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 is that “Christians no longer represent what Jesus had in mind, that Christianity in our society is not what it was meant to be.”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.
I was going to write something on the dying of conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh, and before I got to that I listened to this interview from the Dallas Theological Seminary’s The Table podcast about embracing our mortality. That’s quite the counter intuitive notion, especially in our secular age, so I had to check it out. Given I think about death a lot, my own, but also death in general, I found the discussion right down my alley. Dr. J. Todd Billings, the interviewee, wrote a book calledThe End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live. He should know about the topic. He was diagnosed with incurable cancer in 2012, so immanent death is something he can’t help thinking, and writing, about. The reality for all of us is that our death’s are immanent as well. It may happen in five minutes, or in 50 years, but it will happen before we know it and are ready for it.
Since this is Christmas, and we’re focused on the miraculous birth of a baby over 2,000 years ago, a baby who would be the Savior of the world, I thought it an opportunity to broaden our focus on the one who made that birth possible. That would of course be the living God, all powerful, all knowing, all present. In all of biblical history there was no conception and birth like that of the young peasant girl Mary. Going back to Abraham and Sarah, there were several times when barren women beyond child-bearing years got pregnant, including Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, but they all got pregnant the old fashioned way. God being God, he was able to impregnate the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we read about in Matthew and Luke. The old fashioned way, though, is every bit as miraculous, but we’re so conditioned by secular Western culture that we think women getting pregnant is somehow “natural.” There is nothing natural about it! (more…)
As is our family Christmas tradition, we watched yet again the wonderful Charlie Brown Christmas special that first aired in 1965, when I was all of five years old. I don’t remember that first one, but I’m sure I’ve watched it almost as many times as years I’ve been on this earth, and it never gets old, like me. What makes it so special, pun intended, is that in simple and profound ways it captures so well the pathos of human existence. Coming from the Greek for suffering or experience, and coined by Aristotle, the Peanuts gang are pure pathos, starting with Charlie Brown himself. His misery is hilarious, but hits home. Who hasn’t wanted to throw their own pity party when nothing seems to go our way, and nobody seems to care, and we know we shouldn’t feel that way amid the bright lights and joy of the season.
This is more of a challenge in this year of our Lord 2020, when hell has seemed to make a more obvious visit to earth than usual. I will spare the gory details, but we all know them, and all wish they were not as they are, but they are. Imagine, though, having to go through such a year without a hope that goes beyond this life. Imaging hurtling toward death as we all are . . . . and this is as good as it gets??? This is it??? We all know it’s not, but often live as if it is. Shame on us. Even back in 1965 when secularism was making its way to the pinnacle of the culture, but not quite there yet, the TV executives were pressuring Charles Schultz to pass on the now lionized Linus speech, What’s it all about. Thankfully, his Christian faith enabled him to him stand firm, and hundreds of millions, probably billions over the years, now know what Christmas is all about.
I just finished reading Tactics by Greg Koukl, and it’s a book that should be read by every Christian young person in our anti-Christian culture. I recently bought it for my kids, and myself, and it was better than I thought it would be, much better. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it’s tremendous. Koukl uses what he calls “The Columbo Method,” named for the 1970s series with Detective Columbo, Peter Falk, who had the effective habit of asking annoying questions to get to the truth. What Koukl shows us is that Christians don’t have to be on the defensive, but that we can put the challenges to Christianity, and those who make them, on the defensive. It’s clear that those challenges can’t be defended very well because they are so weak, and questions expose their weaknesses. The beauty of Tactics is that it demonstrates that we as Christians don’t always have to have all the answers. Any Christian can utilize these tactics regardless of the depth of their knowledge. Of course, more knowledge is better than less, and thus we need to do our homework, but the playing field can now essentially be leveled.
Recent Comments