Yesterday, I outlined a number of the basic features of modernity. Today, I pick up by looking at the shift from modernity to postmodernity.
Postmodernism’s Progenitors: Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche
It has been said that in the history of Western thought there have been two French Revolutions that gave birth to modernism and postmodernism. In the Enlightenment, Frenchmen Rene Descartes brought about a new way of thinking when his Cogito turned Western thinking towards the subject. Instead of keeping God at the center, now all centered on man. This was the first French Revolution. The second was the rise of Jacques Derrida, who not only questioned the Author of the universe, he questioned every single author who rose in his place. Derrida has rightly been esteemed as the forefather of postmodern thought, and for good reason. Continue reading →
While America watches prosperity preachers on the new TV series “Preachers of L. A.,” John Piper drives the point home that such ‘Christianity’ is not Christianity at all. It is idolatry.
In opposition to the false claims of riches offered by the prosperity gospel, true Christianity teaches you how to suffer and to say “God is enough.” Any message that offers Jesus as a means to another end—health and healing, wealth and wisdom, or prosperity and pleasure—is a false gospel.
Jesus is the end of the gospel.
He is the pearl of great price. He is worth selling everything to gain, he’s worth losing everything to keep him. He is the center-piece of the gospel, and there is nothing better behind him. He calls himself the door in John 10, but it is not because behind him is a better prize. In him is the fullness of God, and when we enter through him, we come to the Father, who like the Son is the goal of the gospel.
Paul Simon once sang that their are 50 ways to leave your lover—a practice I’m not endorsing—and today there are just as many ways to make a baby, almost. According to Joe Carter, in his weekly post on bioethics, there are at least thirty-ways to make a baby. He writes,
Until the 1970s, all but one child ever born was the result of sexual intercourse; today, there are at least thirty-eight ways to make a baby. In an attempt to conquer infertility we’ve developed dozens of methods, a veritable alphabet soup of acronyms, to create a child: IVF, IUI, ICSI, DI, AI, ET, etc.
I had no idea that there were and are so many ways to bring children into this world. Of course, these reproductive technologies may help many infertile couples to be parents, but they also create innumerable ethical difficulties. Continue reading →
In True Sexual Morality, Daniel Heimbach, a SEBTS professor of ethics, engages a predominate view of sexuality that he labels “Playboy Sexual Morality” (see pp. 267-81). In his chapter, Dr Heimbach makes a helpful distinction between pleasure and joy. Continue reading →
For Your Edification: Here are few things for you to read over, watch, pray, and think about this weekend.
God’s Creation Is Wonder-Full. This week researchers discovered a cave in China with its own weather system. Appropriately, The Weather Channel reports on this 12-acre cave that dwarfs our own Mammoth Cave. The name of the cave is called Er Wang Dong, and ‘impressive’ does not fully capture the beauty and grandeur of this cave. Check it out and give God praise for the world he has made: “For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy” (Ps 92:4).
Be True To God. A few months ago, Trevin Wax questioned a view commonly held by many in our culture—the idea that above all we must be true to ourselves. Pointing to the way that corporations market this view, Wax writes,
Disney movies (and most of the rip-offs) tell our kids again and again that the most important lesson in life is to discover yourself, be true to whatever it is you discover, and then follow your heart wherever it leads.
Now, I’m not a Disney hater, and I enjoy watching good movies with my kids and passing on these memorable stories. Still, there are two assumptions behind the Disney formula that we ought to be aware of: (1) You are what you feel; (2) Embrace what you feel no matter what others say.
Trevin’s insights are well-made and deserve consideration. From the couch to the counseling room, Christians are led astray by ‘following their hearts.’ We need to reconsider this counsel and be true to God.
Football, Football, Football. Owen Strachan touched off a firestorm, when he wrote in Christianity Today a piece about “our shaken faith in football.” David Prince and Jimmy Scroggins shot back—first on Twitter and then in a full article at the ERLC Blog—arguing that the NFL data is incompatible with the sport millions of young people play. Prince and Scroggins point to other statistics related to the dangers of endurance running and cheerleading, to make the point that we should not be overly sensitive to safety. Ironically, a point that Owen affirms whole-heartedly—see his new book The Risky Gospel.
In the end, I think both arguments have merit, and of course, I am torn because I know each of these men and consider them friends. Personally, my mind is not made up, either way. I didn’t play high school football because I valued my body for other things. Yet, I am not ready to ban the sport, and if my son wanted to play I would support it. Still of all the comments that have ensued, I found Jason Allen’s article the most insightful, especially as it relates to football and gender roles: Three Reasons Why My Sons Are Not Playing Football (This Year).
Heaven, A World of Love . In September, I spent the month preaching on 1 Corinthians 13. As I preached, I picked at Jonathan Edwards book on 1 Corinthians 13, Charity and Its Fruits.His final chapter speaks on the permanence of love in heaven. He rightly suggests that heaven is a world of love. Here is a sample:
Heaven is a part of creation that God has built for this end, to be the place of His glorious presence, and it is His abode forever; and here will He dwell, and gloriously manifest Himself to all eternity. And this renders heaven a world of love; for God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. And therefore the glorious presence of God in heaven, fills heaven with love, as the sun, placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day, fills the world with light. The apostle tells us that “God is love”; and therefore, seeing He is an infinite being, it follows that He is an infinite fountain of love. Seeing He is an all-sufficient being, it follows that He is a full and over-flowing, and inexhaustible fountain of love. And in that He is an unchangeable and eternal being, He is an unchangeable and eternal fountain of love.
Kingdom, Culture, and Mission. Finally, if you haven’t heard Dr. Russell Moore’s inauguration address from his installation as the new President of the ERLC (Ethics and Religious Liberties Committee), you should.
That’s a good question. Whether you are lost in the woods or lost in the world, retracing your steps is a vital way of finding our bearings and dealing with lostness.
This Sunday, I begin a sermon series on a biblical view of marriage and sexuality. However, before approaching the horizon of the biblical text, we must know where are we and what are we dealing with. I am not suggesting that our cultural location is the church’s normative authority. Just the reverse. However, to help Christians (and non-Christians) understand what God expects of our sexuality, we must consider some of the influences that have shaped our present sexual climate.
With that in mind, I have drawn up a basic graph that traces how Westerners have changed their thinking over the last two millennia. Continue reading →
In a progressively post-Christian society, the importance of hospitality as an evangelistic asset is growing rapidly. Increasingly, the most strategic turf on which to engage the unbelieving with the good news of Jesus may be the turf of our own homes.
When people don’t gather in droves for stadium crusades, or tarry long enough on the sidewalk to hear your gospel spiel, what will you do? Where will you interact with the unbelieving about the things that matter most?
Invite them to dinner.
For several of us in Childers’s class, the lights went on after his dramatic revelation. Biblical texts on hospitality were springing to mind. A theme we’d previously thought of as a secondary fellowship-type-thing was taking shape as a significant strategy for evangelism in a post-Christian milieu. Continue reading →
It has been four days since the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This landmark decision will have implications for decades to come, and consequently, there has been no end to the legal analysis, cultural commentary, and prophetic predictions since Wednesday’s decision. This dialogue is exhausting, but also necessary.
Christians (pastors and parishioners) need to be informed and equipped to handle this judicial decision and the implication it will have on state laws and America’s public perception of those defending traditional marriage. One of the most alarming aspects of the court’s decision was Justice Kennedy’s language that essentially described opponents of same sex marriage as “enemies of the human race” (language used by Justice Scalia in his dissenting remarks).
Due to the centrality of marriage for gospel witness, not to mention societal stability, this fight for marriage is going to continue for sometime. It should.
In this heated conversation, its worth asking, “Who is a helpful voice? A voice advocating biblical wisdom, not just partisan politics?” Since, not every voice is equally helpful, it might be helpful to know the names of a few defenders of traditional marriage that you can continue to listen to. Maybe you already have your luminaries, but if not, let me commend a few to you. Continue reading →
Here is the intro to an blog post I wrote for CBMW.
How long does it take to lose a proper view of biblical masculinity?
Assuming that someone has been exposed to a true vision of manhood, the amount of time depends. For those who have gleaned from Scripture that God made men and women different, it would take some time and convincing. But tragically, in a (church) culture devoid of strong biblical literacy, a biblical view of manhood could be stolen in sixty seconds or less.
To find out how television commercials reinforce wrong-headed views of biblical masculinity, see my post at CBMW’s website : Gone in Sixty Seconds.
Maybe it is just me, but I don’t remember a year where Saint Patty’s Day has elicited such a response by evangelicals.
Previous years have collected a few blog posts. See Russell Moore’s “What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick” and Kevin DeYoung’s “Who was Saint Patrick?” But this year evangelicals have sought to deliver Patrick from the clutches of the Catholic Church, and have produced dozens of blog posts. (Okay, maybe not dozens, but in the spirit of exaggerated legends, like those of St. Patrick, we’ll say dozens).
Why? Maybe it is the coordination of St. Patrick’s Day and the Lord’s Day; maybe it is the recent election of Pope Francis I; or maybe it is the fact that the paganization of America and (Western Europe) has stimulated evangelicals to find a new hero. For all those reasons, Patrick is worthy of our consideration and imitation. The following posts will give you a good introduction to Patrick and will spur you on to tell the lost about Christ.
Via Emmaus 