Why I Liked Lost’s Finale- Serious Spoilers

In the hours following the Lost series finale, it became pretty clear to me that it was impossible to remain neutral in your take on how things wrapped up. Some fans absolutely loved the ending, while others felt like they had wasted six years of their collective lives. Some folks just seemed to be happy they had been able to survive the roller coaster that was Lost. I can understand people’s frustration at how Lost ended. We didn’t get nearly as many answers as we would have liked. We barely delved into the series’ mythology it seemed, so we’ll never know for sure who built the temple or the statue of Tawaret, what exactly the Light was, whose bodies were down in the pit with the Light, how people seemed to have insight or could talk to dead people, or what happened to poor Walt. To make matter’s worse, we have very few authoritative characters to help us really believe what we’ve been told is true. Jacob’s “Mother” isn’t exactly believable, having killed Jacob and MiB’s biological mother along with all of the people MiB lived with for years. Jacob seems to have gained some insight, but a lot of what he knows is based on what “Mother” said. We don’t know if there would have been repercussions outside of the Island if the Island had sunk, and we don’t know that MiB could have really done much once off of the Island since the Light would have gone out and he would be mortal.

So, yes, I understand why people are frustrated at the lack of answers. However, I’d like to point out that I think that this particular aspect of Lost makes it far more realistic than most television shows and movies. In real life, we don’t know for certain all of the answers. We don’t have absolute certainty about the big questions of life- meaning and purpose, for instance- or about which choices are the right ones. We are so finite, so impotent when it comes to seeing the future or even the past with accuracy. Lost reflects reality very powerfully here. Without omniscience to make things easy for us, we are left with questions to be answered at some unknown date or to believe based on what evidence we can find. We all believe in something ultimately, just as we’re all left to form our own conclusions about our unanswered questions from Lost.

Lost also never quite gave us a definitive answer when it comes to major philosophical questions- questions you and I wrestle with consciously or subconsciously. Are we at the merciless hands of fate? Which choices have been given to us to make on our own? For the Christian- how is it that God can make these complex plans for the universe and for us personally and yet we are left with the ability to choose to follow His plan? To what extent can we choose to follow Him or not, and which things are we unable to choose? The reality is that Lost made us think without shutting down our thinking at the end by answering all of these complex questions for us. It leaves us to keep thinking until we come up with an answer, based on sources that we can trust. That’s a great gift, I’d say.

It was the ending, though, that got folks the most. To realize that the “flash sideways” wasn’t an alternate timeline at all, that our beloved characters were all already dead, was a shock that few people expected. I think people didn’t like this ending for two reasons. First of all, to those who are not religious, an “afterlife” ending broke their willful suspension of disbelief. That- whether or not right or wrong won out in this lifetime- good will ultimately silence evil’s snarls, well, it’s a hard pill to swallow for someone who is an atheist or believes in naturalism. Western folks just don’t like appeals to religion. It’s personal to them, and Lost put the tenets of religion up for serious debate in the public square. People who followed Lost closely had been talking about religious tenets for over six years without realizing it very much. The end left us unable to brush off the religious- mostly Christian- symbolism that we’d witnessed over the last six seasons.

At first I hated that stained glass window in the church- the one with all of the symbols from a “coexist” bumper sticker- because I hated that it didn’t narrow it all down to Christianity. Well, frankly, it was Christian enough, the entire scope of the series, I mean. And, secondly, this is in keeping with the author’s principles of not being definitive about philosophy. While I do sincerely wish that Christianity had been the faith they had adopted at the end, I respect their desire to give people the liberty to make their own conclusions. They avoided preachiness in this manner, something I think we can all respect.

Christians may not like the ending for its ecumenicism, and I completely understand that. However, I believe more Christians will have a problem with the end of Lost because they don’t like the heavenly ending that much. Like unbelievers, we struggle with understanding that the ultimate happy ending will not take place on this earth. We want it to all work out here, but that isn’t the way things go usually. We’ve become so earthly minded and self-centered that we want a nice, neat, logical ending to every part of our lives (and become power-mongers in doing so), and we’d like God to slap a nice bow on it, too. In reality, God is ultimately the one in control, and He’s got a much better ending waiting for us.

Incidentally, I rather liked the emotional side of the ending. I liked that everyone spent a moment in shock when this ride we call life is over. I liked that Jack teared up a bit when he realized that he’d died. I liked that he had his father there to greet him, comfort him, and explain how what I’ll call Heaven worked. I liked that others who had loved and fought and died got to see each other again, and I loved the joy and happiness of their reunion. Isn’t this what Heaven will be?

Oh, I know that heaven is contingent upon faith in Christ, so please don’t blast me for leaving that out. I recognize just as fully as any other believer does that a television show left the central part of the gospel out. It’s not a television show put out by people who don’t appear to be Christians to give folks the truth. In fact, usually television tries to tell us lies more than anything else. That Lost left it open-ended is a blessing. I’m choosing to celebrate the depth of a television show, probably for the first time in my entire life. I’m choosing to be content to know what I know, and to spend the next few years arguing with other Losties about details that we didn’t get to find out about. I’m glad that a television show talked people into seriously thinking about eternity for the first time in ages.

And that, my friends, is why I liked Lost’s finale.

Why I Liked Lost’s Finale- Serious Spoilers

In the hours following the Lost series finale, it became pretty clear to me that it was impossible to remain neutral in your take on how things wrapped up. Some fans absolutely loved the ending, while others felt like they had wasted six years of their collective lives. Some folks just seemed to be happy they had been able to survive the roller coaster that was Lost. I can understand people’s frustration at how Lost ended. We didn’t get nearly as many answers as we would have liked. We barely delved into the series’ mythology it seemed, so we’ll never know for sure who built the temple or the statue of Tawaret, what exactly the Light was, whose bodies were down in the pit with the Light, how people seemed to have insight or could talk to dead people, or what happened to poor Walt. To make matter’s worse, we have very few authoritative characters to help us really believe what we’ve been told is true. Jacob’s “Mother” isn’t exactly believable, having killed Jacob and MiB’s biological mother along with all of the people MiB lived with for years. Jacob seems to have gained some insight, but a lot of what he knows is based on what “Mother” said. We don’t know if there would have been repercussions outside of the Island if the Island had sunk, and we don’t know that MiB could have really done much once off of the Island since the Light would have gone out and he would be mortal.

So, yes, I understand why people are frustrated at the lack of answers. However, I’d like to point out that I think that this particular aspect of Lost makes it far more realistic than most television shows and movies. In real life, we don’t know for certain all of the answers. We don’t have absolute certainty about the big questions of life- meaning and purpose, for instance- or about which choices are the right ones. We are so finite, so impotent when it comes to seeing the future or even the past with accuracy. Lost reflects reality very powerfully here. Without omniscience to make things easy for us, we are left with questions to be answered at some unknown date or to believe based on what evidence we can find. We all believe in something ultimately, just as we’re all left to form our own conclusions about our unanswered questions from Lost.

Lost also never quite gave us a definitive answer when it comes to major philosophical questions- questions you and I wrestle with consciously or subconsciously. Are we at the merciless hands of fate? Which choices have been given to us to make on our own? For the Christian- how is it that God can make these complex plans for the universe and for us personally and yet we are left with the ability to choose to follow His plan? To what extent can we choose to follow Him or not, and which things are we unable to choose? The reality is that Lost made us think without shutting down our thinking at the end by answering all of these complex questions for us. It leaves us to keep thinking until we come up with an answer, based on sources that we can trust. That’s a great gift, I’d say.

It was the ending, though, that got folks the most. To realize that the “flash sideways” wasn’t an alternate timeline at all, that our beloved characters were all already dead, was a shock that few people expected. I think people didn’t like this ending for two reasons. First of all, to those who are not religious, an “afterlife” ending broke their willful suspension of disbelief. That- whether or not right or wrong won out in this lifetime- good will ultimately silence evil’s snarls, well, it’s a hard pill to swallow for someone who is an atheist or believes in naturalism. Western folks just don’t like appeals to religion. It’s personal to them, and Lost put the tenets of religion up for serious debate in the public square. People who followed Lost closely had been talking about religious tenets for over six years without realizing it very much. The end left us unable to brush off the religious- mostly Christian- symbolism that we’d witnessed over the last six seasons.

At first I hated that stained glass window in the church- the one with all of the symbols from a “coexist” bumper sticker- because I hated that it didn’t narrow it all down to Christianity. Well, frankly, it was Christian enough, the entire scope of the series, I mean. And, secondly, this is in keeping with the author’s principles of not being definitive about philosophy. While I do sincerely wish that Christianity had been the faith they had adopted at the end, I respect their desire to give people the liberty to make their own conclusions. They avoided preachiness in this manner, something I think we can all respect.

Christians may not like the ending for its ecumenicism, and I completely understand that. However, I believe more Christians will have a problem with the end of Lost because they don’t like the heavenly ending that much. Like unbelievers, we struggle with understanding that the ultimate happy ending will not take place on this earth. We want it to all work out here, but that isn’t the way things go usually. We’ve become so earthly minded and self-centered that we want a nice, neat, logical ending to every part of our lives (and become power-mongers in doing so), and we’d like God to slap a nice bow on it, too. In reality, God is ultimately the one in control, and He’s got a much better ending waiting for us.

Incidentally, I rather liked the emotional side of the ending. I liked that everyone spent a moment in shock when this ride we call life is over. I liked that Jack teared up a bit when he realized that he’d died. I liked that he had his father there to greet him, comfort him, and explain how what I’ll call Heaven worked. I liked that others who had loved and fought and died got to see each other again, and I loved the joy and happiness of their reunion. Isn’t this what Heaven will be?

Oh, I know that heaven is contingent upon faith in Christ, so please don’t blast me for leaving that out. I recognize just as fully as any other believer does that a television show left the central part of the gospel out. It’s not a television show put out by people who don’t appear to be Christians to give folks the truth. In fact, usually television tries to tell us lies more than anything else. That Lost left it open-ended is a blessing. I’m choosing to celebrate the depth of a television show, probably for the first time in my entire life. I’m choosing to be content to know what I know, and to spend the next few years arguing with other Losties about details that we didn’t get to find out about. I’m glad that a television show talked people into seriously thinking about eternity for the first time in ages.

And that, my friends, is why I liked Lost’s finale.

What Does a Christian Nation Look Like?

I cheated. I recently ordered Focus on the Family‘s The Truth Project for small groups in churches and schools. It’s an exciting program, but I didn’t wait for training or go through a small group myself to watch the DVDs. I watched them. All of them. In less than twenty-four hours. Dr. Del Tackett is an amazing teacher, but, far more importantly, he accurately describes and defines faith in a God that is far more amazing. I won’t spoil the series for you, because I think that it is much more powerful in a group setting, but I will use one of the lessons as a jumping-in point for today’s posting.

Ever since President Barack Obama told the world that the United States is not a Christian nation, there’s been a lot of questioning about whether or not he was right in doing so. Perhaps it is better to first ask ourselves what it takes to be a Christian nation. Can you simply slap a label on a country and call it Christian? Can you deny it that label if you so choose? What would a truly Christian nation look like?

A Christian nation would begin with the understanding that God has set up a number of distinct realms in society that are dependent on each other. The Truth Project materials list these realms: Family, Labor, State, Community, Relationships with God, and Church. Each sphere is sovereign in nature. Families operate in a distinct way from churches, and one does not replace the other. One has the duty to create because we are made in God’s image, but work should not encroach upon or replace your relationship with God. Sovereignty, however, does not eliminate an appropriate relationship between spheres. Families ought to go to church. Going to church ought to bolster our relationship with God. A strong relationship with God should provide meaning to work. Work should support and enhance community and government. Government and community should find its principles for functionality from a proper view of Scripture. There is a distinction between Church and State, but the two cannot completely separate themselves from each other. God has ordained the State (Romans 13:1) for a number of reasons. When a nation forgets God, however, horrible things may happen.

In the absence of a belief in God, the State may come to believe that it has the authority to determine what is right and what is wrong. We’ve seen the results of such a government. According to R. J. Rummel’s work Death by Government, Stalin killed 42 million, Mao Zedong killed nearly 38 million, Adolf Hitler killed 21 million, and on and on and on it goes. The State-that-would-be-God is a terrible monstrosity. Unfortunately, there are those who have no problem with this mentality.  G. W. F. Hegel wrote:

“The Universal is to be found in the State. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. We must therefore worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth, and consider that, if it is difficult to comprehend Nature, it is harder to grasp the Essence of the State. That State is the march of God through the world.”

What madness is this? The State would absorb family, labor, church, education, and community. And so it has in many Western nations.

In modern-day America, the State gets to determine what marriage is, how a parent may discipline, what should be done to the rich, how the poor must be helped, how a child should be educated, what a church may and may not do in the community, and how a community must function. From the cradle to the grave. What hideous thing mankind has created that now has us slouching toward Gomorrah! What have we done to God’s established order, this wondrous system that should have been a reflection of God’s divine attributes? Where will the West wind up if we continue in this direction? Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire portray the Roman Empire as self-destructing due to the following, among other things:

1. A mounting love of show and luxury
2. An obsession with sex
3. Freakishness in the Arts
4. An increased desire to live off the State

This path will not end any better for us than it did for Rome. It wasn’t always this way, for America at least.

What Does a Christian Nation Look Like?

I cheated. I recently ordered Focus on the Family‘s The Truth Project for small groups in churches and schools. It’s an exciting program, but I didn’t wait for training or go through a small group myself to watch the DVDs. I watched them. All of them. In less than twenty-four hours. Dr. Del Tackett is an amazing teacher, but, far more importantly, he accurately describes and defines faith in a God that is far more amazing. I won’t spoil the series for you, because I think that it is much more powerful in a group setting, but I will use one of the lessons as a jumping-in point for today’s posting.

Ever since President Barack Obama told the world that the United States is not a Christian nation, there’s been a lot of questioning about whether or not he was right in doing so. Perhaps it is better to first ask ourselves what it takes to be a Christian nation. Can you simply slap a label on a country and call it Christian? Can you deny it that label if you so choose? What would a truly Christian nation look like?

A Christian nation would begin with the understanding that God has set up a number of distinct realms in society that are dependent on each other. The Truth Project materials list these realms: Family, Labor, State, Community, Relationships with God, and Church. Each sphere is sovereign in nature. Families operate in a distinct way from churches, and one does not replace the other. One has the duty to create because we are made in God’s image, but work should not encroach upon or replace your relationship with God. Sovereignty, however, does not eliminate an appropriate relationship between spheres. Families ought to go to church. Going to church ought to bolster our relationship with God. A strong relationship with God should provide meaning to work. Work should support and enhance community and government. Government and community should find its principles for functionality from a proper view of Scripture. There is a distinction between Church and State, but the two cannot completely separate themselves from each other. God has ordained the State (Romans 13:1) for a number of reasons. When a nation forgets God, however, horrible things may happen.

In the absence of a belief in God, the State may come to believe that it has the authority to determine what is right and what is wrong. We’ve seen the results of such a government. According to R. J. Rummel’s work Death by Government, Stalin killed 42 million, Mao Zedong killed nearly 38 million, Adolf Hitler killed 21 million, and on and on and on it goes. The State-that-would-be-God is a terrible monstrosity. Unfortunately, there are those who have no problem with this mentality.  G. W. F. Hegel wrote:

“The Universal is to be found in the State. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. We must therefore worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth, and consider that, if it is difficult to comprehend Nature, it is harder to grasp the Essence of the State. That State is the march of God through the world.”

What madness is this? The State would absorb family, labor, church, education, and community. And so it has in many Western nations.

In modern-day America, the State gets to determine what marriage is, how a parent may discipline, what should be done to the rich, how the poor must be helped, how a child should be educated, what a church may and may not do in the community, and how a community must function. From the cradle to the grave. What hideous thing mankind has created that now has us slouching toward Gomorrah! What have we done to God’s established order, this wondrous system that should have been a reflection of God’s divine attributes? Where will the West wind up if we continue in this direction? Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire portray the Roman Empire as self-destructing due to the following, among other things:

1. A mounting love of show and luxury
2. An obsession with sex
3. Freakishness in the Arts
4. An increased desire to live off the State

This path will not end any better for us than it did for Rome. It wasn’t always this way, for America at least.

Faith and our Fathers

Last week, I wrote about the reasons why so many men refuse to go to church. I want to follow up on that train of thought a little bit and talk about the relationship between faith in God and having a father-figure. Dr. Paul C. Vitz of New York University’s Psychology department published an article in 1999 that appears to also be the subject of an upcoming book entitled Defective Fathers: Psychological Origins of Atheism.

In his study, Vitz noted that many famous atheists had been neglected or abused by their fathers. Some fathers had simply been not nearly so strong in character or personality as they desired. Consider the words of H. G. Wells, who said: “My father was always at cricket, and I think [mum] realised more and more acutely as the years dragged on without material alleviation, that Our Father and Our Lord, on whom to begin with she had perhaps counted unduly, were also away – playing perhaps at their own sort of cricket in some remote quarter of the starry universe.” By studying atheists and a group of Christians, Vitz theorized that the atheists’ disdain for God began as a disdain for their own human fathers.

In contrast, Vitz found that Christians tend to be considered psychologically healthy. This flies in the face of Christopher Hitchens’ book, which states quite plainly that religion is grounded on wish-thinking. To Hitchens, God exists in believers’ mind simply because we want Him to be there. Our deepest longings for something- Someone- beyond ourselves cause us to create a God to believe in.

Hitchens proves nothing by noting that we long for God. There are, after all, many people who have  a good reason to long for God to be absent from the picture. They may not want Him to tell them what to do. They may not like taking ultimate responsibility. I’d say an atheist has at least as strong of a reason to disbelieve in God as a believer has for belief in God. Inner motivation has nothing to do with proving or disproving God’s existence.

No doubt, there is something within most people that does long for the Eternal. That longing doesn’t mean I fabricated God to be the object of that longing. I longed for food today, and I enjoyed some beef stew for lunch and some marinated chicken for dinner that I’m quite sure were real. I longed for fellowship, and I was able to enjoy talking to friends and family. But you may say to me: “Yes, but I can perceive the food and the friends with my senses. Those aren’t the same as God, who cannot be seen.” That’s true, but think about it a little more. Before I knew Him, I knew that I longed for something. It was only after I came to faith that I knew what my longings were all about. A child may long for food or companionship but not know what to call it. Also, hunger and loneliness are concepts, not objects to be perceived, just like a longing for the Eternal God. The desire is intangible, but the object is not.

PS- Apologetics 315 has a link to a free MP3 of Vitz if you care to listen…

Religulous? Really?

You may remember last year’s Bill Maher film Religulous, a satire which drew its name from a portmanteau of “religious” and “ridiculous.” The obvious implication being that religion in general is ridiculous, and believers in those religions are essentially fools. It would seem that Bill Maher’s film takes the comedic route to the same destination as Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great. In his book, Hitchens says that religion is “violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.” (see pages 56 and 36)

In the thin world of these men, organized religion (whatever that is) is the chief ill of society, which needs to be eradicated or reduced to an impotent form. And, of course, they are more than willing to bring out examples. Hitler, in their view, was religious- maybe even a Christian. David Berkowitz, the infamous serial killer, was also deeply religious, they remind us. After all, he joined a cult that the Son of Sam himself referred to as “the twenty-two disciples of hell.” Or maybe they could even invoke a mystic like Grigori Rasputin.

Click here to read the rest of the article on our new site!

The Neutered Church

This Father’s Day article is going to address a huge problem in the American Church: the lack of male attendance in congregations. I’ve read a number of articles and even a book or two on the subject, and I’ll be pointing you in the direction of a few good online articles and books if you’re interested.

A while ago, I wrote an article entitled “Jesus Isn’t ‘Nice’” about how we have altered our perception of God Himself to fit our culture. Because we have made that change in perception about God, we have feminized (I prefer the term “neutered”, since it brings to mind the stallion and the gelding) churches and our portrayal of the “godly man.” The effect on our congregations has been profound.

Consider the following statistics listed on the “Church for Men” website:

• American churches on average display an incredible gender gap- 69% women and 31% men. That translates to about 13 million more women attending than men.
• 1 in 4 “churched” women will attend the Sunday service without their husbands, while 80% of attendees at the midweek services are women.
• Over 70% of boys raised in church will drop out by the end of their college years.
• At Christian colleges, the ratio of female to male students is 2 to 1.

These statistics, verified from a number of researchers, are astounding to me. Besides the obvious problem of men abandoning or rejecting faith in Christ, think of the incredible symbiotic relationship between men and Christianity!

• Churchgoers are more likely to be satisfied with their lives, marriages, and themselves.
• Churchgoers are less likely to remain poor or depressed.
• Men who attend church are more likely to be engaged with their spouse and children, and teens with churchgoing fathers are more likely to admire and enjoy spending time with their fathers.
• The presence of men in a congregation is statistically related to whether or not the church grows or declines.

Who is being reached by the Gospel today? Women. There are women’s conferences, fellowships, Bible studies, and retreats. That’s fantastic and needed. Men, on the other hand, are fortunate if they get a monthly pancake breakfast and an annual retreat. The early church was a magnet for men seeking for something, but today’s church repels men.

The question must be asked: Why are men abandoning church in record numbers if many men believe in God, claim to be saved, and want to be good husbands and fathers? The answer is quite simple: churches have followed the trend of American culture and have become more effeminate. The average church, quite frankly, has been neutered.

Paul Coughlin at Crosswalk.com says that men have been encouraged to be harmless as doves, but not to become wise (shrewd) like serpents. Wisdom and cunning are extremely important, but men are told that shrewdness in everything from political and religious arguments to business deals is bad. That goes right along with the feminizing of Jesus and preaching “feel good” sermons. Sermons today are often geared to deal with supposedly practical issues and not deeper, more penetrating, or more intellectual issues. What’s so terrible to me about that last point is that I think this is insulting to many women as well as men!

Coughlin also points out that preaching and teaching today commonly instructs men to avoid anger. The problem is that anger is the primary emotional response for many men and some women! It’s a simple reaction that can’t be controlled! Of course, how anger is dealt with can be controlled, but anger is to some men what crying is to some women. Can you imagine a pastor telling the women in his congregation to not cry when they get upset? No one would do such a thing, because everyone knows that crying is sometimes a natural response to situations for some people. The same thing stands for anger. Good luck building a biblical case against anger, by the way. You’ll find the Bible speaks often of controlling and dealing with anger, being angry and not sinning, God’s own anger, and being meek. What you won’t find is an instruction to never be angry. You also won’t find God banning masculine qualities.

Christian men are encouraged to be “nice” in the name of Christian testimony. Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade though. To be sure, there are times when testimony is important, but that isn’t all the time. Imagine telling Moses, David, Elijah, Daniel, John the Baptist,  and Paul to back down in the name of testimony. Personally, I’d like to see more men in church that exhibit more of the qualities of these godly men. If the righteous are bold as lions (Proverbs 28), then our churches are sadly lacking in righteous men.

Churches today are extremely relational, and seek to meet emotional needs, according to writer Nancy Pearcey. They deal with sharing feelings, soft singing, and comforting members. Praise songs describe Jesus almost as a lover, while songs such as “Onward Christian Soldiers” are avoided at all cost. As Pearcey says: “So, as long as Christianity appeals to the emotional, therapeutic, interpersonal, relational areas, it’s not going to appeal to men as much as to women.” Where is the church triumphant in all of this?

The answer is that the church today isn’t too concerned with being triumphant. As my fellow blogger Wintery Knight observes:

“All of the outward facing disciplines within Christianity, such as apologetics, theology, ethics, etc. are de-emphasized, censored or resisted in feminized churches. There is no place for rationality, moral judgments and boundaries, debates and disagreement, confrontations and persuasion, or other manly Christian practices.

Christianity is evangelical, and evangelism takes study and preparation, which culminates in confrontations and discussions. The object of these discussions is not to win the argument. It is to win the person over to your side. So facts and arguments play a huge role in  evangelism, but there has to be gentleness too, if you actually want to win. And this is what Christian men are supposed to do.”

Men seem to enjoy theology, philosophy, politics, ethics, and science more than women do. They love debate, contest, competition, adventure, challenges, danger, risk, and achievement in a unique way. It isn’t that these are “men’s areas”, but there is something different in how men are wired that gives them an affinity for these things. As John Eldridge’s book Wild at Heart observes, our self-worth is intimately connected to these things. Men don’t feel complete unless they are accomplishing, building, and standing on something larger than themselves. As Christian comedian Jeff Allen has said, men need something worth dying for to make them truly come to life.

So what’s a church to do? Jesus founded His church on men, and it only seems fitting that churches can only thrive when there is a core of both men and women willing to serve Him. Remember that the pastor of any given church probably isn’t to blame for who attends- or doesn’t attend- his church. The congregation wields great control in this area, so it is up to us- the laity- to make the changes. Christianity must be presented as more than the solution to fears and failures if men are to return to church. It must be presented as the wild journey, the incredible quest, the “Pilgrim’s Progress” that it is. There must be more preaching and teaching on being “a soldier of the cross”, of putting on the armor of light, and of rejecting spiritual milk for meat. Only then will there be a resurgence of men to the church pew.

For more information check out Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow and The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity by Leon J. Podles. Personal enrichment books on the same topic are The Silence of Adam by Larry Crabb and No More Christian Nice Guy by Paul T. Coughlin.

Rob Bell’s Fractured Fairy Tales

On at least two occasions that I am aware of, Rob Bell has made some very telling blunders when dealing with history.

In the first case, he often interprets what Jesus says in light of the rabbinical writings known as the Talmud and the Mishna. The problem with this is that neither set of writings were codified until around 200 years after Jesus’ birth. In other words, Jesus didn’t say anything in light of either set of writings, and the attitude of the rabbis had most likely changed significantly after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Moreover, neither document is known for being historically accurate concerning the 1st century or the Old Testament. Bell’s misunderstanding of history taints his understanding of Scripture, which is dangerous.

Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, Bell twists the facts….

Continue reading on our new site….

Don’t Fence Me In

My grandparents and parents both listened to old cowboy songs when I was a kid, and while I didn’t really like most of them, this one really stuck out to me. It’s about not wanting boundaries, a concept I think most of us can appreciate. Of course, there are some boundaries that are good. We live our lives safely because of them. Unfortunately, some postmodern believers are of the opinion that fences aren’t very good for faith. In other words, some of those Bible teachings aren’t as big of a deal as we make them out to be.

Rob Bell makes it obvious that he’s of this persuasion in Velvet Elvis, where he makes the following assertion:

“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births?….”

Continue on to the full article on our new site…

When I was in college, the experimental theater class would occasionally put on small productions entitled “Tell Me a Story.” They didn’t have a huge budget, but they would dress in costumes generally and spend an evening performing short dramas, usually around a particular theme. After a night titled “Tell Me a SCARY Story”, I remember watching my fellow students dart to their dorms in groups thanks to the night’s fare and thinking to myself about how drama is such a powerful method of communication.

In fact, anything involving the use of narrative seems to exert a good deal of influence over us. Perhaps that’s why so much of the Bible is made up of narrative. Some Christians believe that the Bible should be understood strictly as narrative, especially since our postmodern society leans heavily in this direction. I don’t have anything personal against my brothers in Christ, but I definitely have a problem with limiting God’s Word to a narrative whose story must be consistently reinterpreted.

On this subject, Rob Bell said in a 2004 interview in Christianity Today that…

Continue reading at our new site….

Faith: Nebula or Mystery?

The new Star Trek movie has revived the sci-fi lover in me. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything Trek that I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I guess I’m a nerd, but that’s not really a shock to anyone. Anyway, I remember growing up thinking how cool it would be to fly a spaceship through the universe and see all of those heavenly bodies up close. I also remember thinking how dangerous it would be to fly blind through a nebula. Picard and company always seemed to have a hard time with that. Nebulae were dark, mysterious lonely places where it was easy to get lost and you never knew what new danger the crew of the Enterprise would find.

My other passion involves a good mystery. I enjoy a whodunnit?, conspiracy theory, or whatever. Anything with an excellent plot is sure to make me happy. I think that’s key, though. There’s got to be a good plot, a train of thought or order of events I’m supposed to follow.

It seems to me that there is some tension in modern Christianity as to whether or not we’re supposed to treat our faith- propositional truths and experiential reality- more like a nebula than like a good mystery novel. Mysteries can be understood and followed. They serve a purpose. Nebulae, well, at least Gene Roddenberry’s conception of nebulae- seem to be unsolvable and ultimately unknowable. That just doesn’t seem to be the kind of faith Jesus wants us to have, yet such a perspective persists.

Continue reading at our new site…

The Art of Discipleship

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” -Jesus, Matthew 16:24-26

Are Jesus’ words simply a command? Oh, I have no doubt that He is telling us what we ought to do. It’s just that it seems to me He is also describing reality for us. He’s stating a fact. He tells us that self-denial is required if you and I want to experience the abundant life. It’s like me telling my students that they have to learn their vocabulary and grammar lessons well in order to become an effective communicator or to master the English language. I’m not simply commanding them to work. I’m explaining to them “how to get there from here.”

Continue reading at our new site….

“My” Addiction

If you know anything about ABC’s sitcom Scrubs, then you know that narcissism is a major theme of the show. I don’t necessarily endorse the show, but check out the list of episodes and see if a pattern doesn’t emerge. Besides the pattern of the episode titles, there’s the name of the lead character itself- John Dorian. His name is a reference to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. I won’t spoil the whole novel for you, but suffice it to say that Wilde attempts to show what selfishness and pleasure-seeking will do to a person. In Wilde’s novel, the picture of Dorian is an outward reflection of his inward destruction caused by narcissism. Such selfishness and pleasure-seeking are the two primary characteristics of a narcissistic individual, and it is just such an individual that is becoming predominant in today’s society. Most of our culture has taken on the temperament of an adolescent- no, an infant.

Click here to continue reading on our new site…