Ask the Question.

Linked to a really interesting article today by Carl Trueman on what he calls the "shibboleth" of cultural relevance in Evangelicalism. He describes a conversation he had with a student about Mel Gibson's uber-blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ. "We then," he recalls, "entered a discussion about whether it was right to depict Christ visually on the big screen." The upshot? Take a look:

At the end of the discussion, he said that he felt sorry for me because my qualms about the visual depiction of Christ were making me irrelevant to ministry in the modern church. [...] What shocked me in this encounter, however, was not that we had different views on the matter, but that the student could not even see that there was any question to be asked. For him, the question of the meaning, relevance, and application of the second commandment was not even a question. He just thought it was obvious that anything which generated interest in Jesus was a good thing; thus, my concerns about the visual depiction of Christ revealed me as an irrelevant old hack, a superannuated puritan who simply didn't get it. [...T]his student did not even have the categories to see that there was any question to be asked.

Yesterday my eighth graders and I talked about worldview. I admit it's a hard line to walk, to explain the importance of living Christianly while not pushing my students toward total neurosis about the Christianness of each decision. I've quoted Luther on the subject of living an ordinary life that God makes extraordinary, and Trueman references Pascal's similar views on the blessing of relaxation and even entertainment.

I guess I don't really have any concluding thoughts about this -- I just want to emphasize my agreement with Trueman that we must ask these sorts of hard questions about culture, but without allowing ourselves to turn into whack jobs who have a "theology of vacuuming" and the like.

Read the article for yourself. It's a nice little rant, with a lot to ponder.

Seriously? (and a few random notes)

Whoa. I just scrolled down through this page and realized I've written almost nothing of theological significance in the last several weeks. Zoinks. It's probably one of two things: either I am a hopeless sinner blinded the trivialities of daily life, or I spend every day talking about God's precious word and his sovereignty in human history, teaching third, fourth, and eighth graders about this beautiful, broken world God will one day redeem, and by the time I get home, I'm all theologied out. Or maybe both.

So... there's a sizable kerfluffle in the blog world over the issue of whether or not Christians should celebrate a particular holiday with supposedly pagan roots. A holiday whose celebration, detractors claim, sends Christians inevitably down an idolatrous spiral of demon-worship. A holiday whose practices are outlawed by chapter and verse in Jeremiah. Pagan worship! Outright idolatry! Animism!

Well, good heavens, you might say! What is this pernicious, godless event that we've thoughtlessly allowed into our homes, welcoming with it the very blackest forms of paganism?

It's not Halloween. It's Christmas.

No, seriously.

Apparently, Jeremiah 10:2-4 condemns the practice of putting up and decorating Christmas trees. Leaving aside the kinda comical levels of anachronism we've got here, let's not be hasty. Judge for yourself:

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

OK. So what we have here is... God telling the people not to put up Christmas trees? Huh. Weird.

Because it seems to me that what's actually happening is that Jeremiah the prophet is warning Judah that their sin is fixin' to bring down God's wrath and judgment, and this passage is part of God's case against them. It just so happens that last week's Bible lesson at school was "The Ministry of Jeremiah." So tell me, third and fourth graders, what was the main sin of Judah that caused God to send judgment on them?

Idolatry.

And why is idolatry not only sinful but also stupid? Because, as Isaiah says, idolaters take a log, carve half of it into a statue they bow down to, and throw the other half onto the fire to make their dinner. Because, Jeremiah reminds them, the idols are mute, they're nothing, they can't even move from place to place but have to be carried (10:5). Condemnation of Christmas trees? Ummmm... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's NOT a responsible exegesis of this passage.

There are more legs to their argument (the only birthdays mentioned in the Scriptures are those of pagans whom God struck down so we have no business celebrating Jesus' birthday, Yule celebrates demonic pagan deities and harkens back to weird druidy times, etc.), and I could pick each one apart, but I just can't... be bothered. It's all so silly! Surely there are other things we could focus on, right?

(Incidentally, this is a great example of what one blog I recently read called "The Arithmetic Method" of theology. Thought-provoking article. Check it out.)

So, here are a couple things you could focus on if you felt like it:

1. Listen up, Church. (I'm about to get fired up here, so watch out!) Stop letting Joel and Victoria Osteen off the hook. Stop justifying their heresy. Stop nurturing the notion that they're merely addled -- like that sweet but dim-witted cousin everybody loves while being slightly embarassed about -- and get it in your head that they are preaching a different Gospel. Go read Galatians 1:8. (Go ahead, I'll wait...) The Osteens are inviting a curse on themselves. Stay far, far away from their "ministry" and, if you love your brothers and sisters in Christ, warn them about it too.

2. Open iTunes (or the legal online music acquisition apparatus of your choice) and download the following albums immediately: Shai Linne's Storiez, Flame's Our World Redeemed, and LeCrae's Rebel. Then revel and rejoice in the work God is doing through these warriors of the faith and their bold Gospel preaching.

A Beautiful Rejection

I'm about to come out of the closet here, people. Are you ready for this? Brace yourself.




I don't believe in race.




Still reading? OK! While you're in the mood to read, read this:

[F]or the Christian, there is an even greater basis for unity across ethnic lines and the abandonment of "race" as a part of our worldview and spiritual life — our union in Jesus Christ.

When the Christian walks into that lunchroom, she or he sees two groups and thinks, Descended from Adam — like me. Made in the image of God — like me. Fallen sinners — like me. And then if we find that any of those persons in the lunchroom are Christians, we are able to say, United to Christ — like me. Sharing His Spirit — like me. Received the promises of eternal life and everlasting joy — like me!

Catch the full article, by visionary pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, here.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Michael Pollan's beautiful, sweeping, joyous, practical, intense, inspiring, provocative, stunningly magisterial open letter to the incoming president (whoever he may turn out to be) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine section, all about revolutionizing and returning to our agrarian roots.

It's nine pages long, wordy for a newspaper article, but is so thrillingly visionary that you'll be finished before you know it. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Rules/Rants About Blogs

The "rules" bit:

1. If you don't have time to read or address reader comments, consider that you might not have time to blog.

2. If you have a strict disclaimer or instructions for commenters (what behavior or content won't be tolerated), but don't have time to enforce these policies, then really don't bother blogging.

Theologica and Boundless Line are two prime examples of what happens when you don't consistently respond to out-of-line or heretical comments, and in the case of Boundless, what happens when you don't enforce your comments guidelines. The moderators end up suborning heresy, the comments sections spiral out of control, and the constructive discussion gets choked out by confusing, contradictory comments by believers, unbelievers, and pseudo-believers.

So, do you 1. address and refute out-of-line or heretical comments, 2. delete them, or 3. let them slide?

#3 is irresponsible and foolish, and either 1 or 2 works. I lean towards deleting (although a blog that's turned into a public forum would want to be crystal clear about the standards for deletion). Heretics who find themselves being blocked will keep moving until they find somewhere else to comment.

And really, have you ever heard a new believer say, "You know, I was an atheist until I started commenting on this blog..."?

Well...?

I posted a version of this series of questions on the Boundless Line today (intentionally not linked; it's a very heated discussion and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time reading it unless you're a glutton for punishment). Anyone want to take a shot?

1. What does God say about children?

2. Is God in control of human fertility?

3. If God calls children a blessing to be welcomed and he is in control of fertility, than do I have the right as a believer (whose life is supposed to be conformed to God's ways) to say (if married), "I don't want kids," or "I want to put off children (or marriage and children) because ___"?

You don't really have to answer them... And I'm sure my answers are painfully obvious. Pondering these questions was what changed my attitude about this whole thing. I realized that I had absorbed the culture's attitudes toward marriage and children -- don't get married until you're settled in your career, put off having children as long as possible because they're a hassle, stuff like that. But throughout the centuries, Christians have always been counter-cultural in how they valued children -- the early Church fought against the pagan practices of child sacrifice and abandonment, for example, and Christians led the charge for the illegalization of child labor.

So why is it that now, even among Christians, having a child early in a marriage must have been an accident? And why having a large family (i.e., anything beyond three or four kids) means you must not have figured out how to work those birth control pills? And why Christian parents tell their sons and daughters that they must not get married before they've graduated college and settled down into a good career (never mind the tens of thousands in debt it took to get there)?

What do you think is at the heart of the problem?

Imaginary Thoughts from an Imaginary Land

THIS is Tasmania:


THIS is NOT Tasmania:


When I was telling people that I was going to spend 5 weeks in Tasmania, more than once I got slightly pitying looks, as if people were saying, "Oh, poor thing... she thinks that's a real place. Tsk tsk."

Well, despite how surreally beautiful it is here, what with the breeze and the sun and the apples and the falling leaves and all (it's Autumn...weird), Tasmania's not an imaginary land after all.

You Won't Regret Following This Link

Actually, I kinda hope that none of the link-rabbit-holes I've sent you down have caused actual regret...

Anyway, it's a great article from Boundless on "thinking Christianly" about culture.

Two thumbs up.