I sit here with a bit of a conflicted soul. On the one hand, I got the new issue of Christianity Today and found that it is devoted to the importance of doctrine in spiritual formation. Giddy. That is what I was when I read it. However, I also received an email yesterday that serves to curb my excitement, reminding me of the reality of our desperate condition. (I’ll get to the email soon).

Christians often scare me. Really, all religious people scare me. But Christians in particular because they are the ones I have to deal with everyday. I have a deep empathy for the so-called “new atheists” such as Daniel Dennet and Christopher Hitchens who find religion repulsive and counterproductive to the betterment of society. While I completely disagree with them for a variety of reasons that will not be covered here, I can put myself in their shoes and find myself saying the same things. Namely: Christians can be so bizarre.

Seriously, we can produce the craziest nutcases the world has to offer. Sadly, it is often our beliefs that are the issue. From the “God told me to kill my children,”  “I cannot talk to you because you are going through a divorce,” “If you say the earth is going around the Sun we are going to put you in jail,” to “Our ministry needs a million dollars or I am going to kill myself,”  we have our embarrassments. The things said and done in the name of God are astonishing and disturbing. Yes, I know. Everyone has their nutcases, but we have the tendency to breed a special variety. I have already, in times past, talked trash on my own breed: Calvinism. But now I am going to get after the species in general: Christians.

In the interest of full-disclosure I must tell you something. I have Gail Riplinger’s book Which Bible is God’s Word sitting right in front of me. Its basic argument is that all Bible translations other than the King James Bible are from Satan. Oh yeah, I am serious. The sin is not that I have this book, but that it is representative of times past when I was, for about six weeks, a KJV Only advocate, believing that all other Bible versions were from Satan. To make matters worse I was actually an outspoken evangelist of this belief. I told my family, my friends, and everyone who would listen about Satan’s plot to get you to read another version of the Bible. I can only imagine what the conversation sounded like. I had “evidence” that I thought was solid, but as I look back on this “evidence”, my face turns red. I guess I keep Riplinger’s book in front of me to keep me humble and always aware of how bizarre I can be.

Christianity is dangerous. The Bible is dangerous. Please don’t get me wrong. I believe that both, rightly understood, are wonderful and true. However, the “rightly understood” is so hard to come by. The difficulty is not that one has to be a super-genius to understand the Bible or the Christian faith. Quite the opposite. The Bible is wonderfully simple and so is the Christian faith.

I believe that the difficulty lies in two areas:

1. Christians believe that the Bible is God’s word.
2. There is not a bolt of lightening that strikes you when you interpret it wrong (i.e. there is no immediate evidence of or consequence for wrong interpretation.)

The reality of these two make a potentially lethal combination. They don’t make good bed-fellows and hence the Roman Catholic cry for an imperial authority to regulate such things. Although Catholics have their share of bizarre teachings themselves, their problem is bigger in my opinion since their bizarre doctrines get dogmatized and everyone must believe them. At least in Protestantism we can both recognize and repudiate our weird uncles. Catholics are stuck having to defend them for all time. (Another story, another time.)

Now for the bizarrity of the moment. . .

This is from an email I received from a concerned follower of our ministry. It is a phone message from his Bible Study leader. Every time I listen to this, I am reminded of the movie “The Jerk” when Steve Martin is getting shot at but he naively thinks the guy is shooting at the cans beside him. “Its the cans. He hates the cans!” Well, in this case: “Its the buildings. God hates the buildings.” Listen and you will see what I mean:

(Please note that the audio has been altered to protect the identity of the caller.)

 

 "He Hates the Buildings" [2:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (253)

Buildings are the whore of Babylon? Really? Satan is luring people into buildings which is the great apostasy? Really? Continue Reading »

One person has rightly said that all people are theologians, you just have to decide what type of theologian you are going to be. Are you going to be a good theologian or a sloppy theologian?

The hardest thing about theology is not the big words, historical studies, philosophical arguments, or the exegetical rigor one must have. It has less to do with how “smart” a person is and more to do with how much one is willing to learn. It has less to do with a person’s GPA and more to do with their ability to set aside previous notions and allow themselves to engage the issues without letting their baggage – intellectual and experiential baggage – determine the outcome. To truly learn, one must train themselves to be a learner. And this is not easy.

The problem is that when it comes to our religious beliefs, we are content to trade in our normal, everyday methodology of critical examination and inquiry and simply accept whatever fits within our currently held worldview. Christians are normally no different. We love stories that confirm our faith. We love anything that confirms what mom told us. We hate stories that militate against it. We uncritically accept whatever someone says as long as it fits into the color scheme we have already adopted.  We outright reject anything that is against it without consideration.

We are  generously permissive and adaptive to strange stories, folk-lore, and bizarre shared experiences without being critical. Why? Because when it comes to our beliefs, we are ready to practice a methodology that would never pass muster in any other area of life. This is called tabloid theology.

Let me relate this to journalism first.

Tabloid journalism. You know what this is. It is sensationalistic journalism and it is a billion dollar business. It preys on our naiveté to believe something unbelievable. It exists because we like to let down our critical guard and indulge our minds by believing that which normally would be rejected. From alien abductions to pregnant men, the tabloids have it all.

Tabloid theology is the same. Continue Reading »

The longer I am in ministry, the longer I teach theology, the more I see that some things are not quite as clear as they used to be. At one time, I had pretty much everything figured out. Ministry was just about transferring this information effectively. That is the peril of theology. If you want to have it all figured out, don’t get into this business!

At the same time, there are many things that I have believed and about which I continue to grow in conviction. One of these, ironically, is the simplicity of the Christian life. The center point is really not too difficult. God wants us to believe him. Trust, belief, conviction, assurance. These are all words we use to describe this act of the will – faith.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines faith this way:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one’s supporters.
4. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

Each one of these, in the right context, could describe some aspect of the Christian faith. But we need to go one step further in understanding this term “faith” in a particularly Christian way.

The Reformers sought to distinguish true faith from false faith. The battle cry of sola fide (justification by faith alone) demanded that they define faith in a precise manner.

As started by Luther and developed further by Melancthon and others, the understanding of faith was expressed in three separate yet vitally connected aspects: notitia, assensus, and fiducia.

1. Notitia: This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word “content.” Faith, according to the Reformers, must have content or substance. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential, propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave” or “God loves you” for example, provide a necessary information base or notitia that Christians must have.

2. Assensus: This is the assent, confidence, or assurance that we have that the notitia is correct. Here we assent to the information, affirming it to be true. This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition. According to the Reformers, to have knowledge of the proposition is not enough. We must, to some degree, be convinced that it is really true. This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon some degree of critical thought. While notitia claims “Christ rose from the grave,” assensus takes the next step and says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”

But these two alone are not enough, according to the Reformers. As one person has said, these two only qualify you to be a demon, for the demons both have the right information (Jesus rose from the grave) and are convicted of its truthfulness. One aspect still remains. Continue Reading »

contra “The Argument from Finite Knowledge”

I have heard many people use an illustration when talking about atheism and its viability. Many will say that they can convert an atheist to an agnostic with this simple illustration. Here is how it goes.

If someone claims to be an atheist, you can easily convert them to agnosticism thereby moving them one step closer to theism. How? By asking them a series of questions.

First you ask them how certain they are that there is not a God. If they say that they are not certain, that is just what they believe, then you inform them that they are not really an atheist–one who is certain that there is no God–but an agnostic–one who is uncertain about God’s existence.

If they say that they are certain that there is no God, then you move to step two. Here you draw a large circle that represents all knowledge in the universe. You ask them to draw a circle within that circle that represents their relative knowledge in relation to all knowledge. Of course, they will draw a much smaller circle within the large circle knowing that they do not possess all knowledge, only a small portion of the whole. Once they have created this smaller circle, you ask them if God could exist somewhere in this vast area that you have no knowledge about. They should always answer yes since that area is their area of ignorance. At that point, it is said, you have converted them from atheism to agnosticism. Voila! The Argument from Finite Knowledge. Continue Reading »

Sitting out on the back porch this evening with my mother, we watched a popular Baptist radio and television preacher teach on compromise. His lesson was a good lesson in principle. The basic thrust was taken from the story of Solomon. Solomon was given a promise that if he followed the Lord as his father David he would not lack a descendant on the throne of Israel. Yet Solomon compromised by disobeying God’s command and took many wives.

The preacher used this story wisely to explain the danger of compromise. Like any preacher, he had examples that would take the eternal principle of compromise and contextualize it for our day so that we might see the immediate danger that we face (since most of us don’t have the temptation to take too many wives!). Yet, the examples he gave evidenced the misplaced priorities of many in the church to misdirect the application of the principles to acts that in-and-of-themselves did not represent compromise. Continue Reading »

Hi Michael,

I’ve got a very devote Eastern Orthodox friend (he left evangelicalism and converted a few years ago…he is 24…) he goes on and on about all these fantastic miracles…about saints whose bodies do not decay and even omit “fragrance”…um…something about fire that won’t burn a bishops beard or something…I don’t know…sounds legendary…

What should we make of them? Deny them?

____________________________________

Dear Pastor,

I don’t know. It sounds like folk theology to me as well. As I said in a previous blog, this type of mindset is common no matter where you are. In other words, it is not an East or West thing, but a characteristic of the human conditions. People flock to where the “miracles” “signs” are. While I understand this mentality (since miracles and signs can and often do evidence the presence of God), it is hard to determine what the meaning of such miracles are. Continue Reading »

I am perfectly aware that apologetics as an intellectual enterprise does not produce faith. I am neither Pelagian nor Semi-Pelagian. I recognize the limitations of the human mind and, more importantly, the human will to understand and accept God outside of the sovereign movements of the Holy Spirit.

Having said this, I am a firm believer in the necessity of apologetics as an intellectual defense of the faith. I agree with Os Guinness who says that we don’t have any right to the culture if we cannot intellectually defend our faith. I believe that God often uses apologetics as a means to bring someone to the faith just as he uses the words of men to proclaim the Gospel. God does not really need either, but He uses both. I think it was Aquinas who said, “God has not only chosen the ends, but also the means of salvation.” Therefore, you and I are to be clear when we present the Gospel and intellectually compelling when we defend it. Apologetic sloppiness and intellectual laziness is not an option for the Christian. Continue Reading »

 
You may be familiar with a book called 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life written by Don Piper (not to be confused with John Piper) and Cecil Murphey. It has been on the New York Times and Amazon best seller list since its release in 2004. In the book, Don Piper describes his experience of being in a car wreck where he was pronounced dead by the paramedics. During his death Piper describes the details of his “90 minutes in heaven.”

It is not my intention here to evaluate the validity of near-death experiences in general, but to ask some questions concerning this on in particular. This is not an easy thing for me to do as I believe Don Piper probably sincerely trusts the Lord and truly believes that his experience that evening was a miracle where the God showed him a glimpse of heaven.   Continue Reading »

To REFLECT: “To think, ponder, or meditate; to think seriously.”

You are either 100% correct in doctrine or you are not correct at all. (I believed this for a long time. A pastor I loved and admired once told me this. But if this is the case, we are all up creek skubalon –pardon my French . . . I mean Greek) 

If you smoke, you must not be a good Christian. (Really? Is it the addiction or health problems that cause us to say this? If it is the addiction, are we ready to give up coffee? If it is the health, are we ready to exercise daily and stop eating fast food? Otherwise, I think we need to calm down.)  Continue Reading »

What does it mean to use the Lord’s name in vain? This is a question that might seem self-evident to most people in western society. Whether you are religious or not, you would not even hesitate with your answer, “It means to say G-D.” I am sure that there are more people that can answer this than there are who can list the ten commandments, name the Gospels, or tell you the difference between the New Testament and the Old Testament. With all the talk about cursing pastors and the evolution of swearing going on in the blogsphere, I thought that I would try to contribute once more to this discussion by asking the question “What does it really mean to take the Lord’s name in vain?”

Continue Reading »