Category Archives: Reforming

Concerning Same Sex Adoptions

Yesterday, a friend’s question on social media in response to an article I shared about children in same sex households provoked the following thoughts on the issue of adoption, even dealing with single parent adoptions and the detriment to the child (not to mention the selfishness they expose). Here is the article I shared:

Here are my thoughts on the issue of same sex couple adoption and single parent adoption, as well as the destructive force they (in particular same sex couple adoptions) have on children and on society:

Yes, I am opposed to single parent adoptions. Though, I will firmly argue that a single parent is less destructive than homosexual parents – who effectively guarantee the perversion of the child’s mind from naturally understanding God as their Father and the Church as their Mother. For no one can have God as their Father if they do not have the Church as their mother.

Further, at least a child with a single mother or father can have a motherly or fatherly figure (respective of the one missing) enter their lives through other relatives or friends or future marriage. Same sex couples are claiming to be married and in need of no other member of the opposite sex to be required in the household (though I’m sure some single parent adopters have thought the same thing, wrongly).

Now, I say this not to disregard the grace of God in saving people out of their twisted thinking and broken upbringings… I am saying this as a point of genuine natural law and civil society. As Christians – by conceding this to be acceptable – we further degrade and destroy our society and our witness to those who would seek to understand what a true human society should look like.

For those of you who might think that (simply) 2 is better than 1… This thinking ultimately breaks down because all children in America today (who are not being held captive by criminals of course) have plenty of people helping to raise them in their lives – whether it is school teachers, grandparents, neighbors, fellow church members, etc.

This issue, from a Christian perspective, has everything to do with nature, the created order, and human salvation – and NOT anything to do with having enough people to help a child have some kind of ‘better’ life. For a child who has a better life and ends up not worshiping God will receive more damnation in hell than the child who was poor and needy, yet still did not believe. For we are all going to be judged according to our deeds – either for rewards in heaven or punishments in hell.

By nature – on the adoption issue – any child raised in a single parent or same sex couple situation is going to be devoid of any real life experience of how God created them to grow up naturally – thus the basic problem of allowing either kind of people to adopt. Therefore, as Christians, to have any part in “okaying” or affirming such practices in adoptive circumstances is to rip apart the very fabric of our civil society. It not only harms the child, but it also puts one more stumbling block in the way of that child growing up to see these two fundamental truths of reality:

  1. No one can have God as their Father who does not have the Church as their Mother. (Galatians 4:26)
  2. Marriage between a man and a woman has always stood to show this mystery – the relationship between Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:32)

And as we all should recall here… Jesus said, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” (Luke 17:2)

John Frame and Evangelicalism

I would encourage everyone to listen to this interview of Pastor James Grant on Trinity Talk radio. Pastor Grant is a personal friend of mine and he has co-written a great chapter with Justin Taylor in the Festschrift in honor of John Frame titled, Speaking the Truth in Love. The chapter is entitled “John Frame and Evangelicalism.” It deals with John Frames influence on the Reformed world and his influence, or lack thereof, on Evangelicalism itself.

To give a little more detail of the chapter, John Frame’s influence on the Reformed tradition of our day cannot be lightly dismissed, especially as it pertains to his helping the Reformed world of today interact more broadly with the Evangelical world. The chapter is also helpful to point out how, or how he could have, influenced broader evangelicalism through more interaction with the scholarly societies.

Listen to the interview to find out more about the chapter. Also, I encourage everyone to get the Festschrift and read through it because the contributors are excellent and their insights and discussions of Frames work are priceless.

[HT: In Light of the Gospel]

Third Millennium Ministries & Free Seminary Curriculum

The Primeval History

Today I was browsing Richard Pratt’s ministry web site, Third Millennium Ministries, and came upon a wondful discovery! They have recently redesigned their minsitry web site and now they are offering all of their seminary video curriculum for FREE DOWNLOAD!

It is great news and I highly recommend that you consider downloading at least one of their video series to see how good their curriculum really is. Above, you will notice that I have posted the picture of one of their video series that I am currently going through in conjunction with a seminary class at Reformed Theological Seminary (where I attend). It is very good and if you are interested in learning more about the Old Testament, I would encourage you to start there with this video series.

Here are the links to the mp3 audio of the Primeval History video series for your listening pleasure:

Peter Leithart: Keep the Fast, Keep the Feast

James Grant says:

I just finished reading Peter Leithart’s article “Keep the Fast, Keep the Feast,” posted at First Things. This is quite an amazing piece of work. Leithart has some helpful points reflecting on both church history and Scriptures, and he provides some great examples of how to do biblical-theological interpretation. Leithart blogs here, and he pointed out that the article is already translated into German! Take a moment and read the whole thing (in English, of course!).

Also, read the following excerpt from the article at least:

Jesus is the Last Adam because He keeps the fast. He enters a world that is no longer a garden, but a howling waste, and in that wilderness Satan tempts Him to break the fast, to be an Adam: “You’re hungry; eat this now. You deserve the accolades of the crowds; you can have it now if you jump off the temple. You want all authority in heaven and on earth, but your Father won’t give that to you unless you suffer an excruciating, shameful death; you can have it all now, no cross or self-denial required. It’s yours, and you only need to do a bit of bowing. Life, glory, power, everything you want, everything you deserve—you can have it all now.”

Jesus refused, and refused, and then refused again, and in so doing broke the power of Adamic sin. Jesus kept the fast; he waited, labored, suffered, died, and then opened his hand to receive all the life, glory, honor, authority, and dominion that his Father had to give Him. He kept the fast and as a result was admitted to the fullness of the kingdom’s feast—because by that time both it and he were ready. And by resisting the devil, Jesus sets the pattern of true fasting and reveals a Lenten way of life.

[Continue Reading…]

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

Michael Spencer has a very provocative article that was published in the March 10th edition of the Christian Science Monitor. I encourage you all to read it. Here is an important excerpt:

WHY IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to “do good” is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

[Continue Reading…]

N.T. Wright and the Problem of Hell

The more one listens to N.T. Wright give lectures on the topic of his new book and his strong desire to see the world put to rights by God in Jesus, the more you notice that even though much of what he says is true… he’s leaving one important topic out on purpose! In Wright’s recent Harvard lectures, found here, Bishop Wright clearly avoids talking about the topic of hell for a more positive picture of God putting the world to rights and bringing about justice through the work of Christians (along and others) in the here and now. [NOTE: I encourage everyone to listen to these free lectures in mp3 and consider the good things Bishop Wright has to say, but I want to point out that everyone needs to listen with discernment and not embrace all of Wright’s narrative.]

To be honest, this is probably the most disturbing item of disagreement that I have with the British New Testament scholar. I’m very concerned that his lecturing is going to help many people become more universalistic in their thinking and less explicit about worshipping Jesus as the one and only Saviour and Lord. Now, Bishop Wright always tells people that he is the world’s one, true Lord and Saviour, but that still does not help it when people in a postmodern culture reinterpret things so easily!

But the point of this post was to point out some good comments from another Christian pastor and writer, Doug Wilson. I encourage you to read his post here and consider what he has to say about N.T. Wright and others who seemingly marginalize the doctrine of Hell away to nothing. Below is an excerpt:

N.T. Wright at Harvard

In his otherwise admirable book on evil, N.T. Wright makes the drastic mistake of leaving the subject of Hell entirely alone. But no matter how many helpful things you say, if you leave the really huge question out, then all you are really displaying is a real loss of proportion. “Well, other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

The questions that swirl around the issues of violence, pacifism, and the redistribution of mammon are all questions that tend to be summed up by those advocating their causes under this rubric as questions of “justice.” “No justice, no peace” the bumpersticker puts it. This is particularly the bent of the Christian left — the Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Greg Boyd contingent. This is the myopic view of the Obama evangelicals, all singing that blues standard, “Lie to me!”

And they persist in acting as though you can define justice by taking an evangelical Christian and making him watch CNN for long enough. And lest anybody misunderstand me, I am not saying this because I think we ought to be learning from Fox News instead. No. We are to define justice exegetically (what does justice mean throughout the pages of Scripture?) and theologically (what are the ultimate displays of God’s justice?). We have done quite a bit of the former, and it is time for us to consider the latter.

[Continue Reading…]

Living Under a Pro-Choice President

John Piper discusses what it is like to be a pro-life Christian under a Pro-Choice President. He writes:

That is the title of a sermon I preached January 17, 1993, three days before Bill Clinton was inaugurated president. It is just as relevant—or more—today.

The text was 1 Peter 2:17, “Honor the king.” I closed with eight ways to honor a pro-choice president. The seventh was this:

We will honor you by expecting from you straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a con-man, but we do expect it from an honorable man.

For example,

  1. Are you willing to explain why a baby’s right not to be killed is less important than a woman’s right not to be pregnant?
  2. Or are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, but you oppose laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses? Are they not at least living animals?
  3. Or are you willing to explain why government is unwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand even though it harms the unborn child; yet government is increasingly willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 3,000 non-smokers a year from cancer and as many as 40,000 non-smokers a year from other diseases?
  4. And if you say that everything hangs on whether the fetus is a human child, are you willing to go before national television in the oval office and defend your support for the “Freedom of Choice Act” by holding in your hand a 21 week old fetus and explaining why this little one does not have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to life? Are you willing to say to parents in this church who lost a child at that age and held him in their hands, this being in your hands is not and was not a child with any rights of its own under God or under law?

Perhaps you have good answers to each of these questions. We will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye.

You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn without giving a public accounting in view of moral and scientific reality would be dishonorable. We will honor you by expecting better.

[HT: James Grant]

Penn on Christian Evangelism and Hating People

Penn, from The Penn and Teller magic show, posted a video log on a recent experience he had with a Christian businessman after one of his shows. It is very telling and absolutely spot on. I encourage you to listen to it and see how you stand up in light of Penn’s analysis.

Note: Penn is a very loud and outspoken atheist and believes that much of “religion” is bad for the world. This video is simply amazing in light of what I’ve heard him say before about Christianity and other world religions.

Penn says:

I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, and you think, ‘Well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward’… How much do you have to hate somebody not to proselytize?

[HT: Ed Stetzer]

Desert Like a Rose by Peter Leithart

First Things has published a thoughtful article by Peter Leithart regarding missions and culture. I encourage everyone interested in understanding how missions should be done in light of various cultures to read this article. It addresses the issue of compromise and the gospel and much more. Enjoy!

A Rose in the Wind

Excerpt:

Time was when Christian missions occurred “over there.” Every now and then, the missionary would show up at church dressed like a time traveler, to show slides of exotic places and to enchant the stay-at-homes with tales about the strange diet and customs of the natives. Foreign missions still happen, but that model seems like ancient history. With the new immigration and the increased ease of travel and communication, the mission field has moved into the neighborhood, and every church that has its eyes open is asking every day how to do “foreign missions.”

That poses a problem. Missions has always been the place where the bookish question of “Christ and culture” turns practical. Now, at the same time that missions has become a challenge “right here,” multiculturalists question the very legitimacy of missions. Since the gospel always comes clothed in culture, how, on the premises of multiculturalism, can missionary work be anything but a veiled form of cultural imperialism? From Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, missionaries are depicted as tools of Western hegemony. But, if we’re all missionaries now, are we all cooperating in genocide?

Under the regime of multiculturalism, mission efforts face a cruel dilemma. Either missionaries can preach an uncompromising gospel that will cause everything to fall apart, or they can soft pedal the gospel of God’s judgment and grace in order to permit non-Christian cultures to survive. But is the situation as dire as this? Does the Bible perhaps offer a model for re-conceiving the question in a way that avoids the unhappy choice between compromise and cultural cataclysm?

The answer, I think, is yes. [Continue…]