Worth Reading - 6/10

1. If there is anything that we should remember when perusing the internet, it is that the context is so often removed. There is often a backstory that we are completely unaware of, so when we rush to comment, we are often playing the role of the fool. Here is one example, where a picture went viral on social media of a proposal at a wedding. Critics slammed the couple for "upstaging" the bride on her big day. In reality, there's a lot more to her story. It wasn't the now-affianced couple that was the problem, it is the social media shamers: 

““The sharing of the photo is a psychological reflection of the person taking the picture, not the photographed,” the psychotherapist and cultural theorist Aaron Balick wrote of online shaming earlier this year. On one hand shame is a natural human practice: We do it to enforce cultural norms and to identify ourselves as part of some superior “in group.” But there’s something new, Balick argues — something “frightening” — about the addition of social media.

“[We’ve begun] seeing other people and other things as a representation of ourselves rather than as full subjects unto themselves,” he writes. And as smartphones and social networks become more prevalent, they’ll keep allowing us “to take and distribute photographs of others and share them with friends and strangers without pausing to think that that other person has feelings, and more importantly, without even bothering to ask them for consent.””

2. At the same time, just so you don't quit social media altogether, Joe Carter has published a post at The Gospel Coalition arguing social media might be helping to reduce the number of abortions:

“The Associated Press obtained the most recent abortion numbers from the health departments of all 45 states that compile such data on a comprehensive basis. (States not compiling such data are California, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Wyoming.) Although the U.S. population has increased by 9 million, the survey found a nationwide decrease in abortions of about 12 percent since 2010.

The biggest decrease in abortion, percentage-wise, was in Hawaii, where abortions fell from 3,064 in 2010 to 2,147 in 2014. In two states, Michigan and Louisiana, abortions actually increased by significant amounts, due largely to an influx of women from more neighboring states with more restrictive laws.

Since 2011, state have enacted a total of 267 abortion restrictions. Yet in five of the six states with the biggest declines — Hawaii (30 percent), New Mexico (24 percent), Nevada (22 percent), Rhode Island (22 percent), Connecticut (21 percent) — have passed no recent laws to restrict abortion clinics or providers.”

3. Next Thursday the Pope will release a much anticipated statement on the environment. Here is Rev. Sirico discussing the potential content of the forthcoming encyclical:

Worth Reading - 6/9

1. God wrote a book. This is a moving and important video released by John Piper and Desiring God:

2. Celebrating the legacy of Hudson Taylor, 150 years after his death:

“It’s been 150 years since Taylor prayed for 24 “willing, skillful laborers” to join him in reaching the inland provinces of China, marking the start of the China Inland Mission (CIM). Known for dressing in traditional Chinese clothing “that by all means we may save some,” Taylor devoted 51 years to evangelizing China, and CIM sent 800 missionaries into the country before the Communist takeover forced them out.

Rather than returning home, CIM workers moved their headquarters to Singapore and refocused their energies to other nearby countries—Mongolia, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Today Taylor’s legacy is felt in all corners of Asia. In Taiwan, some of the older generation who immigrated from mainland China credit Taylor and CIM—its name later changed to Overseas Missionary Fellowship International (OMF)—for leading them to Christ. Taylor’s descendants (James Hudson Taylor II and III) started two of the major seminaries on the island, training many of the pastors leading Taiwan churches today. Local ministries follow practices modeled by OMF, such as faith missions, or trusting God for financial provision rather than soliciting donations. So without Taylor, it’s possible many of those students wouldn’t be attending the mission conference at all.

Yet things have shifted greatly in the last century and a half: While Taylor helped the West see China as an untapped mission field, the church in Asia has emerged as its own powerful mission-sending organization.”

3. This is an article from the Onion on the prevalence of Youthful Tendency Disorder, which is afflicting millions of children in our nation:

““As horrible as the diagnosis was, it was a relief to finally know,” said Beverly. “At least we knew we weren’t bad parents. We simply had a child who was born with a medical disorder.”

Youthful Tendency Disorder (YTD), a poorly understood neurological condition that afflicts an estimated 20 million U.S. children, is characterized by a variety of senseless, unproductive physical and mental exercises, often lasting hours at a time. In the thrall of YTD, sufferers run, jump, climb, twirl, shout, dance, do cartwheels, and enter unreal, unexplainable states of “make-believe.”

”The Youthful child has a kind of love/hate relationship with reality,” said Johns Hopkins University YTD expert Dr. Avi Gwertzman. “Unfit to join the adult world, they struggle to learn its mores and rules in a process that can take the entirety of their childhood. In the meantime, their emotional and perceptive problems cause them to act out in unpredictable and extremely juvenile ways. It’s as though they can only take so much reality; they have to ‘check out,’ to go Youthful for a while.””

Worth Reading - 6/5

1. One man deals with his complex feelings at the death of the step-mother that abused him during his childhood:

“I thought I might dance a little jig or even feel a sense of release and elation at news I longed dreamed about and ached for as a kid. This is a woman who drove me to such despair that I attempted to set her on fire in her (drunken) sleep when I was no more than 10 years old. But there is no jig. There is just a heaviness of heart and the nagging itch of my suffering and her evil never admitted in this life. The problem is I want to feel joy at her passing. I want to rejoice in the belief that she will face the Judge of all the earth for her crimes against me. I want to revel in the thought that she is having her own spiritual Nuremburg moment right now. That Father Time has caught up with her and her sins are about to be found out and brought into that terrible, perfect light. That the angels in glory will see just what a monster she truly was.

But I don’t feel the joy that I want to. I just feel sad. Sad for a woman who wasted her life in bitter anger and expressed it through the mental and physical torture of children. Sad for the trail of devastation she left behind. Sad for the family members she hurt and betrayed. Sad that, despite these things, people will mourn her passing. There will be tears at her funeral. There will be stories of her good side or of things well done and said. Things I never experienced. Things I can scarcely believe are true.”

2. Recent data from LifeWay Research suggests that leaving Baptist in your church's name does not turn away potential visitors, contrary to popular:

“Last year, the National Association of Evangelicals asked its members if they included denominational affiliation in the name of their church. Well over half—63 percent—said they did not.

It’s a tricky line to walk. Naming your denomination may come across as more “rigid” or “old-fashioned,” but leaving the name out can appear sneaky or unstable, according to a 2013 Grey Matter Research study.

Either way, a church’s name isn’t going to drastically change the way the public perceives it, according to a new study from the Nashville-based LifeWay Research.

Among LifeWay’s findings: About half of Americans view denominational names favorably, while the other half feel either negatively or indifferently.
“It would depend on who you’re trying to reach,” said Scott McConnell, vice-president of LifeWay Research. “But some denominational groups have as much ‘brand equity’ as non-denominational churches, which have been growing the fastest.””

3. Some nations are making it illegal for stores to dispose of unsold food. Here is an article from the Atlantic discussing the merits of such a policy.

“In 2010, U.S. supermarkets and grocery stores threw out 43 billion pounds, or $46.7 billion worth, of food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But if Arash Derambarsh had his way, that number would be zero. His goals are ambitious, but then again the municipal councilor from Courbevoie, France did manage to get a law passed in France last week that would accomplish just that.

The law bans supermarkets in France from discarding or destroying unsold food. According to Salon’s Lindsay Abrams, the law mandates that all unsold but edible food should be donated to charities for immediate distribution to the poor. Food that is unsafe to eat is to be donated to farms for agricultural purposes. Supermarkets that exceed a certain square footage are required to sign contacts with charities by July 2016; penalties for failing to do so include fines of up to roughly $81,600 or two years in prison. The legislation is one of the world’s first attempts to address the twin problems of food waste and hunger in this manner.”

Worth Reading - 6/4

1. A post on Vox (yeah, I know) by a liberal college professor about his fear of being fired over irrational complaints from . . . liberal students. There's plenty of bias in the article, but a good reality check, too:

“The press for actionability, or even for comprehensive analyses that go beyond personal testimony, is hereby considered redundant, since all we need to do to fix the world’s problems is adjust the feelings attached to them and open up the floor for various identity groups to have their say. All the old, enlightened means of discussion and analysis —from due process to scientific method — are dismissed as being blind to emotional concerns and therefore unfairly skewed toward the interest of straight white males. All that matters is that people are allowed to speak, that their narratives are accepted without question, and that the bad feelings go away.

So it’s not just that students refuse to countenance uncomfortable ideas — they refuse to engage them, period. Engagement is considered unnecessary, as the immediate, emotional reactions of students contain all the analysis and judgment that sensitive issues demand. As Judith Shulevitz wrote in the New York Times, these refusals can shut down discussion in genuinely contentious areas, such as when Oxford canceled an abortion debate. More often, they affect surprisingly minor matters, as when Hamsphire College disinvited an Afrobeat band because their lineup had too many white people in it.”

2. A good post by Marty Duren on why being insulting or resisting the desired name of Caitlyn Jenner really doesn't help the gospel:

“I have not a scintilla of personal identification with a man or woman who so strongly feels they are actually members of the opposite sex that they will undergo a surgical process to become the opposite sex. I don’t know the kind of emptiness a person who believes himself or herself to be the opposite sex must feel.

Is is physical? Emotional? Psychological? Spiritual? A combination, all of the above, or something not mentioned?

I do not know all the answers.

What I do know is insulting transgendered people by mocking them does not gain us a hearing for the gospel. Mockery is not a characteristic of Jesus.”

3. Why don't we share the gospel more? Often because we talk about what we love most:

“My grandmother died absolutely convinced that God would accept her because she was a good person. She had no faith in Christ. And here’s what I regret. In the week before my grandmother died, I did not speak to her about Jesus. I tried to love her well, but didn’t say anything to her about Jesus. When my other grandmother had died, I’d taken her hand and prayed with her. But not that grandmother. I just let her go.

Why didn’t I tell her about Jesus? I’ve come to realise that I was afraid of what she’d say, and I was afraid of what my family would say, because I knew they’d think it was inappropriate and unhelpful. I was afraid.

I loved my grandmother, and she loved me, but the hard truth is that I loved myself more than her. I wanted my family to think well of me more than I wanted her to think of Christ as her Savior. That’s why I didn’t speak to her. I loved myself more than I loved her — and more than I loved my Lord.”

4. On the necessity of dead work:

“There is no honest vocation that cannot be made to some extent a fine art. That is, in every honest vocation, each day, growth is possible, if the work is loyally done; and that, we have seen, is the meaning of art. Indeed, the one supreme fine art is the art of living, and the particular vocation gets its meaning as a phase of that highest art.

In most vocations, it is true, there is so much dull routine work that we can discover little growth in the action of the single day. To go to the shop and sell a spool of thread and a paper of pins, to make the physician’s daily round, prescribing for those who are ill and the larger number who think they are, to work over the lawyer’s brief for some petty quarrel, to write sermons for congregations that will not listen and that demand the sermon shorter every week—it all seems such a blind mill-wheel grind that one sees little progress in the day……

It is, nevertheless, just such work, done cheerfully and loyally, to a high purpose, through the succession of days, that builds into the human spirit the noblest elements of culture. What then do we mean by “culture”— some esoteric knowledge or remote adornment of life? Surely not. Its foundation elements are: loyalty to the task in hand, the trained will that does not yield to obstacles, cheerful courage in meeting the exigencies that come, serenity maintained amid the petty distractions of life, holding the vision of the ideal across the sand wastes and through the valley of the shadows: these are the basic elements of culture, and they are built into the spirit of a man or a woman by the loyal doing of dead work through the succession of days….”

Worth Reading - 6/3

1. Why it's a shame that doing something legal can be illegal:

“It isn’t illegal to withdraw money from the bank, nor to compensate someone in recognition of past harms, nor to be the victim of a blackmail scheme. So why should it be a crime to hide those actions from the U.S. government? The alarming aspect of this case is the fact that an American is ultimately being prosecuted for the crime of evading federal government surveillance.

That has implications for all of us.

By way of background, financial institutions are required to report all transactions of $10,000 or more to the federal government. This is meant to make it harder to commit racketeering, tax fraud, drug crimes, and other serious offenses. Hastert began paying off the person he allegedly wronged years before by withdrawing large amounts of cash. But once he realized that this was generating activity reports, he allegedly started making more withdrawals, each one less than $10,000, to avoid drawing attention to the fact that he was paying someone for his silence.

Again, the payments weren’t illegal. But as it turns out, structuring financial transactions “to evade currency transaction reporting requirements” is a violation of federal law.”

2. A Title IX inquisition. When a liberal feminist is tried by a kangaroo court for arguing for sanity and responsibility:

“I wrote back to the Title IX coordinator asking for clarification: When would I learn the specifics of these complaints, which, I pointed out, appeared to violate my academic freedom? And what about my rights — was I entitled to a lawyer? I received a polite response with a link to another website. No, I could not have an attorney present during the investigation, unless I’d been charged with sexual violence. I was, however, allowed to have a “support person” from the university community there, though that person couldn’t speak. I wouldn’t be informed about the substance of the complaints until I met with the investigators.

Apparently the idea was that they’d tell me the charges, and then, while I was collecting my wits, interrogate me about them. The term “kangaroo court” came to mind. I wrote to ask for the charges in writing. The coordinator wrote back thanking me for my thoughtful questions.

What I very much wanted to know, though there was apparently no way of finding it out, was whether this was the first instance of Title IX charges filed over a publication. Was this a test case? From my vantage point, it seemed to pit a federally mandated program against my constitutional rights, though I admit my understanding of those rights was vague.”

3. Carl Trueman critiques the unwritten assumptions expressed in a recent article at the Washington Post. His critique of the subtle misrepresentations and sleight of hand represented by the author are telling:

“An article in the Washington Post last week (“How to break free from monogamy without destroying marriage”) described the dynamics of an open marriage and the various “apps” now available for facilitating extramarital relations. The amorality might have been shocking twenty years ago but today such well-traveled territory likely provokes little more than a yawn. Yet the article is still instructive for what the author’s analysis (or lack thereof) tells us about contemporary culture. Indeed, it is a classic example of what happens when your side in the debate is utterly dominant: You become lazy and put forward obvious stupidity as if it were compelling argumentation.”

4. Here is the article to which Trueman was responding, which asserts monogamy is a recent invention that can be casually done away with:

““If you look at marriage, it developed as a survival strategy and a means of raising kids,” Wade said. “But relationships are no longer a necessary component of life. People have careers and other interests — they can survive without them.”

That’s not wrong, says Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist and one of the world’s leading relationship researchers. In the caveman days, humans teamed up in non-exclusive pairs to protect their children. Later, as people learned to plant crops and settle in one place, marriage became a way for men to guarantee kids, and for women — who couldn’t push heavy plows or carry loads of crops to market — to eat and keep a roof over their heads.

There’s a long history of married men sleeping around, Fisher said. And the romantic notion that relationships are anything but transactions is relatively recent — as is the social expectation that both people partner for life, to the exclusion of everyone else.”

Worth Reading - 6/1

1. On the social injustice of predatory lending:

“The reasons that someone who is poor might need fast cash and not be able to get it are often not the result of personal sin or outsized wants. Unexpected troubles of all kinds beset everyone, but the effects are more detrimental for the poor than the rich or even the middle class. The reality that need and resources are not always co-located is made manifest especially for the poor, even with strong networks of relationships. Friends and family may be immensely willing to help, but what if they don’t have the financial capital to do so? Banks don’t tend to extend small loans. Options to get financial help quickly are limited when you’re poor.

The payday lender trade association, Financial Service Centers of America (FiSCA), explains how they exist to solve this problem by describing payday loans as “small, short-term cash advances, which are a popular source of credit for Americans.”

Popular is an understatement. The Center for Responsible Lending notes that for every Starbucks in the United States, there are more than two payday lending storefronts.

FiSCA states that their members offer products to “bridge the need for small dollar, short-term credit when other options are limited, too expensive or unavailable.” And FiSCA describes their customers as those “who often are living paycheck to paycheck.”

One might argue that the free market exists to offer ready alternatives for moments like this. But that’s less than half of what should be said. Christian philosophers and economists have long argued that free markets are to be just markets. Within just markets, businesses rightly uphold their responsibilities as they seek to satisfy legitimate human needs and contribute to human flourishing as they profit. When rightly ordered, businesses operating in free markets impose limits on their own practices and operations such that their relationship to the rest of society’s institutions and to human beings reflects the end of satisfaction, rather than the more familiar word maximization regarding the making of profit. Rightly ordered businesses choose practices that reject profiting from the exploitation of human beings.

Despite their altruistic talking points, predatory payday lenders fail to meet these criteria.”

2. What missionaries aren't telling us because they feel like they can't:

“Missions is brewed in a pot of extremely high expectations. Missionaries undergo a brutal screening process by their organization. Church missions committees pepper them with interview questions on strategy and effectiveness. If you want to be chosen, that’s what you’ve got to prove.

Then, once missionaries are approved, signed, sealed, commissioned, and their picture spread all over foyer walls and refrigerators across the country, they are thrust out into the world to show off their strategy and effectiveness. After all, they’ve got scores of donors behind them who want to see the return on their investment.

I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what it feels like.

So when the strategy doesn’t work (since it usually doesn’t the first time around), and there is very little effectiveness to be seen, what then? What do they tell people? When a missionary spends three months planning an event, and only three people show up, should he be upfront about it? When the church doesn’t get planted, or when the planted church falls apart, or when the exciting new believer has been stealing from you....what then?”

3. Some timeless cautions from an old Christian book on work and vocation:

“I have so much and give thanks so little. God has blessed me tremendously in all areas of life, and I return thanks to him so sparsely and so half-heartedly. This is my conclusion as I continue reading through John Flavel’s classic work The Mystery of Providence. In chapter 4 Flavel instructs the reader to acknowledge the hand of God in and behind our daily work. Along the way he offers every Christian 4 cautions related to vocation:”

4. We want to be family friendly, but Joe Carter explains why many "family friendly" provisions for employers end up not being so friendly to families:

“Three of the most basic principles of economics are that people are price-sensitive, risk-averse, and that they respond to incentives.

If you raise the price of a good or service people will, in general, tend to buy less (price-sensitive). If you give a person a choice between a certain outcome (“I’ll pay you $50 for nothing”) or a higher payoff on an uncertain outcome (“I’ll pay you $100 or nothing based on a coin-flip”), they’ll generally take the less risky option (risk-averse). And if you give people a way to get a lower price without any risk, they’ll generally prefer that option (response to incentives).

Each of these principles seems intuitive, even obvious. Yet for some reason when you combine them to create a public policy people are shocked to find it can have “unintended consequences.”

Worth Reading - 5/29

1. How one man escaped from North Korea and how the Chinese church helped:

“At age 15, I faced a choice: I could either starve like my father, or flee the country and hope to secure a better life outside its fortified borders. Between the certainty of death and the chance of survival, I chose survival.

I had heard that most North Koreans tried to cross the border into China during the night, so I planned my escape for midday in February 2006. I slipped down the banks of the Tumen River, coated my shoes in sandy silt for traction, and raced across the river’s icy surface to the far shore. It was a miracle that I made it.

I fled full of hope. I was sure I would have no difficulty finding food. I imagined Chinese families handing me their leftovers, as a bowl of rice was nothing for them. But once in China, reality hit. Almost no one wanted to share with me. They were irritated simply by my request for leftovers. I was so confused. This was not what I believed people were like.

For a few weeks, I was barely able to beg enough to survive. Then an elderly Chinese Korean woman approached me. “I am so sorry—there is nothing I can offer,” she said. “But you should go to a church.” She told me to look for a building with a cross”

2. Robert Woodberry is using social science to show how Protestant missionaries made the world a better place:

“Woodberry notes that, contrary to some portrayals, importing the Protestant missionary enterprise is distinct from imperialism.

In fact, in many cases European governments or corporate interests limited the areas in which missionaries could live. In some cases, as in the life of David Livingstone on the African continent, there was open discord between traders and missionaries.

Some of the limitations placed on missionaries actually help Woodberry prove his case. In some instances, missionaries were given a latitude or longitude they could not go beyond. These artificial boundaries often divided tribes arbitrarily. They also create an excellent experimental control to show the positive impact of Protestant missions.

As Woodberry remarks, by looking at a variety of conditions within a few miles of either side of one of the arbitrary limits, he is able to show that there are consistent, statistically significant differences between the wellbeing of populations on either side of the line.

The recurring pattern shows long term positive effects of missionaries spreading the gospel.”

3. Robert Woodberry's lecture at SEBTS:

4. Danny Akin has contributed a video to the website "Openly Secular" to engage in dialogue and promote freedom of thought and cobelligerence on some social issues. This is an interesting approach to engaging the culture and a positive move on his part:

“So why, at a time when believers and non-believers are often not on speaking terms, would Akin agree to do such a video?

Because, he says on camera, the two sides do agree on some things. Namely, that “no one should be coerced when it comes to their particular religious beliefs, whether they are religious or not religious,” Akin says. “They should have the freedom to express what they believe and they should be able to do so without hatred, without discrimination.”

The seminary president goes on to say that Christians and those with no religious affiliation can also work together – “with mutual love, with mutual respect and understanding” – to help the poor and care for the planet.

What is not in the video: Any attempt by Akin to proselytize, or convert his listeners to Christianity.

Akin agreed to make the video at the request of Todd Stiefel, the Raleigh-based chair of Openly Secular, a campaign launched by a coalition of more than 20 secular groups.

The campaign, Stiefel told the Observer, hopes to trumpet love, acceptance and reason.”

Worth Reading - 5/28

1. Now that the semester is over, it is time to write, right? That's what everyone says! Here are some tips for making real progress this summer:

“If you’re an academic, you’ve probably set some ambitious summer writing goals for yourself. For months, you’ve fantasized about diving into projects you didn’t have time for during the academic year. Now that grades are in and the break is here, you’ll be free to write at last (and maybe even to relax a bit, too). Of course, come August, you may find yourself wondering where the summer went and why your projects have gone nowhere.

For years I clung to the delusion that if it weren’t for the demands of the school year I’d have ample time to write. So I’d postpone projects until June, and then feel overwhelmed by everything I had to do in the space of a few months and frustrated and guilty when I failed to complete it all by September (not to mention exhausted from trying to do it all at once).

My problem was that I thought I had more time than I really had, so I didn’t develop a realistic schedule or plan. What I now know is that it’s possible to have time for writing and for rest in the summer, but that neither rest nor writing materialize magically.”

2. Is vice more interesting than virtue? Why does the classic story of Cinderella have a lasting appeal?

“Since at least the age of Milton, whose Satan in Paradise Lost allegedly outmatches the other characters in depth and dynamism, artistic depictions of evil have often been associated with power and interest. So it’s not surprising that many critics approached director Kenneth Branagh’s rococo new version of Disney’s Cinderella on the stepmother’s side. “Bad always sizzles more than good,” Manohla Dargis proclaimed in the New York Times. Other critics noted with genuine puzzlement that the title character manages to be compelling in spite of her moral goodness. Where is the dramatic appeal, they wondered, in a conventionally virtuous character?

Branagh’s film offers a surprising answer. In this version of the fairy tale, Cinderella, or Ella, played by Lily James, handles her signature suffering and abuse by maintaining not a dream of marrying a prince but a more abstract belief in selflessness and kindness. Her inner strength is such that when a wise alteration to the familiar storyline makes it so that her coming forward to claim the glass slipper would endanger the prince, she peacefully accepts the loss. Some critics have attributed this decision to waifish silliness, a lack of constancy or resources. And through the lens of a culture that increasingly enshrines sensual self-expression through romantic love as its primary virtue, of course Ella’s decision to sacrifice her love interest looks tragic and absurd. Her behavior becomes, for every viewer who was expecting something different—that familiar narrative about the triumph of romance, for example—interesting to watch.”

3. Some Canadian "Christians" are up in arms because their denomination is investigating a clergywoman for . . . denying the existence of God. I'm not sure why a supposed Christian denying God is defensible, but the article is worth reading.

“A committee of the democratic United Church of Canada has unanimously voted for a “review of the effectiveness of Rev. Gretta Vosper,” the Toronto clergyperson and author who proudly promotes herself as an atheist and publicly denounces all forms of religion.

The move happened quietly this month, when two United Church adherents from the Toronto conference, Ann Harbridge and Linda Parsons, made a motion to interview Vosper “with a focus on continuing affirmation of the questions asked of all candidates at the time of ordination” into the United Church of Canada.

I’ve already had a member of the United Church of Canada email me and say the review of Vosper reminds her of the “Inquisition.”

That would be the “Inquisition” of the 15th-century Roman Catholic Church in Spain, which has become notorious for the way it tortured, burned and otherwise murdered at least 5,000 people for perceived unorthodoxy. It doesn’t seem to be very accurate language to use in the more mundane Vosper case.

But it is the kind of exaggerated language that I’m sure is feared by members of the super-tolerant liberal United Church of Canada. I suspect they’ve been worried any attempt to review Vosper’s high-profile atheistic declarations would be seen as close-minded authoritarianism, with Vosper’s supporters portraying her as a “victim” and even a “martyr.”

So far the review of Vosper, who has often been in Vancouver on book tours, has not received any media attention outside the United Church of Canada. But we’ll see what happens when it does.”

4. Are video games bad for kids? Here's a balanced perspective:

“Video games might well make your son ignorant and corrupt, but they won’t make him stupid — although I trust this might require further explanation. I have recently received some requests from parents about how to govern or regulate their sons’ taste for video games, and so here goes. But before rushing to the question of how to govern or regulate, we should begin with the question of how to think about them.Video Games

Concerns about the influence of video games usually reduces to two categories — morals and education. If someone asks if all this gaming is “good for” my little Johnny, these are usually the two categories they would have in mind.

The question about morals can’t really be answered unless we are talking about specific games. It is like asking whether your son will be negatively affected by “books” or by “movies.” What books? What movies? Grand Theft Auto is a cesspool of corruption, and the video game of Pilgrim’s Progress isn’t.”

Worth Reading - 5/27

1. When God mercifully interrupts our plans, from Desiring God: 

“You know the Tower of Babel story. The ancient people living on the plain of Shinar said,

Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:4)
The Mesopotamians’ had one aim: to make a name for themselves. God is not present in their aim. They are aiming at their own greatness.

And in these ancient Babel-onians we can see a picture of ourselves. Like them, we are sinners too often full of pride and selfish ambition, giving way too much thought about what others think about us and what our legacy will be. Like them, we too often have a ridiculous, exaggerated desire for our own glory and can put great effort into marshaling our resources and systems to achieve it.”

2. The religion of silicon valley and its impact on the economy:

“Few things embody the religion of Silicon Valley better than the idea of The Singularity. In 2045, according to futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, the exponential increase in technological innovation will reach a point where humans transcend biology and merge with technology, becoming functionally immortal as spiritual machines, no longer dependent on our embodied condition. In short, technology will provide the answer to the fundamental human anxiety, mortality, and will lead us towards the most basic aspiration of traditional metaphysics and religion, union with divinity. When describing the Singularity University, co-founded by Kurzweil, and its ideas, Lanier says: “these are ideas with tremendous currency in Silicon Valley; these are guiding principles, not just amusements, for many of the most influential technologists … All thoughts about consciousness, souls, and the like are bound up equally in faith, which suggests something remarkable: What we are seeing is a new religion, expressed through an engineering culture.” The title of David Silva’s documentary on The Singularity sums up the religiosity at its core: “Turning into Gods.””

3. Here is a vision for social renewal apart from the culture wars:

“It’s easy to point to the culture wars and see them as a proxy for living out our faith. There are real dangers to a nation when the powers-that-be succumb and embrace societal sin. But fighting these battles, while important, is not enough to spread the gospel. The church, having turned in to itself in so many places, no longer provides the moral yardstick by which people measure cultural norms. While we must continue to stand for truth and religious freedom, it is not enough to get us back to a path of societal renewal. We must also return to the basics of personal holiness and care for the physically, morally, and spiritually destitute.

When the tyranny and paganism of Rome was at its height, James assigned in his epistle a surprisingly simple role to the church. He wrote that a “religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). In applying his words to today, we can and should continue our fight for truth in the public square, but only as long as we continue to live in holiness and demonstrate that Jesus lives within us by caring for those who are suffering, doing so with both love and in truth.”

4. Christian Ethics, Evangelicalsim, and Functional Marcionism:

“All we need, apparently, is the red letters. The Old Testament God is angry and vengeful and not very Christian, but New Testament God is great. Old Testament God is just God in his teen years when he was ready to fight if you looked at him the wrong way. But New Testament God has grown up. He doesn’t lose his temper over little things any more. He’s chill now. He listens to NPR and loves Portlandia and is kinda embarrassed by all that wrath and judgment stuff in the Old Testament. So don’t worry about that 2/3 of the Bible. Just read about Jesus and you have everything you need to understand Christian ethics.

Of course, to any student of church history this thinking should sound familiar. All of these arguments trade in a form of Marcionism, the ancient Christian heresy attributed to Marcion, a second century Christian who rejected the Old Testament.

What particularly frustrates about this approach to arguing about capital punishment–or any other ethical issue where an Old Testament text is often mentioned–is that it needlessly gives away so much. The argument ultimately turns on a basic reductio–you appeal to this Old Testament text to support your argument, be it something concerning capital punishment, same-sex marriage, or something else entirely–and I whip out an obscure OT law that appears to us today to be obviously absurd, thereby destroying your argument.”

Worth Reading - 5/26

1. John Frame on studying theology as a servant of Jesus:

“Seminary is, in many ways, a very positive experience. Your thinking will be stimulated beyond what you ever imagined. I’ve never known a graduate of any seminary whose thinking was not greatly influenced by his seminary work. You’ll make some terrific friends, meet a number of people to whom you’ll turn all through your life for counsel. You’ll experience some formative times of worship, discussion, fellowship, and play.

Still, there are a lot of perils in the road toward ministry. Some students expect, at least subconsciously, that theological study is like a summer camp “mountaintop experience,” in which everything seems to motivate you almost effortlessly toward spiritual growth. Students with that romantic notion tend to be gravely disappointed, for they discover that theological study can be a major spiritual trial. Much about seminary can be a great blessing, but make no mistake: Satan is particularly interested in attacking those who are studying God’s Word intensely. And in addition to financial difficulties, intellectual problems, and juggling responsibilities of family, study, church and job, there is the problem of the sin within your own heart.”

2. The end of casual Christianity. Another reasoned take on the Pew Research data:

“In spite of what you may have read or heard, the recent Pew Research Center report “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” was better news for Christians than this. “Is Christianity in America Doomed?” asked one headline, about a faith with which 71 percent of Americans still identify.

Most of the actual decline in believers from 2007 to 2014 was concentrated among Roman Catholics and the Protestant mainline, and among those most loosely tethered to religious faith. Evangelical Christians held pretty steady, which set up an odd chain of reactions. Secularists were pleased about the decline of Christianity. Some conservative Christians were pleased about the decline of theological liberalism. The latter is evidence of an old grudge.”

3. Kathy Keller on being kept safe through death:

““Write what you know” is an ancient maxim. For the last 11 months I’ve known anxiety, fear, emergency plane rides, surgery, more surgery, emergency surgery, more emergency surgery, infection, infections that occurred while on antibiotics from the previous infection, non-healing surgical wounds, more surgery, and, not least in my litany of self-pity, twice-daily dressing changes for wounds that will not go away.

In all of this, God has been at work, encouraging me to “run with perseverance the race set before me” (Heb. 12:1). If I can glorify him before so great a cloud of witnesses (mostly unseen), then I feel privileged to be given that assignment. But I have also longed for it to end, as well. Never before have I so fully understood the passion behind the twin prayers “Let this cup pass from me” and “Thy will be done.””

4. Another sexual abuse scandal related to a conservative Christian. Is repentance enough? Russell Moore explains why unlike simple fornication, sexual abuse is not a matter of simple repentance and forgiveness. It falls into the realm of the State:

“The first step is to recognize that sexual abuse is not merely sexual immorality. Sexual immorality, any sexual contact outside the bounds of covenantal marriage, is sin and comes under the just condemnation of God’s law. Immorality is a matter of a sin against God and, usually, sin against others—a spouse, the other party, and so forth. Immorality, by itself, is dealt with in terms of a call to repentance and the sort of discipleship it takes to overcome sinful patterns by the power of the Spirit and, where possible, to restore broken relationships.

Sexual abuse is immoral, but it is far more than just sexual. Sexual abuse is an act of violence, in which one leverages power to sexually violate the helpless. The resulting aftermath is not just a guilty conscience awaiting judgment on the part of the perpetrator, but a victim who has been assaulted. Sexual abuse is not just a sin but also a crime, not just a matter of personal unrighteousness on the part of the perpetrator but also a matter of public injustice.

This means that sexual abuse in the context of the church must be handled in terms of both authorities responsible—both the church and the state. The state has been given the sword of justice to wield against those who commit crimes (Rom. 13:1-7). The church has no such sword (Matt. 26:51-53). This means that the immediate response to allegations of sexual abuse is to call the civil authorities, to render unto Caesar the responsibility that belongs to Caesar to investigate the crime. The church may or may not know the truth of the allegations, but it is the God-ordained prerogative of the civil authorities to discover such matters and to prosecute accordingly. When faced with a question of potential sexual abuse, call the authorities without delay.”

Worth Reading - 5/25

1. What happened following the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan? This is a multi-part, long post, but it is an interesting history.

“At the center of a diamond formation of Secret Service agents, Ronald Reagan stepped from the secure VIP exit of the Washington Hilton and onto the damp sidewalk. When a small crowd yelled greetings from across T Street, his movie-star smile instinctively materialized.
The new president crossed the pavement to a Lincoln parade car and heard the familiar voice of ABC White House correspondent Sam Donaldson rise above the din: “What’s the latest on Poland, Mr. President?”

It was 2:27 p.m. on March 30, 1981, and the Soviet Union was poised to invade Poland to suppress a labor uprising.

Reagan merely turned toward the press line and waved.

Next to Donaldson, a 25-year-old man in a trench coat flexed his knees and raised his hands in a marksman’s stance. With a revolver he had purchased at a Dallas pawnshop, John W. Hinckley Jr. fired six shots.

It was the 70th day of the Reagan presidency.

Accounts of the afternoon tend to be dominated by the sensational storyline of Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s declaration that “I’m in control here.” But Vice President George H.W. Bush’s pitch-perfect reaction to the crisis lies largely unexplored in the shadow of history. He had only recently been Reagan’s energetic opponent, a fact that was fresh in the memories of Reagan loyalists. The steady hand he showed after the assassination attempt would linger in the minds of his admirers as one of the defining moments of his public career.”

2. This post is years old, but it presents a thoughtful discussion on homeschooling, particularly the accusation (which surfaces periodically) that homeschool parents are being selfish by not using the government funded institutions to educate their children:

“By withdrawing from the larger culture, homeschoolers aid and abet the culture’s failings—or so, at least, the charge goes. Christians have a responsibility to be not “of the world,” but, we are told, they also have a responsibility to be “in the world.” And therefore it’s our duty to send our children to public school. After all, Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and how can we possibly be those things if we stay at home all day?

According to this logic, we are called not only to witness, via our children, to a diverse population of people but also somehow to salvage public education itself, as if this would right everything that’s out of whack in our society. To decline to do so is, in this view, both personally selfish and culturally destructive.

Though at this stage in my life I have a hard time understanding why I should feel a greater sense of responsibility to a government institution than I do to my children, I must confess that it has not always been so. Our oldest daughter spent four years in an English working-class neighborhood school, where she was conspicuous not only for being American but also for having parents who were actually married to each other and actually both the parents of all children in our home. Aside from the Bangladeshi Muslims who comprised roughly a third of the school population, ours was the only family with any discernable religious orientation whatsoever.”

3. People often blame capitalism, or the free market system, for income inequality. This author explores the possible link between the breakdown of marriage in society and income inequality:

“A consequence of this marked decline in traditional family households is that household wages significantly understate job market gains. For instance, when a couple who each earns $50,000 per year gets separated or divorced, their incomes often remain the same, but their average household income drops from $100,000 to $50,000. In cases where only one spouse earns income, his or her earning power may decline due to the added responsibilities of single parenthood, and this single income may be split among two households due to alimony payments.

The effects of these family dynamics are evident in the Gini index, which is widely recognized by monetary institutions, economics textbooks and academic journals as the most common measure of income inequality. Since 1967, which is as far back as the Census Bureau provides this data, the Gini index for households has consistently risen, prompting the Huffington Post (and others) to report that income inequality is at a “record high.” That claim, however, is deceptive, because the Gini index for persons has been generally level throughout this period (hat tip: Political Calculations and Ivan O. Kitov)”

4. One of the oldest manuscripts of the Ten Commandments will be displayed. This is an article of general interest:

“One of the earliest known copies of the Ten Commandments was written in soot on a strip of goatskin found among the trove of biblical material known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, widely considered to be one of the great archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Penned on parchment by an unknown scribe more than 2,000 years ago, the scroll fragment is one of humanity’s most precious documents — and so fragile that its custodians rarely permit it to be moved from the secure vault where it rests in complete darkness.

But for 14 days over the next seven months, the Ten Commandments scroll, known to scholars as 4Q41, will make a rare public appearance at the Israel Museum as part of a new exhibit called “A Brief History of Humankind,” a show based on the international best-selling book by Israeli polymath Yuval Noah Harari.”

Worth Reading - 5/22

1. Timothy George discusses a thicker "mere" Christianity:

“The term “mere Christianity,” of course, was made famous by C. S. Lewis, whose book of that title is among the most influential religious volumes of the past one hundred years. Since 2001, more than 3.5 million copies of Mere Christianity have been sold in English alone, with many more translated into most of the world’s languages, including Chinese. We think of C. S. Lewis as an apologist, but he was also an evangelist. Many skeptics and unbelievers have come to faith in Jesus Christ by reading C. S. Lewis. One of these was the late Charles W. Colson. “I opened Mere Christianity,” Colson said, “and found myself face-to-face with an intellect so disciplined, so lucid, so relentlessly logical that I was glad I never had to face him in a court of law. . . . As I read, I could feel a flush coming to my face and a curious burning sensation. . . . Lewis’s words seemed to pound straight at me.”

Yet, despite such persuasiveness, Lewis and his “mere Christianity” have been criticized across the spectrum. Some conservative evangelicals have found Lewis wobbly on certain doctrines (like biblical inerrancy)—not to mention that he smoked a pipe and imbibed a few pints at his favorite pub. For their part, some Catholics have lamented the fact that, despite his Anglo-Catholic proclivities, Lewis preferred to sail on the Thames rather than the Tiber. What is needed, these critics say, is “more” not “mere” Christianity. What did Lewis mean by “mere” Christianity, and is it still a useful term today?”

2. On Hudson Taylor, a pioneer missionary to China, who did God's work God's way:

“Hudson Taylor is best known as a 19th-century pioneering missionary to inland China. He became a Christian at 17 after reading an evangelism tract. On September 19, 1853, Taylor left England for China. After an arduous ocean voyage of nearly six months, Taylor arrived in China for the first time on March 1, 1854, at the age of 22.

The missions society founded by Taylor was ultimately responsible for bringing more than 800 missionaries to China. They began 125 schools, directly resulted in some 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 national helpers in all 18 provinces of China. If Hudson Taylor were evaluated by his life, mission work, and legacy, he would easily be declared a success. Yet Taylor’s unflappable and absolute reliance on God marks him as one of the great figures in Christian history.”

3. A post on Viking mythology from the Art of Manliness:

“Tyr is a fairly recognizable name among Scandinavian people and Norse enthusiasts, but doesn’t have much mainstream recognition. This is likely due to the fact that he hasn’t starred in a Marvel movie (yet), and that there’s really only one prevailing myth about him (which we’ll get to in a bit). This lack of surviving Tyr-centered tales is surprising, as he’s the “guarantor of justice” and sometimes even called the boldest of the Norse gods — one who inspires heroism and courage. With that pedigree, you’d think there would be more myths surrounding him. Well, at one time, there probably was.

Prior to the Viking age, the Northern Germanic people had a similar set of gods and goddesses. They were more primitive, however, and not as fleshed out. In that pantheon, Tyr was perhaps the chief god, and went by the name Tiwaz. He was one of the war gods, and seemed equivalent to the Roman Mars. Like Tyr, his primary characteristics were honor and justice and courage. By the time of the Vikings, however, the centrality of Tyr/Tiwaz was supplanted by Odin and Thor. This tells us something of the different cultures. In the Germanic world of the early and mid-100s, battle was crucially important. Courage and bravery in war was something deeply foundational to a man’s life.

When the Vikings gained prominence, that foundation changed a little bit. Martial courage was certainly still valued, but the Norsemen were raiders and pillagers rather than soldiers on a battlefield. They took seaside ports by surprise with their longships, and quite simply outmuscled their foes. So a standard that encompassed wisdom, cleverness, and strategy, coupled with pure strength, took hold — the chief characteristics of Odin and Thor. Thus Tyr took a backseat, relegated to being a minor god.”

4. A new video from the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics abut finding fulfillment in your work today, whatever your work is:

Worth Reading - 5/15

1. Christians are good for society, contrary to the popular myths:

“In an interview with The Washington Post timed to a high-level summit on combating poverty, Harvard professor Robert Putnam makes an assertion about what he terms “organized religion,” its agenda and the use of its “resources.” Specifically:

“The obvious fact is that over the last 30 years, most organized religion has focused on issues regarding sexual morality, such as abortion, gay marriage, all of those. I’m not saying if that’s good or bad, but that’s what they’ve been using all their resources for. This is the most obvious point in the world. It’s been entirely focused on issues of homosexuality and contraception and not at all focused on issues of poverty.”

This is utter nonsense, to the point of absurdity.”

2. There's been a lot of hullabaloo this week about the "death of Christianity." This is just clickbait sensationalism. Dr. Russ Moore addresses the topic well:

“The lead editor of the report tells The New York Times that secularization—mainly in terms of those who identify as “nones” or with no specific religious affiliation—isn’t isolated to the progressive Northeast and Pacific Northwest. He notes, “The change is taking place all over, including the Bible Belt.”

This is precisely what several of us have been saying for years. Bible Belt near-Christianity is teetering. I say let it fall. For much of the twentieth century, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, one had to at least claim to be a Christian to be “normal.” During the Cold War, that meant distinguishing oneself from atheistic Communism. At other times, it has meant seeing churchgoing as a way to be seen as a good parent, a good neighbor, and a regular person. It took courage to be an atheist, because explicit unbelief meant social marginalization. Rising rates of secularization, along with individualism, means that those days are over—and good riddance to them.”

3. Four truths about human nature and how they relate to faith, work, and economics:

“It happened more than a month ago, so it has largely shifted out of the public eye. However, the long-term effects of a tragic plane crash in the French Alps are, no doubt, bringing a heavy load of sorrow to the families of those who died when the plane descended into the mountainside that day.

There are still questions about why the co-pilot apparently crashed the plane. Those may be answered in time, but we may never find out the full story.

Even if we never know everything about the events of the day, a tragedy like this reminds us of some truths about reality and human nature that also relate to faith, work, and economics.”

4. Biblical Ethics and Moral Order in Creation:

“With the constant press of present troubles, it is easy to forget the simple truth that our contemporary cultural concerns are not all there is. As we look for somewhere to anchor our ethics, it is easier to pursue fashionable schemes than to look for simple explanations in ancient books. It is easier, but often less helpful.

Oliver O’Donovan’s ethics, founded on the biblical storyline, are some of the most helpful for moving readers outside of their cultural context. Though his reasoning is nuanced, the basic principles of his ethics are simple. Ethics is founded on the objective reality in the created order. This order was distorted when Adam chose to sin. The resurrection of Christ began the process of renewal that will eventually restore all of creation to its objective, undistorted goodness.

We live in the time between the beginning of the restoration and the complete renewal of all things. As Christians, we stand with one foot in the fallen world and the other foot poised to step over the threshold into complete renewal. We have certain hope in the coming restoration, but equal certainty of the sinfulness of the world.

Ethics must continually seek to identify the order and coherence with which the world was created. This reveals the reality of the Creator and uncovers the way we should live within creation. Since the created order has been distorted by sin, special revelation––i.e., Scripture––is necessary to point us toward an undistorted moral order.”

Worth Reading - 5/14

1. Your Bible is Reliable.

“We live in the most blessed generation ever when it comes to accessibility to the Word of God. I’m incredibly grateful. I’m also thankful for a special gift God has lavished on the church—teachers like Peter Williams. The CEO of Tyndale House in Cambridge is the kind of guy who loves languages. I have it on good authority that he’s actually eaten his morning porridge while reading a Coptic version of the Bible for his quiet time. He writes books like Studies in the Syntax of the Peshitta of 1 Kings and serves as a member of the translation committee of the English Standard Version.

Williams has given his life to helping people understand the original languages and to instilling confidence in God’s holy Word. His training and his heart made him the ideal candidate for serving 300 people from the Phoenix area earlier this year. At a regional conference hosted by TGC Arizona, Williams joined Wayne Grudem, John Meade, and John DelHousaye of Phoenix Seminary to help us consider the human agent’s role in writing, collecting, protecting, and disseminating the Scriptures”

2. Some people are only libertarians of convenience. Their convenience:

“The rent is too damn high, charges Matthew Yglesias in his recent book bearing that title, and he knows why: government regulations, including zoning, which amount to “draconian central planning.” “High rent is not a fact of nature,” he contends. “It’s the result of bad public policy.” Government red tape limits new supply, drives up rents on the inadequate number of apartments available, and makes building new housing uneconomical for developers. “It all goes back to the question of return on investment,” Yglesias reminds us.

Yglesias wants to see a major rollback of regulation to create a freer market in land use. He admits that “any change is bound to be somewhat discomfiting to some people,” but neighborhood complaints over new construction should be overridden in the name of the greater good of lowering costs. “If people have strong feelings about not wanting to live on the same block as a tall building, they can move,” he says—or pay up to buy out their neighbors’ right to build.”

3. How to improve your default decisions:

“You might assume that humans buy products because of what they are, but the truth is that we often buy things because of where they are. For example, items on store shelves that are at eye level tend to be purchased more than items on less visible shelves.

In the best-selling book Nudge (Kindle | Audiobook), authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein explain a variety of ways that our everyday decisions are shaped by the world around us. The effect that eye-level shelves have on our purchase habits is just one example.”

4. The spiritual toll of constant entertainment:

“In my ongoing Jesus vs. Netflix battle, it seems like Netflix is winning my time and attention.

Ironically, when television arrived back in the 1950s, a lot of respected pastors dramatically called it the Devil’s Box. Yet, 60 years later a study conducted by the Barna Group proved that Christians who practice their faith watch more TV than non-Christians.

Personally, I love to be entertained. I watch anything and everything. I love the news, stupid videos on YouTube, three hours of ESPN and Facebook. I love romantic comedies, superhero movies, sci-fi epics and artsy independent cinema (even when it seems to make no sense whatsoever).

I can spend a full hour browsing through the Netflix gallery just to see what’s available. I can watch full seasons of a show in a matter of days (even with two kids, a wife and a full-time job to maintain). There have even been times I’ve started a show, not really liked the beginning, but kept watching, as if to force myself to get into it—just so I could have another show to watch and be entertained by.

If I would invest that much effort into my time with God, my face would probably radiate with the manifest glory from heaven. (Or, at the very least, I would have a couple more Bible verses memorized.)

Netflix seems to be winning the battle. And I feel like I’m not alone.”

Worth Reading - 5/13

1. Oxford's influential Inklings, from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

“During the hectic middle decades of the 20th century, from the end of the Great Depression through the Second World War and into the 1950s, a small circle of intellectuals gathered weekly in and around the University of Oxford to drink, smoke, quip, cavil, read aloud their works in progress, and endure or enjoy with as much grace as they could muster the sometimes blistering critiques that followed. This erudite club included writers and painters, philologists and physicians, historians and theologians, soldiers and actors. They called themselves, with typical self-effacing humor, the Inklings.

The novelist John Wain, a member of the group who achieved notoriety in midcentury as one of England’s “angry young men,” remembers the Inklings as “a circle of instigators, almost of incendiaries, meeting to urge one another on in the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life.” Yet the name Inklings, as J.R.R. Tolkien recalled it, was little more than “a pleasantly ingenious pun … suggesting people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink.”

The donnish dreaminess thus hinted at tells us something important about this curious band: Its members saw themselves as no more than a loose association of rumpled intellectuals, and this modest self-image is a large part of their charm. But history would record, however modest their pretensions, that their ideas did not remain half-formed nor their inkblots mere dabblings. Their polyvalent talents — amounting to genius in some cases — won out.”

2. Clickbait headlines and the death of Christianity. A post by Aaron Earls:

“Overall, Christianity is in decline and an 8% decline in seven years is fairly sharp. And the percentage of unaffiliated grew from 16.1% to 22.8%.

But what those stats fail to capture by themselves is the more complicated (and perhaps encouraging) picture underneath, Ed Stetzer wrote about at Christianity Today.

Evangelicals actually grew in terms of raw numbers and saw a modest increase in the percentage of Americans who self-identify as such. Using denominational identifiers, evangelicals declined less than a percent in seven years, but were the only major Christian group to see more join the ranks than leave.

So, as you should be able to tell, the hot takes fail to get the full and more accurate picture. But, they get attention and page views, which often drives news coverage in a social media world. The response to the data demonstrates the ascension of “clickbait Christianity.””

3. How the term 'Ethics' has evolved. A post at Canon and Culture from SEBTS professor, and my mentor, Daniel Heimbach:

“These days, the term “ethics” is employed in a range of ways that is often confusing and can be totally incompatible. In part this occurs because people hold different views on moral authority, valuing and criticism. But there is another reason, and that is because many do in fact understand the meaning of the term less clearly than imagined since what “ethics” means has changed over time. How one uses the term is much affected by what one reads, and those familiar with literature referring to “ethics” from one age are influenced to think it means something different from those more influenced by literature referring to “ethics” from other ages. The linguistic reality is that the term “ethics” is now employed to cover far more than when Aristotle wrote on “ethics” to instruct his son Nicomachus, or even when William Wilberforce sought to reform what he called British “manners.” And Christians know that while the Bible contains God’s moral revelation, the biblical text uses phrases like “paths of righteousness” or “ways of the LORD”—not the term “ethics”—when referring to it. This paper will examine how what “ethics” means in moral discourse has grown and changed over time and will argue that differences dividing teachers of Christian ethics often comes from employing what “ethics” meant at some earlier time in history and then assuming others now using the same term must be addressing the same thing when they may not be doing so at all.

Human beings have been concerned with right and wrong and with worthy living since before recorded history. But our word ethics originated with three Greek words, ēthikos (characteristic, customary, habitual), ēthos (character, custom, habit, habitat), and ethos (custom, habit, habitat), that came to be linked with this ancient interest. What these words meant changed over time even among the Greeks, and after the term ethics was adopted by English speakers what it meant continued to evolve so that it covers more now than it did earlier.”

4. A list from C. S. Lewis of the ten books that influenced him most:

“In 1962, The Christian Century published C. S. Lewis’s answer to the question, “What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?” Lewis responded with ten titles, ranging from Virgil’s Aeneid to James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson and from George Herbert’s The Temple to Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy. C. S. Lewis’s List brings together experts on each of the ten books to discuss their significance for Lewis’s life and work, illuminating his own writing through those he most admired. ”

Worth Reading - 5/12

1. Who owns the sermon a pastor preaches each week? It may be the answer is more complicated that you think:

“There’s a long history of pastors turning their sermons into books. Charles Spurgeon did it. So did Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, Dwight Moody and Charles Wesley, and a host of pastors since.

All hoped to get their message out of the church and into the world. Most made a bit of extra income along the way.

“They made money on books—but it was certainly not lifestyle changing money,” says Alan Phillips, associate general counsel for LifeWay Christian Resources. “That’s not the case now.”

The success of sermon-inspired books like The Purpose Driven Life—which sold more than 30 million copies—has turned sermons into potentially valuable commodities, says Philips.

That may be good for the publishing business and authors, but it raises a complex and sometimes uncomfortable legal question: Who owns a pastor’s sermon?”

2. Home schoolers do not socialize less, they socialize differently:

“First, home schooling teens socialize more than other teens. Using a standard measurement scale of 21 questions, we measured the extent to which the teens spend time interacting with their family, their friends, and other significant adults. Home school teens indicated significantly more social interaction than other teens. The S-Question assumes that home schooling teens are not engaged in social interaction. This is contrary to what is actually occurring.

It is true, however, that the home schooling teens are not in every category engaged in more social interaction. There is a difference in the target of the interactions. When asked about interaction with their families, home school youth indicated significantly more interaction in comparison to other youth. They indicated significantly more interaction with other significant adults. However, they indicated significantly less interaction with their friends. Home school youth interact more with family and adults, less with friends. The social interaction of home schooling teens is different from that of others.

The teens tell us that home schoolers have more social interaction overall, but less with their peers. We are confident that this reflects genuine differences because we saw the same differences when we asked their parents.”

3. Pulling specific policy decisions as absolute commands from Scripture can be a bad idea for either the political left or right, particularly when it is done poorly:

“Recently a group of mostly liberal Protestant clergy (but including a Catholic bishop) signed a Nashville Tennessean op-ed denouncing conservative Tennessee legislators who oppose Obamacare-facilitated Medicaid expansion in their state. The headline was: “Elected leaders show disregard for God’s word.”

Their op-ed insists these opponents “have chosen to ignore what the Bible clearly teaches.””

4. The imperialism of liberal reason:

“In claiming the realm of reason, liberalism also claims the realm of public space, which is precisely the space that is ruled by the rules of reason, which liberalism has laid down: “The public/private distinction . . . is neither spatial nor material; it rests on a prior division of the reasonable and unreasonable” (122). The realm of reason is also the realm of will, of choice. In private life, liberalism permits imposed life-styles; not in public.

But liberal reason is restless: “every conception of liberalism . . . is vulnerable to the argument that reason can go still further, that is, that it has conceded too broad a domain to the private,” the irrational and unwilled, which are essentially the same: “Choices made under circumstances of coercion or false belief are not deserving of respect.” On reflection, though, it is not at all clear which choices are freely made and which are coerced or nudged. So, liberal reason has a special urgency in its imperialism: “Every choice can be seen as a product of a particular context that is itself unchosen; every choice will have some harmful effect on an unwilling other. Reason can endlessly pursue both of these claims,” and slowly, surely gobble up whatever remains of the private realm of irrationality.

That parents come under suspicion for teaching religious “myths” to their children isn’t a defect in liberalism. It’s the inherent imperialism of liberal reason coming to expression.”

Worth Reading - 5/11

1. There is something wrong when we push kids to have a deep and abiding interest in things before they find pursuits they are truly interested in:

“Standing on the sidelines of my son’s soccer game I chatted with the younger sibling of one of his teammates. “I don’t really have a passion like my brother yet,” he explained, glancing over at the field. “But my parents are helping me look for one.” I waited for the note of irony that never came.

At some point in the last 20 years the notion of passion, as applied to children and teenagers, took hold. By the time a child rounds the corner into high school and certainly before he sets up an account with the Common App, the conventional wisdom is that he needs to have a passion that is deep, easy to articulate, well documented and makes him stand out from the crowd.

This passion, which he will either stumble upon or be led to by the caring adults in his life, must be pursued at the highest level his time and talent, and his parent’s finances, will allow. It is understood that this will offer him fulfillment and afford him and his family bragging rights that a mere dabbler would never earn. This is madness.”

2. Beware "Add homynyms" and other silly errors:

“Every time I write a column criticizing the misuse of English by “citizen journalists” on the Internet, I get two kinds of reader response. The first are letters of applause, often from prim grammarians pushing their own pet peeves. The second type is scolding me for being a prim grammarian, such as this letter from reader J. Meyers:

“I’m so tired of reading your stupid, nitpicking dribble.”

To which I responded:

“Dear Mr. Meyers: I believe the word you are looking for is ‘drivel.’ ””

3. Seven truths about hell, by J.D. Greear:

“Concerning hell, C. S. Lewis once wrote, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power.” In many ways, I agree with him. No one, Christians included, should like the idea of hell. Those of us who believe in hell aren’t sadists who enjoy the idea of eternal suffering. In fact, the thought of people I know who are outside of Christ spending eternity in hell is heartbreaking. As a young Christian, when I began to learn about hell and its implications, I almost lost my faith. It was that disturbing.

Hell is a difficult reality, but it is something that the Bible teaches, and we can’t fully understand God and his world unless we grapple with it. These seven truths should frame our discussion of hell.”

4. God is bigger than cancer, from someone battling the dreaded disease:

““There’s no doubt about the diagnosis,” the doctor said. Incurable cancer. A fatal disease. I had just celebrated my tenth anniversary with my wife, and we were busy raising our children, aged 1 and 3.

The next week, as I prepared for chemotherapy, my wife smiled and handed me a handmade card, colored bright with crayons and signed by a fifteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome in our congregation. My tears flowed as I read the top:

“Get well soon! Jesus loves you! God is bigger than cancer!”

My tears were a mingling of grief and joy. Yes, God is bigger than cancer, and bigger than my cancer! The girl in my church wasn’t denying that the path of my future seemed to be narrowing, hidden beneath the fog of a diagnosis. But she testified that God is greater: the God made known in Jesus Christ shows us that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

In my tears, I relished the fact that in the body of Christ theological truths are not a commodity trafficked and controlled by theology professors like myself. God is bigger than cancer, period.”

Worth Reading 5/8

1. What if real books came with the same sort of rights agreements as e-books?

“I love ebooks. Despite their unimaginative page design, monotonous fonts, curious approach to hyphenation, and clunky annotation utilities, they’re convenient and easy on my aging eyes. But I wish they didn’t come wrapped in legalese.

Whenever I read a book on my iPad, for example, I have tacitly agreed to the 15,000-word statement of terms and conditions for the iTunes store. It’s written by lawyers in language so dense and tedious it seems designed not to be read, except by other lawyers, and that’s odd, since these Terms of Service agreements (TOS) concern the use of books that are designed to be read.

But that’s OK, because Apple, the source of iBooks, and Amazon, with its similar Kindle Store, are not really publishers and not really booksellers. They’re “content providers” who function as third-party agents. And these agents seem to think that ebooks are not really books: Apple insists on calling them, not iBooks, but “iBooks Store Products,” and Amazon calls them, not Kindle books, but “Kindle Content.””

2. Bring back the teen summer job:

“I recently gave a hearty cheer for bringing back childhood chores, which are shockingly absent in a majority of today’s homes. The same appears to be the case with summer work for teenagers, which is increasingly avoided due to sports activities, cushy internships, video games, clubs and camps, and, in many cases, a lack of employment prospects altogether.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Dave Shiflett explores the implications of this development, recalling the “grit and glory of traditional summer work, which taught generations of teenagers important lessons about life, labor and even their place in the universe.”

Whether it was newspaper delivery, construction, factory work, fast food, or manual labor on the farm or the railroad, such jobs have introduced countless kids to responsibility, creativity, and service, helping connect the dots between God-given gifts and the broader social order.”

3. How to optimize your daily decisions:

“You might assume that humans buy products because of what they are, but the truth is that we often buy things because of where they are. For example, items on store shelves that are at eye level tend to be purchased more than items on less visible shelves.

In the best-selling book Nudge (Kindle | Audiobook), authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein explain a variety of ways that our everyday decisions are shaped by the world around us. The effect that eye-level shelves have on our purchase habits is just one example.”

4. The Seinfeld strategy for ending procrastination:

“By almost any measure of wealth, popularity, and critical acclaim, Jerry Seinfeld is among the most successful comedians, writers, and actors of his generation.

However, what is most impressive about Seinfeld’s career isn’t the awards, the earnings, or the special moments — it’s the remarkable consistency of it all. Show after show, year after year, he performs, creates, and entertains at an incredibly high standard. Jerry Seinfeld produces with a level of consistency that most of us wish we could bring to our daily work.

Compare his results to where you and I often find ourselves. We want to create, but struggle to do so. We want to exercise, but fail to find motivation. Wanting to achieve our goals, but — for some reason or another — we still procrastinate on them.”

Worth Reading - 5/7

1. Carl Trueman on what being the church will look like going forward:

“To borrow a phrase from Dean Acheson, we have lost an empire and have yet to find a role. The loss of status is sudden and deep, a shock no doubt to the naive who did not realize that, hey, the world does not like being told that man/woman/trans (delete where applicable) is not the measure of all things. The churchmen, the academics, the Presidents of Christian liberal arts colleges who thought their status would always give them a place at the cultural table are discovering to their horror that those who perhaps simply rolled their eyes at belief in the Resurrection are somewhat less indulgent when it comes to dissent over identity politics. In a public square dominated by emotive polarization of opinion, policed by the pitchfork wielding mobs of pop culture, and increasingly refereed by the law courts rather than the ballot box, places at the table are by invitation only. And guess what? Christians are no longer on the guest list.

So what is to be done? I would suggest simply this: That the Church is to continue to confess her faith and to do so faithfully. This is not a call for cultural capitulation, for the Church’s act of confession has always had a twofold aspect. First, it is catechetical and connected to the discipling of those within her bounds. Second, it is polemical because her very insistence on the truth of Christianity and of the kingship of Christ necessarily involves public repudiation of all other pretenders to the throne. Those who are deeply grounded in their Christian identity by their churches on a Sunday will think more clearly about how to respond to the challenges they face Monday to Saturday.”

2. Literature is a part of the human sub-creation, which can often point toward the Creator (albeit imperfectly):

“As a young boy, I loved to read. I would spend hours at the library roaming the shelves, selecting a stack of books to read for the coming week. I became intimately familiar with Asimov, Tolkien, Lewis, Heinlein, Bruce Coville, Lloyd Alexander, and dozens of others who fit somewhere within the sci-fi/fantasy genre. I eventually migrated upstairs from the children’s section to the adult fiction wing of the library, and discovered dozens of new authors who shaped my reading tastes. Though my mother was excited I loved to read, she despaired at getting me to read serious material. “Twaddle” was her word for the kinds of reading I enjoyed. She had little love for Oz, Fantastica, Asgard, or Professor Xavier’s Home; fictional reading was good as long as it was something worthwhile. None of the stories I loved fit the bill.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate the love my mother instilled in me for reading, thinking, and debating. When she challenged my reading choices, it always made me pause and seek to justify why this was “a good book!” In hindsight, many of the books I read were terrible: the prose was inane, the plots simple, the characters flat. And yet, they peopled my childhood with excitement, stories, and worlds beyond measure. My mother and I still disagree on the value of many fantasy authors; catching her reading the latest Dresden Files book might be a sign of the Apocalypse. Some years ago, I ran across a poem in which J. R. R. articulates a great defense for all forms of literature both high and low.

Mythopoeia encapsulates Tolkien’s doctrine of sub-creation which he works out in longer form in his essay, “On Fairy Stories.” Tolkien wrote this poem after an all-night argument with C. S. Lewis in which Lewis claimed myths were worthless, because they were lies “even if breathed through silver.” Challenged by his friend, Tolkien wrote his defense in rhyme and meter.”

3. How much symbolism do authors really include in their work? Not nearly as much as some think:

“It was 1963, and 16-year-old Bruce McAllister was sick of symbol-hunting in English class. Rather than quarrel with his teacher, he went straight to the source: McAllister mailed a crude, four-question survey to 150 novelists, asking if they intentionally planted symbolism in their work. Seventy-five authors responded. Here’s what 12 of them had to say. ”

4. Kirsten Powers on how the violent reaction to dissenting opinions is killing exchange of idea on campuses:

“Christina Hoff Sommers has been speaking on college campuses for two decades challenging students to embrace what she calls “equity feminism” over “gender feminism.” In her view, the former is focused on legal equality between men and women, the latter on disempowering women by portraying them as perpetual victims of the patriarchy.

This heretical view now requires campus security.

Prior to a mid-April lecture at Georgetown University, the American Enterprise Institute scholar was deemed a “rape apologist” by campus feminists for challenging statistics that she says overstate the rate of rape on campus. “The postings were so frantic that Georgetown sent undercover security into the audience,” Sommers told me.”

Worth Reading - 5/6

1. Thomas Kidd responds to critics of the SBC's move to take Ben Carson off of their denominational platform this year, arguing that distancing faithful Christianity from the Republican political platform is the real concern:

“In the week since my Washington Post piece on Baptists and Ben Carson, some critics have accused the Southern Baptist Convention of a new kind of fundamentalism. Baptists unduly rescinded the offer to Carson to speak at the Pastors’ Conference because of (what the critics see as) irrelevant theological differences between evangelicals and Seventh-Day Adventists (Carson’s denomination). Megachurch pastor Perry Noble called those who asked the SBC to retract the invitation “theological police” who “love theology more than Jesus.”

The controversy raises again the value of a paleo evangelical approach to politics. What the critics don’t appreciate is how badly evangelical churches need to keep their distance from contemporary party politics, and from endorsing specific candidates. With Southern Baptists still emerging from the political excesses of the Moral Majority era, non-evangelicals see conservative Christians in America primarily as pious Republicans. Evangelicals will undoubtedly maintain conservative political positions on topics such as the value of life, the meaning of marriage, and the primacy of religious liberty, but they need to be wary of cozying up too much with political candidates. They especially need to drop any notion that Kingdom work will be primarily accomplished through government and politicians. This is both an issue of mission focus, and gospel clarity.”

2. There's much more to escaping poverty than where you grew up but there is no doubt that it has an impact:

“In the wake of the Los Angeles riots more than 20 years ago, Congress created an anti-poverty experiment called Moving to Opportunity. It gave vouchers to help poor families move to better neighborhoods and awarded them on a random basis, so researchers could study the effects.

The results were deeply disappointing. Parents who received the vouchers did not seem to earn more in later years than otherwise similar adults, and children did not seem to do better in school. The program’s apparent failure has haunted social scientists and policy makers, making poverty seem all the more intractable.”

3. Doctrine matters, and indifference to doctrine is a sin:

“Doctrine matters—it matters in life and in death. Our doctrine determines our destiny. It not only affects our view about God but our view about everything. We are doctrinal beings by nature. Everyone holds to some sort of doctrine; the question is whether or not our doctrine is biblical. Consequently, we dare not be indifferent about doctrine. Indeed, there is a reason we’ve never heard of a Christian martyr who was indifferent about doctrine. Indifference about doctrine is the mother of every heresy in all of history, and in our day indifference about doctrine is spreading like wildfire in the pulpits and pews of our churches. Ironically, the assertion that doctrine doesn’t matter is in fact a doctrine in itself.

When people tell me they are into Jesus but not into doctrine, I tell them that if they are not into doctrine, they are, in fact, not into Jesus. We cannot know Jesus without knowing doctrine, and we cannot love God without knowing God, and the way we know God is by studying His Word. Doctrine comes from God, it teaches us about God, and by faith it leads us back to God in worship, service, and love. Indifference to doctrine is indifference to God, and indifference to God is indifference to our own eternity. Pastors who think it is relevant and cool to be indifferent about doctrine—who play down the necessity and importance of doctrine and who fail to preach and explain doctrine in their sermons—are in fact failing to give their people that which will save their souls. For us to downplay doctrine or to be intentionally fuzzy in preaching doctrine isn’t cool or humble or relevant, it’s outright arrogant. There is nothing more relevant than doctrine, there is nothing more humbling than doctrine, and there is nothing that more quickly gets our eyes off ourselves and fixes them on our loving and gracious God than doctrine that proceeds from God.”

4. Aaron Earls on finding gospel themes in the latest superhero movie:

““And a witty atheist shall lead them.”

You can have all your biblical epics like Noah or Exodus, or your Evangelical niche films like God’s Not Dead or Heaven is for Real.

If I want to see a movie that wrestles with significant questions, quotes from Scripture, values the family, and presents the church as the center of the battle between good versus evil, I’m going to watch the latest superhero movie written by an atheist.

Despite his personal lack of belief, Joss Whedon manages to give movies, even those with a big-budget and even bigger expectations, a soul.”