It is the Reformation rediscovery of the gospel that actually makes Christmas and Easter worth celebrating. Sola fide is what takes the amazement of the incarnation, the wisdom of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, and applies it all to us. It’s what does justice to the person and work of Christ. If we get the gospel wrong, Easter and Christmas mean nothing (and benefit nothing) to the person who seeks to be made right with God.

It’s October again and the 31st is just around the corner. I don’t mean it’s time to get ready for trick-or-treats, unless of course you use this as a time to share the gospel with Reformation themed tricks, treats, or tracts, when a herd of children, looking like ghouls, arrive on your doorstep. Sadly, some ministers are hesitant to celebrate this momentous event in church history. On the one hand, some ministers humbug it as an almost idolatrous celebration because, from their perspective, this period of church history seems to have been elevated and prioritized over other important time periods in church history. On the other hand, other pastors’ views of the ‘regulative principle’ seem to have prohibited them from celebrating the reformation given it’s not a prescribed day in Scripture.
Of course, with anything there are generally legitimate extremes that need to be cautioned against. Church history did not commence when Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses criticizing the sale of indulgences, and there is no requirement to officially celebrate the Reformation. In the end, it depends on motives. No doubt, any Reformation celebration can become divorced from the reality of what was at stake for the Church. Coming from a culturally Reformed heritage does not give us a step-up into heaven.
What is the point of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus Christ at Christmas, or the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of the cross and resurrection at Easter, if we get the God-ordained means of receiving these truths—faith alone (sola fide)—wrong? The gospel is the good news of the person and work of Christ. That is, who He is (Christmas) and what He did (Easter)—to be a little simplistic. If, after hearing this good news, we trust in Christ—alone, we are saved by God’s grace through that faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8). But, if we get the incarnation wrong or Christ’s work of salvation wrong, then we have no right to the name of ‘Christian.’
The Reformation restored the true meaning of Christmas and Easter in its rediscovery of the biblical gospel. To varying extents, the old heresy of Pelagianism had made its way back into Roman Catholic theology with the teaching that ‘God would not deny His grace to those who do what is in them.’ That is to say, God has promised to give us grace when we do what we can to move toward Him. In today’s language we might say, ‘God helps those who help themselves’, or even ‘God looks down the corridor of time and chooses those who first choose Him’.
Don’t let the mention of grace fool you. Sure, the Roman Catholic church is not a church which teaches that we are saved by works. But it is a church which says we are saved by grace in addition to works—God’s grace in addition to our works. This still undermines the gospel of grace alone, through faith alone. The wave of the hand ‘Jedi mind-trick’ in saying ‘nothing to see here’ by the Roman Church did not deceive Luther. He smelled a Pelagian rat; he understood that to ‘do what is in us’ was to depend on our ability to do ‘good works’ and, if that wasn’t bad enough, the ‘free will’ story was invented in order to carry out these good works.
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It makes me want to say a “well done” to those who have decided that instead of resenting what God has not given them they will embrace what he has given them, and steward it with faithfulness. For these are the ones who please him, who honor him, and who magnify his name.

God does not distribute his gifts equally among all his children. Rather, to some he gives much and to others he gives little. Some are given great opportunities while others are given minimal opportunities, and some are given massive wealth while others are given paltry wealth or even straight-out poverty. Some have towering intellects while others are well below average, and some are able to receive a world-class education while others are able to receive no education at all. God, in his sovereignty, determines all of this.
I was recently considering God’s gifts and pondering this: I have known Christians who have great gifts but low faithfulness. God has given them much and it is apparent that they are making little of it. They are five-talent people who in that great accounting may be explaining to God how they took all five—or four, at least—and hid them in the ground. “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours” (Matthew 25:24-25).
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Smith is often unfairly and poorly represented because of partial readings and selective and hasty interpretations driving agenda-promoting claims. Unbridled, no-nonsense capitalism, for example, is often advanced in the discourse of political economy and imbued with the vested authority of the Smithian imprimatur. In promotion of such unbounded capitalism, the most egregious abuses of Smith can be seen to fall into at least three related categories: that the market economy is self-regulating, that the profit motive drives rational behavior, and that self-interest alone guarantees “socially productive behavior.” These are not Smithian doctrines.

Excerpt taken from Adam Smith by Jav van Vliet, 4-9, P&R Publishing.
Smith’s thought and influence continue to reach across time and space. Contemporary learned and informed debate on political economy, role of government, economic policy recommendations, the interrelatedness and interdependence of humanity, and more, often resounds with his prescriptive and authoritative voice. He has a permanent seat in the public square.
A recent issue of The Economist carried an article on the perennial coexistence of both very rich and desperately impoverished nations. It was observed that the earliest economists studied this phenomenon and gave it cultural explanations. It was further asserted that Adam Smith in particular showed a concern for economic development, as is clear from the very title of his famous 1776 work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. These concerns centered on the beliefs, preferences, and values of a society. Does culture help or hinder capitalism? How do the cultures of rich and poor nations compare? What are the norms by which a market economy thrives? The magazine faithfully interpreted the central Smithian premise — so often misinterpreted, misunderstood, and thus misrepresented — that “people would be self-interested, but that they would satisfy their self-interest by adapting to the needs of others.”6 Here we see Smith’s focus on the significance of social capital in moving economies forward. Even if the twenty-first century global economy is more complicated than was Smith’s point of reference, this central Smithian premise is a good place to start.
The relativism, moral decay, loss of foundational truth, and fractious public discourse characterizing twenty-first century democracies would benefit from attending to Adam Smith’s discourse on virtue, comprised of a sense of common humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit. The enormous injustice foisted upon, above all, the trusting aged and pensioned and the perfect storm of events that brought about the Great Recession of 2007–9 and the human carnage that ensued bring to mind the need to return to a caring humanity. Smith was highly suspicious of powerful economic interests, such as monopolies. The various dimensions of the Great Recession — the poor judgment driving bankers’ issuance of subprime mortgages, the unmitigated greed behind the failures of the investment houses and banks (and the subsequent bailouts with public money), the ever-increasing housing prices based on artificially high values, and the associated insatiable appetite for material goods — all underscore a human nature playing fast and loose with historically honored principles of morality and ethics. It is time to be reminded of a moral code, and reading Smith is extremely helpful in that regard.
The world is still emerging from the throes of what has been judged to be the first pandemic (Covid-19) since the Spanish flu of 1918. The human toll has been tremendous — millions of lives lost worldwide, the associated decimation of economies and government finances, and the social and personal costs of mandated social isolation and distancing. Humans are social creatures, and Adam Smith has much to say about the interrelatedness and social interactions of all humanity, created to be interdependent.
Finally, the sheer volume and scope of the secondary literature on Adam Smith demands attention. The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith7 and The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith8 are both exhaustive tomes in their own right, more encyclopedic than quick reference guides. These two volumes alone demonstrate that Smith is not constrained by time, space, or interpretive philosophy. He still today insists to be read.
Smithian Hermeneutics
It is generally acknowledged by Smithian scholars that for the first two centuries or so after the publication of The Wealth of Nations (WN), a regular item on the menu of Smithian scholarship was what came to be known as the Adam Smith Problem (ASP), that is, the apparent contradiction between his formal writing on moral theory and that on political economy. The opening thesis of the former work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) states that human motivation and action are very much influenced —if not dominated — by considerations of the well-being of one’s neighbor, while the central principle of the latter is that economic endeavor and optimal economic development are driven by the unambiguous pursuit of self-interest. Is there an earlier and a later Smith, as there are with so many historic individuals with voluminous literary output? What explains this demonstrable lack of inner coherence in what are commonly considered the magna opera of a key Enlightenment thinker? The problem apparently does not lie with Adam Smith, but rather with his interpreters, since few today believe that he postulates two contradictory principles of human action. This thesis loses some force when we realize that over the course of his life, Smith was continually engaged with his moral theory — considering its many editions and redactions — even in the penning of his political economy. Further, the discovery in 1958 of two sets of student notes on rhetoric and jurisprudence gave significant clarity to Smithian interpretation and provided a much- needed link in bridging the perceived discontinuity between TMS and WN. With this the ASP dissipated around the time of the republication, in 1976, of the highly acclaimed “Glasgow Edition” of his work and correspondence. This new edition of the Smithian corpus, timed to appear on the bicentenary of the release of his major work on political economy, both renewed interest in Adam Smith and democratized his work by making it more accessible.
Paradoxically, even though Smith is now more accessible, he is not necessarily more read outside the scholarly world. While many claim to be Smithian experts, it is probably more accurate to say that there is only a vague familiarity with him — or, as one biographer put it, a “popular awareness.” A typical essay in the secondary literature on Smith and his thought, or his influence or legacy, opens these days with the cliché that “many quote Adam Smith while very few have read him.” In his inimitable way, economist John Kenneth Galbraith gets at the heart of this issue when commenting on Smith’s appeal in the pro-capitalist, antigovernment circles of the Reagan administration. In their opposition to government involvement in areas “not in the service of contentment . . . the presidential acolytes in Mr. Reagan’s White House wore neckties bearing the picture of the master,” even while crassly misrepresenting Smith’s thought. “It is perhaps unfortunate that few, perhaps none, who so cited Adam Smith had read his great work,” says Galbraith.9
But worse than being not read is being misread. Smith is often unfairly and poorly represented because of partial readings and selective and hasty interpretations driving agenda-promoting claims. Unbridled, no-nonsense capitalism, for example, is often advanced in the discourse of political economy and imbued with the vested authority of the Smithian imprimatur. In promotion of such unbounded capitalism, the most egregious abuses of Smith can be seen to fall into at least three related categories: that the market economy is self-regulating, that the profit motive drives rational behavior, and that self-interest alone guarantees “socially productive behavior.”10 These are not Smithian doctrines.
Preeminent Smithian scholar Andrew Skinner did much to consolidate Adam Smith’s place in intellectual history by rightly interpreting him as a system builder who employed the unique approach to social science then current in the philosophical milieu of the Scottish Enlightenment.11 This method is empirical-historical and is seen particularly in WN. The result of this methodology is a neat, logical, and systematic assembly of the system’s component parts within the broader historical and institutional features of WN. Smith’s expertise lies in the philosophical, historical, and economic realms — and each of these dimensions appears distinctly as a crucial component of the whole. To obtain the full force of Smith’s project and to optimize its intelligibility, this system must be considered both in its systematic entirety and in its component parts — the three dimensions of Smith’s political economy.
This entire project is constructed on the foundation of TMS with key teachings from Lectures on Jurisprudence (LJ). We now see that Smith composed the model of a commercial society progressing through four stages of socioeconomic systems. This society represents a social system facilitated by the principles of human nature — the psychological attributes — observed and explained by Smith in WN. Again, in line with the philosophical and epistemological tenets of the Scottish Enlightenment, this entire process of social development was understood and communicated deductively. Thus seen, his political economy should be considered as only part of his comprehensive philosophical system centering on the nature of human behavior.
The narrative that unfolds in the present study incorporates these ingredients, some of which receive more focused attention and elaboration. It will become evident that Smith’s life and thought represent a world order shifting into modernity. As Smith scholar James Buchan has written:
Smith stands at the point where history changes direction. During his lifetime . . . the failed kingdom of drink, the Bible, and the dagger that was old Scotland became a pioneer of the new sciences. God was dismissed from the lecture hall and the drawing room. The old medieval departments of learning disintegrated. Psychology became a study not of the soul but of the passions. Political economy was separated out of moral philosophy and began its progress to respectability and then hegemony. Smith was at the heart of these changes.12
This excerpt is used with permission.

“Hard Work and Black Swans,” The Economist, September 5, 2020, 57.
Christopher J. Berry, Maria Pia Paganelli, and Craig Smith, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Knud Haakonssen, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 98–101.
Amartya Sen, “Uses and Abuses of Adam Smith,” History of Political Economy 43 (2011): 257–71.
Jeffrey T. Young, “Andrew Skinner, the Glasgow Edition, and Adam Smith,” Œconomia 2–3 (2012): 365–76.
James Buchan, “The Biography of Adam Smith,” in Adam Smith: His Life, ed. Hanley, 3.

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If we really are happy and content in him, letting our faces show it doesn’t hurt, does it? Actually speaking about how Jesus has made us happy and content must be a good and sensible thing. That, I think is why the world needs happy pastors. And not just happy pastors, but happy Christians. Unless people see that Jesus does indeed make us happy, why would they think he’ll do anything for them?

I am all too aware that different people are drawn to Christ because for different reasons. For me, I suppose there are two key factors. First – let’s just admit it off the bat – I was brought up in a Christian family. That means I was to some degree socially and culturally primed for it. It _felt_ right to some degree because it _felt_ normal because for me, growing up in a Christian family, it was normal for me. The social and cultural barriers were minimal given I had been brought up in it. What social and cultural barriers there were tended not to be to accessing Christ, but why most people in the church operated one way and my family followed suit when we gathered together, but when we were home we operated a slightly different way. And, for that matter, why my middle class mates at school seemed to operate more like my church but my working class mates more like my family at home. But those weren’t barriers for me, they were more just curiosities that took many years to even recognise and then begin to understand to some degree.
The other factor for me was simply the belief that it is all true. I even went through a period in my teens – probably more out of a sense that my life would be easier and more comfortable if it were not true – of wishing it wasn’t. But I had professed faith long before then and could ultimately never shake the nagging sense that it _is_ really true. And if true, then kicking against it was even more uncomfortable than whatever issues I determined at the time would have made my life easier if I could just merrily go along with them. I find living as thought something I don’t believe is true, or pretending something I do believe is true isn’t in reality, far harder to cope with than the social awkwardness of not fitting in or whatever.
So, fundamentally, those are the two key factors (I think) that primed me to be a believer. I was culturally and socially primed for it, making it all _feel_ ultimately normal. There were no family barriers for me but, actually, being a Christian in my family was an evident benefit to me (pragmatically speaking). But I also couldn’t get around the fact that I really do believe God exists, always have and never doubted it.
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There is nothing wrong with a healthy argument! Arguments sharpen us and can cause relationships to grow in depth. But we must do it with gentleness and respect (1 Pet. 3:15). We are to obey this command. Biblical counselors can still have faulty, errant presuppositions because we have not yet been promoted to glory. We still need counsel and correction to help us become more like Christ! This is a reality that should provoke humility.

Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?
These were the first words I heard on the initial day of a worldview class in my senior year of college. Our professor asked again, and you could hear a pin drop. Over the semester, he helped us understand that we all have presuppositions, though we are often unaware of them.
The reality for everyone is that elements of our professed worldview frequently don’t match our functional worldview. My professor aimed to help us develop a consistent Christian worldview across all of life, which included a biblical understanding of the basic tenets of any worldview: Who is God? Who is man? What is truth?
Presuppositional Waters
Presuppositions are beliefs underlying our beliefs that govern how we think, interpret, and act.[1] As biblical counselors, we swim in presuppositional waters. Not only as we counsel others but also as we discuss issues within the biblical counseling movement. Presuppositions cannot be escaped! We all have them. Because those of us in Christ are being progressively sanctified, we are in a lifelong process that requires fruitful labor and dependence on the Lord to evaluate our presuppositions, becoming more aligned with Scripture and, therefore, more Christlike. It’s a commitment. However, it also requires humility and a willingness to act when confronted with beliefs that don’t align with God’s Word.
In Romans 12:2, Paul appeals to us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of [our minds], that by testing [we] may discern God’s will, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Similarly, in Philippians 1:9-11, Paul desires us to grow in love (for God and others) by gaining knowledge, exercising discernment, and making judgments that allow our continued growth in Christlikeness.
Anytime we’re confronted with knowledge, we have a responsibility to do something with it (2 Pet. 1:3-11). As biblical counselors, we agree with these texts, but to what degree do we practice them ourselves? Are we submitted to them? When we counsel, we are—at the heart of our counseling—asking counselees to evaluate their presuppositions and to allow the Lord to change them, resulting in Christlikeness. We must be skilled in doing this ourselves to lead others in this way.
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, October 24, 2024
I sometimes think this group of “nones” has rejected their experience in the Church rather than their belief in Jesus. That may simply be a reflection of the sad, non-evidential nature of the Church rather than a reflection of the strong evidential nature of Christianity. Some of those who have left our ranks may never have heard anything about the evidence supporting the Christian worldview in all the years they were attending church with us. 

Much has been written and discussed about the Public Religion Research Institute poll, Religious Change in America. According to the poll, “Around one-quarter of Americans (26%) identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, a 5 percentage point increase from 21% in 2013. Nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition to become religiously unaffiliated, over one-third of whom were previously Catholic (35%) and mainline/non-evangelical Protestant (35%). When statistics like these are released, it’s tempting to panic and respond without properly examining the trends. The devil is always in the details, however, and a careful analysis of the data ought to energize rather than discourage us.
Opportunities abound, and the case for Christianity is more important than ever.
While more and more people say they no longer identify as Christians, the ranks of atheists and agnostics are not growing in equal percentages. So where did all the Christians go? They went to the ranks of those claiming no affiliation with any established Christian denomination or belief system (a category affectionately called, “the nones”). Importantly, those who no longer claim a Christian attachment, have not yet jumped in with the atheists or agnostics. They haven’t even jumped in with other religious groups (such as Jewish, Muslim or other believers).
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Christians will need to continue to make the case for religious freedom and demonstrate in our lives that religious Americans are the best citizens. The schools, colleges, hospitals, churches, sports leagues, and charities established by Christians benefit everyone, and are therefore indispensable pillars supporting a limited government. The ascendent cult of sexual orientation and gender identity offers none of these things. It only results in a bigger and more intrusive government less concerned with the common good than the goals of ideologues. 

The question constantly repeated by those who pushed to redefine marriage a decade ago was, “How will my gay marriage hurt you?” More recently, from those demanding full legal and social recognition for transgender identities, it has been, “How does me being my true self hurt you?” The answers to those questions have been clear for some time.  
LGBTQ dogma is not a “live and let live” vision of reality. It constantly demands that dissenters—especially the religious ones who are allegiant to the Creator, whom their ideas deny—be rooted out and punished. Christian business owners, public and private company employees, nonprofits and even parents have felt the demand to comply and agree, or else … 
Recently, a few cases have helped right some wrongs against religious freedom. The latest battle involves an attempt by activists to keep students from using federal assistance to attend religious schools. Thankfully, this case went the right way.  
In Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education, Alliance Defending Freedom successfully argued that “Title IX allows students to use federal financial aid at private religious schools that operate according to their beliefs,” specifically their beliefs on “gender and sexual morality.”  
Since 2021, Title IX has been interpreted to prohibit “discrimination” on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, with religious institutions receiving exemptions. ADF represented three Christian institutions—two universities and a seminary—that welcome students who receive government help with tuition but operate according to biblical convictions about sexuality. 
Activists argued that this violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by involving the government in funding religion.   
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