Who Decides What Constitutes Hate?

I had NPR on the radio the other morning and they had yet another story about the occupation of the wildlife refuge in Oregon. That whole thing is silly and makes an easy source of mockery for the left that diminishes the real issues about an out of control government but that isn't my concern. The piece featured a representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center as the SPLC has identified the occupiers as an extremist hate group. The SPLC is considered to be a legitimate resource and authority on "hate groups" and "extremists" without much in the way of critical examination. The media by and large considers the SPLC to be a legitimate source of information and provides them a platform to push their definition of hate, presumably with the aura of independence and fact based neutrality. The reality is quite different. I long suspected the SPLC was not what it is presented as so I took a little time to examine their webpage and in an awful lot of cases it turns out that my beliefs on any number of issues expose me to be a "hate group" unto myself.

What is an extremist? What is a hate group? Who decides? On the Extremist Files section of their webpage we see this description:

Extremists in the U.S. come in many different forms – white nationalists, anti-gay zealots, black separatists, racist skinheads, neo-Confederates and more.

In reality though you don't see much about "black separatists". Instead most of their ire is directed at conservative Christians or "radical right-wing Christian fundamentalists" or some combination of terms. A brief perusal of their webpage today finds that their "Featured Hate Group" for today is Liberty Counsel. What "hate" has Liberty Counsel engaged in? Burning crosses? Lynching? Well not really. Liberty Counsel is a hate group because they are conservative Christians that provide free legal representation to other conservative Christians:

The Liberty Counsel was founded by conservative activists Mathew (“Mat”) Staver – an attorney and former dean at Liberty University School of Law – and his wife Anita. The Counsel bills itself as a non-profit litigation, education and policy organization that provides legal counsel and pro bono assistance in cases dealing with religious liberty, “the sanctity of human life" and the family.

So defending the rights of Christians and others who hold to the traditional, historical and Biblical understanding of human sexuality that has been without serious challenge for all of Western history warrants a label of "hate group" from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Certainly there are actual hate groups listed on the SPLC webpage but there is little to distinguish violent groups from people who hold to conservative Christians views on human sexuality. Thinking that homosexuality is by and large not healthy for individuals and for our broader society as a whole. a position I would generally agree with, is all the reason you need to be lumped in with the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation. What Liberty Counsel does is essentially no different from any number of leftist legal groups that represent people who can't afford decent legal representation. It is hardly different other than their constituent base from the ACLU, another poster child for the "tolerant" left in America.You wouldn't know that from reading the SPLC webpage

In fact for most evangelical Christians Liberty Counsel is a wonderful organization that stands up for the rights of Christians in America, a group worthy of financial and prayer support. I might quibble with quite a few of Liberty Counsel's positions but I also think that people who believe in Jesus Christ and don't parrot the politically correct line about homosexuality are citizens who deserve decent legal representation. I believe that they are as deserving of the right to free expression and legal protection of that Constitutionally guaranteed right as any of the people or organizations represented by the ACLU.

So really all you need to be a "hate group" is a stated position that homosexuality is wrong and unhealthy. Oh yeah and it helps if you are white. I suspect that even more mainstream Christian groups would get the "hate group" label from the SPLC if they thought they could get away with it and I expect that more and more of the church will fall into the "hate group" category sooner rather than later. What I find deeply ironic is the frothing at the mouth, hyperbolic vitriolic language employed by the SPLC which is the sort of over-the-top rhetoric that bars any rational discussion of an issue, something I am sure is intentional. I wouldn't much care what the SPLC churned out except for the fact that a) they are given automatic credence and respectability by the media, a media that has many of the same ideological underpinnings as the SPLC and b) they specifically target school children to provide indoctrination materials under the risible guise of "teaching tolerance". The public school system has long been less about education than it is about shaping the worldviews of children apart from and often in opposition to what is believed by the parents of these kids.

Again, there are actual hate groups on their webpage but when you can't or won't distinguish between Stormfront and WorldNetDaily it shows that your mission goes far deeper than exposing dangerous extremist groups. The SPLC is not an unbiased resource by any definition of the terms but is instead a leftist think tank that tries to disguise itself as an impartial source of knowledge while striving to silence certain groups and people while infiltrating the school system by claiming to be interested in "tolerance".

You know, if I didn't know better I might think that the Southern Poverty Law Center was itself a hate group but unlike the SPLC I understand the difference between a far left political organization like them and the Shining Path leftist terrorists.

Making Ice With The Amish

Lots of people seem interested in the Amish and since we spend so much time with them I thought I would share something that few people have experienced. Last week I was around to help an Amish family "make ice". Granted they are not "making ice", the cold weather does that, they are just cutting and collecting ice but it is just a term they use like "making hay". While many Amish have some electricity in their homes via solar panels or generators, keeping food frozen is always an issue for them. Therefore many Amish have "ice houses", typically a small building with heavy insulation that they pack with ice blocks which keeps food frozen or at least cold throughout the summer. Of course this means you need a source of lots and lots of blocks of ice, a source that is found in the many ponds the Amish have on their property. Some Amish without ponds are able to get ice from a neighbor's pond, after all it is basically just water so the real investment is in the time to gather it. Below are some pics of the process, I had to wait until they took a break to avoid having any Amish in the picture which is too bad because a video would really be great. Anyway, enjoy a look at how people kept food cold before the advent of the ubiquitous freezer.

An elevator, often used to take hay into the barn, is used to
move the blocks from the pond to the waiting wagon. In the background
you can see the saw used to cut the ice.

A team of Belgian workhorses. Unlike most buggy horses these behemoths
will stand still without being tied for hours on end.

An example of an ice house, this one is a stand alone, many have walls and a
roof and look like a small shed.

Each completed load on a hay wagon is hauled back to the ice house. The wagons can hold
up to 200+ blocks of ice but the weight can make the wagon bow in the middle. 

Should Historic Figures Be Untouchable?

It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in America and that means that among other things banks and government offices are closed along with schools. It also means that my social media world is littered with memes and quotes from King. One thing you almost certainly won't see is any hint of critical examination of King. MLK is in the historic trinity of recent historical figures who are untouchable along with "Mother Teresa" and Gandhi. You are simply not permitted to examine with a critical eye any of these three even though all three have parts of their life that don't fit into the prevailing narrative. For example, try bringing up the writings of Teresa where she expressed serious doubts or point out the silliness of the Gandhi quote about liking Christ but not His followers. You are sure to get a frothing at the mouth response almost immediately: "How dare you!". The carefully crafted and infinitely repeated image of each is inviolable in our society. I find this practice to be dishonest and ultimately cheapening to the true value that they have for those who come after them.

For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a complex figure and was more than a collection of pithy sayings. He was a flawed man like all of us, perhaps even someone who could be described as deeply flawed. That reality and complexity doesn't take away from what he taught and accomplished, to the contrary that very reality makes what he accomplished richer. He wasn't a perfect man dispensing inspiring talks like a sound-byte ATM, he was a real man with real flaws who, in spite of that reality we all share, was able to make a lasting impact on our nation. It should inspire others that they can make an impact even if they are not morally pure and above reproach. None of us can ever aspire to meet the phony image of King but all of us can make a difference in spite or (or perhaps because of) our flaws just as he did.

In the same way we can examine critically the movement he was a major part of , the civil rights movement, and see where it has stayed true to the vision he espoused and also where (more often in my opinion) it has spiraled out of control and become a self-perpetuating movement that is mostly concerned with cashing in on racial animus, even if that means standing in the way of real progress toward reconciliation. A great deal of mischief has been perpetuated by those who have hijacked the civil rights movement and hiding them behind the historical caricature of King has done great harm to the cause of real civil rights and even more so it has deeply damaged the very people that King fought on behalf of.

The great men and women of history, from Martin Luther to Abraham Lincoln to Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King Jr. were all real people. We who have come after them deserve and deeply need to see them as real people with real flaws rather than historical fictional characters. An honest assessment of these people is of far more value than offering up a sanitized version that no real person could ever have hoped to achieve. So go ahead and ask hard questions of our most beloved historical figures. If they can't hold up to examination they probably aren't really worthy of adoration in the first place.

Repost: Home Cookin’

This is an oldie but (I think) a goodie. I first posted this in April of 2009 when we were just starting to rethink the institutional church machine. I recalled it this morning because of a picture someone posted on Facebook, reproduced below:

My response to the picture was: 

This is pretty accurate although if the church is functioning as it should be there is no need for a "pastor search committee" because the church would be raising up men as elders from within the body.

That got me thinking back to this post. One of the most important and unfortunately often neglected purposes of elders is to equip the church for the work of ministry, and high on that list is the identifying and training of men to be future elders. The reality of churches looking for men to be their pastor/elder from outside of the church, a very common and almost ubiquitous practice, is a sign of a total failure on the part of the church to function as the church should. Let me state that another way. One of the most common and least questioned practices of the institutional church is at the same time one of the most searing indictments of that same model. Anyway read below why home cooking always is better than prepackaged foods.

--------------

I was looking over Dave Black’s page and I read through an interesting post called Returning Biblical Education to the Local Church. He brings up something I have mulled over for some time: the inherent problem with hiring men from outside of the local body to lead that local body. That is not the primary thrust of his post but it really got me thinking afresh and asking the question: Why do we seek men who are strangers to come to our local body and lead us? Would we not be better served with men who led us because they came from us? Is a professional, prepackaged minister a better and more importantly a more Biblical man to be an elder? Dave obviously doesn’t think so and neither do I…

“Clergy” becomes a whole way of living, an ecclesiastical subculture. The church, however, predates the seminary and will outlast it. The book of Acts reminds us that the earliest church leaders were homegrown nobodies. They were not parachuted in from the outside with all of the proper credentials. They were already full participants in their congregations – they had homes, they had jobs, and they had solid reputations. If at all possible, I think we too would do well to train people for leadership in our local churches, equipping them for evangelism and other ministries, thus complementing the work of our seminaries and Bible colleges. The early church knew that leadership is best learned by on-the-job training, not by sending our most promising leaders off to sit behind a desk.

I think this phenomena of professional ministers is a product in large part of two factors. First, we are a country that by and large draws its identity from Europe and with her state sponsored churches, professional clergy is part of the fabric of the society. Second, and more importantly, we are Americans. We live in a prepackaged, processed, microwave age. Sure home cooked meals from scratch taste better and are better for you, but it is such a hassle! I can spend an hour or two cooking up a nice meal for my family (and even that requires pre-cut meat, canned veggies, boxed side dishes) or I can get some pizzas. In my family we get pizzas or something similar pretty often and in families where both spouses work it is even more common. We want it quick, easy and disposable.

The church seems to think the same way. Training and raising a man up within the local body who can grow in knowledge and maturity until he is ready to lead as an elder takes a long time and is hard work. It may not always work out, he may move, he may lack the aptitude for it, he may turn out to not be a very good elder. It is a whole lot easier and faster to find someone who already is “qualified”, i.e. has a seminary degree, who we can interview and “call” to ministry. Of course he will probably have to move and so to entice him we need to pay him. If he were already a part of the congregation, he would have a job and a home and ties to the community. He would know and be known by the local body because he is a part of that body. They would know him and his wife and his kids, and that would make it possible to know if he meets the qualifications for an elder listed in the Bible instead of meeting the resume credentials that are often the entry level for being considered to be a pastor. It makes more sense and it is more faithful to the Bible to raise leaders up internally but that just takes too long. So instead, church after church hires strangers to come in to lead and love people they have likely never met. It only adds to the separation between the clergy and the laity to have a paid professional come on the scene. Hard to believe with that great set-up that so many men leave the ministry, that churches have such high turnover in pastors and the men who stay are often frustrated and burned-out. When you view the pastor as a paid professional, someone hired and brought in from the outside, why not get rid of them? Paid, professional clergy are employees and as such they are disposable. A church can always find someone else to pay to lead them. On the flip side, when ministry is your job you can understand why men leave church A with 100 members for church B with 250 members. If you are from within the congregation and not getting paid, why would you leave? It is not a job, it is truly a calling.

Just because we live in a quick, easy and disposable society doesn’t mean that is how the church should operate. It is certainly harder, more time consuming and more sacrificial to raise up leaders in the church but I believe (and I think the Bible supports) the idea that a primary responsibility of the local body is in the training and support of men from within that body to lead that body. Seminary may be a part of that training, but it is only one part of an integrated development of leaders, not an end in and of itself. Hiring pastors like an old western gunslinger to come in and clean up the town before moving on is an injustice to the local body, to those men and their families. We need to take the time to look around the cupboards, find the ingredients and whip up some home grown elders.

A Quick Thought

If a book or essay or resource is useful for pastors, wouldn't it also be useful for the rest of the church? After all, if the elders are fulfilling their calling the church as a whole should be steadily maturing. Just a thought.

Schism Is As Schism Does

I have been watching the Episcopal Church by peeking through my fingers at the slow moving train-wreck for a number of years. By no small effort the EC-USA has been the tip of the spear when it comes to jettisoning orthodoxy for "progressive" political correctness and that has led to the demographic implosion that the Episcopal Church and other "progressive" denominations have experienced. Like a snake swallowing its own tail the progressives keep telling themselves that they need to just take one more step away from orthodoxy to bring people back but all they accomplish is ecclesiastical suicide.

Today the latest bit of bad news came down from the Anglican Communion,  the worldwide circle of churches which included the Episcopal Church. In a nutshell the Anglican Communion, which is far more vibrant and orthodox in countries outside of the U.S. and the U.K., announced a suspension of the Episcopal Church from the Communion for a period of three years. The exact wording is below:

7. It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.

That is a pretty stinging rebuke from the worldwide Anglican body but the critical point cam earlier in the statement"

2. Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation.

What needs to be crystal clear is that "conservatives" who walked away from the Episcopalian church are not the ones who are causing schism. Rather the Episcopal Church by embracing a deviant understanding of marriage, gender and human sexuality has willingly placed itself outside of the boundaries of what can legitimately be called the church. They have departed from the church, not the Anglican Church in North America or other groups and churches that have left the Episcopal church. When someone or an organization deviate from the boundaries of the Kingdom, the only proper response is to separate from them. Despite the faux unity some propose, sometimes separation is the only proper response to those who embrace sin. Those who have left have departed not from the unity of the church but have returned to the unity of the church.

The Episcopal church has responded to the statement as one would expect including the obligatory obscene eisegesis of that most oft misapplied verse, Galatians 3:28:

Before the Jan. 14 vote, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry told the primates gathering Jan. 11-15 in Canterbury, England, that the statement calling for the sanction would be painful for many in the Episcopal Church to receive.

“Many of us have committed ourselves and our church to being ‘a house of prayer for all people,’ as the Bible says, when all are truly welcome,” Curry said in remarks he later made available to Episcopal News Service.

“Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.  While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ.”

“For so many who are committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love, this decision will bring real pain,” he said. “For fellow disciples of Jesus in our church who are gay or lesbian, this will bring more pain. For many who have felt and been rejected by the church because of who they are, for many who have felt and been rejected by families and communities, our church opening itself in love was a sign of hope. And this will add pain on top of pain.”

The comment section is very instructive, including the frequent threat to withhold funds from the Anglican Communion.

The Bible is crystal clear. The same Paul that Mr. Curry so grossly misquotes is also the apostle who had the most to say about marriage, sexuality and how to deal with sin in the church. It is the undeniable witness of Scripture that one cannot simultaneously embrace and celebrate wanton sin and call oneself a disciple of Jesus.

So what? If you are reading this you likely are not Episcopalian or Anglican so why should you care? You should care because this disaster is a warning for the rest of the church, a warning that compromise with sin invariably destroys the church. The rest of the church should be constantly vigilant because what we see on display here can happen to any of us if we let loose our grip on the Bible as applicable and authoritative and clear on this and many other topics. I take no pleasure in the death throes of Episcopalianism but some of the most tragic events are the most instructive.

A Rare Show Of Spine In Higher Education

News reports came out today that indicated that Wheaton College was taking steps to fire hijab wearing professor Larycia Hawkins, the same professor who claimed in contravention of basic Christianity 101 that Muslims and Christians worship the same god. Someone that confused about Christian doctrine has no business teaching young adults who are seeking an intentionally Christian education. I attribute this show of spine largely to the outcry that followed her statements and the presence of Philip Ryken as President of Wheaton. Ryken is a solid guy Biblically, part of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, so I have to assume that he has had a positive influence on Wheaton as a whole. All you need to know about this situation is that Professor Hawkins held a news conference today and was not alone...

Hawkins spoke Wednesday surrounded by religious leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Ugh. Jesse Jackson is a hustler, swindler and extorter. From the article I linked above it appears that Professor Hawkins and Wheaton have had a number of discussions about the college's statement of faith due to some other questionable beliefs she seems to hold. It might be time for Wheaton to do some additional discernment of their faculty as a whole because knowing that someone who is this far astray has been teaching for 9 years makes me wonder what else is going on.

Anyway, if you don't know enough about Jesus Christ to know why He differentiates Christianity from every other faith system in the world you might still be a Christian but you have no business teaching other Christians.

Approaching The Piper - Guns Kerfuffle From A Different Perspective

While the initial firestorm of often strident and sometimes angry rebuttals of John Piper's post on Christians arming themselves for self-defense (see my post here) has died down, there is still conversation happening on the issue and that is a good thing. In the broader conservative evangelical world Piper and Preston Sprinkle seem to be the lone stalwarts holding what is an unpopular position re: Christian non-resistance.  Sure I am defending Piper was well but no one cares what I think.

In evangelical circles talk of practical peacemaking and non-resistance is a relatively new topic but among the Anabaptists it has been the position since the earliest days of the Radical Reformation. Unfortunately there has been little conversation on this topic between Anabaptists and evangelicals on this topic or any other for that matter (thus the impetus for writing a book on what Anabaptists and the Reformed can learn by conversation with one another, a book that seems to be no closer to getting done now than when I first announced it ). I was glad to see Dwight Gingrich interacting with Tim Challies on this topic and Dwight has since written a lengthy post on the topic of conservative Anabaptists and non-resistance titled Peacemaking: The Quiet In The Land Speak Up. As someone grounded in the Reformed tradition and with a growing affinity for Anabaptism I jotted down some not terribly brief thoughts reproduced below. You should check out Dwight's post, he raises a lot of interesting questions.

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Excellent summary of the issue. As someone more deeply anchored in the Reformed tradition I can say unequivocally that Piper is really the lone voice in the contemporary Reformed world that is even the least bit open to non-resistance. The virtual firestorm response he has gotten is pretty typical for those in the Reformed tradition and in American evangelicalism alike. Among the Reformed more broadly there are three reasons why non-resistance has gotten little traction:

1) A general hermeneutic of covenant theology which tends to blur the distinction between the Old and the New, making the Old Testament written and lived out under the Old Covenant, to be as authoritative and more spherically as applicable to the church as the New Testament. This is the source of so many of Piper's detractors turning to Old Covenant civil laws for their Scriptural sources to reject what Piper is saying.

2) A broad acceptance of Just War theory with more than a little theonomy thrown in for good measure. Given Augustine's position as the father of Christian just war theory and the very high regard most Reformed give to Augustine, his teaching on just war is given broad, and in my opinion, uncritical acceptance by most prominent Reformed teachers.

3) There is a startling absence of any voices in the Reformed tradition that hold to any sort of non-resistance or if there are they are not well known. The Reformed lean heavily on scholastic writings of the forefathers in the tradition (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Edwards,  etc.) and upon their historic confessions. When there are no contemporary or historic voices affirming a position, it is going to get little thought or attention.

Of course one overarching factor needs to be stated. In America non-resistance = pacifism and pacifism=liberalism. No good red blooded American Reformed Christian is going to stand for being called a liberal. This has led to a unilateral surrender of this issue to the religious left. That complete abdication of this topic to, for want of a better term, the liberal wings of the church. That is why I was likewise so pleased to find Preston Spinkle's book. I was familiar with Preston for his work with Francis Chan on a defense of the traditional understanding of Hell in the book Erasing Hell, so seeing him taking on this topic was encouraging. The only other book I have run across that deals as deeply with this issue is Guy Hershberger's "War, Peace and Nonresistance" but given that he is a Mennonite his writings have a very narrow audience (as proof the only review on Amazon for this book is mine).

Ironically, on almost any other topic, the same Reformed who are flogging Piper would agree with him over Jerry Falwell, Jr. and yet these same brothers have exploded with negative responses to Piper including some pretty over the top, frothing at the mouth replies from less thoughtful brethren.

You also touch on some broader themes and one of them has to do with the relative lack rigorous scholasticism in Anabaptism. Simon Fry touched on this in his recent post. I have seen some examples of "this is what we believe because this is what we believe" with no attempt or interest in engaging him contrary voices. As someone  who is an interested outside observer I can see that there is trouble coming down the road for the young adult generation in conservative Anabaptism as they tap into non-Anabaptist sources and see arguments that they have never heard before.  Lots of interesting things to ponder on this topic.

(as a side note for those unfamiliar with Tim Challies, he is a Canadian and that in part explains why he hasn't given this topic much thought because even owning a gun in Canada is a difficult task) 

2016: The Year Of The Word

Like many Christians I am starting out 2016 with the intent of reading the Bible through in a year. We have done this before with varying degrees of success. It can be a challenge especially when one risks getting bogged down in the genealogies and lists of building materials or Levitical laws. This year my wife and I are using a chronological reading plan provided by the good folks who bring us the English Standard Version. It is a change of pace from the "start at Genesis and read through Revelation" cover to cover plan while still covering the entire Bible. For example today we read Genesis 8-11 and then start with Job before returning to Genesis on the 16th. Whatever plan you use, and there are plenty of them, the important thing is to just open the Bible up. An unopened Bible on the shelf is of no benefit to anyone but an open Bible in the hands of a Christian is the voice of God thundering through the ages.

I have been unsparing in my criticism of the malaise of biblical illiteracy that infects the church and I definitely see myself as a patient in need of the medicine of Scripture just as any other Christian in this land. I definitely find myself fixated on certain passages and books because of a topic I am exploring and in doing so I am giving short shrift to wide swathes of the Bible. I think this is true of a lot of Christians. The Reformed spend lots of time in Romans and Ephesians and John, conservative Mennonites on passages about separation and holiness, charismatics on sections dealing with prophecy and manifested spiritual gifts. What is far worse than fixation on certain topics and sections of the Bible is the maddening intentional and willful Biblical ignorance that some wear like a badge of honor. 2015 was the year of "Keep your Bible, just give me Jesus!", a breathtakingly ignorant statement that nevertheless gets applause from many. We have not outgrown our need for the Scriptures. We are not so advanced and wise that we can dispense with the written revelation of Jesus Christ because what inevitably replaces the Jesus revealed in Scripture is an erroneous caricature in our own minds and in our image, making Jesus more tame and palatable for polite society. The best and perhaps only remedy to this error is to let God speak for Himself in the manner He has ordained. Biblical illiteracy among the church in America is every bit as dangerous as our comfort and affluence along with our conflation of American patriotic fervor with the Kingdom of God.

When we read through the Bible I usually read aloud while my wife follows along and there is something very different, very powerful about the Bible being vocalized rather than silently read. Reading to yourself is great as well but the Bible was meant to be spoken. It is also extremely beneficial, at least for me, to have someone else to reading the Bible with me. It encourages me on days when I don't feel like reading, which is critical to me because the times I don't feel like reading are exactly the times when I need to read God's written Word the most. If you don't have a spouse or sibling handy, get a friend to help encourage you and for you to encourage in turn.

There is nothing especially Scriptural about reading the Bible in a year. We aren't commanded to read all 66 books in 12 months. It is just a convenient time period to target the reading of the most important book we can read. John Piper says, correctly, that the Bible is the One Must-Read This Year.

The truth of God, rising continually through the roots of faith planted in God’s word, is the way God keeps Christians alive and enables them to bear the faith-authenticating fruit of love, so that they will not be castaways in the last day. This is the essence of why I say the Bible is a “must-read” — the only must read.

Yes.

It is to our shame that a people who have unprecedented access to something so many died to bring to others are often the least interested in what God has said and is saying right now. We want to "worship" him by singing emotional songs or listening to how God can help me be a better person or checking off "religion" on our weekly checklist. That is not what we need. We need Jesus and there is one authoritative and comprehensive place to find Him.

Don't be part of that crowd, the blind and deaf sheep who have gone astray because they don't hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. Hear Him. Heed Him. Follow Him. Proclaim Him. Drink deeply brothers and sisters. The well is never-ending which is proper because the thirst for truth for those born-again can never be slaked.

Lord, give us more of Jesus.

Ted Cruz Is (Sorta) Right

Gentlemen (and Ladies), Start Your Pandering!

If you can bank on anything you can bank on this: 2016 will see an unprecedented level of pandering by Republican politicians toward evangelical Christians, their most loyal and reliable lapdogs. It started early with Senator Ted Cruz calling for an "energizing" of the Body of Christ. Ted sez:

“If we awaken and energize the body of Christ– if Christians and people of faith come out and vote our values– we will win and we will turn the country around,” Cruz told volunteers on a conference call Tuesday.

Cruz also said that he is organizing a coalition of pastors in early states including Iowa and South Carolina.

“We’re working to have a lead pastor in each of the 99 counties in Iowa, 99 pastors are organizing other pastors,” Cruz said. “We’re doing the same thing in South Carolina, organizing pastors in 46 counties to motivate and organize other pastors.”Cruz warned that, as the election nears, the attacks on his campaign will become more vicious.

“I want to tell everyone to get ready, strap on the full armor of God, get ready for the attacks that are coming,” he warned. “Come the month of January we ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Unfortunately a call to energize the Body of Christ to campaign for, donate to and vote for Senator Cruz is likely to get a more positive response than a call to energize the church to reach the lost or support native missionaries in third world countries or strive for biblical literacy in the church or feeding the poor or....well for anything the church is actually supposed to be doing. Cruz and other politicians are doing what the church has failed to do for hundreds of years, namely uniting various congregations, organizations and denominations to a single cause. In fairness, sure there is a lot of the same thing going on among "progressive" churches but let's be honest, they are killing themselves off so quickly that they will be a non-factor in 2016 and probably be largely nonexistent by the time the 2020 elections roll around. You can hardly get three evangelical pastors from the same town to work together on anything but when politics are the topic you can get statewide coalitions of clergy.

Why is it that when we are facing a Hillary Clinton presidency the church will unite together but when we are talking about actual works of ministry we still see each other as competitors instead of brothers? I think the answer is mostly based on distrust of Christians that are different from us and of course money. 

Instead of manning the phones and putting up yard signs for political candidates, imagine if we harnessed that energy to encourage Christians to help support and encourage each other. Instead of calling people to offer them a ride to the polls maybe we could visit our neighbors and see how we can help them. Heck, if we could just get more Christians to actually read, study and ponder their Bibles they would recognize that putting on "the full armor of God" has absolutely nothing to do with the presidential aspirations of Ted Cruz. 

Unlikely I know but if the morning of January 1st is not a time for reckless optimism, when is?