of marriage and promote a self-centered version of marriage for all of eNews’s eager audiences […]