The Daily Caller reports:
Vanderbilt University has festooned its campus with professionally-designed posters which instruct students to use an exotic set of pronouns to refer to students and professors who refuse to admit they are either males or females.
The fancypants university’s “Faculty Senate Gender Inclusivity Task Force” created the posters (“with input from LGBTQI Life”). The posters are entitled — in huge font — “What Should I Call You?”
What is the meaning of Burning Man? According to Dr. Peter Jones of truthXchange it “seems to be impermanence (as the 70 foot “Man” being burned at the end of the week seems to suggest), a principle deeply entwined with Buddhism. Impermanence becomes for burners an annual reminder of the transience of life, the eternal return of Osiris.” The festival is supposed to be about “love, happiness, sharing, giving and appreciating.” But as Dr. Jones reveals, not everyone who attends is all that “loving.” In fact, some burners are vandals. He writes:
When his ship, The Beagle, docked in Southern Australia in 1831 on the way to the Galapagos Islands, Charles Darwin, one of the leading intellectual skeptics of his day, witnessed naked Aboriginal natives dancing themselves into delirium all night long. In his diary, Darwin wrote that he found this animistic display “a most rude, barbarous scene.”
Times have changed. This year 70,000 people have thronged to the annual countercultural Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert. Leading hi-tech worthies like Google founders Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and chairman Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, along with celebrity visitors like Katy Perry (31), socialite Paris Hilton (35), and British actress and model Cara Delevingne (24) now find such “rude, barbarous scene[s]” totally normal and perfectly cool. These contemporary definers of popular culture have thrown off even the outward standards of public decency dear to Charles Darwin. Burning Man sets the agenda for popular culture. In acts of shameless self-expression, they abandon all inhibition and wander around naked in the desert doing ecstasy and acid, visiting the anonymous-sex-orgy dome (open 24/7), joining in fire dancing, yoga, and meditation. No one is allowed a hint of judgmentalism.
Christian News Network reports:
A sensitivity training video recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) teaches police officers nationwide to ask men who identify as women and vice versa which gender pronoun they prefer, and to allow them to use the restroom that correlates with their gender identity.
The video, Law Enforcement and the Transgender Community, was produced by the DOJ’s Community Relations Service and features role playing skits to show officers how they are to respond to certain scenarios involving transgendered persons.
“Transgender people are just trying to be their true selves and live their lives as members of our communities just like anyone else,” states narrator Sgt. Brett Parson on Washington D.C. in the footage. “As law enforcement officers, we must make every effort to collaborate and learn from the transgender community so we can better serve others today and in the future.”
27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. 31 Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. Romans 3:27-31 (NASB)
In our last post we ended with the passage above (Romans 3:27-31) in which Paul makes it very clear that genuine salvation is by the law of faith not by a law of works. In v28 he says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” Justification is by faith alone and does not depend in any way on the believer doing any works of the law. In vv29,30 he tells us that since God is the Lord of all, whether Jews or Gentiles, there can only be one way of justification, which is by faith alone. What does it mean that believers uphold the law rather than nullify it by our faith? Justification by faith alone does not denigrate the law, but, instead, underscores its true importance by providing a payment for the penalty of death, which the law required for failing to keep it; by fulfilling the law’s original purpose, which is to serve as a tutor to show mankind’s utter inability to obey God’s righteous demands and to drive people to Christ (Galatians 3:24); and by giving believers the capacity to obey it (Romans 8:3,4). Then Paul moves into the obvious objection to these arguments by using the Old Testament Patriarch Abraham whom God declared righteous in Genesis 15:6.
Not so fast, says Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen. “Let’s be clear,” he warns, “if God is ever going to use Perry Noble for ministry, the first thing Perry Noble is going to have to do is repent.” What sins has he committed that he must repent of? According to Maples, for sinning against God and “misrepresenting him all those years he was pretending to be a pastor.” Likewise, “He needs to repent for all of his false teachings. He needs to repent for leading countless thousands upon thousands of his followers astray, away from the truth and into the darkness. He needs to repent to his family for being a hypocrite, a liar, and a bad leader. And he needs to turn to Jesus Christ in full faith and submit himself to the absolute final authority of Scripture and find a solid, bible-believing church to submit to for teaching and training in righteousness.”
Perry Noble recently told his Facebook followers that he has completed alcoholic rehab, and would return to ministry–eventually. Noble, the man who is credited with single-handedly building the seeker-friendly Southern Baptist megachurch, Newspring, in Anderson, SC, was fired from his church. Noble is well known for his faulty biblical exposition, unsound theology, and an anger streak that could bring out the worst in anyone. He says,
I spent 30 days in a treatment facility in Arizona from mid-July until mid-August. Being in that place allowed me to come face to face with issues from my past as well as my current struggle, and placed me in a place to successfully overcome my overmedication via alcohol.
Over at The Daily Signal James M. Roberts of The Heritage Foundation examines why socialism has failed in Latin American countries. He writes:
With the Senate impeachment vote to remove from office former President Dilma Rousseff, Brazilians joined a lengthening line of Latin Americans who have soured on the populist, corrupting, and impoverishing policies of “21st Century Socialism.”
Faced with its disastrous consequences, people in some neighboring countries had already turned the page and moved on. Argentina wised up late last year and installed center-right President Mauricio Macri after more than a decade of misrule by the Peronist Kirchner family.
Earlier this year, Peruvians voted for a 78-year-old center-right economist to get them back on track. And in Caracas, Venezuela, tens of thousands took to the streets demanding the removal of the brutally fascistic regime put in power by one of 21st Century Socialism’s founding fathers, the late Hugo Chávez.
Brazil, government spending programs championed by Rousseff and her socialist mentor and predecessor, “Lula” da Silva, only managed to pull Brazilians out of poverty temporarily, through cash transfers and welfare benefits that ended up nearly bankrupting the country and plunging it into its deepest recession since the 1930s.
Alan Shlemon of Stand To Reason offers a biblical perspective on how to balance truth with compassion when responding to people about the transgender issue.
Imagine a woman telling you, “I’m transgender. Please call me Michael.” It’s obvious she’s female, but she’s asking you to call her by a man’s name. What do you do?
Many people today reject the notion that gender is a fixed trait based on biology. Rather, they believe gender is a flexible trait based on society. As feminist and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir wrote, “One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.”?1 Anatomy, therefore, is not destiny. One can choose what gender one wants to be.
Though this sounds counterintuitive, the culture is buying it. They are sympathetic to the plight of transgender people. They believe “Michael” is a man trapped in a woman’s body and they’re willing to accommodate the transgender perception.
19 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. Romans 3:19-20 (NASB)
The real Gospel is not entertaining. It is not “fun.” It is not hip. It is not cool. No, it is blunt and abrupt and not politically correct. It calls everyone a sinner with no exceptions and those who are justified by God are so on the basis of the righteousness of another while they remain completely undeserving. Not one of them can take credit for their own salvation. After they have been baptized into Christ, they remain “sinners saved by grace.” They are not perfect or perfected nor will they ever be in this life. They have not somehow become “better than” anyone else. They have the mark of the Saviour upon them. They belong to Him. They are His bondservants or slaves and He is their Lord, but in the interim until they go home to be with Him forever, they remain in this life both declared Holy and Righteous by God in their justification, but also still sinful and imperfect as they go through the fires of sanctification. What is the source of this righteousness since it is not by any works of the law that it comes as we read in the passage above? In fact, it is through the law that comes the knowledge of sin.
There are some naysayers in the Christian community who have come out against online discernment ministries (ODM’s) as they feel the work “discerners” do is, in their view, unbiblical. Amy of Berean Research, a popular discernment blog, disagrees. In this piece, she explains the purpose of ODM’s and why pointing discouraged and confused believers in the right direction has helped them discover Truth. Because of ODM’s, many people who were once caught up in a cult, false teaching, and idolatry say they’ve been set free.
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” — 2 Timothy 4:3-4
I recently heard someone lament that discernment reporters always trot out the same tired old Scripture verses to defend why they report all the negative things that today’s Bible teachers teach and do that aren’t lining up with Scripture. I thought it a strange thing, to tell Christians that using the Word of God as a basis for following His commands to be discerning and defend the true faith as being a bad thing.
When Jesus’ disciples asked Him what would be the signs they could look to as the end of the age, the first thing Jesus did was to warn them not to be deceived. (You can read about that here.) His words were to the believers and true followers. Yes, it seems that true Christians CAN be deceived, or Jesus wouldn’t have warned us to take care not to be.
Why do reporters write about those in our times who are twisting Scripture? Is it because we are hateful, or singularly focused on negative things? No. I believe that discerning Christians need to be Bereans to continually search Scriptures to make sure they are following the truth rather than what sounds almost true. But here’s the problem: They are not being taught how to do that by their leaders. Instead, their leaders are giving a nod of approval to false teachings and teachers.
Christian News Network reports:
Concerns are being expressed over a new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that suggests that it plans to ban states from defunding abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.
The notice of proposed rulemaking, “Compliance with Title X Requirements by Project Recipients in Selecting Subrecipients,” outlines that it plans to amend the Code of Federal Regulations to read, “No recipient making subawards for the provision of services as part of its Title X project may prohibit an entity from participating for reasons unrelated to its ability to provide services effectively.”
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason answers the question. He explains why “we should never read just one Bible verse to understand it’s true meaning and purpose. We need to read the context.”
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16 Destruction and misery are in their paths, 17 And the path of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:9-18 (NASB)
In this post we will look at Romans 1:18-3:20. That may sound like a lot of verses, but remember my brethren, Paul didn’t write Romans with chapters and verses. In any case, that section of Romans is what Paul uses to build his case against all mankind in that they are born dead in trespasses and sin without exception. God is Holy, Righteous, and Just and there is not anything any person can do to become justified or declared righteous on their own merit. No, there must be another solution that does not compromise God’s perfect Righteousness. In any case, in this post we will look at the airtight case Paul builds against all mankind that shows the utter wretchedness of the natural man.
Breitbart reports:
Benjamin Franklin, 1722
In the midst of national debates concerning free speech on college campuses, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has opted to clamp down on students who challenge the reigning orthodoxy regarding manmade global warming.
Last week, three professors co-teaching a course titled “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” emailed a statement to all students informing them that anthropogenic climate change is not up for debate in their course.
“We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,” the professors said in their letter obtained by The College Fix.
According to Philip Wegmann of The Daily Signal:
On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform the United States of America. After nearly eight years as president, he has delivered on one front by reshaping the federal judiciary.
That revolution has been comprehensive, dramatic, and under the radar.
When Obama entered the Oval Office, liberal judges controlled just one of the 13 circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Fifty-five successful presidential nominations later, liberal majorities now control nine of those appeals benches, or 70 percent.
Outside of legal circles the transformation of the influential federal appeals courts has gone largely unnoticed, though.
Eric Davis of The Cripplegate has written a thought provoking piece for spiritual leaders who sometimes experience “the dark guest within.” Davis offers 5 reasons why our church leaders may go through times of sorrow. Sorrow is almost inherent to the ministry, says Davis who pastors a church in Jackson Hole, WY. In part 2 he addresses the reasons that often lie behind sorrow experienced in the ministry, considers some of them, and then draws conclusions.
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:5).
These are not the words of a spiritual infant. They are not the cries of a neophyte believer. This was a spiritual leader, involved in the daily ministry of the word of God to the people of God. Even so, his struggles with sorrow are deep.
It’s no secret: spiritual leaders can battle with depression. The more pastors I talk to, the more common this seems. I’ve worked jobs from lumber mills to heavy construction to engineering to research labs, and I have never encountered sorrow in those like the pastorate. Pastors, if you struggle with sorrow, chances are, things are pretty normal. Christians, chances are, your pastor has, or will have, bouts with soul-sorrow. It’s just normal.
And we need to avoid parochial conclusions when it comes to battles with sorrow. The presence of depression does not always mean the presence of raging sin. Strong saving faith and deep discouragement are often found in the same soul. Ed Welch has rightly said, “It is a myth that faith is always smiling. The truth is that faith often feels like the very ordinary process of dragging one foot in front of the other because we are conscious of God” (Depression: A Stubborn Darkness, 31). Jeremiah had his bouts (Jer. 9:1-2, Lam. 3:48). Elijah probably did too (1 Kings 19:4). Though Paul always rejoiced, he was also sorrowful (2 Cor. 6:10). The great apostle even experienced “great sorrow and unceasing grief” (Rom. 9:2). And Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). Likely he could have been diagnosed with clinical depression by the standards of our modern psychiatrists. Charles Spurgeon said, “No sin is necessarily connected with sorrow of heart, for Jesus Christ our Lord once said, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.’ There was no sin in him, and consequently none in his deep depression.”
Breitbart reports:
Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly died on Monday afternoon.
The “Sweetheart of the Silent Majority” passed away surrounded by family in her home in Ladue, Missouri just a short 10-minute drive from where she was born in St. Louis on August 15, 1924.
Her death marks a palpable loss for the conservative movement which, just last month, celebrated the grassroots heroine’s 92nd birthday.
Christian News Network has a quote from Mike Gendron of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries that some folks will find hard to believe. Nevertheless, what Gendron says is true:
Mother Teresa did not believe or proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. She encouraged Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists to be better Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. She never pointed people to Christ as the only savior, mediator and redeemer. Instead she taught a bizarre ‘pseudo-pantheism’ in which she believed Jesus was present in everyone.
In her piece for Christian News, Heather Clark reveals a whole lot more about the controversial Catholic nun:
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, also known as “Mother Teresa,” was declared a venerated saint on Sunday after she met the Vatican’s requirement of being credited with the purported healing of two people through what Roman Catholics believe is her intercession in death.
“[A]fter due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint, and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole church,” Jorge Bergoglio, also known as Pope Francis, declared at the Vatican before an estimated crowd of 120,000 people on Sunday.
According to Breitbart:
U.S. Border Patrol agent told Fox News Channel that eight out of ten illegal immigrants who are captured at the border are initially set free into the United States.
Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza, acting in his role as president of the National Border Patrol Council, Local 2455, appeared on Fox News Channel recently to discuss border security and the need for building a wall. “Eight out of ten people that are caught entering our country illegally are not deported and are allowed to stay in the United States,” Garza explained. “Unfortunately for Border Patrol agents, we are trying to do our jobs as best we can with the very limited resources that we have.”
Christian News Network reports:
Photo credit: Amazon.com
An evolution-propagandizing illustrated children’s book is drawing praise from the secular community and currently ranks as a best seller on Amazon.com.
“Annabelle & Aiden: The Story Of Life” is a 26-page children’s book that was published last month. Advertised as an “inspirational storybook” that will help kids “gain a basic understanding of evolution,” the book walks readers through the history of life according to Charles Darwin.
Leah Jessen of The Daily Signal has the story:
Do you want to watch a movie at home without hearing profanities? There’s a filter for that.
VidAngel is a video filtering service started by four brothers who grew up in Idaho, which offers a tool to filter out bad language and graphic scenes from Hollywood productions, making video content family-friendly.
“We created this company because—as parents and consumers—we understand deeply the surging demand for filtering content to suit the needs of families,” Neal Harmon, CEO of VidAngel, said in a prepared statement.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:1-3)
Have you ever wondered why Jesus had to die on a cross for people’s sins? After all, if God is loving, why couldn’t he just forgive everyone instead of putting his Son through all that suffering to make atonement for sin?
We find the answer to this question in God’s attribute of simplicity. A lot of people view simplicity as meaning “uncomplicated,” something that is easy to do. True, the word is certainly used that way. When referring to God as being simple, however, we mean that God is not complex. God is pure spirit; he is not made up of a bunch of parts (John 4:24).
Let’s use an everyday cooking example to make this point. When making stew, people usually use a variety of ingredients, including meat, potatoes, grains, vegetables, broth, and various spices, to name a few. All these ingredients are combined together to make a nourishing meal. Many people view God in a similar way. They look at all of God’s attributes—including his love, holiness, goodness, righteousness, mercy, justice, and greatness—and think that all these things are combined together in the being of God.
Writing for The Federalist, Lutheran Pastor Hans Fiene, who is the creator of Lutheran Satire, has come up with three simple steps “that will help you pave the next mile of the Sexual Liberation Expressway and get those Bible-believing bigots off the road.”
In the not-too-distant future, when the transgender wars are over and the stick figure placards for male and female bathrooms have been thrown in the dustbin of history, the sexual progressives will need a new sexual practice to de-stigmatize. Whether it’s incestuous marriage or some other long-oppressed form of sexual expression, the new cause will emerge, desperately in need of a defense. On that day, we will need a liberated theologian to rise from the muck of church prejudice and explain away all those pesky passages of the Bible that prevent dimwitted bigots from embracing the new orthodoxy.
While this task may seem daunting, it can actually be carried out with ease if you follow the very simple formula given to us by Eliel Cruz. In a recent article for The Washington Post, Cruz argues Christians have no legitimate grounds on which to oppose transgenderism because the erroneously-interpreted-for-2,000-years Bible actually praises the practice.
He died a real death, but now he lives a real life, he did lie in the tomb, and it was no fiction that the breath had departed from him: it is equally no fiction that our Redeemer liveth. The Lord is risen indeed. He hath survived the death struggle and the agony, and he lives unhurt: he has come out of the furnace without so much as the smell of fire upon him. He is not injured in any faculty; whether human or divine. He is not robbed of any glory, but his name is now surrounded with brighter lustre than ever. He has lost no dominion, he claims superior rights and rules over a new empire. He is a gainer by his losses, he has risen by his descent. All along the line he is victorious at every point.
Never yet was there a victory won but what it was in some respects a loss as well as a gain, but our Lord’s triumph is unmingled glory – to himself a gain as well as to us who share in it. Shall we not then rejoice? What, would ye sit and weep by a mother as she exultingly shows her new-born child? Would you call together a company of mourners to lament and to bewail when the heir is born into the household? This were to mock the mother’s gladness. And so to-day shall we use dreary music and sing dolorous hymns when the Lord is risen, and is not only unhurt, unharmed, and unconquered, but is far more glorified and exalted than before his death?
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “Sorrow At The Cross Turned Into Joy,” delivered November 3, 1878. Image by StephaniePetraPhoto on Flickr under Creagtive Commons License, without alteration.
In this piece over at Answers In Genesis, Dr. Tommy Mitchell asks: Are Christians unscientific? Is it brainwashing to teach children the truth about God and the Bible? What exactly is brainwashing anyway? Dr. Mitchell explains:
Have you ever been told that your children are Christians only because you brainwashed them? Have you been accused of keeping your children from understanding “real” science by brainwashing them with the Bible?
Educators and other “experts” who embrace evolution declare that children taught to reject an evolutionary worldview will never understand the world around them. Many say that such children will be academic failures. Children will grow up to be unproductive citizens of the modern world, these experts warn, if they do not accept molecules-to-man evolution over millions of years as fact.
Secularists often claim that children who reject evolution have been “brainwashed.” Is this really true? Are some children being brainwashed? If so, is it Bible-believing Christians who are doing the brainwashing?
Professing Christians are not reading their bibles as much as they used to — and some Christians don’t read it at all. Beth Stolicker of Mission Network makes a good case as to why Christians must read and memorize Scripture. As Christians “we need to be able to recall full Scriptures, the redemption story, and the Bible’s full frame. That’s hard to do if Christians are only familiar with a few verses here and there.” Stolicker offers tips to engage with God’s Word:
When was the last time you picked up your Bible and spent time reading more than a couple of verses? If it’s been a while, you’re not alone.
An unfamiliar crisis
Today, the average American adult’s attention span lasts for about 12 minutes. But, this isn’t a long enough time to really suck the marrow of life from Scripture’s bones. Chief Executive Officer at Biblica, Carl Moeller shares some insight.
“Christians, just like others in the culture, don’t read as much as they used to. And, this is a real crisis when we as evangelical Christians base our faith on the teachings of God’s Word,” Moeller explains.
“If we’re not reading God’s Word, it’s going to be very difficult for us to understand what He wants from us and how He wants us to live.”
There are Christians living without religious freedom, striving to memorize entire books of the Bible. Yet, some of us with religious freedom struggle to open ours. As Western Christians, have we lost, to some extent, what it means to live for Christ? To seek Him above all things in the midst of our busy, rushing, stressful days? Have we become a Martha instead of a Mary?
Possibly.
