Wisdom on Marriage from Luther and Mangalwadi

Wisdom on Marriage from Luther and Mangalwadi

Sep 5, 2023 | Parents and Family

Having officially been married to my wife Sarah for 36 years on August 15, I think I know a thing or two about the institution, and when I read the thoughts on marriage by these two men of God they instantly become fodder for a blog post. It so happens when I went to Seminary at Westminster in Philadelphia, having driven all the way from my home in southern California, the last thing I expected to find, to say the least, was a wife. But there she was! We got engaged, and it so happens that our pre-marital counselor was the late Tim Keller, a professor there at the time before he moved to New York City to found Redeemer Presbyterian Church and become, well, Tim Keller. I’ll never forget two things he said among many, but these two stand out as especially true in our experience. We sat down in his office in chairs in front of his desk and after some initial niceties he got right to the point:

The only sinner worse than the one you’re marrying is you.

Well, ok. That took a while to sink in, but I can report after all these years . . . . it is absolutely true! Sometimes we argue about who the worse sinner is, but I always win. It’s too obvious! The other thing is related, flowing out of the depth of our sin. I guess we did a personality test and he got to know us a bit, then said this:

You guys are so different you can either destroy one another or sanctify one another.

Keller was not the kind of guy to pull his punches; he was a straight shooter, and this truth was sobering. I believe it’s true in any marriage even if the spouses are more similar in personality. Two self-centered sinners living in such close proximity 24/7/365 is a recipe for conflict, but in understanding and accepting that we are self-centered sinners allows the promise of sanctification and reveals the genius of marriage. It’s not only God’s chosen instrument to sanctify His people and build his kingdom on earth, but also the ultimate redemptive biblical metaphor for the salvation of His people. The significance and profundity of marriage is beyond the ability of mere words to convey, but that’s all we have. It is the most important God ordained institution for extending Christ’s reign on earth, advancing His kingdom, and building His Church, and in that I do not exaggerate. I will explain below.

When I read these two quotes in Vishal Mangalwadi’s book, The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, I knew I had to share them here. First from the great Reformer, Martin Luther, who is a more pessimistic than I am, but the point is well taken: 

There is no estate the Devil is so opposed to as marriage. The clergy have not wanted to be bothered with work and worry. They have been afraid of a nagging wife, disobedient children, difficult relatives, or the dying pig or a cow. They want to lie abed until the sun shines through the window. Our ancestors knew this and would say, “Dear child, be a priest or a nun and have a good time.” I have heard married people say to monks, “You have it easy, but when we get up we do not know where to find our bread.” Marriage is a heavy cross because so many couples quarrel. It is the grace of God when they agree. The Holy Spirit declares there are three wonders: when brothers agree, when neighbors love each other, and when a man and a wife are at one. When I see a pair like that, I am glad as if I were in a garden of roses. It is rare.

Mangalwadi adds perspective as to why marriage is so great and essential to life in a fallen world:

Marriage brings out the worst in both husbands and wives. They must choose whether to stay in that school of character, or to drop out. The Bible made divorce difficult because one does not learn much by quitting a challenging school. The only way to make monogamy work is to value love above pleasure, to pursue holiness and humility rather than power and personal fulfillment, to find grace to repent rather than to condemn, to learn sacrifice and patience in place of indulgence and gratification. The modern world was created by countless couples who did just that. In working to preserve their marriages and provide for their children, they invested in the future of civilization itself.

I’ll never forget before we got married telling other young people we were getting married, and watching the disapproval on their faces while disparaging marriage. Phrases like, “Poor guy” were common. Given my nature, I would get right back in their face telling them how great marriage is, how important, how I can’t wait, and that they should get married too! I was basically telling them how wrong they were. I remember several, specifically the young women, get kind of a quizzical look on their face seeming to say, that’s refreshing to hear! I think some even said that.

And the reason these people all felt that way? Marriage is hard! But I must cut them some slack because examples of successful marriages are not bountiful, nor were they in the mid-80s. When California, no surprise, got the no-fault divorce laws-band wagon rolling in 1969, divorce became common in America; when the going got tough, as it will in every marriage, this gave people the idea, and the legal right, to think they could easily get out of a marriage, and that unilaterally. They think, why be miserable if I can just be rid of it, and the problem, as if the problem was the other person. Yes they can be, but as we say, it takes two to tango. In fact, second marriages fail at a higher rate than first marriages because the person who failed at the first one is the same person in the second, and bring all their problems, and sin, with them.

The other reason is the secular culture that bought into the arguments of feminism, among the many other evils of secularism. However, feminism all along its historical development from the 19th century on had a point. Because of the fall, the relationship between men and women was distorted. After telling Eve her pain will increase in childbirth, the Lord tells her, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Gen. 3:16, and here is an excellent explanation of this from the ESV study Bible). Men and women were created different, shocking I know, with different roles and responsibilities within a marriage. All of that become complicated by the fall, and thus the thoughts on marriage of Luther and Mangalwadi about how difficult marriage is. I was going to write, “can be,” but that would not be right. The very nature of the unique consequences of the fall for specifically men and women make every marriage, every single one of them, hard by definition.

The fundamental distortion is what this verse describes, and what makes marriage so difficult. Women will seek to usurp the man’s rightful role as the leader and ultimate authority in the family, and the woman is rightfully commanded to submit to her husband in this, but the man will overplay his role as leader and become a domineering authoritarian. This plays out in every marriage over a continuum, but the dynamic in every marriage is the same. How do marriages not only survive but also thrive in the face of such relentless headwinds? Jesus! God has revealed “the secret” in Ephesians 5:21-33. The analogy Paul uses is Christ and the Church, and the good news is it’s not a secret!

 

A 12 Year-Old Show Us What Victory Looks Like, and The Gutenberg Press of the 21st Century

A 12 Year-Old Show Us What Victory Looks Like, and The Gutenberg Press of the 21st Century

Aug 29, 2023 | America

I’m not a big fan of doomers, of people who resemble Chicken Littles, who always see the glass half empty, who always turn lemonade into lemons. You know the kind. I’ve never been a pessimist, but life has a habit of grinding us down, so going negative is always a temptation, and in the past I was often given to wondering if It’s hopeless and we’re always going to be on the losing side. That highlights my biggest challenge in the Christian life, trusting God, even when it comes to our current cultural and political moment. None of us want to completely lose our country to the cultural Marxists, AKA the woke globalist Uniparty elite. Thankfully, In God’s providence He’s given us a powerful weapon against the Babel-builders in our day, something the Babelians cannot silence any more than the Catholic Church could silence the Reformation in the 16th century, the Gutenberg press of the 21st century, the Internet. I remember coming upon this phrase in a blog comment somewhere and thinking, that’s it! We can’t be silenced, and ultimately cannot be controlled because truth will win. It allows us to fight back in what is essentially an information war. We got an example of how that’s done this week.

This kid, and even more his parents, are modern-day warriors in the 21st Century Reformation.

 

When I heard about this story, the first thing I thought was, this kid has awesome parents! Children don’t grow up like this if they have not been raised well. And not just that, but they have been taught to understand our historical moment, and learn what the stakes are. As some Christian traditions put it, they have effectively catechized their children. That word means “to instruct systematically especially by questions, answers, and explanations and corrections, and specifically: to give religious instruction in such a manner.” The key to that definition is systematically, or as Evangelicals often say, we need to be intentional in teaching our children, to be persuasive Christian parents. This is not the responsibility of the church or school or anyone else, but the parents. They have a part to play, but the ultimate responsibility is ours as parents. The Bible is very clear on that point. Just to take one passage from Deuteronomy 6 where Moses is teaching the Israelites what it means to Love the Lord their God:

These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.

In the Bible it is always “you and your children.” Christianity is a multigenerational affair.

God wants to bless us, and that starts with families. He wants us to prosper and flourish in the promised land he has given us, and believe it or not (I know you won’t), that is this world! We live in the promised land, here now, because the promised land is simply where God dwells. The message of redemptive history is very clear that this is the entire point of it all, from God dwelling with man in the garden, then being expelled from God’s presence because of their rebellion. Then God teaches His people through the entire temple and sacrificial system that dwelling with them is what sets them apart from other nations, and finally Jesus coming as the Word made flesh and “dwelling among us.” We live right here, right now, in a land flowing with milk and honey! And God’s covenant promises, and the blessings that flow out of them, are as Peter says in Act’s 2, for us and our children, and for all those whom the Lord our God will call.”

Which brings us to our precocious 12 year-old. This kid’s parents knocked it out of the park! Listen to the mother schooling, pun intended, the school administrator in the video—priceless! And I know nothing about their religious convictions, but I don’t have to. This middle schooler did not grow up in a secular household. Take that to the bank. And as Christians this episode teaches us several things. One is what I’ve said about our children all their lives: they would no more grow up to becomes liberals or leftists as they would grow up to become agnostics or atheists. Just ain’t gonna happen! Why? Because I’m so great? Of course not. It’s because I am annoyingly, persistently teaching them all the time! One Sunday after church when our youngest, then maybe 8, was getting annoyed and asked why I was always lecturing them. His older sister said, “Well, Dominic, because daddy’s always teaching.” That was truly one of the great moments of my life. And I’m still lecturing and teaching even though they are adults. Like me, they never arrive and outgrow the need to be taught. And where does my wife fit in all this? She teaches too; I’m just more obnoxious. My daughter could easily have said, “Daddy’s always annoying.” And I love it! They do too! Of course they’ll only admit that begrudgingly.

So what has all this to do with taking our country back from the woke globalist elite? Everything!

What this family teaches us is that to win it takes not just words but action in the face of cancel culture intimidation by the woke establishment, whether that comes from schools or government or corporations, or anything the culture throws at us. And when we do, the 21st century Gutenberg Press makes the cultural Marxists not only face a backlash from the mass of normal people, but from the law as well. What victory looks like in our time is utilizing peaceful and legal means to fight back and put the woke elite on the defensive. It’s a beautiful thing to see. This situation is a perfect example. Instead of backing down in the face of woke intimidation, this family fought back knowing they had the law on their side. Too many people cower and cave; we don’t have to.

As we’ve learned over the last fifteen years when Obama led the cultural Marxists to the pinnacle of government, cultural, and corporate power, all they have is lies. For them, “the narrative” is all, and “the narrative” is whatever advances their ideological or political agenda. Truth is irrelevant. Hypocrisy is a virtue, and projection the strategy: whatever they project upon their enemies, is what they themselves do. It’s actually quite impressive because they are relentless and utterly shameless. And having all the cultural, corporate, and government power now on their side, they believe they are invincible. They are not. As I often say, in 2023 we are in a period comparable to the late 1980s when the Soviet Union still appeared invincible too. Few living at that time ever imagined the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union would ever cease to exist, at least in our lifetimes. Then all of a sudden, they were gone. They too, like the woke left in our time, were an empire of lies, and lies cannot endure. All it takes is fight and action. Sometimes even a 12 year-old can show us the way, how to tell the left, don’t tread on me!

Three Cheers for Patriarchy! And “Why Sally Can’t Preach”

Three Cheers for Patriarchy! And “Why Sally Can’t Preach”

Aug 29, 2023 | Parents and Family

Since my last post was on the hot topic of Christian nationalism, I figured I’d follow it up with something about another “controversial” topic, patriarchy. I love thinking about the heads exploding at that title! It’s like throwing holy water on a vampire to some lefties, and many who embrace Christianity too. I will let the video do the heavy lifting, but I will say the same God-ordained roll dynamics in marriage apply in some measure in the church, thus the title of a book in the quotes. The author in the video is being interviewed, and I find his thinking helpful in what in our “enlightened” times is considered “controversial,” i.e., patriarchy. That word comes from the Latin for father, and has come to mean male headship and authority in certain contexts like the family and the church. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Christian Nationalism is a “Dangerous Ideology”

Christian Nationalism is a “Dangerous Ideology”

Aug 27, 2023 | Western Civilization

When I saw those words I almost laughed out loud. Yeah, I thought, really, really dangerous. These words unsurprisingly come from an article from the very left side of the political-cultural spectrum: “Disciples Confronting Christian Nationalism.”  Although, Sadly, many conservative Christian leaders and intellectuals believe the same thing. It seems the idea of a Christian nation to these Christians of both the left and right is a discredited and archaic position which inevitably leads to stoning homosexuals, burning witches at the stake, and basically a 21st century version of the Spanish Inquisition. They have a deficient understanding of both Christianity and what a nation is in God’s economy. Here are a few quotes from the article demonstrating what this looks like from the left side of the political/cultural spectrum.

Liberal Christians as they used to be called in the early 20th century always had a heretical understanding of the gospel, as so-called progressive Christians do now. So this sentiment wouldn’t surprise us: “Christian Nationalism betrays the gospel and threatens the church.” What exactly is the gospel if it doesn’t apply to nations? Their supposed Savior explicitly says it does when he tells his closest followers just prior to ascending to the right hand of God to exercise the rule he has been given with “all authority in heaven and on earth”:

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

He did not say to make disciples of all people, but all nations, ethnos in Greek. Even most Bible-believing, gospel-declaring conservative Christians miss this one, completely. That’s sad because it isn’t seeing nations as potentially Christian that “betrays the gospel,” but it fulfills it! This doesn’t threaten the church, but it’s one of the primary reasons for its existence! Or maybe Jesus was just kidding.

This leftist/liberal/progressive “Christian” assembly also passed a resolution denouncing Christian nationalism as “a distortion of the Christian faith.” How can you say making nations Christian distorts a faith whose founder commanded his followers to do just that? Again, most conservative Christians, primarily leaders and intellectuals, agree. I’ve found most Christians sitting in the pews every Sunday most definitely want their nations to be more Christian. If they didn’t why would they complain about it all the time? And we see in the following quote how the leftist antipathy to the concept of a Christian nation differs markedly from the conservative one:

The resolution notes Christian Nationalism promotes violence, authoritarianism, “White Supremacy, antisemitism (and other forms of religious bigotry), xenophobia, persecution and scapegoating of LGBTQ+ persons, misogyny, and ableism.” But this dangerous ideology does this, the resolution points out, as it “appropriates the name of Jesus Christ and the language and imagery of scripture to promote this ideology, in direct contradiction to the gospel Jesus preached.” 

And to put the cherry on the top they commit to working “to counter this heretical ideology.” Karl Marx could have been a member in good standing of this denomination.

Let’s make the case that a Christian nation is in fact a thoroughly biblical concept. (I try to stay away from the phrase “Christian nationalism” if I can because of the baggage it’s enemies put on it.) It’s actually an easy case to make, which I attempt in a chapter in my, God willing, forthcoming book, titled,

“The Westphalian Nation-State and The Christian Nation.” If you’re a Christian and believe in nations (i.e., you’re not a globalist), you should be a Christian nationalist. The concept of the nation, or specific people groups, is an important biblical concept, the word being used well over 600 times. In addition to the Great Commission, the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 lays out the case for the God ordained nature of nations:

26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 

You can’t get more biblically unequivocal than that!

Further, a religiously or morally neutral nation cannot exist, a myth far too many Christians believe. This idea of neutrality is the crux of the issue. Most Christians, and all non-Christians, believe a Christian nation is a synonym for theocracy, which is bad, and neutrality is the answer! Although why God ruling a nation (what the word means) is bad I have no idea. Their confusion lies in thinking theocracy means the church ruling the nation, or some man or people ruling in the name of God. Whatever the thinking, it leads inevitably to tyranny and the destruction of liberty. This distortion is more of the poisonous fruit of secularism.

So as not to be the big meanie Christians, they mistakenly believe religious freedom means a type of pluralism where all faiths are equally welcome at a neutral public table with mutual respect and tolerance for all. A perfect example of this misconception comes from David French, a one-time conservative who became an implacable foe of Donald Trump (joining what came to be called the NeverTrumpers). This quote comes from an article in the left-wing Atlantic magazine titled, “Pluralism Has Life Left in It Yet”:

The magic of the American republic is that it can create space for people who possess deeply different world views to live together, work together, and thrive together, even as they stay true to their different religious faiths and moral convictions.

This magic world of America French invents out of whole cloth never existed because in God’s created reality, currently fallen and chock full of sinners, such a pluralist Utopia does not and cannot exist. In fact, America was founded as a Protestant republic with shared biblical assumptions and the Bible as its foundational religious text. Most people don’t realize, obviously including French, that for the first approximately 170 years of America’s history most states had anti-blasphemy and sabbath laws. Doesn’t sound very magical or pluralistic to me!

What French and others like him seem to miss is that we are living in an era when America’s (and the West’s) established religion is secular progressivism, otherwise known as wokeness (i.e., cultural Marxism). It has its own anti-blasphemy laws, as we know all too well. There can be legal consequences, for example, for speaking any words perceived as racist or anti any so-called sexual minority. Despite all evidence to the contrary, well-meaning Christians and liberals who believe in liberty and truth think secular pluralism is the answer to getting rid of the established religion of wokeness. I’m afraid the world as God created it, and fallen, does not work that way. Every nation and the peoples in them exist and live out their collective world view. Vishal Mangalwadi states an unalterable fact of existence in his wonderful book, The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization:

Every civilization is tied together by a final source of authority that gives meaning and ultimate intellectual, moral, and social justification to its culture.

Every nation has some kind of religious establishment, some foundation upon which social order, or disorder, is based, and the consequences will naturally follow. As Christians we can either stick our heads in the sand and pretend neutrality exists, or start thinking seriously and rigorously about what a Christian nation would look like. Secularism cannot be fixed, and true pluralism, true respect for the faith commitments of all people can only exist in a nation that is Christian. Because of the spirit of Babel (Genesis 11) secularism will always and everywhere lead to tyranny and the destruction of liberty. Only where the Spirit of the Lord is can there be liberty (2 Cor. 3:17).

 

Uninvented: The Sermon on the Mount

Uninvented: The Sermon on the Mount

Aug 25, 2023 | Uninvented

One of my primary contentions in Uninvented is that the Bible is impossible to have been made up as merely human invention. I challenge the assumption (never argued for but always assumed) of over 200 years of biblical criticism that not only could the Bible be made up, but it would be relatively easy to do. Like all Christians I never believed the Bible was made up, but in the back of my mind I thought, sure, maybe it could be. I had no idea until I started diving deep into the apologetics literature as I was studying for my first book, The Persuasive Christian Parent, how difficult it would be to argue that the Bible is mere human imagination, so much fiction. Unfortunately, most Christians have no idea why. Having recently read through the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) I was again reminded how compelling the uninvented argument is.

First, even the most dedicated heathen who reads it must admit it comes from the mind of a compelling figure. Note this sermon could not be the product of a committee, but clearly comes from the mind of one man who said things unlike any other in the history of the Jewish religion, or any other religion. In other words, these words could not have been placed in Jesus’ mouth. He says things that would have been so absurd to both Jews and pagans at the time that they would have been literally inconceivable, meaning unable to be conceived. I make this argument consistently in the book. If people can’t imagine something, if it is beyond their ability to even think it, how do they make it up? They don’t! The Sermon on the Mount is one of many examples of Jesus’ teaching first century Jews could not imagine. Skeptics often say the Bible is just another ancient legend or myth, but in the gospels and Acts we’re not dealing with pagan legends and myths, but with Jewish people in a thoroughly Jewish context. The question before us, then, is could a Jewish person, not the divine Son of God, say things like we read in the Sermon on the Mount.

In the book I do a chapter on Jesus’ teaching because it is such a powerful example of how difficult it would be, I believe impossible, to make Jesus up. I’ll comment on a few things in the Sermon below, but in that chapter I discuss how strange and disturbing, especially to Jews, was Jesus teaching that they should eat his flesh and drink his blood, and that it is “real food” and “real drink” (John 6). These are things a lunatic says, if the one who said them is not who he claims to be. Most non-Christians, however, ignore such difficulties, and use the “pick and choose” method. As a perfect example of this, in the chapter I quote Jewish historian Geza Vermes who says, “No objective and enlightened student of the Gospels can help but be struck by the incomparable superiority of Jesus.” He then quotes from another Jewish author:

In his ethical code there is a sublimity, distinctiveness and originality in form unparalleled in any other Hebrew ethical code; neither is there any parallel to the remarkable art of his parables.

Then Vermes adds:

Second to none in profundity of insight and grandeur of character, he is in particular an unsurpassed master of the art of laying bare the inmost core of spiritual truth and of bringing every issue back to the essence of religion, the existential relationship of man and man, and man and God.

There is a lot of fly food in those sentences made to smell like roses. The only way anyone can make such breathtakingly inane comments is by dealing with a partial Jesus, a Jesus who doesn’t say things like eat my flesh and drink my blood. To harbor such thoughts, a person would have to ignore a large portion of what Jesus actually said according to the gospels.

As for the Sermon, Jesus says things equally as incomprehensible but on the surface less radical, until you realize what he’s actually saying. Start with the Beatitudes. They seem innocent enough, and anyone can embrace them, but the last one is not so easy to accept:

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Then in the next sentence he tells these people that because of this “great will be their reward in heaven.” Who says something like that? A good moral teacher? Hardly. If Jesus was a mere human being, and not God in flesh come to save us from our sins, then he was some kind of megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. It’s even harder to believe someone would put those words in Jesus’ mouth, but to critics, neither of these are even an issue. They would be wrong, and the burden of proof is on them.

In this he compares himself with the prophets, implying he is greater than they were, but he then says something implying he is greater than both the law and the prophets:

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Such a statement would have been stunning, and controversial, to any first century Jew. For someone to say he could fulfill all the law and the prophets was absurd. God through Moses had instituted the system of animal sacrifice to pay for the sins of all the people which indicates no person could fulfill all of it. Who says such a thing? And as I said, it is even more difficult to believe someone would invent those words and put them in Jesus’ mouth. Remember, we’re talking about first century Jews. Critics for over 200 years basically ignored this most salient fact, the Jewishness of Jesus’ world.

In the same vein, he says numerous times in the Sermon, “You have heard it said, but I say to you . . .” Implying that his authority far exceeded the religious professionals of the day. In fact, he was claiming ultimate authority to be the final arbiter of what God’s law meant. I try to imagine the religious Jews of the time trying to wrap their minds around the implications of that. There was no expectation this would be the Messiah’s role, so unless Jesus was actually the divine Son of God, this makes no sense. We must insist this has to be explained one way or another. Our Jewish scholars I quote above pass over such difficulties with fly food inanities.

We could continue to explore the difficulties, but the important point to take away is that we only have two choices when we come to Jesus and his teaching. As we might say today, it’s a binary choice, a one or a zero. Yet since Jesus walked the earth it seems everyone wants a piece of Jesus, every religion and philosophy, just not the whole Jesus. That Jesus, the one we read about in the gospels, is a real conundrum. He was either in the famous trilemma who he and his followers said he was, Lord, or  a lunatic or a liar. Saying he was a good moral teacher is not an option. Good and moral people do not say the things he said. Not only this, but his closest followers claimed he was the divine Son of God who rose from the dead and ascended to sit at the right hand of God. Then they were persecuted and many gave their lives for it. People don’t do that for what they know to be a lie.

The argument from Jesus, we might call it, is the most powerful argument we have Christianity is true. And he told us he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6).