Stand to Reason Videos

Stand to Reason has a library of short videos featuring Greg Koukl addressing various apologetic issues on YouTube.

The Wonder of the Incarnation

He so loved us that, for our sake,
He was made man in time,
although through him all times were made.
He was made man, who made man.
He was created of a mother whom he created.
He was carried by hands that he formed.
He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, he the Word,
without whom all human eloquence is mute. -Augustine, Sermon 188, 2

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Christmas, Jesus, incarnation, Augustine, theology

Redeeming Conversation

Given the choice between a lectern (or even a really sturdy music stand) in a classroom and a pulpit in a sanctuary, I'll take the lectern every time. I'll also opt for the one-on-one ministry of the Word over sermonizing, too. I'm haunted by a comment made by one of my seminary professors years ago. "Consider," he counseled us, "where else during the week the people you're preaching to have had to sit for thirty minutes listening to someone talk." That was in the late '80's. Almost twenty years later, it's no more likely that those listening to sermons on Sunday morning are any more practiced to giving sustained attention to monologues throughout their week and attention spans certainly aren't any longer now than they were then.

For the last fourteen years I've served in an associate pastor role that has allowed me to concentrate on teaching in the contexts of adult education and one on one discipleship with minimal responsibilities in the area of preaching. I don't mean to disparage preaching at all. I recognize its importance and am grateful for those who devote themselves to it. In fact, I'm an auditory learner who enjoys listening to sermons and lectures. It's just that when I'm on the giving end, I prefer the dialogical nature of teaching. I like being able to stop and ask "Am I making sense?" or having someone stop me to ask a question. I realize that in part my reservations about preaching are due to my own shortcomings such as my prideful worry that I'm boring my hearers and my unbelief that the Holy Spirit will use the words he inspired (despite my inadequacies) to accomplish his gracious purposes through biblically-grounded preaching. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I still prefer speaking with people as opposed to merely speaking to them.

In his A Christian Directory, Richard Baxter includes a section on the importance of what he called "Christian conference, exhortation, and reproof." Essentially, it's about the necessity and benefit of believers conversing with each other about biblical truth. One of the advantages of such discourse, he says, is that it supplements the ministry of public preaching:

Your fruitful conference is a needful help to the ministerial work. When the preacher hath publicly delivered the word of God to the assembly, if you would so far second him, as in your daily converse to set it home on the hearts of those that you have opportunity to discourse with, how great an assistance would it be to his success! Though he must teach them publicly, and from house to house, Acts xx.20, yet it is not possible for him to be so frequent and familiar in daily conference with all the ignorant of the place, as those that are still with them may be. You are many, and he is but one, and can be but in one place at once. Your business bringeth you into their company, when he cannot be there. O happy is that minister who hath such a people, who will daily preach over the matter of his public sermons in their private conference with one another! (Part IV, Chapter XVI, Motive X).

Later, Baxter enumerates more advantages of spiritual conversation including the following which is the best articulation of why I prefer teaching that I've come across:

5. Interlocutory conference keepeth your auditors attentive, and carrieth them on along with you as you go. And it maketh the application much more easy, by their nearness and the familiarity of the discourse; when sermons are usually heard but as an insignificant sound, or words of course. 6. You may at your pleasure go back and repeat those things which the hearer doth not understand, or doth forget; which a preacher in the pulpit cannot do without the censure of the more curious auditors. 7. You may perceive by the answers of them whom you speak to, what particulars you need most to insist on, and what objections you should most carefully resolve; and when you have satisfied them, and may proceed. All which it is hard for a minister to do in public preaching; and is it not a great sin to neglect such an advantageous duty? (Part IV, Chapter XVI, Motive XII).

When I came across these thoughts from Baxter, I was reminded of an article by David Powlison called "What is Ministry of the Word?" (Journal of Biblical Counseling, Winter 2003, pp. 2-6) in which he distinguishes among three mutually supportive aspects of the communication of biblical truth. The first two, the public and private ministry of the Word, are those with which we are probably most familiar. The former refers to the proclamation, exposition, and application of Scripture that good sermons consist of. The latter refers to personal study of and meditation on Scripture in private devotions or "quiet times." While acknowledging the necessity of both for cultivating spiritual maturity, Powlison rejects the idea that they are sufficient:

Perhaps you've heard it said, "If people would only sit under good preaching and meet God regularly in private devotions, they wouldn't need counseling." That statement is well intended. It's even partly true. Lots of personal problems are transformed by public ministry of the Word and by private ministry of the Word. But the statement is completely untrue in its premises and its conclusions. A central purpose of good preaching and private devotions is to create mutual counseling and wise counselors! When any personal problem is in fact truly transformed, then a wise counselor of others has been produced. Fruitful interpersonal ministry of the Word is the main proof that sermons and devotions are worth the time and effort.

This calls to mind Paul's exhortation that we "Let the word of Christ dwell in [us] richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom..." (Col. 3:16). In today's church there is certainly a great deal of emphasis on preaching and devotions but are we neglecting the importance and necessity of believers learning how to skillfully bring biblical truth to bear on each other's lives?

Technorati Tags: Bible, Christianity, preaching, teaching, Richard Baxter, David Powlison, biblical counseling

Sire on Simply Christian

James Sire briefly reviews N. T. Wright's Simply Christian calling it "simply outstanding."

Barack Obama on Religion and Politics

Illinois State Senator Barack Obama (D) recently delivered the keynote address at a conference sponsored by Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty in America. He candidly expressed his wrestling with the relationship between his politics and his professed Christian faith, including internal turmoil stirred by Alan Keyes's claim toward the end of his 2004 campaign that Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama:

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.

But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.

From his address, it seems that Senator Obama's is relativistic when it comes to religious claims. All are valuable and valid to the extent that they offer their adherents community, meaning, and moral guidance. I'm pretty sure that the senator would be quick to add "for me" to any assertion he made about Christianity being true. Nevertheless, his address raises critical issues about how we engage in moral discourse in a pluralistic society and why the demand that religious beliefs be excluded from those conversations is historically unprecedented and practically impossible:

But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Senator Obama has always struck me as a reflective, intelligent, and judicious man. I'm glad he's thinking and talking about these matters and hope he will continue to do so.

UPDATE 6/30/06: Al Mohler identifies an internal contradiction in Senator Obama's position in his post Secularism With A Smile.

To the Tune of "Yes, Jesus Loves Me"

Yes, God ac-cepts me,

Yes, God ac-cepts me,

Yes, God ac-cepts me,

My e-go tells me so.

That's the ditty the majority of Americans are singing to themselves, according to a new national survey conducted by the Barna Group.

Currently, nine out of ten adults (88%) feel “accepted by God.” Barna listed a pair of interesting correlations related to that self-image. First, about one-third of the individuals who feel accepted by God do not consider themselves to be deeply spiritual. Second, people are twice as likely to feel accepted by God as they are to be born again – a condition that, many Protestant leaders argue, is a key reflection of God’s forgiveness and ultimate acceptance.

Some other interesting findings:

• Four out of every five adults (82%) say they are “clear about the meaning and purpose” of their life
• The younger a person is, the less likely they are to trust the Bible as their source of moral guidance or to believe that absolute moral truth exists.
• The younger a respondent was the less likely he or she was to claim to be deeply spiritual.
• African-American adults, who generally emerge as the ethnic segment most deeply committed to the Christian faith, were substantially less likely than either whites or Hispanics to have a biblical worldview. In total, just 1% of black adults met the criteria, compared to 6% among whites and 8% among Hispanics. (Less than one-tenth of one percent of Asians possesses a biblical worldview.)

George Barna had the following to say about popularity as it relates to Christian publishing and pastoral ministry (I wonder what title he had in mind):

Most of the bestsellers have focused on meaning, purpose, security and the end times.....While there have been theological views expressed in those books, very few popular books have helped people to think clearly and comprehensively about their core theology. Consequently, most born again Christians hold a confusing and inherently contradictory set of religious beliefs that go unchecked by the leaders and teachers of their faith community.

Our studies consistently show that churches base their sense of success on indicators such as attendance, congregant satisfaction, dollars raised and built-out square footage. None of those factors relates to the kind of radical shift in thinking and behavior that Jesus Christ died on the cross to facilitate. As long as we measure success on the basis of popularity and efficiency, we will continue to see a nation filled with people who can recite Bible stories but fail to live according to Bible principles.

I agree with Barna on both points and they're obviously related. The tendency to measure success in terms of numbers leads many pastors to promote whatever Christian book is "hot" (or "blessed of God," to sound more spiritual) in their congregations and thus the cycle continues. Christian publishing is like television. Countless voices decry its deleterious effects but the producers (and publishers) are only giving the public what it craves.

What I Learned from HT:

I've learned a valuable lesson about cross-cultural communication from my brief experience in the world of blogging.  It's a lesson I hope will make me more sensitive to and patient with non-Christians and new believers with whom I share biblical truth.

Blogdom was such an overwhelming environment.  I was an outsider, an alien.  There was so much I didn't understand and I wondered if I ever would.  Actually, I still feel that way.  I have much to learn.  One of the things that puzzled me was the meaning of two letters, "HT," I kept seeing at the end of posts.  Sometimes they were in parentheses, sometimes in brackets.  Always, they were followed by a colon and a link to another site.  This was evidently an abbreviation for something - but what?  I quickly exhausted my creativity trying to guess what this might mean. One day, it dawned upon me to inquire of the oracle of Google and my search was over!  I eventually found out that "HT" stands for "hat tip" and is a way of acknowledging another blog through which you became aware of another site about which you're posting.  (If that is helpful to just one uninitiated blog reader then my suffering was not in vain.)

I've frequently opined about how important it is that we not resort to Christian lingo when talking with those to whom we're trying to explain the faith, assuming that they will understand what to us is now so obvious.  My relatively trivial quandary about the meaning of two letters brought that point home to me in a personal way.  I had entered a community, a culture, if you will, that had an unfamiliar way of communicating; one that I needed to have translated.

I get frustrated sometimes trying to answer my own kids' questions about God. For some strange reason, terms like "hypostatic union," "essence," and "nature" don't play well with them. My impatience is borne out of having to leave that which has become comfortable and familiar to me in order to help another understand.  My frustration, at times, is also the result of the unsettling question of how well I really understand something if I can't explain it without the use of certain catch phrases or shorthand.  I think that's a question we need to ask ourselves and each other frequently.

Whenever I tip my hat in future posts or see someone else tipping theirs, I hope to be reminded of this important lesson.

What Hath Sex to do with Theology?

In her essay titled "Creed or Chaos," Dorothy Sayers wrote: "....it is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology." I was reminded of that quote by an article about and interview with Lauren Winner in the current issue of World Magazine.

Winner is an evangelical who, five years ago, raised quite a stir (not to mention eyebrows) with an article at Beliefnet.com titled "Sex and the Single Evangelical." In it she admitted to being sexually active and suggested that the church reconsider what the Bible actually says about premarital sex instead of assume that it already knows.

Winner has since become persuaded that the Bible does indeed confine sexual activity to marriage, a conviction she defends in her new book Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. Gene Veith quotes Winner:

But as I wrote, I realized there was a good reason that Christian conversations about sex always circled back to marriage. What sits at the center of Christian sexual ethics is not a negative view of sex; the Christian vision of marriage is not, at its most concise, merely 'no sex before marriage.' Rather, the heart of the Christian story about sex is a vigorously positive statement about sex: Sex was created for marriage. Without a robust account of the Christian vision of sex within marriage, the Christian insistence that unmarried folks refrain from sex just doesn't make any sense.

Responding to a question about how churches can do a better job of teaching about sex Winner says:

One thing we need to do is give a richer, more theologically robust account of chastity. It's not enough to say "Paul says don't fornicate."....Rather, he is seeking to preserve, restore, and protect God's vision for humanity and sexuality, laid out at the opening of Genesis.

Christians and the Left: Who's Warring Against Whom?

National Review Online contributing editor Stanley Kurtz relates his reaction to Harper's Magazine's May cover stories on "The Christian Right's War on America":

I fear these stories could mark the beginning of a systematic campaign of hatred directed at traditional Christians. Whether this is what Harper’s intends, I cannot say. But regardless of the intention, the effect seems clear.

The following excerpt illustrates points I made in recent posts on the inconsistencies of relativism and the myth of religious neutrality:

The Left is loathe to treat Islamic terrorists as moral reprobates, but when it comes to conservative Christians, Hedges calls on his fellow liberals to renounce their relativist scruples and acknowledge “the power and allure of evil.”
....For a very long time now, secular liberals have treated conservative Christians as the modern embodiment of evil, the one group you’re allowed to openly hate. Although barely noticed by the rest of us, this poison has been floating through our political system for decades. Traditional Christians are tired of it, and I don’t blame them. That doesn’t justify rhetorical excess from either side. But the fact of the matter is that the Left’s rhetorical attacks on conservative Christians have long been more extreme, more widely disseminated, and more politically effective than whatever the Christians have been hurling back. And now that their long ostracism by the media has finally forced conservative Christians to demand redress, the Left has abandoned all rhetorical restraint.

Read the rest here. Then, read Jesus:

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant about his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. So have no fear of them... (Matthew 10:24-26a).

The Other CIA

After partaking in light refreshments, the members took their seats in a large circle. The group consisted of Christians from many of the churches in the area. Every time the door to the room in which they were meeting opened, conversation halted and eyes turned nervously in that direction. Would they be found out? What would other believers think if they knew what the members of this group had in common? "Unspiritual" and "impractical" were charges leveled against most of the group's members. Many of them knew the hurt of being prematurely judged as arrogant or, as it was more commonly put, "puffed up," so they tried to hide their mutual condition until they felt it was safe. Panic turned to relief when familiar faces appeared.

Steve, one of the regulars, arrived with a guest, a friend from work named Evan. Evan didn't know what to expect and had come with apprehension. Steve had told him about the group many times before, urging him to check it out as he thought he would benefit from it. Evan had consistently declined the invitations, politely insisting that he didn't have the same problem as the others in the group. Many nights when he couldn't sleep, he'd read the flier Steve had given him that explained why and for whom the group existed. It contained the following excerpt from Cliff Williams' book, The Life of the Mind: A Christian Perspective:

People who engage in the life of the mind - those who think and learn - read, visit libraries, buy books, explore new topics, talk to others about what they are thinking, listen to lectures, and join discussion groups. They like ideas. And they like talking about ideas. What fascinates them is a new discovery, an old classic, the thoughts of an astute observer of human nature, or research into how things work. They like to learn, and they like being with others who like to learn.

Christians who think and learn participate in these same activities and have these same interests. They, too, read and explore. They want knowledge, both of topics that are directly connected to Christian concerns and those that are not. And they like talking with others about what they learn. If you were to ask them what their life passions are, they would mention reading, thinking, and talking about ideas, including Christian ideas (p. 15).

One night, after reading the description, the walls of denial came tumbling down. "That's me! That's me!" Evan thought to himself, tears welling in his eyes. The next day he told Steve he'd like to go with him to the next meeting, an announcement Steve was excited to hear.

"I see you have a guest with you tonight, Steve," the leader said.
"Yes, this is a friend of mine from work. His name is Evan."
"Welcome, Evan. We're glad to have you with us. Would you like to tell us why you came?"
Evan seriously considered answering "No" but knew that he'd regret it if he let the opportunity pass. He had to face the truth. Nervously he stood as all eyes in the circle were turned on him. "Hi," he started. "Well, like Steve said, my name is Evan......and I'm a Christian intellectual..."

For years I've imagined such meetings of Christian Intellectuals Anonymous, only with myself as the confessor. I frequently felt ashamed of my cognitive leanings. Christians who enjoy thinking and consider it a vital part of what it means to follow Christ are often stigmatized. In some Christian circles, "intellectual" is a pejorative. Reason, study, and learning are regarded with suspicion as though inherently antagonistic to Christian faith. I was reminded of this anti-intellectual trend this past weekend by the following paragraph in Al Mohler's review of Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy:

McLaren is also honest about the fact that he lacks any formal theological education. As a matter of fact, he seems rather proud of this fact, insinuating that formal theological education is likely to trap persons in a habit of trying to determine right belief.

Haughtiness is a temptation against which every believer, regardless of his or her level of education, must be on guard. Poverty, whether material or intellectual, is no more cause for boasting than is wealth.


Reflecting on this subject made me recall having read of a note given to John Wesley by another evangelist. It read: "The Lord has told me to tell you that He doesn't need your book learning, your Greek and Hebrew" to which Wesley replied:

Thank you sir. Your letter was superfluous, as I already knew the Lord has no need of my 'book learning' as you put it. However, although the Lord has not directed me to say so, on my own responsibility I would like to say, the Lord does not need your ignorance either.

In Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling, James Sire defines an intellectual as one:

...who loves ideas, is dedicated to clarifying them, developing them, criticizing them, turning them over and over, seeing their implications, stacking them atop one another, arranging them, sitting silent while new ideas pop up and old ones seem to rearrange themselves, playing with them, punning with their terminology, laughing at them, watching them clash, picking up the pieces, starting over, judging them, withholding judgment about them, changing them, bringing them into contact with their counterparts in other systems of thought, inviting them to dine and have a ball but also suiting them for service in workaday life (pp. 27-28).

"A Christian intellectual," he adds, "is all of the above to the glory of God."

Christian intellectuals don't belong in a recovery group but in churches, homes, classrooms, boardrooms, offices, studios, stages, and all facets of society. As Nancy Pearcey reminds us in her excellent book Total Truth: "A religion that avoids the intellectual task and retreats to the therapeutic realm of personal relationships and feelings will not survive in today's spiritual battlefield." So if you're in "the other CIA," come out. We need you.

Boundless Webzine

One of Focus on the Family's lesser-known ministries is their Boundless Webzine. A recent email notification of updates to the site made me think that it's the kind of resource that readers of a blog like this would be interested in. Here's their description of what they're about:

The time between the home of your youth and the home you'll make for yourself someday is a time of adventure, discovery and excitement; but also loneliness, longing and uncertainty.
From college to career to relationships, we at Boundless want to cast a vibrant vision for the single years, helping you navigate this season while preparing for the challenges and responsibilities of the one to come. That requires living intentionally with purpose by bringing your gifts, talents and Christian worldview to bear on your whole life.
Our contributing authors are renowned journalists, scholars and thinkers from around the globe who are here to help you enjoy the journey.

J. P. Moreland and J. Budziszewski (One day I'll no longer need to look at one of his books to properly spell his name) are among the regular contributors. Even though the site is designed to target Christian college students and singles in their twenties and thirties, it's worthwhile reading for those of us who are hitched and/or just a tad older.

What Our Teens Believe (Or Don't)

Christianity Today posted an article about a book I mentioned in a previous post - Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Here's a quote:

In spite of their generally positive attitude toward religion, almost no teenagers, from any religious background, can articulate the most basic beliefs of their faith. This interview excerpt, with a 15-year-old who "attends two church services every Sunday, Sunday school, church youth group, and Wednesday-night Bible study," illustrates how vaguely most teenagers answered a question about their personal beliefs:
"[Pause] I don't really know how to answer that. ['Are there any beliefs at all that are important to you? Really generally.'] [Pause] I don't know. ['Take your time if you want.'] I think that you should just, if you're gonna do something wrong then you should always ask for forgiveness and he's gonna forgive you no matter what, cause he gave up his only Son to take all the sins for you, so…"

According to the article, the above was "one of the more articulate answers" the authors reported.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

The current online issue of The Revealer contains a review of the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, the product of the largest sociological study of adolescent religious beliefs and practices ever conducted.
According to authors Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, the majority of American teens believe in God and the majority of them are Christians. That may sound like good news but don't start shouting just yet. It seems that the theological beliefs held by America's youth are pretty much the same across religious divides. The authors refer to the common set of assumptions as "moralistic therapeutic deism" (MTD). The reviewer, Scott Korb describes the major tenets of MTD as follows:

Personal experience is what shapes our notions of truth, and truth is found nowhere else but in happiness and positive self-esteem. In religious terms, according to teenagers, God cares that each teenager is happy and that each teenager has high self-esteem. Morality has nothing to do with authority, mutual obligations, or sacrifice. In a sense, God wants little more for us than to be good, happy capitalists. Smith and Denton elaborate: "Therapeutic individualism's ethos perfectly serves the needs and interests of U.S. mass-consumer capitalist economy by constituting people as self-fulfillment-oriented consumers subject to advertising's influence on their subjective feelings." And to be good, happy capitalists, we should be good, unless if being good prevents us from being happy.

Korb reports that according to the authors, MTD is not just a teenage affliction:

What Smith and Denton call a parasitic creed affects religious American adults, as well. Though subtle, Smith and Denton's insistence that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree becomes a sharp indictment of America's religious grown-ups who may well speak, understand and think as adults , but cannot bear the thought of putting away their childish beliefs.

The authors conclude that American Christianity is "either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or ...is actively being colonized by a quite different religious faith." When asked to articulate their faith, not one of their interviewees mentioned self-discipline, working for social justice, justification or sanctification, and 112 of them described the purpose of religion in terms of "personally feeling, being, getting, or being made happy" (using the "specific phrase to 'feel happy' well more than 2,000 times").