Gary Haugen (International Justice Mission) has just published a new book titled, Just Courage: God’s Great Expedition for the Restless Christian. While I do not have a copy (nor plan to), you can click the “Search Inside” link and read an excerpt on Amazon (note: *low* priority on wish list). I know it is hard to judge a book by its cover, but the opening paragraphs are particularly discomforting.

Even though I read the words almost twenty-five years ago, I can still picture them upon the page. The words were and have remained so disturbing to me that I remember exactly where I was when I read them. I was a freshman in college sitting up late one night in the dorm laundry room waiting for my clothes to dry and reading John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty.” Writing in 1859, Mill was trying to explain the process by which words lose their meaning, and he casually offered that the best example of this phenomenon was Christians. Christians, he observed, seem to have the amazing ability to say the most wonderful things without actually believing them.

What became more disturbing was his list of things that Christians, like me, actually say — like, blessed are the poor and humble; it’s better to give than receive; judge not, lest you be judged; love your neighbor as yourself, etc. — and examining, one by one, how differently I would live my life if I actually believed such things. As Mill concluded, “The sayings of Christ co-exist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.”

I move that we all just continue on as if the observation had never been made. Any seconds?

Lord, have mercy.

O Breath of life, come sweeping through us, revive your church with life and pow’r,
O Breath of Life, come, cleanse, renew us, and fit your church to meet this hour.

O Wind of God, come bend us, break us, till humbly we confess our need;
then in your tenderness remake us, revive, restore, for this we plead.

O Breath of love, come breathe within us, renewing thought and will and heart;
come, Love of Christ, afresh to win us, revive your church in every part.

O Heart of Christ, once broken for us, ’tis there we find our strength and rest;
our broken contrite hearts now solace, and let your waiting church be blest.

Revive us, Lord! Is zeal abating while harvest fields are vast and white?
Revive us, Lord, the world is waiting, equip your church to spread the light.

We have a rotation among our church’s Session to fill the pulpit whenever there is a fifth Sunday in a month (though it gets moved around sometimes for the sake of convenience). Until recently, it worked out to about once a year for each of us (now that we have added two more elders the gap will be longer). Before yesterday, the last time I was up was on December, 31 2006. I was next scheduled to preach back in January of this year, but circumstances delayed the event until yesterday … with the only difference being 1) it was not a fifth Sunday, and 2) the passage was assigned.

Unfortunately, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties (a hardware driver issue in XP). Hopefully I will have an audio version for you next time.

Sermon Date: 04/20/2008
Sermon Passage: Matthew 6:16-24
Sermon Title: Life Coram Deo

(more…)

For some time I have been intending to pick up Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. My wife, father-in-law, one brother-in-law and an English professor friend have all read and recommended the series–with certain caveats, of course. I am sure that by now you have heard about the controversy. One can hardly surf the Christian blogosphere (let alone the web in general) and not read something about Pullman and his atheist agenda. As the launch date of the movie adaptation of the first book in the series, The Golden Compass, came and went this weekend I managed to stumble across several good reviews. The first was Al Mohler’s The Golden Compass — A Briefing for Concerned Christians. My initial reaction to his piece was similar to that of fellow PCA guy, David Wayne, who wrote on JollyBlogger that Al Mohler Nails it on “The Golden Compass”. However, after a friend sent a link to Jeffrey Overstreet’s thought provoking review on Christianity Today (Fear Not the Compass) I would now describe Al’s Briefing… as a series of blows–some solid, some glancing. In other words, the nail was still hammered home, but it got bent and left surface dings along the way. Forgive me if this sounds harsh. I have never met Mr. Mohler, but I hear he is an honorable fellow and applaud the changes he has made at SBTS. However, those of us in reformed circles often filter things differently than the broader Bible belt culture in which we live. Perhaps it took seeing the local television news reports of people picketing at the Compass premiere, but there are certain elements in the article that remind me of the ways in which we Christians undermine what our good intentions try to protect.

I have to confess that I am slowly but increasingly becoming unsure of how to respond to the (persistent, pervasive, and burgeoning) paranoia borne of ignorant unbelief among professing Christian believers. The fact is that the Christian faith from the first days of its inception (for convenience’s sake I refer to Acts 2) has been intensely and passionately attacked (and, of course, we immediately think of Saul of Tarsus; and rightly so. But our faith compels us to follow that story through to the end, and answering the question [perhaps even with an air of gloating], “Who’s in charge now, Saul? Who’s the King now, Saul? Huh? Huh? C’mon, man; you’re so tough, you’re so big! Got anymore fight left in you? Huh? Cat got’cher tongue?” But, alas, we seem to only have confidence for such gloating at boxing matches, post-season football games and playground brawls; such real-world confidence seems out of place in the world of faith and religious practice).

In his review, Mohler writes:

So, what’s the problem?

This is not just any fantasy trilogy or film project. Philip Pullman has an agenda — an agenda about as subtle as an army tank. His agenda is nothing less than to expose what he believes is the tyranny of the Christian faith and the Christian church. His hatred of the biblical storyline is clear. He is an atheist whose most important literary project is intended to offer a moral narrative that will reverse the biblical account of the fall and provide a liberating mythology for a new secular age.

The great enemy of humanity in the three books … is the Christian church, identified as the evil Magisterium. The Magisterium, representing church authority, is afraid of human freedom and seeks to repress human sexuality.

The Magisterium uses the biblical narrative of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin to repress humanity. It is both violent and vile and it will stop at nothing to protect its own interests and to preserve its power.

Pullman’s attack on biblical Christianity is direct and undeniable.

So… Satan’s own attack on “biblical Christianity” continues to be direct and undeniable; from the days of the garden, Satan (who is no mere literary character if we are to believe the Biblical account) has had “an agenda about as subtle as an army tank [...] nothing less than the exposure of the tyranny of the Christian faith and the Christian church” (Echoes of the garden: “Did God REALLY say that? Whoa! Pretty heavy-handed and oppressive, don’t you think, Eve? I mean, c’mon; what sort of god would keep such goodies from you except a tyrant intent on oppressing and controlling you?! Take my advice and I will grant you all the delicious, savory wisdom that he is keeping from you.” — and the first lottery ticket was sold and the persistent promise has proven irresistible ever since.) (more…)

Perhaps you have heard about the youth ministers who are using ‘Halo 3′ to reach out to teens? Depending on what side of the fence you sit, this is either promising news or it makes you irate (unless you are on the fence like Focus on the Family). Some believe video games are just another tool in their arsenal for evangelism, while others think that condoning the violence sends the wrong message. As one person in the article points out, the debate brings into question all kinds of youth fellowship. But what if we put the activities aside for a moment and focus on the question of, “What attracts people to the gospel?” So you get them in the door with Halo, Ultimate Frisbee, whatever … what next? Act cool and be their best friend? Give a sermonette during the Super Bowl commercials (no!)?

The following article excerpt is taken from Touchstone Magazine, September 2007, “Retaking Mars Hill,” Russell D. Moore (henryinstitute.org).

Early in my ministry, I served as a youth pastor in a Baptist church near an Air Force base in Mississippi. Like every other Evangelical youth minister, I received all the advertisements from youth ministry curricula-hawkers, telling me how I could be “relevant” to “today’s teenagers.” The advertisements promised me ways I could “connect” with teenagers through Bible studies based on MTV reality shows and the songs on the top-40 charts that month.

All I knew how to do, though, was preach the gospel. Yes, I knew what was happening on MTV, and I’d often contrast biblical reality with that, but I fit nobody’s definition of cool – including my own.

A group of teenagers, mostly fatherless boys, some of them gang members, started attending my Wednesday night Bible study. Some of them arrived at the church engulfed in a cloud of marijuana smoke.

I found they weren’t impressed with the ‘cool’ supplemental video clips provided by my denomination’s publisher. They laughed at Christian rap stars, in the same way I laughed at my high-school history teacher’s effort to “have a groovy rap session with you youngsters.”

But what riveted their attention was how weird we were. “So, like, you really believe this dead guy came back from the dead,” one 15-year-old boy asked me. “I do,” I replied. “For real?” he responded. I said, “For real.”

They were amazed at the fact that my wife and I had dinner together, and that we didn’t really want to be somewhere else. “Dude, this is like Nick at Nite,” one said, referencing the black-and-white family sitcom reruns on television each night. “The mom and dad are here, ‘how was your day,’ and the whole deal.” They couldn’t believe that in our church, elderly people and teenagers talked to one another, that Latino military officers joked around with white enlisted men around a Sunday-school coffeepot.

It seemed strange. And, just as at Mars Hill, this strangeness commanded attention. Some believed; some walked away. I was heard, and I was even loved, but I was rarely cool.

So how is it then that Christians “attract” the world? Like Russell Moore’s experience, we attract the world by being the “for real” and “weird” blessing of Life in the midst of death that God in Christ has re-created us to be: by loving one another “in Christ,” by serving one another “in Christ,” by embracing one another, by forgiving one another; bearing with one another, bearing one another’s burdens — “in Christ.” That is, it occurs on no other or no additional basis (be it fun and games or how “cool” we act); just on the basis of the simple fact that each has been crucified and risen with Christ and so are new creations, the old having been passed away and buried with Christ. We “attract” the world to Christ by “going” into the world as brothers and sisters and letting the world see and hear, letting the world taste and touch the “for real,” “strange,” “peculiar,” and, yes, even “weird” Life of Christ. This is the fundamental reason the Lord sends us out two-by-two.