simondcox87

[simondcox87]

Abandoned Religion: The Burning Pillar Of Human Folly

This is a guest post from Douglas Balmain. It will sure stoke up some conversation… Thanks for his contribution: It took some restraint to hold this back until now. I was writing like mad the day of the fire, swept up with the flames in a swelter of frustrations. But, when attempting to convey clear-headed ideas, […] from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2019/04/24/abandoned-religion-the-burning-pillar-of-human-folly/

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1 Peter 1:18-19

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=1%20Peter%201:18-19

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Six Biblical Responses to Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings

God gives us the freedom to leave the revenge cycle and instead do what we can do: love our enemies and bless them.

I was not at church in Colombo on Easter Sunday morning, as I was sick and had stayed home. Then text messages began to come about a bombing, then several bombings, in my home town and in two other towns. One was only a few miles from my home.

Ten years after our protracted war had ended, I realized that Sri Lanka, my dear nation, was again confronting severe violent attacks. I had preached several times in one of the targeted churches, Zion Church in Batticaloa. The sister of one of my colleagues was at the service, and was seriously injured. She is still battling for her life. The death toll has risen to 320. Unbelievable.

Whenever tragedy hits a nation, Christians need to ask how to think biblically in response to the situation. As Christianity is a body religion, it is best that groups of Christians meet and discuss a common response to the challenges. We cannot delay our response. There are both immediate responses and more long-term responses to heal the wounds of our people.

I have thought of at least six necessary responses from Christians to what has happened:

1) Lament Loss

Christians must join the nation in lamenting and mourning over our losses. Protestants have been somewhat lacking in espousing a theology of groaning (Rom. 8:23) that opens the door to lament (though that seems to be changing). The Old Testament has many instances of elaborate mourning customs, and that is found in the New Testament too. The church responded to Stephen’s death with a “great lamentation over him” (Acts 8:2; also see 9:39). Each country has its cultural ways of lament, and we must look for practices to adopt which harmonize with Christianity. In addition to Easter time, April is New Year in Sri Lanka and most Christians ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/gzgn6phUp2I/sri-lanka-easter-church-bombings-biblical-response.html

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Evangelism Is More Prayer Than Action for Protestant Churchgoers

Survey finds more than half of monthly worshipers haven’t shared Jesus in the past six months.

Most Protestant churchgoers say they are eager to talk to others about Jesus, and are praying for opportunities to share their faith. But most say they have not had any evangelistic conversations in the past six months.

The 2019 Discipleship Pathway Assessment study from Nashville-based LifeWay Research found excitement and eagerness about the idea of evangelism, but few Protestant churchgoers actually engaged in the practice on a regular basis.

More than half (55%) of those who attend church at least once a month say they have not shared with someone how to become a Christian in the past six months.

“Sharing the good news that Jesus paid for our sins through His death on the cross and rose again to bring us new life is the mission of the church,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, “but it does not appear to be the priority of churchgoers.”

Seeking evangelistic opportunities

A majority of churchgoers (56%) say they pray for opportunities to tell others about Jesus at least once a week, with about 1 in 4 (23%) praying for such moments every day.

Another 1 in 4 (27%) say they rarely or never pray for those opportunities.

Those with a high school diploma or less are most likely to say they pray for those opportunities every day (31%).

Hispanics (36%) and African Americans (29%) are more likely to offer those prayers every day compared to whites (20%) or other ethnicities (17%).

Increased church attendance makes it more likely someone has offered evangelistic prayers.

Those who attend a worship service on average once a week (75%) are more likely than churchgoers who attend less frequently (69%) to pray evangelistically at least once a month.

Most churchgoers (56%) also say they are eager ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/BP4puSAmq5U/evangelism-survey-protestant-churchgoers-prayer-invite.html

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When Our Ultrasound Revealed a Birth Defect, My Doctor Offered an Abortion

We've never regretted saying no, but his words still haunt me.

I was a little over halfway through my pregnancy when my husband and I sat gripping each other’s hands while a specialist gesticulated as he described the options for our unborn baby. We could opt for life-saving surgeries, we could give her comfort care once born but allow her to die without intervention, or we could choose to abort.

“The root of [the word] disaster means a star coming apart, and no image expresses better the look in a patient’s eyes when hearing a neurosurgeon’s diagnosis,” says the late Paul Kalanithi in When Breath Becomes Air. A star coming apart perfectly describes how it felt to be told that our daughter had a severe heart defect that would kill her soon after birth without medical intervention.

When the word abortion was brought into the conversation, my hand involuntarily reached out in a painful appeal to leave that option off the table. He brushed my objection aside, “I know that many parents don’t want to hear about this option, but I legally have to tell you.” He continued describing what abortion would look like in some detail, then the medical team melted off into the hospital.

This moment has haunted me for years, and it has come to mind as pro-choice and pro-life positions are again debated in many states, much of the argument being over “nonviable pregnancies” or “medically fragile fetuses.” Some of the debate surrounding new bills and legislation is over what it looks like to show compassion to parents and to unborn babies when faced with serious, life-threatening birth defects. A baby with any birth defect—life threatening or not—challenges us personally and as a society to examine what our values are. The ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/dK_7rw_j-q0/when-our-ultrasound-revealed-birth-defect-my-doctor-offered.html

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Theology of the Future

Bible scholars, theologians, and philosophers used to work together. N.T. Wright believes they need to do so again.

Stop thinking like children.” Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians is even more urgent for us today. Though they should be like little children when it came to evil, he insisted they should be grown-ups when it came to thinking. To that end, Paul constantly tried to teach people not only what to think but how to think. This remains vital. The various disciplines grouped together as “theology” or “divinity” are uniquely positioned to continue this project.

People today often comment about the decline of civil, reasoned conversation in all walks of life. Theology has an opportunity to model a genuinely interdisciplinary conversation of the sort we urgently need, not least because in its very nature it ought to bridge the gap between the academy and the larger world.

The great theologians of the past—such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin—all tried to bring the Bible, philosophy, and theology into a shared conversation. As each of these fields advances, they need one another all the more.

The Challenge of Our Time

Despite what cynical critics think, the Christian faith is growing and expanding. The Pew Research Center estimates that there will be 3 billion Christians by 2050, most of these in countries with little opportunity for further or higher education and minimal seminary provision. But without rigorous theological study, in its widest senses, the global church will be vulnerable to distorted or lopsided teaching. In particular, it will not be equipped to address the big questions that the wider world is asking and that emerge in new forms with every generation and every cultural shift.

Those familiar with some of the more negative theological writing and biblical scholarship ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/Rt_TLeljfAU/n-t-wright-theology-of-future.html

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Lost in Translation: Lessons from Language Can Help Us Share the Gospel

Every generation has to figure out how to engage and reach people in culture. Translation and immersion are key ideas that will help..

In my leadership role with World Methodist Evangelism, I frequently am in international environments, depending heavily on the skills of translators and interpreters. These are gifted people!

I recall teaching on evangelism in Vladivostok, Russia a few years ago. I was trying to make an important point, which in English is not difficult to understand. It’s the idea that in evangelism, no way is the way, but each way, by God’s grace, can become a way. The emphasis is on the word “the”(which implies a sense of singularity) and the word “a” (which implies a variety of possibilities).

The point is that there is never only one way to evangelize; rather, there are a wide variety of fruitful approaches, depending on your environment.

What I didn’t realize is that in Russian, there is no easy way to translate “the” and “a,” especially to make the point I was trying to make. It took a few minutes of discussion with my interpreter, along with a much longer explanation in Russian, to finally make that one sentence clear.

In our life of faith, translation is critical.

How do we understand this good news of Jesus Christ? How is it that we make it known to others? How do we translate this news that is at one and the same time something that inspires silent awe, joyful praise, tearful repentance, ecstatic utterances, or quiet prayer?

How do we make known a gospel that is at one and the same time something that moves us to a life of personal piety, acts of mercy, or public activism? How do we provide a channel for the Holy Spirit to make this deeply mysterious yet magnificently understandable news real in all places and for each successive generation?

There is nothing new about ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/SDIP8sGv63o/lost-in-translation-language-evangelism-living-word.html

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Romans 14:11

“It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”” from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=Romans%2014:11

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The Evolution of Morality and Theistic Evolutionists

“It wasn’t God who introduced us to morality; rather, it was the other way around. God was put into place to help us live the way we felt we ought to.” – Frans de Waal In my previous article, I wrote about how morality (or at least the mechanics of morality) are clearly evolved and […] from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2019/04/23/the-evolution-of-morality-and-theistic-evolutionists/

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Across 27 Countries, Most Don’t Mind More Religion in Society

Pew survey of 30,000 people finds a median of 39% favor, 13% oppose a “more important role for religion.”

Despite signs of increasing secularism in the United States, far more Americans favor an increased role for religion in society than oppose it.

According to a massive new report from the Pew Research Center that queried more than 30,000 people across 27 countries, almost three times as many Americans say they would view “a more important role for religion” in the US as a positive change (51%) versus a negative change (18%).

In general, that sentiment is shared around the globe—at the same rate. Across all countries surveyed, a median of 39 percent of respondents favor religion becoming more important in society, while only 13 percent oppose it.

Only 5 of the 27 countries surveyed have populations in which those opposed to religion playing a more important role outnumber those in favor. All 5 are in Europe: Sweden (51%), France (47%), the Netherlands (45%), Germany (35%), and Spain (38%), where an openly atheist prime minister was elected last year amid concerns over his vows to remove religious symbolism from institutions and religion from school curriculums.

In the African nations of Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Tunisia, along with other countries in the global south such as Indonesia and Brazil, the idea of religion gaining more importance in society is viewed favorably by large majorities of the population.

Pew highlighted one country where views vary by religion: Nigeria, which continues to be rocked by deadly sectarian conflict.

“The vast majority of Nigerian Muslims (88%) are in favor of a more important role for religion, while a smaller majority of Christians (61%) say the same,” stated researchers. “However, it’s important to note that roughly a quarter of Christian respondents ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/WfjSXRW6vjw/pew-global-importance-religion-diversity-gender-family.html

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Repenting of Identity Politics

New Zealand revealed the tragic logical end of evils like Christian Nationalism.

The March massacre of 50 Muslims during worship in New Zealand was first and foremost a human tragedy, one felt deeply around the world. Unfortunately the massacre also signaled a political tragedy, displaying the logical end to a type of engagement increasingly defining the public square: identity politics.

As British columnist Brendan O’Neill put it, “Increasingly, it feels like the New Zealand atrocity is what happens when the politics of identity, the reduction of everyone to cultural or racial creatures whose relationship with other cultural and racial cultures must be monitored and managed, comes to be the only game in public life.”

The simplest definition of identity politics is summarized at Wikipedia: “a tendency of people sharing a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity to form exclusive political alliances, instead of engaging in traditional broad-based party politics, or promote their particular interests without regard for interests of a larger political group.” Adherents have no interest in broad-based politics because they believe that no other group can empathize sufficiently with them to truly understand their group. Only one born into the group identity, or who becomes “woke” through a kind of revelation, truly knows the score.

Without genuine understanding between groups, the only way to gain political influence is through the raw use of power. Political power for those who are patient. Violence for those who are not. But the bottom line is the same: It’s about and only about gaining power for the benefit of your group and at the expense of other groups. This is not to suggest that every current advocate of identity politics champions ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/Kz1GEYU975s/christian-nationalism-repenting-of-identity-politics.html

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Introducing CT's New President

Unbeknownst to me, I began recruiting my successor six years ago.

I’m so glad God doesn’t operate on my timetable. The year was 2013. The place: Harvard Yard. I found myself sitting over coffee with someone who had impressed me enough during the previous three years that I was about to offer him a position on CT’s executive team. The role was completely new; I had created it specifically for him in hopes that he might bring to the ministry new ideas for missional expansion and financial growth.

Job description in hand, I put the full court press on this prospective new employee, confident that a “yes” was forthcoming. But no sooner was my pitch delivered than I heard: “Harold, I’d love to be a part of your team, and the role fits me perfectly. But now is simply not the time.” So much for my salesmanship!

Fast forward almost six years to February of this year, when the Christianity Today board of directors was meeting in Dallas to consider that same man as my successor. They voted unanimously to ask Tim Dalrymple to be CT’s next president and CEO. And this time, Tim said yes!

At the end of my 35 years serving here—12-plus of those in the “corner office”—I couldn’t imagine a better way to “sign off” this portion of my kingdom service. Tim will bring an impressive array of gifts to his new role, including an entrepreneurial drive, a digital-native mindset, and an immense intellectual and editorial capacity.

After graduating from Stanford with a double major in philosophy and religious studies, Tim earned an MDiv at Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in modern Western religious thought at Harvard University. Along the way, he also served in youth ministry, prison chaplaincy, and graduate and faculty ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/Flm-3D8Cjjw/introducing-christianity-today-new-president.html

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Of Truth-Telling and Bridge-Building

How Jesus modeled relationships of surprising frankness and trust.

When I first moved from Missouri to Tennessee, I was welcomed by sweet tea, potluck dinners, and people waiting to hold doors for each other. I’m grateful to have soaked in the warmth of Southern hospitality all these years. The shadow side of Southernness, however, is that sometimes I wonder if people say what they really mean. Admittedly, I too have sugar-coated the truth. But I want to speak the truth in love, and I want to hear the truth in love.

When I read the gospels, I’m refreshed by the language Jesus uses with his friends. It makes me want to be a better friend. But I’m also startled: When I read his conversations with Peter or with the disciples or the woman at the well, I realize that I have a lot to learn about telling the truth. Jesus not only spoke frankly but encouraged his friends to do the same.

Consider Thomas, after the Resurrection: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). My discomfort with this demanding statement probably has more to do with my own doubt than with Thomas’s confrontational personality. (Here in the South, disappointments are best kept hidden.) But Thomas speaks up. Jesus graciously hears him and invites him deeper in: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe” (v. 27).

What makes this kind of mutual forthrightness possible, I believe, is hinted at in 1 John: “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (3:18). Whole heaps of words can amount to nothing, but in relationships forged of authenticity and deeds, even a few ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/DDSIXdFGYlQ/truth-telling-bridge-building-sandra-mccracken.html

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I Marked People for Death. Jesus Marked Me for Life.

How a Latino gang leader found salvation in prison.

In prison, I was a shot caller.

Shot callers have an elevated rank in the gang world. They are the power-brokers who determine who gets hurt (or killed) and who doesn’t. They command respect.

I started down this path as a teenager in South-Central Los Angeles, as a leader in the Rockwood Street Locos. I led the way when we invaded homes, broke into cars, ransacked convenience stores, and stabbed rival gang members. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the streets were bloody. Most of the time, it was kill or be killed.

Eventually, the LAPD caught up with me. I was sentenced to nearly 13 years for second-degree murder—along with 52 counts of armed robbery. I actually breathed a sigh of relief that those were the only charges the cops could pin on me.

Life Was Very Cheap

While awaiting transfer to New Folsom State Prison—a Level IV maximum security prison near Sacramento, California—I was housed with 120 murderers and violent criminals inside Pitchess Detention Center, north of Los Angeles.

At Pitchess, we segregated ourselves: blacks aligning with blacks, whites with whites, and Latinos with Latinos. Several dudes from two long-established gangs, 18th Street and Florencia 13, approached me about becoming a shot caller there.

One of my responsibilities was the control and distribution of shanks, the crude homemade knives used for stabbing another prisoner. I slept with all 13 of them under my mattress. When a riot went off, I made sure the right people got shanks. There were many violent upheavals at Pitchess, and inmates got stabbed and killed all the time. All it took was a wrong look at the wrong person, and you were done for. Life was very cheap.

After about six months, I was transferred to New ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/CZo5Motp7Nw/casey-diaz-shot-caller-marked-people-death-gang-leader.html

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Bringing a Tent Peg to a Sword Fight

Why God sends his people into battle armed with the tools of everyday life.

In the first Battle of Armageddon, the enemy commander was killed with camping equipment. Speculation about the next round has been the stuff of bestselling books and blockbuster movies, replete with speculation about a world government, flying locust-scorpion warships, bar codes, conspiracies, the EU, nuclear weapons, and a giant meteor steaming toward earth with Bruce Willis on board.

But the first time a war was fought at Har-Magedon (the hill of Megiddo), the decisive blow was struck with the most everyday objects imaginable. Sisera, commander of the mighty Canaanite armies, had his head crushed by Jael, a tent-dwelling woman wielding a mallet and a tent peg (Judges 4:17–22).

It’s a striking story in many ways. A woman, Deborah, is judging Israel, which is unusual in itself. The man charged with leading the Israelite army, Barak, refuses to fight unless she goes with him. Israel wins the battle despite overwhelming odds. When the victory is celebrated in song (Judges 5), the main characters are (again) three women: Deborah, described as “a mother in Israel,” the mallet-wielding Jael, and Sisera’s luridly vile mother. And the peg through the temple is pretty unforgettable.

Yet this story also forms part of a recurring pattern in Scripture, in which Israel defeats her enemies with tools instead of weapons. In this case, Israel has no shields or spears but conquers, instead, with a peg and a “workman’s hammer” (5:26). Another judge, Shamgar, defeats the Philistines with a cattle prod (3:31). Gideon wins with jars and trumpets (7:19–23). The Philistine king Abimelek is killed by a millstone being thrown over the wall (9:53), the second time in five chapters that an obscure ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/7W9nvUp0gqI/bringing-tent-peg-to-sword-fight.html

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Fitness Trackers, Dating Apps, and Other Ladders to Nowhere

Why secular substitutes for religion will always leave us exhausted and unhappy.

I wasn’t sure about reviewing this book, which the author, David Zahl, calls Seculosity. As you might guess, the term is a mashup of “religiosity” and “secularism.” Surely, I thought, this can’t be another screed against the creep of secularism into our churches. I could already hear it: What do you expect when you let the walls down and anything goes? Alcohol, movies, dancing. Where’s the line anymore? But once I actually read the subtitle (“How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do About It”) and the table of contents, I about-faced. What could be better than confirmation of my own observations about our culture’s false idols? I’m in!

For centuries, some humanists have promised that once we throw off the fetters of religion and its attendant guilt, we’ll be liberated to enter a new era of human flourishing. But that’s not happening. While capital-R Religion, institutionalized religion, is famously declining, small-r religion, what Zahl calls “replacement religion,” is more than filling the void. Rather than slipping the bonds of religion’s quest for righteousness, we’ve tightened the harness and shifted the venue from church to . . . well, nearly everywhere else.

The book has nine chapters, each dealing with a specific manifestation of seculosity: In order, they are Busyness, Romance, Parenting, Technology, Work, Leisure, Food, Politics, and lastly, Jesusland. Zahl’s thesis is clear: “The book sets out to look at how the promise of salvation has fastened onto more everyday pursuits like work, exercise, and romance—and how it’s making us anxious, ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/EPOhDHyFvI0/david-zahl-seculosity-ladders-nowhere.html

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The Most Effective Response to Poverty? Worshipping the True God

Even more than better systems and better policies, we need better theology.

We all have stories that frame our everyday world, stories that illuminate the good, true, and beautiful life we long to experience. But what if these stories rely on underdeveloped or badly distorted notions of goodness, truth, and beauty? What would that mean for human flourishing, particularly for the most vulnerable members of our communities?

In their insightful book, Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream, economist Brian Fikkert and theologian Kelly Kapic tackle these essential questions. The core reason our efforts to alleviate poverty fail, they argue, is not because we design flawed systems but because we proceed from flawed stories.

The authors confront the impoverished stories of Western naturalism and evangelical Gnosticism that muddy our perception of what makes for flourishing lives and communities. They examine the happiness paradox at the heart of contemporary Western society: Even as we enjoy greater wealth than ever before, we haven’t enjoyed corresponding gains in personal and communal well-being. By many important measures, in fact, our lives are increasingly fragile and broken. Fikkert and Kapic show that human flourishing requires something more than expressive individualism, personal comfort, and material affluence—something more, in other words, than the American Dream.

In critiquing Western naturalism, the authors point to sociologist Charles Taylor’s concept of the “immanent frame” and its soul-smothering emphasis on the here and now, which blinds us to God’s presence in the world and encourages a perilous Sunday-to-Monday gap. “It’s like we live in two dimensions rather than three,” Fikkert and Kapic write. ...

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from http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/5jjY5wI3zSU/becoming-whole-brian-fikkert-kelly-kapic-american-dream.html