Why Won’t Christians Talk About This?
Scripture and most of church history give us a much different story. Both not only speak to this all the time, but affliction was even welcomed and seen as coming from the good and wise hand of God. Sure, you do not go out of your way looking for suffering, but when it comes, you should try to see just how much God is involved in it, and why he is allowing it.
All of us can tend to be all rather quiet about certain issues. For example, we fully expect the world to remain silent about various things – especially things the militants and radicals have told us we are not allowed to talk about. You can get away with murder – quite literally – when you push this sort of out of sight out of mind campaign.
Thus we are not supposed to talk about the sanctity of life for the unborn – resulting in millions of them being slaughtered each year. We are certainly not allowed to speak about ex-homosexuals: they too are another invisible group of people.
But sadly Christians can be like this as well. Some things you seem to hear about very rarely in contemporary Western Christianity. Things like sin and judgment to come are obvious examples. But here I wish to speak about the dreaded ‘S’ and ‘A’ words: suffering and affliction.
It is quite odd that we hear so little about these matters. After all, we all suffer. Sure, we don’t want to suffer – I certainly don’t. But such a universal experience is often swept under the carpet in too many churches and Christian circles.
But that goes against Scripture and church history where these matters have always been discussed. The Bible even has entire books devoted to these issues. Think of Job and Lamentations for example. There would be many hundreds of passages that speak to this. If God takes it so seriously, why don’t we?
And most Christians throughout church history have spoken and written on this topic extensively. So why do we not do the same today? Part of the problem is a fake gospel being pushed in the West. The idea that Christians should always be healthy and wealthy and happy and have their best life now will certainly fill churches, sell books, and make the false prophets pushing this baloney celebrity pastors and teachers.
But as I say, Scripture and most of church history give us a much different story. Both not only speak to this all the time, but affliction was even welcomed and seen as coming from the good and wise hand of God. Sure, you do not go out of your way looking for suffering, but when it comes, you should try to see just how much God is involved in it, and why he is allowing it.
The psalmist constantly spoke to this, especially emphasising the educative and remedial aspects of suffering. Just three verses from Psalm 119 can be mentioned here:
Psalm 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.
Psalm 119:71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
Psalm 119:75 I know, O LORD, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
And the great majority of Christians over the centuries have also echoed these themes. The Puritans certainly did. I have written before about some of them in this regard. One of the classic Puritan works for example is The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes. I discussed that amazing book here: billmuehlenberg.com/2015/03/11/a-bruised-reed/
Another Puritan classic worth being aware of is the 1652 A Treatise on Affliction by the English clergyman and member of the Westminster Assembly Thomas Case (1598–1682). A smaller edited version of it called When Christians Suffer was put out by Banner of Truth in 2009.
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Child-Free Generation? 1 in 4 Young Adults Already Ruling Out Having Kids
Even those who intend to have children don’t plan to have more than two. The reason, given by 56 percent of these respondents, was general financial constraints, which deterred them from wanting a larger family. Over four in 10 (43%) expressed concern that they wouldn’t have enough time to provide ample attention to many children. Moreover, 27 percent were worried about environmental concerns, such as resource usage and climate impact.
LONDON — Only half of Gen Z and millennial adults plan to start a family, as financial pressures and global anxieties continue to deter young adults from having children, a new survey reveals. The research, which polled 1,000 British adults between 18 and 34 who haven’t yet started a family, also found that one in four respondents have already decided against having a baby ever.
Only 55 percent of participants say they plan to have children in the future, while 20 percent are unsure. The most common reason, given by 49 percent of respondents, was their desire to focus more on themselves. Financial issues followed closely, cited by 47 percent, and fears about the state of the world were raised by 38 percent of the participants.
Environmental concerns associated with having children troubled 35 percent of respondents, while career aspirations and existing health issues influenced the decision of 28 and 22 percent of young adults, respectively.
Despite these findings, 71 percent of young adults felt societal pressure to have children, with 40 percent experiencing this pressure directly from family members. Mothers (68%) were the most likely to apply this pressure, followed by grandmothers and fathers.
“For generations, having children has just been the done thing, but it seems younger people are now deciding against this more and more,” a spokesperson for research agency OnePoll, which commissioned the study, says in a statement.
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Wokeness Is Coming for Classical Christian Education
If classical Christian education is to survive, it has to reject the foolishness of our age and embrace Christ’s way alone. Christ’s church favors neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free…We are Christ’s. We are classical. Those who want to be loved by the spirit of our age will become intoxicated by it, and slowly die of its poison.
It’s been a good year for classical Christian education. New school starts are up threefold, a book on classical education became No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, and on Jan. 26, Fox Nation will release season two of a popular series on classical Christian education, “The Miseducation of America.” Of course, with growth comes attention. What is unusual this time is that someone with ties to our movement — one of our own — draws focus to a growing divide.
On Jan. 12, in the online journal Current, Jessica Hooten Wilson asked, “Is White Supremacy a Bug or a Feature of Classical Christian Education?” It should come as no surprise that, within her mainstream academic ecosphere as a scholar at Pepperdine University, she gets pressure. “I experience regular pushback from those who perceive [classical Christian education] as white, Western-only, and male-dominated.” Her thesis is: “If the classical Christian school movement is to survive — let alone flourish — we must oppose all forms of racism and misogyny and stand with the beauty, goodness, and truth that we hold up for our students.” I’ll take her up on that charge.
Hooten Wilson is a staccato note at the end of a new tune within our circles. Her article praises those groups she believes are taking the right steps. So far, I’ve heard no one publicly state the thesis so clearly as she does: “We should peruse the authors of the works and, if applicable, the editors or introductory writers to ensure an assortment of voices … as well as an equality of both sexes. If we look at the table of contents of a textbook or a reading list for a semester and find not a single woman or person of color in that list, then that curriculum is misrepresenting the classical Christian tradition.”
Choosing the Classical Canon
For the better part of three millennia, philosophical, theological, and literary authors labored to create the classical canon, representing countless cultural influences. Over much of this same time period, learned scholars have made lists of those that deserve “canon” status. It is unclear if there are minorities or women in Cassiodorus’ list of authors (400 A.D.), or Leonardo Bruni or Battista Guarino’s lists (humanists from the 1400s) — they don’t use those categories. Mortimer Adler and his team of about 40 renowned scholars chose the most widely recognized list of books in our time based upon their contribution to “the great conversation.” Adler’s merit-based criteria required a work to have changed the course of history and to have developed the collective Western mind. What Adler’s team did not do is look to race or sex as criteria.
The Western classical tradition has long included people of every race and sex in a particular way: The tradition deals with a body of texts that address the universal truths about the human condition, rising above our culture’s current quest to silo everyone into an intersection of identity.
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The Person of the Holy Spirit
As the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit is co-equal with the Father and Son, and yet as a distinct person, the Holy Spirit is the one who regenerates us and guides us into all truth. He doesn’t speak on his own authority but relays the truth. The Holy Spirit is ever illuminating the work of the Son, bringing glory to Christ and declaring the Logos to the church.
Albert Mohler says, “In some evangelical circles the Holy Spirit has faded into the background of our theological interests, leaving us with an anemic view of the Spirit, and subsequently, a deficient relationship with the third member of the Trinity.”
The Bible is not silent regarding the person and work of the Holy Spirit! He appears on the opening page of Scripture (Genesis 1:2) and is seen throughout, most primarily in perfecting & sanctifying the believer.
The Person of the Holy Spirit
John 14:16-17 says, “16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
Notice with me that Jesus does not say the Spirit of truth is an “it” – but uses the personal pronouns “he” and “Him”. “You know Him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.” We would not describe our spouses as “it” – unless we wanted to sleep on the couch. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal wind, ghost, or force that you can channel or use like Luke Skywalker with enough concentration.
The Holy Spirit of God has knowledge (1 Cor 2:10-11), a will (1 Cor 12:11), a mind (Rom 8:27), He loves (Rom 15:30), reveals (Acts 13:2), intercedes (Romans 8:26), teaches (John 14:26), guides (Acts 16:6-7), can be grieved (Eph 4:30), insulted (Heb 10:29), lied to (Acts 5:3), and blasphemed (Matt 12:31-32). These can all only be referring to a Person.
You can’t grieve or lie to an “it”. You can’t sin against an impersonal thing. No one has ever sinned against their toaster by grabbing a bagel at Panera instead of at home – but countless men have sinned against their wives by committing adultery.
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