JDGreear.com

Whether God is Really Dead and What You Can Do About It

Here are two great short articles on how to confront an unbelieving, skeptical culture from the latest issue of Christianity Today.

The first article is called "A New Day for Apologetics" Premise: Christians went through a phase where they tended to think that gatling gun apologetics were the answers for everything (think Evidence that Demands a Verdict--Josh McDowell's "end all, discussion-stopping proof" that Jesus was God.) The reaction to that has been to say that apologetics have no value because God is mysterious and Christianity is weird but doggonit I believe it... (think how some people used Blue Like Jazz.) This article is a great, biblically-balanced perspective that discusses what is a good and appropriate role for apologetics.

The second article is called "God is not dead yet." It is by one of the most insightful Christian apologists alive, William Lane Craig.

These would certainly make a vigorous, but helpful, "start your work week" read.

The Humor behind the AP Story, "Young Baptist Preachers Chart Different Courses"

Some of you will see in the coming days an AP story on Real Clear Politics and some other places entitled "Young Baptist Preachers Chart Different Courses" in which I was featured. I thought the guy writing the article, Eric Gorski, did a pretty good job. I had to laugh at my depiction as the "non-traditional," "progressive," and "not quite sure he's southern" guy. Any of you that know my background and general persona will probably get a kick out of that.

A few things I wanted to make clear:

The phrase "humble orthodoxy" is not originally mine. I owe that one to Josh Harris. I'm not sure if he made it up or not. I also did not say "I am humbly orthodox," but that humble orthodoxy is what I strive for. To say "I am humbly orthodox" would seem to contradict the very thing I want to be, like saying "I'm pretty darn humble and proud of it!"

The phrase "we may not believe what the Summit Church believes but thank God they are here because otherwise we'd have to raise our taxes" is not mine either. I owe that to Robert Lewis. As I've often said, "I've never had an original thought in my life." Including that one. I heard C.J. Mahaney first make that statement.

Eric (the author) seemed to make a big deal out of the Southern Baptist Global Climate initiative I signed... perhaps a bigger deal than it is to me. The article says that me and a more traditional pastor, Eric Hankins, "part" on global warming--implying that Eric is skeptical of global warming claims while I buy into them. Not necessarily. I would say, if anything, I am more skeptical than believing.

Actually, I don't think that determining the science of global warming is the job of the local church or a convention of local churches. Other Christians can and should devote themselves to that question, JUST NOT THE LOCAL CHURCH. Our role is the preaching of the Gospel, and I don't want to let ANYTHING, including my stance on various, more minor political issues, come in the way of life's most important message.

I see my role as a pastor as teaching biblical principles you can apply to politics, but, with a few exceptions, I stay out of the political ramifications of those. In the words of Mark Dever, I might be wrong about global warming, but I'm not wrong about the Gospel. I don't want my opinion on the former to be a stumbling block on the latter.

That's why I would only sign the Southern Baptist Global Climate Initiative (SBECI) after it was denuded of any policy directives. Jonathan Merritt, author of the document goes to our church and asked me to be one of the original signers of it. In its first draft, I would not sign, because it called for (what I thought were) specific policy suggestions. I told Jonathan I thought that making specific policy suggestions was "out of bounds" for the church. I told him that as a pastor I did not want to speak in areas that were beyond my calling. I urged him to reword the directives of the document so that it stayed out of declaring what were the causes of or cures for global warming. I told him I could sign a document that simply declared our understanding that we need to be good stewards of the earth and that this was an issue we needed to pay attention to. He graciously reworded it and then I signed it.

Here's another example: In 2003, I was on a committee asked to issue a statement on behalf of the Southern Baptist Convention about the war in Iraq. I told the committee that I didn't think it was our place, as a convention of churches, to determine which wars were just and which were not. My suggestion was that we issue a general statement about the need for just wars in certain situations and that we urge our leaders to investigate whether Iraq was a just war and, if so, to pursue it with all their might. I have my opinion about Iraq, but I don't want to make that the official opinion of "the church." Again, I might be wrong in my opinions on the war in Iraq, but I'm not wrong about the Gospel. I don't want my opinions on the war in Iraq to cause someone to miss the message I've been called to preach: THE GOSPEL.

There are times, of course, where we MUST speak into specific policy issues. For example, if I were a pastor in Richmond, VA in 1860 I don't think it would please God for me not to preach against racism just because it was a "politically charged issue" (nor should I avoid talking about it today!). If I were a German pastor in 1939 I don't think I should keep my mouth shut about anti-semitism. Today, I can't call myself a follower of Jesus and keep my mouth shut about the mass-murdering of an entire generation of children, particularly the children of minorities, in the name of "freedom of choice." The issue of what should be recognized as a "marriage" is another. These are issues that I think are of such importance to the general welfare of society that, out of love, we have to speak clearly. (As the church we are called to be salt and light and to lovingly help preserve our society.) However, on many (even, most) other political issues, I choose, as a pastor, to stay out of them because it is not my calling. "No man that wars entangles himself in the affairs of this life."

I do not mean that all Christians should stay out of them. We need some Christians working full-time in politics, applying the Christian worldview to all areas. I simply mean that my role, as a Pastor, is building a community around the Gospel. I do not want our church or the Southern Baptist Convention of churches mired in politics, even (what I see to be) good and right politics. More on that here.

Anyway, hope that makes sense and helps provide a little clarity. Eric Gorski, good job on the article. Eric Hankins, you sound like a guy I'd really like and would love to meet. Obviously, we have all the right things in common.

California's Gay Marriage Law and Praying for our Country

The WEEK OF HOPE for RDU is coming! Want to know how others are serving through Hope For Durham? Visit www.hopefordurham.info to read the stories and post your own!

Today is a significant day in the life of our country and I want to ask you to pray with me for God to have mercy on us. Today was the day California's new "law" opening up marriage to people of the same sex went into effect--against the will of the people of that state, mind you. You say, "Haven't people been able to get married in certain states before?" Yes, but there were always residency requirements and throwbacks. Under this new law, people from anywhere can simply go to California and get married and carry that marriage anywhere they please.

Before I comment... a little context: Those of you that go to the Summit know that I have made a decision, as a pastor, to stay out of politics. That's not because I don't think political things matter or they are somehow "beyond" the scope of the Christian worldview. They do matter, and they are not beyond the scope of Biblical thinking. As a follower of Jesus, I must look at EVERYTHING through the lens of the Christian worldview. Nor is it because I am short on opinions. Anyone who knows me knows I have 9 opinions on any 1 subject.

My decision to stay out of politics, personally, has to do with my own personal calling as a pastor. My primary calling is to the Gospel, and I refuse to entangle myself in anything that keeps me from that one thing. The Gospel, and not a particular political persuasion, is the "main thing" at our church. We have both Republicans and Democrats on our staff and in our congregation. We have both McCainiacs and Obama-mamas in our congregation and on our stage each Sunday.

I will do my best to teach biblical principles about all areas of life, but applying them to various political situations I'll usually leave to you. You may disagree with me on how I apply a biblical worldview to situations--say, the war in Iraq, taxation, theories about climate change, etc. That is OK. I don't want to let that divide us. Plus, I know I might be wrong in my opinion on the war in Iraq or the proper role of the government in education. But I KNOW I'm not wrong about the Gospel, and I don't want to let my opinions on the former keep you from hearing and believing me about the latter.

There are exceptions, however--times we must be involved politically. For example, if I were a pastor in Richmond, VA in 1860 I don't think it would please God for me not to preach against racism just because it was a "politically charged issue" (nor should I avoid talking about it today!). If I were a German pastor in 1939 I don't think I should keep my mouth shut about anti-semitism. Today, I can't call myself a follower of Jesus and keep my mouth shut about the mass-murdering of an entire generation of children, particularly the children of minorities, in the name of "freedom of choice."

In the same way, I believe we must speak out about the redefinition of marriage. I know you may ask "Why is this an issue of such critical importance? Why can't people be free to do what they want and marry whom they want?"

When you redefine marriage, you unweave a crucial thread in any stable society. Marriage was established by the Creator to be a crucial building block for a healthy life. Part of our self-identity is found in our gender. We understand who we are and the roles we play by understanding the distinctions of gender. If you don't understand who are as a male or female, you don't understand yourself. God intended marriage to be a union of the two genders because in that union we have the loving union of the two contrasting genders. Marriage between people of the same sex skews that understanding and, consequently, our view of ourselves. Further, same sex marriage mars our image of God. God said that His image was revealed in the "male and female" union in marriage (Gen 1:28-29).

Thus, when you redefine marriage as something other than between one man and one woman, you distort your view of yourself and your view of God.Even though no marriages are perfect, and divorce and immorality skew the picture God intended to give us, the structure of marriage itself is a compass that adds definition to our lives.

Furthermore, there has to be SOME definition of marriage we are operating on. If we begin to say that same-sex marriage is ok, what stops us from polygamy? What about an older man and a consenting adolescent? How about a man and a horse? I'm not trying to be silly, I'm just saying that at some point somebody has to define marriage. The whole "lowest common denominator" thing won't work very long.

Government has not seen it to be their role to define marriage. What "marriage" is, is written into natural law as well as spelled out in God's word--both of which are the basis of our societal laws. Government doesn't, and never has, define marriage, it recognizes the definition written into natural law.

Of course, not all of our biblical convictions should be made into laws that apply to all people. We have a pluralistic society which is free to, in many ways, recognize and pursue their own morality, even when it is very offensive to us. People can choose to worship God or not. They can choose to be immoral or not. But when marriage itself is redefined, then the entire society is redefined. It will soon become mandatory to recognize and teach the normalcy of both types of marriages in our public schools. It may become illegal to criticize same sex marriage. This will be a major blow to the stability of our society and how future generations of boys and girls come to understand themselves and their gender identities. (If you don't believe all of this, check out "Act 2" of this news story from NPR. The trajectory is not hard to plot.)

For the sake of future generations--future boys and girls who will learn to understand life, God, and themselves by looking at the structure of family--this is an issue we have to be clear on. Out of love, and self-righteous judgmentalism, we must work to maintain the family structure in our society. Loss of the family structure will do nearly irreparable harm to millions of future boys and girls. I hope you will pray with me for God's mercy and blessing on our society. We are the church and this is why we are here--we are salt and light. Let's cry out to God for mercy on our community.

We love homosexual people and they are welcome in our church on Sunday. In no way am I calling for self-righteous judgmentalism. We are massively fallen people ourselves, and we are a community of people experiencing healing and forgiveness. I am not a judge, just a fellow sinner pointing toward a redeeming Savior, arguing that His ways are always best. I've been forgiven of more than I can tell you about. I am inviting you to trust God with me.

This has not been an attempt to provide a full apology on the institution of marriage--just a reminder to fellow believers that we need to pray (if you're looking for a more definitive treatment, check out stuff by one of my favorite authors, J. Budziszewski, such as this). I know not every Christian will agree with me that this is an issue worth speaking out on, but I hope you at least the reasoning I'm using in getting there...

Jesus and the Grammies

Last week I, as well as I'm sure many of you, was pleasantly shocked to see the American Idol singers sing "Shout to the Lord" as a part of the program.

Do you think this is a good thing or bad thing? Keep in mind, these same singers have sung a couple songs about adultery and one guy sang John Lennon's "Imagine" in which he diagnoses belief in God as a major source of today's problems.

Part of me gets angry at their casual, cultural treatment of Jesus, as if the worship of God is a trifling matter. Doesn't the Bible give some pretty severe warnings about people who approach God too casually? (OT: Nadab and Abihu, NT: Ananias...) The grammy relationship to Jesus, (i.e. A guy whose album containing 34 F-bombs and 7 songs about sex goes platinum and he stands up and thanks God for his success) seems more of a blasphemy against Jesus than any kind of positive worship. I remember what Henry Blackaby (author of Experiencing God) told me just a month or two ago, "The greatest impediment to a real move of God in our society is the thin veneer of Christianity laid on top of unrepentant people, as exemplified in our Christian music pop culture... this veneer inoculates them against any real calls to repentance and discipleship." (my paraphrase)

But the other part of me thinks in terms of what Paul said, "Some preach Christ with wrong motives, but I still rejoice, for even then it is still Christ that is being preached." (Philippians 1:17-18, my summary). I also am glad that Jesus is "famous" enough in our culture that we can publicly praise him on shows like that. I am glad that we still have a "Christian" context in which to work. Having myself worked in a non-Christian country for a couple of years, I can tell you evangelism in a society even nominally Christian is much easier than one of a completely different worldview.

(BTW: Not that I think any of us are ever "worthy" when we speak and talk about Jesus. It is only because of His great mercy, radical love and the fact that He has taken away our sin on the cross that any of us can ever approach Him. As the Bible says, "If you kept a record of wrongs, could any of us ever stand?")

What do you think?

Also, while I'm on the subject of our culture's attitude toward Christianity... this is from a blog I read called "Church Marketing Sucks" (seriously, that's the name):

Today's young people, ages 16-29, have a more critical view of Christians than previous generations. Specifically, they think Christians are judgmental, anti-homosexual, hypocritical, too political and sheltered. And that's not just a minority viewpoint--it's an overwhelming majority who say Christians are:

• Anti-homosexual: 91%
• Judgmental: 87%
• Hypocritical: 85%
• Old-fashioned: 78%
• Too involved in politics: 75%

And those negative perceptions aren't simply perceptions:

"Going into this three-year project, I assumed that people’s perceptions were generally soft, based on misinformation, and would gradually morph into more traditional views. But then, as we probed why young people had come to such conclusions, I was surprised how much their perceptions were rooted in specific stories and personal interactions with Christians and in churches." -David Kinnaman

 

Resources: That the World May Know…

I wanted to recommend a resource to you that has been of immense help to me:The That the World May Know series by Ray Vander Laan. These studies are filmed/written on location in Israel.

R. V. Laan is the absolute BEST at using the historical details of the Bible stories to make the truths of the Bible come alive. He is a wonderful researcher whose knowledge of Jewish and rabbinic culture is stunning. From time to time his interpretation is questionable, but for the most part he shines some needed cultural light on stories you’ve heard all your life. Sometimes we read the Bible as if it was written by Westerners and for Westerners, and the result is we miss some huge nuances and symbols the Middle Eastern writers are trying to give us. 

I have all the DVD’s and watch them as I work out. Sometimes I get so engrossed in them I forget what I’m doing and end up sitting on my weight bench just watching them. Or sometimes I just keep benchpressing the weight until my arms fall off.

Also, some of you know I am on a small vacation this week in the mountains. I am skiing. Probably still alive and walking.

I set these to post before I left on Sunday, because my wife (rightfully) forbids me from touching the accursed thing while on these holy vacations with my family :).

 

Friday is for Fun Random Reading

I know some of you get so tired at work that by Friday the only thing that keeps you going is to surf some blogs. So here's my tribute to you, "Mr. Waste the Company's Time by Reading Senseless Blogs Slacker."

A great post on what really happened to Galileo, and why the real story teaches some important lessons for us all. The real story varies significantly with  the myth as you've heard it, by the Indigo Girls or whomever...

OK. This one is not "fun" but tragic. The ulimate irony at Duke University--After the lacrosse-stripper debacle last year, the Duke administration still thought it would be a good idea to sponsor a strippers show on campus in the name of free speech. Read up on it here. (WARNING: while there are no pictures, this does contain some explicit descriptions and would not be appropriate for a younger reader.) Does free speech include the right for me to run into a theater and yell "fire"?

Movie about Darwinistic Fundamentalism, et al

NOTE: GROUPLINK IS TOMORROW: SEE POST JAN 8, 2008. LINK HERE...

Here's some random, interesting things I've encountered on the web:

If one of the characteristics of fundamentalism is that they try to silence all opposition, then this coming indy film by Ben Stein asks the question of whether or not Darwinism is a radically fundamentalist position. Watch this trailer... may be interesting and sure to raise some good discussion. I've written more on the intolerance of current advocates of tolerance here.

Here's a great article on the vast divergence in our nation about what it means to be a "Christian." It helps shatter some of the stereotypes you have of the people you go to church with. This article suggests that the name "Christian" now applies to people who believe very different things about God, morality, and etc. Part of effectively engaging others is knowing what they think about you. This article will help that.

What were the 10 most significant things for "faith" in 2007? Here is Time magazine's list, and here is Christianity Today's list. Interesting to compare the two.

Liberal Theology, Fads, and Historic Gospel Truth

I think we as "the church" should be willing to learn from culture. There are sometimes they get stuff right that we get wrong. All truth is God's truth, and I am still a fallible human being so I can't expect to get it all right.

Sometimes the "secular" world will raise awareness on an issue of injustice, intregrity or hypocrisy (even within the church) and though it is too our shame that we did not see it before, we should be grateful for that. I have some non-Christian friends who have taught me a lot.

However, much of what is vogue right now in a lot of pulpits and on a lot of blogs simply reveals Christians following culture rather than countering it. When somebody speaks with passion about a living wage or racism, or sex trafficking (all things we need to speak out about) but is silent about the holocaust of abortion, the problem of egregious human rights violation in Communist and totalitarian regimes, or the destructiveness of homosexuality and extramarital sex, I can't help but thinking that the person trumpeting the vogue virtues is more in tune with CNN than they are with Scripture.

"Liberal" theology," which unfortunately still dominates the landscape of much of "popular" Christian theology, has a propensity to crave the affirmation of the world rather than the affirmation of God. Thus, it is susceptible to cultural 'fads'. J.I. Packer remarks:

"Liberal theology as such knows nothing about a God who uses written language to tell us things, or about the reality of sin in the human system, which makes redemption necessary and new birth urgent. Liberal theology posits, rather, a natural religiosity in man (reverence, that is, for a higher power) and a natural capacity for goodwill towards others, and sees Christianity as a force for cherishing and developing these qualities. They are fanned into flame and kept burning in the church, which in each generation must articulate itself by concessive dialogue with the culture pressures, processes and prejudices that surround it. In other words, the church must ever play catch-up to the culture, taking on board whatever is the "in thing" at the moment; otherwise, so it is thought, Christianity will lose all relevance to life. The church will inevitably leave the Bible behind at point after point, but since on this view the Bible is the word of fallible men rather than of the infallible God, leaving it behind is no great loss."

Again, the Golden Compass

And here's another post on the Golden Compass. I don't intend to talk about this much more and thus help advertise the film (it seems that a lot of media and Hollywood love controversy simply for the $$ it brings in--they'll trifle with whatever themes, helpful or harmful, if it turns a buck).

In the first article I gave you about the movie, the writer suggested that Christians should recognize that Pullman was attacking not the biblical Christian God, but a caricature of God that true Christians would also disdain. After all, God is more against false pictures of Himself than anyone! The God of religion, vis-a-vis the God of the Gospel, is a loathsome creation indeed. The first article (in an earlier post) made that well-taken point.

But, as this article reveals that author Pullman is confessedly against any form of divine authority. His hatred for Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis should give us a pretty good picture. (In great irony, he attributes to the forces that represent God the things that atheistic political regimes have done in the last century: dehumanizing and slaughtering children--can you say "Nazi," "Stalin" and "pro-abortion culture"?)

Here's another intelligent one by Mohler.

I do think it is important that we as followers of Jesus not meet this movie with self-righteous disgust, but in love and humility use it to present the real God of the Gospel--a God so beautiful and gracious that human eye can never take it in. Humility and truth are both beautiful, and even more beautiful together. Let's not sully the truth by taking an uneducated, bigoted-sounding self-righteous rhetorical tone. Let us pray that through our love others can see the beauty of Jesus, the Lord of life.

Rob Bell and The Golden Compass

In case you're wondering, the two have nothing to do with each other. It's just that this post has two points.

It's no secret that I'm not a huge Rob Bell fan, mostly because I'm concerned I don't see a lot of the historic Gospel in what he says or writes: i.e. that personal rebellion against God is our primary problem and the substitutionary death of Jesus our only solution. An interesting talk on that subject is here. I do think he's got some great things to say and that he 's a fantastic communicator. I thought this was a good article, "What We Can Learn from Rob Bell."

I'm sure a lot of you have heard the fervor about the new "Golden Compass" movie. Here's an interesting counter-perspective on it: Fear not the Compass. I'm not saying what I agree with, just giving you stuff to think about.