Over the last couple months this blog has been lighter on original content, largely because of our move to St. Louis. Even with a lighter publishing schedule, I have been publishing a lot of links and videos on grim matters and on matters of hope. My heart has been broken time and again over the last couple months as information has come out about the practices of Planned Parenthood. In these dark times, we must keep our eyes on the Cross.
Hope. Many people are seeking it. Some Christians have lost it. The tricky thing is to recognize where you find it. Hope found in the world will always fail. Hope found in the power of the Cross, in the Blood of Jesus, in the eternal life to come will never fail. While the total depravity of our world is heavy, I find hope in the One that can overturn the sinful nature of the hearts of Man.
This for me is why I do not keep my words, my faith, the Word of God to myself. Keeping this hope, this blessèd assurance, to myself would be the greatest form of hate and selfishness. So I publish. Many will be offended. Many will unfriend me, unfollow me, or cut off all communication with me. But many more will see hope for something better than this fallen world.
It is no secret to those close to me that I love apologetics and see the lack of apologetics teaching in the American church as a major weakness today. But apologetics without the Gospel is just arguing. We aren’t in it to win fights, but to win souls.
Asked by Kelly if they thought the backlash against the family had been greater because of what they stood for, including their Christian beliefs, Jim Bob replied, “I think, you know what, Christianity is not about being perfect or about being a perfect family, but it’s actually about being forgiven….
“People on the outside think, ‘well Christians are supposed to be perfect…’ No, you know what, all of us as Christians we struggle every day.”
Christianity is not about being perfect, but about being forgiven. That deserves an “amen” where I come from.
This family needs our prayers, Christians. The media loves when it gets a story like this. They love ripping apart a family. We need to pray that they can stand in the storm, through the power of Christ.
Some people act as if it was the Duggar’s responsibility to have made this sad episode in their family public knowledge. They are to be praised for not hiding this from the appropriate parties and eventually the police, but they owed it to no one else to publicize the sins of a minor child and the court agrees with that assessment, the judge now ordering that the police report be destroyed. But the cat is already out of the bag. How many of you would broadcast the sins of your children to the whole world? Would you be willing to publicize your own darkest moments? It is miserable indeed that someone was willing to illegally obtain a police investigation involving minor children and publish it for whatever nefarious purpose they had in mind.
Great post from the father-in-law of Jessa Seewald (née Duggar) addressing the recent news about Josh Duggar. The media is swarming around this like flies.
Did Lena Dunham get this kind of outrage when she published a book including information about her sexually molesting her younger sister? No, in fact the media came to her defense.
The overreaction to incidents like this only serves to reinforce sexual shame in our culture. “It makes many adults ashamed of what was very normal sexual play in their childhood,” she says. “And it makes people buy into this idea that children themselves aren’t sexual, which is totally wrong.”
The media claimed that her groping her sister’s genitalia was normal childhood play, but the same publication says this of Josh Duggar:
“This is why I never use softening, minimizing language,” Field writes. “I say assault and rape and abuse. And, if it comes to light that Josh digitally penetrated his victims, I’m going to start saying Joshua Duggar is a rapist.”
So if feminist hero Lena Dunham “digitally penetrates” her sister, it is “normal sexual play,” but if right-wing Christian Josh Duggar does so he is a rapist. Got it. And we are the hypocrites. Christians say that both are wrong. Horribly wrong. In the case of Dunham, she plays it off as normal and shameless. In the case of Duggar, he seeks help from the Church and forgiveness from his victims and the incidents were reported to the authorities.
Here’s the thing. We all have a sin problem. Often times we make mistakes that directly affect others. While sexual sins are often considered the worst, we must recognize that as Christ has forgiven our sins, so must we forgive others. If things are the way they appear to have been, 14-year-old Josh Duggar made some bad choices. Instead of taking this public and ruining his life, the family dealt with it in a biblical manner, seeking wise council and help from the Church. Forgiveness was sought and given. This was now 10 years ago.
As a church, we should applaud the way that this was dealt with– if this proves to be accurate— and see this as a model way of running our families when sin rears it’s ugly head.
We should also, as a church, pray for this family in this hard time. The world loves to drag out our sins and call us hypocrites. It makes it all the more important for Christians to publicly declare that we are not perfect, sinless, Jesus freaks. No, we are broken, weary men and women that have recognized our need of a savior. We need to pray for our fellow brothers and sisters that they stay strong under this attack and show what Christ would want.
If evangelical Christianity is growing, or at the very least remaining steady, why is Christianity as a whole shrinking and why are those who claim no religious affiliation increasing at such a rapid rate? In short, nominals — people whose religious affiliation is in name only — are becoming nones — people who check "none of the above" box on a survey.
Those who value their faith enough to wake up on Sunday morning and head to their local church are mostly still going. What I have described as "convictional Christianity" will continue. Those who say their faith is very important to their lives are not suddenly jettisoning those beliefs to become atheists.
This makes sense in regards to what Glenn Beck said yesterday:
It’s no surprise people are saying, “Christian, I’m not Christian.” Why would you call yourself Christian? Those numbers continue to dwindle for good reason. You define yourself as a Christian, and you’re going to be defined by society as narrow-minded, hateful, judgmental.
Believing marriage between a man and woman used to be ammunition or still is used as ammunition to say you hate gays.
Saying prayer in school is akin to forcing nonbelievers to conform against their will.
Teaching intelligent design is literally likened to child abuse now, mocked as anti-science.
Virginity is mocked.
Being pro-life is being spun as a war on women
So growing up today as a millennial, that is damn near impossible. Who would intentionally put themselves in a crowd that society has deemed anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science? I mean, sign me up. It’s a harder sell to young people in a culture that bombards them with anti-Christian messaging, but I honestly don’t think that’s the problem. I think that’s part of the problem, but I don’t think that’s the real problem.
Those that in the past have identified as Christians because of a cultural affiliation— grew up going to church and still attend a couple times a year— are seeing what Christians are associated with today and are being forthright and honest: they’re atheists or agnostics. People are not leaving the Church in troves, they are just being honest that they are not Christians and likely never were. That said, evangelical Christianity is on the rise, though marginally. “[W]eekly religious attendance as a percentage of the U.S. population is about where it was in the 1940s.” Nothing to see here except news fodder, people. Nothing to see.
It’s no surprise people are saying, “Christian, I’m not Christian.” Why would you call yourself Christian? Those numbers continue to dwindle for good reason. You define yourself as a Christian, and you’re going to be defined by society as narrow-minded, hateful, judgmental.
Believing marriage between a man and woman used to be ammunition or still is used as ammunition to say you hate gays.
Saying prayer in school is akin to forcing nonbelievers to conform against their will.
Teaching intelligent design is literally likened to child abuse now, mocked as anti-science.
Virginity is mocked.
Being pro-life is being spun as a war on women
So growing up today as a millennial, that is damn near impossible. Who would intentionally put themselves in a crowd that society has deemed anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science? I mean, sign me up. It’s a harder sell to young people in a culture that bombards them with anti-Christian messaging, but I honestly don’t think that’s the problem. I think that’s part of the problem, but I don’t think that’s the real problem.
All great reasons, but then he points out how from the outside we appear to be hypocritical, argumentative, and worse. One might agree or disagree, but this point is solid:
The reason for this is, as every believer knows, we’re all human beings. We’re all flawed. We’re all liars and cheats and thieves to some extent. We’re at church, at least I am, because it’s a hospital. It’s a spiritual hospital, and we don’t recognize it as that.
I’ve made this point as often as I can, but again we should always make people aware. I am not perfect. I am not righteous, pious, or good. I am the wretch the song refers to. That is why I go to church. That is why I need Jesus Christ. Yes, my faith is a crutch. The difference between the Christian and the sinner is that the Christian recognizes that leaning on Christ is better than hobbling around all day. We are not better than anyone and we don’t want people to follow our lead. We want them to follow our leader, Jesus Christ.
I don’t think I could have said it better myself. A Christian’s very basis of understanding humanity and sexuality is rooted in God. This goes back to the formation of our rebel band of lovers 2,000 years ago.
The story Christians have been telling for 2,000 years goes something like this: The God who made the Universe is also, by his very nature, Love, and he made human beings with a very lofty vocation. Humans are meant to reflect His glory in the world; to be like God, that is to say, to be lovers and creators. Everything in the Universe has been put here to be used by God's children to reflect his loving glory — and to teach them about God's love. This is particularly true, or so the story goes, of the unique sexual complementarity between men and women. The sexual act is meant to reflect God's love by fostering a union at once bodily and spiritual — and creates new life. The complementarity of the persons in a marriage reflects the complementarity of the Persons of the Trinity, and the bliss of marital union is an inkling of the bliss of the union of the Persons of the Trinity. The fruitfulness of the marriage act reflects that God is a creator and has charged man to be an agent of his ongoing work of creation. And, finally, if God's love means total self-giving unto death on a Cross, then man and wife must give themselves to each other totally — no pettiness, no adultery, no polygamy, no divorce, and no nonmarital sexual acts. According to the story that Christianity has been telling for 2,000 years, Christianity's view of sexuality isn't some encrusted holdover from a socially conditioned patriarchal era on its way out, but is instead deeply connected to its understanding of who God is and what human beings exist for.
Maybe you’ll see me on the evening news
Maybe you’ll see me with a bag over my head
If that’s the case, then I’ve met my doom
If that’s the case, then my comrades are dead
And I don’t hate my enemy
I hate the cloud he’s brought over my land
There’s no virtue in killing a man
Neither is there virtue in being afraid to stand
But I saw the black coats forming lines
They hit our beaches running
We’re on our knees but not to pray
You’re the only reason I stayed
In this coward’s melee
I’d rather die than live without mercy and love
Sing while the city decays
We’d rather go up in flames
Lest we betray thy names of dignity and love
Last month I pre-ordered the vinyl of one of my favorite albums, The End Is Not the End from House of Heroes. This album has consistently been in my playlist for nearly seven years. It is kind of crazy to think it’s been that long and it still ranks as one of my favorites. Last year they crowdfunded another album and one of the stretch goals was to do a vinyl runoff this album. Kind of a brainless choice for me.
This album contains a lot of songs set in World War II and the Cold War era, including Code Name: Raven, By Your Side, Journey Into Space, and Baby’s a Red.
Sitting here this morning, I cannot help but think of my Christian brothers that were just beheaded in Libya by ISIS. “I don’t hate my enemy, I hate the cloud he’s brought over my land. There’s no virtue in killing a man, neither is there virtue in being afraid to stand.” These men stood by their faith until they could kneel before His eternal throne. So many in the American leadership and media are afraid to stand for those that died in the Paris shooting last month or the Denmark shooting this month. Too afraid to stand for the freedom of speech. Heck, while Jesus was on trial, Peter denied any association with Christ.
Sometimes our wish to appease those that hate us— so as to not be hated, or to just survive— prevents us from standing for something good and true. When the nation of the crescent comes for our heads, will you stand for something or take knee before them to keep your head?
Song Ratings
★★★★☆ If
★★☆☆☆ Lose Control
★★★☆☆ Leave You Now
★★★★☆ Dangerous
★★★★☆ In the Valley of the Dying Sun
★★★★★ Code Name: Raven
★★★★★ By Your Side
★★★★★ Journey Into Space, Pt. 1
★★★☆☆ Sooner or Later
★★★★★ Baby’s a Red
★★★☆☆ Drown
★★★☆☆ Faces
★★★★★ Voices
★★★★☆ Field of Daggers
★★★★☆ The Young and the Brutal
★★★★☆ New Moon
★★★★★ Ghost
★★★★☆ If (Acoustic)
★★☆☆☆ Serial Sleepers (Acoustic)
