Radically Orthodox
It’s very rarely the conservatives who achieve anything. It’s the outspoken radicals who get stuff done. It’s they whom we remember. The conservatives value, above all else, the boat not being rocked. The radicals are willing to fight for the truth, even if it gets them exiled. Radically orthodox is where it’s at.
Those who know their Church history reasonably well know that Athanasius was the leading orthodox voice in the fight for officially recognising the Divinity of Jesus at the Council of Nicea (325 AD).
Athanasius was outspoken, bold, and instrumental in leading the rejection of Arianism, which denied Jesus’s eternal divinity (like JW’s do today). The Arians were like progressives, wanting to fit the doctrine of God to the philosophy of their day. Athanasius was orthodox, but radical, not conservative. He wanted to vigorously defend the truth.
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How C.S. Lewis Predicted the Forced “Pronoun” Push — and Showed Us How to Respond
Why should we, as Christians, talk “slaves’ and fools’ talk”? For that’s exactly what these twisted pronouns are: The talk of slaves to gender ideology and the utterances of fools who go along with it. Bree also gets at another important aspect of the debate — men who want to be referred to as “she/her” aren’t women, whether they want to be or not. And just as the Tisroc was never going to live forever, so too no one can change their biological sex.
Before the latest polluted wave of toxic gender ideology washed over our fair land, just about everyone knew what their “personal pronouns” were simply by looking in the mirror.
In fact, there was really no such thing as “personal” pronouns at all. There were just pronouns — handed out for free by the English language — and every Tom, Dick, and Harry, or Molly, Sue, and Jane, just grabbed the matching pronoun, “he/him” for men, “she/her” for women, and they/them for groups of men and/or women, without a second thought. And if any singular individual ventured to suggest that “they” contained “multitudes” or were “gender-fluid” and insisted that you use “they/them” in reference to, again, a single person, said person would either be scheduled for a mental examination or an exorcism.
Now, with the rise of transgenderism, gender ideology, and general wokeness, even Christian college professors are getting in on the pronoun game. Dr. Alicia Jackson, professor of history at my very own alma mater, Covenant College, was recently caught with “she/her” pronouns in her LinkedIn bio.
How should Christians respond? At the outset, allow me to be clear: Christians should never agree to call people by “gendered pronouns” that do not correspond with that person’s biological sex, as determined by God and revealed at birth or in the womb. To do so is to participate in a lie. It’s a violation of the Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16), because it is bearing false witness for your neighbor. It’s also a high-handed act of rebellion against God and His good creation order, which fixed, for all time, men as men and women as women. Furthermore, Christians should never willingly participate in the pronoun-offering charade, even if they are using the “right” ones. For that is an act of offering incense, of worship, to the false god of gender ideology.
The famous British author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis never lived to see the days of “ze/zir” descend on Western civilization. But in his prescience, he articulated the stakes of speaking truthfully, even if the culture demands otherwise, in the book A Horse and His Boy (a criminally underrated entry in his well-known Chronicles of Narnia series). And he does so, amazingly, out of the mouth of a horse. A talking horse, to be exact. A horse from the free country of Narnia and the North.
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How the Reformation Spread
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
The seeds of the Reformation that were planted in Germany sprouted into full bloom as they made their way into the English empire. To trace the pathway from Wittenberg to London, one must follow a series of circuitous routes, but the origin of that movement in Wittenberg is unmistakable, and its influence continues even to this day.The rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation from Wittenberg, Germany, throughout Europe and across the Channel to England was not spawned by the efforts of a globe-trotting theological entrepreneur. On the contrary, for the most part Martin Luther’s entire career was spent teaching in the village of Wittenberg at the university there. Despite his fixed position, Luther’s influence spread from Wittenberg around the world in concentric circles — like when a stone is dropped into a pond. The rapid expanse of the Reformation was hinted at from the very beginning when the Ninety-Five Theses were posted on the church door (intended for theological discussion among the faculty). Without Luther’s knowledge and permission, his theses were translated from Latin into German and duplicated on the printing press and spread to every village in Germany within two weeks. This was a harbinger of things to come. Many means were used to spread Luther’s message to the continent and to England.
One of the most important factors was the influence of virtually thousands of students who studied at the University of Wittenberg and were indoctrinated into Lutheran theology and ecclesiology. Like Calvin’s academy in Geneva, Switzerland, the university became pivotal for the dissemination of Reformation ideas. Wittenberg and Geneva stood as epicenters for a worldwide movement.
The printing press made it possible for Luther to spread his ideas through the many books that he published, not to mention his tracts, confessions, catechisms, pamphlets, and cartoons (one of the most dramatic means of communication to the common people of the day was through messages encrypted in cartoons).
In addition to these methods of print, music was used in the Reformation to carry the doctrines and sentiments of Protestantism through the writing of hymns and chorales. Religious drama was used not in the churches but in the marketplace to communicate the central ideas of the movement — the recovery of the biblical Gospel.
Another overlooked aspect of the expansion of the Reformation is the impact of the fine arts on the church. Woodcuts and portraitures were produced by the great artists of the time — Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Peter Vischer. The portraits of the Reformers made their message more recognizable, as it was associated with their visage in the art world.
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Love the Lost—Why It’s Important to Grow in Your Love for Non-Christians
We, too, were on the path that leads to destruction but now we’ve been saved by Jesus. We’ve found the truth and so out of a love for the lost we need to share the gospel with people, not to win an argument or to be someone special, but because sharing Jesus and making disciples is what every Christian is called to do (Matthew 28:19-20).
In some ways love is easy. Whether it’s loving a friend you grew up with playing together in the park, or a friend that you met at school and you share the same interests so you naturally get along and build a good and close friendship. There are some people you just naturally get along with more and that makes loving them easy. But what about those who we perceive to be different? That’s where it gets a little bit trickier doesn’t it?
Think about loving people who have different political convictions for instance. (Dare I mention the Scottish independence debate?) But more so, think about people who have a completely different worldview, and outlook on life, from you. Rather than asking us to congregate in a holy-huddle who hide away from the world, the Bible instructs us to love those who stand against everything we believe, those who are ‘lost’. There are plenty of reasons why all Christians should love the lost, but let me highlight just three.
1. They’re Lost
First of all, and this might sound obvious, but we should love the lost because they are just that: lost. Sadly, I’ve heard Christians have an attitude whereby they think that they are better than non-Christians because they know Jesus. But the reality is that we only know Jesus because He revealed Himself to us. The Bible uses different metaphors to describe those who don’t know Jesus, here are a few; non-Christians are are in darkness (John 8:12; 2 Corinthians 4:14), blind (2 Corinthians 4:4) and dead in transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1).
Just because this is no longer our reality as Christians, doesn’t mean that we should feel or act superior to non-Christians, but we should recognise the reality of their status before God. They are lost. A bit like a hiker who has wandered off the beaten track; non-Christians are distanced from the God who loves them and has created them. As Christians, we know the path, we know the way that leads to eternal life through Jesus and we should be helping our non-Christian friends, family and colleagues to look for Jesus and not go their own way. They are lost, but we can guide them and help them look for Jesus, the one who calls them to himself.
In addition to that, Jesus tells us to love our neighbour in Matthew 22:34-40. Jesus is saying that in the same way that we love ourselves, so too we should care for those around us and look out for their interests, whether they are believers or not. We’re commanded by Jesus to love our neighbours.
Loving the lost, really loving the lost, leads us to share the gospel with them and to point them to Jesus. God loves the world and so must we, we do that as we build friendships with the lost, as we care for them, but ultimately our love should be expressed in our witnessing to them and telling them about the good news of Jesus.
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