Gay Marriage: Much More than a Social Revolution

Rod Dreher's recent essay, "Sex After Christianity" is a must read (Sex After Christianity).

Dreher points out that

The magnitude of the defeat suffered by moral traditionalists will become ever clearer as older Americans pass from the scene. Poll after poll shows that for the young, homosexuality is normal and gay marriage is no big deal—except, of course, if one opposes it, in which case one has the approximate moral status of a segregationist in the late 1960s.

He concludes,

Gay marriage signifies the final triumph of the Sexual Revolution and the dethroning of Christianity because it denies the core concept of Christian anthropology. In classical Christian teaching, the divinely sanctioned union of male and female is an icon of the relationship of Christ to His church and ultimately of God to His creation. This is why gay marriage negates Christian cosmology, from which we derive our modern concept of human rights and other fundamental goods of modernity. Whether we can keep them in the post-Christian epoch remains to be seen.

Equally important is Peter Jones' response to Dreher's essay (A Response to Rod Dreher).  Dr. Jones contends

The homosexual agenda is silencing every memory of behavior, speech, religious conviction, and public policy that reminds people that heterosexuality is the God-created norm for human sexuality. Anyone who adheres to such a heterosexual norm dares say so only at the risk of being arrested for discriminatory bullying.

He adds,

This old Western "Christian" world is indeed "coming apart" and in its place rises a "new world" of multi-sexual liberation, systematically promoted by both an ideological pagan Oneism and a determined elimination of the binary structure of theistic Twoism, which Scripture teaches is the way the world was made. Many in evangelicalism fail to see or refuse to see what is going on. Their superficial solutions only compound the problems.

Godfrey on Arminius, Mohler on Moralism, and an RNS Article on Israel

Dr. W. Robert Godfrey reviews a new book on Jacob Arminius (Keith D. Stanglin and Thomas H. McCall, Jacob Arminius, Theologian of Grace, Oxford University Press, 2012).  Godfrey concludes, that the volume Arminius, Theologian of Grace,

succeeds in what it set out to do: present an introduction to the theology of Arminius. The book helped me see Arminius as a theologian of the goodness of God. It did not convince me that he teaches the biblical doctrine of grace.

To read the whole review, click here:  Godfrey on Arminius, Theologian of Grace 

Al Mohler's essay Moralism is Not the Gospel is well worth reading.  Mohler writes

In our own context, one of the most seductive false gospels is moralism. This false gospel can take many forms and can emerge from any number of political and cultural impulses. Nevertheless, the basic structure of moralism comes down to this — the belief that the Gospel can be reduced to improvements in behavior.

You might enjoy Sarah Pulliam Bailey's recent post on Religion News Service addressing the marked decline in Evangelical support for Israel.  She quotes some guy named Riddlebarger.  Is Support for Israel Waning?

Your Brain on Jane Austen

According to comprehensive research conducted at Stanford in 2012, "literary reading provides `a truly valuable exercise of people's brains.'"  Your Brain on Jane Austen

Preliminary results are pretty remarkable . . .

Surprising preliminary results reveal a dramatic and unexpected increase in blood flow to regions of the brain beyond those responsible for "executive function," areas which would normally be associated with paying close attention to a task, such as reading, said Natalie Phillips, the literary scholar leading the project.

During a series of ongoing experiments, functional magnetic resonance images track blood flow in the brains of subjects as they read excerpts of a Jane Austen novel. Experiment participants are first asked to leisurely skim a passage as they might do in a bookstore, and then to read more closely, as they would while studying for an exam.

Phillips said the global increase in blood flow during close reading suggests that "paying attention to literary texts requires the coordination of multiple complex cognitive functions." Blood flow also increased during pleasure reading, but in different areas of the brain. Phillips suggested that each style of reading may create distinct patterns in the brain that are "far more complex than just work and play."

I'm not sure reading Jane Austen will have the same effect upon me, however.  Not a fan . . . But I wonder how someone reading Nietzsche would react--does this impair or increase brain function?  And what happens to someone listening to the prophecies of the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse?  Or someone who reads the Riddleblog?

Regardless, pick up a good book and read it.  It will do your brain some good!

(h.t. Ken Samples)

Please Get My New Health Code Right . . .

It should come as no surprise that the nanny state can't get its environmental act together.  It seems that many buildings in our nation's capitol which were certified as "energy efficient" by the Leadership in Energy Design (LEED) are actually less energy efficient than buildings considered non-compliant.  Yup, these are the people I want managing my life.  Not All That Green

As if to add insult to injury, after October 14, 2014, the nanny state will implement a system of WHO codes to identify and track whatever ailment or injury may afflict you, in addition to carefully identifying the cause of your eventual demise.  Currently, there are some 17,000 of these codes.  But after October 14, 2014, the number will explode to over 155,000!  Among the new categories are "attempted suicide by jellyfish," "forced landing from your spacecraft," or "being sucked into a jet engine."  And no, I'm not kidding.  The people who write these codes must have a blast in their meetings!  Or, now that I think about it, the creator of these things is more likely a guy in the basement named Milton with a red stapler.  But imagine the grief we'll have to endure when someone enters the wrong health code number into our file.  A Gazillion New Heathcare Codes

Apparently, someone in Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church made a negative confession.  I hate it when that happens.  By the way, the 600G which went missing, was from only two offerings . . .  Moths and Rust

Forty Years Old and Still Like New

This gem was recently found in Pennsylvania barn covered in dust, after its owner died.  He has no heirs or living relatives, and left a number of interesting cars behind, including this Shelby GT500.  One of only a thousand manufactured, the car has 8500 original miles and replacement tires, but otherwise is completely stock.  The owner reportedly never washed it because he was afraid he'd scratch the paint.  Rare Shelby GT500 Found

According to the news report,

the GT500, that features a 428 Cobra Jet engine meshed to a 4-speed transmission, still maintains its original paint, tires, belts, hoses, factory steering wheel cover and 1968-dated coded spark plug wires. Vehicles with more miles, in far less original condition, have sold for over $100,000.

Back in the day, I recall seeing a red Shelby GT500 burning rubber on Whittier Boulevard in front of the Bob's Big Boy.  If you lived in Southern California and had a cool car, or just liked to watch the muscle cars or low-riders cruise by, then Saturday night at the Bob's Big Boy on Whittier Avenue was the place to be.

Quite a car and a wonderful find!

Asking Jesus into Your Heart

Baylor University History Professor Thomas Kidd discusses the origins of the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart," which is not found anywhere in the New Testament.

Kidd points out that,

The phrase “ask Jesus into your heart” is not in the Bible, although there are similar phrases there (“ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord,” Col. 2.6 KJV). So where did this prayer come from?

It turns out that Anglo-American Puritans and evangelicals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries used the phrase “receive Christ into your heart,” or something like it, with some regularity. The great Puritan devotional writer John Flavel, for example, spoke of those who had heard the gospel but who would “receive not Christ into their hearts.”

But it was just as common for pastors of that era to use the phrase to describe a Christian act of devotion. Thomas Boston, a Scottish Calvinist pastor, encouraged Christians taking communion to receive “Christ into their hearts.” Benjamin Colman, the leading evangelical pastor in Boston in the early eighteenth century, wrote explicitly that Christians should “receive Christ into their hearts, and hold him forth in their lives.”

There was a time in my life when I was certain that both Jesus and Paul must have told people "to ask Jesus into their hearts" in their own attempts at personal evangelism.  I hadn't thought about how confusing it would have been had Jesus himself actually told people to do this. 

But I was surprised at first about Flavel and Boston using the phrase, but then realized that what they meant by "receive Christ in your heart" is not what most of our contemporaries mean when they use it as the key petition of the sinner's prayer.

To read Dr. Kidd's entire post go here, Asking Jesus into Your Heart

The Christian "Horror" Film Designed to "Scare the Living Daylights Out of Non-Believers"

This is what happens when you lose confidence--or if you never had confidence--in the power of the gospel to create faith.  The same thing holds true for those who do not regard the sacraments as the divinely-appointed means to sustain that faith created by the gospel (cf. Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 65).  Without confidence in God's chosen means to create and sustain faith, why not engage in evangelism by manipulation?

Billed as the "scariest Christian movie ever," "Final Watch: The Rapture" is marketed as a sure fire way to scare someone into accepting Jesus by using the horror film genre to warn unbelievers (as well as careless "professing" Christians) of the terror of being left behind after the Rapture occurs (h.t. Gene Veith--Cranach).

There is no question that the final product is slick and well-presented (the website is first rate).  I do not doubt for a minute, the movie will achieve its purpose--to scare people.

But for the Christian, the return of Jesus Christ is pure gospel, and not something which should frighten us.  Jesus' return is the blessed hope (Titus 2:13), when we shall see Jesus as he is (1 John 3:2-3).  It is that moment when death is finally defeated, when the curse is overturned, and the time when every tear is wiped from our eyes (Revelation 21:4).  For those in Christ, the return of our Savior is not to feared, but is something for which we eagerly wait. 

For the non-Christian, however, the second coming of Christ is pure law (Matthew 25:41).  There is not one bit of hope or good news for those outside of Christ, once he returns and every eye beholds him and the heavenly host in their collective glory.  For those who have rejected the Savior, this is the moment in which the terrible realization dawns that it would be far better to be buried in an avalanche (Revelation 6:16) than face the wrath of the lamb!

In the hands of film-makers seeking to terrify people so as not to miss out on the rapture, the gospel is mutated into something like the old Sunday school refrain, "oh be careful little hands what you do."  The law, on the other hand, becomes trviialized into yet another post-apocalypse Hollywood thriller, the likes of which every fan of The Walking Dead has seen many times before, and to which viewers grow increasingly desensitized.  The law is now presented as "you certainly don't want to live through anything like that!"

We should not be surprised that this happens when folks don't really believe that the preached gospel is the power of God unto salvation, or that the penalty for breaking God's law--even but a single time (James 2:10)--is to face the wrath of God for all eternity without a mediator or his cross.

I don't question the motives behind those making and distributing the film.  I grew up in the dispensational world where such things are common--remember Thief in the Night and Left Behind?  In fact, I assume that folks behind this movie have the best of intentions--a desire to see people come to faith in Christ. 

Because of my own personal interest in eschatology, I'll stick with the preaching of the law in all its terror, and the gospel in all its wonder.  Scaring the living daylights out of people in this manner falls far short of the power of the means which God has given us in his word.  And even worse, The Final Watch trivializes the blessed hope, by reducing Christ's return to the Netflix category, "Horror."  Attempting to scare people into the kingdom (based on an improper view of law and gospel) will help create that myriad of scoffers about which Peter has warned us (2 Peter 3:1-13). 

Repent of Lent?

Dr. Brian Lee, pastor of the "other" Christ Reformed Church (in DC.), has a helpful essay on various theological problems associated with the observance of Lent (and various other spiritual disciplines) published in the Federalist.

According to Lee,

The problem with even the evangelical, self-imposed fast is that it creates a little law for us to obey, a rule that is within our reach. It is, not surprisingly, a law of our own making, for the law of God — love God and neighbor with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength — is impossible to obey, even for a moment. If we fulfill our personal law, we have confirmed ourselves in the conceit that we aren’t so badly off after all.

To read the rest of Dr. Lee's insightful essay, click here: Repent of Lent

National Socialism Dies Hard

Moved by the joy and celebration of a wedding (and the archway made of raised musical instruments), Grandpa inadvertently reveals some of his deep-seated and long-held commitments!

Daring to Be a Daniel and Some Other Interesting Things Worth Reading

Seems as though an African pastor decided to reenact the miracles of Jesus by walking on water.  You already know how this ends--badly.  He drowned.  Another pastor, who calls himself "the Prophet," dared to be a Daniel and entered the lion cage at the Ibadon zoo in south-west Nigeria.  This didn't end well either.  The lions ate the "Prophet" for lunch.  Daring to Be a Daniel.  I think I'll stick with the ordinary means of grace. (H.T. Shane Rosenthal)

Readers of this blog might find stimulating this provocative essay on de Tocqueville by Daniel Schwind (H. T. Gene Veith).  The author discusses Tocqueville's observations about how American individualism and rationalism causes common folk to view religion and morality in pragmatic terms, what is useful, not necessarily what is true.

Elsewhere Tocqueville daringly elaborates that religious notions, under this sort of regime, come sooner or later to be reduced to only those which are most obvious and undeniable; and even then, spiritual doctrines are only embraced insofar as they are practical—never as a matter of doctrinal or traditional truth. Then, having taken to judging the true by the standard of utility, religion undergoes a transformation.

To read the essay, click here: Refuting Tocqueville.

Michael Robbin's review in Slate of Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason is also well worth reading.  Evangelicalism is losing the war against the forces of secularism (decisively), an important topic for those of us raised in the movement.  (Review of Apostles of Reason).

Also well worth the time is Ross Douthat's spot-on reply to Atheist Jerry Coyne (Mr. "neutron illusion"--you'll have to read Douthat's essay to understand the pun), who did not like Douthat's Christmas column in the NY Times.  The Confidence of Jerry Coyne.  Douthat is proving himself to be a capable defender of "mere Christianity."