Contents
Coming Into Focus
Re: antisemitism and the “woke right”
I have to confess I was initially puzzled as to your characterization of antisemitism and hard right nationalists as the “woke right.” But after interacting with a few folks in that camp, I’ve realized that the core motivation behind both the woke left and woke right is guilt. “We’re guilty, and need someone to blame. Let’s pick the white supremacists(left)/Jews(right) to blame for our own personal evils.” From an acquaintance: almost literally “my porn problem is the fault of the Jews.”
Thanks for writing and keeping the Bible as the source of truth. It truly does search out the thoughts and intents of the heart, to the point of dividing what really is humanly indivisible, the bone and marrow. God help us. We truly need that Black Swan revival of humble repentance.Nathan
Nathan, thank you.
Handling Prayer Requests
How does Christ Church handle praises and prayer requests from the congregation? Our small church has always had a segment of our services for this, but we’ve been small enough that it worked w/o taking up the whole service. Now we’re getting to the point where it doesn’t work, unless it disrupts other parts of the service, like singing. How would you suggest handling something like this? Thank you!Parker
Parker, what we do is we take prayer requests early, during the week, and publish them in the bulletin. During our time of congregational prayer, the two men appointed to present our thanksgivings and petitions do so. Occasionally there is a late breaking request that is given to them before the service. This has worked well, over the course of some years now.
College Recommendations
In thinking about the future for my kids, and thinking about options for higher education, I do have NSA on the list, and I’ve heard of a couple other options that solid Christians I follow would consider for their kids. But I just thought I’d ask . . . if you were an unbiased consumer “scanning the market” for Christian colleges that you would feel CONFIDENT sending your 18 y/o to (anywhere in the country) are there any that you would consider, outside of NSA?
And it’s not that I am avoiding NSA, I would say it’s at the top of my list. But being from Texas, I figured I get a feel for that geographical layout of where the good colleges are, if there are many others. Thank you for your time!Ben
Ben, I would feel confident about the total package if the college were NSA. But there are a number of places I would consider, provided the student had the maturity not to be swayed by the wrong kind of peer pressure. In other words, she would be unlikely to graduate from Hillsdale as a raging feminist, but she might graduate a Roman Catholic. So there are schools where I think a good education could be obtained, provided students and parents were skilled at cherry picking courses and/or majors. I would at least look at places like Liberty, Grove City (despite the recent troubles), College of the Ozarks, Patrick Henry.
I Have This Friend . . .
I have a dear Christian friend who loves Jesus and we enjoy discussing the Bible and all things theology. The work of God is quite evident in the transformation that has taken place in his life. He was addicted to drugs and sex/porn and after he was pretty much close to physical death he cried out to God for help and he was saved from all that.
The reason I am writing is because He is an open theist and he absolutely hates Calvinism. He recently asked me what books he should read to study the Reformed side of things because when he gets into disagreements with various people including some of the pastors at our church it becomes apparent that he hasn’t done his due diligence in studying the side he is attacking. He is a voracious reader though. He reads the Bible through every year and reads lots of other books.
He has been influenced heavily by theologians like John Walton, NT Wright, and Michael Heiser. And it’s weird because he loves postmillennialism. It is one of our greatest points of agreement. That the church wins down here before Christ returns.
Anyways, I’m just wondering, two things: 1. What books would you recommend for someone who wants to understand the Reformed faith who is coming from an open theism perspective ? The Institutes? Bound Only Once? He asked me for recommendations, btw.
Even if he read something like that, how do you get past the super-entrenched worldview that he has by which he interprets everything? I can give him verse after verse that says God knows all things and all things are predetermined by Him but he always seems to have an “answer” for them that satisfies his own mind.
I do the same thing with my interpretive grid when he challenges me.
Thanks for any helpJC
JC, honestly, from your description, it sounds to me like his days as an open theist are numbered. In your discussions with him, I would simply focus on the question of whether he is willing for Calvinism to be the case, provided the exegetical case is made. That was an important transition point for me. Second, with regard to books, if he is a voracious reader, the Institutes would be good. Another approach would be the introductory book Back to Basics, published by P&R, but soon to be picked up by Canon. And then I wrote the really accessible book, Easy Chairs Hard Words.
More on Nuisance Lust
I read your blog post on Nuisance Lust a few months back. While it was extremely helpful to me, it came at a time in life where I had recently heard a Sermon on the Mount sermon about taking extreme measures with sin in light of Jesus’ teaching to pluck out your eyes and cut off your hands and the like . . . My pastor did well with the text, and I had had so many issues with, as your post called it, the bombshell appearing on the screen—or it’s equivalent popping up and it would send me spiraling; the result of all this was my purchasing a “dumb phone” that looks smart, but does not have much access to anything.
Since reading the post, I have grown a ton using your advice of “acknowledge the temptation, make fun of its stupidity and lack of power over you, and move on” type approach, and now am beginning to consider when it would be wise to switch back to my regular phone, where the opportunity to make more poor choices-or overcome them—is back in my hands. All the while I have been using computer with limited access to stuff too so there has also been SOME victory in resisting in this area of struggle. So far, not having a phone with privileges has helped a lot, but I couldn’t help but notice your Nuisance Lust post does urge against use of blockers and such. Any thoughts on this? Apologies if you’ve addressed this elsewhere, please feel free to just respond with a link. Thanks for your time and attention.
Regards,Chris
Chris, the thing I would recommend is to not attempt “reentry” too soon. Establish yourself in the habits of victory in this area, and then at some point head back, provided you can maintain that baseline.
Our Latest Descendant
Congrats on your new great grandchild Doug! Please keep doing what you’re doing and God bless you brother.Tony
Tony, thanks. Yes, we recently welcomed the arrival of our third great grandchild. While at the hospital, Nancy and I realized that we had had 24 descendants born there at Gritman. I told the nurses at the nurses station that we should have been given a coupon book. You know, each twelfth one free . . .
The Vivek Uproar
I know this is late in the game, but I just read the attached article and it said everything I wanted to say when I first read Vivek’s post that made everyone angry. THIS (the article) is what is happening in my little corner of the world because of people thinking foreign workers are a drain. I get it, and your article addressing what Vivek said really helped me to see your side better, BUT, there must be some kind of solution, because so many small businesses in the Okanagan are going to really struggle this year because of this knee-jerk reaction. My area can’t be the only area that is affected. I get that I am talking Canada and not the USA, BUT so much of what happens to you happens to us, and small agricultural communities do not just exist north of the border.Laurel
Laurel, thank you.
A Thorny Worldview Issue
In “A Daisy Chain of Non Sequiturs” you write: “[. . . ] no one worldview system should be imposed on people just because someone happens to feel like it. This applies to all of the systems—Christian, Muslim, Jew, secularist, agnostic—nobody gets to impose on those who differ simply because of their personal opinions.”
But isn’t any society in the end founded on “shared convictions,” which are the foundation of all collective choices, from where to spend the collective money to what is allowed or not? And isn’t it unavoidable that via those collective choices a worldview is effectively imposed? If someone has a worldview that society rejects via its laws (say, murder, or not paying taxes), isn’t it not simply unavoidable that collective convictions are imposed on those who think murder is OK get the collective worldview imposed upon them?
As such, the ‘not imposing a worldview’ is in fundamental contradiction with having a society at all. Even the idea of ‘not imposing a worldview’ is a worldview (absolute personal freedom), and the society that comes with it is the law of the jungle. If you want a society, a nation, you will be ‘imposing a worldview’. Unavoidably.
A society is a balance between individuals not having a worldview imposed upon them and a collective imposing a worldview. These only have no tension between them if a personal worldview matches perfectly with what society imposes. Which is what conviction systems—Christian, Muslim, Jew, secularist, agnostic— strive for: create as much ‘homogeneity’ (sameness) as you can by having as many people with the same beliefs/convictions as you can. Religion is particularly effective at that.
If you want to solve this tension by making everybody a same kind of Christian as you are (which I suspect is something all people want from their own convictions), then you are preventing society from imposing a worldview on you, by imposing your worldview on society.Luke
Luke, yes. This is the point I develop at length in the rest of the article.
Women in Worship and the Regulative Principle
Corollary to the Regulative Principle of Worship?
Between restarting my annual Bible reading plan in the OT and preparing to lead a men’s Bible study session on I Samuel, I wondered how various texts and examples from the history of Israel might or ought to guide pastoral practice for the role of women in worship. We have a handful of recorded prayers by devout women of OT and NT (such as Hannah, Elizabeth, and Mary), as well as a few songs of praise that seem to have been composed and led publicly by figures such as Miriam and Deborah.
Would the regulative principle of worship take such latter instances as permission for and/or grounds of encouragement to women aiding or directing during the musical elements of corporate Christian worship services today?Frederick
Frederick, I believe the regulative principle would allow for singing hymns composed by women. And if the prophetic office were still extant, which it is not, I believe that one of Philip’s daughters could utter a prophetic word in a service, provided her head was covered.
Tech Help for Parents?
Do you have any internet filter recommendations for parents to use on laptops, smart TVs and kids’ phones? We are looking for something that blocks offensive content, including ads, and not just accountability type software. Thanks.John
John, we are not at that stage of life, having gotten our children all launched before the Internet was invented. But the question is a good one, and I think we should crowd source it. Do any of you out there have recommendations for John?
Christian Schlock
I appreciated your response in this week’s letters about my question regarding Christian schlock, and I can see some distinction between schlock and merchandise, but it is one of those things that is sort of in the eye of the beholder and the one who is making money off the sale of the items in question are quite likely to see their products as merchandise and not schlock. Things get a bit fuzzy when money is involved. I just received a text from the 1689 Cigar Co. telling me I can smoke to the glory of God. Seems a little schlocky to me and not the 50 feet away from the line that you mentioned in your reply. Again, I know it’s not your company but they apparently got my phone number from the Fight, Laugh, Feast folks and they are folks you know. Please, please understand that I am a huge supporter of everything that seems to be happening in Moscow and I’m just wanting everyone there to be consistent in both their theology and how that is lived out in the day to day. I want you folks to be wildly successful in every way and that includes in how you monetize what you are doing but I also want it to be done with reverence and awe (Heb. 12:28)
Providential Blessings,Michael
Michael, thanks for the care and the caution. And I actually agree with the caution. We need to watch our step.
Typo? Inconsistency? What?
In The Principle of Pursuit, the Trump Reprieve, and the Place of New St. Andrews in All of This you wrote:”
“That dominant paradigm (that we want to equip them to subvert) contains erroneous assumptions about the chief end of man, about the purpose of higher education, about the role of the liberal arts, about the relationship of masculine to feminine, and about the correspondence view of truth. All of that must go down.”
This seems to imply that the correspondence view of truth needs to be subverted, i.e. go down. But in New Saint Andrews’ 30 These on Culture Building published by Canon Press, it says:
“We affirm that God created the heavens and earth, an placed us in that world, in order to communicate with us, and not to lie to us. We affirm that He sent His Son into the world in order to embody the truth for us, and not to lie to us. We affirm that He inspired the Scriptures in order to communicate the truth to us by means of words, and not to lie to us. We therefore embrace a form of common sense re-
alism with regard to the external world and the correspondence view of truth. We affirm the objective reality of truth.We do this because Jesus Christ is the eternal Logos of God.”
and
“15. What is important about the correspondence view of truth?
If the correspondence view of truth is not the case, then we are all still in our sins.”Todd
Todd, your defense of the correspondence view of truth is welcomed. But I think there is a misunderstanding here. I say that we must avoid “erroneous assumptions . . . about the correspondence view of truth.” One such erroneous assumption would be, as you point out, the idea that the correspondence view was not the case.
The Trump Thing
Would you be willing to respond to this thread by Bnonn Tennant (only 15 posts long: )? I don’t necessarily agree with him as I voted for Trump, but it did get me thinking that he may have a point, not so much in the morality of voting for Trump but in the consequences of voting for Trump for the church. Perhaps his thesis is wrong to begin with (voting for Trump was sinful) thus rendering the rest of his argument moot; however, I’m still curious to hear your take.
Thanks,Caleb
Caleb, as it happens, my post tomorrow morning is going to address this question broadly. In brief, my point is that we prayed for a Josiah, and got a Jehu. But we should take the Jehu with gratitude. There are some aspects of Bnonn’s warning that are on point.
NSA and the Principle of Pursuit
Thank you for promoting New Saint Andrews in your blog. Great words that address a real concern—that people would take a shift in the Overton window back to the right, however slight, as a signal to shift their own thinking back to the left.Andy
Andy, yes. And see the previous letter . . .
Leadership Books
Do you have any thoughts about the usefulness of “leadership”-type books for a pastor seeking to shepherd his staff well? I’m thinking of titles like “The 8 Dimensions of Leadership,” or “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni.
I confess to a certain native antipathy toward them, but I’m not sure I can fully articulate why. I suppose it springs from my belief that a Christian pastor is not a CEO, though I’ve no doubt there must be areas of overlap.
Do you have any guidance on this?Clym
Clym, I have a certain mild aversion to them also. But I do believe they sometimes contain common grace observations that a discerning pastor could benefit from. He needs to take care to avoid the CEO vibe though. While we are here though, I should recommend Alexander Strauch’s book Meetings That Work.
Interesting Thought
I have a theory that what the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxers call “schism” is mostly just God’s refusal to tolerate another Tower of Babel. The New Testament doesn’t portray the church as having an earthly home office or a centralized earthly hierarchy to which everyone is obligated. Sadly, modern U.S. Protestant churches are not as diligent as they could be in teaching truly Protestant notions of catholicity or unity in Christ.Daniel
Daniel, thank you.
Not Entirely Sure . . .
What color do you think Jesus’s skin was? Forgive my ignorance, but pretty much every Jew I’ve seen has “whiter” skin, but I see depictions of Jesus where he has darker skin (because he’s Middle Eastern?).
I don’t really care what color he was/is. But I’m curious as a matter of historical interest.
Thanks.Caleb
Caleb, I am not entirely sure, but my default assumption would be that He would be the color of a Middle Eastern Semite, somewhere in between light olive and medium-dark brown.
The Entire Quote
Re: How Boomers Rule
I’m primarily writing because I think your readers should see more of the Lewis quote you employed. I don’t think you used it in a way that was misleading or anything, but I think in isolation, people might misunderstand the argument Lewis was making. Here is what follows the sentence you quoted:
“I believe that if we had not fallen . . . patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that ‘all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused.”Ken
Ken, yes. And I agree with Lewis’s follow-on cautions. But I would also add that once we have substituted the legal fiction of equality, there will be those who enforce that standard. We have to keep an eye on them too, because power corrupts . . .
Keeping Your Distance
What do you think of participating in family occasions and celebrations where various members purposefully drink too much/get drunk? I have various members in my family who will invite my wife and me as well as the whole family to birthday celebrations, eating out, special occasions, etc. and there is heavy drinking involved. My wife and I do not participate in the drinking, but do we need to do more to show our disapproval? The family knows we’re not heavy drinkers and knows we don’t approve of it, but should we (more particularly I as the husband) be doing more to distance ourselves? I often think we need to distance more because of the nature of being associated with groups of people or a family, so I can feel involved in some way with the actions occurring around me. I could be thinking too much into it though. Thanks!Carson
Carson, they probably already know that you differ simply from the fact that you don’t participate in the drinking. I don’t think you need to say anything. But I would be looking for creative ways to leave early. Once they have settled into the drinking stretch, you can start thinking about where you put your coats. At some point someone will ask, and you can just say that you love getting together, but the heavy drinking times are not your favorite.
Patriotic Excess?
I’m really curious as to your thoughts on all the ultra-patriotic speeches on inauguration day. You’re a Christian Nationalist, and while I believe that our government should legislate, execute, and adjudicate for the glory of God, I believe I differ somewhat from you in the application of Christian Nationalism. I’m especially curious as to how you see America as a Christian Nation and how humble it should be about its accomplishments.
I have no problem with patriotism, America is indeed the freest country, the most wealthy, and is the most materially prosperous nation, possibly in history. However, so was Babylon at one point, and we both know what happened to Nebuchadnezzar after he forgot God’s graciousness to his nation. Again, I’m all for patriotic speeches, and I would consider myself a patriot, but like a good little postmillennial and churchman, I know my first citizenship is in heaven, and not these Unites States.
Were you not made uncomfortable by the speeches given ESPECIALLY the prayer by the Protestant Minister, whose prayer sounded more like an inaugural address than a prayer to the Lord of Lords? Did all the pep talks and speeches about America’s prosperity strike a familiar, specifically Babylonian, chord with you as it did with me? A lot of this sounded like the type of arrogance that brought about the downfall of Babel, did you perceive it the same way?
Isn’t it the Christian’s, and by extension the Christian Nationalist’s job to remember that America’s prosperity is undeserved? That it is not won by our own merit, and that our prosperity is owed to the Mercy of the King of Kings alone? Is it also not possible that our prosperity may in fact be a judgment? I’m not calling for the national self-loathing that liberals like to engage in, all the simpering and apologizing is equally ungrateful. However, I see our Republicans like the Babylonians in their arrogance and the liberals like the Israelite spies into Canaan, with no faith whatsoever in the saving, gracious power of God.Kenneth
Kenneth, I am at somewhat of a disadvantage because I didn’t watch any of that. I generally avoid the rah rah stuff, and all your cautions are reasonable cautions. When we first approach the Pearly Gates, it will be noted that there is no red, white and blue bunting.
Tech Help for Parents: Our family uses Qustodio. It has a lot of flexibility, a variety of plans for the number of devices you need to manage, works on a host of devices, and the parental controls are fairly intuitive.
If you’re into free and DIY, we’ve found a pi-hole is a great ad-blocker for the whole home network, with upstream CleanBrowsing DNS to block most of the objectionable content. Both of these are just at the network level, so if you’re looking for device level, Qustodio is also a great option (subscription based).
We use Canopy and been really blessed by it, great app support also. It’s on all our devices.
It does slow our connection somewhat and it needs a bit more work dealing with other app extensions that allow browsing but it’s not been enough to cause us to look elsewhere.
I question the efficacy of accountability software.
I remember looking at Qustudio, but we went with Net Nanny. It was good but I wasn’t able to block access to specific apps or put timers on them. Also, if they needed the machine for school, and they ever went over the time limit, it would lock them out. As for content moderation, I put strict filters on my router and made them use their machine out in the open with their back toward everyone so they couldn’t do anything untoward. I would also have regular conversations about porn and how easy it is to get sucked into that… Read more »
Tech Help for Parents: If the devices your kids use will all be on your home network, take a look into FamilyShield by OpenDNS. Coupled with the out of the box parental controls of most devices it can be a good option. If the devices are more mobile then that option gets a bit more complicated/impractical.
Luke–different worldviews have different ideas about how much force to apply to dissenters. I like to say Jesus said God’s Kingdom is like a big bush in which birds (noisy, dirty, various species and agendas) can find shelter. So a Christian nation (or whatever it’s called) can suppress murder but give non-Christians a fair bit of room.
Regarding colleges, Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis is also small and solid.
Yes. Forgot to mention
Can you give a shout out to Master’s? Uncle John? For your Baptist cousins? They’ve resisted the woke drift.
Yes. I was typing too fast. Masters.
Tech Help for Parents- How old are the kids? How tech savvy are the kids? The reality is that, if old enough and tech savvy enough, none of the otherwise great options listed here will accomplish much. So if you’re dealing with 7 year old outdoorsy kids you can just ignore this post but if you’re talking about a computer savvy 16 year old, these parental blocking programs are paper tigers and ultimately you’re going to need to establish their behavior through strengthening them and developing their trust in you, as five minutes at the library with a flash drive… Read more »
Yes, and it should be remembered that your pre-teens and young teens will eventually be spending time at the homes of friends whose parents may have no filters at all. At that point, “my parents trust me not to look at this stuff” goes to war with curiosity and peer pressure. We found a no-questions-asked pick-up policy very useful. “If you’re in a situation that’s making you uncomfortable, call us and we’ll say you’re urgently needed at home.”
Regarding the article that Laurel linked: these employers are hotels and resorts? Could they set aside a few rooms for new (young single) Canadian employees from other areas to stay temporarily, dormitory-style, until they saved enough to get their own place? If the issue is “we’d hire Canadians, but they can’t afford to move here”?
100%! It’s going to take some creative solutions, but we still have to end the system of importing our workforce.
Tech help for parents?
We use Accountable2you for devices and computers when it comes to internet accountability. Protonmail for email (they have a free option). Brave for a web browser (blocks all ads and it’s free). And we use duckduckgo for a search engine.
For John, my parents used Covenant Eyes and Qustodio at different times for us. I use a great app called Cold Turkey on my computer and one called AppBlock on my phone. Those allow me to totally block certain apps or websites, or limit time on them to set amounts at certain times of day, etc.
If Bnonn is going to sling accusations of sin at Christians who voted for Trump, then he’d better provide a lot more proof then what’s he’s given so far. If he can’t do it conclusively and objectively — which he hasn’t to date — then he needs to retract his accusation. As it stands, there’s no reason for Christian Trump supporters to be cowed by click-bait accusations. Seems there’s no shortage of supposed evangelicals loudly and obnoxiously trying to guilt Christians about Trump, but are strangely silent about professed Christians pulling the lever for Democrat candidates who are hellbent on… Read more »
Oh I hadn’t looked at this before and now I won’t be able to resist popping here a few points of my own commentary. “Trump won because the church as a whole voted for him.” This is what I call the field goal illusion. The last 3 points you earn don’t count any more than the first three. People overwhelmingly behave and believe as though a specific contribution given to a whole was exclusively responsible for the whole. In reality the laws of addition don’t care about the order in which you perform the addition. Trump also won because millions… Read more »
Well, Doug Wilson did say something about a reprieve, which sounds kind of like “breathing room”, so I can’t say it’s the first time I’ve heard anything of the sort. That’s not to take issue with your overall comments, just pointing it out.
I’m sure someone has cited breathing room. The purpose in demanding he be specific is that an attack on a quote attributed to no one can be defended by no one. Either its a straw man which makes defending it a waste of time, or it is referring to someone specific and you can’t defend it without knowing more about the man and the context of the statement.
If he means Wilson, there’s a host of *other* reasons Wilson celebrates the election in addition to that one, making it disingenuous to pretend that’s the only one.
Bnonn Tennant’s good friend Michael Foster made the “breathing room” comment. Take that for what it’s worth.