The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church
Twenty-five years ago, evangelicals were outside the religious establishment. That establishment was made up principally of the mainline denominations. But today evangelicals have become the religious establishments, however informally. But despite this, I believe that today we are in some peril. We have a fight on our hands and what we’re fighting for is our evangelical soul, for it is possible for us to gain the whole religious world while losing our own souls. I do not say this because I am one of those who thinks that the best is always what is in the past, that we are always in a state of decline, and that if we want to think of a golden age we have to think of something that is behind us. I do not think that way at all. In some ways we, today, are better off than we were twenty-five years ago. Perhaps a lot better off. And yet in spite of that, I believe there are matters within the evangelical world today which are seriously amiss.
-
The Challenge Of Christian Celebrity
Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, March 24, 2022
All of us struggle with the allure of notoriety. How many people liked my last post on Instagram? How many subscribers do I have on my YouTube Channel? How many followers on Facebook? Am I liked? Am I popular? Am I politically correct? Am I acceptable? Everyone wishes they had more likes, views, friends, or responses, whether we are willing to admit it or not. It’s even more disproportionately important to young Christians struggling to find their identity in Christ in a culture that applies its own labels and affirmations.In a year punctuated by the moral failings and faith departures of superstar pastors, famous Christian musicians, and renowned apologists, it might be wise to examine the one thing all of them had in common: celebrity.
I write this as someone who has struggled with celebrity in my own life as an outspoken, public Christian. I leveraged my national reputation as a Dateline featured cold-case detective to write several books and eventually played a role in the movie, God’s Not Dead 2. As my “celebrity” increased, so did my opportunity to share Jesus with people across the country and around the world.
I rationalized the pursuit of notoriety like many other public Christians. Fame, after all, provided the opportunity to share the truth of Jesus with others, right? But at some point, as I pondered the effect celebrity had on my own life as a Christian, I began to examine my own shifting motivations. Was I leveraging celebrity for the purpose of sharing Jesus, or sharing Jesus for the purpose of establishing my celebrity?
If there was one thing I’ve learned as a homicide detective, it’s the motivation for bad behavior. Every killer I’ve investigated committed his or her crime for one of three reasons: financial gain, sexual lust, or the pursuit of power. As the Apostle John described nearly two millennia earlier in 1 John 2:15-16:
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
Here’s the most important thing I learned about these three motivations for misbehavior: they are usually connected. That’s right. If you begin to chase one, you may eventually chase the other two. The pursuit of power (described by John as “the boastful pride of life”) is often nuanced. The quest for celebrity is one expression of this pursuit, and although it can seem benign, it’s often perilous. Well known Christian pastors, Christian musicians and Christian celebrities sometimes find themselves in sexual or financial scandals.
Read More -
When Critical Theory and Perverse Sexuality Collide
Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
We need to see gender theory as it parlays into trans activism in the same light—a pseudo-scholarly justification for destroying parental rights and exposing children to sexual perverts and medical profiteers.Mermaids, the UK activist charity pressing for transgender treatment for minors, has been in the headlines recently. First, the group has been trying to reverse the charitable status of the LGB Alliance. The Alliance is an organization that lobbies for the rights of LGB people has yet fallen foul of Mermaids because of its opposition to trans ideology. All is not well in the world of the rainbow coalition.
Second, a Mermaids board member was forced to resign last week after it emerged that he is an apologist for pedophilia. In an article at Unherd, Julia Bindel (herself a lesbian) outlines in gruesome detail the views of the board member concerned, Dr. Jacob Breslow. In fact, let us call them “perversions” not mere “views” because that is what they are, as her quotations from his work makes graphically obvious.
Breslow, is (inevitably) a professor of “gender studies” at the London School of Economics where his profile on the school’s website is most instructive and raises two obvious questions.
The first is this: to what extent are the current iterations of gender studies, particularly in the manner in which they address transgenderism, really just a means by which adults are able to indulge their pedophile fantasies? It is interesting that Breslow is interested in “the queer life of children’s desires.” By that, he does not mean that he is interested in the typically unformed and often confused sexual desires of young children as they enter puberty and settle into sexual adulthood. Gender theory denies any norms for sexual desires and can therefore grant normative authority to any and all sexual desires it chooses.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Responding to God’s Discipline
The Lord pursues His children, even to the depths of the seas of rebellion. When we flee His presence, He follows us. His purposes and plans will not be thwarted by our game of hide and seek. The Almighty God knows our hiding places and in His grace and mercy finds us.
When was the last time you failed to follow God’s call to holiness? Maybe you knew you should give a gracious answer, but instead responded to a friend, spouse, or child with anger. Perhaps you knew you were to be content in a situation, but discontentment filled your heart. Or maybe you knew God would take care of you and your loved ones, but you didn’t stop worrying until the situation was over. Regardless, if we’re honest there are many times when we know what would be pleasing to the Lord, but instead we sin with our words or actions. Like our children, we need to be disciplined. Thankfully, our heavenly Father disciplines us for our good, so that we might grow in godliness. Perhaps no book of the Bible teaches this better than the book of Jonah.
If you’re familiar with the book of Jonah, you will recall that God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh to tell the people that God is bringing disaster upon them because of their evil. However, instead of following God’s call, Jonah flees, sailing in the opposite direction of Nineveh. But the Lord caused a bad storm on the sea that threatened the safety of the sailors. Seeking to save the ship, they cried out to their gods, tossed cargo overboard, asked Jonah to cry out to his God, cast lots to see whose fault it was, and even threw Jonah overboard. It was the latter that stopped the storm. Remarkably, the sailors recognized the power of the true God and worshiped Him.
Meanwhile, the Lord appointed a fish to swallow Jonah. For three days and three nights he remained in its belly. Finally, in the darkness Jonah repented and the Lord had the fish vomit him onto dry land. The story of Jonah goes on to tell of his ministry in Nineveh, the mighty cries of the Ninevites that averted God’s judgment, and the misery of Jonah after witnessing God’s grace upon the wicked. But I want to focus on what happened in the belly of the fish because it instructs us on how to respond to God’s discipline.
Read More
Related Posts:
