One of my pet peeves is how easily Christians buy into the hostile secular cultural caricature of conservative Christians. What do I mean by that? The culture via its many powerful and ubiquitous means of communications communicates that Christians are generally unsavory characters. Then, being persuaded by the caricature not only do non-Christians believe it, but most Christians do too. So, in a book I recently read, Culture Apologetics, I found a perfect example of this lamentable trait among Christians. The book is great, but this is disappointing. I will quote the author to make my point.
The church is seen by many as an intolerant and judgmental community.
For Christianity to be desirable, we must narrow the gaps between how things are and how things ought to be.
According to Barna Research Group, the most common complain of those outside the faith . . . is that “Christians no longer represent what Jesus had in mind, that Christianity in our society is not what it was meant to be.” Christians today are known primarily by what they stand against instead of what they sand for. For the majority of people aged sixteen to twenty-nine, Christians are anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical, too political, old-fashioned, insensitive, boring, unaccepting of other faiths, and confusing.
It is no secret that Christianity has a public relations problem.
That will depend on what our eyes and brain have been programmed to see, whether it is by the secular culture in which we daily swim, or God’s word. If it is the former, we’ll see a pretty butterfly, beautiful colors that amaze us, and that’s it. If it is the latter, we’ll see God! If it is the culture, the beauty will point to nothing beyond the beauty. If it is God’s word it will point to God! How could it not? If this butterfly doesn’t reveal God, what does it reveal? Chance? How does one explain where such exquisite and intricate beauty comes from? If there is no God, then the only explanation can be chance. How persuasive is that? Not very. When you understand that God is the consummate eternal all powerful creative artist, everything in nature compels you to worship so great a being that could create everything, including this very butterfly. We need to commit the words of Paul in Romans 1 to memory, and teach them to our children, and share them with everyone we encounter:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
If you don’t know what a Loki is, neither did I until six weeks ago. He’s a character in the Marvel cinematic universe, and an unsavory character; he’s not referred to as the god of mischief for nothing. My son, our youngest at 19 and a keen observer of culture, called me into his room to tell me I had to watch something. He showed me a scene from the first episode of the new Disney+ TV show (unfortunately; I now officially hate all things Disney, but that’s for another post) called, you guessed it, Loki. The scene had Loki, played by British actor Tom Hiddleston, and the wonderfully phlegmatic Own Wilson playing Agent Mobius. Given the main “character” in the show is time itself, that leads to some interesting conversations given none of us have a clue about what time is, and it always perplexes and amazes us. The little dialogue my son showed me had me hooked. (more…)
Many well meaning Christians are under the impression that diversity is a good thing. It is not. It is not a bad thing either; it just is. In other words, just because a certain population is diverse in terms of skin color or nationality doesn’t make it morally better than another population that is not. Diversity is not a moral category. Yet many of those well meaning Christians have been persuaded to believe diverse is better than not diverse, and they don’t realize it is because of the influence of cultural Marxism, not the Bible. The diversity cat is now out of the bag with the unfortunate ascendance of critical race theory (CRT) that treats skin pigment as something moral and not a basic fact of existence. It’s obvious that the pushers of CRT aren’t interested in diversity at all. That’s just the Trojan Horse to get CRT to take over the culture. (more…)
I saw yet another story last week about a Christian “celebrity” who announced his “deconstruction,” meaning leaving Christianity, or in his case, re-defining it. This “Grammy-winning vocalist,” Kevin Max, is a member of “the popular Christian band DC Talk.” He calls himself an “#exvangelical,” which is an obvious slam against Evangelicals. Now as an ex-Evangelical he follows “the Universal Christ,” whatever that means. I have a hunch I know, but you can be sure it’s not the Christ of the Bible. That Christ is so regressive, so uptight about sexuality and just doesn’t fit into 21st century postmodern hipster religion. As you read through the piece, you’ll see something typical of these “deconstructionists,” his disdain for conservative Evangelical Christianity. I couldn’t help thinking as I read it how self-righteous and judgmental this guy is. I also thought that his reasons for “deconstructing” are so cliched that they are an insult to clichés! (more…)
Until I read a thoughtful article about her a couple days ago at The Federalist, I had never heard of pop superstar Billie Eilish. Being officially “old” it doesn’t surprise me that much of pop culture passes me buy, and I’m happy to let it do so. The state of affairs that is our secular Western culture is deeply shallow and painfully dysfunctional. It’s impossible not to conclude that when 40,000 people a year in America successfully kill themselves. The young superstar herself, having fame beyond imagining and what she dreamed of as a child, deals with depression. I listened to a song or two and wasn’t impressed, but a lot of people are. One video of a new song with her newly blond hair and new look had almost 50 million views. That’s a lot of views! I also found this interview she did a couple years back, and I was struck by this 17 year-old girl being listened to and treated as if she was really, really important. Watch the interview to see what I mean.
Recent Comments