FLASH POINT

An Indefensible Faith: Another Review of 'Love Wins'

2011-04-08T22:23:00.002-05:00

There is no shortage of reviews on Rob Bell’s recent book Love Wins, so I am almost apologetic for writing another. But it is because of my work in apologetics I find myself compelled to participate in the conversation. My concerns go beyond his conclusions on matters of heaven, hell, and salvation because it seems that many of his probing questions depend upon a view of human logic that does not properly account for the noetic effects of sin.

Love Wins is a difficult read—not to imply it was written for an academic audience, certainly it was not. The portrait of God in scripture is a bit more complex than the picture that Bell has painted. Scripture communicates different senses of God’s will (perceptive & decretive), different senses of God’s love (general love for creation, special love for the elect), different types of God’s self-disclosure (general & special revelation), and the aspects of God’s personality that show him to be both just and merciful without moral compromise. Bell’s rendition of God appears to be flat, and that is what makes the book so difficult to read. What I mean is that Bell is very often unable to comprehend how it is that God is perfectly able to transcend human limitations of rationality and being. This is because his starting point appears to be that God is simplistic (not to be confused with the doctrine of divine simplicity) therefore there aren’t different senses of God’s love or God’s will. For example, since Scripture teaches that God desires for all men to be saved, Bell argues (through his use of question) that according to traditional views of heaven, hell and salvation, what God desires cannot be achieved.

There are those…who put it quite clearly: “We get one life to choose heaven or hell, and once we die, that’s it. One or the other, forever.” God in the end doesn’t get what God wants, it’s declared, because some will turn, repent, and believe, and others won’t. (p. 103)

He does not say who it is specifically that is declaring God doesn’t get what he wants, but clearly he is attributing this declaration to those who hold to an exclusivist viewpoint and that God “in the end doesn’t get what God wants” is a logical outcome of their view of salvation. If this is an overstated speculation, it is because Bell provides little in terms of footnotes or even in-text references, but I believe the whole book provides ample evidence to back up my claim. Bell’s statement serves as an excellent example of how many attempt to understand a passage of scripture, attempting to save God’s reputation by going beyond the biblical text to resolve perceived problems by subjecting them to the rationalized conclusions.

Is God our friend, our provider, our protector, our father—or is God the kind of judge who may in the end declare that we deserve to spend forever separated from our Father? (102)

That God must be this way or that way is a false dilemma and, if permitted to stand, makes vulnerable a host of other doctrines. If God cannot be friend, provider, protector and judge, certainly God would also struggle to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Again, this flattened view of God’s nature prevents him from embracing the God who revealed himself in scripture. He is challenged to let scripture speak for itself.

For any Christian who has ever engaged a skeptic, much of what Bell has written appears to be a validation of the questions they often pose, but seeing them asked by one who professes faith in Christ is a bit disorienting. With many of these questions, you can almost hear the whisper of ridicule: Christianity rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible is foolishness. In example after example, Bell tries to force a resolution or rejection of the content with little, if any, theological engagement. He does address interpretive issues in terms heaven and hell, but many of the questions he poses do not hinge on the accuracy or inaccuracy of his understanding of those terms but whether the human mind can actually reconcile views of God and ultimate reality that, on the surface, seem to contradict.

So I have my own question: How is it that Bell can stand on the boundaries of Christianity and evaluate it through the eyes of young or unbelief? While it might seem noble to adopt this vantage point, helping young or unbelievers by trying to look at Scripture the way they do, I fear his methodology has backfired. Because his overall theology does not consistently take into account the mystery and majesty of God, Christianity can’t help but to look ridiculous. In this respect, he has conceded to the natural man that their perceptions of Christianity are correct –it is foolishness. What follows are examples that make this point:

Really? Gandhi’s in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt? And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know? Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number “make it to a better place” and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life? This doesn’t just raise disturbing questions about God; it raises questions about the beliefs themselves. Why them? (p. 88)

Lurking behind his effort to reframe the conversation on heaven and hell, Bell accomplishes a great deal more. Questions similar to these are often raised by unbelievers intending to impugn the internal consistency of Christianity by suggesting that our view of God is inherently flawed because it makes no sense that God would create humans only to destroy them. During the first reading of the book, I found myself waiting for Bell to say something like “its man’s sin that ultimately separates him from God.” That’s how many of us would respond to anyone else asking these same questions. Sadly, Bell never went there.

And whenever people claim that one group is in, saved, accepted by God, forgiven, enlightened, redeemed—and everybody else isn’t—why is it that those who make this claim are almost always part of the group that’s “in”? Have you ever heard people make claims about a select few being the chosen and then claim that they’re not part of that group? Several years ago I heard a woman tell about the funeral of her daughter’s friend, a high-school student who was killed in a car accident. Her daughter was asked by a Christian if the young man who had died was a Christian. She said that he told people he was an atheist. This person then said to her, “So there’s no hope then.” No hope? Is that the Christian message? “No hope”? Is that what Jesus offers the world? Is this the sacred calling of Christians—to announce that there’s no hope? (p. 3)

While I’m quite sure the scenario described here isn’t the best Christianity has to offer, it is hardly helpful to conflate this tasteless interaction with the exclusive claims of Christianity. This is a tactic of distraction used frequently by those set out invalidate Christianity, but Bell has validated the tactic and empowered those who use it by offering it up for his own use.

So is it true that the kind of person you are doesn’t ultimately matter, as long as you’ve said or prayed or believed the right things? If you truly believed that, and you were surrounded by Christians who believed that, then you wouldn’t have much motivation to do anything about the present suffering of the world, because you would believe you were going to leave someday and go somewhere else to be with Jesus. If this understanding of the good news of Jesus prevailed among Christians, the belief that Jesus’s message is about how to get somewhere else, you could possibly end up with a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren’t known for doing much about it. If it got bad enough, you might even have people rejecting Jesus because of how his followers lived. (p. 6)

Bell’s point here is a little lost. His suggestion is that if we really believe what he says we believe, we would be less focused on the needs of others. It’s a bit confusing what Bell is doing here, but his assertion is that people who are so other-wordly, awaiting their “evacuation” from this planet, have little motivation to help those in need. And while the world does have millions of people who are “starving, thirsty, and poor,” I am apt to recoil in defense, but I know Christians can always do better—I just don’t think that the failures of the Church have anything to do with belief in the realm of heaven. Without saying it, Bell seems to be suggesting that one cannot hold a traditional view of heaven and also hold that it matters how we live on earth—another false dilemma.

“How can they hear without someone preaching to them?” And I wholeheartedly agree, but that raises another question. If our salvation, our future, our destiny is dependent on others bringing the message to us, teaching us, showing us—what happens if they don’t do their part? What if the missionary gets a flat tire? This raises another, far more disturbing question: Is your future in someone else’s hands? Which raises another question: Is someone else’s eternity resting in your hands? So is it not only that a person has to respond, pray, accept, believe, trust, confess, and do—but also that someone else has to act, teach, travel, organize, fund-raise, and build so that the person can know what to respond, pray, accept, believe, trust, confess, and do? (p. 179)

Here is a critical example of Bell agreeing with the natural man that Christianity is foolishness. The problem is, natural man can’t rightly critique spiritual matters, which is why he will miss (or dismiss) the theological category of providence. This raises for us very serious questions: is Bell’s conception of God so flat that his theology doesn’t allow for an all powerful God that can work out his plans his way? Is Bell’s God actually limited by the weaknesses of fallen creation, or at least their hindrances to travel?

Many people find Jesus compelling, but don’t follow him, because of the parts about “hell and torment and all that.” Somewhere along the way they were taught that the only option when it comes to Christian faith is to clearly declare that a few, committed Christians will “go to heaven” when they die and everyone else will not, the matter is settled at death, and that’s it. One place or the other, no looking back, no chance for a change of heart, make your bed now and lie in it … forever. Not all Christians have believed this, and you don’t have to believe it to be a Christian. The Christian faith is big enough, wide enough, and generous enough to handle that vast a range of perspectives. (p. 110)

This quote is the crux of his argument, not so much that we believe Bell’s way on heaven and hell (even though he wants us to), but that it ultimately does not matter what you believe because Christianity is “big enough” for all of our beliefs. The next question one might ask is, what about the deity of Christ? Bell would say he makes no compromise on this, and I believe him. But the deity of Christ has no relevance in the here and now if he need not be worshiped by the “good people” represented by various worldviews.

Then there is inclusivity. The kind that is open to all religions, the kind that trusts that good people will get in, that there is only one mountain, but it has many paths. This inclusivity assumes that as long as your heart is fine or your actions measure up, you’ll be okay. And then there is an exclusivity on the other side of inclusivity. This kind insists that Jesus is the way, but holds tightly to the assumption that the all-embracing, saving love of this particular Jesus the Christ will of course include all sorts of unexpected people from across the cultural spectrum. As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptists from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that then Jesus doesn’t matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter what you believe, and so forth. Not true. Absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably not true. What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody. And then he leaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities. He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe. (p. 154)

With few words but packed with lots of meaning, Love Wins is not an easy read. This should not be recommended reading for young or unbelievers, not just because of what it says, but how it models a method of theological thinking that suspends the authority of scripture and replaces it with a rationalistic approach to biblical interpretation. Don’t underestimate the ability of this book to actually shape not just what people think, but how people think about God and man’s relationship to him.

There is Nothing Pro-Woman about being Pro-"Choice"

2011-01-21T01:23:00.000-06:00

During this observance of the Sanctity of Life in many churches during the end of January, we need to ask some questions and pursue intellectual honesty. When we say we're prolife, are we consistenly prolife? Compromises that put at risk our smallest, most vulnerable people as a solution for infertility need to be seriously reconsidered. Life is not to be created to be destroyed, no matter what the reason. Another question that deserves some intellectual honesty is, what do pro-aborts mean when they say "choice?" The answer to that question is clear as organizations like NOW, the Feminist Majority and Planned Parenthood fight voraciously for abortion demand for women and girls of any age. Logically, the only possible choice they could be referring to is abortion because for the pregnancy already exists. These women aren't being persuaded to choose what already is, they're being coerced to choose what the brutal, the selfish, and ironically...the unnatural. There is nothing pro-woman about being pro-"choice."

We must commit to protecting the life of the unborn and offer a consistent voice in the practice of our prolife ethic, providing intelligent answers to the pro-aborts who use trickery and deceit in their pro-"choice" language. As evangelicals, we need to rise above the politics within our own circles and proclaim the dignity of all humans at any age and stage. As a prophetic voice in our culture, we need not shy away from our Christian reasons for defending life, and we ought not hesitate to tear down the arguments of pro-aborts who thrive on the continual exploitation of vulnerable women, sacrificing their womb and their children, all for the ridiculous purpose of empowering secular feminism.

Tradition Without Truth

2011-01-05T20:32:00.000-06:00

It isn’t something that suddenly happened in 2010, people have been compromising truth since the early days in the Garden. But never has it seemed so clear that people actually lack knowledge of right and wrong. Of course, most people know that murder is wrong, but few could provide a substantive reason why they know this other than appealing to some self-oriented ethical theory. When it comes to sexual ethics, plenty of books have been written on the topic. But in practice, sexuality and ethics have been deemed mutually exclusive categories. This is because the sexual revolution has accomplished what it set out to do—remove stigma from all sexual situations. Today there is almost no instance in which sexuality is subject to ethical inquiry except perhaps the if it feels good, do it hedonistic point of view.

In an effort to preserve Christian values in culture, there is often an appeal to Judeo-Christian traditions that have long been the source of societal values. But before our very eyes, these traditional values are disintegrating and are being replaced by a new vision of how we should live. The reality is, a new set of values has been established by a culture whose worldview is no longer dominated by a Judeo-Christian ethic. New traditions are replacing old ones. An interesting evidence of this turn is the meaninglessness of symbols. While these may seem like innocuous examples of the culture wars, they are quite pertinent to understanding the cultural influence of Christian tradition and values. A local newspaper recently reported that the first baby born in 2011 was delivered to couple with different last names. I continued to read without pause, but then stopped to assess my own reaction—even I had experienced a degree of desensitization to this issue. After regaining my sensibilities, I recalled that in our culture there is no longer a stigma associated with having children outside of marriage. Though possibly the mother of this newborn is simply making regular use of her maiden name for professional reasons (another recent shift), it is more likely this unmarried couple is completely unaware of the idea they have helped to cement: a child is no longer symbolic of the marital union of man and woman.

Another symbol that has gone by the wayside is the white wedding gown. While many still practice the bridal traditions of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” the white wedding gown that in the past symbolized purity as the young bride is presented to her groom is now stained with the sexual mores of a new era. Brides are still be wearing white, but outside of those relationships truly functioning within the framework of a biblically informed worldview, this tradition is not even remotely emblematic of her virginity. Saying yes to the dress is restricted to its external appearance and to personal sentimentalities, not to what it had originally symbolized. The bottom line is this: when tradition is the basis for values, tradition is at risk of being replaced and values that have no substantive foundation are rendered irrelevant. So it is that the changing traditions in our culture today correspond to the irrelevance of Christian values—not due to an inability to make Christianity popular, but to make it meaningful.

When the values of a culture begin to shift, people will often yearn for the good ole’ days, an era when stigma was able to contain behavior. For instance, there was a time when pregnancy outside of marriage would be corrected by a “shotgun” wedding, a common practice utilized to conceal untimely sexual relations from family, church, or the local coffee clutch—as if retroactively marriage makes an “honest woman” out of an unmarried mom-to-be. Similarly, social stigma—not necessarily what was best for a child—was a primary reason many unwed mothers placed children up for adoption. While shame and remorse can be an appropriate motivating factor to correct ways of thinking and living, in the wrong hands it is often misused. Stigma unaccompanied by truth is merely an apparatus of a culture not oriented toward Christ, no matter how much they may resemble the Church.

Dorothy Sayers once stated that “if we really want a Christian society we must teach Christianity and that it is absolutely impossible to teach Christianity without teaching Christian dogma.” She goes on to say that the “validity of Christian principles depends on Christ’s authority.” That said, it isn’t any wonder that we see barely a remnant of Christian values present in today’s culture. Practices rooted merely in tradition have little or no validity and, therefore, no lasting power. Worldviews have been equalized by the view that morality and spiritual truth are subjective. This does beg the question as to how well the Church—as an institution and as individual believers—is teaching Christianity. Without a source for truth outside of ourselves, we are left to our own devices. Stigma had for a time been a useful common ground approach to moral issues, but the jig is up. People know the difference between tradition and truth, and because they reject the latter the former is meaningless.

Have we been a Church committed to decision-making based on Christ’s authority or because “that’s the way we’ve always done it?” Do we take positions on matters of morality based on the politics of the moment, or have we done the work in Scripture to know what God wants us to know and live out on a given matter? If the average church-goer struggles to see the importance of doctrine, doesn’t quite understand the human condition in relation to Christ, and has not yet learned what it means to think about everyday life through the lens of Scripture—truth revealed—how can she have a gospel-centered presence in her sphere of influence? Why, in her eyes, should it even matter? If, perhaps, we focused a bit more on training men and women to think theologically and teach them how to communicate truth in their sphere of influence, there might be a degree of real and sustainable impact on culture. Invoking one set of values over another based on polls and popularity is just a quick, temporary fix for something with more serious, eternal implications.

Women's Christian Worldview Conference

2010-11-12T11:23:00.000-06:00

The Center for Women of Faith in Culture is hosting the first annual God, Faith & Culture Evangelical Women’s Conference on April 30th, 2011 in Arlington Heights, Illinois. But this is not just another women’s conference where women come together to base new and developing friendships on shared emotional experiences. In fact, we expect that the intellectual rigor of this event will prepare you to need a nice quiet evening to process the content presented by all the speakers. Our focus is a deliberate emphasis on the life of the mind in your relationship with God–but of course, we expect you will fully enjoy your time as you hear Christian women leaders speak on different aspects of the Christian worldview.

Speakers for this conference include Dr. Halee Gray Scott, PhD, Azusa Pacific University, Jennifer Lahl, The Center for Bioethics & Culture, Pam Gillaspie, Deep & Wide, Kathy Barnette, Judson University, Caryn Rivadeneira, Christianity Today, and many others. Be sure to register online at www.godfaithculture.com and find us on Facebook.

Swaddling Cloths Project

2010-11-03T22:40:00.002-05:00

I don't write too frequently on specific ministry activities, but I wanted to share this idea for a community ministry opportunity in time for the Christmas season. Over the weekend, our church women's ministry team met to fine tune plans for our Christmas brunch. As a result of our meeting, we opted to do away with the formalities of a Christmas brunch and, instead, have a Christmas continental breakfast. Here's why:

A story recently ran in the local newspaper about a crisis pregnancy center in my very small town, a center I didn't know even existed. So given the isolation of things in our rural community, I felt compelled to assist. We discussed it at our meeting and decided to use the Christmas brunch -- which evolved into the Christmas continental breakfast -- as an opportunity for the women at church to serve the needs in the community by gathering the necessities associated with bringing a new life into the world. Essentially its a diaper drive, but we hope for a variety of supplies for infant care. It's will be informal, lacking the panache often associated with women's holiday events. We call it The Swaddling Cloths Project (Luke 2:12).

The narrative of Jesus birth has been imprinted in our minds with the Wisemen following the star and culminating in the joy of finding of Jesus lying in a manger. And I'm quite sure it was a joyous sight! But reading the text again in Luke, I was struck by the circumstances of the manger scene. There was no room at the Inn, that's the reason for the manger scene. Hardly ideal circumstances for caring for a young child, though I'm sure they were thankful for shelter. But I wonder, does this passage still remind us of Jesus' very humble condescension or has it simply become a reason for holiday festivities? This must have also been a very humbling experience for Mary and Joseph. Ok, I concede that Mary gave birth to the Son of God and they had a pretty awesome birth announcement with the Star the Wisemen followed. And we can't forget about the angels who spoke to them. It is fair to say that both the natural circumstances and the supernatural encounters comprised a very humbling experience.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:11-12 ESV)

The Swaddling Cloths Project is an opportunity to reflect on our Saviors humility and to share his love by giving towards the practical needs of others. While Mary and Joseph were hardly in a crisis pregnancy situation, from their human perspective they probably waivered between trust and doubt throughout the pregnancy and after the birth of Jesus. This Christmas, consider reaching out to the crisis pregnancy centers and honor the choice of life by fulfilling some of the practical needs of a young mother or family. If you are able, share with these young people that God is looking out for them and has sent his church to care for those in need.

"Extremist" is a Theological Category

2010-10-15T13:08:00.002-05:00

American culture seems to be most interested in who God isn’t. Many hold that claims made about God put him in a box and because we really can’t know anything about him (so they say) we should avoid claiming any knowledge of or about him. Of course, that argument works for less than 10 seconds because to say we can’t know anything about God requires some knowledge of God—and that is where such claims reduce to silliness.

On The View yesterday, America’s love affair with religious pluralism took the conversation in a direction that deserves further reflection. During the show, Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg took issue with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, stomping off the stage in protest after he explained that 70% of Americans are against the building of the Mosque near Ground Zero because it was Muslims who attacked America on 9/11/2001. In all the clamor, O’Reilly defended his statement with a follow-up rhetorical question, “were they not Muslim?” On his own show last evening, however, he capitulated and said that he assumed the ladies on The View would get that he was referring to the Muslim terrorists who are also extremists, but Muslim nonetheless.

If you ever watch The O’Reilly Factor and have a basic knowledge of Christianity, you probably know that Bill O’Reilly is not a theologian. He proved this recently as he defended Christians in an interview with Bill Maher. O’Reilly explained to Maher that Christians don’t really believe that the story of Noah and the flood is to be taken literally but that Christians still deserve to be heard. This is just one of many uncomfortable moments in the interview that reduced it to the status of train wreck. Certainly the world of politics can not avoid the world of religious ideas, but I would highly recommend that O’Reilly remove himself from theological dialogue at this point…or get a tutor.

But that leads me to this important point. O’Reilly is only one of many engaging in theological dialogue, pretty much unbeknownst to them. Here is what’s going on: the term “extremist” as is being applied Muslims is a theological category. Obviously it is being utilized for political purposes, but it is being used with overtly theological intentions. To say that an individual or a group has gone beyond the doctrines of a particular religion in belief or action—the definition of religious extremism—is to also claim to know something about the content of that religion. In other words, one would have to have detailed knowledge of a religion in order to know what to exclude from its teachings. But this certainly is not the situation of many who make use of the term, for they often do not understand the religion of which they are speaking. But apparently the exclusion of the term “extremist” is tantamount to hate speech.

Some Christians have made use of the category “extremist” because it creates some separation between themselves and those who profess Christianity but do really stupid things. Westboro Baptist Church comes to mind. Are these people Christian extremists? I believe my understanding of Christian theology allows me to make use of the term (as most of you who reading this post) but at the same time, we would have to agree that there’s nothing Christian about certain behaviors and to apply the term “extremist” is to do a disservice to the term “Christian.” As theologians, I believe we need to eliminate the use of the term “extremist” so we can see things for what they really are. But politicians and pundits will continue to engage the use of this word for their own political gain, but a theological category it certainly is.

Choosing Christianity

2010-10-01T15:15:00.002-05:00

“That's just how you were raised!”—a common argument used to dismiss Christianity’s claim to absolute truth. A variation of this argument goes something like this: "If you had been born in another country, you could just as easily have become a Muslim or a Hindu. What you believe is determined by how you were raised—your environment—not by any over-arching truths." And who can argue with such sophisticated argumentation? After all, that is exactly how many of us were raised. We regularly attended Sunday services, the Wednesday evening Bible study, and summer vacations were always scheduled around Vacation Bible School. We were taught that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, that Jesus was born of a virgin and that he died at Calvary as a sacrifice for our sins. Heavens to Betsy, we also view the account of Noah and the Ark as a literal, historical event.

Sadly, however, many Christians have surrendered to this argument, concluding that it is only by chance—as opposed to the work of the Holy Spirit—that they are followers of Christ. Their views of truth and ethics have been reduced to personal preference, leaving them paralyzed to say anything objective about the world in which they live. When confronted with the absolute truth claims of Christianity, they are willing to embrace them, but only for themselves.
Often I encounter different manifestations of this argument from those who seek to overcome the epistemological void of ethical relativism by trying to reduce the weightier claims of Christian epistemology and ethics to the relativistic "that's just how you were raised" perspective. By doing so, they think they have avoided dealing with the consequences of relativism by pointing the finger elsewhere. A significant hole in their argument is the quick dismissal of what is learned in the context of church and family. Apart from universal laws of logic and such, what we know is learned from other people in some manner. It is a non sequitur to suggest that being raised in the Church necessitates that a person's faith is blind, guided merely by tradition and sentimentalism. It is one thing to recognize the diversity of belief in our world, but the only thing pluralism is an evidence of is pluralism.

This issue came to mind this week with respect to President Obama's statement on the nature of his faith. When asked "Why are you a Christian?" Obama responded by saying that he "became a Christian by choice" and that his belief was not due to being "raised in the church." This statement makes one wonder if he is suggesting that those who were raised in the church had no real choice. In some ways, his response could be helpful toward disarming those who argue against Christianity on the basis of cultural influence because it appears that the church played virtually no formative role in his early life. Certainly we know that not all who claim to be Christians were raised in the church, many do come to faith later in life, but those outside the church contending for the religion of unbelief don’t think that through to its logical conclusion.

On the other hand, was the President’s statement helpful at all? Or did his response actually promote the argument that Christians don’t have a firm theory of knowledge, just a history of tradition and sentimentalism? He spoke of sin and salvation and how the “precepts” of Jesus fit his own conception of reality, so it appears that at least one part of the Bible was agreeable to his view of the world. Therein lies the problem, however, in that he subjected the tenets of faith to his own prescription for how we should live when he said,

“the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead -- being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me."

On this matter, he clearly did not treat scripture as a revelational source of knowledge, but a philosophical document that agreed with his own perspective. And his cherry-picking is made obvious in his inability to flip-flop on previous statements he has made on collective salvation.

I am left to wonder if his statement about his faith was intended to communicate some level of superiority above those who are more culturally Christian. If Barak Obama is a Christian, his "choice" for Christianity does not make his faith experience qualitatively better or epistemologically superior to those who were raised in the Christian subculture. Are those who were not raised in the church less predisposed to clinging irrationally to their religion as has been suggested of some Christians while on the campaign trail? And why is it acceptable for his brand of Christianity be integrated into his civil service when conservative Christians in office are generally disparaged for punching a hole through the dry-wall of separation? Note this part of his statement during this same town hall, “I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.” Between Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s love of the “Word,” I don’t think I have ever seen so much religious-speak come out the White House.

No doubt there are issues with some who were “born” into the Church. As I have been working on this piece, I stumbled onto Nancy Pearcey’s comments on a closely related matter in her new (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) book, Saving Leonardo. She writes,

In past generations, many people simply ‘inherited’ their religion, following the tradition of their family and ethnic group…But in today’s large urban centers, it is no longer possible to remain Christian out of tradition. People face too much opposition and have too many alternatives….They are more likely to treat worldview commitments as something they seek out, investigate, weight, compare, and adopt as a matter of intentional commitment and practice. As a result, says sociologist Christian Smith, those commitments are actually stronger. (Saving Leonardo, p. 21)

Her point is well taken, that there are those whose worldview commitments are challenged, choosing for themselves what to believe instead of blindly towing the line of their cultural or familial faith traditions. These are people who come to understand what they believe and why they believe it, and as a result can stand firm in the faith even in the face of opposition; if more members of Christ’s body could only be so challenged. But this is not to dispute my point, that being raised in the Church does not automatically invalidate the beliefs of the individual as the relativist demands. Nor does her point shore up what I believe are the implications of Obama’s statement, that his Christianity is superior because he chose it, it did not choose him.

Neighbor Love and the Doctrine of God

2010-09-23T22:18:00.000-05:00

It's confusing yet strangely gratifying all at the same time. We live in a culture that is moving further and further from the exclusive claims of Christianity yet almost equally—and inconsistently—holds select passages in the Bible in high regard. They hold forth as though they cling tighter to the red letter words of Jesus than those who claim to be Christians. Of course, it’s true that many who call themselves believers fail to live in a way that reflects how we are suppose to live, but these failures are not indicative of a bankrupt theology but rather our need for a perfect Savior. Perhaps this is why Scripture, in various ways, implores us to guard our testimony as unbelievers struggle to separate the message from the messenger. In contrast, while the work of many social justice advocates may encompass a zealous neighbor-love approach, it often neglects a gospel-centered focus lacks any risk.

In the book of Matthew, we read the account of Jesus being asked by a lawyer which of the commandments was the greatest. Jesus’ response included not one, but two. The first, he said, was to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind and the second was like the first, that we ought to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt 22:37-40).

Why did he respond to the request for one commandment with two? And why did he say that the second was like the first? I think a key to understanding the answer to these questions is by considering what is required to fulfill both commands. What we should first acknowledge is that we cannot, on our own power or with complete consistency, keep any command; hence our need for a Savior. Secondly, as we seek to obey God’s commands, only in a spirit of humility and Christ-like love can this be achieved. A love grounded in idolatry and human reason will always fall short of what he has commanded.

We also need to understand the second command in relation to the first. Jesus did say that loving God was “the great and first commandment.” Is it possible to fulfill the second commandment without fulfilling the first? Some happen to think so. I beg to differ. Loving God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind speaks to the depth of our devotion, that with our whole self we are to love God. But “the Lord your God” speaks volumes about the object of our affection. No false god will suffice, we must be attentive to the one true God of the Bible. Knowing God, therefore, means knowing the story of sin and redemption, and as a result we are called to love our neighbor as a necessary and logical outworking of our love for God.

Without a commitment to the one true God, neighbor-love is little more than a trendy slogan, yet it works out well for those seeking to co-op aspects of Christianity for their pluralistic agenda. But how love works out in the real word without a foundation in Christ is apparent—to those who know Christ. I am a mom to three boys, two of which are old enough to date. Many times we have discussed what it means to love someone else and for them to love in return. My bottom line with them is this: if you can’t love God more than your girlfriend, or if she can’t love God more than you, then you can’t love each other the way you need to be loved. Without knowing God and loving God, our foundation for love is based on a relativistic worldview. There is no confidence because there is no objective source from which love it derives its meaning. Love certainly is more than a trendy slogan, young attraction or grown-up philanthropy. It needs to be known in its ultimate sense.

I recently received one of my regular Sojourners e-newsletters, this one called “My Muslim ‘Father.’” Not surprisingly, it strongly promoted the theme of neighbor-love, this time through a story shared by one of Jim Wallis’ staff writers, Leslie Abell. She wrote of time she spent in Cairo, Egypt where she developed and nurtured relationships with Muslims, including a familial relationship with a man named Hassan, the owner of a small shop. While she spoke of how they shared an attitude of hospitality, no mention is made of whether she shared the gospel with this friend. In a spirit of generosity, I do not claim to know what Sojourners means when they refer to Muslims as our “sisters and brother” as is seen stated repeatedly in their materials, but if Sojourners official position is that the good news is an unnecessary component of neighbor-love, then that would help to explain what its been so easily detached from the first and great commandment of God-love. But I don’t need to single out Sojourners on this matter, plenty of evangelicals who have leaped onto the neighbor-love social justice bandwagon do so in view of only the second half of this passage. Of course, Scripture does teach that unbelievers will know we are Christians by our love, but in the name of love have we made Christ obscure?

As the holidays begin to encroach on us, suffocating us with marketing ploys and overly-subtle greetings of ‘happy holidays’ from store cashiers, we can take joy in knowing that meaning of neighbor-love finds its significance in the Incarnation. Jesus came in the flesh in obedience to the will of the Father, an act which embodies not only neighbor love, but first the love for his Father, a significant relational aspect within the Trinity.

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, (Philippians 2:6-9 ESV)

We can look to the Godhead for understanding of neighbor-love if we can keep in mind that it is not something we do on our own, but the work God prepared for us before the foundations of the earth and for the sake of the Kingdom, not for our own godless goals of earthy love and peace.

Who Defines Feminism?

2010-09-19T23:44:00.000-05:00

I think the bigger question is—should we really care? Frankly, I am perplexed by the recent trend of conservative and evangelical-oriented women who are adding their voice to America’s political landscape, and even those who are standing on the sidelines in admiration. I’m not taking issue with their involvement or the content of their positions—I’m so pleased to see basic conservative values take center stage at this time in history. But it does strike me as odd the need of this fresh new culture of prolife conservative women to invoke the category of feminism, as if doing so provides credibility to their mission. It appears to be an attempt to appeal to common ground.

Former Saturday Night Life star Victoria Jackson recently wrote how the feminist value of career first ultimately had a negative impact on her life. She bought into the false dichotomy of career and family instead of pursuing both to whatever degree possible. She suggests that Sarah Palin is the ‘perfect feminist’ and tries unpacks what she means by this.

That is Feminism. A feminine woman achieving goals with the blessing of her man, while she simultaneously supports his career endeavors and celebrates his masculinity.

Victoria goes on in her piece by identifying other problems associated with secular feminism including the willing hyper-sexualization of women in our culture that even Christian women are not immune to. And she approaches the topic of single-parenting, a likely reference to Jennifer Anniston, that women who think they can have children without a man in their life just simply look “stupid and desperate.” She concludes her piece with a thought-provoking statement about how she understands the expectations of secular feminists.

Feminism. Such a strange word. When I hear it I first think of the most masculine and angry women, women with not a shred of femininity. Funny how words are. Then, I think of the meaning they want it to hold. And that word is Sarah Palin.

For Victoria Jackson, the demands of secular feminism have been fulfilled by the person and work of Sarah Palin. I want to suggest that while there is irony in this fact, our fancy with feminism really should end there. We need to think about this a bit more deeply. Do we really want to assert that the conservative values, many of which are distinctively Christian, are better off framed in the context of feminism? This is a dangerous compromise as it obscures the source of these values and blurs the lines between God’s authority and the self-ascribed authority tied not just to feminism, but to fallen human nature in general. It only helps to perpetuate the self-centeredness of our society instead of the God-centeredness we as evangelical women (and men) ought to be promoting and encouraging in the lives of other believers.

In this strange new culture of evangelical feminism, even traditionally left-leaning religious feminists have discovered how they can profit from the movement. New Feminist Christianity: Many Voices, Many Views is a new book of old ideas based in the foundational elements of feminism including a more pluralistic outlook on religion and ethics. And it goes even further as Jeanette Stokes, a Presbyterian ministry and one writer in this anthology states,

…I choose to be a heretic, to remain within the bounds of the Christian faith, to create new forms, and explore new practices…Some of my feminist colleagues have turned in their ordinations. I have no instinct to do that. I still love the religion of my childhood; it is just that when I step into it these days I tend to freeze. I do not want to say some of the words anymore.

One reviewer of this book indicates that some of the Christian practices Stokes is “no longer comfortable with include baptism, communion, forbidding of certain types of art and forms of love-making, and ‘the focus on Jesus’ suffering and dying.’”

Needless to say, by the title alone the new wave of conservative “Christian feminists” will be attracted to it. I only hope they will not be motivated by the appeal to power in its many pages. Other writers in the book include well-known feminists Rosemary Ruether and Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.

Who defines feminism does not really matter because the evangelical Christian woman should be more concerned with her definition of Christianity. It matters that culture is listening, but how we get their attention is an ethical dilemma for those who call themselves Christian conservatives. Do the ends (conservative values) justify the means of compromise? By stealing the term feminism for our own pragmatic purposes empowers secular feminism. What ultimately matters is whether we are pleasing God in how we speak and act. While invoking feminism might provide a small amount of credibility to the message of conservatism as delivered by women in our society today, it is a proposal that will ultimately have short-lived results.

The Problem of Moral Revival

2010-09-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

As a Christian and a conservative, I believe we have reached a crossroads where we need to seriously reconsider our approach to cultural engagement. The swift undercurrent of moral decay continues to take most Christians by surprise while our pragmatic approach to morality rooted in tradition and dependent on consensus forces us down the slippery slope of relativism. As much as we want to protect our freedom of speech, have we really had all that much to say? As much as we want to protect the right to life, have we been focused more on the right than the life created in the image of God? And in all of our efforts to defend traditional marriage, have we capitulated to non-biblical perspectives in our appeal to the safety of tradition instead of a risky appeal to Scripture? An explicitly Christian worldview has not been welcome in the marketplace of ideas for some time. As a result, believers have caved to society’s demands for a secularized message under the guise of “public language,” an attempt to give the appearance that morality can be dislodged from its worldview foundations. This enterprise has been anything but successful. Yet Christian conservatives continue to clamor for moral revival in pluralistic setting that might, for only a short time, reflect certain values consistent with Scripture. The problem with this conception of moral revival is that it is about as effective as yo-yo dieting.
The recent conversation over Glenn Beck’s appeal to the generic god of conservative values has shown that the problem is not so much with Glenn Beck as it is with a church un-phased by the dismantling of her worldview. She is a church afraid to make claims on the nature and foundations of morality. What’s worse is that she is a church that has actually been duped by her own strategy because the public language once used to bandage the moral hemorrhage of society is now core to the belief system of these well-meaning Christians. The doctrine of God no longer is foundational to the message but is viewed more as an impediment to results.

Moral revival must not be separated from spiritual revival. Questions of morality must always point back to a rational justification and worldview. To begin the process of morality at the point of values guarantees a clash of worldviews where Christianity is merely on par with her competition. But where the moral life of the follower of Christ begins is in commitment to her God, not to the comforts of a culture that thrives in the impact of Christian values without commitment to the triune God of Scripture.

This is not an argument for a repeat retreat from culture, but an appeal to recognize that we can’t trust consensus for an establishment of moral values that cohere to a Christian worldview. The shaping of culture and values is inextricably tied to the gospel where as hearts are changed, new and renewed disciples learn to commit their lives to the ethics of heaven for the purpose of pleasing God first and for the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.

In 1979, Koop and Schaeffer wrote:

…the humanist worldview has also brought us to the present devaluation of human life…it is naïve and irresponsible to imagine that this worldview will reverse the direction in the future. A well-meaning commitment to ‘do what is right’ will not be sufficient…It was the materialistic worldview that brought in the inhumanity; it must be a different worldview that drives it out. An emotional uneasiness about abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and the abuse of genetic knowledge is not enough. To stand against the present devaluation of human life, a significant percentage of people within our society must adopt and live by a worldview which not only hopes or intends to give a basis for human dignity but which really does. (Whatever Happened to the Human Race, p. 81)

Pretending (it is possible) to be without a worldview…or pretending all worldviews are acceptable to answer the great moral questions of our time, is quite naïve. Moral revival is possible, but not unaccompanied by a gospel-framework; a society searching for meaning is left unaided by a Christian morality that sets Christianity aside as if it is only an ancillary aspect of the moral conversation. We must be as committed to the foundations of morality as we are the moral positions themselves, because without understanding Christianity for its exclusive claims makes it likely that breaches in the moral code will be viewed as merely harmless infractions. As time goes by, we tend to become more desensitized to the sin that grieves our Lord and Savior when our primary arguments against these public matters are more about their impracticality.

Moral revival begins with spiritual revival, and first the church must awaken from her restless slumber and reinvigorate her commitment to the authority and teachings of Scripture. Culture can also be a part of this moral revival, but in a way that believers are reaching into the lives of unbelievers with a love your neighbor ethic grounded in a love for God. This God cannot remain the generic god of politically correct conservative pluralism, but must be defined and embraced as the almighty God of biblical Christianity. We are faced with a choice between the compromise of consensus or theological substance which can actually ground Christian ethics.

Why the Church Needs More Christian Women Scholars

2010-08-31T06:30:00.000-05:00

Studying theology helps us to participate in our relationship with God. It isn’t about gathering a ton of unnecessary knowledge that will never make a difference in your life, but about committing to knowing God in the deepest way possible.

But even the process of doing theology has intrinsic value as it trains the mind to welcome ideas that are reasonable and glorify God, and to reject ideas and ways of thinking that hurt us and contradict truth. Doing theology helps us to become critical thinkers in every area of life.

As women, it is especially important for us to do theology, not because there is something about us that makes us intellectually deficient or different from men, but because attempts to encourage non-theological thinking have become so widespread in the culture of women’s ministry. We often think and meditate on a single verse or short passage at a time, a practice which can be detrimental not only to understanding the bigger picture, but can equally undermine our ability to practice what we believe in every area of our lives. We do not want to be fragmented in our approach to living, but that is a real risk if we study the Bible in that same way.

Many women’s bible studies and gift books encourage this fragmented way of thinking due to the relatively short meditations they contain, or through spoon feeding which generally does not model an appropriate method of interpretation because the work has already been done (and we hope correctly). When the most probing questions direct the student to look within themselves—“how does this make you feel?”—the time has come to assess our discipleship materials.

Analytically similar, yet dependent on biblical theology, is the area of systematic theology. In case this is a new term to you, systematic theology is the process of “draw[ing] together into one coherent whole what the entirety of Scripture says on a given topic.”^{^[1]} From the onset, we are expected to limit ourselves to the biblical text, working hard to avoid conclusions based upon the ideas we bring to the study. A study of various passages that speak to the topic of God’s love, for example, allows us to draw a partial mental picture of that aspect of God based on the given passages.

The use of analytical thinking in the study of God’s Word has practical benefits that reach in to all areas of life. Many passages in scripture exhort us to know who God is, to seek his will, to try to discern what pleases God…the list could go on. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are led to many decisions in our lives. But the role and activity of the Holy Spirit and the life of the mind should never be pitted against each other by the suggestion that we don’t need to become better thinkers. The lack of reasoning skills in church and culture is abundantly apparent and results in decisions that people “in their right mind” would normally refrain. For the Christian woman in the 21^st century, being equipped to effectively engage scripture will also train her to effectively engage the ideas of culture, and to more consistently consider how to answer many of life’s difficult questions. Having a Christian worldview means being able to navigate between scripture and life, from precept and principle to practice, to have godly wisdom about matters mentioned in scripture, and about things never mentioned at all.

Being a student of scripture and bringing its themes into a logical ordering in our minds is some of what it means to do theology. In personal conversations, it has been said that not every women is at that place in her walk with the Lord that she would want to pursue him rigorously, that she may be perfectly content with materials that don’t challenge her to grow. Obviously, no one can be forced to read her Bible and work at putting all the pieces into logical order. But for the woman who simply doesn’t know this to be a pursuit beneficial to her spiritual growth, for the woman who doesn’t have this modeled for her, it definitely will be difficult for her to arrive there on her own.

^{^[1]} Erickson, Millard. Christian Doctrine. 2^nd Ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001) p. 16.

More on Beth Moore

2010-08-30T07:14:00.002-05:00

This is a cross-posted at First Things
A few months ago, I began writing a piece on the teachings of Beth Moore. The fine writers at CT were working on a similar project which became a recent cover story and companion article. There is much to be said about Beth’s influence in the Church that I believe male and female leaders need to take a second look at. Well, when my article is published, I will provide a link to the full text, in the meantime, take a look at how Beth handles Paul. Keep in mind what she is ultimately saying about the insertion of sinful attitudes as part of the biblical writers’ instructional material.

Not only does Beth suggest that insecurity is one of women’s greatest problems, she also argues that insecurity is where she finds camaraderie with the apostle Paul. While clearly the writers of Scripture were human with the same propensity for sin and suffering, it is difficult to agree with Beth’s rationale for her claim to Pauline insecurity. In fact, her argument depends on an unpopular understanding of 2 Corinthians.
Beth writes that Paul is one of her “favorite people in the entire stretch of Scripture” because

he was enormously used of God in spite of himself [Emphasis hers]. Don’t think for a moment he didn’t fight his own flesh just like the rest of us. Take, for instance, the way he felt the need to affirm his credentials to the people he served in Corinth by using this little twist:
I do not think I am in the least inferior to those ‘super apostles.’ I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge.’ 2 Corinthians 11:5-6
Tell me that’s not insecurity. If you’re not convinced, take a look at what blurted from his pen only a chapter later:
I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the ‘super-apostles,’ even though I am nothing. 2 Corinthians 12:11
Do you think just maybe he protests too much? In all probability, he fought the awful feeling that he wasn’t as good as the others who hadn’t done nearly so much wrong. I totally grasp that. At the same time, Paul also battled a big, fat ego. He was a complex mound of clay just like the rest of us, belittling and boasting of himself in a dizzying psychological zigzag.”[i]

A key criticism of Moore is how she handles scripture and then how she models that approach to her audience. After reading this section of SLI, my concern persists as I struggle to understand how she arrives at the conclusion that Paul is going through a “belittling and boasting of himself in a dizzying psychological zigzag.” The mere assertion that Paul was driven by feelings of insecurity as the reason for defending his apostolic authority ignores the immediate context of the second letter to the Corinthians, that the church was involved with false teachers claiming a high degree of authority but lacking true knowledge. But this gets at the heart of the problem; Beth does not explain the meaning of the passage as derived from the context, she reads the passage in isolation, an elementary Bible study error. What she often fails to do, as is the case in this instance, is to explain how in submission to the scripture she arrives at her conclusions. She admittedly speculates and introduces personal experience and psychologizing of the text to back up her claims. Her assertion that Paul is motivated by insecurity is dependent on a view that equates the “super apostles” with the true apostles instead of the false teachers, a theory that most theologians and commentators reject. But sadly, she leaves her readers, many who are unfortunately disenchanted with the intellectual nature of the Christian faith, revisioning Paul the apologist as someone whose defense is motivated by self-centered weakness instead of a necessary defense of the gospel. Following Beth’s perspective to its logical conclusion, if Paul did not struggle with insecurity as she claims, perhaps the Bible would contain fewer epistles.
Beth has been working for some time to define Paul as insecure. In To live is Christ, written about Paul’s journey of faith, she admits to speculating on what is going on with Paul “based on hints in the accounts.”[ii] She describes Paul as “overwhelmed by the polytheistic beliefs of the residents”[iii] of Athens because few people “believed and received Christ,”[iv] because they preferred to argue “rather than consider the truth.”[v] On the next page, she continues her speculation in asserting that Paul’s ego took a beating in Athens and that Paul probably “felt like a failure.”[vi] Continuing to project into the text, she writes that Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:18-19 may have been reflective of his experience with the Athenian philosophers. At the Areopagus, we understand from the text that Paul preached Christ, but certainly not to the contempt of the life of the mind. This kind of speculation paints Paul as being annoyed and fatigued by intellectual engagement in which he encouraged others.

[i] Moore, Beth. So Long Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2010) p. 56-57 [ii] Moore, Beth. To Live is Christ: Joining Paul’s Journey of Faith. (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001) p. 132.
[iii] Ibid., p. 132
[iv] Ibid., p. 132
[v] Ibid., p. 132
[vi] Ibid., p. 133

Is the Department of Justice Investigating Conservative Bloggers?

2010-08-18T19:56:00.001-05:00

I'm just a small-town girl with a love for God, a passion for truth, and a desire for a safe world for my kids to live in. Writing about matters of faith, ethics, and a smattering of politics fulfills my lofty desires to be a factor in our culture wars, to make an impact in the way people integrate their worldview into every day life. So today, I am caught slightly off guard when I find that someone from the Department of Justice is reading on my primary website, The Center for Women of Faith in Culture. Okay, so perhaps it was a government employee covertly looking for a speaker for her next women's ministry event, or a covert conservative needing an early morning dose of reality before embarking on his/her day's work. If that's what it was, welcome!

More than likely, it was an accidental visit and whoever it was intended to locate the Women of Faith site and mistakenly ended up on my gorgeous Wordpress creation. After all, they only hung around for a few minutes and looked at 4 pages. Then again, Nancy Pelosi is trying to discover who the funding source is for the NY City Mosque naysayers, maybe she thinks its me. I didn't do it. But I also didn't know it took any sum of money to say that's a bad idea. But I digress...

Are you a conservative blogger with questionable government visits to your site? I'd like to hear from you. Oh, and here's the evidence:

Glenn Beck & the Faith Factor

2010-08-13T09:27:00.001-05:00

If you're a conservative and an avid listener of Glenn Beck, likely you appreciate his connecting of dots between Obama administration players, 60's radicals, and the philosophical writings advocating socialism and socialistic policy. Recently, in fact, he showed how the NEA recommends the writings of Saul Alinsky. I find that sort of information interesting and helpful.

Joe Carter at First Things recently challenged Beck's view that issues like abortion and same-sex marriage shouldn't guide our public discussion as much as they do. Yet, Beck regularly insists we need to be moral in our day to day dealings: don't lie, cheat or steal. Have a strong work ethic, dont be lazy. Oh, and get back to your church, temple, synagogue or mosque. "Find God" so society can return to it's previous version of normal.

But why should we care about the moral nature of our words and actions, and why does he appeal to our various religious experiences to ground our motivations? He certainly does not believe that each religion is true, because competing worldviews can not all be true. Beck knows that. Maybe he thinks they each have enough truth to provide common moral knowledge for all reasonable people looking for it. If he is holding to some form of natural law, he could probably even include atheists in his appeal to basic morality as well. But he doesn't.

Whatever it is that Beck is trying to say about the role of religion in the health of our nation, he has it wrong in what appears to be an embrace of religious pluralism, at least for pragmatic purposes. I get it that he is avoiding telling his audience that it's the Mormon way or the highway. But behind his argument for societal calm is the lie that no matter what you believe, as long as you believe it sincerely and you aren't blowing up other people, America can get it's act together like the way it use to be. This sappy sentimentalism does not acknowledge what separates religious people, the transcendent claim to the source of moral truth and the reality of significant disagreement on a plethora of moral issues. Not to mention the nature and character of God.

The reality is that though we live in a pluralistic society, our appeal to God and moral facts need to not be grounded in this pluralism. There is no objective, neutral place from which we can each derive our ethics, they are firmly rooted in how we understand ultimate reality. Glenn Beck is moving with dangerous imprecision in the realm of religion and ethics as he argues for an untenable cultural ideal, one which is more damaging to society in the long run. It is one thing to recognize that it is a pluralistic society that we live in, but we should not accept that as the way things ought to be. Whether it is because he is a Mormon or because he is on a nationally televised show, Beck's appeal to God is so general that it is essentially pointless. Perhaps it's time for his program to remain focused entirely on the Constitution and the idiocy coming from Washington DC and to exit stage right the realm of religious ethics.

Life Without the Opposite Sex: Why Not?

2010-08-09T17:00:00.002-05:00

Women should never "settle" with a man in order to have a child. Granted, women are created by God to have longings for procreating and nurturing, and I believe this is evidenced in the fact that women will go to all kinds of technological extremes to have their own biological children. But this desire should never supersede the proper context ordained for raising children. While there are purportedly many different family models that work in our world today, the family model that is the true cornerstone of civilization, that honors God and respects life at all stages, is one that begins with a God-centered relationship between one man and one woman. A woman who "settles" so that the alarm on her biological clock does not sound before the childbearing milestone slips through her fingers is the personification of self-centeredness. Actress Jennifer Aniston argues that women should not settle, not because of any reason I just offered, but because so many other options (assisted reproductive technologies - ARTs) are available to women today.

“Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child...Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you waited too long.”

Aniston made this statement at a press conference discussing her new movie, The Switch, another story about a woman who decides to get pregnant with the help of a sperm donor.This movie is certainly not the first to discuss the options women have in this biotech century, The Switch comes after two other recent movies about sperm donors including The Back-Up Plan and The Kids Are All Right. Going mainstream with these options is not just about promoting scientific progress in reproductive technologies, but about removing so-called prejudice against alternative families. But we shouldn't be surprised that Hollywood would be the purveyor of secular-feminist propaganda.

Christianity Today recently asked some evangelical leaders about their response to the defeat of Prop 8 in California. Matthew Anderson's comments speak well for what I believe should be the church's focus in areas of bioethics and women's issues in general.

Practically, I think we have relied too heavily on the will of the majority as our foundation for our legal actions. While political orders must on some level be representative of the people to be legitimate, our founding fathers set up a representative democracy for a reason. Without rejecting efforts like Proposition 8, politically conservative evangelicals should shift their focus toward equipping the next generation of leaders with the philosophical and theological training they need to affect society and government from the "top-down." Majorities are unstable, and while traditional marriage has the upper hand now, it may not in 20 years.

Christians definitely need to stay engaged in the public square on all issues that continue to impact our culture, but in agreement with Matthew Anderson, we need to be intentional and focused about equipping the next generation to think through these issues theologically, and prepare our future Christian citizens and leaders to be unabashedly Christian as they argue these issues in the market place. But this isn't just about the future of culture, but the future of the church and the role that Scripture plays in the lives of believers. New traditions will be in place in a few short years, and terms like "traditional marriage" and "traditional family" will have been shed of all meaning. But terms like "biblical marriage" and "biblical family" will always have meaning because they always point to a source.

But back to Aniston's comments, she is correct, women today don't have to "settle" in order to have children--from a technological perspective, anyway. But without a Christian worldview framework to consider the purpose and role of family and childbearing, what more can we expect? No matter what the law or science may permit, the people can willingly reject it when they have the ability to think theologically.

The High Calling of the Christian Woman

2010-08-05T10:23:00.001-05:00

Surrogacy, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), egg “donation”, and even certain forms of contraception are considered by many women–including Christian women–valid options for addressing their reproductive dilemmas despite the embryo-destructive nature often associated with these advancements in technology.

Over the years, I have known many women in churches who have traveled down these paths only to suffer the pain of knowing their very prolife intentions have led to some not-so-prolife results. For some, they have come to understand that the embryos they placed in frozen storage for future “use” are their children whether or not they are eventually born or do not survive the process of implantation. Others are still learning that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is not actually a therapeutic treatment of their very tiny children, but a means of discarding imperfect offspring, a technological “achievement” grounded in a philosophy that says only certain lives are worth living. PGD has come to be a routine practice as IVF has come to be more about quality control.

We continue to love and minister to the women and families who have found themselves in these unfortunate circumstances without being fully informed; ridicule and rebuke have no place as there is so much misinformation about these issues. But as a matter of proactive, educational ministry, women in the church must learn more about these decisions they are contemplating.

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On Being a Neighbor

2010-07-18T21:14:00.000-05:00

We see this happen in media interviews all the time. They have come to be known as “gotchya” questions where the interviewer takes joy in setting up a scenario that the responder must either refuse to answer, or he is forced to stumble through the answer to the satisfaction of the interviewer and/or the audience. This is similar to the attempt to trip-up Jesus when asked which commandment is the greatest of them all. A Pharisee, and interestingly a lawyer, posed the question perhaps counting on Jesus to make a misstep and pit one precept against another. How then could Jesus claim to be any sort of authority? The Pharisees could take gratification in his lack of understanding and enjoy his public humiliation. But ultimate truth cannot be destroyed, even by a lawyer driven by an agenda of deception.

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CBHD Beyond Therapy Bioethics Conference

2010-07-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

The 17th Annual Conference on Bioethics opened with Dr. William Hurlbut speaking on Embodiment, Biotechnology and Human Dignity. In it, he reminded the crowd that "bioethics is not a profession, it is a conversation for the whole human family"and the physician is really only "nature's assistant." For Dr. Hurlbut, human dignity is most evident in the face of Christ. Not in keeping with a proper view of human mortality, he quoted the mission of those for an unfettered biotech future. William Haseltine, head of Human Genome Sciences, stated: “The real goal is to keep people alive forever.”

Dr Brent Waters of Garrett Theological Seminary spoke on Late Modern Medicine and Bioethics, drawing our attention to the Creator-creation distinction and reminding us that it is good to be a creature, but being a creature comes with limitations that should be embraced, not overcome.

It is good to be a creature. To be a creature requires that we have a beginning and an end. A creature depends on its creator and fellow creatures. Our creaturely status reminds us that we are not God. When we tend to ignore our status as creatures, we tend to view ourselves as self-made beings.

In Being Human in a World of Digitized Reality and Artificial Life, Dr. Mike Sleasman, Managing Director of CBHD, walked us through the technological forecasts of Sir Robert Boyle and Sir Arthur C. Clarke, contemplating those things yet to be achieved. Sleasman well-articulated the problem of the "consumer doctrine of planned obsolescence."

To conclude the day, Dr. Dorothy Roberts of Northwestern University discussed Race and the New Biocitizen. In this very interesting talk, she drew attention to a particular problem of unnecessary correlations between race and genetics, highlighting the FDA statements and marketing of certain phamaceutical to the african-american population.

To obtain recordings of these and other paper presentations, visit The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity for more info. More highlights from the rest of the conference tomorrow!

Is IVF a Sin?

2010-07-05T19:33:00.002-05:00

On an internet discussion board, several (Christian and non-Christian) have been interacting on the question of whether IVF is, according to Christianity, a sin. Without going into tremendous detail here, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) is an artificial reproductive technology (ART) used to fertilize a woman's egg outside of her body and implant it into her uterus later. The process may move as quickly as having one egg fertilized and immediately implanted, or the process may be longer where several eggs are fertilized and 2-3 are implanted and several embryos stored for use another time. And then there are variations in between as well as some extreme circumstances like the so-called Octomom story of 1009. Some couples choose to have the embryos screened for genetic defects or gender, never implanting the "bad" ones. Others will freeze and store dozens of eggs, not knowing exactly what will become of them in the future. Some of the debate over embryonic stem cell research stems from the existence of hundreds of thousands of embryos that are currently in storage, many of which will never be claimed by their parents. Yes, I said parents.

So below is the discussion which caught my attention:
I don't know that IVF is a sin. I have issues with it, but they are only my opinion, and I have no Biblical reference for it or any other reference. Some of my issues include fertilization of numerous embryos: what do they do with the ones they don't implant? If they implant several embryos, what happens if they all implant? I know several people who were offered selective abortion, which I believe is wrong. And when it comes to choosing gender, I just think that is way wrong.
However, I would not presume to judge you for undergoing IVF. It is ultimately your choice. If you have prayed about it and strongly feel it is the right thing to do, then go for it.

It's a good thing we don't make all of our decisions according to the few final words in this emotional recommendation. She believes there is something wrong with the use of IVF if it involves the creation of unused embryos, the destruction of embryos, or sex-selection. Her concern is rooted in the concept of human dignity, that life is precious and worthy of respect at every stage. Sadly, she does not explain that the embryo is a human at its earliest stage and destroying a tiny human person is to kill that person. If we think something is wrong, we ought to be able to say why, but perhaps she was driven by the higher moral principle to not judge. That one she claims without hesitation and it appears to be at the top of her moral hierarchy. Is this the kind of advice we should be giving for any questionable situation? "Pray about it and if it feels right...." ? Perhaps "continue to seek wisdom and knowledge from others AND continue to pray" is the better course.

So the question is, is IVF a sin? Let's rephrase it. Is killing another person a sin? If the technology involves the destruction of human embryos, we are in safe, though sad, territory identifying the act with an act of sin.

Will Socialism Save Evangelicalism?

2010-06-29T14:47:00.000-05:00

As everyone becomes increasingly uncomfortable with global economic woes, many of which have been brought on by big-government economic policies, I have to wonder if this could actually be good for the church. America's history of prosperity can be understood to be the result of divine blessing, solid economic policy, or a providential combination. Yet maybe since this is all Americans today are familiar with--the comfort of prosperity--we are being forced to draw closer to God and consider the deeper meaning of trusting God in every single area of life. I am no friend of socialist policies that bring higher taxes and income redistribution, but I am all about seeing God at work, and maybe...just maybe we are edging closer to another great awakening.

What Are We Waiting For? Bioethics & the Progressive Agenda

2010-06-20T17:55:00.000-05:00

For whatever reason, the six-year venture of the Women's Bioethics Project has come to an end with a recent announcement that they are closing their doors. But their work is not really finished, it is evolving. Kathryn Hinsch writes on the organization's website:

We need ways to reach people outside of the academic and policy realms. Leveraging the power of popular culture is a compelling strategy that engages the public in a visceral and dramatic way. Many emerging technologies and ideas were unimaginable until recently. Genetic testing, designer babies, radical life extension, and neural imaging, to name just a few, are still in their infancy. And there is a great opportunity for determining how these issues are framed in the public mind. Policy will follow public opinion, so we must ensure progressive values are part of the national conversation.

Christian bioethics similarly needs a strategy to educate and equip those in the pew. Academic materials are not easily translated and filtered down to families who I personally know are engaging in embryo screening and pursing IVF without the ability to acknowledge some of the theological considerations or tragic outcomes. A new project I am embarking in with The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity is a church bioethics council which seeks to develop lay-level materials for the church. Christians will (hopefully) not only be better equipped to engage these ethical dilemmas in their own circumstances, but also equipped to impact culture with a theological view of bioethics that recognizes the dignity of all humans, no matter their age or stage, above a progressive bioethics agenda that seeks whatever science will permit. Kathryn Hinsch has a great insight, that in order to inform public policy, people outside of the academy and political realms need to be reached. What Christian bioethics has that secular bioethics does not have is a gathering place for a concerted educational impact to occur.

Conjoined Twins and Christian bioethics

2010-06-09T09:17:00.000-05:00

Abortion was never an option, nor is a do-not-resuscitate order (DNR). Her conjoined twins, which have survived long past the time doctors deemed possible, are become less stable each day. It’s hard for the Chicago Tribune article to give us all the facts, but what do you understand about life saving options vs. those which unnecessarily prolong death? What is your church teaching you about these bioethical questions? continue reading...

Living in the Shadow of Truth

2010-05-26T11:43:00.000-05:00

You can’t say that Christianity is true for everyone because that’s just how you were raised.
How prepared are you to respond to this statement without pitting faith against reason? What I mean is, do you respond by saying that Christianity does not meet the demands of logic and reason, you just have to believe, and that’s the end of the discussion? Or do you unpack the assertion by challenging its fundamental assumptions? The assertion that Christian belief is merely cultural, a set of values passed down from parents to children and therefore not something that can be considered true or false, can be destructive and discouraging to the mind of the believer because of a misapplied truth...

continue reading...

Christian Ed. and the Risks of On-the-Job Training

2010-03-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

Just about every evangelical church has lay people positioned as elders and teachers, rarely with formal theological training. Obviously, formal training doesn’t necessarily make one a good teacher, but it gives warrant to the belief that the person has a certain degree of knowledge of what they are trying to teach. But as a teacher, how much more does he or she need to know beyond that of the students? Is it appropriate, as the adult in the room, to be learning along side the students? (This may be an overstatement.) That’s something of a rhetorical question, because my current position on this is that, while teachers don’t need to know everything to the degree of having seminary education, they must have basic familiarity with the concepts whereby they can refresh themselves in further study and can actually lead the students without hampering their learning with on-the-job training. I’m curious what kind of training your churches offer in order to equip each teacher for their particular context.

I recently brought this up to a friend who suggested leadership development whereby teachers can learn to relate with their students and learn about the role of character in their leadership, becoming better teachers as a result. But that escapes the nature of my concern because even if a teacher is equipped at the most basic level, I’m not sure we are doing enough to take them to them further. Has the church made so much out of leadership development that we have neglected the equipping our teachers with the content they need to be truly effective? Not every teacher is a leader, yet the church is inundated with leadership conferences, books, and other materials. Everyone wants to lead and learn how to lead. But who wants to study? With anti-intellectualism rampant in the church, I say few really care to study.

Currently, I have one of the best teaching pastors I have ever known, I am blessed. But I’m unconvinced that Sunday morning is sufficient for equipping teachers for their own work. Whether Sunday school or youth ministry or adult studies, the gambit of information runs from basic Bible knowledge to apologetics and theological understanding. Pastors can’t do it all, and they definitely can’t do it all on Sunday morning, but maybe they could do more in the church if more direct training is required for all engaged in teaching ministry. Unfortunately, so much of teaching has been reduced to nonteaching. What I mean is that women are often not teaching Bible studies, they are facilitating, plopping in a video and asking “how does that verse make you feel?” The same may be said of Sunday school teachers who use prepackaged curriculum and are simply guiding 3^rd graders in self-study. Can’t we do better?

The picture I have drawn here may be overly pessimistic. I know many good lay teachers are out there. But I also know a lot of theological incompetence exists, but the training available for non-pastors is limited, especially when the teacher doesn’t quite know what he needs. This is a local church issue and we need to do more than hope lay teachers find iTunesU or read a few interesting blogposts.

What Would Jesus Do? Compassion in Conflict

2010-03-22T22:23:00.003-05:00

From a Christian point of view, the virtue of compassion is rooted in the character of God and exemplified by the saving work of Christ. His was an example (though not merely an example) of ultimate compassion, giving completely of himself not out of compulsion but out of pure sacrificial love and devoid of political motivations. It is a model of compassion that we can only live out analogously because we fail to meet the standard of pure selflessness. For Jesus, he willingly chose to lose when he had already won. He is God! We strive, and with God’s power we achieve, but due to the fallen state of things, someone inevitably encounters our weaknesses. But we still seek to be compassionate.

Caring for society’s most vulnerable is part of our mission as the church and one that Christians take very seriously and act upon on a daily basis. The poor, the widows, the children—these are a few segments of society to which scripture explicitly challenges us to give of ourselves. And God’s church understands that the gospel without a cup of cold water isn’t very good news. Could we do better? Obviously.

As it pertains to the recent passage of health care reform, some left-leaning Americans suggest that conservative, especially Christian conservatives, lack compassion because some—ok most—have been opposed to the health care reform bill in question. They abide by the bold assumption that the health care reform bill sits above other acts of compassion. It is better than creating jobs, it is better than smaller piecemeal options like opening of the state borders to more health insurance competition. It is better than simply working at the elimination of fraud and wasteful spending.

What would Jesus do? What would he think?

Some liberals think he would do what they did on Sunday night, the Lord’s Day as one representative reminded us. That was disorienting. He said it was time for the representatives to “walk by faith” and pass the bill. Would Jesus do health care reform as they have penned this legislation? Probably not. Jesus would turn over the tables in congress and tell them to stop making deals that squander funds that could help those in need…..if Jesus were invited to comment on the dealings, that is. The bottom line is left-leaning Americans seem to be saying that godly compassion necessarily includes health care insurance. Furthermore, they seem to think that health care is a need that overrides other acts of compassion and ought to be raised to the level of rights. Maybe Jesus would ask us to be better stewards of our financial resources or maybe he would ask us to view the economy as a fishes and loaves opportunity. None of us can know for sure what Jesus would say, he’d probably call us all out as fools. But what we can know is that we are often faced with moral conflicts and the methods of compassion can also conflict.

I know of no Christian conservative who takes joy in anyone lacking health care resources. But economic utopia is not possible on this side of eternity. Safety nets are in place like Medicaid to help families in need, and I know because I benefited from prenatal care through Medicaid in 1992-93. And by the way, it was top-notch. Yes, we can probably do more.

Like jobs and education, healthy families and hunger-relief, access to health care is something we would love for everyone to have. Which one takes priority? To suggest that health care is a natural right is to reduce rights to consumer goods. Rights cannot be sold or traded or granted, they can only be recognized in that they are inherent to being human. But a non-evolutionary view of humanity is required to agree with that statement. Or maybe it is true that Darwinian theory impacts absolutely everything, including health care policy. Public funds can only go so far and private industry will pass on additional expenses and tax hikes on to consumers because business doesn’t exist primarily for benevolence, and it shouldn’t because then it ceases to be a for-profit entity.

Compassion comes in a variety of forms, some better implemented than others. We might also ask who has the most to gain when compassion is implemented. The dignity of an individual is infringed upon when, in the name of compassion, someone profits from exploiting what others lack. But at this point, compassion is no more.

What Not to Wear: Conforming to the Image of God

2010-02-22T15:57:00.002-06:00

You aren't suppose to wear horizontal stripes or high-waisted pants with certain body shapes. And you definitely need to get rid of those 1980's shoulder pads. Agree or not, this is some of the wisdom imparted by cable-tv fashionistas Clinton and Stacy whose aim is to help everyday women look their best according to their own body type and life context. In order to be on the show, one has to be willing to let Clinton and Stacy go through their closet, allowing them to critically assess and even dispose of those items that do anything other than truly flatter the person. The bottom line is that there just some things one ought not to wear. How true this is for our lives as followers of Jesus. Some traits we possess or actions we pursue simply do not correspond to a Christian wardrobe.

Colossians 3 (ESV) states:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is yourlife appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

We are called, as God's chosen ones, to not only avoid the ways of our former life, but to be deliberate about putting on those truths that conform to what it means to be Christlike. The example in Jesus shows us compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience in its ultimate form, all grounded in His perfect love. As we seek to understand the purity of those characteristics as practiced by Christ, we know that our spiritual wardrobe is growing more beautiful - as we grow closer to Christ and become more conformed to his image.

To take this illustration a step further, do you find yourself in an accountability relationship such that you are willing to let someone enter your spiritual closet and tell you what not to wear? Though redeemed, we still struggle with the old nature that prevents us from always being honest with ourselves. We are so willing to be self-deceived. This is my challenge to you today - as you are committed to growing in your relationship with God, grow in your relationship with another woman of faith and be for each what we generally prefer not to be for ourselves. But above all, put on love.

Women Telling the Story

2010-01-28T21:33:00.000-06:00

Without dispute, women’s voices in the local church have incredible significance, as these voices give way to a greater understanding of how women think and experience God and the Christian life. Any dispute generally has to do with the realm where these voices are heard, but for certain both men and women have much to learn about each other and how God is at work through these stories and experiences.

In her recent post, Tracey Bianchi wrote about the significance of women’s voices as teachers in the local church.

"…a woman proclaiming God’s Word with hands that smell like marinated artichokes can hit the heart of another woman in a way men cannot…women have stories to tell about life and God, just as our male partners on the journey do. The chance to preach from their perspectives is honoring God’s call to the community of Christ."

Though I am not committed to Tracey’s ultimate conclusions in terms of how this plays out in the pulpit, her position is clearly grounded in an authentic love for the community of believers and for God. And I embrace her core argument that there is tremendous value for men learning more about how women experience the Christian life. In further agreement, we as women teachers can reach women in ways men simply cannot—because of our shared experiences.

To what degree are women in your church equipped, encouraged, and positioned to proclaim God’s Word to one another? Local churches need mature, believing women to mentor one on one—that’s a given—but also to teach in corporate settings. And yes, I mean the women in the local church and not the special speakers who, by default, do a bulk of this kind of teaching. It is necessary to add that these teaching gifts must be modeled to women by women in the local church so that recognition of these gifts in future leaders is not overshadowed by the notion of unattainable celebrity status.

But this is where we need to be very clear about the nature of corporate educational opportunities in women’s ministry. It’s not so much that Christ will be proclaimed from a woman’s perspective or point of view, because the Word of God contains objective and unchanging truths as well as timeless stories that ultimately bring us to the foot of the Cross—regardless of gender. We can think of this as a redeemed human point of view, not so much a gender-influenced perspective. Yet there is still something about the notion of a “woman’s perspective” that deserves consideration.

Dorothy Sayers, theologian and female-extraordinaire, deals with the question of the “woman’s point of view” in her book Are Women Human? While she recognizes that women often share a great deal common experience that she calls “special knowledge,” she poignantly asks …what in thunder is the women’s perspective on the devaluation of the franc or the abolition of the Danzig Corridor? You may be wondering what the Danzig Corridor is, something that a basic Google search can resolve, but I think you get the point, and we must be clear about this.

When Christ is proclaimed, we aren’t really proclaiming Christ from a woman’s perspective any more than we can explain America’s economic crisis from a woman’s perspective, though we can explain its effect in the experience and perspective of being a woman. What we are really doing is teaching how to apply the theological truths we gather from Scripture to our lives as women. We are reflecting on how we live out our faith, even giving consideration to how we once lived as children of wrath…as women.

How we actually understand the meaning of Scripture is not going to differ from how men understand it, and in fact many of our experiences—because we are human—will correlate. Of course, we bring life experience and a worldview framework to our interpretation of Scripture. But if we are doing what we are suppose to be doing, we are utilizing a historical-grammatical biblical hermeneutic that helps us to avoid interpreting through the lens of our own experiences and discover as much is possible the intended meaning of the writers. Great care needs to be taken so as to avoid a feminist hermeneutic that begins with the authority of the feminine experience instead of the authority of Scripture.

When women invite other women to the person of Christ through the message of Scripture, our experience as women permits us to communicate what it means to lead a God-centered life through the joys, trials, and tribulations that are associated with being a woman. We ought not underestimate the value of this as we consider whether or not women’s ministry plays an important role in the local church.

Cross-posted at Gifted for Leadership

Radical Christianity and the Public Square

2010-01-14T06:53:00.000-06:00

As Christians called to be agents of good news in a fallen world, we find our method and our message within the text of scripture. By method, I don’t refer to the exact way we accomplish ministry in various contexts, but who we are and what we portray of Christianity in the process—our character. It is virtually impossible to separate the message of the Gospel from the messenger, so we are called to love God, our neighbors, avoid immorality and speak in a way that doesn’t revile God among unbelievers. That doesn’t mean, of course, that every person who calls him or herself a Christian doesn’t depart from the life of spiritual integrity—as we know, sadly, it sometimes happens. As well, scripture provides no place for a deceitful, manipulative gospel that drags people to the altar. These have nothing to do with the content of Christianity but are reflective of Christ-less living. It is the deliberate acts of love and communication of the Gospel as truth that reveal to man his own fallenness and make attractive the Christian faith.

But as I said, we screw up. We shouldn’t embrace our screw ups, but we do screw up. And because our worldview is one of exclusive claims and has a the moral bar set far above the bar established by the world we live in, unbelievers are often eager to profit from our failings. For them, our failings represent either evidence of an inept system—somehow proof that Christianity is not the truth it claims to be, or at least that the message is tainted and the truth denied. Be that as it may, Christianity is a perfect system in that it best accounts for life’s ultimate questions and brings to the world real hope and change through redemption found in the blood of Christ. These facts are true despite the despicable behavior of some who profess Christianity. Radical.

Speaking of radical, Saul Alinsky is one who sought to profit from the moral failures of Christians (or any other opposition group) so his system could actually justify deceitful and manipulative tactics. The tone of “Rules for Radicals” is essentially this: that if Christians can be shown to be hypocrites, we can lower the bar of morality and function with what appears to be a higher level of integrity within a system that requires much less. This can be seen explicitly in Alinsky’s fourth rule in his section on Tactics where he writes “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christians can live up to Christianity.” (p. 128) This is followed by the fifth rule which claims that “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition who then react to your advantage.”

Attacking Christianity is always easier when you point out and attribute to it that which plagues all humanity—our sinfulness—and argue in such a way that incites a response that appears at least to compromise the system being defended. And when you claim to be a relativist, political and otherwise, you—as an organizer—can position yourself as an authoritative, objective onlooker simply analyzing the bias and hypocrisy before you. This isn’t radical, this is cowardly and intellectually dishonest.

Christianity in the public square needs to drive home the fact that everyone has a worldview and an agenda. In the process, Christianity in the public square must also work diligently to remain truly Christian and not compromise itself in the eyes of the self-proclaimed opposition. We should welcome being held to the standards of our own “rule book” and not veer away from the dogma that defines us, because it is the dogma that sustains us. If we pretend to have this same worldview-less position, we open ourselves up to the failure that the unbelieving world is awaiting, because even if Christians in the public square aren’t quoting chapter and verse, the opposition is sophisticated enough to know that it is from there that we derive our principles for life. I think we should be more honest with ourselves, about how Christian we really want to be among non-Christians in culture today. Or is that too radical?

Out of Focus: Still Obsessed with Self-Image

2010-01-11T06:48:00.002-06:00

Dove did it first with their ads a few years ago. Now Vogue is featuring plus size models, attempting to prove that there is room in the fashion industry for women who don't disappear when they turn sideways. As encouraging as it is to see a new perspective on beauty, one can't help to wonder if there is an element of exploitation involved, as if the plus size model could ever become a norm in the industry. The novelty will soon wear off because, as we know, this is an industry motivated by externals and, ultimately, by dollars.

Size 1 or size 14, we are obviously still a society focused on self-image and sexuality, and the message young women are receiving is still the same--you have no option but to focus on and communicate your sexuality to be of any value in our culture today. Suggesting that this is a "healthier" take on body size and shape is to impugn our intellect, a set-back for women everywhere.

As believers, we need to tackle the obsession of self-image with teaching and reflection on the image of God. Having been created in this image, how we are to live our lives ought to reflect the desire to be holy, committed followers of Jesus. That means, whether a size 1 or a size 14, we communicate with our mouths and our bodies a message that glorifies God. What young women struggle with in terms of identity and purpose is not properly addressed with an out-of-focus view on our sexuality. As most of us get older, our externals tend to be of little interest to anyone and the despair associated with rejection may be overwhelming to the woman of tomorrow. Of course, our externals are often a reflection of the condition of the heart, so they do matter to that degree. But unless we are equipping women to live their whole lives in a way that pleases the Lord, they will constantly revert back to a self-esteem sought through a compromised personal ethic. The question of who we are and what we think should take priority over how we feel, and as refreshing as it is to see models who look more like the real women in today's world, nothing has really changed.

Brit Hume's Worldview Critique

2010-01-03T15:08:00.000-06:00

Even for Fox News, this is surprising, yet this is how every believer ought to be prepared to respond--telling the truth with meekness and gentleness. Likely, Brit Hume's statement will be regarded as arrogant and closed-minded, but Buddhism doesn't provide for the needs of forgiveness and redemption and it will be interesting to hear the responses to his critique of Buddhism.

Is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican?

2009-11-29T14:54:00.005-06:00

It’s stupid to even entertain the question. But every time I see it posed, it isn’t for getting people to focus on issues instead of remaining blind devotees to political parties. Intentional or not, it often serves as a way to distract people from important issues that do deserve our attention. “How can we come together as a nation instead of remaining so divided?” The unspoken fallacy occurs when it is stated that Jesus was neither a democrat or a republican. Are we really suppose to believe he wouldn’t have had a view on abortion, embryonic stem cell research, or gay marriage? When the highest moral value of a culture is unity at the expense of principle, there is no real unity and we can wonder if principles ever existed in the first place.

So when people in the pews hear their church leaders espouse this same ideal, that we should be cautious about political partisanship (generously stated), I’m not convinced the people are sophisticated enough to know that they aren’t being (or shouldn’t be) told to abandon positions on issues that are thought out and held up against the light of scripture. I know that many in the church are ill-equipped to think theologically about their personal lives, let alone matters that face our entire culture. So I have to wonder if this lack of distinction between public issues and politics in general even matters if the church is unable to think theologically, if its members are just starting to develop a Christian worldview.

Could the above reflections have any relationship to the fact that of the millions of evangelicals in the U.S., less than of us 200,000 have signed on to the Manhattan Declaration? And many of the signers are likely Roman Catholic.

Worship in Silence

2009-11-25T18:49:00.011-06:00

This is a topic I've been reflecting on for awhile now, so while I know it doesn't fit ideally with the current Thanksgiving motif, I didn't want to squander these thoughts.

I don't often navigate in the world of worship ministry, so I have no idea if or to what extent this has been a topic of discussion. However, I am not so sheltered that I am unaware of the debates over contemporary vs. traditional music/worship services. Ok, so by now you're wondering where I am going...here it is.

Visiting a church last weekend in Wisconsin, I discovered that I was unable to participate in very much of the singing portion of the service. No, I didn't have laryngitis, and though I'm typically quite bashful with my fellow congregants on Sunday morning, I am not prevented from my time with the Lord in song...unless I don't know the song. This isn't something inherent to visiting a church, sometimes I experience this in my own church. There are times when I can't participate even a little in some of the songs because I'm given only words by projector, I have no access to any of the musical notation--unless it happens to be in a hymnal, which is rare in my experience.

Petty concern? Perhaps you're right, maybe it is. But I persist. I recollect as a child that before I knew how to read music, I closely examined the musical notation in the hymnals. Worship was something I was always able to participate in because at the very least, I could follow the directionality of the notes. I knew when to sing higher or lower....and after more experience with the notation, I was able to determine which notes moved faster than others. Once I did learn how to read music, participation became even easier and, in my opinion, more fruitful.

Prior to my interest in theological studies, I was playing the trumpet actively and passionately, to the extent that I was involved in leading instrumentalists on a worship team. When I began my theological studies, I began to ponder the relationship between music and God. For instance, inherent to music is logic. It makes mathematical sense and is as coherent as a grammatically correct sentence. It also manages to speak to our affections, even without lyrics. That doesn't mean that we will always like or enjoy every manifestation of music, but it does always seem to make sense, even when it doesn't. Music often enjoys the paradox of being logical and beautiful, and in my case there was the byproduct of helping me learn fractions. I will spare you that particular detail.

My understanding of music history is very weak. I don't know anything about the history of notation or when it became common to use notation within congregational worship settings. The Psalms, obviously, are full of references to music and worship and the New Testament references the importance of corporate worship and individual participation (Colossians 3:16). But corporate worship requires the involvement of each of us as individuals. I am left to wonder if, not only has the seeker movement or other similar phenomenons proved damaging to the church by adding the hi-tech aspects to worship in order to make it entertaining or friendly, does the inability of the individual to participate reinforce the idea of the worship-performance team?

Are we also raising up generations of young people who may never enjoy the language of music because they are seldom exposed to it in its written form? Will they ever experience God the way generations before them have discovered truth in musical scales, chords, and rhythms often learned through the visual?

These are just some of my thoughts. I've been around church for a lot of years, so when I discover that I don't know some of the more contemporary songs and choruses, I wonder how much more a new believer is in the dark. Not only is there the risk of alienating visitors to a congregation, but the church may even come across as clique-y because of the manner in which worship is portrayed.

Women's Discipleship Seminar - Worldview & Autonomy

2009-11-20T20:12:00.002-06:00

Life, Doctrine and Women's Ministry

2009-10-31T22:12:00.001-05:00

Also posted at Gifted for Leadership

Whether through books, Bible studies, retreats, or conferences, a central focus of women’s ministry has been on the practical dimensions of Christian living, either presupposing the theological understanding of the audience—which isn’t always wrong to do—or simply neglecting to ground the practical in a richer theological framework.

Of course, I’m not suggesting we aren’t teaching women Scripture, but in the rush to fill in the blanks, we aren’t teaching women to handle the Word as theologians. Some women’s ministry leaders have made statements that undermine the process of doing theology, suggesting that because knowing theology is not provisional for salvation that somehow it lacks practical value. We are good at teaching principles and precepts from the Word, but are we communicating interdependence between life and doctrine? Is there a place of theological education in the context of women’s ministry?

“Life and doctrine are interdependent.” These are the words of John Frame who serves as the chair of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. From his book, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, he argues for a more integrated understanding of the practical and the theoretical, suggesting that one cannot exist without the other. He writes: “The Greek terms based on didasko typically refer in the Pastoral Epistles to a teaching of the word of God that leads to spiritual health. This is ‘sound’ or ‘healthy’ teaching. So doctrine, defined as this kind of teaching, also has an ethical goal. It is not given to us merely for intellectual contemplation.”

Life and doctrine were never intended to be separated and any attempt to teach about the day to day Christian life without Christian doctrine provides for a limited or empty experience. By ethical, Frame is referencing the ongoing process of sanctification of becoming more conformed to the image of God.

Granted, the “ivory towers” of academia have given at least the perception that the theoretical has no real relationship with the daily struggles of everyday people, but the content and tapestry of our worldview plays an extremely relevant role to how we live. This means that what we believe (or don’t believe) directly impacts our daily lives. As Christian women who are able to spend time together in small groups, Bible studies, retreats, and conferences, a more concentrated focus needs to be devoted to teaching women to own the content of their faith so that they are equipped to apply the eternal truths of Scripture to their lives on their own.

What Should Christians Really Expect?

2009-10-28T13:00:00.001-05:00

Also posted at First Things

It is being reported today that Christianity is undergoing yet an assault via loons in the entertainment industry. There’s not much new about that. In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David urinates on a painting of Jesus, causing a woman to believe the painting depicts him crying, as if a miracle has occurred.

Two things cross my mind as I read more about this story. First, as Christians why is this so shocking? It is disturbing, but these are not followers of Christ perpetrating these actions. It’s not like we can expect them to act as believers if, indeed, they are not.

Secondly, perhaps we actually contribute to the problem of political correctness by demanding that we, as representatives of Christianity, be treated with the same so-called tolerance and respect offered to other worldviews. I hear it framed this way frequently by conservative pundits, let me apply it to this case: “Well if this was a picture of Mohammad you would act less offensively.”

No doubt Christianity is the red-headed step child (how’s that for pc?) of contemporary culture, but this provides for an opportunity to speak truth, not suppress it in some sort of worldview fairness doctrine.

Moral Reform & Ministry to Women: an excerpt

2009-10-27T11:11:00.003-05:00

Also posted at First Things

With a sense of urgency, the body of Christ needs to be equipped to give an answer to obstacles and objections to faith as a matter of discipleship within the church as well as for the gospel ministry each member of the body has outside of the church. And how we live from the point of conversion onward will reflect to the world a certain degree of faithfulness to the truths we claim. Transgressions by well-known “family values” politicians who might otherwise be regarded as moral reformers in the years that follow their civil service are often regarded as a failure of the Christian worldview, leaving the church ashamed and silent. The old adage “talking the talk without walking the walk” is taking on a greater sense of relevance in this new century. And due to advancements in technology, sometimes the specific decisions that we face in life need a bit more ethical reflection than a congregation is generally equipped to face. The 21^st century believer is confronted by a plethora of ideas and decisions, and the church must stand firm and prepare her people to think theologically in such a way to impact all areas of life. We must prepare a place for deliberate theology, apologetics, and ethics education in the church, especially in the sphere of women’s ministry. Why particularly women’s ministry?

The experience of womanhood provides opportunity to address certain issues women in particular can relate to, and to disciple in a way that addresses deeply engrained ideas rooted in false belief, replacing them with truth. The choices that many women make about how to live—choices made prior to conversion and perhaps even early in their Christian walk—have consequences that come with them to the pew—when they eventually find the pew. Some of these consequences can never be eliminated, preventing them from finding functional reconciliation with biblical womanhood and related teachings. For instance, a single mother who has no choice but to work in order to care for her family can never fulfill the vision of womanhood that has her at home supporting a husband as head. Of course, this may be taught as the biblical ideal, but never being able to achieve it may have a significant effect on her relationship with God and those in her church. This is not to recommend the abandonment of biblical teachings on the family, church leadership, or parenting because they might seem irrelevant to the particular circumstances of many women. The issue I am raising is much larger.

The manner in which the teachings of biblical womanhood are often communicated is a “circle the wagons” approach for which a real potential exists to further marginalize women already on the fringes. Extra caution needs to be taken when communicating a pattern for living, especially to those whose day to day lives will probably never reflect a the model for marriage and family taught in scripture. Discipleship methods need to take into account that women are in a variety of places on their spiritual journey. Women whose lives will likely never arrive at what they have been taught about what God has ordained for marriage and the family are often left floundering, in a never-ending battle to please God. This biblical ideal is so highly regarded that often, little emphasis is spent on equipping all women to glorify God within their current reality.

Indeed, the church must continue to defend a family structure that glorifies God as reflected in scripture so that families might not be influenced or tainted by the whims of culture. But the church must also be intentional about educating and equipping the individuals and broken families who, by the leading of the Spirit, have found their way to the community of believers, but whose day to day life more closely resembles the ways of the world. This is, I believe, more a matter of Christian education than of therapy, the direction women’s ministry often tends to lean.

Conversion changes our position before God, but it does not immediately change the way we think or how we live in our particular circumstances. Women from all backgrounds certainly do need to understand what scripture teaches about the family, because they are being called to effectively impart those teachings to their children, unbelieving husbands, and perhaps other members of their family. In this sense, we must continue to affirm and actively embrace what scripture teaches regarding biblical womanhhood. But these women also desperately need to develop a fuller, more complete theology so that they can make sense out of their circumstances and critically consider how to live to the glory of God in all areas of life for the rest of their life. Trying “to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” in various circumstances is one of the greatest challenges for women today. This is virtually impossible if we continue to circle the wagons and communicate a message that essentially excludes women on the fringes.

Have the Doctrine-Obsessed Lost Touch with the Heart of Jesus?

2009-10-25T18:00:00.000-05:00

The title of this post begs the question, who are the doctrine-obsessed and is that an accurate assessment of them? In the Washington Post’s Evangelicals Feel a Need for Renewal, this is one of many perspectives on what’s wrong with evangelicalism as discussed at a recent conference at Gordon-Conwell:

Richard Alberta, senior pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brighton, Mich., said preoccupations with doctrinal purity help explain why he struggles to round up other evangelicals to join him at anti-abortion events.

“When you get evangelicals among themselves, instead of addressing the social and moral issues, they get backwatered into some debate about dispensationalism or Calvin or Charismatic Renewal,” Alberta said. “There’s lots of suspicion, and those worries seem to act as filters that keep evangelicals from getting together.”

Similar frustrations were expressed by Travis Hutchinson, pastor of Highlands Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in America) in Lafayette, Ga. He said he routinely gets a cool response from other evangelicals when he asks them to join his efforts to minister among undocumented immigrants.

The problem, he said, is that the doctrine-obsessed have lost touch with the heart of Jesus. “The missing ingredient is not the primacy of the mind and doctrine,” Hutchinson said. “It’s the willingness to suffer.”

Is it the lack of cohesive doctrine that inspires the focus on doctrine? Scripture calls us not only to unity in mission, but also in unity in message.

Evangelicalism, Ethics, & Eggshells

2009-10-23T19:33:00.001-05:00

Teaching ethics in a local junior college is a great opportunity to impact minds in my community. A somewhat ancillary discussion we have had in class is the usage of moral and ethical–terms with no meaningful distinction, though sometimes associated with different quadrants of society (e.g. business & ethics, religion & morality). Within evangelicalism, we similarly have our own usage for these terms, adding to the list Christian living and growing in Christ, among others.

continue reading...

Moral Relativism on "Community"

2009-09-19T20:22:00.002-05:00

Critical Thinking for Faithful Living

2009-09-09T06:44:00.004-05:00

What follows is the core content of a public talk and group study currently under development and to be presented on November 14 at The Orchard Church. Let me know if you are interested in attending!

Critical Thinking for Faithful Living

Christians can find studies on virtually any topic, ranging from the individual books in the Bible, themes and topics found in scripture, as well as general Christian living topics that might include finance, modesty, and parenting. As well, many books and studies are available that offer an analysis of contemporary culture or on the topic of apologetics—defending the faith—a sub-discipline of systematic theology. Still, scores of other books can be found on the central doctrines of the Church.

No single study can take care of every intellectual need. But for the most part, most studies presuppose the ability to effectively reason through the theme or topic. This may be a fact for many people, but it should not to be an element of study taken for granted. The purpose of this study is to address some significant areas of thinking that relate to how we understand the intersection of our faith with world around us. As Christians, we spend a lot of time considering what we believe and why we believe it, a necessary pursuit for every follower of Jesus. But at the same time, there is often a tendency to develop or allow some habits of the mind to go unexamined, some habits that may render us unable to properly assess ideas, actions, and systems of thought in the world around us and in our own personal lives.

Critical Thinking for Faithful Living seeks to address some of ways in which we approach scripture, theology, and how we understand the nature of truth. Do we grant ourselves authority as the final arbiter of truth? Do we see logical fallacies in our own reasoning and/or in the arguments of others? Are those contradictions in the Bible? Are not faith and reason as separate as church and state? These questions are an example of what we will consider in this study.

As we disciple others in the faith, we must do them an important service—teaching them how to think as well as what to think. Of course, we can point new believers to the passages that point to Jesus’ deity, to his resurrection, or any other pertinent fact in scripture. But how they process and reconcile this information with what they have been taught prior to conversion or simply with what they are currently exposed to is as relevant as this new information itself. Each one of us comes to the table with a set of ideas or beliefs about Christianity or religion in general that frame the way we interpret or think about the newest ideas that enter our mind. By the power of the Holy Spirit and the willingness of our minds, every thought must be taken captive to the obedience of Christ (1 Cor 10:5).

1. The Great Divorce – the heart & the head

2. Thinking vs. Feeling

3. Contradiction...or Paradox?

4. Truth: Absolute or Relative?

5. Truth: Independent of the Knower

6. The Courtship of Faith & Reason

7. To Judge or Not to Judge…

8. Morality and (In)Tolerance

9. Authority and Reason

10. The Christian Worldview

Women in Ministry: Between the Pulpit & the Kitchen

2009-08-17T10:47:00.001-05:00

Almost every day the debate simmers over the role of women in the church, a topic that appears to me to be escalating, potentially causing further fragmentation in the Christian community. Each blog post, article, and conversation rightly involves discussion of relevant scriptural texts including passages out of Genesis, Ephesians and 1 Timothy. And in every instance, people who represent each side of the argument find themselves unable to be persuaded otherwise. Some choose to disagree agreeably, remaining amiable to their theological adversary while others persist in exactly the opposite, lacking respect for one another and silencing healthy dialogue altogether.

This essay is a product of my engagement in the debate at various levels, with every desire to honor God in both my understanding of the issue and in my character as I interact with other believers—no matter their position. This essay is not intended to serve as defense for either side of the debate, though I make no effort to hide my views. This also is not a proposal for “balance” between the two dominant positions. Unlike some prominent voices in women’s ministry, I am not suggesting that the correct position is to be located somewhere in between as is often asserted about the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. That approach to locating theological truth is, at best, misleading in that it suggests it is generally found somewhere in the middle, never to be found with one of the “extremes.” This is a politically-motivated approach to doing theology, seeking to eliminate both mystery and conflict and puts at risk all knowledge claims.

What this essay is is an acknowledgement of what has been missed—to the best of my knowledge—among those on both sides of the debate. In a very real sense, we are being distracted by the debate of women’s roles in the church, failing to ask ourselves how we can appropriately integrate the gifts of these women into the body. Few wonder how we can think outside of the box about the areas women traditionally serve in the church even while many of these areas do not cohere with the gifts of these same women. I believe the time has come for us to move the discussion of women in ministry—at least temporarily—to a new geographical area. This is the area between the pulpit and the kitchen, a very large ministry-space where God has placed many to serve in a variety of capacities. The emphasis of this essay is that many women have a variety of gifts they know do not belong in the kitchen but may perceive them to belong in the pulpit because, for many of these women, there is no other ministry space that coheres with who God has made them.

To any competent student of the Word—male or female—pulpit ministry and the pastorate can be very attractive. So putting aside for a moment what scripture says about the qualifications for pastor and elder and the conversation-ender “no you can’t,” I believe it could actually benefit the church to learn more about the attraction both men and women have to this ministry. What do we know specifically about these women—their gifts and talents—who believe they are called to pastoral leadership in the church? What do we know about the tasks associated with the pastorate in relation to the women who desire the role? Can the church, for just a moment investigate this attraction and conclude by saying “we understand.”? This does not necessitate that the church change her position on this matter, compromise of theological truth is never appropriate. But an acknowledgement of the valid reasons why women might desire and pursue such roles has the potential to guide everyone in the conversation to implementation instead of alienation of these women and their gifts in the church. The attraction to pastoral leadership need not necessarily be reduced to woman’s “desire for her husband,” to fulfill her need to usurp authority at every turn. The knee-jerk “you’re a woman, you can’t” response must be replaced with an analysis of the kind of woman who seeks such a leadership role and consideration for how the church can better steward these gifts.

It is my assertion that these women with intellectual gifts of varying degrees can conceive of no other venue in the church for implementation. And I completely understand (though not agree) why it is they then claim the call to these roles. You have probably heard this same defense, “God gifted me this way, so I need to heed the call.” Or “Who am I to question God’s will?” With few other options for plugging in as members of the body with these particular gifts, their response makes sense.

But this should not be a surprise, either. In many churches, spiritual gift inventories and other personality instruments are utilized to learn more about the landscape of their particular corner of God’s church. Yet, I have seen few churches actually do anything constructive with the results.

As a complementarian, I am continually bothered by the lack of women in the church implementing their intellectual gifts as theologians, philosophers, apologists, ethicists, economists and so forth because I believe we have put women and their gifts, needs and interests in a box and tied it up—tightly—with a pretty lace bow. Because of the important role she plays in the family, there is often the perception that women’s gifts and needs are limited to the realm of the home. I am not suggesting that those women who abide in this realm are excluded from the community of intellectually-gifted women, many, in fact, are one and the same. But when “keeping the home” (Tit 2) is reduced to teaching women how to make pot-holders out of old socks to the exclusion of developing the life of the mind, then we run the risk of not only losing more women to the theological wimpiness, but their children as well. All of this causes me to wonder if the complementarian community is losing intelligent women to egalitarian-leaning churches because little effort is put forth to see their gifts truly bless the church.

Apart from pulpit ministry, how can women serve the church with their intellectual gifts? The idea of the church’s feminization has done more harm than good in its “glass half empty” perspective. Yes, of course it would be wonderful to see more men—husbands, fathers, brothers, etc.—involved in a local church, but the fact remains that women are at church and are an important area of ministry not to be ignored. Meeting the next generation with the gospel and helping them develop a Christian worldview cannot happen without the equipping of women who are in positions of responsibility for this future generation. Yet we often act as if women are a not a factor in the equation. With women as a majority of those who attend church, perhaps it is time (some would say we are long over due) to discover new ways for women’s voices to be a strong, compelling means for discipleship and outreach for the church without compromising views on church leadership and government. As we allow diverse voices to be present because diverse listeners want to hear from people like themselves, it is not a stretch to accept and embrace the fact that women do want to hear from women, somewhere between the pulpit and the kitchen.

Women's Ministry: Time to Get Back to Basics?

2009-07-28T15:12:00.002-05:00

With every opportunity to speak at women’s ministry events, invariably the women of these churches never fail to surprise me with the many gifts and talents they have contributed to the preparations. Women’s ministry teams seem to know almost innately how to pull everything together: food, décor, worship, organization and all of the other fine details that go into making a brunch, lunch or similar gathering quite memorable.

But the reality is, most church women’s ministries only have the energy and “manpower” to offer these gatherings a few of times a year, In a calendar year, one can expect to plan for some sort of spring event, a Mother’s day gathering--often mother/daughter affair—and a Christmas tea. This would be in addition to the small groups and Bible studies. Of course, some ministries may do more because the size of their church allows for more women to be involved. But because the average church size in the U.S. is around 200 with many far fewer, the ability to plan for these three events can become quite burdensome. I do not believe any of these events should be eliminated from the master plan of any women’s ministry simply because they are laborious, because I also understand they have utility--glorifying God and ministry to women. This is worthy work toward the advancement of the Kingdom.

However, the flip side of the coin is the belief that every significant gathering must include ornate centerpieces, petit fours and elegant programs.

Dr. Jameela George, MB BS: Black Market Organ Transplantation & Medical Tourism

2009-07-18T08:36:00.009-05:00

Dr. George is a Christian bioethicist in India speaking today on medical tourism, those who are in pursuit of cost efffective, faster or better private medical care. In India there is medical tourism in many areas including cardiology, joint replacement, organ transplants, etc.Reasons for medical tourism include availability and low cost of services.With the cost of a heart valve replacement costing $10,000 as opposed to the $200,000 in the US. The following are some highlights from her presentation:

Surrogacy tourism - Wombs for Rent
Often contracted through hospitals in India.Surrogates live in dormatories or "baby farms."
Ethics issues: Exploitation, concept of family, comodification of physiological process.
Surrogates are paid $5000 - $7000, a relatively low cost.

Kidney Tourism
Donors enticed to go abroad for removal and subsequent tranplantation of their kidneys.
The first human kidney transplant - Boston 1954
Transplantation of the liver followed in 1963 and heart in 1967
The kidney is the most wanted organ for transplantation

Worldwide about 1.2 million suffer from kidney failure. In Israel the average wait is 4 years. Worldwide 50k transplants are performed annually.About 285k people are on dialysis in the US.

Laws about Organ Transplantation
Brazil - illegal to sell organs (1997)
1998 law -all Brazilian adults are organ donors at death

Iran
Kidney sales are legal and regulated

India
Transplantation of Human Organs Act of 1994
Altruistic donation of organs from close family members
Donation b y those who are emotionally attached to the recipients
The Act permits transplantation of various cadaver organs including kidneys

Countries practicing Black market organ trans
India, China, Russia, Turkey, Moldova, Romania...

Partners in Black Market Organ Transplant Business in India

Surgeons and medical teams
managers of hospitals
organ brokers
jobless people
tourism industry

Kidney donors can earn up to $2500
Recipients pay as much as $25k in India

Measures to decrease organ gap

Prevention of renal failure
Increase of domestic supply

Controversial solutions

Routine recovery from cadavers-implied consent
legalising sale of organs
legalizing rewarded gifting of unrelated donors
upgrading facilities to harvest and transport organs from resource poor settings

Ethical Issues in BMOT

Lack of respect for person
Coercion
Exploitation
Social Justice
Violation of Human Dignity

The Theological Roots of...Human Dignity: Dr. David Gushee

2009-07-16T18:09:00.011-05:00

David Gushee provided a survey of the concept of human dignity throughout the Old and New testaments. Below are a few highlights.

Old Testament
"Transcendent legal/moral standard over human life creates a critically important human equality before the law. "

"The grounding of all moral obligation in God's law had a deep impact on the understanding of human law."

On Shalom
Shalom - the dream of God for a redeemed world, for an end to our division, hostility, fear, drivenness and misery.

Shalom happens when humans stop killing each other, and therefore life's dignity is honored at its fundamental level.

Shalom means: Delight, obedience to God (the precondition of shalom), the healing of broken bodies and spirits, enough to eat and drink, an inclusive community, the rebuilding of the human community

New Testament
Matthew 4 - Jesus did 2 new things
1. turned the eschatological future into an inaugurated eschatological present
2. Embodied the kingdom of justice, peace, and healing, in which human beings at last treat others and are treated, as God originally desired.

Jesus' inclusive ministry in a religious culture in which:

Women were devalued
Leaders subjugated human well being to legal observance
Sinners treated as beyond the pale of God's care
Children were devalued
The sick ere often cast out of the community
The occupying Romans were hated
Tensions between jews and Samaritans
A woman on her own faced desperate financial challenges
Social-economic divisions were acut

In sum, Jesus smashed the religious, cultural, economic, and political barriers of his context and demonstrated love, respect, and inclusion toward people of all descriptions. Jesus taught "good news" that God loves human beings with an immeasurable love.

"The paradox of the incarnation is that when divinity stooped low and took on humanity, humanity revealed its loliness and yet was elevated through God's mercy."

Jesus died for "the world" - everyone, people in all states, conditions, nations and orientations toward God and neighbor. Everyone should matter to us because everyone matters to God

Christ rose in a body, the victory of God over evil, and the resurrection marks the triumph of life.

Acts depicts rapidly growing church...more inclusive and hospitable community ethos.
Paul offers an expansive theological effort to defend transformation of relationships (Gal 3:28) All divisive human distinctions are transfigured and overcome through Jesus Christ.

Momentum toward radically inclusive and egalitarian community
Multi-ethnic, multi-racial, gender-inclusive, class-inclusive community

What emerged...
Congregations that believed that in their own experience of transformed human relations lay the beginnings of the redemption of the world.

"Only because God became human is it possible to know and not despise real human beings...this is not because of the real human being's inherent value, but because God has loved and taken on the real human being. The reason for God's love for human beings does not reside in them..." D. Bonhoeffer

"A secular, rootless human dignity ethic may be the best that our culture thinks it can manage. But Christians know not only that we can do better but that we must do better and that the resources for doing better are embedded in our tradition."

We must claim our own rich, theological heritage.

Global Bioethics - CBHD's 16th Annual Conference

2009-07-16T18:07:00.003-05:00

If you aren't at the conference be sure to check back at Flash Point for the commentary on the plenary speakers and parallel paper sessions. Who is speaking tonite? David Gushee, PhD, and Frank Beckwith, PhD. Bet you wish you were here!

Equipping All Women to Be Exceptional Women

2009-06-24T10:06:00.001-05:00

The scriptures tell many stories of unlikely women God has used to accomplish his will. I refer to them as “unlikely” not because it is unlikely God would ever use such women to accomplish his will. God will use anyone at any time. I refer to these women as unlikely because of our sinful expectations. To put it bluntly, they are not church ladies.

Two of these unlikely women are almost entirely unknown to us, except for what Paul has to say about their influence on a younger man very dear to him. We are introduced to them in Paul’s second letter written to Timothy who was a leader in the first century church and discipled by Paul. A younger man, Paul regarded him as his own spiritual "child". Timothy's grandmother Lois, and Eunice, his mother, are credited by Paul for instilling in Timothy a "sincere faith" like that of their own. (2 Timothy) In Acts 16:1, the only other biblical text where Timothy’s family background and heritage of faith are discussed, we learn that Timothy’s father is Greek and his mother, who we know to be Eunice, is a Jewish convert to Christianity. Neither Luke, the writer of Acts, nor Paul in his letter to Timothy offers any indication that Timothy’s father was also a believer, leaving the reader to assume he probably was not.

Perhaps it would not have been so important for scripture to mention anything about Timothy’s upbringing and the religious background of his parents if it were not for the significant role his mother played in the development of his faith and as the believer in an unequally yoked marriage. That Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice are acknowledged for their key role in his spiritual development should give us pause as to how we are equipping all women to grow in their knowledge of God and how their children’s spiritual heritage might be traced back to the strength of their own faith. Sunday comes too infrequently to depend upon the church as the only source for Christian education; every parent needs to be a fount of biblical truth to their children and every woman has opportunities to share the gospel and make disciples. What are we doing as a church, especially in our women’s ministries, to encourage the spiritual maturity of every woman?

Create in Me a Clean Heart

2009-06-17T15:28:00.003-05:00

Recently, the topic of indulging in God has been central to my studies and devotions. We are so bombarded by the things of this world--physical pleasures, materialistic attraction, and intellectual autonomy--that we easily neglect our commitment to the Lord. Our hearts, wicked as they are, tend toward sin. We are called to live in a way that imitates God, walking with a consistent attitude of sacrificial love for others--an attitude of self-denial. But the battle persists.

This battle began in Eden, which translated means delight or pleasure. Eden was a place where God provided all that the Creation would need. Food, shelter, companionship, fellowship with God--they lacked for nothing. Yet Eve, confronted by the Serpent (Gen 3:1-6), was deceived into believing that eating of the tree "in the midst of the Garden" would be a good idea.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6)

This wouldn't be the last time we see this form of temptation in scripture. As Eve was tempted by physical pleasure ("good for food"), materialistic attraction ("delight to the eyes") and intellectual autonomy ("make one wise"), Jesus also was confronted with these temptations, in a location neither pleasurable or delightful, but in the wilderness. (Luke 4:1-13)

The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." (4:3) (physical pleasure)

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. (4:5.6) (materialistic attraction)

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, "for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,'" and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" (4:9-11) (intellectual autonomy)

Jesus conquered sin and death with the work of the Cross, but we still live in a world where we face choices and challenges due to the condition of our own heart. As Jeremiah teaches that the heart is deceitful, the Psalmist prays "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10) We can join in that prayer.

As the Holy Spirit continues His work within each of us, we continue to pursue God by indulging in holy, obedient living, glorifying Him in self-sacrifice instead of self-indulgence. No doubt the battle is real, but the power to walk by the Spirit is greater.

(originally posted in November 2008)

O'Reilly not Factoring his own Spin

2009-06-16T09:26:00.002-05:00

Over the last few months, prior to abortionist George Tiller’s murder, Bill O’Reilly has made it quite clear that he believes late-term abortion is repugnant. That’s a fact not in dispute and one in which pro life supporters can agree with. Where O’Reilly‘s argument is seriously flawed, and where Joan Walsh, Editor in Chief of Salon.com, caught him in his inconsistency last week during his interview of her, is in his view of life and human dignity in general. As much as I disagree with Joan Walsh, and I disagree with great passion, she is at least consistently repulsive. Her view is that no matter the stage of the unborn life, a description she would not reject, a woman’s right to have an abortion takes precedence. What O’Reilly grants is that the killing of any unborn child is acceptable up until the point of “viability.” At this point and thereafter, abortion is not an option except to save the life of the mother. To his credit, he means her literal life, not her inability to party as a result of having a child. For O’Reilly, no casual abortions should ever be permitted after this point, but in a hierarchy of values, prior to this point of “viability,” O’Reilly would rank a woman’s right to choose higher than the life of the fetus. Sadly, his position on the value of a life is not predicated on a view that regards human dignity as inherent to all human life at every stage, but on a spurious functional view of human life that provides support for cases like that of Terri Schiavo and other cases involving euthanasia and physician assisted suicide.

What O’Reilly is referring to with his use of the term “viability” is the fetus’ ability to survive outside of the womb. This is probably an argument most people understand, but it is an unfortunate distinction because the value of life should never be determined by his ability or inability to survive unnatural circumstances. To take any person out of their natural environment where they thrive as a living organism would be a challenge to any person‘s survival. The viability of adult human life is dependent on oxygen, but we would never justify the murder of a person simply because they have chosen to swim under water. There is a sense in which this viability argument regards life outside of the womb the natural and the real and life in the womb as the unnatural and merely potential. This is consistent with O’Reilly in that prior to viability, he regards the unborn fetus as “potential” life. Even Walsh doesn’t make that claim, this is a concession O’Reilly has chosen to make to the pro-choice establishment.

O’Reilly continues to insist that his disgust by late-term abortion has nothing to do with Roe v. Wade, that this is an entirely separate, isolated discussion. Making a case against a certain type of abortion in this manner merely upholds the belief that a woman’s right to choose is the higher moral standard. Walsh is correct in stating that abortion is abortion, no matter the stage of the unborn life. O’Reilly’s spin on the nature of human life is inconsistent at best, but on the grand scale, his prominent voice is a danger to the cause and to all life before and after 24 weeks. If inconsistency is even-handed and consistency is extremism, then I am guilty.

Link to the O'Reilly/Walsh debate

Is Industriousness Compatible with Biblical Womanhood?

2009-06-10T09:45:00.003-05:00

Apparently there is something inherently gender-oriented about household chores, but I’m not quite sure where to draw the line. Is it the basement door? The entrance into the garage from the back of my kitchen? Perhaps it is the lawn and the shrubbery. Maybe someone can help me to understand this…

I’ve always thought of myself as a complementarian, but typically don’t advocate strongly for biblical womanhood because of its inability to speak boldly to women on the fringes. I continue to firmly hold a view that women are not to be elders in a local church, and I believe every passage of scripture that indicates that the husband is the head and the wife is his helpmeet, but how the latter plays out is not absolutely defined in scripture. I am also very weary of needing to state these things each time I discuss the logical and practical failures of the biblical womanhood movement, but I will continue to do so as necessary.

So here I am, going out on a limb I fear will break, but I am going anyway knowing I may be fully rejected by the complementarian camp I embrace. In a blogpost by Carolyn Mahaney, she writes about the disapproval she has--and scripture has--for a world where husbands and wives share the tasks of running a household. She begins the post by talking about how she wasn’t feeling well one day and turned on the Today Show as some sort of distraction. That was her first mistake, as the Today Show is co hosted by a professional career-driven female. I would think that watching that would in some way be supportive of Ann Curry’s pursuit of a career outside of the home. But I digress.

Carolyn describes in her post what the Today Show was featuring at that moment. I will let Carolyn speak for herself:

Ann Curry was interviewing two moms who recently wrote a book entitled Getting to 50/50. The point of the book is this: A woman can have a great career, a great marriage, and be a great mother—all by getting her husband to share equally in the responsibilities in the home. Thus the title, Getting to 50/50.”

These two authors were very pleasant and gracious. They were not the militant, angry type who can easily offend many. And they weren’t men bashers; in fact, they seemed to want to pursue a loving relationship with their husbands.

And yet, the premise of their book is in direct contradiction to Scripture, which assigns men and women equally important, yet different roles (Gen. 1:26-27, 2:18, 21-24; 1 Cor. 11:7-9, 1 Tim. 2:12-14).

These women believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned. They want men to take on fifty percent of the woman’s role and women to assume fifty percent of a man’s role. Their assertions fly in the face of God’s creation design and mandate—and they do it all with a smile.”

Without watching the interview that Carolyn watched, I’m forced to admit that there may have been some things stated about women and feminism that did not make it into Carolyn’s account in her blogpost. There is no fault in this. But if what Carolyn quoted is the full essence of what was communicated, I would suggest that her post demonstrates a lack of understanding of the fuller picture.

Very simply, scripture speaks of women “keeping the home” in Titus 2 and husbands as the heads in Ephesians 5, but neither passage suggests that a husband is walking outside of his role by participating in the management of the home or that she is stepping outside of her role by asking for help with household management. In fact, according to Susan Hunt, Titus 2 is not arguing necessarily that a woman never work outside of the home, but that she be “industrious” in all she does, including the home (Spiritual Mothering, Crossway Books, 1992. p. 64). A good example: The evangelical community was quick to embrace the VP nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin with the full knowledge her husband was helping at home.

One could easily come to the conclusion that 50/50 was an industrious way for these women to come alongside their husbands financially and to be a helpmeet to them in a sense other than handling the daily household chores. We live in a society where it is difficult for many families to live on a single income, and the language of “career” does not necessarily take from the priority of the family. Dependent on her personal circumstances, a woman may be wise by pursuing career-oriented employment that offers a salary structure compatible with her gifts and talents rather than a job that wears her down and makes her useless to the rest of her family because of frustration and fatigue.

If the women on the Today Show stated and believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned, I would agree that they are in error. But I disagree strongly that somehow a man and woman are abandoning those roles by sharing in the responsibilities of work and household management. To frame roles in this way places a number of families in irresolvable situations. I could cite various family scenarios that would more firmly root the husband in the home and the wife in the workplace, situations based on matters of health, job loss, and similar situations. If these were to be regarded as acceptable qualifications for how we are suppose to understand gender roles, then I would suggest that the doctrines of biblical manhood and womanhood are not as tightly wrapped up as claimed to be.

I get that the worldview of secular feminism is an assault on the Christian worldview and that it perpetrates great evils in our society. The days are, indeed, evil in this respect. But to frame the sharing of responsibilities of the home, which certainly do include financial responsibilities, within the context of secular feminism’s assault of God and the family is somewhat short-sighted.

Announcement; New blog - Et elle.com

2009-06-01T21:26:00.004-05:00

I tend not to discuss evolution at Flash Point, but this is certainly worth noting. Be sure to check out Et elle, et al. which recently evolved from what use to be known as Intellectuelle.com. Formerly a blog of female voices, Et elle, et al is about the human voice. Be watching for the male writers who join the conversations on faith and culture from a human perspective. Yours truly will also be contributing there occasionally on topics related to women's ministry, bioethics, politics, culture, etc. No topic....well almost no topic...is off limits!

What’s Really Real about Reality TV…and the Human Condition

2009-06-01T13:41:00.003-05:00

Within the last couple of years I wrote a piece about what was wrong with Supernanny and Wife Swap reality shows. Jon & Kate Plus 8 and even Little People, Big World have the same problem—children on these programs have no choice but to participate and have to live with any of the negative consequences in the future. Age and maturity makes them incapable of freely making the decision whether or not to participate, and they become a meal-ticket to their family’s financial liquidity. We know this is true, because for most of these programs, no children = no show. But what is very apparent is that the parents and producers and advertisers and viewers are each involved in this exploitive culture that rejects the dignity of our most vulnerable people--our children.

What we have always known and failed to admit is that there is nothing real at all about reality television. Watch one episode of the Kardashian’s, you will understand what I mean. But because this is the case, we have also avoided taking the lives of the people involved very seriously at any level. Hence, the children suffer.

An end goal of reality programming is to put on display the only thing that can be called real—the sinful human condition—so that viewers can sit back and say “I’m not that bad” or “thank goodness my kids aren’t that screwed up” or “look at that moron, what an idiot.” To take it a step further, our own depravity causes us to not see ourselves but to find humor or disgust with the failures and weaknesses of others. Susan Boyle surprised us with her artistry because our superficial sense of beauty believes no high caliber of talent could come from someone that didn’t meet our cover-girl expectations of beauty. In some sense, Susan Boyle’s story says more about us than it does about her, I’m afraid. The Apprentice was another program where we saw the human condition portrayed as it manifests in the world of business. Whatever it took to get the job done and win the task--that was the goal. Deceit was often the ploy utilized to win, no matter the cost. American Idol--how often have you heard someone say, “I only watch the first few weeks of the show so I can see the goofballs they allow on camera to embarrass themselves.” It is not just children who are being exploited by these programs, and it isn’t just the producers who are doing the exploiting. I find it difficult to hold Jon and Kate entirely responsible when the directionality of culture has indicated that this sort of programming is not only acceptable, but voyeurism is as well.

One reality show that peaked my curiosity but failed, nevertheless, was True Beauty. As a show, it utilized some sort of aesthetic calculus to determine the outward beauty of the show’s contestants. But the show also recognized that there was a “true beauty” that had nothing to do with appearance. From my perspective, the show was an utter failure because even though it recognized there was something greater than outward appearances, it still elevated physical beauty over what is ultimately good, failing to appreciate the depravity of all humankind.

As I hear the cable news reporters debate the situation with Jon and Kate and question the role of child labor laws taking effect in their particular situation, I wish that they would identify the problem of reality television as a whole and see that Jon and Kate, to some extent, are victims of a culture that is energized by human sin and weakness. Whether we are watching Wipe Out and laughing ourselves off the couch when someone is punched in the face over the mud pit, watching American Idol and asking ourselves who told them they could sing, or watching SuperNanny and believing that we are obviously much better parents than those on the show, we need to see that the problem with reality television is probably mostly with those who are willing to watch. Shows like these are on the air because advertisers are convinced this is what we want to be--voyeurs. It is our deepest insecurities that make us need to watch these shows, because our culture also believes that a high level of self-esteem is a priority. We feel pretty good about ourselves as we watch the misery of celebrity and dysfunctional families. It is our human condition, the reality of sin, that causes us not only to produce these programs, but to be entertained by this condition at the very same time.

Does Christianity have the Corner on Truth?

2009-05-15T15:13:00.000-05:00

This question recently came to my attention reading the Spring 2009 edition of the Trinity magazine. In it, Dr. Baxter points to Christian thinker Arthur Holmes usage of the phrase "all truth is God's truth." Baxter and I agree with this statement, while we also agree that God's truths can be found in other spheres of creation including art, music, literature, and film. But does that notion that Christianity doesn't have the "corner on truth" overstate the case?

What's missing from this is the ability to account for truth. While people of any worldview can communicate truths through art, literature, film and music, the issue is, how do they account for these truths? If, as the artist or writer, he can see these truths he is communicating, how can he explain how he knows them. How can he explain the truths on display? While agreeing with unbelievers that truth is everywhere, we find ourselves more attractive to the way they see things. But do we do them any favors as ministers of the gospel, enabling them to hang on their their deeper belief, that it ultimately doesn't matter what worldview you embrace? I believe that is certainly where we leave them.

How do you answer this issue? How does your faith inform your understanding of truth and how you know anything to be true? I would love to hear your comments!

Role Models & Cultural Decay: The Church's Response

2009-05-14T09:15:00.001-05:00

In 1984 when Michael Jackson and Madonna were blasting their way through the very large speakers of teenager's boom boxes, girls my age were beginning to bare their shoulders--but only one--to emulate the new Flash Dance style that was sweeping the country. While I was trying to figure out how to wear braided headbands and multi-colored leg warmers, I was also working very hard to hide my interest in Debby Boone and the early Christian contemporary music scene. (FYI, Debby Boone did a lot more than You Light Up My Life that was quite good).

Even though I was actively involved in music as a teen and young adult, it was unpopular to hold up Christian singers as “teen idols” or role models during a time when Rob Lowe, Rick Springfield, and Matt Dillon were all over the cover of Tiger Beat magazine and George Michael was actually considered a heart-throb. Role models in the church were virtually nonexistent for me, and there really weren’t any public role models that I recall, though at the time the Miss America and Miss USA pageants were still competing in one piece suits and campaigning on platforms that were intended to make a difference in our world. These were mostly young women that younger women could be encouraged by and look up to as intelligent and disciplined without all the skin and scandal that epitomizes the pageants today. But perhaps 1984 was the year we saw all of that change, too. That year, now actress Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss America and later dethroned for her morally objectionable photos taken previous to the pageant. Secular feminism has always furthered its cause by promoting its ideology to unsuspecting women who want to be valued and encouraged, and the secular feminists have been happy to oblige this need with little protest from Christian women.

So who are the real role models that stand out today? I come to this question because our culture rightly searches for role models for the next generations, though they look far and wide and in the wrong places, ultimately finding few. In the church, we call these role models mentors. For younger women who find themselves firmly rooted within the Christian community, they need not look very far to locate them. Their mothers, Bible teachers, youth leaders, women’s ministry leaders, and other Christian women--and men--are reaching into their lives with truth, modeling love for God and obedience to the Word. They are encouraging them to attitudes of selflessness and personal responsibility, to love God with their whole heart, soul, and mind. And if they aren’t teaching those things—among other things—they should be. But how well are we doing in women’s ministry, accomplishing this work we have been called to as women mentoring women?

With the blessing of church and family, many women are about to enter into college with hopes for a future in career or ministry or family—or all three. College instructors become integral to their educational pursuits and may have input into their lives in other deep and profound ways. Christian women are participants in the cultural mandate as mothers, business women, writers, teachers, and so forth, and have a great deal to teach younger women about being a Christian in the workplace and how to pursue the many spheres of life from a Christian worldview. And if Christian women do not take up this ministry as a fulfillment of Titus 2, certainly the attention of young women will be drawn to unhealthy role models. How can we make a difference in their lives?

Church women’s ministries are in a unique position to shape the beliefs and ideas of future generations of women, allowing our experience as women as interpreted through the teachings of scripture to impact their lives. For this to happen, we need to consider our ministry methods. Are we so event driven that we wear ourselves down with the administration of ministry that we never actually get to do ministry? Who are we focused on—the women who want to be entertained or the women who need to be nurtured? We need to talk about womanhood and motherhood, discussing the ideas that shape the world (philosophy), the ideas that shape our worldview (theology), and the goals of education and career. We need to make a place for these conversations—in the context of mentoring relationships, in formal study settings, in books, etc. And for women in the workplace, you have a unique opportunity that escapes the church, to mentor the women who cross your path and communicate the message of the Gospel in a spirit of love and compassion. For those in the world who is still searching for role models, they can be found if we are willing.

The glory of God is to be the purpose of any ministry we participate in. It is not to the glory or autonomy of the self that should motivate our desire to be role models or to mentor others. But we should see the task as an urgent matter, because as the decaying culture continues to infect the church, fewer examples of godliness will be available as examples for the generations that follow.

Motherhood on Mother's Day

2009-05-08T11:46:00.001-05:00

As Mother’s Day is celebrated in families and churches this year, women are honored for the roles they play as nurturers, teachers, and protectors. In fact in most circles, one need not have offspring to be celebrated this one day in May. It is rightfully recognized that women across the spectrum reach into the lives of others as positive forces of love and care giving. For that, I also celebrate the exceptional women of our world, especially those in my own life.

But. Yes, with me there is almost always a but. While we celebrate all women on Mothers Day, as a culture we fail to honor the actual institution of motherhood itself, drifting further down that path of individualism and convenience, wanting to preserve the life of freedom and financial prosperity until they near the end of their reproductive years. In this society, motherhood is perceived as an unnecessary burden. And then we have the opposite problem of young girls--my own knowledge places them around the age of 12--planning pregnancies with their equally young boy friends. Their motivation is not entirely clear to me, as I believe it is multi-faceted. But it certainly is not about honoring the institution of motherhood as they are still children.

Mother’s Day celebrations should be as much about the institution of motherhood as the mothers themselves, because what better time is there to teach about the influence of motherhood on every sphere of society? With the pervasive influence of secular feminist ideals, the attacks on marriage, and the buffet of reproductive choices available now and into the future, our culture treats motherhood as a the second to last rung on the ladder of success, the last rung being retirement. Motherhood is also regarded as a disease…dare I suggest a sexually transmitted one.

False Distinction Between Gifts & Roles

2009-05-07T09:58:00.001-05:00

When was the last time you took a spiritual gifts inventory or answered a church survey to see how God might be leading you to serve in your church? Maybe you are in ministry to women who have particular gifts and talents, but they need guidance in knowing how they translate to the community of believers. Many people have knowledge or insight about their gifts before they even pick up the pencil to fill out a questionnaire, but these instruments can become wonderfully useful tools of discovery for the church.

But I pause to consider if some women in the church, instead of searching for ways to use or discover their gifts, are actively suppressing the identification and use of them as a twisted act of selflessness, or perhaps—and equally as worrisome—they are confusing gifts with roles. GFL’s managing editor Caryn Rivadeniera’s recent book, Mama’s Got a Fake I.D., has caused me to examine this issue a bit closer. In my review of her book on my blog, I offer a possible reason why embracing this aspect of identity is difficult for some women, attributing it to a contemporary form of asceticism—a denial of pleasures for some sort of spiritual attainment.

Continue reading...

Real Hope in Cord Blood Advancements

2009-05-02T12:03:00.005-05:00

First recorded use of cord blood as a therapy was in 1939.
1970: First cord blood transplant for a child with leukemia
Since 1988, 85+ diseases treated with cord blood stem cells.

If there are no stem cells in the banks, no treatment. Compared to population, amount in storage extremely low. More cord blood banks need to open.

Unbilical cord rich is reources. Wharton's jelly is a gelatinous substance within the umbilical cord and is a rich source of stem cells. In culture, rapidly produces Mesenchymal stem cells.

Cord Blood Stem Cells Successes

2009-05-02T11:27:00.003-05:00

Child with anoxia who would likely have been institutionalized is making significant progress as a result of cord blood stem cell infusion.

Chloe was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 18 months. She couldn't control the right side of her body. Likely had a stroke prior to birth. Parents had banked her cord blood when she was born. Condition has improved dramatically.

Banking on Life Conference

2009-05-01T14:14:00.002-05:00

Watch for blogposts and Facebook/Twitter updates from the Banking on Life Conference all day tomorrow. Speakers include David Prentice, James Baumgartner, John Cusey, Josephine Quintavalle, and others. For more info, go here.

Humanist Ethics & Arrogance

2009-04-30T19:24:00.011-05:00

In her post, Is Humanism Arrogant?, Terri Murray offers an undergraduate level textbook recitation of divine command theory, attributing the position to Christian "theocrats", theologians and otherwise, who engage in a worldview analysis that draws the conclusion that humanist ethical theory represents arrogance because it ultimately lacks any epistemic foundation. Oh yeah, she never explained the reasoning of these "theocrats."

Terri fails in this post, not because she created a strawman--yes, there is much more to Christian ethics than divine command theory--not because she doesn't answer the "theocrat" according to the strawman she set up in the first place, but because she never actually offers an explanation for how humanists "understand" ethics. Frankly, I'm not even sure what "understand" means, unless she is referring to how they ground ethics. If this is the case, she might have better expressed it as an accounting of ethics. So how do humanists account for ethics?

Every worldview has a self-sufficient. In biblical Christianity, the self-sufficient is the God of Scripture. In humanism, the self-sufficient is man who, through the use of reason, locates right and wrong, the ethical and unethical. But in the history of humanity, man has proven that the use of reason never yields the same conclusions among all men. Reason fails. Science is not ethics, science is a descriptive discipline, ethics is a prescriptive discipline. Science can never speak for ethics, it can only offer choices to ethics. Humanism fails the test for objective ethics, and with relativism as that which remains, humanist ethics can never speak for everyone, nor would it ever try to. The fact remains, humanism simply cannot account for right and wrong, because humanism cannot escape relativism. And that's why the charge of arrogance hovers over humanist ethics.

Abortion: The Debate's Transition to the Private Realm

2009-04-30T12:36:00.011-05:00

During last night's 100 day press conference, President Obama declared--almost word for word to previous statements--his position on abortion. Even though he isn't a great speaker, he likely is a wordsmith on paper and has framed this language in such a way that it sounds logical, caring, respectful of religion, and dare I say, even centrist.

You know, my view on abortion I think has been very consistent. I think abortion is a moral issue and an ethical issue. I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they — if they suggest — and I don’t want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations. I think, look, this is an issue that people have to wrestle with, and families and individual women have to wrestle with.

There is some serious strategy going on here. I believe what Obama is trying to do is de-politicize abortion for the sake of the pro-abortion position. By referring to it as a moral issue that "families and women have to wrestle with" he is eliminating the notion of objective morality and linking abortion instead the realm of private values. But if the debate remains tied most dominately to the extreme feminist, reproductive rights movement, abortion remains open to public debate amongst ideological foes, each with the assumption that there is an objectively correct answer. And if that debate continues to rage, Obama can't appear as if he is taking no side. But there is more.

The reason I’m pro-choice is because I don’t think women take that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day, and I think they are in a better position to make these decision ultimately than members of Congress or a President of the United States — in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their clergy. So that’s been my consistent position.

There is a ton to address in this portion of his statement, but what I want to focus your attention to the "private" relationships he mentions, between a woman and her family, doctor, clergy. His administration's work to mute the public abortion debates leaves it in the realm of these private relationships...and take note that religion is removed from the public realm (no surprise) into the private life of the woman. This is the only place where religion has a voice in the matter.

This statement he makes is clearly driven toward a removal of religious voices from the public square, and the fact that he consistently makes his position known suggests his words need to be closely examined. If the Obama administration succeeds in muting the debate, even if only on the side of the pro-aborts, religious voices will be even further marginalized and secularism will be the default worldview, even among those who identify themselves as Christian. And we see a lot of that occuring already.

Mama's Got a Fake I.D. (Book Review)

2009-04-16T10:56:00.002-05:00

Mama's Got a Fake I.D. (Book Review)
Author: Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira
Waterbrook Press, 204 pages

This is not a book about egalitarianism vs complementarianism, career women vs. stay-at-home moms. It is also not a treatise against feminism. But before I even opened the pages of the book, I was struck by the blurb on the back cover. Check it out:

"No one begins life as a mom. Before you have children, you are an amazing combination of friend, daughter, confidant, visionary, encourager, and thinker. You start out in life using your gifts and abilities in a surprising variety of settings. Then you have children and the role of mom-as wonderful as it is-seems to consume you. It's easy to lose your identity when others see you as a mom and little else. What happened to the artist, the teambuilder, the organizer, the entrepreneur, the leader--the person you lost touch with?"

Frankly, if this is all anyone read of the book, they would understand clearly the author's intention is grant moms the permission to use their gifts and talents to the glory of God, to remind them that they can be a mom and a writer, singer, cook, puzzle solver, or trumpet player. These moms have teaching gifts, communication gifts, leadership abilities, can enjoy fixing small appliances, and planting a garden. To remember that these things contribute to your identity, including who you are as a mom, is neither to elevate them over motherhood or to intice women to leave the home to pursue a career. They simply are....and all that from the back cover!

I eventually want to get to some of the actual meat of this book, but knowing what so many women in the church are reading and believing, I find it necessary to deal with the ideas associated with the confusion many women will no doubt have about this book. Let me be clear, this is not pop-psychology baptized in scripture, but it offers a real biblical alternative to the spiritualized ascetism that has been mandated for women in the evangelical community. Being a mom, a mom who loves being a mom, a mom devoted to her family and her Lord, need not be a woman who buries her gifts, hides her interests, and squanders her talents.

"When we wrestle with our identities, we want to know who specifically we are. Who we were made to be. Why we're gifted the way we are--and how that fits into our role as mom as well as our lives as women who follow Jesus."

When conversations ensue about women's roles, I believe a great deal of equivocating is done. When we talk about the identity of a woman there is no necessary denegration of her role as mom. Yet the two are often confused. As well, I believe the encyclopedic fallacy is committed when we speak of the lives of women. The Bible simply does not provide exhaustive details of how women's lives ought to manifest day to day. Caryn points out in this quote, clearly not pitting our identities against our roles, how God created us in his image, yet unique in desires, gifts, and talents to function in our own unique life circumstance. Sure, many women are mothers, but not all women are married to the same man in the same house with the same income. Our lives are as unique as our identities. As I believe this book aptly addresses, our role as mom can often overshadow how we are moms.

There are no generic Christians and that moms are getting stuck with generic identification inhibits the disciple-making and fellowship of the church. While our faith represents for us the only worldview that believes in a personal God in touch with the intimate details of our lives, our church life often communicates otherwise. Caryn implores us to adopt a refreshing alternative:

"We love who your kids are, and we love who you are. We can't wait to see what God has in store for you. We know that your gifts, your personality, your passions, and your whole self can enhance this community."

Mama's Got a Fake I.D. will give you the courage to be who you are, not because you have any particular rights or demands that ought to be heard, but because God created you to serve your family and the body of Christ in very unique ways. Generic products have come a long way over the years, but the labels simply hide the essence of the product within. This book is as much for the church as it is for women who might be struggling with their own identity, or wondering if it is ok for them to retain the gifts and interests God has poured into them. WFC

Secularism Need not be the Death Knell of Christianity

2009-04-09T13:08:00.001-05:00

Newsweek’s proclamation of The End of Christian America leaves a sense of despair in the minds of many Christ-followers this Holy Week. We have heard President Obama state recently that America is neither a Christian or Muslim country, and now we read in the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) that the percentage of individuals claiming no religious affiliation has almost doubled. But there is more. The northeast quadrant of the United States is identified by the survey as a new “stronghold for the religiously unidentified.” This is not entirely unexpected as we have seen the ongoing decline of religious influence in academic institutions located in this region, institutions that were originally established to some extent to advance God’s Kingdom. And the concentration of liberal politicians in this region of the country has been noticeable for many years.

Observing that the momentum of the current political climate is resulting in a greater secularization of the American mind, I suspect that the numbers presented in this ARIS report will likely increase in the next five years. As Christian doctors continue to have their right of conscience threatened, as institutions like Notre Dame make an impractical distinction between the office of President and his ideology, and as common, every day believers hand over their religious freedom of expression for a mythical notion of neutral language and practice, I think we will see these numbers increase throughout the country. But this is not the end of Christianity and God is not dead. America may no longer be easily identified as a “Christian nation,” but the work of the church has not ceased.

American Christians do not really know what it means to be persecuted. Yet on a relative scale, I do believe that the infractions against conservative religious voices will motivate an uprising of American Christians willing to challenge the rising tide of intolerance. The question for Christian conservatives is, are we willing to work harder AND smarter to impact individual’s lives that will ultimately have an impact on the overall worldview of our society? In theory, we are all willing, but are we willing to stake our lives and reputation on an explicit expression of the Christian worldview? Perhaps we can even take some responsibility for the problem of secularization for preferring a godless conservative language and approach over that which is consistently and unabashedly Christian. That is not a battle between the conservative vs. the secular, but the Christian vs the secular.

How to Do Titus 2

2009-03-31T08:15:00.002-05:00

Thinking about how to accomplish transition from event-driven women's ministry to a Titus 2 framework, I realize I ought to define "event-driven."

Churches and women's ministries will always have special events, and they should. But large scale affairs generally do not lend well to relationship building, an element essential to discipleship. Event-driven ministry is best understood as a majority of activities that take away from relationship building. In other words, if your ministry has one dinner function a year, but most of the Bible studies are video-based, my view is that relationship building is inhibited. This is where Bible study becomes a series of events and, voila, you have an event-driven ministry.

A Titus 2-based women's ministry is focused on getting women to talk to each other, where there is teaching and learning--not just about God, but about each other. Where there is no conversation, no learning, there is no mentoring.

So how do you move from event-driven to a Titus 2 ministry?

1. Group Bible studies that invite encounters with God in scripture and opportunities to share with each other about its meaning and application.

2. Activities that reveal common interests. These need not be formalized, it can be as basic as attending Little League games together or going to a teacher's convention if that is your occupation.

3. Casual sack lunch gatherings with or without a planned topic. Every women's ministry event need not be a regal affair.

4. "Cake and Conversation." Again, be deliberate about the cake, and see where the conversation goes.

5. Yes, I'm going to say it. Online social networking takes some of the work out of it, but you can make yourself available, knowable, and reachable with an online presence. The world is changing but we can still be a part of even the busiest person's life through Facebook, Ning, Twitter, and other similar sites. It takes less time to read messages than it does to cater an event!

This is a short, obviously non-exhaustive list. If you have some ideas or insights, leave your comments for everyone to read.

Obama: Clergy in Chief?

2009-03-19T12:07:00.001-05:00

When President Obama recently signed the Executive Order that would provide federal funding for embryo-destructive research, the ideological floodgates were opened. Obama said the new order is “about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda—and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.” Science does not make decisions, ethics and the theories that support them are where decisions are made.

There are two significant issues that arise from this whole discussion. The first is the fact that science can only provide us with an “is.” Science can only describe what we can do or what we might be able to do, but science will never, on its own, answer the question, “what should we do?” Simply because the progress of science and research allows us to do something does not necessitate that we ought to. This IS-OUGHT dilemma is so extremely elementary, yet escapes Obama and his left-leaning ideologues. Indeed, he has answered the ethical question that was previously “above [his] paygrade,” but tries to disguise it as a matter of science.

The other significant issue is that Christian conservatives are catapulted again into the discussion of what is an embryo, when does human life begin, what does it mean to be created in the Image of God, and what are the implications of this research on the character of American society? But oddly enough, while Obama is allowed to bring ideology to the teleprompter in his IS-OUGHT charade, the church is a bit more temperamental about bringing so-called political issues in the pulpit. The fact is, most issues of politics are issues of faith and matters for the church to engage, yet there is nothing inherently political about embryo-destructive research that should make it off limits from our pastoral leadership and communicated from the pulpit. Embryo-destructive research is first a matter of ethics and is secondarily political. In fact, it’s only been politicized because of the desire to appeal to the wants of a very vocal and left-leaning segment of our society. And aversion to these discussions from the pulpit is based on the idea that they have great potential to cause division inside the church so we, for our own good, should abide by the so-called Wall of Separation. Is this evidence that the church is really as political as government, and government is really as faith-oriented as the church? An interesting reversal of roles.

What Embryonic Stem Cell Research has to do with Women's Ministry

2009-03-17T08:44:00.001-05:00

Sounds strange, but the repercussions of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) are going to be especially serious for younger women. The research will cause a decline in womens health and objectify women in a way never imagined.

For ESCR to be pursued, cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer/SCNT) science will need to be perfected, research the requires human eggs, harvested from women of reproductive age.

Womens ministry is in a unique position to educate these young women about the harms of ESCR/SCNT to their bodies and to communicate their worth, their human dignity, and that it should not be violated in treating them as a commodity--an egg farm.

Harvesting eggs even for IVF (same method) can be extremely painful and have long term health implications...including infertility. Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome has been known to result.

Feminists aren't interested in protecting women from the harms of this research because their agenda demands that whatever can be done to deconstruct reproduction ought to be done. Christian women mentoring younger women are in a key position to communicate a vital message of human dignity that can not on protect women's health, but draw them closer to the God who defines dignity in the first place.
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Women's Ministry: Spiritual Anemia Requires Spiritual Meat

2009-03-16T16:25:00.001-05:00

Recently, I wrote a piece for the GFL blog that was titled "Does 'Complementarian' Equal Anemic Women's Ministry?" I'm thrilled with the comments it has received and the encouragement it has provided to women who want to bring a certain degree seriousness to their call to ministry. I cannot count the times that I meet women who, with me, joyfully identify with the complementarian perspective, but wonder how they can bring more meat to the table of women's ministry when it is overflowing with so much dessert. The answer to that question is going to depend on the kind of support that exists in the local church and the willingness to work together toward the same purpose and goal that is God-centered and gospel-driven.

I was honored to discover that the folks at the Council for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood thought my commentary had a sense of good "direction," but I'm sad that they responded to an article that simply was not the one I wrote. If you have not read my commentary, please read it before you continue reading here. In fact, read Brent Nelson's as well, then come back.

Welcome back!

In What Makes for a Strong Women's Ministry?, Brett Nelson writes that my commentary "wafts an air of chronological snobbery" in response to this statement I make in the GFL commentary:

These are women who want to fulfill the Titus 2 mandate, to mentor and minister to other women, who want to play a significant role in Christian education, but also want to escape the culture of women’s ministry that they inherited from their grandmothers.

I am unclear how this is "chronological snobbery," and Brent Nelson is unclear as well, because he follows up my statement with his own question.

what is it about their grandmothers' culture of women's ministry that must be escaped from just because it was two generations back?

He rightly states that every generation has their blind spots, and that every generation has something to teach each other. I couldn't agree more! But my own commentary does provide an answer his question. As you have already read, I point out many examples of fluff n' stuff we have inherited from previous generations of women's ministry that are becoming obstacles to discipleship and in developing future women's leaders. Perhaps it was short-sided of me to not pay tribute to the legacy of women from the past, but that wasn't the purpose of the commentary. Brent Nelson is right to point out that it hasn't all been fluff n' stuff, but he commits a logical error by suggesting the desire for escape is based on ageism.

In developing his argument, Brent Nelson asks yet another rhetorical question,

Are those who reject their grandmothers' kind of women's ministry sure of what they reject?

Well, that was the point of my commentary, and it was long enough and specific enough for that detail to be located by the reader. Yes, we are sure! We, the silent critical mass mentioned at the beginning of my commentary, reject the fluff n' stuff that inhibits discipleship and takes up our time in needless event planning. I certainly should offer a caveat here, not all event planning is needless and many of the activities serve as instruments for discipleship. It is when women's ministry becomes event-driven and programmatically set in stone that we lose opportunities for discipleship and actually keep women away. But then again, that was detailed in my commentary.

In something of an answer to his own rhetorical questions, Brent Nelson rightly states that

some who led women's ministries in the 1950's may have lived the scriptural ideals of ‘self-control, purity, working in the home and submission to their own husbands' far better than some today.

Agreed.

The real danger here is not my disappointment with the fluff n' stuff of women's ministry, but the belief that there is little wrong with the intensity of the traditions that have been inherited, the poor examples of biblical interpretation offered by some women's ministry leaders, the weak materials marketed by Christian publishers who know that women represent a large majority of church attendance, the self-esteem/self-centered therapeutic methodology that is said to be God-centered, and the unwillingness to see women's ministry for the significant role it can play in the advancement of God's Kingdom. But then again, if women's ministry is primarily about fellowship with discipleship flowing out of that, then perhaps my view that it can play a role in advancing God's Kingdom is unwarranted.

Women's Ministry: Part of His Story

2009-03-16T06:56:00.002-05:00

Occasionally I receive requests on how to successfully launch a church women's ministry. Well, I'm not sure any of us know how to successfully do anything, though we are pretty good at messing things up. With all the ways the contemporary church tries to measure success, what I am confident of is that we have mastered leaving God out of the process at times. This, of course, does not mean there are no practical tips for launching or growing a women's ministry, but we need to be reminded that what we might perceive as success or failure may not be the same as what God sees. So our ministries are to be prayerfully God-centered and doctrinely sound, with a vision for glorifying God as both the purpose and goal. Ultimately, we need to remember that His story is for His glory, not our own.

What follows is some basic wisdom that comes from both research and the experience of myself and other leaders in ministry. As we all try to learn more about doing women's ministry in this 21st century context, please consider participating in a women's ministry survey at my website. Will these results yield a perfect plan for ministry? Surely not, but quite possibly we will discover some trends that can be more closely examined and praise God for all the awesome work being done through him and in him.

1. Women's ministry is vital to the life of the body. Barna has reported that 60% or more of people who attend church are women, and around 25 % of that number attend without their husbands. Many women are functionally the spiritual leaders in their homes because they are single parents, their husband is not a believer, or they are single. The importance of this cannot be over-emphasized. These women need to be equipped to understand what they believe and why, because they have a ministry and responsibility to so many others in their lives. A women's ministry that is able to come alongside and unite in purpose with a church's pastoral ministry will be able to make an impact in these women's lives.

2. Women's ministry must be cross-generational. Whatever the ethnic make-up of your church, women's ministries face what I believe is the greater challenge of how to do ministry across generations. There is no magic cure for this particular issue, but some are finding that common ground exists among most women as it relates to biblical studies rather than social events. While the mature women of the church ought to be training the young women in the things of the Lord (Titus 2), the younger women have less and less time to participate in women's ministry functions due to the demands of the era. They want to make the most of their time and many are likely to choose Bible studies and book discussion groups. The message of scripture is timeless and never goes away as a worn out fad!

3. Be deliberate about the youth and college aged women. The women in the congregation with a greater propensity to be influenced by the whims and philosophies of our culture are women between the ages of 15 and 25. This is where youth and college ministry must meet women's ministry, and relational and educational opportunities must be developed to minister to this age group.

4. Teach. Women's ministry leaders need to model for women not only how to properly interpret and apply scripture, but that the process is to be sought after and enjoyed. While our faith ought to be lived in community, understanding it is a also a matter of personal responsibility.

5. Pastors must be involved in women's ministry. Teaching materials and other resources must be held to a standard as high as what is preached by the pastor on Sunday morning. Typically, this is the case with church Sunday School materials. Because Christian publishers and resellers understand female buying power, and they also know the church population statistics, women are a target market for all kinds of resources, An example of why this is important is the controversy over a popular women's bible teacher several years ago whose theology was not closely examined until she had staked a claim in thousands of evangelical churches with her message of godly eating. The fact that she rejected the deity of Christ did not become an issue until a few years into her ministry because no one had taken the time to closely examine her beliefs up until that point. As a result, many woman and their families have abandoned biblical Christianity to join the church this woman currently leads.

Womens Ministry Leadership Survey

2009-03-01T21:11:00.004-06:00

In an effort to identify and assess the needs of women in the Church, a helpful approach is to discover what is currently available through the church women's ministries. If you are a women's ministry leader or a member of a women's ministry team, please take the time to fill out the survey at Women of Faith in Culture. After the survey ends, an analysis of the results will be made available. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

Inspiring Leadership

2009-02-27T16:08:00.003-06:00

Who do you inspire? Who inspires you?
When are you all out of inspiration and just want to call it quits?

These are areas I will be touching on tomorrow at the Women's Ministry Institute graduation in Hillside, Illinois. I am personally inspired by many women in scripture including Eunice, the mother of Timothy. Look for more on that subject in the coming days.

Leadership Tip: Truth and Love

2009-02-26T08:36:00.003-06:00

As a kid, I experienced "Christianity" in various settings including fundamentalism, mainline denominations, cults, and fringe charismatic churches. God used these experiences to give me a passion for theology, a desire to know him with certainty and precision.

As an ever-maturing believer, I continue to learn and experience God's truth and God's grace each day. Through this grace, I was able to escape the influence of the bad theology of my childhood, but what God used was not only a new set of beliefs, but people and friends and teachers and other students who lovingly and very pastorally communicated these truths, showing me why they ultimately mattered.

Defending the faith and promoting solid theology ought to be in a spirit of love and truth. The motivation should not be rightness for its own sake, but for the cause of Christ--a genuine love for people. God's love and God's truth go hand in hand and should never be divorced from each other.

Does 'Complementarian' Equal Anemic Women's Ministry?

2009-02-25T09:16:00.002-06:00

In 2007, Amy Simpson wrote “Why I Don’t Do Women’s Ministry,” citing the reasons for her struggle to fit in an essentially shallow church culture. She may have surprised a few readers, but clearly she spoke the heart of a silent, yet critical mass of women in the church.

These are women who want to fulfill the Titus 2 mandate, to mentor and minister to other women, who want to play a significant role in Christian education, but also want to escape the culture of women’s ministry that they inherited from their grandmothers. They want a more substantive interaction with the women they lead, because they know that time is a priceless commodity and they want to make the most out of every opportunity.

Continue reading at Gifted for Leadership

The Christian Life and Women's Issues

2009-02-09T10:54:00.001-06:00

As an effect of sin, humans are deeply driven toward autonomy, preferring to live independent of God’s authority instead of within the shelter of his divine sovereignty. This is the temptation to which Eve would surrender. Instead of a life dependent on God, she evaluated on the basis of her self-appointed authority that the fruit of the forbidden tree was beautiful and an acceptable source for knowledge and sustenance. God was no longer necessary in her new view of the world because she chose instead to believe the twisted words of the serpent, that she could “be like God” (Gen 3:5). She quickly dismissed the distinction between herself, the created, and the Creator.

When faced with difficult life circumstances, we are called to submit to God’s wisdom and authority and recognize our own insufficiency. It is true that scripture does not provide explicit answers for each and every situation, so while God’s normative method of self-disclosure is not through audible voice, studying God’s word is necessary to develop a biblical worldview that will enable godly reflection in the absence of obvious solutions. Trusting God in the midst of any degree of crisis is probably one of the the greatest challenges to living the Christian life.

Popular culture argues, on the other hand, that God, if he even exists, is irrelevant to just about everything. Religion, and specifically evangelical Christianity, is regarded as bigoted and narrow-minded, outside the scope of logic and reason. Christian truth claims are viewed as merely private values, but the “promise” of scientific progress and “hope” through human reason—with little room for ethical reflection—are believed to be neutral sources of information, and therefore, the source of truth for everyone. This way of thinking is dominant in the area of women’s issues and is wielding great influence on the lives of women inside and outside of the church.

continue reading...

Why are we Repulsed by the Proper Use of Embryos?

2009-02-02T17:57:00.004-06:00

The story about the woman from California who recently gave birth to 8 babies through IVF has stirred up what is, in my opinion, a very odd sense of moral outrage. "Who is she to have 14 kids, wasn't 6 enough?" "She still lives with her parents? With all those kids?" And my favorite, "It's not like she did it naturally" as if the method of accumulation should make any difference.

I am not suggesting that the use of ARTs (assisted reproductive technologies) hasn't proven to be a disastrous slippery slope, nor am I recommending single women run out and start their own country by birthing countless numbers of children. But we must examine the moral assumptions behind this outrage. For instance, the person who said "wasn't 6 kids enough" has the right to her own opinion, even if it is dependent on subjective ethical relativism. What prevents her from saying just one more child would have been enough? Who decides how many kids a person can have?

The expected response to that is to focus on the anticipated burden she might be on the welfare system. I realize it is popular right now to believe that limiting the amount of children born to people of a certain economic class is looking out for the common good, but how is her 14 different from the millions of women who have given birth to just one? Who decides how many is enough?

As Christians, we should applaud the fact that these little humans were allowed to be born. She could have allowed research on the embryos or simply had them destroyed. She likely couldn't afford more than the one implantation...and she opted to give them all a chance. Granted, there are some ethical questions with the doctors' willingness to implant so many embryos, but medicine today is consumer-oriented. Should we really focus any outrage on medical care on just this incident? This isn't the first time science and medicine has commodified human life.

Finally, I believe the inclination to desire to have children is going the way of the seared conscious. Culture is moving so far from God that we should celebrate anything that even resembles a desire to fulfill the cultural mandate. All other motivations aside, if she sincerely loves children, praise God!

Frankly, I'm more confused by the reactions about this story than I am bothered by her having so many kids. In fact, now is the time for the church to put words into action and come alongside this woman who chose life for the already living instead of death for these little souls.

What Pelosi and Sanger Have in Common

2009-01-27T07:53:00.001-06:00

When the government seeks to influence the number of children born to a certain segment of the population as a means of saving tax dollars, one must realize that the motivation is not the preservation of women's rights, but literally the rejection of them. This portion of the stimulus bill, which may be removed today to ensure its passage, harkens back to the era of Margaret Sanger who sought birth control for an "undesirable" immigrant population. There is little difference between Pelosi and Sanger in this regard, because neither were motivated by the rights of women, but in the elimination of a perceived problem and using "women's rights" as smoke and mirrors.

Spending money on birth control services as one means of helping along the ailing economy is a manipulative tactic that should be exposed. I reveals clearly that not everything that happens under the banner of womens rights is not motivated by women's rights at all. The movement is not as altruistic as they would have people believe, and it is extremely urgent for young women to understand that secular feminism believes women's potential--and now our nations economic potential-- is inhibited by their reproductive system. Or perhaps Pelosi realizes how mistaken they have been all along about the implications of a sexually permissive society--the other side of this outrageous coin--or maybe not.
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Who Will Protect Women from Women's Rights Ideology?

2009-01-23T21:28:00.004-06:00

Though grateful for the right to vote and to pursue a career of my choice, I cannot help but to be terribly frightened for the women at the mercy of the movement that claims to be looking out for their well-being. As Obama begins to lift funding restrictions on abortion and embryonic stem cell research, NOW, NARAL, and the Feminist Majority drown me in press releases about the so-called victories for women's rights. Yet, women are more vulnerable now than ever before as the media continues to worship their messiah and killing unborn children is still, somehow, considered a women's health issue. There is a reason the new administration is removing "war on terror" language, because they rightly understand this this is a war of words. Only words can explain to young women about to have their ovaries invaded, that when their egg is fertilized, it is an embryo, the technical term for what is otherwise known as their child. And make no mistake about it, this genetic material--another word for their child--is living. After all, embryonic stem cell research is not pursued with non-living (i.e., "dead") embryos.

Here is another interesting use of words on the contraception marketed as Mirena. With all of its risks, this IUD works like....well, they don't exactly know. See what they say about it:

How does Mirena work?
It is not known exactly how Mirena works. Mirena may work in several ways. It may
thicken your cervical mucus, thin the lining of your uterus, inhibit sperm movement and reduce sperm survival. Mirena may stop release of your egg from your ovary, but this is not the way it works in most cases. Most likely, these actions work together to prevent pregnancy.

This post is not an appeal to the Obama administration or the FDA or to womens' rights groups to practice integrity and responsibility with their use of words. That is a fairy tale dream. This is an appeal to women to practice critical thinking skills, and know when your life is being put at risk for the sake of political ideology.

For Sale: Human Dignity

2009-01-15T17:59:00.002-06:00

Though still on my blogging hiatus, I felt compelled to respond to this news story. A 22 year old girl is selling herself online...her virginity, that is. And apparently it is worth $3.7 million to one potential buyer. The lack of moral outrage by feminism doesn't surprise me as contemporary feminism has discarded the good it once represented in order to promote a completely unfettered lifestyle. Women are free to be exploited themselves, and this is somehow empowering. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that by creating a culture where women's bodies, eggs, and chastity are up for sale, created is a pleasant environment for human trafficking. There is no need for restraint in a world where individuals willingly put a price tag on what is priceless.

Blogging Hiatus

2008-12-29T17:04:00.001-06:00

To all who faithfully read Flash Point, and to those who accidentally find yourselves here, I want to wish all of you a joyful and God-centered new year. I am taking a brief hiatus from the blog so that I can finish a writing project. I anticipate returning to the blog in a couple of weeks. At the time, I have a book project in the works that I need to finish so that I can move forward in ministry.
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The Demise of Evangelical Distinctiveness?

2008-12-22T08:26:00.002-06:00

I feel like I'm living in a historic time, not simply because our next president is mixed-race or because Illinois political corruption is finally revealed for the rest of the nation to appreciate, but because I think evangelicalism is caving to societal pressure to look like anything other than its former self. My concern is that evangelicalism in the public arena no longer includes a passionate defense for the unborn (because that would simply be too politically divisive). Instead, it seems we are focusing our greatest energies on other issues-- not for the sake of those other issues, but rather to gain some political common ground. Don't get me wrong, I know there are many evangelical individuals and organizations still in the fight for the rights of the unborn. But as some older generations are beginning to fade away, I wonder who will be interested in continuing to support this and related causes. As I watch the news and trends in the church, I wonder if there is a generation of evangelicals even interested in taking up the cause for life. Feminism is succeeding in indoctrinating several generations of women on their platform of equality and corresponding reproductive rights while the church fidgets to understand how to develop a culture of God-fearing women who can love both their families and careers, or at least appreciate that our society simply demands that women be able to work because men have failed to responsibly lead. But I digress. Will Christianity be able to survive this politization of faith? Where it appears that the left is capitulating to evangelicalism, such as by inviting Rick Warren to do the Inauguration, do you think it might really be about blurring the lines and causing confusion? The ability for any party to cross party lines is usually indicative of moderate-ism. Is this what we should expect of our faith-based discourse? The church is being silenced internally and externally on life issues someone needs to speak to; it's never taken up the cause for women in a real practical way that avoids the extremes of secular feminism but still appreciates the giftings of women in whatever sphere she participates in; and the evangelical church is losing its distinctive voice by the manipulation of the smooth-talking left who are out to gain the loyalties of the pragmatic and uninformed. Can the evangelical church survive the next decade?

Life of the Mind in Women's Ministry

2008-12-16T15:58:00.003-06:00

Last night the women at my church finished the 10 week Beth Moore study "Living Beyond Yourself." The women were very encouraged by the content of this study and I'm pleased by the way it was able to connect us to each other. This isn't the kind of study that teaches women how to study the Bible or the topics contained in the study on their own, but overall I believe it accomplished its goal.

The last video session addressed how women can lack self control as it relates to the body. Whether obsessing over every bite or giving in to every indulgence, women are at risk in this media-driven culture to go one way or the other. This lack of respect of the body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, becomes the essence of idolatry. That's a solid message.

In offering a corrective, Beth talked about how we need to have a biblical perspective on the body, but I believe she erred in moving the listener too quickly into application. She said "you can't just think with the top of your head" you've got to apply the truths we know about God, ourselves, etc, and make them a real part of our lives. I certainly don't disagree with her in that regard. But does Beth overestimate her audience? I would suggest that in women's ministry and in the church more broadly, we equip few to think theologically--or simply logically--on any matter on their own. I believe to suggest otherwise is to miss the root cause of many of the problems in the evangelical community. Neglecting to teach women how to think will create a culture of quick fix therapy. But by cultivating the life of the mind in women's ministry, where I firmly believe it has become so necessary, women and their families will be equipped to live beyond their circumstances to the glory of God.

Position Statement on Women in Ministry

2008-11-30T20:59:00.003-06:00

The mission of Women of Faith in Culture (WFC) is to contribute to the spiritual growth of women through biblical, theological, and worldview education, bringing God’s Word to bear on all areas of life. We believe that equipping women in this respect best prepares them for living in today’s world of ideas, in whatever sphere God has placed them. To this end, we endeavor to come alongside women’s ministries in the local church, assisting in their call to evangelize and disciple women of all ages and backgrounds according to the Titus 2 mandate.

As WFC works passionately with current women’s leaders and participates in the development of women as future leaders in church and culture, we desire not to compromise a core belief, that the leadership roles of Senior Pastor and Elder are an office of the church to which only men may serve... (...continue reading)

The Language of Life & Death

2008-11-24T08:12:00.006-06:00

Last night I watched a program called Tribal Life, seemingly a reality show about the daily life of a tribal community on an island off the coast of Australia. This was not a hide-behind-the-trees documentary, but the cameras were a part of the tribe's routine. In fact, at times this tribe spoke very good English. It was obvious that this remote society was influenced by western culture.

I was taken aback when the program featured a young family with 3 kids--a 4th on the way. But this 4th child was too great of a burden, so with the aid of some tree bark and some other plants known to induce an abortion, the husband and wife ended the life of their unborn child. They, like humans around the globe, spoke of the abortion as something less ominous, as if he didn't intentionally prepare the toxic drink to end the life of that child, as if she didn't intentionally drink the poison. For them, it was a miscarriage. Even the show narrator avoided calling it what it was. The term abortion was never used.

This smoke-and-mirrors approach is hardly new, nor is it limited to uncivilized parts of the world. In fact, the language of death in our society has had to be reframed such that the sting of guilt doesn't exist. That's why we see the pro-aborts refer to Plan B as contraception instead of the abortifacient that it is. "Let no one deceive you with empty words" (Eph 5:6).

Confusing people with language in biotechnology and the abortion arena is a problem that is not going away. So as the economy continues to nose dive, we need to be prepared to educate young women that when they sell their eggs, the eggs are being fertilized. A fertilized egg is an embryo. Recently a feminist organization put out a press release claiming that evangelicals believed eggs to be more valuable than human persons. Either a deliberate obfuscation, or they are severely uninformed. We are cautioning young women by telling them the truth and eliminating the confusion in terminology. Another word for a fertilized egg is "offspring." So as young women are offered thousands of dollars for what they perceive to be nothing more than an altruistic tissue donation, the truth is that they are being exploited.

So what does this have to do with the church and with women's ministry?? Everything! We are in a unique position to educate our congregations and communities on these and similar issues. The biotech and fertility industries have a conflict of interest--they make money off of egg donations. Oooops! Yet we find another misuse of language. This is hardly a donation--it's a sale.

http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/planB/planBQandA.htm

“Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation). If a fertilized egg is implanted prior to taking Plan B, Plan B will not work."

Create in Me a Clean Heart

2008-11-21T06:56:00.000-06:00

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6)

The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." (4:3) (physical pleasure)

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. (4:5.6) (materialistic attraction)

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, "for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,'" and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" (4:9-11) (intellectual autonomy)

Beth Moore: Deuteronomy 7:6-9

2008-11-19T08:22:00.001-06:00

We are in week 8 of the Beth Moore Bible study, "Living Beyond Yourself," at my church. It hasn't been an easy study for me to be involved in because it so frequently jumps around different books of the Bible, sometimes to the neglect of context. On page 139 of the study, question 1 asks the student to read Deuteronomy 7:6-9 and respond. "Which of the following represent reasons God chose Israel?" The possible answers are "Because they were a mighty nation; Because they were the fewest of all peoples; Because they were a holy people; Because they were His treasured possession." Unless this is a teaser question, it seems to me that a 5th choice is missing: None of the above.

Deuteronomy 7:6-9 affirms that Israel is a mighty nation, fewest of all peoples, a holy people, and God's treasured possession. But none of these things were true about Israel in a way that caused God to choose them, so to say God chose them because of any of these things is erroneous. At one point in time, Israel was a promise to Abraham, they didn't exist except as his offspring multiplied.

So what is Deut 7:6-9 saying? In fact, it is saying exactly the opposite of Beth's question. The answer is in verse 8, "but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping His oath that He swore to your fathers."

I don't claim to know Hebrew, but the English is plain enough here. Statements that are true about Israel in this passage do not necessitate that they are causes.

1. "You are a people holy to the Lord..."
2. "The Lord your God has chosen you to be...His treasured possession" emphasis on "to be," indicative that holiness was not a cause.
3. "It was not because you were more in number...for you were the fewest." Be careful here, this is not a causitive statement, it is emphasizing even further that there is nothing mighty about Israel apart from God's love.

If this was intended by the editors to be a thought-provoking question, then it might work, but the wordsmiths aren't satisfied with this use of language as it clouds serious truths about God and His covenant relationship with Israel.

Please don't be too quick to beat up on me for being critical of this study. There are other areas of concern that I have with it that I have not publically addressed as of yet. To excuse the flaws of this study because it is 10 years old misunderstands the role of editors in publishing, but more importantly, it prevents women from getting the best training in Bible study methods and application.

I disagree with Beth Moore on many things, but they have more to do with method as she often draws conclusions with little rigor. I certainly am not judging her intentions or motives, I believe her to be a woman who sincerely loves the Lord.

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Foundations for Holy, Obedient Living

2008-11-18T09:10:00.006-06:00

"...that we should be holy and blameless before him" (Eph 1:4) not only expresses God's purposes in electing us to salvation, but I believe it sums up the message of Ephesians and the goal of the Christian life. Ephesians 1:3-23 contains the words of a prayer from Paul indicating several theological truths foundational to the purpose of the rest of the letter.

In the past tense, Paul writes (Eph 1:5) that all believers were predestined for adoption (huiothesia = huio/son, thesia/placed)...planned in eternity to occur at some point in time. Similar to our earthly conception of adoption where a child is placed in the care of another family, to become a permanent member of that family, God has placed us in His family. Paul prays that this is "according to the purpose of His will." Here the word purpose comes from eudokian meaning good pleasure or desire. And certainly, it is God's desire--His requirement--that "we should be holy and blameless before him" (Eph 1:4).

Paul continues in his prayer, which flows logically and flawlessly, declaring in the present tense that "In Him we have redemption" (Eph 1:7). The word redemption is related to apolutrosin which refers to deliverance or a ransom paid. Pointing to the Cross, Paul prays this doctrine of redemption, showing how we are (through the blood, the ransom paid) and how we are becoming "holy and blameless before Him" (Eph 1:4). We assume with Paul that the recipients of this letter are believers, which is why he speaks so affirmatively of having redemption.

Finally, Paul prays about our present tense inheritance, or kleroo ((klay-ro'-o) in the original language (Eph 1:11) that is guaranteed for us "to acquire possession of" at a future point in time (Eph 1:14) as a consequence of the sealing or securing of our salvation by and through Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13).

Each of these theological truths are intended to be understood by the recepients of this letter, including you and I. But why exactly is Paul praying these truths? The answer to that is found in verses 15-23 where he begins "For this reason" (Eph 1:15) and is fleshed out in Eph 1:18-20,

that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he rasied him from the dead...

We can only take joy and comfort in the Lord if he is all powerful and has had our lives in His hands for all eternity. If at any point the opposite were true, then Paul could not speak of our past tense adoption and then there would be no trust in a present tense redemption or present/future tense inheritance. But because of God's sovereign power which has held history history together, His "immeasuarable greatness and power" that saved us and raised Jesus, there is a basis for His purpose "that we should be holy and blameless before Him" (Eph 1:4).

So as Paul brings this prayer to a conclusion, it begins an exciting letter to a group of believers in a decadent society full of sexual immorality, false religion, and self-indulgence. That doesn't sound much different from the landscape of 21st century America. Chapters 2-6 explain further how God has actualized our hagios, our pure and blamess position before the Throne, but also how the members of the Church have been called to responsibility in living out the Christian life. While we have been made holy, we are being made holy. God has accomplished our redemption, and we participate in our sanctification through obedience by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Indulging in God: Correcting Eve's Error

2008-11-14T14:05:00.004-06:00

Tonight I'm speaking at a local church on the topic Indulging in God. Have you ever noticed that Mary of Bethany is the antithesis to Eve in Eden? Eve had her wants and needs taken care of. She had food, beautiful surroundings, and she had all the wisdom anyone could want for with her dwelled God. But that wasn't enough and she bought into the lies of the Serpent, not in order to have more of what she had, but to replace it with something better. She'd be able to indulge all of her desires for physical pleasure, materialism, and great knowledge and wisdom.

Contrast that to Mary of Bethany who knew that everything she needed--and everything she wanted--was at the feet of Jesus. A woman who knew exactly what she wanted was everything that she needed. Without Christ, there was no real satisfaction in life, but she needed to know who he was, and that was accomplished by spending time with and learning from the Lord who was with her. Mary corrected Eve's mistake by knowing more about her Lord by studying him and with him. Another incident between Mary and Jesus shows her anointing his feet with oil--with her hair. This is a woman who not only learned who Jesus is, but aspired to live like him. She learned how she was different from Jesus (in her fallenness) but still sought to live the humble, sacrificial life.

Prochoice Feminism Reaching Out to Young Women

2008-11-13T16:15:00.003-06:00

In the Christian community, we do a great deal of ministry to women in the church, including young women. I wish women's ministry proper did more with the high school and college aged women, and I'd like to be a part of that shift in culture. But what about the young women who are listening and looking for truth, who might not be in church or even in a churched home? I can tell you -- no, I'll show you what NARAL is doing.

We wonder what's going on in today's culture...how a young America can vote for change that lacks definition, can vote for candidates who are rabid pro-aborts, can embrace religious pluralism while being hypocrites toward evangelicalism. It happens when young America is left to figure things out on their own....or when organizations like NARAL and the Feminist Majority provide the only answers to their most difficult questions. I wish I had the financial means to be a voice to today's young women, validating them as human, as professionals, as thinkers, as achievers, as the future of our society in all of its quadrants. In the meantime, the biggest muscle is coming through campaigns such as Free.Will.Power.

God, Government, and Goodness

2008-11-11T20:53:00.005-06:00

In a persistent effort to rid the public square of any religious voices, the few that might be left after this 2008 election that is, the American Humanist Association has launched an advertising campaign to "raise awareness" of humanist doctrine. On ethics, they state

"Morality doesn't come from religion. It's a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience."

Competing against God would no doubt make an individual or organization insecure, necessitating the launch of a campaign aimed at desensitizing the voting public against the existence of God. Apart from their inability to account for objective good, they clearly are inconsistent in application of tolerance. A pluralistic public square is indeed what we have, and in a democratic society the predominant beliefs of the people are going to have the greatest impact. So organizations like the American Humanist Association go all, poisoning the well against theistic perspectives on public issues.

But to the heart of this advertising, it's no surprise that they would try to argue for goodness without God. As part of how man was created, he can have a sense of right and wrong, good and evil. But he'll certainly struggle giving an account for the right and the good in absolute terms. Humanism leaves us in the mire of relativism, with numerous interpretations of the right and the good.

As we move into the new administration in 2009, we will undoubtedly encounter more efforts to promote humanistic ideals at the expense of policies that protect human life and promote human dignity. Resulting from this will be more confidence for the anti-theistic verbiage. Clearly we're in for a rough ride, but certainly not a without an aggressive response.

FOCA on the Family

2008-11-11T16:00:00.003-06:00

Pardon the pun, but churches and families need to be aware of how the Freedom of Choice Act will impact their community, something we should expect to see enacted within Obama's first 100 days in office. For more information on the legal impact, visit Americans United for Life. Women, especially young and underage, will be put at risk because of this repeal of all state-enacted regulation. Now is the time for our churches to get serious about bioethics in the pew. Isn't it amazing? We need to regulate big business, but unfettered access to the unborn is what is being handed to the abortion industry. Here is some of what you can expect to see nullified by FOCA:

Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003
Hyde Amendment (restricting taxpayer funding of abortions)
Restrictions on abortions performed at military hospitals
Restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion for federal employees
Informed consent laws
Waiting periods
Parental consent and notification laws
Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics
Requirements that licensed physicians perform abortions
“Delayed enforcement” laws (banning abortion when Roe v. Wade is overturned and/or the authority to restrict abortion is returned to the states)
Bans on partial-birth abortion
Bans on abortion after viability. FOCA’s apparent attempt to limit post-viability abortions is illusory. Under FOCA, post-viability abortions are expressly permitted to protect the woman’s “health.” Within the context of abortion, “health” has been interpreted so broadly that FOCA would not actually proscribe any abortion before or after viability.
Limits on public funding for elective abortions (thus, making American taxpayers fund a procedure that many find morally objectionable)
Limits on the use of public facilities (such has public hospitals and medical schools at state universities) for abortions
State and federal legal protections for individual healthcare providers who decline to participate in abortions
Legal protections for Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals who, while providing care to millions of poor and uninsured Americans, refuse to allow abortions within their facilities

Truth Depends on God

2008-11-07T08:15:00.001-06:00

Common ground exists only insofar as individuals deem the basis or foundation of truth inconsequential. Without proper tribute given to the source of truth, common ground is limited and unstable. Eventually, though preferably at the onset, Christians need to proclaim the complete Truth because it is there that the gospel is located.

John Murray wrote "...all truth is derived from him and only in relation to him is anything true." (Principles of Conduct, P. 132).

Facts aren't floating about such that anyone can grab them and call them their own. Whatever is true is so because God exists. We can even say that universal laws of logic exist because they emanate from God. There are no abstract ideas that exist independently of God, or else we could say something does exist without dependence on God. And isn't this the way sinful humanity desires to exist?
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Follow Your Heart...If You Dare

2008-11-06T19:25:00.005-06:00

If the title of this post causes you concern, it should--if you believe the heart is merely the source of emotions and feelings, entirely separate from the functions of the mind. But on the other hand, if you have a biblical perspective of the heart as the center of personality as John Frame suggests, then you need not be alarmed by the statement.

Frame writes in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God that "knowledge of God is a heart-knowledge" citing Ex 35:5, Ps 4:4, Isa 6:10, Matt 5:8, Eph 1:18 and more. Accordingly, scripture "represents it as the source of thought, of volition, of attitude, of speech. It is the seat of moral knowledge." (P. 322)

If we conceive of the heart as inseparable from the mind or the conscious, regarding them rather as a single entity with a variety of out workings, then we need to rethink the manner in which we speak of them. The mind is not the place for only intellectual activity and the heart is not only where we feel and find inspiration. The heart is not alone the seat of spirituality, relegating the so-called nonspiritual activity of logic and reason to the mind. Scripture calls us to understand the heart and mind singularly, paying respect to its ability to reason, hope, love, grieve, and more.

Practical Theology for Women: Book Review

2008-11-06T08:13:00.003-06:00

A new book is now available, published by Crossway Books, and is an absolute must read for all women, Practical Theology for Women by Wendy Horger Alsup. It's a small book with a lot of big theology, but nothing a woman (or man) doesn't need to know. One particular matter she addresses I also believe is extremely important for women to grasp. She writes,

...instead of seeing ourselves as connected to Christ at all times, we tend to view our relationship with God in terms of intersecting moments during the day. We think that the more times our lives intersect with God, the more 'spiritual' we are. In this paradigm, God goes on his way and I go my way until we intersect at another corner...Instead, we need to think of ourselves walking with Jesus continually...Christ is in you...holding you together at all times. (p. 96)

I continually meet women who say they agree with the author in this regard, but then they will often speak of their work or family life as something separate from their spiritual life, or they will speak of their devotional life as the spiritual quadrant where they go to find God, neglecting to recognize His presence in every other area of their life.

This is an excellent book for the young or mature woman in Christ. There is nothing about it that says "this book is for girls," so for those who typically avoid pink, frilly devotionals, this book is for you. I recommend moving from this book into more studies in systematic theology, but I affirm the impact this book will have on the thought life of everyone who reads it. It's very suitable for group studies and individual reading.

Practical Theology for Women
Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois
ISBN: 1433502097
153 pages

Fox News Story: Why Words Matter

2008-11-05T17:51:00.002-06:00

The title of this story just cracked me up, but I didn't think you'd believe me without a screen shot, so here you go! Word ordering does matter when we write! I wonder if he'll get a 3rd shot at the jump....

Proclaiming the Faith: Relational Apologetics

2008-11-04T08:42:00.002-06:00

Last night at Bible study, a woman shared about her relationship with a friend who espouses a more "open-minded" approach to God. In other words, she rules out very little as being true, even when religious views might conflict. In her view, this is a better way of believing than the biblical theology as professed by my friend. So how does one address this clash of worldviews? This isn't about winning a debate per se, this is primarily about winning a person over to Christ by proclaiming truth and refuting error--in all manner of love.

Ephesians 4:25 tells us to put away all falsehood and speak truth while being imitators of God and walking in love. Our motivation, again, is not the winning of the argument, but the soul of the unbeliever. But don't be deceived, having the discussion, debate, argument--whatever term you apply to it--it must happen. It is through the dialogue that God will plant seeds of truth or accomplish His redemptive ends altogether. We don't know, but we must not avoid the worldview discussion.

When Paul addressed the people at the Areopagus (Acts 19:22-32) he made known to them what they had identified for themselves as unknown by proclaiming Christ. Similarly, with meekness and gentleness we are called to give an answer for the hope we have in Christ, making a defense to anyone who asks. This may involve destroying arguments (in love, of course) and any opinions raised against the knowledge of God (1 Cor 10:5).

if there is a willingness to discuss religious beliefs with unbelieving friends, the worldview approach which questions their source of knowledge and basis for belief and their justification of morality (right and wrong) is a great place to begin. What it will reveal is that people cannot live without absolute truth and that they cannot account for any knowledge within the framework of their own worldview. Borrowing from Christianity philosophically is the only way people actually live, and we can show this to be the case if we are willing to enter into a ministry of apologetics in our individual relationships. Apologetics isn't an academic exercise, it is a necessary ministry in our anything-goes pluralistic culture.

You Are What You Eat...and Think

2008-11-02T22:13:00.005-06:00

Our parents and teachers taught us very early in life that what we put into our bodies could have a significant effect on our health and appearance. Our bodies would become lean and strong if we ate healthy foods and we would probably live a long, healthy life as a result. Conversely, if we aggressively snack on foods loaded with sugar and fat, we would likely suffer some negative consequences. Over the course of time, if we abuse our bodies with unhealthy foods or are exposed to environmental toxins, our bodies will struggle to properly process even the healthiest food. When this is the case, some choose to take vitamins and supplements alongside a healthy diet in order to flush the body of impurities, enabling all of the body systems to function better. It is true that you are what you eat, but sometimes more needs to be done to reverse the effects of poor nutrition. Our mind is not that different from our body.

As the body is the outward manifestation of our nutrition, how we live is the outward expression of the habits of the mind. The ideas that enter and remain become a part of our belief system—or worldview. This worldview manifests in every area of life including religious practice, political views, parenting, sexuality, and more. No part of our life is immune to the influence of these beliefs, and like the body, if the mind has been exposed to bad ideas, there is a sense in which the mind needs to be cleansed of these beliefs. This is part of what it means to live in a way that glorifies God.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. …But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph 4:17-24)

Putting off the old self in practice requires putting off the old self of ideas and beliefs. We put on the new self through the renewing in the spirit of our minds, but this is not achieved by placing scripture over top our old ways of thinking and living, but by holding up our existing beliefs, views and opinions against the light of God’s written Word and purging them from our mind as necessary. This is, in essence, a reshaping of our worldview, moving from a worldly perspective to a biblical worldview.

Recognizing that you are what you think should be cause for ongoing self-examination. Take the time to answer the following questions:

1. Does the way I run my business cohere with godly principles of leadership and truthfulness?

2. Is my view of the sanctity of life consistent with what scripture teaches about the pre-born?

3. Do I honor God in my marriage and family with physical and emotional faithfulness?

4. Do I believe the Bible is God's written revelation to man, that it is inspired, inerrant, infallible, sufficient, and authoritative?

5. Is truth absolute or does it depend on my culture or circumstances?

6. Is Jesus the savior for all sinners, or does he only represent Christians?

7. What do I believe about the Trinity?

Women's Ministry: Why Ethics Matters

2008-10-26T19:46:00.002-05:00

At the risk of being misunderstood, it seems to me that Christians often needlessly spiritualize how we fulfill the call to glorify God.(1) Let me explain. There are times when we say that we are praying about matters when what we are really doing is avoiding a reasoned decision because that might be less than spiritual, or too human. And sometimes when we talk about matters of right and wrong, we avoid injecting any sound ethical principles and, instead, tell our brother or sister that their situation is between them and God. To be fair, there are times that these might be the most appropriate statements to make, but it goes against the teachings of scripture to de-legitimize the role of the mind or the pursuit of the holy life. Our Christian walk cannot be reduced to a Holy Spirit intuition or a lack of ethical reasoning.

The theologian L. H. Marshall puts forth this idea that for Christian living, the Holy Spirit functions as a spontaneous power that mystically causes people to know right from wrong. He said,

The Spirit of God in action in a man’s heart was an adequate ethical guide, and that a man under the sway of the Spirit knew from within what the will of God was and was enabled both to will and to do… (2)

This view not only confuses the entity referred to as the heart (the mind), but it under-estimates the impact of unconscious and conscious beliefs we retain. As well, it ignores the deceitful nature of the heart (Jer 17:9). But the New Testament theologian G.E. Ladd writes,

It is striking that Paul does not appeal to the Spirit as a direct source of moral enlightenment. Paul is conscious that the Holy Spirit reveals the things of God (1 Cor 2:10), but this does not mean that Paul feels himself to be independent of the Old Testament and the teaching of Jesus.(3)

Ladd shows how Paul’s letters communicate the reality, that new life comes from the Spirit, but that we are commanded to actually participate in this by walking by the Spirit (Gal 5:25).

To bring more clarification to this topic, consider the distinction that is made between law and grace. Paul never insisted that principles of conduct went away with the Law and that the Holy Spirit would provide an answer for every dilemma we face. For redemptive purposes, Christ fulfilled the requirements of the Law yet he also provided a summary for it’s ethical requirements in Matt 22:37-29 in the Great Commandment. Ethical reflection toward a life that pleases God was never replaced with a mystical, abstract approach to living. We are always expected to obey, though our salvation doesn’t depend upon our always succeeding. Yet any ability to obey—to please God—is found in our new nature accounted for through the regenerative work of the Spirit.

For men and women, many of the decisions we face in today’s world are not to be answered with specifics contained in Scripture. Technology, economics, and entertainment leave us wringing our hands sometimes, not entirely clear on how to think Christianly about these areas. But Ephesians 5:10 calls each of us to discern what is pleasing to God—not to guess, hope, or feel….but to discern. Chapters 2-5 in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus focus largely on how we participate—ethical reflection—in pursuit of the holy life. This is a very practical, tangible section of scripture rooted in solid teachings on salvation and God in contrast to our sinfulness. The letter concludes with application in marriage and family. But this is hardly exhaustive in content, and many other areas of our every day living call us to reflect on our walk.

In considering the many perspectives that women in particular face in today’s world, decisions from reproductive technologies and birth control to careers, relationships and matters of the family, room needs to exist for deliberate ethical reflection, grounded in a firm foundation the acknowledges the supremacy of God. The ability to move from Scripture into the specific areas of life that are in question is the process of doing theology. Knowing what the Bible says in its context is the first step, but bringing it to bear on every square inch of your life is where it all becomes real.

1. If you are confused after reading this essay, please contact me for clarification. sarahflashing@gmail.com

2. L.H. Marshall, The Challenge of NT Ethics (1947), p. 220.

3. G.E. Ladd, A New Testament Theology (2002), p. 563.

The Sexually-Desensitized Western World

2008-10-24T08:23:00.003-05:00

A conversation with my friend Katie yesterday re-opened my eyes to the philosophical and ideological components of prime time tv. Its not that I don't know what Hollywood is up to, but I have been watching for entertainment purposes. I've been so lazy...wanting to sift through the bad to find some nugget of humor or goodness. In fact, I'm fully satisfied simply seeing Amy Pohler's goofy grin, but the second she starts talking, I have to turn on the filter. But now the monster is awakened.

The discussion with Katie entailed the influence of same-sex experimentation being communicated to young girls via Grey's Anatomy, a bit more subtle than what was portrayed this week on House. As girls and young women struggle with a lack of self-confidence while possessing a highly relational nature, they can easily be persuaded to experiment with what 2 adult women on Grey's are portrayed as trying for the first time. Acting like school girls who are completely clueless about the ways of the world, this story line replaces the usual confident/militant lesbian story line with a softer, more feminine version that seeks to remove the contrast between unnatural & inappropriate sexual relationships and those which are viewed to be healthy female relationships. Removing what little stigma that is left in our society toward same-sex relationships seems to be the goal of prime time television this season. But I should be fair; Grey's Anatomy, House, ER--these have never been shows that were meant to tap into our medical curiosity. These are meant to indulge our wildest sexual fantasies by portraying them as the norm of our society. They are accomplishing their goal, I fear, by desensitizing the youngest generations to any sense of right or wrong in the context of sexuality.

The Walk of Life

2008-10-23T20:52:00.008-05:00

Paul begins his discourse on ethics earlier in his letter to Ephesians, noting the way in which each of us walked when we were spiritually dead, following the course of this world (Eph 2:1-2). The word walked is from the Greek peripateo, referring to the way in which we conduct our lives. It has to do with the principle way in which we choose to live.

Seven more times throughout the rest of the letter, walked is used to contrast the former way of living with the way that is found to be pleasing to the Lord...a way of conducting one's life as a child of God. This needs to be understood in distinction from the fact that as believers we still sin--and pursue a life of repentance. Walking or living in sin is not the same as being a sinner saved by grace.

As followers of Jesus, we need to be aware of our commitment, manifest in obedience. Because the Holy Spirit has sealed us in Christ and has created in us a new heart, we are able not only to obey, but to desire it as well.

So how in this world does it look to walk in ways that are pleasing to the Lord? We've got to be willing to examine the ideas and beliefs we hold and the issues and decisions we are confronted with on a daily basis. And as women serving God, we must be prepared to mentor young women in these times. The way this looks is to examine the latest trends, understand the ideas of the age, and evaluate the ways of the world. Trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord is not as easy of a task as it once was, in my opinion. The many questions and choices that constantly bombard us require more than 'that's good for me' or 'God created me this way.' Daytime and primetime television is selling women the idea that the good life is merely what you determine it to be, and the politicians will simply agree with the popular opinion--that's the nature of politics

We are called to a faith that is both thoughtful and practical, but the two can never be separated. Historic Christianity requires that we avoid ritual and really understand what we believe, and live it. So walking in a way worthy of our calling demands more than just a casual devotional life or a spirituality that has no effect on our every day decisions. To walk in the way God expects requires that we consider how our faith impacts every corner of our lives, recognizing that there is nothing that God does not have his hand upon.

The Hidden Trick of Liberal Treats

2008-10-23T15:57:00.005-05:00

THIS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

Ephesians, the Holy Spirit, and the Redeemed Mind

2008-10-22T22:43:00.004-05:00

I am trying to master Paul's letter to the Ephesians, per the recommendation of David Powlison in his journal article Counsel Ephesians. The letter is truly fascinating in that it provides the reader a theological basis for the ethics to follow in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Ephesians 1:4 states, ...even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. So as followers of Jesus in a fallen world, we are challenged to live a life worthy of the calling, pursuing according to the Spirit the holiness each of us has been called to (Eph 4:1) and realized in eternity.

In 1 Cor 2:14, Paul alludes to the condition of humanity, noting that the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit. From this, we can gather that the "unnatural" man, or the man indwelled by the Holy Spirit, can indeed understand spiritual things. This reflects a change in his nature before the Lord, yet still stuck in a fallen world.

Redeemed humanity is changed by virtue of the Spirit's indwelling, which is why Paul can ask each of us to no longer walk in the futility of the Gentile mind (Eph 4:17) or for the thief to no longer steal (Eph 4:28) and people in general to avoid corrupted communications (Eph 4:29). I'm struck by the fact that some things are easily discernable, that we don't ask thieves to "pray about it" in terms of whether they will be obedient to God and avoid the sin of theft. We just expect obedience. We do the same thing with language. We teach that the use of certain profanities is inappropriate and so the practice should just simply be avoided. Obedience is something that we desire and can do because the Spirit lives within us. However, there are still those matters that are a bit more complicated, that scripture does not speak to directly. Those matters require that we try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord (Eph 4:10) and work a bit harder at figuring things out. The role of the mind cannot go unmentioned in our quest for holiness, and at the same time, it is not unspiritual to tap into our intellect--it, too, is part of God's creation.

The Feminist Majority Prefers Women Kept Stupid

2008-10-17T08:09:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, the Feminist Majority put out a statement against Colorado's Amendment 48. Apparently, Amendment 48 would recognize the personhood of embyos. This is what the Feminist Majority had to say about that:

we want to make sure that women have more rights than an egg!

Well, either their statement reflects a profound ignorance--because those of us who are prolife do not equate eggs with embryos-- or this is what they have been wanting to say all along. With smoke and mirrors, they speak of the embryo in its pre-fertilized state so as to avoid the scientific truth we know about all embryos...that they are living human organisms. Eggs are not. Why do they do they insist on ignoring this scientifically obvious difference? Because the Feminist Majority really does believe that grown women have more rights than smaller humans, and that this goes against the conscience of the majority of Americans. It is necessary to their agenda to obfuscate this issue because an egg with moral worth is not an egg, its an embryo. Young women in their reproductive years are being psychologically primed to donate their eggs for research purposes, but these eggs never remain eggs, they become embryos. If they are persuaded to believe falsely that their eggs forever remain eggs, then they don't have to consider that the eggs they give up actually become their embryonic offspring. What woman is not repulsed by the notion if giving up her offspring for research? For the Feminist Majority to speak of fertilized eggs as simply eggs is scientifically false and a deliberate attempt to confuse the same women they believe have more rights than these much smaller humans. How can they, the Feminist Majority, claim to respect the rights of women if they can't respect our basic intelligence?