Beyond Gay Marriage. At the WS site. Good essay by the eloquent Stanley Kurtz.

True, a small number of relatively conservative gay spokesmen do consider the social effects of gay matrimony, insisting that they will be beneficent, that homosexual unions will become more stable. Yet another faction of gay rights advocates actually favors gay marriage as a step toward the abolition of marriage itself. This group agrees that there is a slippery slope, and wants to hasten the slide down.

To consider what comes after gay marriage is not to say that gay marriage itself poses no danger to the institution of marriage. Quite apart from the likelihood that it will usher in legalized polygamy and polyamory, gay marriage will almost certainly weaken the belief that monogamy lies at the heart of marriage….

Fair-minded people differ on the matter of homosexuality. I happen to think that sodomy laws should have been repealed (although legislatively). I also believe that our increased social tolerance for homosexuality is generally a good thing. But the core issue here is not homosexuality; it is marriage. Marriage is a critical social institution. Stable families depend on it. Society depends on stable families. Up to now, with all the changes in marriage, the one thing we’ve been sure of is that marriage means monogamy. Gay marriage will break that connection. It will do this by itself, and by leading to polygamy and polyamory. What lies beyond gay marriage is no marriage at all.

Just got back from “Seabiscuit.” One heck of a fine, emotional, well-done movie. Very uplifting and hope-filled. Go see it.

Great picture. I thought Bill was more of a Rastafarian kind of guy. (Actually, I thought it was a photo of Cheech and Chong coming out of retirement for one more movie.)

We are traveling the next four days, and I am going to take those days and maybe more away from discussions at the Tavern. Many of you know that I have some real issues about my preaching. I try not to let things get to me, but I am not screwed together very tightly, and sometimes I get to a place that I am mentally and emotionally very low. My dad lived with depression, and the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. Knocking around the house without any school going on has not been good for me, and when I am bored, I am not a good person. That’s showed up today, and I need to do something to change course before school starts. So you can offer up a small prayer I get back to normal. One good thing is that I get to go to church and just be a regular guy Sunday, so pray I am blessed real good. (Actually, “Seabiscuit” was the best sermon I’ve heard in a while. Full of wonderful hope for all of us.)

Till Monday or so….

Using his skill as a woodsman and carefully placed venison jerky as bait, intrepid hunter Bill MacKinnon successully captured this excellent specimin of the rare Calvinist strain of Yellow-Bellied Anti-federalist. His accomplishment was hailed by big game hunters everywhere for its bravery. Said famed trail guide Retch Stillwell, “Just getting up close to one of these guys after a week of no bathing, no shaving and drinking nothing but Genesee Light is a about the most dangerous thing I can think of.” Added Bruce “G’Day” Bruce, “Blimey! Personally, I’d rather stick my head inside a croc’s mouth while bein’ smeared with kangaroo dung, if ya know what I mean.”

Vatican assails laws endorsing gay unions

“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family, the document says, asserting repeatedly that marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples.

“Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law,” it says.

The document, published in several languages including English, also contains a special admonition for Catholic lawmakers in legislative bodies that are considering laws to recognize same-sex unions or permit gays and lesbians to marry or adopt children.

“To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral,” the document says.

I do not recognize two men or two women as a “real” married couple, and won’t regardless of their legal status. I’ll still be friends, just like I’m friends with pretty much anybody else that will be friendly with me. As a result, I really don’t care much about their legal status.

Frankly, I think “they” (whoever “they” are) are about to make a big mistake, but Bush could similarly make a big mistake if he pushes too hard on the Constitutional amendment idea. Just like Roe v Wade effectively ended the possibility of any sort of rational discussion on abortion, so too would either a for-or-against decision at the federal level do nothing but dig trenches and harden views. Better, I think, to let it be battled out on a state-by-state basis.

Frankly, I’d be happiest with a government that wasn’t involved in the marriage business at all. There has been much discussion around the net about how that would work. Anybody can be named an insurance beneficiary and so on.

COLSON: Why Not Gay Marriage? – Christianity Today Magazine

Just how, then, does gay marriage threaten the public good? Barney Frank, a gay Congressman, phrased the question this way: “I don’t understand how it hurts anybody else if two people want to be legally responsible for each other.” His comment has a certain libertarian appeal, but it misses the point. Accepting homosexuals privately is not the same thing as normalizing homosexuality by granting homosexuals a legal right to the public institution of marriage.

Accepting same-sex relationships as the moral and legal equivalent of marriage will transform the very definition of marriage, with far-reaching repercussions.

You aren’t a flaming liberal. You just can’t read a dictionary ;) ;) ;-) I am for the government allowing some moderate recognition of benefits, but a man can only marry a woman.

From the Punk article:
Still, name a kid Angus, and it’s clear the parents are rooting for a rebel. Ed insists the name has little to do with his affection for AC/DC, whose lead guitarist is Angus Young. “We wanted to find a strong-sounding name,” says Ed. “Something that sounded a little unusual.”

My question is, “Is ‘Ed’ a cover name for Judd?”

Last refuge of a scoundrel. Reporters love this. Religous nuts must sell papers.

Cleveland Scene: Feature From Punk to Parent,What happens when rebel kids grow up to have kids of their own?. If the dead guys didn’t get to you, this will. Where did they find this couple?

Bringing Out the Dead. The gross out story of the day. The Hussein boys got treated pretty good compared to a certain Italian dictator. My appetite has definitely decreased.

JP II is still kicking. The RCC slams the door on gay marriage and adoption.

Black church will pay whites to attend. Wonder if a guy could make a living doing this?

Michael,,

Whoa,, ok,, sorry…
I believe you, I just didn’t read it that way. Now however, when I read the original source that you just linked to it puts a different light on it. Until then, I did not understand that this guy was saying Calvin said/believed/taught that..

Not that I am a Calvin expert, in fact, I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t fit into any one camp that I know of, and I do not feel the need to defend any of them, which also leaves me free to not like any of them. I say this not that it is a good thing, just merely as fact.
I do believe my parents raised me as a Calvinist (RCA) but that’s another story.

Tim: The little parenthetical annotations are mine. The Pentecostal, Anti-Calvinist, pro-fatalist rhetoric belongs to this guy, who has undertaken to destroy what he does not understand. He is tilting at fatalism, not the Calvinism I believe and find in scripture. (BTW- he doesn’t understand Arminianism either. And he sure doesn’t understand “foreknowledge.”)

Michael

Perhaps I am reading this wrong, but I think the pastors summary quote from Blogs4God was trying to dispel the caricatures and myths about Calvinism you pointed out..

Or maybe I need a nap and I am just reading it wrong. I only read what you posted and did not see the source.

Daedalus Books is kind of hit and miss for good books, but if you’re interested in this kind of stuff you just can’t pass it up for this price.

This looks like a good intro to Merton.

I bookmarked the article, Michael. It was good.

Get votes or vent? It’s a decision the Democrats are reluctant to face. Check out this note from a good post over at RWN: Penn said Democrats must make a concerted effort to appeal to white voters, particularly men and married women, to make the 2004 race competitive. He said just 22 percent of white men identified with the Democratic Party in his poll, and he said younger men are even more strongly Republican in their leanings.

I’ve got a brother over at the IM forum who has some serious misunderstandings concerning Calvinism, and while I was looking for some material for him, I found this quote linked over at blogs4god. It’s a pastor’s summary of Calvinism for his congregation, and it pretty much contains every caricature, mistake, exaggeration and falsehood that are commonly believed today. I hate to post it. THIS IS NOT TRUE. But sometimes the baloney helps you appreciate the real steak. I will indicate the errors, and you can figure them out without my help.

The Calvinistic view of predestination infers that we have no will power (wrong). We have no choice (wrong). Because God has predestined some to be saved- and some not to be saved. Can you imagine? To live and die- with NO HOPE of salvation! (wrong) In essence, this view promotes that we have no say- so as to whether or not we will become a Christian. It’s entirely predestined by God. (Thankfully)

Friends, don’t let anyone tell you what you believe is not important. It is very important. This could be a particularly dangerous doctrine for, if it were true, (wrong)

1. Why should I try to live the Christian life? If I have no choice but to be saved, what difference does it make? I’ll be saved in the end. (wrong)

2. Why should I try to live a Holy life? If I go to an altar of prayer, I could arise from my knees and live a godless life- and still go to heaven! (wrong) So what’s the big deal?

3. Why should I witness to others? Either they are “in” or they are not- and nothing I could do would change that. (wrong) So, Aunt Susie is not a Christian? So what?

4. Jesus would be unnecessary. (Wrong. Let me find something to hit you with.) Think about it. It would have been unnecessary for Jesus to come to earth and die for us.(wrong)

Now, if anyone wants to work with this, I’ll give you a hint: Election is not salvation. I’ll tell you something else- if this guy is concerned about error, he should contemplate what it means to offer decisional regeneration to people.

Well, it’s just pathetic. Really. Millions of evangelicals look at this and don’t find it the least bit funny. In fact, it’s worse than funny. It’s demented. I am going to make my daughter read this to me out loud. I’m glad I’ve given up Christianity just in time.

“Fundamentalist Christian children’s media is preoccupied with dinosaurs.” I noticed that. Ace of a link there Kevin. I feel sorry for this guy. Is he OK? Is he locked up in a nut ward?

I’ve read it again. I don’t want to be a Christian. I am going to worship baseball.

The Reds just traded Jose Guillen to the A’s. Poor Jose. He’s having a career year, knocking the top off of all the numbers, so the Reds dump him before they have to pay for this. And who do they send him to? The cheapest team in baseball. For a bunch of pitchers. I may be in a minority, but I like this trade. It had to be done. Thanks for the effort, Jose, but that is moneyball.

Michael: I’ve no intention of changing my no-sleepovers rule, even when there is no logical reason for it given the circumstances. My wife and I agreed on it, and that settles it. I think I treat my kids pretty darn well, and they can just deal with this oddity.

I’ve no idea why we’re agreeing so much. I’m still sick and deaf in one ear, so I’m theoretically cranky. I haven’t had anything to drink, which might otherwise have helped. I’ve even got beer in the fridge (a nice Irish lager), but I abstained at lunchtime, opting instead for a nice orzo pasta salad and some water. Now I’m starving. Maybe I’ll pick up some buffalo wings on the way home. Hmmm. Getting sidetracked. Anyway, we’ve been too amicable. I’ll make up for it tomorrow by being way smarter and more verbal than you and dominating the conversation. (JN)

Vintage Yaconelli

Not only are drinking, smoking, swearing, dancing and going to movies not issues: they simply do not matter. They matter to fundamentalists, of course, but to anyone else outside the church, they could care less whether we smoke or attend movies. Absolutely no one gives a tinker’s damn whether I say “tinker’s damn” or not. I can honestly say that after twenty-two years in the ministry, I have never met nor heard of anyone who said, “I was going to give my life to Christ until I saw you (pick one) a) dancing, b) smoking, c) drinking, d) coming out of a movie, e) swearing.” I have had a number of fundamentalists suggest that my (pick one or all of the following) a) dancing, b) smoking, c) drinking, d) coming out of a movie, e) swearing was “causing them to stumble.” That did bother me for awhile until I realized what they were saying was that my behavior bothered them. It made them upset. It wasn’t, I discovered, causing them to question the validity of their faith…it was causing them to question the validity of mine.

The point of all this is to suggest that what the fundamentalists have been guilty of, more than anything else, is a monumental waste of time. Fundamentalists, because of their obsession with things that don’t matter, have, in effect, made the Gospel irrelevant.

Well we’ve spent the day agreeing, Phillip. Whatever I was drinking, I need to buy more ;-)

The dominating types are typically undersocialized in manners and often just way smarter and more verbal, but never really coached on not mowing over everyone else. I am sure you will agree with me that many homeschoolers don’t get the opportunities we are discussing, and this is a loss that no amount of “good grades” can truly make up for. Community is important. It doesn’t take a village, but a good village is a very good thing. And I said no to so many sleepovers my son thought I was nuts, but I told him that my experiences as a young kid who was around sexually curious older kids was all I needed for a reason. Just write it down in the “my dad’s a nut” file and go about your business. One day you will understand. I think he’s got it figured out now.

Carson is great, as far as I can tell. I’ve heard a lot more than I’ve read. Sound of Grace has some of his audio.

Michael: I’ll be proud if one of my kids ends up a teacher, too. And yes, there are more important things to an education than pure academics. Perhaps this is a big-city thing, but all of the different extra-curricular activities you describe are available to home schoolers in San Diego thanks to the school my family runs. Hmmm, not student government, actually, but there is a very successful forensics team that prepares the kids for real government. :) Most or all are also available to us here in Dallas, though I haven’t looked too deeply into some of them because of the young ages of my kids.

I have also seen shy homeschoolers, though generally I don’t see a problem with a homeschooler “dominating” a conversation unless you mean that he or she was rude about it. It has been common in my experience that some kids have something to say on most topics, and kids that don’t tend to clam up. The effect is apparent domination of the conversation, the cause is simply an educated and unashamed kid surrounded by less-bold kids. Of course, I’ve also seen kids who aren’t used to disagreement, and maybe that’s what you mean. :)

Despite my no-sleepovers rule, I’m generally in favor of widespread socialization. My kids play more with unchurched kids than churched kids, and I expect that might continue as they get older. I’m not happy with the insularity I see many homeschoolers cling to as a prime reason for school at home. Sure, we all want to avoid having our children influenced exclusively or even primarily by the worst elements of society, but social insularity is not far removed from inbreeding as far as I’m concerned.

What a fantastic excerpt from Carson. I haven’t read anything written by Carson yet with which I disagree, though I’m sure it’s out there. And yeah, when “law” #1 is “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” the correlation does seem clear.

I would suggest that this missionary letter from PCUSA missionaries serving with Palestinians, gives a good picture of what the problems really are between Israel and the Palestinians. Dr. King, we need you.

For once, I can say a complete “Amen” to Campolo, this time on Evangelical Zionists.

An important but little known basis for the Christian Zionists’ almost unqualified support of Israel is the theology of John Darby, whose unique interpretation of the Bible declared Jesus could not return to earth to establish God’s Kingdom until the state of Israel was re-established and the Jewish Temple on Mt. Zion was rebuilt. These doctrines of the preconditions for the second coming of Christ have gotten wide circulation throughout the Evangelical community over the last 75 years because they are subtly incorporated into the widely used Scofield Reference Bible, used by countless Sunday school teachers across America in preparing their weekly lessons. Of course, nowadays Darby’s theology is gaining even wider audience through the Left Behind books of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which have sold more than 40 million copies. (editor yields to temptation: This probably explains whye vangelicals are so optimistic about the middle east ;-)

It’s important to recognize that prior to Darby, teachings about the restoration of Israel and the temple as preconditions for the return of Christ simply did not exist in Protestant or Catholic theology. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Aquinas and Augustine never even hinted at such ideas, yet Evangelical Zionists now deem anyone who disagrees with Darby to be a heretic.

This CT editorial on the coming Gay wars in evangelicalism makes an excellent point. These people are no longer victims. They are aggressors who won’t shut up.

Despite their frequent depiction of the church as a heartless oppressor, liberationists are in fact the aggressors in this conflict. More often than not, they describe those who defend the church’s historic teaching as driven by fear, hatred, “biblicism,” or fundamentalism. For most evangelicals, it’s clear that Christians must submit their lives to God’s authority, especially in areas Scripture addresses directly. To these activists, that notion is baffling and inconceivable.

I was right. Hope died a believing Catholic.

I love Gordon Macdonald, and this is an example of why. MATTHEW PUT THIS WHERE YOU CAN READ IT ONCE A DAY FOR A MONTH. How right he is about the “church-centric” prayers. I’ve heard a million of them, and maybe prayed a few. I am really laboring to stress that our church is a church that supports people in their callings in the world.

My mentor and favorite professor, Timothy George, on the Openness Boys.

Good stuff from D. A. Carson

We live in a culture in which many other and complementary truths about God are widely disbelieved. I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.

The result . . . is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized. This process has been going on for some time. . . .

[Yet] it has not always been so. In generations when almost everyone believed in the justice of God, people sometimes found it difficult to believe in the love of God. The preaching of the love of God came as wonderful good news. Nowadays if you tell people that God loves them, they are unlikely to be surprised. Of course God loves me; he’s like that, isn’t he? Besides, why shouldn’t he love me? I’m kind of cute, or at least as nice as the next person. I’m okay, you’re okay, and God loves you and me.

Even in the mid-1980s, according to Andrew Greeley, three-quarters of his respondents . . . reported that they preferred to think of God as “friend” rather than as “king.” I wonder what the percentage would have been if the option had been “friend” or “judge”. Today most people seem to have little difficulty believing in the love of God; they have far more difficulty believing in the justice of God, the wrath of God, and the non-contradictory truthfulness of an omniscient God. But is the biblical teaching on the love of God maintaining its shape when the meaning of “God” dissolves in mist?

We must not think that Christians are immune from these influences. In an important book, Marsha Witten surveys what is being preached in the Protestant pulpit. . . . Her book abounds in lengthy quotations from these sermons, and they are immensely troubling. There is a powerful tendency “to present God through characterizations of his inner states, with an emphasis on his emotions, which closely resemble those of human beings. . . . God is more likely to ‘feel’ than to ‘act,’ to ‘think’ than to ‘say.’ . . . Even when directly referring to the unconverted, only two sermons press on fear of God’s judgment by depicting anxiety over salvation, and each . . . does this only obliquely, as it makes the point indirectly on its way to other issues while buffering the audience from negative feelings. . . . The transcendent, majestic, awesome God of Luther and Calvin . . . has undergone a softening of demeanor through the American experience of Protestantism.”

With such sentimentalizing of God multiplying in Protestant churches, it does not take much to see how difficult maintaining a biblical doctrine of the love of God can be.

D.A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000), p. 11-13.

Sorry to say it, but this is a large part of the legacy of Mr. Bright’s “Four Spiritual Laws.”

Phillip: One of the overwhelming issues for me in my setting is poverty. As I said, if my parents had homeschooled, it would have been a total shot in the dark. In fact, there is hanging on my wall a picture of my dad’s family taken in 1908. From that photo- using my great grandfather as the baseline- until today, there were no college graduates in my family until the early 1960’s and the beginning of my generation, and then just a handful. Public education really means something in my family, and those of us who have achieved something have a sense of gratitude to our public school experience. In American history, homeschooling has a long and honored history, but it is really hard for me to picture that in the poverty that surrounds me and with the social problems around me. I would be extremely pleased if my daughter has a career in public education, and I really could write a decent complaint note to God that he didn’t get me into education a lot sooner, because I really enjoy it.

Here’s another one. I could have provided my kids with a much better education- intellectually- if I had home schooled them. But I really couldn’t tell you how much my kids are a product of things that aren’t academic. Here at OBI, they have sung in choirs, acted in 20+ plays, edited newspapers, designed yearbooks, ran for office, had many leadership roles, played sports, interacted with students of different backgrounds and religions, participated in many enrichment activities, and on I could go. The social aspect has actually been one of the things that I have used to balance off some of the unhappiness I may feel at parts of the education that I know I could do better. They are who they are not because of assignments as much as interaction and relationships in class and out. And I have to say this. My best homeschool students are always either terrified of class discussion or dominate it. The effect of limited social interaction is noticeable. This part of education, which I have a feeling some folks actually dread, has proved to be priceless to our kids.

One of the biggest crocks of crap I hear floating around home ed circles is that the worst home schooled student turns out better than the best government or private schooled student. It is rarely stated so explicitly (though I have heard it so stated), but it is implicit in the thinking of most home schoolers I’ve encountered. The idea seems to be that somehow home schooling magically means that children learn as much or more than the rest as well as having superior spiritual lives and so on. More »« Less

Homeschooling has so little to do with the topic of over-protecting our children, that it is almost absurd for me to mention the term, because I know we have home-schoolers on the blog who do a superb job, and as you say, are preparing kids to go in whatever direction God has for them. Any anxieties I ever have about homeschooling doesn’t come from the great homeschoolers I’ve known, or the great homeschooled kids we’ve had here at OBI. It comes from several other things.

First is what my own life would have been like if my parents had homeschooled. I was an only child. My dad had 8 grades. My mom graduated high school. I never saw either one read a book other than for some pragmatic reason. There were no books in my house for learning. If I had been homeschooled, my life would have been different. Call it the public school mythology, but it was my teachers who opened the windows of learning for me, and I owe them an incalculable debt. It probably would have been possible to build a case to keep me out of public school in Owensboro, Ky 1962-1974, but looking back on it, I am very glad I was taken to that public school. Whatever public schools were meant to be by good people in communities, ours was.

Next is what I see with the many homeschooled kids who come to OBI. Now I am going to paint with a broad brush here, but if I turned the keyboard over to any of our other school employees, you would get the same impression. We have a significant number of homeschooled kids at OBI. They are 1) typcially many grades behind. 2) Morally as messed up as the rest of the typical teenage population 3) negative on academics in general. NOW, I know I am seeing the “failed” homeschoolers. In fact, in many cases I am seeing dysfunctional families who chose to “homeschool” rather than be truant and hassled. But I have met these parents. They are good people. They are Christians. They are also poor, uneducated, and thoroughly unable to pull off homeschooling. Some of the letters we receive from homeschool parents summarizing what they’ve tried to do with their kids are some of the saddest mail I have ever read. I NEED to get rid of this impression. And some of our staff kids, who were homeschooled before coming to OBI, have helped. But those kids are distinguished by problems of other kinds in the areas of independence and social relationships. (i.e. they won’t leave home, get jobs, go to college, etc.)

Finally, we are, as a school, currently dealing with a cadre of young mothers refusing to send their children to our school day care or to our school in general. They are insisting on being able to stay home, even though they came here agreeing to work. We just lost an administrator who had been here 17 years over this. We have two other families that I believe we will lose next year over this. These people all came here knowing that their kids going to our school was pretty much the bottom line! So where did they get this strong insistence that they must not allow their kids to be educated by anyone else or out of the house? Even on a tiny campus at a Christian ministry by your brothers and sisters in Christ? This isn’t about the public school- it’s about an idea of the Christian family that makes me very uncomfortable. Call it my SBC upbringing, but I like cooperation.

So this is where I struggle, and it is with a very different kind of experience than you guys have. We live in such different worlds, don’t we? Amazing…

Michael: I’m a home schooler, but I’ve been in homeschooling for long enough to know that it is anything but a cure for all ills. In fact, as a relative “insider,” I’m well aware of various home schooling ministries falling apart for reasons that have remained somewhat quiet publicly but are in fact terrible in detail. The most conservative are often the most gut-wrenchingly full of moral failure. Even on a smaller scale, I’ve watched (and been part of) situations in which local leaders would teach on maintaining moral purity in the lives of teens, while their own children were not upholding anything that would be recognizable as moral purity to even the most casual of observers. In some cases, circumstances fell into place that kept things relatively quiet. In others, things like pregnancy made that more difficult.

Anybody who thinks home schooling is any kind of guarantee against teen apostasy is a fool. I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.

I have similar feelings on courtship, though one of my brothers can actually be considered a courtship success story. I know Josh Harris, he hangs around with my younger sibs at conferences and stuff. I’m glad he kissed dating goodbye and that it worked out for him. I’m sorry that people have taken his experience as some sort of gospel. Even among his tight-knit social circle, I hear private reports that I wouldn’t want to spread third-hand as rumor, but they remind me that any group must keep careful watch against insularity, as it leads to error. I hope that reports I’ve heard in the last few days of trends within some of the SBC leadership folks (no names) and some Sovereign Grace peeps (similarly, no names) are preliminary and are corrected before leaking to the public.

I hate speaking so obscurely, and I’m not against home schooling or the general idea of courtship in general, but I’m exhausted by the thought of people beating themselves up when they spend their entire lives trying to be just like [insert your homeschooling/courtship idol here] and having their kids stray.

So I’m a home schooler for educational reasons (and a few others), but I’m also trying to figure out how to prepare my children to make their own right decisions at 13. Often I hope that the right decision will be to consult their parents, and I’m certainly going to keep rules and structure around, but I remember what I was like as a teen, and I know what teens are like, and I’m not going to think I can control every minute and it will all work out. I’m working hard to build the kind of character that makes mostly the right decisions when I’m not around, and not controlling everything. And that’s what a lot of home schoolers seem to miss. I’m not sheltering my kids from culture, I’m preparing them to lead it.

Wow, I guess you hit a hot button, Michael. BTW, for those who read Michael’s note to me and wondered, “What piece on NPR?” he was referring to a bit on BBC Bias that I published on my blog yesterday.

I’ll shut up now, before I get myself into more trouble.

In a huge, and really well done, survey of How and Why Postmodern Churches do what they do, I came across this list- which we have all seen and heard hundreds of times before- of the beliefs of a typical “post-modern.”

a) I’m looking for a truth that works for me.
b) I can only try to see life from my own perspective; reality is too complex to understand it all.
c) I’m interested in the values of my group and my community.
d) I believe in being tolerant.
e) I believe in letting others live like they want to.
f) I don’t like it when people argue about how their group or beliefs are better.
g) I want practical answers to life. I’m not drawn to idealistic schemes.
h) I am suspicious of schemes that try to explain everything or give simplistic answers to complex questions.
i) When people talk to me about these schemes I think of it as “noise” to be ignored.
j) I like to have a group of close friends with which I share common values.
k) I don’t like institutional religion.
l) I do have a vague desire for non-institutional spirituality. But I don’t know how to find it.

Some questions and observations:

1) Uhhh. What is so darned unique about this? Hasn’t 90% of this been true of just about everybody everywhere for all time?
2) Isn’t this incredibly streotypical? To the point of caricature?
3) Once we know this is true, is it still true in the same way? Doesn’t that mean we have automatically moved beyond it? Like anti-Rock youth ministers showing clips of KISS?
4) At least half of these statements are directly opposed to the Gospel, and no matter how we understand them, we have to tell people to abandon them in order to embrace and follow Jesus. Right? No compromise.
5) Several of these, if held on to as Christians, will undermine the Christian life itself. So do we want to encourage this by labeling ourselves as a “Postmodern” church?
6) Doesn’t this list just sort of shout “Emotionally manipulate me into a decision. It’s OK. I won’t mind.”

I’m with Alex on this stuff: trendy.

I am in one of those agonizing states of mind about the theology of Robert Capon. I want someone to get Capon by the throat and make him explain PAUL to me in his terms. Specifically every passage in the epistles about church discipline, a holy life and perseverance. I don’t want to hear his brilliance on the parables. I want to hear what he says is going on in I Corinthians 5:1-13. One verse at a time. Of course, I already know. Capon, like tons of liberals, has posited Jesus against Paul. That’s obvious in his stance on homosexualtiy. It’s obvious in the preference of the new lectionary for texts that avoid the very themes that I am talking about. The books on the parables but none on the epistles. All this antinomianism prefaced on Capon’s theology of grace that refuses not to forgive, even of unbelievers and people in hell (unless they just want to pretend otherwise) is about creating a Jesus and a Gospel and a Bible that are bifurcated and divided. But oh how my soul is tempted to want God to be like that! And for all the words on perseverance to NOT really apply at all!

“Churches live on a diet of crap.” That reminds me of 25 years ago when I served as a summer youth minister at a church in Carlsbad, NM. The pastor once told me that being in the ministry was just like shoveling s***. Now, wouldn’t you just have loved being a member of his church!

Matthew: Thanks for the word. Keep it up, because old fundy dad here has a whole box of conflicted feelings about his kids and where they will go to church….if they go to church. The thing about the Episcopal Church is simple: the liturgy is 90% of the service, and it will save you, even if the sermon is terrible. God bless liturgical churches who understand the power of the service to hold things together no matter what else is going on. If she went to some Pentecostal church or even some Seeker thing, it ALL depends on what THEY are up to that particular Sunday, and I can’t picture anything more terrible. So my anxieties about theology need to be calmed by the fact the kid wants a church at all. During Governor’s Scholar she went to church AND SUNDAY SCHOOL all five weeks at the Presby Church in Danville. My problem is that I still have revival organs and sawdust trails running through my head.

My friend Ted (not real name), a retired teacher here at OBI, has three kids. He is a wonderful Christian. A passionate YEer and a tireless evangelist. I have never seen anyone who took as much time to patiently preach and teach one on one as Jim does. (Including handing out lots of ______ tracts.) We were talking Sunday about his perspective on raising kids. He and his wife raised all their kids in the same basic evangelical Baptist home. One is now a KJV only fundamentalist. One is a liberal occasional church goer. One is currently an apostate, after years of attending a liberal church. Ted’s heart is broken, and he really grieves over his grandchildren, who he tries to visit and have over as much as possible. He did all he could. He prayed and taught and lived the example. But the results were different with each kid. WHEN WILL WE GIVE UP ON THIS NOTION THAT WE CAN CONTROL THE LIFE CHOICES OF OUR CHILDREN? I fight this in my head and heart all the time, because so many of my younger friends have small children that they are raising in a passionately Christian environment (homeschool, Christian school, great church, wonderful youth programs, super camps, awesome staff, mission trips etc.) and they believe this will seal the deal. And in a lot of cases it is going to take. But not in every case, and in many cases the outcome will be much different than they anticipated.

Yesterday D met a guy who told her that his sister’s family is homeschooling (no criticism here Jim or anyone else.), home churching, and in some kind of a movement where dad is still controlling all of the kids choices at age 21. Telling them they must stay home and help raise the smaller children (10 kids) and not go to college. (Pietism movement or something?) What bothers me is I can see this in myself, just because I am afraid of what will happen if I don’t. It haunts me sending my daughter off to Transy and Lexington. But otoh, I am a pro with students. I know what needs to happen and I know what will happen, regardless of my best efforts. AND THAT IS GOOD. Even Ted’s daughter’s choice to be an apostate is better than him controlling her and her family to allay his own fears.

Ahhh. Growing older. Did I already have my mid-life crisis? I need to schedule another one.

Oh Matthew. Let churches be screwed up, young man. Leave them alone and help people. Let it be said of you that your passions were Christ and people, and you served his church not by argument or politics or being slick or smart, but by exalting Jesus and serving people. BTW- Churches live on a diet of crap.

Michael, if Noel decides to go to Christ Church she’ll probably have her choice of Marcus Borg study groups to join. I went to their bookstore a while ago and saw a sign for one of his books (Meeting Jesus Again, or something like that). The worship is awesome. The last time I went the rector got to talking about the heavenly banquet. I was a magnificant description of the kinds of food we will see. The best part was the short pause after he said, ”...and all the best scotch.” I think I saw a tear in his eye.

I went to Calvary once for a worship tour thingy leading up to One Day 2000. Awesome.

He who doesn’t like conflict at all was neck deep in it last night. The details don’t matter, but it was gut wrenching for me (I wasn’t a part of it; it was a church meeting that I sat in on). I prayed through the whole thing so it could have been worse. The best line of the night was when we were discussing whether or not to have two separate meetings, months apart for a couple of different issues that could be dealt with at once. One member said, “My dad always said, ‘If you’re gonna have to eat crap you might as well do it in big handfuls.’” I think he meant that it’s better to get it all out of the way at one time, but I’m still left wondering, “Who eats crap?”

Bright was a Presbyterian (PCA) and it has been sad to note the total silence of the PCUSA news service on his passing. I read your piece on NPR and saw further evidence of the PBS obsession with trashing Bush on a piece last night where current unemployment figures were recalculated to show that times are worse than in 1982 (that despised Reagan era.) Agenda reporting- right or left- can be classy and helpful, or so biased and drooling that you have to look away. PBS/NPR can certainly give demonstrations of both.

Your comments about Baptist Press are quite true. While I loathed the liberal reports of the previous regime, and especially the obsession with flailing about in fits about Calvinism- I frequently wonder if the BP realizes they give propaganda a good name. Their “reporting” is often shamelessly wed to the promo point of the day from whatever SBC agency. I do have to commend them for their pieces on the Founders conference, which are always good.

Further prayers regarding my daughter seem to be in the process of being answered. There was much anxiety about a roommate, and now she and the the roomie have met and are enjoying communicating and are planning to spend a weekend together before school. Most important, the roomie is a Christian, and attends a CBF/KBF church, and has already stated she will be attending a CBF/KBF church in Lexington. I know the pastor of the church she’s chosen and he is a good man. Many friends and OBI co-workers have attended the church and I am impressed. Noel has said she wants to go to something high church, so she is looking at the Episcopal cathedral downtown or at 2nd Pres, which is the big, very, very high church (liberal) PCUSA church close to Transy. I have told her that as long as she gives IVCF a shot, and establishes a church home, I will be fine. I would prefer she go to an evangelical church, but her last visit to an SBC Church brought her home saying she could never endure anything like that again. I guess this is my daughter’s reaction to being raised in the evangelistic circus. I’m just praying that her faith is encouraged and perseveres. Along those lines, I see that UK is having a Veritas Forum in November, but I can’t find any info about it on the web.

NPR’s Morning Edition was doing a nice piece on Bill Bright since there is a service for him today. In describing his history, imagine my surprise to hear them say something like “Some have expressed concern that his so-called “four spiritual laws” leave out some of the harder aspects of Christianity, like repentance and suffering, but…” They had already mentioned the first of the four. All in all it was a very positive piece, and that was one of the very few – perhaps the only – negative point mentioned. Amusing that it would be a point often heard here as well. :)

Red Sox Mueller Hits Two Slams, From the Left and Right. C’mon Bill. Somebody likes us up there.

One of my favorite reads on the net is out with another article at News With Views:

Paul Proctor

He has a ton of stuff and pretty much doesn’t like the new contemporary worship services. I have pestered him before with questions about his articles (sound familliar Michael?) and he is always kind enough to reply.

Proctor Archive

Phillip

I have the same laughing problem when I read Lark News, my coworker doesn’t get it. We work in a huge office by ourselves and sometimes I can hear my own laughs echoing back to me..

I rather liked Orrin Judd’s razor (but translucent, to libs) comment on the gay school.

This kind of moral segregation seems entirely sensible and suggests that private individuals and businesses should be able to follow suit.

Amazon.com: Books: In the Classroom: Dispatches from an Inner-City School That Works. One of my frustrations is that I would like my children to read the books that I recommend, and they rarely do, being independent minded types. But Noel took this one to work today and now can’t put it down. Loves it, which makes me very happy because I can’t think of a better book for someone her age to read before entering college. So this is lifting the day well off the floor.

And there’s a good Highlander on.

I was unaware of any endorsement of astrology. I’ve never encountered that in any other Capon book. Pretty no nonsense character. I’ll have to try and…...no, I won’t. But thanks for the review.

Here is the review I wrote for Amazon.com for the aforementioned Capon book:

The Mystery of Christ … and Why We Don’t Get It by Robert Farrar Capon List Price: $15.00 Buy new: $10.50 You Save: $4.50 (30%) I tried to “get it”, but there were too many roadblocks January 16, 2003 Robert Farrar Capon is a very enthusiastic, passionate author with a very definite point of view. It is definitely in his favor that he takes a biblical approach, patiently explaining why the Bible, in his view, teaches that the whole world is in Christ, and therefore the whole world will be saved. This is the “mystery of Christ” to which he refers. The only ones who will not enter into heaven will be those who pointedly reject the free grace of God, which the author believes will be continually offered even after death.

Capon loves Jesus’ parables (he has written three books on them, one of which I have read), and draws much of his theology from those parables. Some of the parables presented in this book (the Sheep and the Goats, for example) are interpreted in the light of Capon’s universalism, which results in some novel interpretations. Not that that’s always a bad thing, indeed, his interpretation of the parable of the Ten Virgins is quite enlightening. Just the fact that the “wise” virgins are portrayed as being selfish and snippy show the reversal in the Kingdom of the good and the bad, and that nothing is received on merit, all on grace.

I don’t give this book a relatively low rating because I’m anti-univeralist (I don’t happen to be a universalist, although I’m always open to change), but because I have some issues with certain things in the book that just cannot be easily resolved. Capon gives far too much value to astrology, and without much explanation except for the fact that his wife is a professional astrologer. It has always been my conviction that astrology is anti-Christian and anti-intellectual (in simpler terms, both Satanic and a crock), and those who engage in it are either deceived or are spiritual flim-flam artists. Anyone who deems astrology acceptable and then tries to teach me Christian theology suffers a severe credibility problem. Another stumbling-block is that the author doesn’t seem to take sin very seriously. That problem is addressed in the book, but not in a very convincing manner. Some things that, from a biblical standpoint, are indeed sin are deemed a non-sin in this book (sprecifically homosexuality).

I enjoyed the format of the book, alternating between one-on-one counseling sessions or conversations and group discussion of those situations. One of the discussion participants fits my profile really well. That participant, while he learned a lot, still had reservations at the end. That is my position as well.

Gigli- Worse than “Heaven’s Gate?” I love a really sink-your-teeth-into-it review of something truly terrible. There is a kind of Rex Reed relish that makes a nuclear bomb review enjoyable. This take on Gigli is right up there with the great literature of the genre. So fine.

Thanks Phillip. Publically acknowledging the corrosive effect of Robert Capon on my soul is a way of getting away from the stuff. One of his books (Between Noon and Three) did more damage to me than any 100 sins of the flesh. My thoughts are like Trains, and books are like tracks. Capon is a track that sends me over a cliff. And I have to see the bugs thing to just realize it’s insane.

The rest is being remedied by Randy Stonehill. Update later. Film at 11.

Michael: I’m relieved that you’ve posted links. I’m just going to pretend that you didn’t post anything about what a bad day you’re having. I had one yesterday, but mine was so lightweight that it was recovered relatively well by a couple of hours at a coffee shop with my wife late last night. So I’m no help.

---

Baptist Press can’t expect to be taken seriously as a news source until they stop writing “news” articles of which many ad copy writers would be ashamed:

With both Warren and Falwell working together on the Super Conference, the Purpose-Driven Church Conference costs less than ever before – only $150.

Act now and we’ll throw in a second jar of Purpose-Driven Facial Rejuvenation Cream absolutely free! But wait! There’s more!

FT June/July 2003: Visions of Eternity. An eloquent essay from Leszek Kolakowski. Really full of quotables. I don’t know where to start.

The problems with the idea of a Gay High School are many. How about separate but equal? How about building a school for all of us fat kids? How about the tacit acceptance of all kinds of weird lies about adolescent sexuality that goes into allowing a 14 year old to enroll in a gay school?

Fenton Johnson’s L.A. Times column suggestions that the pro-gay Christians have the real Jesus on their side.

Lutheran Pastor in trouble for giving a wedgie. And other things, but the wedgie is the big deal. People with lawyers have no sense of humor.

Mike Lopresti does a good diagnosis on the money side of the Cincinnati Red’s woes. Why small market teams can’t do this big salary thing.

OK. I’m waiting for you guys to send me to this Arrrrghhhh Conference. It will solve all my problems.

A great site for all you World Christian types: www.peoplegroups.org.

Harry has a nice Bob Hope story and a very cool picture.

I’m amazed at how easily a good day turns into a something where I wish I’d never gotten out of bed.

Last night was full of amazing storms. I love a thunderstorm, and this was rock ‘n roll. Puts me to sleep like a baby. Then the morning and lunch with D are great. But lurking out there are all the little things that other people navigate just fine, but that combine to turn my whole worldview sour.

It starts with reading some Robert Farrar Capon. Capon is a brilliant writer. One of those people with an understanding of grace that just grabs you and slaps you around. I can devour his stuff. In fact, I’ve read it all with the excpetion of his cookbook and a little thing called The Mystery of Christ (and why we don’t get it.). So what is staring back at me from the used book table in the mailroom? A nice copy of that precise book. So I start reading, as I usual do, dropping in here and there.

Father Capon is an Episcopal priest, a Greek scholar, a gourmet chef, and probably the most convincing universalist and antinomian I have ever read. Reading Capon is like drinking something I know is going to mess me up, but I have to have just one more. I have a history with Capon, and it is not a good one. While the crime is mine, the inspiration was his, and I don’t like to think about it. So after a few swirls of the stuff, I am feeling like I want more, but I am also thinking about the mess, and feeling about as guilty and awful as a person can feel for what I’ve done that hurt others and betrayed all I really believe is really uniquely right for my life. (Capon removes guilt better than anyone in the world. He is masterful. He is the Gandalf of feeling like you have no reason to regret anything.) I stopped. I’ll have to decide whether to leave the book out where some other unsuspecting fool can fall into the hole or to do something constructive like burn it.

And then it’s the small things. Job issues that won’t go away. A campus full of visiting preachers. Religious fanatic co-workers. The house next door isn’t finished, but a new family has moved in. Lots of kids and dogs. Makes my dog walks very hard to have dogs running around. Why can’t I rejoice in new neighbors? We have so many new relationships to manage each year, and I am good with most everyone, but I’m slow to warm up to new people. Then I stood in the street talking to someone, and gnats and flies starting biting me. The flies bit me at least ten times. I hate bugs. I mean, I really hate them. Bugs could drive me to atheism if I decided to think about them very much. All that Discovery Channel stuff about the wonder of the insect world. Who freakin’ cares? They want to eat me, and do when I stand still long enough.

Then it’s a nagging phone call about a work issue that I’ve tried to resolve three times and it just won’t go away. Then it’s my school office overrun by the teenage children of these visiting preachers, and wondering what they are doing to all the areas they are supposed to leave alone. Soon I am dreading the start of school, and wondering if I am going to be able to work with the people I need to work with, who all want Pentecostal everything and I don’t. The YE creationists are loading their guns to go after me again, and it tires me to think about answering all those Kent Hovind questions. And now I’m worrying about my trip to my youth group reunion, and why did I accept the invitation in the first place since they will all just say I’m fat. And then there is my daughter driving across the state next week…........and so on.

Sitting on top of it all is just the knowledge of what a sorry, pathetic, loser I am….or so the little red suited guy on my shoulder keeps saying.

A perfectly good day worried into a mess. When Jesus said each day has enough trouble he didn’t count on my capacity to chew on the troubles- real and imagined- of whole months at a time. So now I get to try and recover from this state of mind.

I’ll start with some music. I’ll give you a report later.

I’ve got to stay away from Lark News. I read through all of July’s stuff today and now my sides hurt and the guy who sits outside my office keeps looking in here like I’m crazy. Man, that’s good stuff. If that site is as popular as it deserves to be, maybe there is hope for a truly funny Christian stand-up phenom after all.

Doug Gamble on writing for Bob Hope.

Michael: Be careful when you talk about culture as a poison. I’ve been told that this here culture we’re in is a Christian one, so how can it in any way cause problems for raising Christians? (JN)

My favorite recent quote,, from the John Hiatt interview Michael linked to:

My friend Al Anderson said, ‘When you listen to black gospel music, you go, “Maybe there is a God.” Then you listen to white gospel music and you go “No, there’s not.”’

Ok,,

I missed a lot of things here, but have some comments to make..

1. I am a Young Earther..

However, I view the bible as a road map to salvation, not neccessarily a History book. The idea of the time/light theory is not new to me and does make some sense albeit not enough for me to think other than the 6 literal days as we know them. The evening and morning are mentioned each day, this to me cannot be anything but a literal day in my puny brain. It is however, as someone mentioned here, very possible that we are being blinded by God for whatever reason, he does not owe us an explanation. I think God usually works within the natural laws he has formed, but the bible has some instances where he has gone outside human knowledge of natural laws to accomplish his will. Whatever the cause of the billions and billions of years (if they existed) before man I will never know.

The first two lines of the bible are:

“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

A lot could have been there or happened before, there are no day markers in those two lines. the word Void in itself could lead one to several ideas as to what could have happened. Since there was water, this cannot be the void known in the scientific world as an empty space.

2. I do not believe in evolution in the classic sense. I believe each species evolves within itself, not into another species. I can get deeper with that, but won’t for now.

3. I still think Saturday is the Sabbath, Sunday is the Lord’s Day, I see them as different. However, in my sheltered childhood when everything was closed or verboten on Sunday, the world did seem to be a nicer place. There were rules I had to follow on Sunday that were not there any other day. This has caused me a lot of confusion since I was a child.

As a sad fact of life, I know very few Christians personally, so if these topics have been beaten to death here, anyone is free to email me and explain where I am in error. Try not to go the simple Colossians quote route for the Sabbath, I have been there and many other places looking.

Pick your Democrat

“Well, I’m used to this. When I ran for governor of Florida, I was seventh out of seven in this same relative period to the primary, and eventually became the Democratic nominee and was elected and served two terms as president of Florida.”- Senator Bob Graham

Rep. Dennis Kucinich called for a $60 billion effort to provide universal preschool and proposed paying for the plan with a 15 percent cut in Pentagon spending,” the Associated Press reports from Ottumwa, Iowa.

‘This time I think the Americans are serious. Bush is not like Clinton. I think this is the end.’- Uday Hussein to confidant, early April.

If I ever am tempted to abandon Christianity, I just go to the BHT categories, hit “Chicky Narratives” and read until all my doubts go away.

Reminds me of the good old days when my whole anti-evolution argument could be explained by “Big Daddy” and a 32-page booklet entitled “Evolution: The Incredible Hoax”. Dang, things were sure simpler then!!

In honor of the ongoing Creation vs. Evolution Debate, I have a message… Jack Chick knows the answers… So here we go with this week’s

Chick Tract Translation for the classic Big Daddy, which was so good, Chick’s only had to revise it 4 times.

Our beloved classic opens in a university lecture, where a teacher asks his students the question I was asked… almost twice in five years… “How many of you believe in evolution?” It’s obvious that our professor friend does because he’s got a picture of King Kong chowing down on a Chiquita behind him. Of course evolution is correct! And of course human evolved from monkeys! And of course they spent their earliest years as Homo Oogaboogaus subsisting on nothing more than bananas and each other’s lice. Could explain why my grandmother’s banana pudding is such a big hit.

Fortunately for teacher, all of his students dance, sing, and pass around flowers as a hippy love fest breaks out over their agreement on the question of evolution. Unfortunately, the orgy comes grinding to a rapid stop as the local fundy stands up and says, “I don’t, you hellbound heathen”. Actually, he just says, “I do sir” when the professor asks if anyone disagrees. OK, we’re already on the skids as far as believability for me. I never had a professor triumph their personal beliefs and then actually offer the class the chance to trash the argument. It didn’t stop me, necessarily… the teacher who thought Transcendental Meditation was a good idea got an earful about demonic possession from me and my buddy – but we weren’t exactly invited. Nope, most professors will simply tell you their opinion and expect you to agree. Yep, it appears that our Fundy friend here didn’t go to a real college. I’m thinkin’ he’s probably somewhere where classical education is set aside for more useful classes for this room full of geniuses… classes like “Walking and Chewing Gum 101” and “How to Chew Food 327”.

Fortunately, Professor I. Barelypassed Highschool responds lovingly and with great concern for his students, by demanding that the Fundy who answered his question leave his classroom immediately, and stay out until they apologize. Just like in real life. Fortunately, right before Professor Genius has an aneurism, he agrees to let the Fundy teach his class a lesson called “Why Science is Wrong and Your Education is Complete Crap”.

Just like in real life.

Fundyboy begins teaching directly out of the Bible… just like in re.. uh… yeah. The Professor re-starts his forehead vessel a-pumpin, declaring that he could have Fundyboy jailed for even mentioning that there is such a book as “the Bible”. Nosiree… can’t have students aware of anything that isn’t taught in the New York Times. Prof demands that Fundyboy only use scientific terms to prove his point. Fortunately for our average tract reader, the “scientific terms” used are just below 4th grade.

Prof continues his rampage by declaring that Carbon-14 dating proves evolution (except that it’s not reliable on dates past 20,000 years or so… Hmmm) and that such respected scientists as Huxley, Darwin, National Geographic, and Time all agree. So Fundyboy starts by asking Prof if there aren’t 6 basic concepts of evolution? Yep, replies the prof, who then proceeds to list the 6 concepts, complete with definitions that any 5th grader would chuckle at. Fortunately, Fundyboy is egged on by his classmates who say encouraging things because they too want to get kicked out of class. Prof, getting a little testy, pulls out a convenient picture of a Neanderthal skullcap (I didn’t even know they were Jewish) and “Lucy”, who Fundyboy quickly identifies as a chimpanzee. Must’ve been the banana that gave it away.

Next, Fundyboy pulls out the famous chart o’ human evolution, complete with captions under each item detailing how wrong it is. Starting with Lucy, complete with a banana, the chart works its way up to modern man (sans banana, but with a nice set of glasses), complete with witty explanations. The professor responds with posters, and then points out that human fetuses have gills. Fundyboy reveals that they don’t have gills. Prof points out that humans have a vestigal tail. Fundyboy disproves him. Whales’ pelvis. Fundyboy brings up whale sex.

On and on and on…

Fundyboy finally asks his big question: what holds atoms together. The professor shouts out “gluons”. Fundyboy, having not heard about the proof of their existence found in 1979, shouts “Gluons don’t exist! You can’t see, hear, taste, smell, or feel them!” Now, our esteemed professor, instead of pointing out that you can’t sensually (blatant attempt to drive up bandwidth to this place) detect God, instead chooses to whimper as Fundyboy explains that atoms are held together by the sheer will of God. Yes indeed – at this moment, God is fully concentrating on keeping the atoms of the universe together, which explains why He hasn’t gotten around to answering my prayer for winning the lottery yet.

Prof decides he just can’t take this anymore. If Fundyboy says that atoms are held together by God’s will and God would NEVER use created things like gluons to hold together other created things, then dang it, he must be right. Time to quit yer day job and head off into the sunset as Fundyboy turns your former hippy love-fest into the newest Independent Baptist Bible Class of the Southwestern School for the Stupid.

Church has little impact on worldview. This is a story that showed up in our state Baptist newspaper, and it prompts me to say a couple of things in view of Alex’s recent postings about some of his frustrations in youth ministry.

First, let’s play a silly little game. I’m going to give you ten seconds to come up with what major religion or worldview does the best job “discipling” their young people in serious followers of their religion or worldview. Ready. Set. Go. 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10. So how did you do? I’m going to wager that most of you said Islam. That would be my answer, though I will qualify that in a moment.

Second part of the game, is a simple multiple choice: Who is primarily at fault for young people in the church not becoming serious and committed disciples? Is it A) the church B) The culture C) The Family or D) Satan 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10 Did you make your choice? Alright, this is more complex, and I think our answers will differ, though knowing the BHT, I expect most of these answers to be either A or C.

Third, and final part of our little thought starter. Think of someone you know who was a strong Christian youth, and stayed with their faith all the way into adulthood. (This can be anyone. Yourself included.) What role did the church play in this journey? Particularly, what role did organized youth ministry play? Take a moment and write down your answers.

OK. We’re ready to go. First question. I think the answer here has everything to do with how insulated the young person is from the values and appeals of modern, materialistic, secular western culture. I don’t think those of us living in this culture realize its power to give meaning to all of life and to dominate and humiliate all competing paths to significance. One way I see this is when International students come to our school from countries where they have had no experience of our culture, media, materialism, etc. I can’t describe it, but you can see them changing before your very eyes, and in a matter of months they will be totally transformed. Lessons of family and culture reinforced for generations are swept away by the power of our appeal to young people to be western, secular consumers and to live the life of a westerner. I have seen it with Arabs, Africans, Asians. It is remarkable to watch Japanese and Korean kids just plunge into this, and turn their backs entirely on the hopes of their families.

Now, our kids grow up in this. To them, this culture is normal. And it is my contention that the vast, vast majority of expressions of Christianity in our country do not challenge that cultural influence, and have, in fact, bought into it. We do not seek to protect our kids from it. We believe the path of Christian discipleship can be lived without renouncing or sacrificing. In fact, we talk about it as a way to success in this culture. (The cult of CCM artists is a great example.)

My Buddhist kids are always extremely negative about Christianity, because to them, a serious person committed to a religion makes the choice of a Buddhist monk and really lives out the life in sacrifice and solitude. But they don’t see this from any of us, and they assume all Christians are hypocrites, because we don’t live like Jesus or like the Holy people they know about. If they were around, let’s say, Amish or Mennonite people, or Christians living in monastic settings, I think it would be a very different reaction.

Now, whose fault is it? I think the culture clearly is the poison, and there is no denying that. It is the culture that TRIVIALIZES GOD. It is the culture that PRIVATIZES and INDIVIDUALIZES and RELATIVIZES everything into a powerless little preference that has no real influence. But the church has taken the culture into itself. We have loved the world. And families don’t want churches to turn their kids into radicals. They want them off drugs, out of jail and not pregnant. But they still want kids who are happy and successful in the culture. I know that my four years at a First Baptist Church taught me that parents did not want their kids turned into little Christians. They wanted a bit of morality and some pats on the head. The families weren’t seriously out there for Christ, and the kids weren’t either. I was expected to do it all: teach, disciple, keep them between the ditches, and interested in church of course. All without getting near anything fanatical, because the church was really the pinnacle of the values of the community.

What about the faith journey of Christian who made it as committed young disciples? I’ve watched hundreds of them. I would say the journey is never like the map. It is unique for each person. I would also say that the youth ministry’s role- as a program- is negligible. In that program, I see some significant things. Mentoring. Missions experiences. Biblical preaching/teaching on a high level. A direct challenge to the culture from mentors and models in the youth ministry world. But the kids who made it, are kids radically changed by Christ, and I would say that 80% of the time that happens, it happens totally outside of a church program.

I’m going to a reunion this weekend of kids I worked with in 79-82. They have made it and many are following Jesus. They are, of course, hardly radical, but are parts of a big seeker church. I will thank God for them, but I will say go further- much further- than what I ever showed you. Be St. Frank. Be Rich. Be Dietrich. Be Jim Elliot. Don’t be safe. Sacrifice boldly and you won’t be sorry. I said those things long ago, but I really don’t know if I was much of an example. Eleven years up here in the hills and they will listen better I think, and I will tell ‘em.