From iMonk in March, 2009. Replayed by Chaplain Mike.

David Wilkerson (Cross and the Switchblade, Times Square Church) is predicting a world changing disaster, and advises that you dust off those cans of Spam you still have from Y2k. It’s getting serious coverage by the unhinged conservative media.

I wrote about Evangelical anxiety about the end of the world in the “Evangelical Anxieties” series in February of 07. Not only have I not changed my mind, I’m more bothered by this than ever.

If eschatology were a multiple choice question, with answers like this:

a) be Christ centered
b) proclaim the Gospel
c) do missions and evangelism
d) look forward to the new heaven and the new earth
e) be idiots

…guess what a large chunk of Evangelicalism would choose?

Evangelicals really can’t get enough of this stuff. Wilkerson- and a thousand other end times prophets like Kim CLement- have predicted similar events before. The “end of the world” section of the bookstore is only the front end of the “end of the world warehouse” that stores all the books that have been predicting the end of the world as long as evangelical authors could find a pen.

In no other area of Christian belief are Evangelicals more irresponsible and bizarrely repetitive. If doing the same thing, over and over and over again with no result, qualifies as a form of mental illness, then we can fill up an entire chain of hospitals. We’re talking about people who will take their eschatology and turn it into a VIDEO GAME here.

The Bible is obviously too simple for Evangelicals at this point. The instincts of some Christians tell them that it never can just mean what it says. So when Jesus says “no one knows, not even the Son,” or “don’t believe people who say they know,” it actually means “Oh yeah, we can know ALL about future events. Just get the right teacher with a big chart and you’re in there.”

Maybe it’s the fact that weird eschatology is the closest thing Christianity has to the kind of material that shows up on the Sci-Fi channel late at night. Bad acting. Cheap special effects. Teenagers caught having sex. Maybe rapture anxiety just plays like a bad B-movie, so Evangelicals get it.

The history of Christian apocalyticism is a story in and of itself. I recommend Jason Boyett’s Pocket Guide To The Apocalypse. Seriously. Get it. Good book with lots of humor and even more information.

I am never more envious of Catholics/Orthodox than on the subjects of evolution and eschatology. Catholics simply don’t lose their minds over this sort of thing. The catechism is calm. If the pope has anything to say about the end of the world, it must be edited out. You’d never hear Benedict going on like Tim Lahaye. (Too bad Art Bell isn’t on Christian radio.)

I’m sure Catholics and Orthodox have their hysterical eschatology committees like every other religion, and I’m sure Fr. So and So is out there in the road with a placard proclaiming the end, but you just get the impression that Catholics are in the “it will all work out” camp, and they aren’t going to get in the bunker with Ned Flanders. Have a beer. Go to a Barbeque. Don’t start screaming. No one likes a religion with people screaming.

Evangelicals don’t seem to blink when they realize that the business of various apocalyptic scenarios is making millions of dollars for people convinced it’s all about to be over. They don’t mind that the people making these prophecies either abuse, don’t use, or no longer need to use a Bible. No, from Thief in the Night to 89 Reasons Christ Will Return in 1989, we just keep on keepin’ on.

My evangelical students read Left Behind with far more interest than they read scripture. If everyone who read Left Behind read ONE other decent Christian book, a Great Awakening would arrive. My students also assume that all Christians buy into this approach to the future. I haven’t met one yet, in 17 years, that has a pastor who even sent clue one that we might not be on the verge of the great tribulation because the stock market is zonked. Judgment house. Hell house. Rapture house. We really need an amusement park to get the whole show together.

Does it occur to most Evangelicals that their brothers and sisters around the world sort of LIVE in the Apocalypse? If we have a Columbine or a Katrina, John Hagee is on TV the next night with a chart so big you can see it behind him. Meanwhile, in Sudan, it’s all just another day at the office.

Americans are afraid of the end. They are afraid of losing their life here. They don’t want II Thessalonians 1 to happen. They want to keep running up their credit cards and driving the leased SUV.

Kingdom? New world? End of old world? Resurrection? Christ all in all?

Missional hope? Reach the nations? Gospel to every people group? Bible in every language?

Don’t be bothered by earthquakes, rumors of wars, bank collapses, elections, etc?

Nah. Put in the next Left Behind movie. The one where Kirk Cameron sings “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” to Carpathia.

[Comment ideas: 1) Catholics and Orthodox are allowed one comment to make fun of evangelicals. 2) What's your best story about Evangelicals and Apocalypse fever?]

From Chaplain Mike.

OK, so Mark Driscoll dissed “Avatar” calling it, “the most demonic, satanic movie I’ve ever seen.”

And Christianity Today didn’t like it, especially when he pointed to their review as an example of contemporary evangelicalism’s inability to exercise discernment.

This post is not about that.

For the record, I have not seen Avatar…yet. Though I plan to.

And that’s actually what got me thinking.

My big spiritual awakening happened when I was 17 years old. Within a couple of years, I was moving into ministry and had a conversation about going to the movies with my pastor one day. He was strictly old school. “I would never feel comfortable walking into a movie theater,” he told me. I don’t think he even thought much about the content of any particular movie; for him, the theater was simply a part of the “world” that ministers (and serious Christians) avoided.

The Bible college I attended had a clear “no movies” policy. Around that time, I recall the controversy when the Billy Graham Association released “The Hiding Place” in theaters. Schools like ours had to hold special meetings and consult with their constituents before granting a special exemption for students to go out and see it.

I know Christians for whom “Chariots of Fire” was the first film they ever saw in a cinema. Many of them were looking over their shoulders the whole time.

When Blockbuster and other stores began the video rental explosion, I remember hearing a young Joe Stowell, then president of Moody Bible Institute, tell a room full of pastors, “I don’t see how any Christian can walk around a video store and not feel extremely uncomfortable.”

(BTW, when I started following Christ seriously, television was also an issue for some believers. Our Bible college had one TV, in a public area. My future wife’s family did not have TV. When we got married, we didn’t have a TV for many years. Frankly, I’ve only had satellite for 5-6 years now, and part of that time we’ve had it turned it off. My kids laugh at us today for the pitiful 20″ screen on which we watch our shows.)

I don’t say any of this proudly or to make the point that the current evangelical concept of “engaging culture” is wrongheaded.

It’s just another one of those times when I am prompted to pause along the road of my journey, look back, and marvel at how things have changed with regard to Christian attitudes.

Hey, we live in a day when the nation’s leading evangelical Christian magazine criticizes a pastor for negatively evaluating the spiritual content of a Hollywood movie!

Does that make anyone else shake their head?

I am not now nor have I ever been a separatist in spirit. Even during the years when our exposure to things like movies and TV and, to a lesser extent, popular music was limited, I never thought it was absolutely necessary for us to approach things that way, nor did I suggest that others must live by a set of rules with regard to participation in pop culture. Our life was focused on other priorities, and such entertainments just weren’t as important. But I have always loved movies and TV and popular music, and have thought it silly for Christians to quarantine themselves from them as from the plague.

Separatism is certainly not the dominant evangelical view today. In the video that has gained so much attention, it was interesting to hear Mark Driscoll defend himself against the charge of being a “fundamentalist” with regard to involvement in culture. No “cutting-edge” Christian today wants that label. When some of you read what I’ve written here, you will probably think I must be some ancient geezer who grew up in the days when we hauled water from the stream and went to town in the horse and buggy.

Not at all. I’m a typical American baby boomer, who ate dinner in front of the TV. I went to the movies from the time I was a baby. Rock ‘n roll and I grew up together. For much of my life, I’ve enjoyed pop culture as much as anyone I know.

However, I remember when even my parents, who were absolutely not fundamentalist Christians, wouldn’t let me see “Bonnie and Clyde” because of its subversive tone and explicit violence. I recall them coming home early from certain movies because of the immorality and amorality that was depicted.

It’s not just evangelicalism that has become more “liberal” with regard to feeding on the offerings of popular culture and entertainment. The world has changed. And followers of Christ have changed with it.

So, for me, the fact that Mark Driscoll would have a negative review of “Avatar” isn’t the interesting thing here. It’s the new world of conversation the Christian community in America now inhabits.

Chaplain Mike reposts this classic iMonk article from June, 2005

UPDATE: I fixed the broken links at the end of post.

I’ve been thinking about the subject of the Christian’s assurance of salvation.

To put my cards on the table, I don’t struggle with assurance of salvation personally at all. I’m far more inclined toward the “wider mercy” view of God’s love than I am toward any apprehensions about whether I am among the elect. My struggles are over entirely different subjects: Does God exist? How can I face death without losing my sanity? Check in with me on those topics and I’ll buy your joe.

I’m interested because I spend a significant amount of time counseling students and adults on the subject of assurance.

These are people who are unsure whether or not they are Christians at all. Some feel they never were, but most feel they’ve somehow started, and now failed, in their Christian faith. I rarely have anyone come to me doubting that God exists or questioning whether the Bible is true- both questions I would expect to hear frequently given the student population that I minister to at a boarding school. Instead of these fundamental questions, I continually have a conversation something like this:

“I used to think I was a was Christian, but I don’t think I am any more.”

“What has convinced you that you’re not a Christian?”

“I don’t live like a Christian. I do a lot of things that I know Christians don’t do. I rededicate my life to Christ all the time, but I just go right back to the same old things, and I don’t see how a Christian would be so hypocritical. I’m lazy, and I really don’t live the Christian life.”

[Insert at this point my standard outline on the subject: Christians are sinners. That's who Christ died to save. That's what the Holy Spirit convicts us about. We're sinners throughout life, and because the Spirit is in us, we are unhappy about our sin. Instead of doubting out salvation, which is what the Devil wants us to do, we need to continue to believe the promise of God that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness for Jesus sake. We trust Christ for forgiveness of what we do wrong, but also for the gift of His righteousness so we know we are accepted by God for Christ's sake, and not because we lived up to our intentions or promises to Him. Remember that only Christians struggle with the issue of assurance, and that is because the Holy Spirit in us constantly brings us into to the light of the Father's love and the grace of Jesus Christ. Accept what Christ has done for you and apart from you. Meditate on the promises in the Gospel: they are yours and are always all true for you. Read about Jesus' tender love for sinful people. Rest in the finished work and gracious righteousness of Christ. If you go through a time of being unsure, expect your assurance to return as you focus on Christ, and not on yourself.]

“Yeah. I know all that….I just don’t think I’m a real Christian. I need to get baptized again or something.”

That’s the usual student version. I’ll pass on replaying the transcript of the adult, recently and inadequately exposed to Calvinism version, which includes things like, “What if I’m not elect?” and “If I am predestined to go to hell, it doesn’t matter if I think I’m a Christian- I’m just fooling myself because I’m a reprobate.” Answering these concerns is a different matter that has more to do with the character and decrees of God than with assurance itself, but make no mistake: there’s a lot of true agony going on with these people.

One of the first things that ever occurred to me as a young preacher boy predestined to wander from the fundamentalism of my youth was a feeling that much of what I saw going on around me was meant to plow up any kind of assurance on the part of anyone who wasn’t a Texas youth evangelist. Yeah, we learned all the “assurance verses,” but someone was busy blowing up whatever we thought we believed before we had any real chance to be “grounded.”

For instance, it was entirely common in my circles to hear preachers deliver a sermon that, despite varying texts and titles, could simply be called “Are you sure? Are you really sure? Are you sure you’re sure? Are you absolutely sure?”

Sermons on death and the impending end of the world were frequently spiced with searching questions on whether we were absolutely sure we’d be in heaven should these events occur. Or would we, as Jesus predicted, find ourselves surprised to be in hell with millions of other Christians who “weren’t really saved” after all?

Another round of sermons and testimonies were all about folks who had “thought” for years they were saved , but weren’t really saved at all. After one particular “Layman’s Revival,” everyone who ever taught me in Sunday School or witnessed to me at my church got “re-saved.” (Except for my mom and the pastor. I remember the pastor being rather unenthusiastic about rebaptizing a busful of people he’d baptized years before, including most of the deacons and many of his family.) It became a badge of honor to say that you’d spent years assuming you were a Christian, teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, knocking on doors to witness- and then had discovered you weren’t saved and had never “accepted Jesus” at all.

Revivals, youth camps, youth revivals, testimony meetings, Christian concerts, youth rallies….all of these events were likely to feature the uprooting of any semblance of assurance a Christian happened to be carrying around. Questioning your salvation was a way of life. Announcing repeat customers as new converts was the predictable result.

Since the focus of my fundamentalist, revivalist, Southern Baptist upbringing was the all important sacrament of the altar call, we were particularly called upon to frequently examine whether we really meant it when we’d “come forward.” Had we sincerely, really, honestly, truly, “asked Jesus into our hearts?” Were we sure? Was Jesus really there? Did we ever doubt our salvation? Did we know, absolutely and unshakably, that we belonged to God?

Living in this kind of tortured environment never really shook my personal assurance, but it made me cynical about what I was seeing and hearing. Frankly, it annoyed me before and after I made my own profession of faith, and has increasingly offended and concerned me as a minister. It smells like a way to generate false conversions and brag about the numbers at your last meeting. I’ve since decided that believing any Southern Baptist reports on number of professions of faith at any revivalistic event or subsequent baptisms is an exercise for the gullible and the stupid. The number of people born again, and again, and again, and again is truly staggering.

This is contempt for the average, ordinary, struggling Christian and their most basic sturggles. Make no mistake about it. These are people who, besides their commendable zeal, are quite content to destroy the certainty of heaven, forgiveness and God’s constant love for His children.

So assurance is regularly fried up in the atmosphere of revivalism, but one doesn’t have to live in such a circus to find the assurance of the ordinary Christian under assault. Much of evangelical preaching today is focused on moralism of various kinds, constantly pointing the Christian to what he/she ought to be doing. Serious preaching on discipleship often directs the Christian to a variety of duties, ministry needs and pressing obligations for any true follower of Jesus. For sensitive consciences, it can seem that the Christian life is about being a “good” person, doing “good” things in a hurting world, imitating Jesus so others can see Jesus in you.

Many contemporary preachers are busy describing the Christian life as a life where the Christian finds his/her destiny and fulfills his/her dreams. Follow the principles for success and purpose, and experience God’s best for your life. But what if you are failing? Suffering? Constantly falling short? Such emphases can undermine assurance when the Christian is told the outcome of the Christian life is practical, real-world results.

(I find it extremely interesting that Joel Osteen has combined the success and prosperity message with a strong, almost unrelenting emphasis on the Christian’s constant awareness of God’s love and acceptance. Osteen has wisely perceived that assurance is being undermined in many churches with emotionalism and a Word-Faith, prosperity and health message. He has repaired this by talking about a God who is always on the side of everyone, all the time. What Osteen fails to do is clearly relate this message of assurance to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.)

Among many churches with a serious emphasis on the Biblical Gospel, there is the danger of an over-emphasis on evidence that one is truly converted, or in some circles, truly elect. The New Testament’s proper and plain concern for evidence of the reality of the Holy Spirit can become a cause for much doubt that the evidence is ever adequate or convincing. Again, when the sensitive conscience is put on the witness stand, it rarely feels that the evidence is sufficient to clear the bar of judgment as a “true Christian.”

Strong Biblical preachers who press texts and applications upon the conscience often create an unceasing atmosphere of personal doubt about salvation. By holding the demands of the Law and discipleship up for unmistakable consideration, many Christians come away convinced they are not true believers, but quite possibly among those Jesus will finally reject. There is a pervading notion of false faith in many serious, Biblical churches; a notion that buys into the Bunyanesque notion of a door to hell at the entrance to heaven itself. (I have often heard reformed preachers wrestle with the implications of this for their own pastoring. Would that more reformed leaders would urge the preaching of assurance in Christ alone upon their hearers and not send them seeking assurance in Christian experience.)

Such preachers are well aware that this is a hazard. They know the scriptural texts that enjoin making calling and election sure. They know the texts that recommend self-examination. Some of these preachers are constant in preaching the Gospel to bring assurance. Others are less concerned with the promises of the Gospel, and are content to let an extended “law-work” overturn false assurance in the church.

As an example of my concern, I want to look at a sermon on assurance by Dr. John Piper. In a May 2, 1982 sermon on election and assurance, John Piper used an illustration of a couple whose diligent efforts to swim against the tide kept them from being swept away and drown. Using the illustration as an application, Piper says.

I’ve said before and will again: we do not judge a person’ s genuineness by how close he is to heaven but by how hard he is stroking. The evidence that God’s power has been given to you by faith is that you are now making every effort (as 2 Peter 1, verse 5 says) to advance in the qualities of Christ.

Earlier, Piper used an illustration about marriage to show how assurance of love brings effort in a marriage relationship.

We labor for virtue because God has already labored for us and is at work in us. Don’t ever reverse the order, lest you believe another gospel (which is no gospel). Never say, “I will work out my salvation in order that God might work in me.” But say with the apostle Paul, “I work out my salvation for it is God who works in me to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Never say, “I press on to make it my own in order that Christ might make me his own.” But say with Paul, “I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12). There is a world of difference in a marriage where the husband doubts the love of his wife and labors to earn it, and a marriage where the husband rests in the certainty of his wife’s love and takes pains joyfully not to live unworthily of it. Peter’s point is: God is for us with divine power. Of that we may be sure. Now, in the confidence of that power, take pains not to live unworthily of his love.

Yet, Piper makes it clear in the sermon that assurance is conditional.

It is possible to make a start in the Christian life but then to become indifferent and unfeeling and careless in using the means of grace, and to drift into destruction…If the knowledge of God’s glorious promises does not spur us on to strive against the tide, then we will be barren and fruitless and drift to our destruction.

Then Piper gives an extended explanation of the text “..make your calling and election sure.”

Verse 10 makes crystal clear what is at stake in such blindness and powerlessness and fruitlessness: “Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election.” The danger described in verses 8 and 9 (as an incentive to advance in the fruits of faith) is not the danger of slipping into the kingdom with no rewards. It is the danger of not being saved at all. When Peter says, “Be zealous to confirm your call and election,” he means that our lack of diligence in Christian graces may be a sign that we were never called and are not among the elect.However you have been taught on this matter of election, please give very close attention to this verse. The assumption is that the whole world lies under the righteous judgment of God because of sin. But because of his great mercy, God ordained that a people for his own be saved by grace. These are his elect, his chosen whom he has predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And Paul explains in Romans 8:30 that those elect whom he predestined to Christ-likeness he also called, and whom he called, he also justified and whom he justified he also glorified. None of God’s sheep will ever be lost. They are eternally secure. But from our side the most important question of life is: am I among the elect who God predestines to be like Christ and then calls and justifies and glorifies forever? If we are, God wants us to know that we are. He wants us to have joyful assurance, for out of that assurance flows tremendous power for sacrificial service that gives him glory.

Therefore Peter says, “Confirm your election! Make sure of it!” How? By standing in your faith and pressing on to virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly affection and love. John said (in 1 John 3:14), “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren” (cf. 2:3). The confirmation of your election is your progress in sanctification. God predestined all the elect to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). Therefore, the reassuring evidence of our election is Christ-likeness.

It is undeniable- and anyone who reads Dr. Piper knows this presentation of assurance is not dated in the least- that the reality of personal assurance here comes from obedience. According to Dr. Piper, we are to make every effort toward obedience in every way, and these efforts will provide us with the “joyful assurance” that we are among the elect.

What does this message do to those who struggle with assurance? It seems to me that the effects will be varied. Some will genuinely be helped. Some will be motivated toward sacrificial service. But this type of preaching has an undeniably despairing effect upon sensitive consciences. Notice the words in the closing paragraphs, words not particularly different from the kind of “doubt creating” preaching I heard growing up.

So here’s the application: Are you making every effort toward moral excellence? Are you making every effort to increase your knowledge of God’s character and his will? Are you making every effort to strengthen your power of self-control? Are you making every effort to enlarge your capacity for patience? Are you making every effort to cultivate godliness to develop a heart for God? Are you making every effort to grow warm in your affection for your fellow believers? And are you making every effort to stir up love in your will for the person you dislike the most? If these things are in you and increasing, you will not be fruitless (v.8), you will never stumble (v. 10) , and you will enter the eternal kingdom of Christ (v. 11). But if these things are not your earnest concern then it is because you have shut your eyes to the beauty of God’s promises and have forgotten the humble exhilaration of being forgiven.Therefore, the word of God warns us against being lazy in your faith and drifting away from Jesus Christ our only hope. And the Word encourages us to fight the good fight of faith and take hold on eternal life (1 Tim. 6:12,19); to lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and run with perseverance the race before us (Heb. 12:1); to press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14); to advance and grow and go forward in virtue and knowledge and self-control and patience and godliness and brotherly affection and love (2 Peter 1:5-7), and in this way to reassure our hearts and make our confidence firm that we are indeed called to share in God’s glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:10,3).

I want to be very careful to say that I have no particular disagreement with the general unfolding of this text, but I believe honest, sensitive consciences will be driven to doubt and a loss of assurance by the emphasis that we look to the evidence of our lives rather than to Christ alone as the ultimate ground of assurance. All the efforts and kinds of obedience that flow from a passage like this will ultimately be an inadequate ground for assurance.

[Folks who love Dr. Piper....PLEASE don't carpet bomb me. This is not an attack on him, his ministry, or Reformed theology. The discussion of assurance as it applies to sensitive consciences has been going on since the Puritans, was a major issue in the writings of Luther, and was the reason Spurgeon counseled care when reading John Bunyan, whose theology was much like Dr. Piper's. It's a valid and fair issue and not an attack on Calvinism.]

If I were to return to my teenage counselee, and ask the questions in the last two paragraphs- “Have you made EVERY effort toward obedience and Christlikeness?”- I would reaffirm her conclusion that she is, indeed, not a true Christian; a conclusion based upon her disappointing performance in the Christian life. We would be back at the baptistery in no time.

Recently, Lifeway listed on their website the Ten Most Pressing Issues Facing The Church. The Gospel didn’t make the top ten. It doesn’t surprise me. A variety of political and social issues- all demanding Christian activism- made the list. I am wondering how many Christians are sitting in churches, hearing preaching and teaching, and leaving wondering if they are Christians at all? I wonder how many Christians believe the center of the Gospel is their own efforts at being “fully surrendered” or obedient?

The growing centrality of the Gospel in many churches and among many reformation-minded Christians is the most encouraging sign that there may, indeed, be a new reformation afoot. But in order for a new reformation to take hold, we must come to grips with the hundreds, thousands, even millions of Christians who do not yet see all the demands, all the promises, all the law and all the callings of a disciple met fully and completely in the person of Jesus Christ. If assurance is not based on the mediation of Jesus BEFORE it is evaluated in terms of the “efforts” and “evidence” of our own lives, we will eventually find ourselves at the mercy of the enemy and our own consciences. Christ first, then our own, imperfect obedience. Then Christ again, all in all.

The habit of many serious preachers is to put the Gospel focus on the person and work of Jesus, but to do so in a relationship to the obedience and faith of the Christian that undermines assurance for many sincere, yet faltering, Christians. I don’t believe these preachers reject the kinds of assurance the reformers taught were available to every Christian. I simply believe the agendas of activism, evangelism and even intense discipleship can displace- simply through emphasis- the mighty fact of a finished work and an infinitely worthy mediator. When every Christian looks to Jesus for assurance, and when godliness, obedience and perseverance all arise from and finally rest in the faithfulness of Jesus, the Gospel will do its work of placing our assurance totally in the heart of the good shepherd and the arms of the waiting father, rather than in our stumbling, imperfect, failing selves.

Can pastors, teachers, well-intentioned Christian parents and youth workers move away from the use of fear and threats to undermine assurance, and simply commend Jesus to each person’s conscience as our all-sufficient assurance? That is my prayer for myself and my fellow servants of the Gospel.

Let me close with some thoughts by Rod Rosenbladt that bear directly on the issue of assurance and how it is handled among Christians and in the church. Here is wisdom.

Did the reformers, then, have any doctrine of sanctification? Of course they did. We are all familiar with the biblical announcements as to what is involved in sanctification: the Word, the Sacraments, prayer, fellowship, sharing the gospel, serving God and neighbor. And the Reformation tradition acknowledges that there are biblical texts that speak of sanctification as complete already. This is not a perfection that is empirical or observable (as Wesley and others would have insisted upon), but a definitive declaration that because we are “in Christ,” we are set apart and reckoned holy by his sacrifice (1 Cor. 1:30; Heb. 10, and so on). Anybody who is in Christ is sanctified, because Christ’s holiness is imputed to the Christian believer, just as Jesus says in John 17:19, “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” God sees the believer as holy. That means that Wesley should not have terrified Christian brethren with texts such as “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14 [NIV] ). The Christian is holy, it is all imputed. What would the reformers have done with texts such as 1 Peter 1:16, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” ([NAS], cf. Lev. 11:44f; 19:2; 20:7)? They would say we are called to be holy. But, some may ask, why should we be called to holiness if we are already perfect in Christ? That question has been asked before, and Paul’s answer in Romans 6 is because we are saved unto good works, not unto licentiousness. Good works are done out of thankfulness of heart by the believer who has been saved, not by one who is trying to be saved by following the law…What should the Christian do if he is reading the law and says, “This is not yet true of me: I don’t love God with all my heart, and I certainly don’t love my neighbor as I love myself. In fact, just today I failed to help a poor man on the side of the road who was having car trouble. I must not yet be a Christian.” The answer of the Higher Life movement to the struggling Christian is, “Surrender more!” or, “What are you holding back from the Lord?” The Reformation answer is different: “You hurry back to the second use of the law and flee to Christ where sanctification is truly, completely, and perfectly located.” After this experience, the believer will feel a greater sense of freedom to obey (thus fulfilling the third use of the law), and this is the only way that one will ever feel free to obey. The most important thing to remember is that the death of Christ was in fact a death even for Christian failure. Christ’s death saves even Christians from sin. There is always room at the cross for unbelievers, it seems. But we ought also to be telling people that there is room at the cross for Christians, too.

NOTE: Those reading this essay and disagreeing with me might want to check out two other iMonk pieces: When I am Weak and Our Problem With Grace. Both cover my views on sin in the life of the Christian and the Grace that brings assurance in Jesus.

ALSO, CHECK OUT THIS ESSENTIAL READING: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Justification by Rod Rosenblatt.

Guiness says, “In many ways, the new atheists are partly created by the Religious Right. You can see that in America there is no vehement repudiation of religion until recently. In Europe, the atheism is a reaction to corrupt state churches. Here, you’ve never had that until the rise of the Religious Right.” Part of the reaction against religion, he argues, stems from the poor ways people of faith think about science.

What do you think? To what extent is culture war Christianity, including its commitment to views like “creation science,” responsible for the rise of reaction against religion in the U.S. and an impassioned public atheist movement?

I anticipate some strong opinions. Please keep the conversation civil and respectful.

I read a message by Rick Warren on Christian Post today about belonging to the church. It got me thinking about the nature of the relationship that exists between evangelicals and the church.

Let’s talk about it.

Warren’s thesis is: “When we’re called to follow Christ; we’re also called to belong to the Body of Christ.”

After affirming that the Church is Christ’s spiritual body on earth, God’s instrument in the world, he identifies one of the biggest hurdles pastors face today: it is hard to convince people who attend church to commit themselves to the church family and become members.

Warren blames this on “today’s culture of independent individualism.” As a result, we have many “spiritual orphans who move from one church to another without any identity, accountability or commitment.”

Pastor Warren then gives several biblical reasons why we should commit and become members of the local church:

1. Belonging to a church family identifies us as genuine believers
2. A church family moves us out of self-centered isolation
3. A church family helps us develop spiritual muscle
4. The Body of Christ needs every one of us

He concludes with this exhortation:

We must remind those who fill our buildings each Sunday that joining the membership of a local church is the natural next step once they become a child of God. You become a Christian by committing yourself to Christ, but you become a church member by committing yourself to a specific group of believers. The first decision brings salvation; the second brings fellowship.

Here are some questions this approach raises for me:

• It seems, right from the start, that Warren is conceding the point that one can belong to Christ without being a member of the church. Membership in the church is a second “step” in the Christian life—important but ultimately a matter of choice on the part of the individual Christian. Is this disjunction between belonging to Christ and being a member of the church biblically and theologically sound?
• To what extent is “independent individualism” not just a cultural problem, but also an outgrowth of the kind of gospel we preach and the kind of churches we create in evangelicalism?
• Couldn’t one logically conclude from this approach that, in the final analysis, for evangelicals the church, though important, is ultimately optional?

The mic is open. As always, please keep the conversation civil and on point.

Today’s guest post is by Chaplain Mike.

UPDATE: Scot McKnight is discussing this over at Jesus Creed today as well. I encourage you to check out his perspective and those of his readers.

MY SPORTING LIFE
I grew up fully immersed in sports. Sports were a part of almost everything I did, every friendship, most activities. I became a jock. I got pretty good at basketball, and played competitively through my junior year in high school, capping off my career with a team that won the first regional championship in school history.

But I was especially focused on baseball. At the time of my conversion, as a senior in high school near Baltimore, I played for a school with a storied tradition. That year we again had a talented team that won our conference, beating out our rival, the school that would produce Cal Ripken, Jr. a few years later. I was honored as County Player of the Year, and there was little I loved more than baseball.

That was also the spring I met Jesus.

For some reason, at that time in my life, I thought this spiritual awakening meant that my life was supposed to change completely. Not just internally. Not just “spiritually.” Not just morally. Totally. Like the first disciples, I was being called to drop the nets, climb out of the fishing boat,  leave the family business behind, abandon it all and follow Jesus.

To me, that meant I was through with sports. I don’t think anyone told me that specifically, but nobody said differently either. When I graduated and started thinking about studying for the ministry, no one suggested I find a school with a baseball team. It was all about the Bible. It was all about following the Lord. It was all about spreading the message. And so I went to Bible college. Our school had a soccer team and a basketball team, but I never seriously considered playing. In fact, I rarely even attended games. Sports were now outside my radically narrowed focus. I was headed in a different direction.

Our first church was in a tiny mountain village in Vermont. My wife and I didn’t have a TV in our home by choice, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because reception was non-existent. Occasionally I listened to the Orioles or the Cubs on the radio when a distant AM station would come in, and once or twice we went to Fenway to see a game, but sports was no longer a regular or central part of my life, my thinking, or my interest.

We continued in this vein when we moved back to Chicago for seminary. Life for us was all about school, work, church, having babies, and learning about family life. While there, we got caught up a little bit in the fun of watching the Chicago Bears win the Super Bowl, and we occasionally watched games at friends’ homes, but sports remained on the periphery.

Then our children started growing up. Girl’s basketball games began appearing on our schedule. Then, even more significantly for our future lifestyle, we started Little League baseball with my oldest son. After more than 15 years of living, for all practical purposes, without sports, we entered a season of life in which, for the next 20 years, sports once again became a prominent focus. In fact, it would not be overstating it to say that, except for the church, nothing filled our lives so much as interest and involvement in sports. Whether spending time at facilities cheering on our children, coaching, watching sports on TV as a part of our family experience, or attending professional sporting events as special occasions, we had become a “sports” family.

That culminated this last fall when my son played his final college football game. Our role as “sports parents” is suddenly over. It remains to be seen what will happen with the next generation, our grandchildren. But the lifestyle is still a big part of who we are. We continue to watch sports on TV and follow various teams. Having grown up in Chicago, I remain a lifelong Cubs and Bears fan. Living near Indianapolis, we root for the Colts and enjoy attending games at our Triple-A baseball park. I check scores daily. The remote is used regularly to flip through channels in hopes of finding a good competition to watch. We host or attend parties for big games. As a chaplain, I have found that sports can be a bridge for building friendships and creating opportunities for ministry.

So, sports remains a central part of our lives and daily conversations these days.

Sometimes, though, I feel twinges of spiritual concern.

SPORTS AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
Like yesterday, when I read the thoughtful article by Shirl James Hoffman in Christianity Today entitled, “Sports Fanatics: How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture—and what might be done about it.” I encourage you to read it too, and see if doesn’t raise issues for you about our American preoccupation with all things sports.

Hoffman writes:

Americans are consuming sports on an unprecedented scale. The ancient Romans, long considered the gold standard for how sports-crazed a culture could be, were dilettantes compared to the sports fans of this century. The Romans could squeeze 50,000 spectators into the Coliseum for gladiatorial contests—a quaint assemblage next to the 107,000 seats regularly sold for University of Michigan or Penn State home football games. In 2006, Americans spent over $17 billion on tickets to sports contests and $90 billion on sporting goods, over double what they spent on books ($42 billion). Sports magazines take up prime space on bookstore shelves; the granddaddy of them all, Sports Illustrated, sells as many copies in a month (13.2 million) as To Kill a Mockingbird has sold since its publication in 1960. A tenth of The World Almanac is devoted to sports, more than is allocated for business, science, and politics combined.

None of this has been lost on evangelicals, who have been quick to harness sports to personal and institutional agendas. Less than a century ago, major segments of the evangelical community considered sports a cancer on the spiritual life; today their denominational progeny lead the parade to stadiums. The cozy coupling of sports and evangelicalism shows itself not only in the outsized athletic complexes that are common features of church architecture, but also in the ease with which sport and its symbols show up in the sanctuary. Pastors incorporate pithy sports metaphors into their sermons. Famous athletes are invited to pulpits to tell how their faith helps them compete. Some churches celebrate Super Bowl Sunday by canceling the evening service and assembling in the sanctuary to watch the game on large-screen TVs. “Faith nights” sponsored by local baseball teams draw entire congregations to the ballpark. Evangelistic organizations that center on the public’s fascination with sports flourish.

However, Hoffman later opines:

Variously described by those inside and outside as narcissistic, materialistic, violent, sensationalist, coarse, racist, sexist, brazen, raunchy, hedonistic, body-destroying, and militaristic, big-time sports culture lifts up values in sharp contrast with what Christians for centuries have understood as the embodiment of the gospel. There are simply no easy, straight-faced, intellectually respectable answers for how evangelicals can model the Christian narrative—with its emphases on servanthood, generosity, and self-subordination—while immersed in a culture that thrives on cut-throat competition, partisanship, and Darwinian struggle. If evangelical ethicist R. E. O. White is right to assert that self-absorption is behind all wrong social relationships and, for this reason, self-denial is the first ethical condition of discipleship, then elite athletes immersed in the self-consumed atmosphere of sports, where self-denial is a recipe for competitive disaster, face a fundamental problem.

…If indeed sport is marching toward Gomorrah, it seems to have escaped the attention of large portions of the evangelical community, which continue to bask in the reflected glory of Christian athletes. Much evangelical commentary glorifies athletes and sports, but becomes timid in situations that warrant indictment. Rarely does the evangelical press ask touchy questions about tensions between the moral culture of Christianity and that of big-time sports. The silence is deafening.

In its vision of sports, bolstered by the large number of Christian athletes who have joined professional and collegiate teams, the evangelical community has yet to ask how the influx of believers has affected the morality of sports. There may be no more vivid illustration of historian Mark Noll’s “scandal of the evangelical mind” than the way the community has neglected to think Christianly about sport, or has excused itself from crafting a sensible philosophy that will help them mine the spiritual riches that sport has to offer. [emphasis mine]

MERE “SPORTIANITY”
Back in 1976, Frank DeFord wrote a series of Sports Illustrated articles called “Religion in Sports,” in which he asserted, “Sunday has become a day of games rather than worship, but churchmen are adapting.”

In those articles, he coined a phrase, “Sportianity,” to describe a “new denomination” of Christianity that has embraced sports, has intentionally infiltrated its arenas for the purpose of evangelism, but which may have become, in fact, sports’ handmaiden.

Unlike DeFord, I am not qualified to speak on the complex relationship between sports and religion in America. My concerns are much more personal and pastoral. It seems to me that sports represents one of those areas of American pop culture that has simply inundated Christianity and left us helplessly going with the flow.

• Now churches schedule services and programs around sporting events and calendars, not vice versa.
• Now it is common for individuals and families to miss services and church activities to be involved in sports, whether simply watching or participating.
• In many minds, any specialness which Sunday maintains is usually more related to sporting events that are taking place that day than to Lord’s Day worship.
• People who would complain loudly of “legalism” or authoritarianism if the pastor suggested we dress up a little bit to honor God when we come to worship have no problem with wearing jerseys and other sports gear to church to show allegiance to their teams (picture the 80-year old woman wearing her Colts jersey, face paint and team-colored ribbons last week in our service).

But wait, isn’t most of this just harmless fun? Am I being too hard on God’s family here?

I am aware of the good aspects of sports, and I fully affirm them. After all, sporting fields and stands have been the context where I have sought to live out my faith over the past 20 years. But somehow, I wonder…

• Have we lost some perspective here?
• Was I completely wrong to have relativized sports, to have set it aside as a less worthy pursuit, when I was in the state of first love with Jesus?
• Has the Sportian lifestyle swallowed up a distinctive, counter-cultural Christianity?
• Do we live in a day in which it is simply impossible for pastors to admonish their congregations about a devotion to sports that has crossed the line, tying up their time, emotional energies, and finances in something which is not, in the final analysis, all that important?

Sportianity’s Holiest Celebration
And now we have come to Holy Week, which culminates on the holiest day of Sportianity’s year: Super Bowl Sunday. Here in Indianapolis, where we have a rooting interest in the game’s outcome, it’s just about all anyone is talking about.

• We’ll have our daily devotions listening to messages from sports pundits and talk-show hosts.
• We’ll have a special season of fellowship with our friends and coworkers, praising our team and encouraging one another with new insights into the game.
• We’ll share the good news with neighbors and coworkers that our team is best and will certainly win.
• We’ll utilize apologetics in commending our team against unbelievers, giving a reasonable defense as to why they will triumph.
• On game day, we’ll gather before the sacred flat screen altar, share the holy appetizers, and participate in the liturgy of watching the big game (and especially the commercials) with exclamations of praise and/or lament.
• We’ll go forth into the world on Monday to talk about our experiences and rejoice that we were together.

Then, on to spring training, the Final Four, the NFL draft, the start of baseball season, the NBA playoffs…

…with ESPN at our side, for he hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

(Cartoon Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc – www.reverendfun.com)

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Last year, here in Indianapolis, a four-year-old was taken by emergency personnel to the hospital with a gunshot wound. At first, it was not clear what had happened. The family told police the child had shot himself. The police weren’t sure that the preschooler was strong enough to have pulled the trigger of the suspected weapon by himself, and so they wondered if someone else had done it, perhaps a family member.

It turned out the family was correct. The little boy lived in a home with other relatives, at least one of whom had several guns. This uncle left one of his pistols on a bedside table and the child discovered it there. The preschooler picked up, played with it, and shot himself in the hand. Fortunately, his injuries were not life-threatening, though he did nearly sever one of his fingers. All in all, the whole family was lucky, including the little boy’s two siblings, neither of whom were hurt.

In evangelicalism, pastors too often play the part of the preschooler with the pistol.

The Bible is a powerful, explosive tool. When its power is used with wisdom and love, it brings healing, comfort, direction, and salvation. It forms people and congregations into the image of Christ. When its power is used recklessly and without discernment, the Bible can hurt, divide, and destroy. You can blow your own hand off, or someone else’s head.
At about the same time I read the account of that little boy, a friend told me a sad story about her small-town church, an established, independent Bible-believing congregation that has long prided itself for standing on the Scriptures and not the doctrines of men. They have a young pastor who has been with them only a few years. A while ago, he came to the “Biblical conviction” that they were not running their congregation according to what the Bible teaches about church polity.

At the time, they had a joint board of elders and deacons, which included women deaconesses as well. The board made decisions together as leaders of the church. The pastor did a study and concluded that elders alone should rule the church, that deacons should not be included in the decision-making process, and that in any case, women should not be allowed a vote as leaders on church matters. So, he put the congregation through an extended process to change this, and ultimately got his way through a congregational vote to alter the bylaws.

My friend was one of a vocal minority who spoke against this, and the pastor let her know that her lack of support had been noted. She didn’t tell me much about how others felt, or whether this situation threatened to divide the church. However, it was clear that she was troubled and concerned about the health of the church.

And then she told me the kicker—while all this was going on, the pastor has been actively pursuing a position in another congregation. He will be leaving soon, right after taking my friend’s church through this controversial process and forcing a change in the way they’ve done things for years.

I was reminded of the preschooler and the pistol. Here is a pastor who believes in the Bible, but does not appreciate its power, nor comprehend its wise use. His reckless application of God’s Word has wounded rather than healed God’s people. Now he’s going to walk away and leave it to someone else to stop the bleeding and clean up the mess.

Let me be clear—this is not about criticizing the decision this church made. People of faith can differ on church polity and women in leadership and a thousand other matters, and have for centuries.

No, my complaint is about a minister who does not understand Biblical priorities, who showed his lack of wisdom in elevating a matter of minor significance in the church so that it became a leading issue that now threatens to divide them.

The evangelical world has an authority problem. Protestants subscribe to Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”) as our source of authority for faith and practice, but we have far too little appreciation for proper interpretation and wise application of the Bible’s teaching. And too many churches and pastors, especially in the nondenominational or independent Christian world have little or no guidance in the process. The pastor or a small group of leaders, with the explosive power of the Bible in their hands, can easily use it to wound others and harm the church.

This raises several questions:

• In an “autonomous” congregation, which eschews “tradition,” what theologically sound and historically proven practices are there to provide perspective, structure, and guidance to a pastor and members of the congregation?

• In a small-town congregation, what pastoral mentor or overseer is available to tell a young minister, “Look, you may think you’ve discovered something in the Bible, but with regard to scriptural priorities, this is way down the list of things for a minister in your setting and situation to be concerned about.”

• In a nondenominational congregation, what experience or counsel from the larger community of faith is available to help them work through an issue that other churches have dealt with already?

“Scripture Alone” does not mean “My Bible and Me Alone.” Scripture is meant to be studied, interpreted, and applied within a community of faith that honors and respects history and tradition, the larger Body of Christ, and the wise counsel of respected spiritual overseers.

Instead, we have too many maverick ministers recklessly taking what they find on the bedside table and firing into the crowd that gathers at the church.

It amazes me that the apostles immediately know- they KNOW- that Christianity has to be applied in ways they had never thought before. Perhaps the story in Acts 10 is a window to how the Holy Spirit stirs us up to get off of the roof and down into a Roman’s house.

The Apostles apply the Gospel broadly. There must be a different kind of economics. There must be a different kind of inclusion around the table and in relationships. There must be prayer, breaking bread, teaching doctrine, but there is more. You cannot leave out the issues of hunger, inclusion, assistance, mercy ministries, economics or even political theology. While you can point out the kinds of issues that weren’t addressed, it’s remarkable what kind of issues are addressed…and how they are addressed.

“Christian culture” is always a counter-culture, not a consumer culture, an entertainment culture or a political lobby. “The Church” is a gathering of people loyal to Jesus who believe certain things, but it is a movement of people who apply the gospel to those issues in their midst that demonstrate the meaning of the Kingdom of God.

There is a lot of scholarly controversy over whether the “communal” passages in Acts reflect the teaching of Jesus or whether the Apostles are going beyond what Jesus taught and forcing an application of the gospel that Jesus did not require.

This “either/or” may be missing the point. If a particular form of the application of Jesus’ teaching turns out to be a failure on some level- such as the communal experiment of Acts 2 and 4- that does not mean that it was wrong to conclude “the gospel must be applied and practiced, as well as believed.” If this is a failed “program,” it is not a wrong application of the Gospel. Jesus leads us to issues of ownership, the lordship of mammon and the meaning of being one body. We may not see the Acts “commune” passages repeated throughout the New Testament, but we do see the relevant questions and hear the relevant applications in most of the New Testament letters.

For example, Paul may not have approached the issue of slavery the way a Justice Mission might today pursue the same issue. But does anyone argue that Paul believes Christ does not transform, undermine and put in motion the eventual end of slavery?

This is why I can commend many Christians for their attempts to put the Kingdom of God into practice even if I disagree deeply with their particular application. I have mixed agreement with many liberals and conservatives, but I commend them for seeing that Jesus has a meaning for politics, relationships, community and culture.

This is the kind of “cultural relevance” that many churches and younger leaders are seeking that is ignored or misunderstood by critics. Caricatures always criticize younger leaders and missional churches for seeking to be “cool,” but what is to be said to those who are asking these questions:

What are the pressing human needs in the community that surround us, and how can we help meet those needs?

What are we doing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the widow and visit the prisoner?

What are the ethics of building when the maintenance of facilities takes away substantial support for mercy ministries?

What priority can we give to supporting denominational programs as we seek to use our resources to become a missional congregation?

How do we connect the gospel as proclamation to the application of the gospel?

How can we make our gospel application meaningful to those who see any application of the gospel as capitulation to liberalism?

How can we keep our application of the gospel from manipulation by those with agendas that are not Christ-centered?

How can the teaching of the faith and the application of the faith in proper balance so that the faith confessed and taught is never displaced by works of any kind?

One other thing is sadly clear: there were and will always be people who do not want the Gospel to change things. They want women in their place, economics ordered as best benefits them, politics left to the politicians and “those people” left to suffer since the poor will always be with us. The only widows who should be cared for are the ones they know. People of different color, different beliefs and different religions aren’t our business. We should grow our church by sticking to our own kind.

That kind of sad thinking- untouched by Jesus and the power of the Spirit will always be around, and those engage in it are usually generous with their views. The application of the Gospel means responding to those kinds of opponents as well. We give an answer, we choose to suffer in order to love, and we keep doing what Jesus would do.

A speech about saving America and the church, in case you just don’t care enough actually watch the clip before you comment.

Anytime someone tells me the “Creation museum” is a museum I want to run this piece out. Ham’s organization owns this “museum.” It’s goal is to get the public in and discredit any science that doesn’t come to the conclusions of fundamentalists. You can get all four sessions of this “State of the Nation” speech in the Youtube sidebar. Don’t think that Creationism is a matter of agenda? Watch this talk and get back to me. Tell me that the kids being taken to this “museum” are learning “science.”

Ham believes that the reason young people leave the church is they aren’t taught AIG’s apologetics and views on science. That’s why young people leave the church: failure to teach creationism. (BTW, ask George Barna if his research shows young people want to be taught creationism to answer their questions.)

And what does the creationist dialog with contemporary science sound like? Like this:

All seven sessions can be found at the Youtube site. This is a lobbyist for a Conservative political group redefining science and declaring what the only acceptable attitude toward science can be. Listen to the discussion of “evidence.”

Now let’s be clear: I’m happy for creationists to take whatever approach they wish in their discussions, but I’m deeply concerned that this is being presented as the only true and Biblical “Christianity.” It’s not Christianity. It’s a kind of Christianity and it doesn’t speak for millions of us. I’m not precommitted to a view of science. My religious faith is the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed, not Ken Ham’s philosophy. Science disproves, advances, questions, disproves, advances and on and on. That’s a whole different business. If your science equals “the Bible is the only valid science and the only valid politics,” then say so and cut the “museum” act.

What you are listening to is the culture war. Politics. Not scientific inquiry of any kind, and I’m not sure what a person would have to be to actually miss that point.

I’ve been monitoring a discussion at a prominent Calvinistic blog regarding Richard Dawkin’s defense of evolution in his new book, The Greatest Show On Earth.

I do a unit on the New Atheists in my Advanced Bible class, so I get several hours of Dawkins vs John Lennox each fall. I’m always amazed at how naive Dawkins is regarding any kind of religion that isn’t the backwoods, book burning variety. He seems to think that those who aren’t creationists or fundamentalists aren’t cooperating sufficiently with his certainties of what religion is doing to the world. I could easily do six posts on goofy conclusions Dawkins draws about religion, i.e. there is a logical connection between religion and violence, but there is not a single case where he can see a logical connection between atheism and violence. Mmmmkay.

On Darwinianism, however, I find Dawkins to be a voice worth listening to. He does understand the significance of Darwin’s theories- something that Christians who reject evolution should still appreciate- and he represents well that shrinking minority of atheists who believe science necessarily leads to atheism.

I always find it interesting how Dawkins will, without knowing it, start talking about feelings of transcendence or universal moral sentiments, without realizing he’s echoing some of the finest Christian minds who look at the same questions he does. In the Birmingham debate with Lennox, he gives as fine a statement of C.S. Lewis’s evidence for a universal morality as Jack himself could muster. Dawkins simply credits it all to a Darwinian “lust to be good.” I’m sure you’ve all observed that on the Discovery Channel.

But Dawkins and his book aside- someone will have to buy it for me if I am going to read it- there’s a point to be made in the discussion regarding the message young Christians are hearing, and it will be better made and better discussed here than elsewhere.

One creationist contributed the following after a mention of a recent series of articles regarding a fossil discovery in Ethiopia:

That would be “Ardi” and it wasn’t that recent that “it” was discovered. It was over ten years ago and the remains were apparently such a mess (along with other remains) that they spent the last ten years trying to put “it” together. And wow… what do you know… they managed to figure it out on the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”… what luck!

The commenter is commenting on the publishing of research regarding “Ardi,” a sensational fossil find made in the early 1990s.

Take a moment and think with me. Imagine that you are a young person sitting in a college anthropology class. (My young friend who recently left the faith, Greg, was such a person.) You’ve been brought up in the conservative evangelical faith. You’ve had creationism in science classes straight through middle school and high school. You’ve been exposed to Answers in Genesis and Kent Hovind as proof positive that the Bible, not any scientist anywhere, is the only reliable guide to scientific truth.

What do you learn in this commenter?

1) Scientists are making bones say what they want them to say.

2) The fossil finds say nothing coherent. They are “a mess” and any conclusions from them are imposed.

3) Announcements of discoveries like this are orchestrated for media attention.

4) Taking time to evaluate evidence is actually proof that the evidence is being “cooked.”

5) Creationists know all about Ardi and other anthropological discoveries. Trust what they say.

Now, if you are this young person and you read the above comment with understanding, your entire attitude toward science is basically going to be at stake. What you are being told is that such discoveries are tantamount to conspiracies and frauds. If you imagined that you could enter into the study of anthropology or similar fields and simply study the evidence, you’re in for quite a surprise.

This is all about the presuppositions that both “sides” have before any evidence is discovered or discussed. (If you read the review I have taken the comment quoted above from, that’s the major point: presuppositions make any consideration of evidence useless.) Instead of being a discussion of the evidence raised by “Ardi,” this is a “war of the worldviews,” in which considering evidence is apparently simply a casualty or, at best, a waste of time.

And if that sounded completely postmodern to you, too, then I’m glad to not be the only one.

Let me be simple: if we can’t discuss evidence, but are simply playing gorilla warfare with worldview weapons, then our young people aren’t coming to conclusions. They are simply deciding whether to stay on our team and play the game.

You are going to lose hundreds of thousands of bright evangelicals with that approach. You better homeschool them till they are 40 and keep the television firmly under parental control if you are going to pull this off. You’ll need lots of propaganda and manipulative tactics to keep your kids motivated against those evil scientists and their distortions.