It is God who opens and closes wombs. It is God who blesses those of us with children, and the withholding of offspring is not a sign of His cursing. It is not for us to covet God’s decree at which women are given children and which ones He said “no” to for the time being. This is a painful topic and one that needs to be addressed with sincerity and tears. Weep with those who weep! But do not call sin by any other name or act as if Christians don’t have any biblical categories by which we can navigate this discussion.

Oh, you returned! If you haven’t already read part 1, I encourage you to do so, as this recap will be enough to get you pointed in the right direction, but can’t replace the sort of context you would get by just reading the earlier post. I set the stage by pointing out that creation is God’s purview, not man’s. We can procreate and we can take preexisting matter and fashion it into this or that, but creation belongs to God. This is a fact that both human and demonic forces have sought to overcome from the beginning as they coveted the rights of God for themselves. We ended up with me starting to weave a potential narrative of the “daughters of man” from Genesis 6 participating in the evil, coveting God’s rights for themselves, and resulting in the Nephilim, the last straw before the worldwide flood.
You are now caught up.
The symbolism of religion isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
All of religion is, by nature, symbolic. In a church service, we symbolically worship before the very throne of God. The Lord’s Supper is symbolic of His body and blood, as we remember his death and as He nurtures us until He returns. Baptism is symbolic of the life, death, and resurrection so that the one being baptized can say that they have participated in the very gospel and their standing before God is based on the work of Jesus rather than the failings of Adam and self. Baptism is literally the announcement that you are represented by the last Adam now, and not the first.
Pagan worship is also symbolic. And in the Bible, there are many examples of how the people of the time worshiped pagan deities through their symbolism. Perhaps it was by crafting and worshipping an idol. Maybe it was through a pinch of incense to Caeser. Sometimes it was feasting upon meat that had been sacrificed to demons. And sometimes worship occurred as one engaged in sexual acts with a temple prostitute. The random man would pay money to the priestess and then would have sex with her. That was his worship. The priestess would accept the money and apply it in the service of her god and then engage in the sexual act. That was her worship. I know there were variations of this in the Roman world that even a pervert of today would find to be disgusting, but that’s all I have to say about that.
Was this activity restricted to the Post-Flood years though? I have no reason to think that it was. I believe it is entirely possible that the same manner of temple prostitution was going on in the days of Noah just as it happened in the days of Moses (Rev 2:14), the days of Elijah, the days of Paul, and if we’re going to hit home, the days of today’s porn saturation. Temple prostitution has been a thriving business for the enemies of God from the earliest days. After all, hasn’t prostitution been defined as the oldest profession? And what is porn but prostitution that has been recorded for a wider audience?
So imagine with me a young prostitute whose intent has been nothing but evil (Gen 6:5). Oh, she thinks that she is doing a service to the men who frequent her but they have been layering condemnation upon themselves with every visit. Still, she is a pillar of the community! And she knows that the services that she has been providing have all been symbolic. The men have been engaging with her and she has been engaging with them as both parties have sought the approval of the benevolent demon behind it all.
Then one day the demon appears.
Oh, he isn’t red and he doesn’t have horns. As a matter of fact, he looks pretty good. He’s healthy, strong, well-spoken. He introduces himself and convinces her of who he truly is. He is everything she ever wanted. He is who she has been opening herself up to, both figuratively and literally. Then he has a proposition. She could bear him a son. This thing could go from the symbolic to reality in a flash. She knows this isn’t how things are really supposed to go, but this is an opportunity beyond anything she had imagined!
When I hear about the sons of God taking the daughters of man, this is the storyline that comes to mind. I don’t picture rapes or spiritual overshadowings such as how the Holy Spirit came upon Mary. Demons are limited in how they are able to interact with the world, and their attempts to simulate creation would surely require participation from an image-bearer of God. And that participation would make it all the sweeter to one destined for Hell.
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The argument Machen makes powerfully in Christianity and Liberalism is that liberals in the 1920s had abandoned the Christian religion—that though liberal Protestantism tried to go by the name Christian, it was actually an entirely separate religion. He makes this case methodically throughout the book, contrasting the two religions with regard to doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Jesus, salvation, and the Church. Each topic gets a chapter, and in each, Machen demonstrates that “at every point the two movements are in direct opposition.”

On March 17, 2015, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gave its official approval to same-sex marriage. The Episcopal Church gave its approval that summer. As conservative congregations today leave the United Methodist Church, that denomination is now also falling in line.
One hundred years ago, most Americans would have been astonished that the country’s powerful Protestant denominations would one day enthusiastically embrace such sin. But J. Gresham Machen likely would not have been surprised. In fact, Machen, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in the early 20th century, was among those who saw this—or something very like it—coming.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Christianity and Liberalism, Machen’s ringing defense of the historicity and doctrines of Christianity. Westminster Seminary Press has published a 100th anniversary edition of the book, with a foreword by Kevin DeYoung. Ligonier Ministries also published an anniversary edition. And because of the book’s historic importance and continuing significance today, it is WORLD’s 2023 Book of the Year.
If you want to explore the background of the moral ­collapse in churches today over same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ issues, this book is a good place to start. That collapse follows logically from the more important and foundational fight of 100 years ago.
The argument Machen makes powerfully in Christianity and Liberalism is that liberals in the 1920s had abandoned the Christian religion—that though liberal Protestantism tried to go by the name Christian, it was actually an entirely separate religion.
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I believe it is really important that we are seen to be celebrating Christmas in our community. Not because Jesus demands that we do it. Not because I think we are more godly if we do it. But because we are free to do it and the message we send if we don’t do it will be particularly terrible. What does it say to our community if, on the day they expect us to be celebrating the birth of Christ, our church is shut, the lights are off and nobody seems to be bothered? For that reason, even if nobody came, we will celebrate Christmas anyway.

If you have followed this blog for a while, you will know our church building is in the middle of an overwhelmingly South Asian Muslim area of Oldham. You will also know that we don’t find Christmas the slam dunk, open goal cultural evangelistic opportunity that a lot of others do. You may also know that, despite that fact, we will still do stuff for Christmas. The obvious question is, why?
The truth is, we don’t expect lots of people to turn up to our Christmas events. Those that do come are more likely to be indigenous Brits looking for their fix of carols, religion and tradition for the year. We sometimes pick up a few of those. The majority who come will really be those who have received an invite from someone in the congregation. They are really coming because they would rather get their bit of Christmas religious tradition with their friend who asked than somewhere else that might be that bit more traditional and Christmassy. The fact is, if you’re mainly bothered about traditional Christmas jazz, you’re probably not going to pick our 70s-built dissenting church for a carol sing-a-long over the parish church, with its lovely building, choir and whatnot. Even the traditions aren’t quite enough to pull people in to us of themselves.
More to the point, whilst we will certainly invite them, we don’t expect to see all that many of our Muslim friends and neighbours. It’s possible we might get one or two who are particularly interested in seeing what Christians do at Christmas, but for the most part, they will no more be flooding through our church doors than we tend to file into the mosque in great numbers at Ramadan. It’s just not a thing for them.
And the truth is, as a hardcore strict Baptist – whilst I love Christmas – it has almost zero religious significance for me.
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