Here’s a bumper sticker I saw on the road recently:

It is sold at evolvefish.com. Don’t buy it.

Presumably it “uses” the point that parents should not psychologically pummel their children with threats of mythical torture in the afterlife. I say “uses” rather than “makes” because the point it makes, considering the products sold at that particular merchant, is rather that Christianity is an intellectually dishonest means of manipulating inferior and vulnerable minds.

The problem with the content of the sticker is that it makes rhetorical hay by combining two presumptions, neither of which is a valid: first, that Christian parents regularly threaten their children with hell, and second, that it is terrible to tell vulnerable people about something so awful.

Now I’ll just grant up front that showing children Rosemary’s Baby before bedtime in order to get them to be obedient is a bad idea. I’ve been a believer since I was nine. I raised four children and pastored one church for seventeen years. I’ve never known even one believer to threaten his or her children with hell in order to get any kind of obedience…. I’ve paused a bit after that sentence so I can reflect to make sure it’s true…. Wait just a moment…. Yup. It’s true. Not one.

So the bumper sticker is attacking not a real believer (at least none I know of), but a caricature of believers generated in who knows how many media outlets and minds. Rather than analyze all the errors, and the basic fallacy of the bumper sticker logically, allow me to duplicate its error in my own (non-existent) bumper sticker by presuming that those who reject the idea of any eternal judgment and who believe children should not be burdened by the weight of negative thoughts would in some way prefer daily to keep their children in oblivious bliss than let them find out the truth: that there is evil in the world which needs eternal judgment. It would be something like this:

I repeat: This WOULD BE the bumper sticker I’d write IF I were to commit the rhetorical abuses of the original sticker above.

Leland’s belief in full separation of church and state would lead him to denounce the notion of the United States as a Christian nation. In A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia, Leland wrote: “The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”

Leland’s statements apparently stand in contrast to assertions by many modern Christians about America’s religious identity. It seems, however, that the issue comes down to the question of what is meant by a “Christian nation.”

So we’ve heard John Leland’s opinion. What do you think? Is there a sense in which America can be said to be (or have been) a Christian nation? If so, how?

John Calvin explains the reason we must love others regardless of how they treat us:

But Scripture subjoins a most excellent reason, when it tells us that we are not to look to what men in themselves deserve, but to attend to the image of God, which exists in all, and to which we owe all honor and love. But in those who are of the household of faith, the same rule is to be more carefully observed, inasmuch as that image is renewed and restored in them by the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, whoever be the man that is presented to you as needing your assistance, you have no ground for declining to give it to him. Say he is a stranger. The Lord has given him a mark which ought to be familiar to you: for which reason he forbids you to despise your own flesh (Gal. 6:10). Say he is mean and of no consideration. The Lord points him out as one whom he has distinguished by the luster of his own image (Isaiah 58:7). Say that you are bound to him by no ties of duty. The Lord has substituted him as it were into his own place, that in him you may recognize the many great obligations under which the Lord has laid you to himself. Say that he is unworthy of your least exertion on his account; but the image of God, by which he is recommended to you, is worthy of yourself and all your exertions. But if he not only merits no good, but has provoked you by injury and mischief, still this is no good reason why you should not embrace him in love, and visit him with offices of love. He has deserved very differently from me, you will say. But what has the Lord deserved?  Whatever injury he has done you, when he enjoins you to forgive him, he certainly means that it should be imputed to himself. In this way only we attain to what is not to say difficult but altogether against nature, to love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing, remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them.

However much architecture matters, though, it’s important to note that the evangelical wariness about church buildings has important biblical grounding. Stephen sums up the position in Acts 7 when he reminds the people our God “does not dwell in temples made with human hands.” (This is a better place to turn, I think, than the argument given by Judas, whom we should always be wary of siding with). The indwelling of God’s presence as a result of Pentecost chastens any pretensions that buildings can pass on or preserve the faith on their own.

At the same time, this indwelling life of the Spirit needs external, visible support to flourish. The life of Christ is “poured out in our hearts,” but it gets there by way of the body. Reading the Bible or hearing the proclamation of the Word are just as sensory as walking in a church, which is why we attend to the words differently depending on whether we are saying them out loud, listening to them, or reading them. Cut ourselves off from this practice or the other practices of the church, and the fruit inevitably withers on the vine.

Buildings and other forms of human making shape us, then, because our bodies affect our souls as much as our souls affect our bodies. While evangelicals have rightly focused on the interior life, the interior life has a particular shape based on whether and how we “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice.” While architecture may not be the main thing for evangelicals, the main thing isn’t the only one that matters.

Anderson’s article is part of a discussion series with contributions from David Gobel, Reforming Church Architecture, and J. D. Greear, We Want to Stay Light and Mobile, Flexible and Ready. All the articles are worth a read.

Currently I am enrolled in a degree plan containing some courses which require, among other things, mid-term or end-of-term essay exams. The idea is to reproduce accurately as much of the course material as possible. There are right and wrong answers. A long, detailed, correct answer receives high marks, while a short, ambiguous, incorrect answer rightly receives low marks. It’s as it should be. Test-taking time is no time for imagination, but ironically my “blue book” seems to differ on this. Let me explain.

If you’re familiar with college and graduate school essay exams you might be familiar with “blue books.” They consist of lined notebook paper and a blue cover, with a place on the front for things like name, date, and course title. Different paper companies produce them, and so one company’s blue book cover differs from another. I purchased two the other day for an exam I was scheduled to take, and I was surprised by what I saw on the front cover at the very top. It simply said, “Use Your Imagination.”

Now I’m a huge fan of imagination; it’s a gift from God. I love Narnia, Middle Earth, the fiction of Dostoyevsky, and yes, even the Bourne film series. I enjoy poetry, the visual and performing arts, and a variety of architecture. All of this requires imagination. C. S. Lewis said George MacDonald helped sanctify Lewis’s imagination, giving Lewis “permission” to use his imagination for human enjoyment and for God’s glory. (To get a taste of why Lewis so enjoyed MacDonald, read MacDonald’s The Wise Woman when you have a few hours.) So to reiterate, imagination is wonderful. Test time, however (unless it’s a creative writing exam), is no time for imagination.

This is not to say imagination is not helpful for things like the hard sciences, engineering, math, the social sciences, or a number of other academic disciplines. Noteworthy pioneers in these fields have made full use of their imaginations to come up with amazing discoveries. Again, however, test time is not the time for imagination. Rather, it’s a time to show what you’ve learned. For example, give the most important Supreme Court cases with respect to the Establishment Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, and the issues of Privacy and Liberty; or tell how different developments in health care legislation have been received by politicians and the public over the past hundred years. There are countless other examples: names, dates, places, developments, movements, definitions, ideas; these are objective facts that need to be learned, not “imagined” in whatever way one wishes to imagine them.

What would cause a paper company to write “Use Your Imagination” on the front of its blue books? I cannot say for sure, but (hopefully without sounding conspiratorial) I would submit it has something to do with the postmodern, relativistic culture in which we live. We no longer believe in facts or objectivity. Instead we like creativity, diverse personal tastes, and rewriting history. I have written about this topic before on this blog site, but it bears repeating. Almost every time I mention it someone responds as if he’s never heard of such stuff before, so I mention it again here.

Simply put, there are right and wrong answers for many aspects of several academic disciplines, and students should learn them. Education includes imagination, but it also includes memorization, critical thinking, facts, dates, ideas, etc. Educators and students ought never to forget this, no matter what trendy or inspiring phrase graces the blue book cover.

Why, with so many study options available, do many professing Christians remain unschooled and unchanged? Scripture teaches clearly that the living and active Word matures us, transforms us, accomplishes what it intends, increases our wisdom, and bears the fruit of right actions. There is no deficit in the ministry of the Word. If our exposure to it fails to result in transformation, particularly over the course of years, there are surely only two possible reasons why: either our Bible studies lack true converts, or our converts lack true Bible study.

She goes on to identify five insufficient ways of approaching the Bible:

1. Xanax Approach
2. Pinball Approach
3. Magic 8 Ball Approach
4. Personal Shopper Approach
5. Jack Sprat Approach

You can find the rest of Wilkin’s article and her descriptions of these approaches here.

When facing criticism, I have heard both believers and non-believers say, “Well, that was not very Christian of you!”   In the New Revised Spencerian Translation this colloquialism means: “Shut up and mind your own business.”   Our cultural Christology has taught us to associate Christ-likeness with silent passivity.   Not a “vibe” of the Jesus in the gospels, but it is a common trait of the Mass Media/Hollywood jesuses.  I have always wondered how a culture which knows next to nothing about what the Biblical Jesus actually said or did believes it can know “what Jesus would do.”  The current culture knows a few Jesus sound-bites taken out of scripture (and out of context) to get people to do what it wants.  If we are not careful—without knowing the Jesus of the Bible—we are not making disciples of Christ, but rather making disciples of pop-culture dressed up as various jesuses (or “jesii”).  There is much that could be said about the many jesuses that populate pop-culture.  One aspect, however, seems to stands out very clearly:  They are all evolutionary in one way or another.   They change with the times.  They evolve with the world.  And, if we are to take up our cross (or rather, lay it down) to follow one of these highly evolved jesii du jour, we must also evolve along with them. 

The liberation “jesus” is one of these jesii.  The salvation he offers is not a salvation from our own personal sins, but from political and social oppression imposed on us by others.  The evolving liberation “jesus” is called upon, when expedient, to condemn various oppressors.  For instance, unchanging Truth, applied universally, can be seen as an oppressor because it restricts our evolution.  It does not allow us to evolve along with our jesuses.   Jesii prefer Tolerance because it allows for a constant state of flux or trans-mutation.  Take, for instance, salt and light; these are easily trans-mutated into saccharin and mirrors.  In such case, Christians are no longer preservatives and teachers of God’s word but rather overly-sweet and artificial reflectors of the world.  In the minds of jesii, even the gold in the Golden Rule turns to quicksilver.  Quicksilver (Mercury) looks solid, but flows to fit and mirror its surrounding.  The Golden Rule of knowing what is right and doing it for others trans-mutates into The Quicksilver Rule of tacitly approving of anything that is right in anyone else’s eyes because we would want people to approve of what is right in our own eyes.   As such, we should uncritically approve of any macro-mutation in the meaning of a word—for instance the word “marriage.”

For the first time in history, a sitting American President defended same-sex marriage.  These are the salient points of his argument:   The way “things are” are the way they “should be” because children accept it that way.   In a culture where Tolerance is a supreme virtue and unchanging Truth is a vice, it would make sense that the youngest generation would be more comfortable (tolerant) with what is.  They naturally assume “whatever is” is right.  With no unchanging Truth the culture cannot teach what should be—or even believe that there should be a “should be.”  This naturally leads to a cultural evolution (neoteny) where each generation of Children is more highly evolved; and their elders (even presidents) must catch up to them—learn from them.  (Such “primitivism” is nothing new.  It has passed through Rousseau, Freud, Dewey and Spock, and then through the liberal academy; and now it has finally made it through a more highly evolved White House.)   Maybe it’s just me, but I sense a strange irony in humankind’s “evolution” to universal approval of same-sex marriage which will, when applied universally, put an end to both evolution and humankind (Nature has deemed it non-reproductive and reproduction is critical for the evolutionary process and the continuance of humankind.)

There is yet another variety of jesii which boasts a multitude of disciples:  Not the “liberation jesii,” but the “condemnation jesii.”  Their disciples constantly degrade and denigrate by pointing out the fact that sinners sin.  (I find it odd in this context that so many know John 3:16, yet so few know John 3:17.)  You can imagine what happens when the disciples of the both the liberation and the condemnation jesii get together.  It is a vicious cycle of hatred and revenge, condescension and indignation, retribution and reparations—oppressed oppressors and victimizing victims all vying for power.  In the midst of it all, it is important to consider the original and only unevolved Jesus, Who when oppressed did not oppress in return.  While oppressed on the cross, He denied His victim status, to become our victorious Savior.  Rather the Shepherd of our souls prayed for the forgiveness of His oppressors.  For it is forgiveness that we need—not religious condemnation or social liberation.  And that’s what the real Jesus offers—salvation not liberation—regeneration not condemnation.  For condemnation only leads to despair and reparations will never repair because our wounds go much deeper.  Only the wounds of the real Jesus can heal them.

The unevolved Jesus of the Bible loved sinners of every kind.  He died for sinners to make them saints (not perfect, but forgiven).  And when, as often happens, those who know God (or claim to know God) use the things of God (such as His words) for political/economic purposes the original Jesus reprimanded them.  By today’s standards, in the eyes of most evolved jesii, such turning over of tables and statements about whitewashed sepulchers by Christ would “not be very Christian.”   For the current cultural jesii teach that God accepts us just the way we are.  If that were so, there would be no need for the cross.  God is dying, so to speak, to accept us the way we are, however, because He is holy adequate and we are not, the separation His difference (holiness) brings, keeps us from being acceptable.  He cannot accept us “just the way we are.”  However He does meet us where they are.  He lived with sinners, and ate with them and partied with them (and got in a lot of trouble for it).  He loved them and provided a way of forgiveness through His own death by bearing their inadequacies upon Himself.  He forgave.  He never condemned.  We are already condemned by our own inadequacy.   He did not condemn us, nor did He condone our inadequacy (sin); rather He bore it for us, on the cross, so that we could be free from it.   He did not provide a way for us to “evolve,” but to be brand new.  And as a new creation, a new creature, in His forgiveness, He bids us, “Go and sin no more;” and, through His Holy Spirit—given to us—He makes us free.  Not free to sin.  But, for the first time in our lives, free not to sin.

American Christians, who understand the incomprehensible scandal and moral horror of sex trafficking must recognize that this is an issue of high moral priority.

We must demand the enforcement of laws meant to protect human beings from being sold into sexual slavery and the vigorous prosecution of those who are engaged in sex trafficking. We must demand that any American involved in such activities be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that every effort be made to release women and young people from sexual slavery.

No American can rest with an easy conscience while this nation is known around the world for sending out officials, business associates, government contractors, and military personnel whose motto is “wheels up, rings off.”

This scandal has revealed that the concept of the Ugly American has taken on a humiliating new dimension.

You can read the rest of his article here.  For resources and ideas on how to help, check here. For a better understanding of the scope of the problem, consider the following statistics:

Being satisfied in God (or anything) always seems easier when all is going well. But when things you love are being stripped out of your hands, then the test is real. If God remains precious in those moments, then his supreme worth shines more brightly. He is most glorified.

The most meaningful testimonies I receive are when people tell me that it was a vision of the sovereignty and goodness of God that got them through the most difficult times of their life.

While the news may come as no shock to many, the most alarming part of his statement (not included in the video linked above) was his use of the Bible to support his position. According to the President:

[Michelle and I] we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better I’ll be as president.

In an open letter, Joe Carter has delivered a stern response to the President’s statements.

Considering that you once defined sin as “being out of alignment with my values,” it’s not surprising that you quickly gloss over all that “Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf” stuff (presumably Jesus died on the cross to save us from our misaligned personal values, right?). But your implying that Jesus supports same-sex marriage—and there really is no other way to interpret your statement—is nothing short of blasphemous.

No, Mr. President, Jesus does not support same-sex marriage. Even a liberal Christian like you should not be able to make such an historically and theologically absurd claim with a straight face. The history of Christian thought on sexual ethics from the time of the stoning of Stephen to the Stonewall riots has been consistent that engaging in homosexual behavior is strictly and clearly prohibited by God’s Word.

The rest of the letter is worth a read and can be found at Denny Burk’s blog here.