A Gloriously Crowded and Socially Non-Distanced Thanksgiving

A cornucopia of appetizing offerings for your holiday week.

Nov 25, 2020

Dear friends and supporters:

Because of the short Thanksgiving week, this issue of CultureChange will consist of my shorter comments and others’ poignant citations. If one is not particularly striking and helpful to you, perhaps another will be. In the personal segment below, I’ll return to the topic of Thanksgiving.

Worldview Clashes

While worldview clashes have been around as long as the fallen world, today they are more immediately apparent than at most times during Western history.

No lockdowns versus lockdowns, Amy Coney Barrett versus judicial subjectivism, sexual fidelity versus Sexual Revolution, the free society versus cancel culture, racial colorblindness versus racial discrimination (and recrimination), individual liberty versus the nanny state, the rule of law versus “intersexuality,” the gospel of Jesus Christ versus the gospel of social justice war....

These and many other pairs might appear to be separate, isolated cultural conflicts; but they are part of a large, single civilizational worldview clash.

That clash is visible, palpable, immediate — and inescapable.

The Post-Resurrection Gospel Presupposes the Pre-Resurrection Kingdom

“The reason that the life and message of Jesus Christ portrayed in the gospel accounts, particularly the Synoptics, seem so far removed from the post-resurrection Gospel of Paul and the other apostles to our thinking is that we wrongly see a chasm between the kingdom of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The former is actually the foundation and presupposition of the latter....

“The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of the kingdom of God. No kingdom, no Gospel."

Read the entire post here.

God Isn’t Daunted by Big Prayers

A detrimental self-limitation of many of our prayers is our often covert assumption that our estimate of the difficulty of a situation must be God‘s.

But it is no more difficult for God to answer big, bold prayers than small, halting prayers. In other words, not difficult at all.

Might as well pray the big, bold prayers. The size is irrelevant to God.

Detente Christians

Satan can get along very well with Christians as long as they are on the defensive, seeking detente, or deserting. Therefore, if we are determined to see him defeated in our own hearts and in our society, we must be only and always committed to the offensive.

R. Arthur Mathews, Born for Battle

Covid’s Unsung Heroes

Some of the most unsung heroes in the entire COVID drama are all the courageous sheriffs that refuse to enforce draconian political orders.

While law enforcement can fail like any other authority institution, by and large the most effective and liberty-defending cops in the nation are our sheriffs.

The most powerful politician in the country should be your sheriff, who is accountable to the citizens he or she must look at every day.

Evangelical, or Soterian?

[W]e evangelicals (as a whole) are not really “evangelical” in the sense of the apostolic gospel, but instead we are soterians…. [W]e evangelicals (mistakenly) equate the word gospel with the word salvation. Hence we are really “salvationists.” …. What has happened is that we have created a “salvation culture” and assumed it is a “gospel culture.

Scot McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel

On Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy theories are mired in self-reinforcing, anti-feedback-loop illogic. There are no logical arguments to refute them.

During a 1993 sermon, I was making the point that God can change historical circumstances in swift, dramatic ways. I invoked as an example the recent breakup of the Soviet Union and defeat of Communism in Russia.

Afterwords a curmudgeonly old timer, who never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, accosted me and asked: “So you think the Communists still aren’t in charge in Russia?”

Me: “I’m pretty sure they aren’t.”

Him: “That’s what they want you to think.”

The Gospel Isn’t Meant for Any World But God’s

The Bible makes sense only in the kind of world the Bible presupposes. This is why worldview apologetics can’t be separated from the Bible or the gospel.

If you think you can preach the Bible and the gospel without challenging alien worldviews, you’re on a fool’s errand.

The gospel resists incorporation into any world except God’s.

(continued below)

The Gospel and salvation consist of many facets and can — and must — be approached from many perspectives. To limit them to one or two perspectives is to distort the multidimensional biblical picture. Much of the Bible-believing church of the last 100 years has woefully narrowed the Gospel as it is presented in the Bible and consequently has failed in its task of cultural reclamation, an indispensable aspect of the biblical Gospel. This short book is an attempt to expose those failures and chart a course back to the Bible’s concept of the Gospel.

Get the e-book here.

(continued)

The Gospel Demands Intellectual Repentance

If you adjust the Christian message to appeal to the deepest presuppositions of modern man, you will not succeed in winning genuine converts, but you will succeed in warping the Christian message.

Jesus Christ does not invite unbelievers to reconcile his gospel with their rebellious worldview, but to surrender their worldview to him.

This is another way of saying that the gospel demands intellectual repentance.

Thanksgiving Isn’t Christmas’ Entrance Ramp

“Thanksgiving has become a vague secular sideshow to the vague, secular mainshow known as Christmas. The Thanksgiving holiday as originally conceived by Lincoln stands in sharp antithesis to the vague holiday secularisms (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) to which Americans, including many professed Christians, have become accustomed.”

Read the rest of the post here.

Gratitude, Sin-Crusher

Have you ever considered how many sins are incompatible with a deep spirit of gratitude? Unbelief, pride, envy, hatred, adultery, gossip, worry, discord, self-centeredness and many more simply cannot survive in the bosom of the grateful heart.

One of my father’s “character traits” (see his newsletter here) that he taught his children and so many church members was “Cultivate a spirit of gratitude.”

We sometimes hear an individual lauded as a “self-made man.” Would you like to know where you’ll find self-made men? In addiction hospitals and halfway houses and rehab centers and penitentiaries.

But if you enjoy a good job and income and retirement benefits and a faithful spouse and friends and are emotionally healthy, I can assure you of this: somebody helped you.

Will you consider a tax-deductible donation to CCL via PayPal or Venmo? God uses you to keep us going — and expanding.

Personal

This Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for all of my friends and supporters. Many of you pray for me and Sharon and CCL daily, and send your hard-earned money to keep CCL expanding. I enjoy great benefits because you have helped me, and I am profoundly thankful.

I’ve just about finished the new e-book Religionless Christianity: Why the Faith in America is Toothless, Spineless, and Harmless. It might be available as early as late next week.

The tentative title for newt week’s e-letter is “We’re All Progressives Now.”

I’m praying this moment that God grants you and your family and friends a gloriously crowded and socially non-distanced holiday, your most joyous Thanksgiving ever.

Yours with great gratitude,