How The After Party Curriculum Is Sowing Political Confusion in the Church

For those who haven’t heard of it, The After Party (TAP) is a small group curriculum and corresponding book that is being heavily promoted this election year to individuals, churches, and Christian institutions (such as colleges) to counter the “dangerous trend” of evangelicals having their political identity formed by “partisan forces, not by true Biblical faith.”

What is The After Party Curriculum?

The curriculum was developed by David French (New York Times columnist), Russell Moore (Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today), and Curtis Chang. Fewer people are familiar with Chang than with French and Moore, but for context, his most notable project was called “Christians and the Vaccine,” through which he led a national effort to convince Covid vaccine-resistant evangelicals that their “anxiety, distrust of institutions, and political polarization” was threatening the vaccine’s potential for “healing our world.”

Earlier this year, TAP made a lot of headlines when journalist Megan Basham published a First Things article detailing how the whole project was funded by hard-left foundations (“Follow the Money to The After Party”). Alisa Childers and I also did an episode on our Unshaken Faith podcast in February in which we discussed the inherent problems with progressives funding Christian curriculum (as well as other concerns about TAP).

Since then, I’ve heard from quite a few people with concerns that their church is rolling the curriculum out this fall. When they share Megan’s article or Alisa’s and my episode, some of these churches recognize the implications and change course. However, others have pushed back to say that we didn’t specifically address the content of the curriculum, only the funding. While I think the funding speaks for itself (listen to my recent podcast interview with Megan, in which we spend about 10 minutes discussing why), I want to now address—in depth—why the content itself is clearly problematic. It might seem peculiar that I would write my longest article ever on such a niche topic, but I hope that this level of detail will give pastors and concerned church members a better understanding of why this book should absolutely be avoided.

In particular, for purposes of this article, I’m evaluating the book specifically. While the book is not a necessary part of the small group curriculum, TAP creators say, “This paradigm-shifting book is designed to complement the course. Read it beforehand to discern if the course is a fit for your needs—or read it afterward to go deeper on a Jesus-centered approach to politics.” So, in their estimation, this is a deeper exploration of their approach and claims in the small group curriculum; if you agree that the book is problematic given what I say below, then the small group curriculum should be ruled out as well given their stated relationship.

What’s the Goal of TAP?

Before you can understand the key problems with TAP, it’s important to understand their stated goals. According to their website:

“The After Party is a collection of resources designed by the non-profit Redeeming Babel to help you move towards better Christian politics. Our video course, book, and worship music were designed for pastors & people who know there’s a better way to ‘do politics.’ As you engage with our materials, you’ll be equipped & encouraged to do the hard work of engaging across differences, reframe your political identity in light of the Gospel’s promises, and focusing your heart & mind on the ‘how’ of relating to each other before the ‘what’ of political opinions.”

Reading this description and other similar marketing language TAP uses, you might think it’s pretty innocuous. People can absolutely treat each other poorly in discussing politics, we’re in the middle of a particularly contentious election season, Christians need to have their identity first and foremost in Jesus, and it can be good to be reminded that how we engage does matter.

In fact, in going to their site right now to grab a link for this article, I was shown the following pop-up:

“We’d love to send you a free sample of our latest book to help you (perhaps!) reframe how you think about politics in light of biblical virtues like kindness, love, and mercy. It’s practical & full of hope—and we think you’ll like it!”

Again, this sounds great.

From TAP’s marketing, one would think this is simply a curriculum to help Christians think about charitable communication. The creators repeatedly claim it’s non-partisan and continually emphasize this is just about the “how”—something any church should be able to get behind, or so the story goes.

But, to be blunt, I believe this is highly disingenuous marketing given the content of the book. The marketing is designed to attract churches who would like to simply encourage charitable communication, but the execution is designed to convince Christians that they shouldn’t be so conservative.

The marketing is designed to attract churches who would like to simply encourage charitable communication, but the execution is designed to convince Christians that they shouldn’t be so conservative.

In fact, when you really see through what they’re saying in TAP—as I’ll demonstrate in a moment—it’s completely obvious why hard-left foundations funded it. Although TAP repeatedly said publicly that the funding source shouldn’t matter, any reasonable person should want to know why progressive non-Christian organizations would be interested in financing a church curriculum. TAP trivialized the importance of that question, but it’s easily answered when you read the book. Given the content, I could imagine TAP’s pitch to these progressive foundations sounding something like this:

“We, like you, despise Donald Trump. And we, like you, are greatly disturbed by how many Christians helped put him in power. But Christians still predominantly think that they should vote Republican regardless of who the candidate is—even if it’s a despotic threat like Trump. We believe that if we can get Christians to think that politics is more complex than they realize, that they can’t ever be certain that their view on a given subject aligns with what God thinks, and that being humble means seeing all political positions as equally viable for Christ followers . . . then we’ll see a weaker correlation with Christians and conservative positions over time. The key is to introduce these subjects using marketing language that’s nonthreatening and that every Christian should presumably agree on going into it—for example, that we should engage more graciously with one another. This curriculum would therefore be sold as the ‘how’ of doing politics, but in execution, we hope to weaken the Republican party’s hold on the church. Want to help us fund it?”

Yes, I’m reading into their motivations. But the rest of this long article will make my case for why I believe this is a fair characterization.

On a final note before we get into the details, church leaders and other Christians who think the hypothetical pitch above represents a worthy project will, of course, love TAP. This article isn’t for them. This article is for those churches who have been deceived by the marketing into thinking this is just a curriculum about better communication and would be gravely concerned to find out it’s actually going to confuse their members into believing there’s moral equivalence between the political parties. If you and/or your church leaders believe there is no moral equivalence on major issues such as abortion, gender ideology, neo-Marxist indoctrination in K-12 schools, and all the societal manifestations of identity politics, then you’ll want to stay far away from sowing the seeds of confusion this curriculum will bring. Whether Christians choose to vote for Trump or a third party is another question, but if you recognize the danger in pushing Christians to the Democratic platform, you need to understand in detail what TAP is trying to do.   

Here’s what you should know.

  1. Despite the claims of the creators, TAP is in no way “non-partisan.”

The book opens with a story about a couple named Sean and Emily, whose kids are asking why they don’t see Sean’s parents, Jack and Cindy, anymore. The reader learns that it’s due to “political differences.” Jack and Cindy are described as a couple who grew up where “almost everyone was White, Republican, and conservative Christian” (p. 2). Because of this background, TAP describes them as utterly unable to understand “diversity” (p. 2). Sean leaves home and in college meets “faithful Christians with and entirely different cultural perspectives from his own…His assumption that Christian identity should equate to conservative politics was weakening” (p. 3).

While Jack and Cindy are portrayed condescendingly as conservatives with no understanding of the diverse world around them, Sean’s Japanese-American wife Emily is portrayed sympathetically as someone with a “keen sympathy with those who have been excluded by our country and a sensitivity to the legacy of systemic injustice.” Emily feels over time that Jack’s repeated political comments are an attack on her personally, and she and Sean decide to not see them further. The bottom line is clear: The conservative parents with a “homogenous background” didn’t prepare them for recognizing how others differ (p. 8). TAP says, “If diversity was never present in your life, you will struggle to understand others who are different from you and to navigate a national context defined by difference” (p. 12).

Chapters later in the book, TAP revisits the story, tells how Sean finally told his dad that he was offended by his assumption that his political ideology was the only correct one, and concludes that Sean’s indignation is what finally humbled Jack.

This opening story sets the tone for the rest of the book. Conservatives are always the ones who need to learn to open their eyes to other viewpoints.

“The tone of the book: Conservatives are always the ones who need to open their eyes other viewpoints”

For example, David French speaks to how he went from a confident conservative to one who started questioning certain conservative positions “the more he learned” (p. 83). Nancy French (David’s wife and co-author of the book) describes her time as a ghostwriter for political leaders saying, “My clients, many of whom were churchgoing Christians, did not necessarily believe that the Jesus ethic applied to politics. They were fine with using sharp elbows, slightly twisting the truth, or unfairly characterizing an event to meet their needs. When I pushed back, they called me naïve. They said that the Left was playing hardball and we needed to as well, or we’d get left behind” (p. 63). Clearly, she’s talking specifically about conservatives here.

Similarly, Curtis Chang wrote, “In the first month of my freshman year, I met some Black Christian undergraduates who invited me to a weekly Saturday morning study group. I had grown up in a quasi-fundamentalist church that entirely avoided any teaching on politics. My new friends were the first Christians I had ever met who were trying to dig into Scripture to excavate the connections between faith and politics. They believed the central connection between these two realms was justice” (p. 139). He goes on to define justice through a progressive lens of systemic racism, and it was his supposed enlightenment about racial issues that made him less conservative. In a rare moment of balance, he did acknowledge that he then swung “way over to the left side” of the political spectrum and that he began seeing problems there too.

Here are several other examples of how TAP is not non-partisan in execution:

  • Russell Moore says that multiple pastors have told him that when they quote the Sermon on the Mount, “specifically the part that says to turn the other cheek, they get pushback from their congregants. Invariably, someone will come up after the service and ask, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’” (p. 47). Of course, that implies these are conservatives who keep getting things wrong. TAP goes on to patronizingly explain how these conservatives just don’t understand Jesus’s instruction in the Sermon on the Mount. The irony is that the passage on turning the other cheek is about what to do when someone personally insults you. It has nothing to do with the nature of how Christians should advocate for righteousness in the public square (other than turning the other cheek when someone personally insults you for that advocacy).
  • TAP mocks the idea that anyone would think Christianity is “under attack.” They suggest that readers Google that phrase to get an idea of “pundits or organization[s] using this line of panicked reasoning to separate you from the money in your wallet” (p. 68). Progressives, of course, don’t think Christianity is under attack. Many conservatives, however, do look at what is going on in the legal sphere and believe that to be the case (see the Alliance Defending Freedom for examples). So, in mocking this idea, they are implicitly mocking conservatives.
  • Despite the fact that TAP repeatedly shows disdain for Christians who care deeply concerned about the “what” of politics (more on that shortly), the authors repeatedly raise the example of the 1960s civil rights movement and corresponding societal changes as glowing examples of political change. Apparently racial justice is an acceptable and important “what”—and one that they’re willing to highlight because it’s not considered an unpopular conservative position today (p. 69). Almost inexplicably, they say “compromise instead of power plays” is a key to the how of politics they seek. One has to wonder if they think the civil rights movement should have compromised. I doubt they’d say that.
  • When discussing the personality profile of what they call the political “cynic,” they say, “As more citizens are influenced by the self-certitude of cynicism, the average person is increasingly willing to believe that he—armed with a few online videos produced by fringe voices (that sound very confident)—know better about the complexities of specific issues than the established scientific institutions” (p. 75). It doesn’t take a genius to know this is a reference to Covid and the fact that many conservatives questioned “the science.” Regardless of your Covid views, it’s another example of conservatives being singled out, even when not explicit.
  • As Chang tells his personal story, he says, “At the same time, conservative White evangelicals were being swamped with misinformation since the initial response to the pandemic had been politicized. Conservative White distrust of public-health institutions was riding high, and the vaccine was being swept up in that wave of misinformation and distrust.” As I said earlier, Chang led an initiative to convince evangelicals to get vaccinated, and because he encountered racist comments online, he commented, “The presence of racism within conservative politics is just as real, and it’s ugly. I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really want to try to save the lives of people who seem to hate my people?’” (p. 163). Clearly, (white) conservatives are pictured here as holding disdainful views. And surely there are conservatives who do have disdainful views…just as there are progressives with disdainful views. But it’s the conservatives that TAP continually frames negatively.

Bottom line: While TAP occasionally pays lip service to how people on both sides of the political aisle can err, the overriding and very clear theme is that conservatives are less sophisticated thinkers who don’t understand the complexities of other views and vote conservatively because it’s all they’ve ever associated with Christianity. TAP clearly wants people to start believing their biblical worldview doesn’t have to lead to conservative positions. It’s not non-partisan to obviously work toward moving people away from one specific political side.

  1. Even if one were to believe TAP is non-partisan, no one can deny TAP is specifically anti-Trump.

While I think I’ve provided plenty of examples that represent how the book seeks to move people away from conservative views, let’s say for the sake of argument you want to give TAP the benefit of the doubt and are going to believe they are non-partisan at least in intention (even if not execution). What no one can deny is that the book is specifically anti-Trump. This shouldn’t be surprising if you know that the authors are all outspoken “never Trumpers.” And that comes through loud and clear.

Trump is mentioned multiple times, either explicitly or implicitly, all in a negative sense. January 6th in particular is in view several of those times. For example, TAP says,

“The events of January 6, 2021, revealed how even that bulwark is threatened. As a country, we now have a very recent experience of a violent insurrection, stirred by an outgoing president who consciously mobilized the us-versus-them mentality to resist the peaceful transfer of power” (p. 16).

“We now face a growing number of false Christian teachers spewing the heresy that followers of Jesus should take up arms as happened at the insurrection on January 6, 2021. That date is an unmistakable sign: the threat of political violence is real” (p. 153).

I don’t recall any corresponding concern with violence from the left.

As another example, after reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount, TAP says,

 “Sadly, American evangelical political culture somehow exempts followers and leaders from these practices. We vote for candidates who blatantly and gleefully violate these practices commanded by Jesus because we believe practices based on spiritual values (versus political expediency) are not adequate for the moment” (p. 47).

It’s pretty obvious that three “never Trumpers” are talking about Trump, who is (rightly) known for problematic character in certain aspects of his life. There’s no discussion of why some conservatives chose to vote for Trump based on policy comparisons between the parties—just accusatory statements about how people voting for Trump don’t believe “spiritual values” are “adequate.”

Lest anyone think I’m reading too much into TAP’s statements about Trump, I’ll point you to David French’s response in a Holy Post podcast when he was asked why Christian sources weren’t willing to fund the curriculum. He said, “When you take on MAGA, a lot of threats and intimidation follow.” I was surprised he played his hand so obviously in that statement, but he explicitly sees TAP as taking on MAGA.

For the record, there are zero mentions of Biden in TAP. Given that this election comes down to Biden’s successor and Trump, and TAP is explicitly anti-Trump, it’s no stretch of the imagination to say that TAP is seeking to discourage Christians from thinking they should vote for the Republican candidate this year. That’s not to say they are directly claiming Christians should vote for the Democratic candidate, but rather that they want fewer Christians to consider Trump a viable choice for believers. And if fewer do, it of course implies some of them will vote for Harris. Indeed, David French recently wrote a New York Times op-ed titled, “To Save Conservativism from Itself, I Am Voting for Harris.” I didn’t have to see his op-ed to know how he would vote. I could easily gather that from TAP.

And maybe you agree with David French’s assessment. My point here is not to make a case either way. What I am saying is that it’s entirely disingenuous to market TAP as a non-partisan curriculum designed to just help Christians communicate more graciously given what I’ve summarized here. I think it’s fair to say that TAP’s highest goal is that Christians don’t vote for Trump. Everything else is a byproduct.

  1. Despite the marketing, TAP is not just about the “how” of politics, but about the importance of the “how” over the “what.”

TAP says, for example, “We need better Christian politics. ‘Better’ doesn’t mean we need to change our political views. But it does mean we need to change our hearts” (p. 26). This is representative of the book’s repeated idea that our “how” is more important than our “what.”

I would agree that the “how” is important—basically, we shouldn’t be jerks to one another—but can we really say that the manner of our conduct is more important than the positions themselves? Can we really say that it’s more important that a Christian be kind when communicating than that they hold a pro-life position opposed to the slaughter of innocent preborn humans? Can we really say that we need to be gracious in communication more so than we need an understanding that gender ideology and its policy manifestations are abhorrent to God? Of course, we would hope that Christians do the “how” well and hold God-honoring positions for the “what.” But it’s very problematic to claim that the “how” is more important.

  1. Not only does TAP place the “how” over the “what,” it often has disdain for the “what.”

TAP says, “A political party is defined by the collective drive to win, to defeat the opposing party” (p. 45). This is cast as a bad thing that gets in the way of relationships. But it’s a bizarre statement. The drive to win doesn’t define a political party. A political party is “an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country’s elections” (as one example definition from Wikipedia). In a country with a healthy government, there will be elections, and therefore parties. Of course, the parties want their own candidate to win and defeat the other candidate. And if one party consistently promotes an agenda that’s opposed to godly views, we should be happy that any other party would want to defeat that party. There’s nothing inherently problematic about a political party wanting to win; that’s the nature of what a political party is. But TAP repeatedly makes statements like this that I believe show a disdain for any Christian thinking there’s one right position to hold on any given issue—the “what.”

Perhaps the most egregious of all statements with respect to this issue is the following:

“The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) summarizes Jesus’ most often repeated teachings. In those chapter, Jesus does not advocate for either rival political camp’s specific policies. And if you try to draw a clear and incontestable arrow from Jesus’ teaching to a specific policy debate between today’s Right and Left, you can do so only by greatly distorting Jesus’ words to fit your political agenda” (p. 46).

First of all, as Christians, we don’t singularly use the Sermon on the Mount to determine our theology even if what TAP says here were true. Romans 13, for example, is directly related to politics and clearly states that government is a God-given institution for the purpose of promoting good and restraining evil. That requires us to know what good and evil are and advocate accordingly. We can absolutely map certain issues (not all) to what is good and evil by God’s definition (abortion and gender ideology being obvious examples).

Second, part of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’s famous teaching about being salt and light. Our light is meant to expose the deeds of darkness (Ephesians 5:11). Yes, we need to be gracious and care about relationships with people (as the book emphasizes), but that’s a matter of approach not content. The content of what we advocate for is what illuminates evil in society.

But TAP doesn’t try to help Christians understand how important their political views are in shaping a society for God’s good and against evil. Instead, TAP sees one of the greatest evils as having a “partisan mind.” For example, TAP says that the person with a partisan mind who is also a Christian “believes not only that us is right but also that us is on God’s side” (p. 84). There’s no discussion about whether or not it’s possible for a position to actually line up with God’s side—just that if you think you think you’re on God’s side, that’s a sign of a problematic “partisan mind.” The partisan mind is even compared to a “forbidden weapon” (p. 88), and it’s mentioned 21 times in the book.

Furthermore, TAP says that:

“the struggle is not against flesh and blood: it is not Right versus Left, Republican versus Democrat. The battle is against the devil, the Evil One who seeks to undermine the credibility of the cross’s power to ‘reconcile all things.’ The devil is trying to pit people against each other via politics” (p. 98).

The struggle is against spiritual forces, but those spiritual forces have aims being worked out in the material world. Take gender ideology, for example. Yes, it’s a spiritual battle that people have come to believe that gender is a social construct rather than God’s good design and are mutilating their bodies accordingly. But the Democratic party is proactively promoting gender ideology as truth to the harm of many. I’m not sure the devil cares much about pitting people against each other for the sake of seeing us argue, as TAP makes it sound. But I’m very sure the devil cares to confuse society about God’s design. We need to love people enough to stand up for truth in society and advocate accordingly for policies. Yes, it’s a spiritual battle, but there are humans carrying it out. TAP knows this, though—a couple of pages later they talk glowingly about the civil rights movement (carried out by people, of course). So, it’s not disdain for all “whats,” just the ones conservatives tend to champion.

  1. TAP thinks humility means not being confident that your views align with the Bible.

TAP gives a passing nod to the fact that “our religious commitments can and should inform our political commitments,” but it’s obvious they don’t think we should be confident our positions are the only positions that align with the Bible. Why? Apparently, humility requires it.

Much of TAP is defined by this statement: “The After Party project believes that hope and humility are crucial spiritual values for political discipleship under Jesus” (p. 56).

TAP relates the account of the disciples James and John asking Jesus to sit at His right and left in glory (Mark 10:35-45). Because Jesus rebukes them for not knowing what they ask for, TAP concludes, “Jesus’s assessment of them is clear: When it comes to your political hopes, your knowledge is incomplete. Your hope needs to be paired with humility.” I honestly have no idea how they are drawing this conclusion. To conflate James and John’s heavenly hope with the hope we have for earthly political outcomes is, again, egregious.

In another discussion of humility, TAP says, “Instead of being preoccupied with our party coming out on top, we focus on serving others” (p.64). This is simultaneously a strawman and a false dichotomy. Conservative Christians who are passionate about advocating for righteousness on top priority issues like abortion aren’t “preoccupied” in some unhealthy way as this implies—we are rightfully and gravely concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies. I can’t think of a better way to “serve others” than by working to be a voice for the preborn.

TAP wants readers to think that issues are so complex, we can only be arrogant (surely not humble) to think we know the right position. They ask questions like: Are we overconfident in believing that we alone have mastered the enormous complexity of this issue? And is it possible that, like James and John, we do not fully know what we are asking? They then very strangely claim that because politicians “obsessed with winning on the what of politics” shouldn’t be so confident about what they’ll accomplish because James 4:13-15 says we shouldn’t boast about tomorrow (p. 66)! I guess we should all stop talking about the direction of our country since we don’t know about tomorrow. (Of course that’s a ridiculous conclusion—the entire Bible presupposes that we should care about the just functioning of society. The what of politics. These verses are talking about not boasting in the presumed direction of your own life.)

Similarly, TAP says, “Whether we’re talking about Christmas pork or Christian politics, the Bible emphasizes that spiritual maturity means understanding that you do not know everything, and you could be wrong, so tread carefully” (p. 67). Spiritual maturity is about many things, and I suppose we could say one aspect of it is understanding that humans have finite knowledge and that we must trust in God’s perfect knowledge. That, however, is a far cry from suggesting that spiritual maturity requires someone to remain in a perpetual state of uncertainty over things God has clearly stated. In other words, we don’t need to continually think we could be wrong when God has already said. In fact, I’d say it’s a sign of spiritual immaturity for someone to waiver in their understanding of things Christians should have clarity about.

As another example, in their profile of the “Combatant” personality type, they say that what is needed for such a person is humility because “they believe confidently that their side is right, and that’s that” (p. 72). TAP criticizes this personality because “out of all the profiles, the Combatants care the most about winning. For them, the stakes are very high.” When it comes to the lives of millions of preborn babies, I absolutely care about winning and believe the stakes are very high. I believe confidently that this “side” is right because I believe confidently that the pro-life cause aligns with what God wants. None of that inherently means I (or other pro-lifers) lack humility. On issues that are insignificant, it could mean that. But TAP doesn’t make such distinctions. They avoid talking about issues Christians absolutely should care about winning on and where the stakes are high in order to broadly make the claim that we shouldn’t be so sure of ourselves.

Meanwhile, the “Disciple” (political) personality type is held up as the goal for all: “Disciples are humble: they recognize that the political world is defined by complexity, and this means that there are rarely obvious and easy answers. Disciples believe firmly in objective truth but are much less firm that they themselves have complete ownership of truth” (p. 75). Again, humility here is defined by giving deference to “complexity.” But, again, those who believe that God has revealed clear truth in the Bible should be confident in those truths. We don’t have “complete ownership” from relying on our own understanding, but rather we have “complete ownership” of those truths as God has revealed. We are to steward those truths well, not remain in uncertainty under a false notion of humility.

  1. TAP avoids talking about the central moral issues conservatives rightly prioritize and instead uses examples where Christians can legitimately disagree.

When they give examples of how Christians should recognize complexity, they stick to listing issues that Christians realize could legitimately have varied views: “We gravitate to the narrative that our politics are motivated by the what: what ideology, party, and policies we support. We like to think we have sorted through all the options and have chosen the best positions on issues like tax rates, foreign policy, and education. If we are Christians, we additionally want to believe that our ideas are derived from our faith in Jesus” (p. 31).

I think, to a degree, Christians can have different views on tax rates, foreign policy, and education. To use these examples lures the reader into a false sense of broader agreement. But if they had said, “best positions on issues like abortion, gender ideology, and neo-Marxism,” they know they would have lost the conservatives they hope to influence. Conservatives would look at those three examples and say there is a right position, biblically, on these things.

In another section, David French says, “The emotional grievances we feel over these very real incidents are a far more powerful factor in our political choices and loyalties than the intellectual disagreements that arise when we debate tax cuts, trade policy, or foreign affairs. And, more importantly, the debates over these issues work to reaffirm the belief that the other side is morally depraved” (p. 36). Again, he lists debatable issues.

In yet another section, the example given of opposing political ideologies is that “a liberal favors a more active government while a conservative insists on a more limited government” (p. 44). This is, of course, true, and Christians can legitimately disagree on the size of government when it comes to many subjects. But it’s disingenuous to use that as an example to contrast the two sides when the authors surely know this is not primarily what concerns conservative Christians about the left.

In trying to show that the authors do believe Christians “can still care about the what of politics,” they say this:

“All of us (David, Russell, and Curtis) have spent good parts of our professional lives advocating that Christians should support particular policies like religious liberty, racial justice, free speech, defense of weaker nations against foreign oppression, generous care for the poor, and vaccination to protect the common good. The three of us care about the what” (p. 50).

It’s telling that something like

“vaccination to protect the common good” makes the list but not things like abortion, protection for minors against transgender surgeries, support for biblical marriage, or parental rights—all issues considered “conservative.”

Shortly after, TAP makes this astounding statement:

“Here’s a question: How confident are you that you are in perfect similarity and solidarity with Jesus on the whats of Christian life? Consider the religious equivalent of ideology: say, the theology of the Trinity or the doctrine of the Eucharist. Consider the religious equivalent of policy: say, the correct approach to personal finances or sexual behavior. On these whats, how confident are you that you live in perfect similarity and solidarity with Jesus?” (p. 50)

I had to reread this several times because I thought I must be misunderstanding that they are actually putting personal finances and sexual behavior in a similar bucket of “we can’t be confident we know Jesus’s views.” It’s so mind-blowing that I still wonder if I’m misunderstanding, but I don’t see how. Of course we know Jesus’s views on sexual behavior. That’s a moral category that the Bible is clear on.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, you may be surprised to know that there’s far more that could be said about the problems with this book (erroneous applications of Scripture as one example). But I hope this will suffice to demonstrate to those seeking discernment on this curriculum that it should be strongly avoided. If you’re a church member whose church is supporting TAP this fall, I highly encourage you to share this article with your pastor. If he’s happy with TAP’s approach and the study continues, take the time to attend the group and share your own view. Consider sharing this article with fellow participants as well. Do what you can to get more Christians thinking biblically and critically about these important subjects.

Recommended Resources:

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek 

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Jesus vs. The Culture by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4 Download, and Mp3

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3BevfTt

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Three Bad Arguments for Euthanasia

Polling sometimes suggests that the UK public is in favor of ‘assisted dying.’ This is an illusion, caused in many cases by people not knowing what ‘assisted dying is.’ A recent poll showed that only 42% of the public understood what ‘assisted dying’ refers to, with 10% thinking it meant hospice-type care and 42% believing it meant stopping treatment.

There is no legal or ethical mandate that a terminally ill person must be kept alive “at all costs.” There is, however, a major difference between withdrawing medical treatment and thereby allowing a patient to die of his or her own medical condition and intentionally ending a patient’s life.

What Is Euthanasia?

Euthanasia (as well as assisted suicide) is most basically understood as the lethal dose of drugs to deliberately end a life. Here is what euthanasia is not:

  • Turning off life support or withdrawing treatment.[1]
  • Providing drugs that reduce a patient’s discomfort at the end of their life.
  • Making a ‘do not resuscitate’ CPR request

But as well as the simple misunderstandings people have about what ‘assisted dying’ is – there are some often repeated arguments for euthanasia that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Three bad arguments for euthanasia

Reason #1: We euthanize our pets. The precise reason that we might euthanize a pet but not a human is because a human is not a pet! Once we reduce human beings to mere animals, a host of horrendous evils are bound to follow. Have you ever heard of the saying “treated like animals”? Human beings are a unique category of being, and so it is a dangerous category error to argue for human beings to be euthanized based on how we treat our pets. Human beings are not pets.

Reason #2: A patient can become a heavy financial strain. A price tag cannot be placed on human life – we cannot argue that life must be taken in order to save money. A human being’s value is not determined by their medical bill but by the fact that they are a human being. Human dignity is levelled across the scope of the entire human race, and those of us who are ill and inhibited are no less human than those of us who are not. Can you imagine the upheaval if it were argued that poor people are less valuable than rich people because they are more of a burden on the state? “Financial strain” is an unethical reason to end a human life.

Reason #3: People need the autonomy to choose to die in peace. Euthanasia is not necessary to satisfy this reason. The benefits of modern medicine mean that terminally ill people can generally choose to die in peace with effective use of palliative care (i.e., hospice). For people whose illness is no longer curable, palliative care supports quality of life and pain-management enabling patients to enjoy their final moments in peace—without killing themselves. Modern medicine makes available sufficient treatment to ethically treat patients without killing them, and thus the call for euthanasia (based off reason #3) is obsolete.

Euthanasia advocates do not have the moral high ground.

To appear convincing, pro-euthanasia arguments (see above) have to (Reason 1) de-escalate human dignity to the value of animals, (Reason 2) place a price-cap on human worth, and (Reason 3) argue that suicide is a good option in some circumstances.

No such position which advocates for these three things can be said to be taking the ethical high ground. And here is the major ethical problem that surfaces once euthanasia is legalized: The legalization of euthanasia sends the message that you can justifiably determine that your life is not worth living.

What message would the legalization of euthanasia send to someone who has depression? The whole issue with depressed people who go on to commit suicide is that they are mentally convinced that they are stuck with a terminal condition from which they will never be able to escape, unless they end their lives.

How can we promote positive mental health for people who struggle with depression, and strive to see them pursue life; if we have another sub-set of the population whom we deem worthy of ending their life over their suffering?

The legalization of euthanasia, for a sub-set of the population, sets an extremely dangerous precedent for other vulnerable members of society. Innocent lives are not ours to take. We are morally obligated not to kill ourselves or others. Euthanasia is always in some form of homicide, and so ethically, it should be prohibited.

A Christian view of suffering

Much can be learned through suffering. Pro-euthanasia arguments, perhaps understandably, tend to emphasize avoiding of suffering, even at the cost of one’s life. But this is not a Christian view of suffering. James 1:2-4 (ESV) says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

And Romans 5:3-4 (ESV) says, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

You can read more on what the Bible says about euthanasia here.

Far from being an evil to be avoided at all costs, suffering can be a time for refinement, and character building, no matter how old we are.

References: 

[1] [Editor’s note: A distinction can be drawn here between (1) “life-support” and (2) “assisted living.” Life-support refers to technological measures which artificially sustain someone’s life when, otherwise, their heart, lungs, brain, (etc.) would not be able to do it. A ventilator would be an example – since it “breathes” for them, doing the work that lungs should be doing. Meanwhile, Assisted living refers to the use of different measures, technological or not, to help sustain someone’s basic needs even though their organs can sustain life. For example, an oxygen tube, intravenous hydration, or a feeding tube. When life support is removed the person dies of natural causes. When assisted living is terminated the individual starves or suffocates to death.

Recommended Resources:

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)   

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Reflecting Jesus into a Dark World by Dr. Frank Turek – DVD Complete Series, Video mp4 DOWNLOAD Complete Series, and mp3 audio DOWNLOAD Complete Series

 

Sean Redfearn is a former Community Youth Worker who now works for Christian Concern in Central London, UK. He completed an MA in Religion at King’s College London, is in the process of completing the MA Philosophy program at Southern Evangelical Seminary, and is a 2022 CrossExamined Instructor Academy graduate. Passionate about Jesus, he is grateful for the impact that apologetics has had on his faith.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3XCfbSL

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Key Tenets of Marxism VS America’s Philosophical Foundations

I’ve been fascinated by Marxism since my parents first told me about the Cold War we were living in when I was almost 10-years-old (1983). I remember asking them why the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons aimed at us. After my parents reassured me that we had just as many nuclear missiles aimed back at them — ensuring that they will not use these weapons against us (peace through strength) — they explained it to me like I was 10-years-old (because I was). While not using these exact words, my parents basically told me that the Soviet Union was based upon a philosophy called Marxism which is logically incompatible with America’s theological and philosophical foundations. This sparked a desire to learn more about our fundamental disagreements.

I wanted to know about America’s philosophical foundations. I wanted to know more about Marxism. So, over the past four decades I have studied Marxism off and on as a hobby. While I make no claims to be a Marxist scholar, as a philosophically inclined analytic theologian — who has applied the tools of my trade to this hobby — I do think it’s fair to say that I know enough about Marxism to have an informed conversation on the matter. So, since my parents provided me with a nice introduction to Marxism four decades ago, allow me to pay it forward and provide an introduction here.

Marxism 101 

In a nutshell, Marxism is a socio-political and economic ideology developed by Karl Marx (hence the name “Marxism”) and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century. As Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto, his philosophy emphasizes the role of struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor in societal development. Marx advocated for a classless, stateless society where the means of production are owned collectively.

That might look good on paper, but Marxism has a rich history of utter failure, poverty, tyranny, death, and destruction. Indeed, if we are comparing death counts, Marxism makes Hitler’s Nazi Party seem tame. While Hitler’s Holocaust of evil murdered six million Jews, those putting Marx’s philosophy into action have killed well-over 100 million people! Yet, while we do not hear that we’ve got to keep trying Naziism again and again, Marxists demand that despite repeated failures, along with more and more death and destruction, we must keep trying to implement Marxism again, and again, and over again.

Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results

The preceding words are attributed to Albert Einstein, but whoever originally said it, these words ring true. Yet, Karl Marx’s philosophy — which promises a better tomorrow — always leads to the same outcome, with the “useful idiots” who helped to usher Marxists into power, now trying to escape their new “utopia.” (The term “useful idiots” is not a pejorative term, but a Marxist term for a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda.)

Konstan Kisin was fortunate enough to escape Marxism and puts it this way:

Lenin promised a better tomorrow in Russia, before imposing tyranny, poverty, and terror.
Mao promised a better tomorrow in China, before imposing tyranny, poverty, and terror.
Castro promised a better tomorrow in Cuba, before imposing tyranny, poverty, and terror.
Chavez promised a better tomorrow in Venezuela, before imposing tyranny, poverty, and terror.

Surprisingly, many useful idiots living within the borders of America — while enjoying a protection of their unalienable God-given rights — seem to think that they should use their freedom to destroy their freedom by making progress toward a Marxist utopia. The historical death count alone should prevent any sane person from advancing the cause of Marxism today, yet key tenets of Marx’s philosophy are alive and well.

Marxism’s Key Tenets

Here’s a short list of key ingredients included in Marx’s philosophy:

1. Class Struggle: Marxism is basically a worldview that posits a necessary conflict that only Marxism can solve. Marx said that the history of class struggles were between the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (working class). Today, the language typically used (and that most of us will recognize) is the struggle between the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.” The ultimate goal is for the proletariat (or “the oppressed”) to overthrow the bourgeoisie (“the oppressor”), leading to a classless society.

Marx utilized the oppressor/oppressed narrative in the 1840s when he co-authored the Communist Manifesto. Today, you will hear the exact same language used by those at the top of the Black Lives Matter organization. This makes sense since the leaders of the movement have proudly admitted that they are “trained Marxists.”

2. Abolition of Private Property: Marxists advocate for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production (factories, land, etc.) and propose that these should be owned collectively by the community or ruling government.

As the World Economic Forum (WEF) recently said, “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.”

3. Collectivism and State Control: Marxism starts with Socialism and emphasizes the central role of the government in controlling and distributing resources until the state itself “withers away” and transforms into full-blown Communism.

4. Critique of Capitalism: Marxism views capitalism as an exploitative system where the bourgeoisie (or the oppressor) extracts surplus value from the labor of the proletariat (or the oppressed), leading to inequality and social injustice. Thus, the Marxist advances what they refer to as “social justice,” which seeks equity (equal outcomes) as opposed to equal rights and opportunity.

Kamala Harris points out the difference between equality (equal rights and opportunity) as opposed to equity — “all ending up in the same place” (equal outcomes) in this short video.

5. Revolutionary Change: Marxism advocates for a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system, rather than reforming it through gradual or democratic means. We have seen this throughout history. “Political power grows out of a barrel of a gun” are infamous words uttered by Chinese Marxist named Mao Zedong. This has happened multiple times in world history, but most of us are old enough to remember that Black Lives Matter led a summer full of “mostly peaceful” protests combined with extremely violent riots in 2020 (that made January 6th look like a guided tour of the Capitol building). We saw a snapshot of what trained Marxists are willing to do in order to destroy “the system” in hopes to “Build Back Better.”

Karl Marx died in 1883, but his ideas have evolved and advanced at the Frankfurt School in Germany which exists for the purpose of advancing Marxism. This provided the foundation for the idea known as Critical Theory, and what has been advanced recently as Critical Race Theory (CRT). It’s vital to recognize this “theory” has deep roots in Marxism.

*Click here to read a copy of a speech I gave to the Kearney Public Schools Board of Education in 2022 about the dangers of CRT.

America’s Philosophical Foundations

The key tenets of Marxism are in opposition to America’s theological foundations stated in the Declaration of Independence and enemies of the United States Constitution. That is to say, the foundational documents of the United States are based upon principles that are incompatible with Marxism:

1. Individual Equal Rights and Private Property: The Declaration of Independence emphasizes God-given equal and “unalienable rights” including “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” which are closely tied to the protection of individual rights and private property (starting with the private property of your own body). The Constitution enshrines these rights through various amendments, particularly the Bill of Rights. Marxism, in contrast, seeks to abolish private property and emphasizes collective rights and property over individual rights and property.

2. Limited Government: The U.S. Constitution establishes a system of limited government, with checks and balances designed to prevent any one branch from gaining too much power. When the government is smaller, We the People have more freedom. Marxism, on the other hand, advocates for a powerful state — ultimately a dictator — to control resources and enforce equity (equal outcomes) upon all people, regardless of their personal choices.

3. Democratic Processes: The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic and the U.S. Constitution is based on democratic principles where change is achieved through We the People in an electoral processes and the rule of law. As noted above, however, Marxism often advocates for revolutionary change, which can involve the use of horrible violence and the overthrow of existing governmental structures.

This is one reason why the Second Amendment (2A) of the U.S. Constitution is so important. America’s Founders realized that the human right of self-defense — and the defense of loved ones — serves as an insurance of all of our other rights and is “necessary to the security of a free state.” This makes it clear that the 2A is not about “hunting rights,” it’s about security and the ability to oppose enemies of the Constitution; foreign or domestic (this might explain why progressives, who are willing to use violence to overthrow the freedoms of American citizens, often seem frustrated by the 2A).

4. Capitalism: The American system is built on a capitalist economic model, which Marxism fundamentally opposes. The protection of free markets and private enterprise is central to the U.S. economy, whereas Marxism seeks to dismantle capitalism entirely.

These fundamental differences lead to an inherent opposition between Marxist ideology and the principles enshrined in America’s theological and philosophical foundational documents. These two views are logically incompatible. The American system prioritizes individual human freedom (my favorite topic), private ownership of property, and a government that serves and protects objective and unalienable human rights, whereas Marxism seeks to replace these structures with a collectivist system focused on equity and the forced communal ownership (ultimately through the barrel of a gun) of all resources and everything else.

I believe that America’s philosophical foundations are objectively true (i.e., they correspond to reality). Thus, in order to avoid painful collisions with reality, we ought to strive to correspond to reality. In a nutshell, I affirm Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”

Accordingly, objectively good governments will not violate a human’s God-given rights. Indeed, an objectively good government will use its power to protect and fight for the God-given rights of humanity.

Since I possess knowledge that Christianity is true (given a cumulative case of evidence), I also know that Jefferson was right. Humanity was created on purpose and for specific purposes. This places us in an epistemic position to know exactly what our God-given rights are. This is also why it’s vital to study the entirety of God’s inspired Word (read your Bible)! Ultimately, Bible-believing Christians know that humans have God-given rights that ought not be violated by anyone – including governments.

In addition to the four philosophical principles of American philosophy, listed above, House Speaker Mike Johnson provides seven key essentials (some overlap with the above list) that American Conservatives — those seeking to conserve America’s philosophical and theological foundations — uphold:

  1. Individual Freedom
  2. Limited Government
  3. The Rule of Law
  4. Peace through Strength
  5. Fiscal Responsibility
  6. Free Markets
  7. Human Dignity

 

Progressives, as opposed to conservatives, have different goals. Whenever one refers to themselves as a “progressive,” I always ask them to clarify and be specific about what they are “progressing away from” and what they are progressing toward. I’ve had these conversations on many college campuses around the country and it seems that those who refer to themselves as “progressive” tend to make progress away from America’s philosophical foundations and often find themselves on a journey toward what they have been promised: a Marxist utopia.

This utopia can only exist if America’s foundation can be destroyed. Or in the words of Kamala Harris:

“To see what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

Make no mistake, Marxists have a religious devotion to being “unburdened by what has been” (America’s philosophical foundations). Despite horrendous failures over and over again, a Marxist utopia is what they believe “can be,” if they just try it one more time.

A Theological View of Marxism

Marxism is not merely a “shallow philosophy” (Colossians 2:8). As a theologian, I believe it is fair to refer to Marxism as a religion or a religious substitute. Of course, Marx did say that “religion is the opium of the people” so, although Marx himself would probably not refer to Marxism as a “religion,” it does share striking similarities with religion. Indeed, it seems to be an anti-Christ religion.

Just as Buddhism is often referred to as an “atheistic religion,” Marxism also seems to be worthy of that label. This is because it steps into the theological lane and attempts to provide answers to the problem of evil, sin, atonement, and forgiveness.

I have published two books and an academic journal article destroying particular arguments raised against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5). Namely, all the problems of evil. I highly recommend reading the chapter I contributed to the book, Faith Examined (Wipf and Stock, 2023) where I show that if Christianity is true, combined with God’s necessary omniscience, then all the so-called “problems of evil” melt away. But, as philosopher Owen Anderson notes in his article, “Mere Marxism,” the Marxist seeks to take a non-theological approach to addressing why evil exists in the world. The problem is that some people have more stuff than other people. The Marxist’s answer is that the places where there is not as much suffering have exploited the places that have more suffering. Dr. Anderson writes:

In this story, those places were once Edenic. The people lived in harmony with each other and with nature until European sails were seen on the horizon, and all hell broke loose.

Of course, anyone with minimal knowledge of history knows this is historical revisionism (see, How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt). As Anderson notes, before these lands were “colonized” by Europeans they were . . .

“filled with idolatry, sexual immorality, warfare, cannibalism, rape, self-mutilation, torture, and human sacrifice. But if you are taught the Mere Marxist narrative from K-12 and then in college, it is all you know.”

So there is a “problem of sin” in Marxism, and some are born sinners and some are born sinned against. But don’t worry, just as Jesus provides good news so that you can be set free from sin, the Marxist religion also provides atonement for your sins (more theology) if you happened to be born into the class of “oppressor.” Of course, this atonement is not through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but rather, Marxism is a religion of works. If you were born into the class of the sinful oppressor, you can be saved and make the world a better place by giving lots of your money and time to progressive causes — along with much virtue signaling.

Anderson notes that

“Marxism should rightly be considered as a cult that borrows from Christian beliefs. It teaches about a perfect time, the introduction of sin (private property and greed), and the path through atonement and redemption. It is a religion of works. There is no grace or mercy. You can only be redeemed by doing your fair share.”

Now that we’ve shown Marxism to meet the requirements for being a religion, I’m sure the ACLU will be consistent and demand the separation of Church and State.

So, not only is Marxism the enemy of America’s Philosophical Foundations, it’s also opposed to The Law of Christ and the gospel message. Marx seemed to realize this inherent contradiction between these two worldviews when he decried that “religion was the opium of the people.” Thus, religion — especially Christianity — opposed the goals of Marxism. After all, if the ultimate goal of Marxism is equity (equal outcomes despite personal choices) it opposes the teachings of Jesus and the Law of Christ.

This is why, in order to transform America into a Marxist utopia, one of the first steps was to advance arguments raised against the knowledge of God. This is also why those advancing Marxist ideals have spent so much time focused on the growing number of theologians and philosophers who “destroy every argument raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5) and provide a cumulative case of arguments and evidence supporting the existence of God and the truth of the historical resurrection.

When Christianity thrives, Marxism dies. 

Conclusion

This article briefly surveyed some key principles of Marxism and compared and contrasted them with key principles of America’s philosophical and theological foundations. We have seen that these two worldviews are logically incompatible and thus, natural enemies. Indeed, when one takes the oath to defend the U.S. Constitution . . .

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

. . . one promises to defend it against all enemies foreign or domestic. Marxism is at the top of the list of these enemies.

Although the evil of Marxism presents itself in physical form against your neighbors, loved ones, and the least of these (Mark 12:30-31; Matthew 25:31-46), while promising to help them, it comes to destroy them. We must remember where this evil comes from. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:

12 For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. 13 This is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

Of course, these spiritual forces of evil in which Paul speaks have infected the minds of many humans. We must seek to reason together (Isaiah 1:18) and speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) as we strive to free their minds (which is what FreeThinking Ministries is all about). We must always speak the truth, but we should begin with gentleness and kindness. If those we love refuse to listen — and as this evil becomes a clear and present danger to them and others — then Jesus and Paul give us examples of how the most loving thing to do is to stop worrying about being nice or coming across in humility. At that point, speaking the hard truth with cold facts is often the most loving thing a person can do for those refusing to see this danger.

Stay awake!

8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world (1 Peter 5:8-9).

Bottom line: We must call out the evils of this “shallow philosophy” (some have referred to it as the “woke mind virus”) which has taken so many captive (Colossians 2:8). Your neighbors, your loved ones, and the least of these depend on your voice. With this in mind, do not be silent in the face of evil! Be loud for the sake of love.

Much more can be said on this topic. Don’t worry, although this article was written as an introduction to the topic, FreeThinking Ministries has many articles and videos about the evils of Marxism (including several from Phil Bair, the author of Marx Attacks). More are forthcoming. Stay tuned.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18) and live in freedom (Galatians 5:13).

Recommended Resources: 

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

You Can’t NOT Legislate Morality mp3 by Frank Turek

Reflecting Jesus into a Dark World by Dr. Frank Turek – DVD Complete Series, Video mp4 DOWNLOAD Complete Series, and mp3 audio DOWNLOAD Complete Series

 

Tim Stratton (The FreeThinking Theist) Tim pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska-Kearney (B.A. 1997) and after working in full-time ministry for several years went on to attain his graduate degree from Biola University (M.A. 2014). Tim was recently accepted at North West University to pursue his Ph.D. in systematic theology with a focus on metaphysics.

Original Blog Posted Here: https://bit.ly/47wepLU

 

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What If I Don’t Like Either Candidate?

If you’re like me, this upcoming election feels like a choice between which electric outlet to jab a fork into. I’m not a big fan of either candidate. It may be tempting to just sit-out this election. But we shouldn’t give up that easily. This November, you won’t be voting for a pastor, or a personality. You’re not just voting for a president either. You’re voting for a package deal. We’re going to get the president and everything that comes with them. So, we owe it to ourselves to look past their personality and consider the rest of the caravan that’s coming along with them. Here are eight reasons why you and I should still vote in this election even if we don’t like either candidate.

If You Won’t Vote for Either Candidate Then . . .

1. Vote Down Ballot

Besides the presidency, there are thousands of other elected officers to be determined this November. History shows that whichever party wins the presidency gets a boost in the elections down ballot. You can help your preferred party win those other elections by endorsing their party for president.

2. Vote For a Cabinet

The president doesn’t work alone. He or she has a cabinet of about 15 different department heads, 10 other cabinet officials, and the Vice President.[1] This cabinet of 26 people advise the president on a regular basis. The president has the authority to appoint all of those officers. If you don’t like either candidate but you would trust a conservative cabinet over a progressive cabinet, then you know who to vote for.

3. Vote For 4,000 Presidential Appointees.

Besides appointing all the cabinet members, the president also appoints 4,000 or so government positions. When people say, “The Trump Administration” or the “Biden Administration” that’s what they are talking about; it’s the president plus the cabinet plus 4,000 or so appointees. The president isn’t just a personality but also a gateway for overhauling Washington DC.

4. Vote For a Vice President

Besides serving as the next in line for president, the VP is the Chief officer in the president’s cabinet. Even if you don’t care for Trump or Harris, you can get a sense of the administration direction through their running mate. Plus, you might see something in a VP candidate to inspire your vote.

5. Vote For a Party Platform

I would say ‘vote for the party’ but there’s no telling what the party stands for without their platform (what they say they’ll do) and their policies (what they do). In the last 5-8 years, the “left” has pulled farther left. “Old-school” democrats are considered moderate or even Republican now. Today’s Republicans are tough to distinguish from libertarians. The point is, you can still read the party platform of the Democrats and the Republicans and vote for the one that best fits our beliefs and values.

6. Vote For the Policies

Beside the party platform, both candidates represents a set of policies. Now, you can expect politicians to make all sorts of campaign promises leading up to the election. But I’m not talking about those empty promises. I’m talking about the party policies that are likely to happen, once that party is in power. The president, of course, can’t just make a new law. Congress does that. But the president, VP, and his cabinet can throw a lot of influence behind their party policies.

7. Vote For the Power of Executive Office

The president has the power to make executive orders including creating or disbanding whole departments if they so choose. Now, you may not trust either candidate with that power. But someone will have that power regardless. I bet you distrust one candidate more than the others.

8. Vote Against the Other Candidate

There is no option to vote for two U.S. presidents in this election cycle. So, when you vote, you’re always voting against the other candidate. Maybe you don’t like either candidate. But you can still vote against whichever candidate you dislike the most.

A Final Warning

If you aren’t convinced yet, and you don’t follow my advice, then you have that right. It’s a free country, for now. It’s not like Christians will lose their salvation for voting third-party or sitting this one out. But I would urge you not to waste your vote. You can still exercise wisdom, love, and courage by voting not for the president but for the policies, platforms, and personnel that they represent. Yes, that means voting in the presidential election, but it’s not just about the president. It never was. It’s about competing visions of what American will become over the next 4 years. You can vote for the future of America by voting on the direction of this country right now.

Otherwise, if you sit this one out, then you’re muffling your God-given influence. You’re wasting a precious gift. And you’re telling all the rot and darkness out there rioting in the streets as we speak that you’d rather keep your “salt and light” to yourself (Matt. 5:13:16). Perish the thought. Let’s go vote!

References:

[1] This number can change with any given administration, whenever a new office or department is formed, or another one is shut down.

Recommended Resources: 

Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone (Updated/Expanded) Book, DVD Set, Mp4 Download by Frank Turek

You Can’t NOT Legislate Morality mp3 by Frank Turek

Legislating Morality (DVD Set), (PowerPoint download), (PowerPoint CD), (MP3 Set) and (DVD mp4 Download Set) 

Does Jesus Trump Your Politics by Dr. Frank Turek (mp4 download and DVD)

 

Dr. John D. Ferrer is an educator, writer, and graduate of CrossExamined Instructors Academy. Having earned degrees from Southern Evangelical Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he’s now active in the pro-life community and in his home church in Pella Iowa. When he’s not helping his wife Hillary Ferrer with her ministry Mama Bear Apologetics, you can usually find John writing, researching, and teaching cultural apologetics.

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The Scandal of Elite Evangelical Compromise

A blogger I read regularly alerted me to Megan Basham’s new book Shepherds for Sale, subtitled How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. It was released [at the] end of July. I was intrigued by the book because it claimed to be exposing compromise infecting many evangelical elites, especially among Southern Baptists. As it is, she is a Southern Baptist, and for over a decade I had moved in that world both at the more liberal Baylor University (the “largest Baptist university in the world”) and then at two of the main Southern Baptist seminaries (in Louisville and in Ft. Worth).

Baylor president Robert Sloan had hired me in 1999 to found and run an intelligent design think tank (the Michael Polanyi Center). The backlash from Baylor faculty was intense, and I was left for the five years on my contract to write and do research, but essentially as persona non grata, without even the option to teach (I was too controversial for any department to risk having me teach their courses). The biology department even had on its homepage a statement repudiating intelligent design and commending Darwinian evolutionary theory. If Basham’s book had been written about evangelicalism at Baylor, it would not be the “instant” New York Times bestseller it is now. Moderate Baptists, such as at Baylor, have a long history of accommodation with the prevailing spirit of the age.

In 2005 my contract with Baylor came to an end. My struggles at Baylor had gotten me some sympathy from conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention, which had gained control of the seminaries. And so, in the fall of 2005, I started teaching at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and then subsequently at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth. Though for a time I was a “golden boy,” featured in the Baptist Press and with my likeness in seminary ads, I lasted only seven years at these seminaries. In the end, it wasn’t a good fit.

The final straw for me was a meeting in which the president, provost, and dean called me into the president’s office because I questioned historical aspects of Noah’s flood, questions I had raised in a book on theodicy (The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World). I had never hidden that I was not a young-earth creationist. In fact, I had made my old-earth position on creation clear in the job application process. But when I was called in for that meeting, the president informed me that my job was on the line (the historicity of Noah’s flood being a point of orthodoxy at the seminary even if the age of the earth was not). I was able to finesse things enough to keep my job (you can find the details in an interview I gave), but it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I knew it was time to move on.

I give this background not to stir up bad sentiments, whether in myself or the reader, but to indicate that the world that Megan Basham is writing about is one I knew intimately. As a non-Baptist outsider, I was especially alert to the power politics, the scolding and shaming, and the thirst for respectability about which she writes. That is her world as well. It is the one she mainly focuses on. In a sense, her book makes an a fortiori argument: if she can demonstrate woke compromise in the Southern Baptist Convention, the only major Protestant denomination that ever took itself out of the liberal death spiral that had compromised all the other mainline Protestant denominations, then her case is made for evangelicalism generally.

A word about terminology. Basham ostensibly focuses her attention on American evangelicalism as a whole rather than the specifically Southern Baptist form of it. American evangelicalism is a broad movement within Protestant Christianity characterized by a focus on the authority of Scripture, the importance of evangelism (i.e., sharing the Gospel), personal conversion, and a belief in the necessity of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In that sense, I am and remain an evangelical. Yet the term applies especially to any believing Southern Baptist, as can be confirmed by examining the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, to which Southern Baptists are expected to subscribe.

As a writer for the Daily Wire, Basham is not in the habit of mincing words. I found her tone a bit strident (though not overly). And yet, most of what she wrote rang true. I knew many of the personalities she described, whether directly or through mutual colleagues. Of the people I knew that she singled out for rebuke, I was not surprised about the charges she made. And of those whom she singled out as holding firm against woke encroachments, again they were people I would have expected to hold firm. There were a handful exceptions where Basham assigned someone to the class of compromiser where I thought she was likely being too harsh.

Basham is a journalist, and it’s clear that she did extensive research to write her book, reviewing many articles, posts, and videos as well as conducting numerous interviews. Her focus was on the hot-button cultural issues that animate our society’s more extreme progressives. With regard to climate change, illegal immigration, abortion, Covid-19 response, critical race theory, #MeToo, and LGBTQ, she details evangelical elites veering into a secular liberal agenda as they try to shift the thinking of the evangelical masses toward such an agenda or else keep them in the dark about the compromises they themselves are making.

You can read the book for yourself to determine whether she makes a compelling case for complicity and compromise among elite evangelicals. Interestingly, as I was looking on the web for reaction to her book, I punched into Google “Megan Basham Shepherds for Sale,” and the first item that came up was a 10,000-word response by former SBC president JD Greear (published three days ago, August 12).

Greear came in for extensive criticism in the book. Even though he took exception to Basham’s charges and replied to them in detail, he was respectful throughout and he did graciously underscore that there was validity to her efforts to hold church leaders like himself to account:

One of the things I appreciated about Basham’s book is that she pointed out the cultural pressure to appeal to elite progressives. That pressure exists in an educated, cosmopolitan place like RDU [where Greear’s Summit Church is located]. Nearly 70 percent of our community votes Democratic, and these are the people God has called us to reach. Since I am known as a political conservative, I do sometimes go to lengths to criticize my own political tribe because I don’t want there to be any encumbrances to the gospel. I need to heed the warning she offers and stand squarely on Scripture, saying exactly what it says, regardless of who it offends. That said, it is simply untrue that I don’t publicly criticize the Democratic party or critique the sins of the left. I’ve preached repeatedly on the sin of abortion, the sinfulness of homosexuality, and the destructiveness of gender confusion. Even just this year, I read from the Democratic platform in church and called it evil. The people of The Summit Church, who hear me week by week, know where I stand.

[Basham has posted a detailed reply to Greear at Clear Truth Media]

And that brings me to the point of this Substack post. As already noted, nothing that Basham described about evangelical elites succumbing to the temptations of power, prestige, money, and sex surprised me. And there’s a straightforward reason for my lack of surprise. Evangelicals, precisely because of their evangelical beliefs, occupy a second tier in our society, the first tier being occupied by the secular liberal elites that control the universities, the media, the levers of political power, and prime intellectual real estate such as the New York Times. It is a natural as well as potent temptation for the second tier to want recognition from the first tier.

The one surprise in my reading of Basham’s book was the pains to which the first tier has gone to seduce the second tier to serve its political ends. Evangelicals, for all their incongruence with elite secular high culture, constitute a political bloc that politicians must enlist to win elections and that progressive influencers consequently must subvert if their secular liberal agenda is to succeed. To have evangelicals publicly seen as a constant disrupter of their best laid plans would not wash. As with all ideologies that seek complete domination, woke progressivism finds it unacceptable to have a group, even a fringe group, serve as a witness against their goals and aspirations. And so, the biggest surprise for me in reading Shepherds for Sale was the extent to which explicitly non-Christian secular groups, especially philanthropies, target evangelicals, especially their elite leadership, with funds, training, and attention to get them to veer from the straight and narrow.

The Bible talks about bribes and how they subvert truth and justice. Yet the Hebrew word שַׁחַד (shachad) translated bribe also means gift, reward, or donation. That’s what philanthropic organizations are all about—giving gifts, rewards, and donations to advance their agendas. And as Basham rightly notes, the biggest philanthropic organization of all is the US government.

Not all philanthropic agendas need to be for bad ends. But all of them come with strings attached. They come with obligations to look here and not there, to wish for and achieve certain preferred outcomes, to serve a given cause rather than to let evidence and truth go where they will. Basham details how various secular liberal organizations have exploited the cultural inferiority of evangelicalism to move it away from its traditional positions on the hot-button issues of our age.

My point in this post is not to name evangelical elites who have compromised themselves or the secular philanthropies who have tempted them into compromise. You can get the details in Basham’s book. But here’s an example that Basham gives that’s emblematic of the temptations faced by elite evangelicals. It’s the case of an elite evangelical being invited to dinner at the Obama White House. I knew this individual 20 years ago early in his career. He has since had a meteoric rise in elite evangelical circles. In the introduction to a recent book that he wrote, he inserts a paragraph that seems out of place about his dinner at the Obama White House (confirming Basham’s account). No doubt, it must be personally gratifying to be invited to the White House. But ego aside, is that really something for an evangelical to be proud of given that the Obama presidency was so opposed to core evangelical beliefs and practices?

Let me put this point more starkly. The Scriptures teach repeatedly that we should guard against recognition, accolades, and advancement from those hostile to the faith and that in fact we are on much safer ground when those hostile to the faith persecute rather than praise us. This is not to say that we should purposely make ourselves so annoying or distasteful that we receive the reproach of unbelievers (as when Christians act as hypocrites). But it is to say that by quietly and consistently living out our faith, we will naturally attract opposition (consider the ongoing saga of the Denver baker Jack Phillips).

The New Testament makes this point so consistently, as illustrated in the following verses, that it is hard to dismiss it simply as proof texting:

  • Matthew 5:10–12
    “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
  • Matthew 10:22
    “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
  • Luke 6:22–23
    “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.”
  • John 15:18–20
    “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”
  • Acts 5:40–41
    “They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
  • 2 Timothy 3:12
    “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
  • 1 Peter 2:20b–21
    “If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”

At the risk of overburdening the reader with still more Scripture verses, yet to leave no doubt about what the New Testament is teaching here, not only is opposition from unbelievers seen as something normal and to be expected (showing that Christians are doing something right) but support from unbelievers at the very least requires scrutiny and at worst can become a trap or pitfall:

  • Luke 6:26
    “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”
  • John 5:44
    “How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”
  • John 12:42b–43
    “Because of the Pharisees, [many] would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.”
  • Galatians 1:10
    “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
  • James 4:4
    “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

So the prime lesson I take from Basham’s book, and one I would like readers of this post to take with them also, is that we do well not to sell our Christian birthright for a mess of liberal or progressive pottage. We should be better than that and our Christian faith demands better than that.

Northwestern University professor Gary Morson wrote a recent piece for Commentary on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great Soviet dissident and Christian believer whose Gulag Archipelago more than any other book (it was actually three volumes) tore the veil off of Soviet oppression and totalitarianism in the 1970s. As Morson writes in “Solzhenitsyn Warned Us”:

For his part, Solzhenitsyn could hardly believe that Westerners would not want to hear all he had learned journeying through the depths of totalitarian hell. “Even in soporific Canada, which always lagged behind, a leading television commentator lectured me that I presumed to judge the experience of the world from the viewpoint of my limited Soviet and prison camp experience,” Solzhenitsyn recalled. “Indeed, how true! Life and death, imprisonment and hunger, the cultivation of the soul despite the captivity of the body: how very limited this is compared to the bright world of political parties, yesterday’s numbers on the stock exchange, amusements without end, and exotic foreign travel!”

The West “turned out to be not what we [dissidents] had hoped and expected; it was not living by the ‘right’ values nor was it headed in the ‘right’ direction.” America was no longer the land of the free but of the licentious. The totalitarianism from which Solzhenitsyn had escaped loomed as the West’s likely future. Having written a series of novels about how Russia succumbed to Communism, Solzhenitsyn smelled the same social and intellectual rot among us. He thought it his duty to warn us, but nobody listened. Today, his warnings seem prescient. We have continued to follow the path to disaster he mapped.

“Life and death, imprisonment and hunger, the cultivation of the soul despite the captivity of the body: how very limited this is compared to the bright world of political parties, yesterday’s numbers on the stock exchange, amusements without end, and exotic foreign travel!”
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If Basham is right, elite evangelical compromise is helping to pave the way to “the same social and intellectual rot” against which Solzhenitsyn warned us. The woke, the progressives, the left have made no secret of their agenda. I hope Shepherds for Sale is widely read if only for pointing out the complicity of elite evangelicalism in their agenda. Is Basham overstating the problem of elite evangelical compromise? Perhaps. But perhaps it needs to be overstated so that elite evangelicals wake up to the fact that the spotlight is on them and they can no longer dance to the tune of those who are implacably opposed to them ideologically, whose purpose is to use and discard them and in the end to completely undermine the Christian faith.

Solzhenitsyn was a serious thinker who could never be accused of compromise. He suffered too much. He paid too big a price. He could not be bought. He is a fitting role model for elite evangelicalism. He provides a proper coda for Basham’s book.

Recommended Resources:

Was Jesus Intolerant? by Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Another Gospel? by Alisa Childers (book)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

 

Bill Dembski holds octorates in math and philosophy as well as an advance theological degree. He’s published in the peer-reviewed math, engineering, biology, philosophy, and theology literature. His focus is on freedom, technology, and education. Formerly almost exclusively an ID (intelligent design) guy, with most of his writing focused on that topic, he found that even though ID had the better argument, it faced roadblocks designed to stop its success. So his focus shifted to the wider social and political forces that block free human inquiry. Bill still writes a lot on intelligent design but his focus these days is broader.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3Xm9k49

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Voting as a Kingdom Ambassador

During the presidential elections there are many voices “crying out in the wilderness,” as it were, proclaiming all sorts of weird ideas. One of those ideas is the thought that within this seemingly hostile and divided political and cultural climate even within the church, Christians who hold to a particular view are looking to crown a new political messiah and usher in some sort of a new kingdom.

Voting for President, not a Messiah

I cannot speak for all who claim to follow Jesus Christ. Perhaps there is some odd and rare breed of believers who sees the presidency as salvation. I do not! So I will speak for myself as to how I view the privilege and honor of voting not only as an American citizen, but more importantly as a citizen and ambassador of Heaven. As Christ followers, we are ambassadors who have dual-citizenship and should exercise this right, privilege, and power with wisdom.

“As Christ followers, we are ambassadors who have dual-citizenship and should exercise this right, privilege, and power with wisdom.”

As a citizen of God’s Kingdom and an ambassador of Heaven here on earth, when I vote I am NOT electing a “messiah” as some have flippantly asserted. That’s a gross misrepresentation and or misunderstanding of voting for a presidential candidate. It seems to me this is more of a distorted lens and skewed filter weaponized to silence or dissuade those who hold dissenting views. As ambassadors of Heaven who represent King Jesus, we should have the presence of mind to know that any form of deceptive manipulation, intimidation, gaslighting, or shaming to get someone to bow their knee to our way of seeing things is not a biblical practice.

There’s No Replacing Our Savior

I am NOT voting for a replacement of King Jesus here on this world as the Israelites did when they reject God and demanded an earthly king. I am merely exercising my ambassadorial rights as a representative of Heaven to vote secularly for policies and principles  (NOT a person or people) that approximate as near as possible to Heaven’s Constitution which is God’s Word. That’s what ambassadors do! An ambassador is to represent the King’s mind, His will, intent, and motives according to His Word. It’s that simple. For instance, God is the Author of life, therefore I will not in any way vote for a platform that peddles death through abortion. But what if both parties are for abortion? Then I choose the one that is at the very least attempting to mitigate this evil in some way as opposed to a wholesale free for all abortion policy.

The Litmus Test

Moreover, as Tim Stratton has recently noted:

“Abortion is *still* a litmus test issue. Not only has [one candidate] done the most for the Pro-Life movement than any other President in American history, [the other candidate] will overrule states and [re]codify Roe into federal law. [The former] will leave it as it is which allows We The People to be active in local government to continue the fight against the murder of baby humans.”

Again, as a citizen of Heaven, I am not voting to elect a savior, king, or messiah to somehow usurp Jesus Christ as King. I am seeking to rightly fulfill my duty and obligation as an ambassador of Heaven tasked to represent God’s will on this broken earth as it is in Heaven compelled by His Love, Word and Holy Spirit to the best of my ability. How do I best “love my neighbor?” What policies will point people toward the culture of heaven, by promoting life, goodness, purity, love, praiseworthiness, justice, mercy, righteousness, and joy for the flourishing and well-being of my neighbors?

Remember, there is no perfect party. There will never be one on this side of eternity. There is no perfect candidate running for the presidency. As ambassadors that is never to be the focus anyway. To represent Jesus faithfully and to promote policies that love our neighbors (the second greatest command) is the goal. We are to go into the voting booth as ambassadors representing God’s Kingdom and His never-ending government. When I choose to vote, I am not voting for a politician to replace The King of kings, Lord of lords, Creator, Owner, and Sustainer of all things. Ultimately it would be impossible, to replace Jesus, not to mention patently ridiculously.

Recommended Resources:

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

Legislating Morality (mp4 download),  (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), (PowerPoint download), and (PowerPoint CD) by Frank Turek

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD) by Frank Turek

 

Tito Santiago is husband to his beloved wife Christina, and father to his awesome son Josiah David. He serves at Paul and Silas Ministries as a leader via Mentoring Winners and is also the host of Noize Radio Live, a developing online podcast of Kingdom urban music and talk.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3XlDuW9

 

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The Ethics of AI in Writing

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence, I’m a luddite. I’m analog over digital. Forget Pandora® and Spotify® or even CD’s. Vinyl LP’s rule them all. I grew up playing outside, climbing trees, chasing things, reveling over sticks – not joysticks, just sticks. If they look like a sword or a gun, even better. I’m a Labrador retriever, but literate. I have the tech-savvy of your average canine too. That’s because I’m Gen X. I was raised before the interweb, before social media and Netflix. I remember Atari, Nintendo, and Sega, and Alladin’s Palace. I slogged through the dial-up era. I even met my wife on Myspace. Rock on! When Sunday comes, I actually leave my house to go to church! I turn my phone off to listen to the sermon. And the sermon isn’t at 1.5x speed either. It’s at regular speed, and it takes forever. But that’s how I roll. There are some disadvantages to being an old-school luddite like me. But there’s one big advantage. We first learned about AI from The Terminator. We see artificial intelligence through the lens of Skynet killbots. We learned to fear it before we were ever tempted to love it.

We’re not surprised to find that ChatGPT, for example, poses some major threats to modern writing. It’s not all bad, of course. AI image-builders are great at stirring your creative juices. Writing engines can be a great research tool for summarizing big data into small bites. Long before ChatGPT hit the market spell-checkers and grammar assistants were helping to spot-clean our writing, on the fly. And I’m sure there is AI-tech is tracking down terrorists, blocking telemarketers, rejecting spam, and exterminating viruses. AI can be wonderful. But, technology can be used for good or evil, depending on how people wield it. So, when it comes to publishing, we should be aware of some of the ethical problems AI poses.

First, if you didn’t write it, you’re not the author.

The most glaring problem with AI writing is plagiarism. If you are writing a paper, and use AI to generate a sentence, a paragraph, or more, then that’s content you didn’t write. If you present that writing as your own, you are lying. That’s plagiarism. Ethically, you would need to report that AI program as a co-author. If you’re using AI to write your blog or online article, you should the least say: “Written with the assistance of AI/ChatGPT/etc.” And while that’s better than nothing, if that’s all you say about AI, it’s still misleading since you didn’t just use AI merely to fact-check or assist with research. The writing itself was produced by a writing-engine. So, you aren’t the sole author AI wrote a significant portion of the article, blog, or book while you are claiming sole authorship. In that case, AI didn’t just “assist” you. You two are co-authors. It’s misleading at best, and dishonest at worst, to claim authorship for written material that you didn’t author. Don’t be surprised then if publishers or professors reject your papers and accuse you of plagiarism if you ever claim AI writing as your own.

Second, if you didn’t learn it, you don’t know it.

AI is a Godsend when it comes to research. With AI you can get quick summaries, condense tons of information, and hunt down obscure quotes, authors, and books. I’m a big fan of AI as a research tool. But there’s a looming delusion with AI-infused research. People can radically overestimate their expertise to whatever extent they rely on AI to do the “thinking” for them.

Consider it this way. If you had a forklift and used it to lift thousand-pound loads, does that mean you’re strong? Of course not. A forklift is a tool for heavy lifting, and that’s fine. That’s what tools are for, to make work easier. But the machine did the hard work, not you. So you aren’t strong. The machine is. Now imagine you have a forklift, and not only do you use it to lift thousand-pound loads on the job site, but you also use it at your home gym to do your weightlifting. All your strength-training features you sitting in the driver’s seat, steering this forklift to move weights, pull loads, flip tires, push sleds, and carry you through the miles of jogging trail. You were using the forklift for exercise, so does that forklift now mean you’re strong? Still no. You’re no stronger, but likely weaker because that machine is taking over the hands-on work that you should have been doing to grow fit and strong. That’s how we often treat AI. Instead of wielding it as a tool in the hands of a skilled craftsman, it’s an artificial limb rendering us handicapped and codependent. AI, therefore, must be subordinated beneath the task of learning. It should function in service of our learning. As writers, publishers, and content creators, we should be learning about the subjects we’re writing about, we should be gaining experience and expertise. We do well, then, to take full responsibility for the learning task before us, so we’re not using AI to replace learning and knowledge with the appearance of learning substitute for learning and knowledge. Rather we should be using AI to help us learn and gain knowledge. At the end of the day, if you’re reposting AI content that you didn’t learn for yourself then you don’t know whether that content is correct, fair, or reasonable. If you didn’t learn it, you don’t know it.

Third, if you don’t lead it, you’re led by it.

A third problem facing AI-usage is that it “has a mind of it’s own.” I’m not talking about actual autonomous life. We’re probably not at the point of iRobot or even Skynet. I’m talking about how AI isn’t neutral or objective, and it’s often laughably mistaken. If you followed Google’s “Gemini” launch fiasco then you know what I’m talking about. In February 2024, Google launched an AI-engine called “Gemini.” It could generate images, but never of white people. Apparently, it had been programmed to avoid portraying white people and, instead, to favor images of black people and other minorities. Allegedly, this is from a DEI initiative written into its code. So, if you asked for images of the Pope you might get one of these instead:

Now I’m not too worried about Gemini 1.0. I’m more concerned about the AI engines that are so subtle that you’ll never realize when they skew information in favor of a political narrative. For all writers, editors, authors, and content-creators, we need to do more than take credit for our content. We need to take responsibility for it too. That means we take leadership over the tools used in research, fact-finding, and learning. Instead of letting those tools lead us whichever direction they’re programmed to go, we decide for ourselves whether those directions are worth going, change course as needed, and refuse to let a Google algorithm determine what we are going to think or believe. Another way to say this is that we should expect that AI introduces some degree of slant and bias to the equation. So instead of trusting AI to tell the truth, and report events accurately, we need to keep a healthy dose of skepticism on hand and be ready to correct against our own biases and the bias we find in AI programming.

At an innocent level, an AI writing program might be biased in favor of formal writing – replacing all contractions like “aren’t,” “we’re” and “y’all” with “are not,” “we are,” and “youz guys.” At a more insidious level, AI can insert a decidedly partisan slant – especially when it comes to progressive political agenda items. It would be naïve to think that Google, Bing, Microsoft, etc. aren’t willing and able to let political and religious bias slip into the programming.

There’s No Going Back to the Stone Age

Now I may be a luddite, but I’m no fool. I understand that unless there’s a nuclear fallout, or something comparable, there’s no way we’re going back to the days of dot matrix printers and analog typewriters. We aren’t going back to the stone age as long as these time-saving tools are still functional. I write these warnings to you, not as a prophet but as a minister. I don’t foresee technological disasters crashing down on us. Rather I’m a hopeful Christian encouraging all of you aspiring writers out there to model academic integrity, write well, own your material, and grow through the writing process.

Oh, and Analog > Digital. Long live Vinyl!

Recommended Resources:

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (Mp3/ Mp4)

 

Dr. John D. Ferrer is a speaker and content creator with Crossexamined. He’s also a graduate from the very first class of Crossexamined Instructors Academy. Having earned degrees from Southern Evangelical Seminary (MDiv) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (ThM, PhD), he’s now active in the pro-life community and in his home church in Pella Iowa. When he’s not helping his wife Hillary Ferrer with her ministry Mama Bear Apologetics, you can usually find John writing, researching, and teaching cultural apologetics.

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In the Gospels, Jesus is Pro-Life

When you encounter Jesus in the gospels, it’s not hard to see why the world would be a better place if everyone was more like him. And in the gospels, Jesus is pro-life. In fact, life is the issue for Jesus. ‘Life’ is why Jesus came into the world.

The Bible is About Life

The Bible’s most famous verse even says:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NIV)

Humans weren’t originally created to face death (Romans 5:12), and Jesus hates death – that’s why he conquered it (Romans 6:9; 2 Timothy 1:10). Jesus’ mission is to bring dead people to life (Mark 10:45; John 5:24; 1 Timothy 1:15) – that’s why he came.

So when our world, and our leaders, say that it’s actually better for some innocent people to be killed and moved from life-to-death rather than from death-to-life, we can know that they are not in agreement with the most loving person in history.

Most people want Jesus on their side. But, as Greg Koukl writes:

“What we cannot do, though, is reject the Gospel accounts out of hand and then advance our own personal opinion of the Jesus of the Gospels, since there will be no Jesus left to have a personal opinion about” (para. 17).

So, here is what the gospels say about Jesus, and the beginning and end of life.

Jesus, the Gospels, and the Beginning of Life

In the gospels, we are chronologically introduced to Jesus when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her that she will miraculously conceive (Luke 1:26-38).

Then we see an example of an unborn baby (John the Baptist – about 22-24 weeks gestation) alive and leaping in the womb (Luke 1:41-44), because of the news that Jesus is going to be born.

Mary is also called “mother” by Elizabeth (Luke 1:43) before Jesus is even born, which presumes the existence of a human being for Mary to be the mother of.

The infancy narrative of Luke’s gospel affirms life in the womb.

In addition, we have a couple of verses in the gospels where Jesus himself (now all grown-up) specifically mentions scenarios of pregnant women.

Speaking about future difficulty, Jesus says: “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!” (Mark 13:17 NIV)

Jesus sympathizes with the hardship that comes with pregnancy and motherhood, particularly during difficult times, and we know how accommodating Jesus is of the women who follow him and listen to his teaching.[i]

Jesus champions women in the gospels. But Jesus is also a champion of the birth of human beings. He says, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” (John 16:21 ESV)

Jesus recognizes the pain that comes with pregnancy, but he also says that the joy of a human being born into the world is greater than this agonizing pain – to the point that the anguish of pregnancy is not even remembered when measured against the birth of a new human being into the world.

Jesus’ statement in John 16:21 is non-particular and absolute. He is saying that there is joy when any human being, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), is born into the world. Jesus views human life too highly for us to say that he is anything other than pro-life.

And Jesus is also clear that testing circumstances and the inevitability of suffering is no reason not to live (John 16:33). In fact, the meek life Jesus himself chose to live demonstrates this (just read Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and Philippians 2:6-8). Life in-and-of-itself is precious to Jesus and not to be discarded.

The only time Jesus says someone would be “better off” not to be born is when he speaks about Judas (Mark 14:21) – someone who is not innocent, and someone of whom Jesus is foreknowingly aware of the consequences for his betrayal.

Jesus, the Gospels, and the End of Life

Jesus’ mission is to bring dead people to life, and this is patterned in the gospels when Jesus raises a little girl (Mark 5:41-42), a young man (Luke 7:14-15), and a weak-and-ill grown man (John 11:43-44) from the dead.

In our culture, we hear the argument that some (weaker) people are better off dead because the suffering that they will continue to face in their lives is ‘intolerable’. The argument presents death as the best, and even the only, ‘solution’.

Those whom Jesus healed all eventually died again. But he never treated death as the ‘solution’ for their situations.

Jesus admits that life will be hard: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NIV). But “take heart” connotes perseverance, endurance, and trust in God – the opposite of opting for death.

Opting for death as the solution to life’s sufferings is not on Jesus’ radar. In fact, Jesus is the only (truly) innocent person who needed to face physical death to fix the problem of suffering. And even in his story, life triumphs over death.

The gospel message in its most basic form is that Jesus came to save us from death and give us life. But those who champion death as a solution want the reverse: they want death to ‘save’ someone from life.

Such an attitude is an affront to the love of Jesus, because it runs completely counter to the power of the gospel message. Jesus came that people may have life (John 10:10), which you can’t have if you opt for death as a solution.

Societies that Pursue Jesus Flourish the Most

‘Life’ is not a peripheral issue for Jesus. If ‘life’ matters to history’s greatest person, it should matter to us. Peoples and nations who have followed the principles that matter to Jesus have succeeded in history. Pray that Jesus would be placed at the heart of our society. Apart from him, we are told by the God-man himself that we can do nothing (John 15:5). Pray that our nation would value life. Life matters.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (John 1:4 NIV)

References:

[i] For more on this see, Rebecca Mclaughlin, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women (Austin, TX: Gospel Coalition, 2022).

Recommended Resources:

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)        

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

 

Sean Redfearn is a former Community Youth Worker who now works for Christian Concern in Central London, UK. He completed an MA in Religion at King’s College London, is in the process of completing the MA Philosophy program at Southern Evangelical Seminary, and is a 2022 CrossExamined Instructor Academy graduate. Passionate about Jesus, he is grateful for the impact that apologetics has had on his faith.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/4dzGX9y

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The New Cultural Christianity

A few months ago I wrote an article on the West’s move towards a post-Christian culture (Post-Christianity: What’s That?). Since the article’s publication at least two prominent atheists decried the fall of Christianity in the West. One claims to have converted to Christianity (Ayaan Hirsi Ali) and the other maintains atheism but embraces “cultural Christianity” (Richard Dawkins).[1] They, along with fellow atheists Bret Weinstein and Tom Holland recognize that the fall of the West will be accomplished with the dismantling of the Church. The New Atheists of twenty years ago assumed that logic, reason, and science would provide the basis for a moral society as it abandoned God and moved into the post-Christian era.

Much to their chagrin, however, this has not been the case. Dawkins began to recognize the threat radical Islam is to the West years ago. He knew that the vacuum of religiosity could clear the way for something much worse. Nature abhors a vacuum and Dawkins rightfully understood that while his desire to see religion dissipate seemed noble, the results could be catastrophic. I always found it interesting that he pursued the eradication of faith anyway.

But this is not a new realization. Many atheists are simply starting to recognize what Frederick Nietzsche proclaimed over a century ago. Nietzsche, an atheist himself, understood full well the terrible implications of a godless West even if, initially, those like Sam Harris, who once said “I’m still the kind of person who writes articles with rather sweeping titles like ‘Science must destroy religion’” and others might sneer at the idea. But Nietzsche’s words are worth a second, third, and maybe hundredth look as we barrel down the road of post-Christianity because his words seem more prophetic now than when they were first penned.

From Nietszche’s Madman to the Übermensch

Nietzsche recounts the story of the madman that declares the terrible consequences of God’s death:

“Where is God?” he cried, ‘I’ll tell you! We have killed him – you and I! We are all his murderers. But how did we do this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained the earth from its son? Where is it moving now… God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him. How can we console ourselves, the murderers of all murderers! The holiest and the mightiest thing the world has ever possessed has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood from us?… Finally he threw his lantern on the ground so that it broke into pieces and went out. ‘I come too early, he then said; ‘my time is not yet… The deed is still more remote to them than the remotest stars – and yet they have done it themselves!”[2]

Nietzsche surmised that those in the enlightenment had not understood the consequences of God’s philosophical and scientific “death.” He understood that the absence of God would plunge society into nihilism and futility. While God may not exist, perhaps, his perceived existence was necessary to hold society together.

Nietzsche then proposes a possible solution to the problem. A pursuit of the god within ourselves. He named this pursuit of the ultimate human the Übermensch. The Übermensch (which literally means the “over-man”) has been an oft-misunderstood concept. At times it has been seen as the ideal moral human or even as a superior form of the human “race” as the Nazis seemed to use it, but this would be a misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s goal in developing the concept.

In his mind, if we had successfully killed God, we could either drift to nihilism or pursue an “ultimate man” or “beyond man” as the archetype of what it means to be truly human.

Nietzsche understood something about human nature that many new atheists simply did not. That, at our core, human beings are religious creatures. We desire to pursue something greater than ourselves; we desire to order society by a set of ideals, we desire order and not anarchy to hold our culture together. We will all, in the end, worship something or someone.

This is the missing link between a Christian and a post-Christian culture. Human beings cannot order themselves purely along scientific or materialistic lines. Societies and cultures for millennia have proven this pursuit futile. Even supposed secular states tend to develop a religious culture around their leaders. The Czar, the Dictator, and the Communist leader demand religious-like loyalty. They develop their own sets of dogmas, doctrines, and worship standards whether they would admit it or not and they do so to maintain and establish a common culture. Sure, they claim there is no god above them but that does not stop them from declaring themselves a god unto themselves.

In the end the idea of the ultimate man, the Übermensch, has been adopted a variety of ways throughout history from racial lines to philosophical humanism. Society would look to construct a new ideal through which to order itself, one unshackled from the restraints of archaic Christian morality.

The word culture is derived from the Latin word cultus which means both to till and to worship. And while etymology does not equate to definition it is fascinating to think that we could move into a post-Christian cultus or an atheistic cultus. It would seem to be a contradiction in terms and thus would lead one to wonder if a godless culture is even possible.

Perhaps one is technically possible but I contend that the human tendency towards a common culture based on certain metaphysical beliefs about reality renders the proposition dubious at best.

Every culture eventually orders itself around its highest ideal and whatever the highest ideal is, for all intents and purposes, is God. For any culture to survive it must have guiding principles through which it orders itself and often, these principles will take on a religious undertone. There is inherently a religious structure to how human beings organize themselves.  This is not an argument for God’s existence, rather, it is an observation concerning human history.

All cultures eventually sustain a religious type of structure, or, as Nietzsche observed, they are on the precipice of anarchy, destruction, and nihilism. So, if a culture is going to move beyond its religious foundation, to endure, it must replace said religious foundation with another religious type foundation. In Nietzsche’s mind that was the idea of the Übermensch. The Übermensch was the ultimate good (as opposed to the Maximally Great Being revealed in scripture), but one that catered to, instead of restraining, humanity’s base passions and desires.

“The church combats the passions by cutting them off in every sense: its technique, its ‘cure’ is castration. It never asks: ‘how can a desire be spiritualized, beautified, deified?” – Jack Maden, “Ubermensch Explained.”

In other words, it is through the release of “repression” and the embracing of our passions and the self-mastery thereof that we find our purpose, meaning, and hope without a god. In our current moment I believe we are experiencing a shift from Orthodox Cultural Christianity to Post-Christian Cultural Christianity. A type of Christianity that seeks to spiritualize, beautify, and deify our subjective passions, desires and proclivities. We are not progressing towards atheism as much as we are remaking Christianity through the idea of the Übermensch ideal.

This could seem like a contradiction but let me explain:

The New Cultural Christianity

I believe that our current cultural context seeks to remake cultural Christianity from what it was, particularly an orthodox understanding of God’s character and sin, to an Übermensch Cultural Christianity. One that looks inside the man to find the ideal and encourages the living out of our passions and desires.

This shift has made Progressive Christianity the new cultural Christianity of the West.

What do I mean by that?

First, I want to build my case on two different statistics that seem to contradict each other, and these statistics, I believe, have been interpreted wrongly on the individual level, but they help us to understand our new cultural Christianity in the west and in America in particular.

A recent study by Barna Research Group it was found that 71% of people have a high view of Jesus but only 40% have a high view of Church. When narrowed to “no faith” individuals we find 40% having a high view of Jesus with only 21% having a high view of the Church. However, the starkest contrast is between self-described “Christians” wherein 84% have a high view of Jesus but only 58% have a high view of the local Church.

A lot has been made of these statistics. Most have cast aspersions on the local church for misrepresenting Jesus and engaging in rampant hypocrisy. In many ways I do not disagree completely with some of these statements but there is more going on in this statistic than meets the eye and certainly more than an easy explanation of “church hypocrisy” can offer.

For instance, what does one really mean when he or she says the Church is hypocritical? Depending on the reason this could be either a serious charge or a subjective opinion with no basis in reality. Perhaps the next statistic will shed some light on this.

In a separate study led by Probe Ministries it was found that 60% of self-professing born again Christians between the ages of 18 and 40 believe Jesus isn’t the only way to Heaven. In a similar study orchestrated by Pew Research nearly 40% of Americans believe that atheists can get into heaven and a little over one third believe unbelievers can gain access to heaven. This would place all of these people well outside the realm of historic Christian orthodoxy but many within the realm of progressive Christianity.

Obviously, statistics through surveys only tell us how people answer specific questions and not why they answer the question this way. However, if these two or three statistics are accurate in describing our current religiosity in the United States, I believe that we can reasonably conclude that the reason for the low view of Church is not primarily because it represents Christ poorly but because we understand the person and charge of Jesus differently.

I am fully willing to admit that churches have not represented Christ well in a myriad of ways, but I do not believe this explains the wide discrepancy in the statistics. Given the two statistics together I believe it is much more likely that we have redefined Jesus than that the Church has failed to represent Him well enough.

Are there cases of Christian hypocrisy? Absolutely. However, what is called hypocrisy and what is actual hypocrisy can be two different things. For instance, a Christian that holds to a traditional view of heaven and hell and a traditional view of marriage and sexuality might be (and often is) called a hypocrite because this same Christian believes that God is an omnibenevolent God and full of grace and mercy.

But these are only hypocritical beliefs if we redefine the baseline of what it truly means to be Christian. If we replace the cultural definitions of truth, love, mercy, and Jesus with a new Übermensch type redefinition. I believe this is what we are truly experiencing in our current cultural moment. The new cultural religion is not entirely post-Christian, as in materialistic and atheistic, but it is narcissistic spiritualism coopting cultural Christian values and remaking them into progressive cultural Christianity.

Progressive Christianity has redefined Jesus into the Übermensch and repackaged Christianity in its likeness. I am aware that this is a reductive analysis, clearly more philosophical threads could be pulled to analyze how exactly we got here. For a broader case see Carl Trueman’s work The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (2020).  The point here is to draw a line of thought from the principle elucidated by Nietzsche to our modern moment. This is not to say that the progressive culture is actively adopting the idea of the Übermensch, but rather that the principle introduced by Nietzsche’s recognition of the necessity of God (or something like him) to the success of society is playing itself out through the restructuring of our cultural Christianity.

It is not so much that our culture has moved beyond Christianity but that it has completely redefined it. Jesus, as understood in our current cultural milieu, is a different character altogether. An Übermensch type of character meant to affirm our desires, passions, political systems and aberrant sexuality (for example, here). This cultural Christianity sheds the shackles of historical Christian morality and embraces the subjective nature of the Übermensch. In other words, the vacuum left by the retreat of the orthodox values of the Church has not been replaced by science, reason, or logic but by a new, more palatable form of Christianity (if one can call it Christianity at all). A Christianity that operates smoothly within the fluidity of post-modernism and can adapt with the concepts that can synthesize together seemingly opposing truth claims.

If your desires tell you that to avoid nihilism you must augment your body to conform with your subjective gender identity, then the Übermensch Cultural Christian (we will call them Progressive Christians) will affirm such drastic action. Why? Because this Jesus is a different Jesus and because we have not so much moved beyond a cultural Christianity but have reinvented what it means to be a cultural Christian. This Jesus operates under new definitions of love, truth, morality, holiness and justice.

It is no wonder that progressive Christianity happens to often affirm nearly all the dogmatic moral stances of the current secular cultural values system. This is because progressive Christianity has supplanted orthodox Christianity as the dominant Cultural Christianity. In Progressive Christianity Jesus would not want you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind and away from certain sins but to set yourself free of the sins of certainty, doctrines of hell and the shackles of prudish thought.

Thus, if you express a culturally heterodox position based in classic orthodox Christian theology you will be maligned as hateful, bigoted, or hypocritical. The new cultural Christianity declares you not really a Christian, or at least, a hypocritical one.

The Challenge Before Us

Many have wondered how someone like Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi could declare their fealty to the Catholic Church while affirming positions on abortion, marriage, and contraception that would have, in the past, excommunicated them from the Church. The answer lies within this new cultural Christianity. Biden and Pelosi are not Catholics in any meaningful or historical sense of the term, but they are cultural Catholics or current cultural Christians. They have adopted progressively loaded theology for political expedience. They have adopted the new cultural Christianity.

30 Years Ago . . .

It seems to me that progressive Christianity is becoming (if it is not already) the cultural Christianity of the West and of the United States in particular. Thirty years ago, cultural Christians would espouse a similar moral framework to born again Christians. This is why the church could open its doors and receive unbelievers from their communities and preach the gospel from the pulpit and it made sense even to the unbeliever. Not everyone believed or responded with faith, but they understood the argument. They understood it because the culture was built upon it. Obviously, this form of cultural Christianity was not without its warts but now we see a completely different effect.

When unbelievers or unchurched people come and sit in our congregations, they may consider themselves “cultural Christians” but their approach to morality has been shaped and molded by progressive cultural Christianity. The gospel from the pulpit in this moment makes no sense to them. Sin is now oppression and repression not immoral behavior that misses the mark of the holy God. Love is affirmation of the inner-man and a necessity to aid in bending reality around those desires to find true happiness.

Sounds a bit like Neitzsche’s Übermensch.

When these cultural Christians come to our churches, they hear the same words but through a completely different cultural lens. They are cultural Christians, but their sense of Christianity is shaped by progressive theology and humanistic philosophy. It becomes a cross-cultural conversation (See: 3 conversations and how to have them) even among people who would call themselves Christians.

Thirty years ago the mainline denominations followed suit with the cultural Christianity of the day. Mainline denominations have often blown with winds of doctrine shaped by cultural Christianity and given the United Methodist Church’s recent removal of the prohibition on gay clergy it is safe to say that their drifting into the progressive cultural Christianity is nearly complete.

Interestingly, many formerly recognized “new atheists” are seeing this before our Christian leaders. People like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, James Lindsey and even Richard Dawkins are seeing it, but they haven’t the faintest clue what to do about it. Dawkins decries the rise of Islam in England but struggles to recognize that the rise of Islam is, at least in part, due to this new form of cultural Christianity. A cultural Christianity that affirms multiple paths to the ultimate good will open itself up to the belief systems of Islam and others. A cultural Christianity that views scripture and sin primarily through the lens of intersectionality and oppressed-oppressor narratives will likely embrace any belief system deemed as being “othered” by the West.

Ironically, it is Dawkins’ belief that real Christianity ought to be abandoned while cultural Christianity ought to remain that leads us into this new cultural Christianity that resembles Nietzsche’s remedy for nihilism in the Übermensch.

So yes, I believe we have moved into a post-Christian era, but more than that I believe that post-Christianity has merely become an embrace of a new kind of cultural Christianity, and it is closely aligned with progressive theology. Once we recognize this, the cultural picture suddenly becomes much clearer and perhaps our strategies for engagement and evangelism will follow suit.

References:

[1] Richard Dawkins, Interview with LBC (May 2024), at: https://youtu.be/COHgEFUFWyg

[2] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Bernard Williams, ed., Josephine Naukhoff, trans. (Cambridge & NY: Cambridge, 2001), 119-120.

Recommended Resources:

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek 

Jesus vs. The Culture by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4 Download, and Mp3

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Another Gospel? by Alisa Childers (book)

 

Josh Klein is a Pastor from Omaha, Nebraska with over a decade of ministry experience. He graduated with an MDiv from Sioux Falls Seminary and spends his spare time reading and engaging with current and past theological and cultural issues. He has been married for 12 years to Sharalee Klein and they have three young children.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4d2BgjR

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Character Matters

Character and morality often intersect in their definitions. Even for the non-Christians, all people are given a moral compass from the time of our birth. As image bearers of God, a person is able to recognize right from wrong. Though these matters have been declared more subjective over time, murder is still deemed hateful by the large majority. Stealing is considered a crime by most law-abiding citizens. There are obvious signs that either positively or negatively allude to one’s character.

Character Defined

Character, defined by the world, is commonly based on what is done rather than what is believed. A person is considered morally good by the things that they do for themselves or someone else. For instance, donating to multiple charities and volunteering at a homeless shelter may lead someone to believe that they are a wonderful person. Though these things are certainly beneficial, they do not, by themselves, earn God’s favor.

Biblical character is achieved through having a relationship with Christ. His law being written on our hearts is the way in which we determine that which is truly good, right, and pure. We walk in authentic morality because we walk with the Lord. Our ultimate example of moral perfection is Christ alone. Having lived blamelessly and without any sin, He is our perfect example. In our belief in Jesus, we experience true freedom and relief knowing that salvation is not works-based. Salvation is a gift. It is placed on us in the grace and forgiveness of Jesus.

Character is earned and kept through worshipful obedience. Obedience is a posture of the heart. If one’s motive does not align with the Lord’s purposes, obedience is inauthentic. A small example may be reading the Bible. If doing so is simply a checklist item among others during our morning routine, we are operating in a harmful works-based mentality that limits our view of God’s love for us. In the book Gentle and Lowly (2020), the author Gavin Ortlund states, “We sin- not just in the past but in the present, and not only by our disobedience but by our ‘of-works’ obedience. We are perversely resistant to letting Christ love us” (pg. 186).

I once heard someone say that they felt confident in their eternal security because of his record of attendance at church and history of financial generosity. At the time, I was not spiritually mature enough to gently redirect this harmful way of thinking. I now understand that if character is not about the heart of God himself, it is meaningless.

Character Witnessed

As previously mentioned, we beautifully witness character through the many attributes of our Lord. He is inherently everything that we are not. He is perfect in love, justice, power, sovereignty, grace, authority, forgiveness, mercy, goodness, patience, and much more. The character of God is our comfort. In our delight and embrace of who he is, our lives begin to look completely different. This is not anything we accomplish in our strength but in our submission. As we humbly submit to God, we are transformed. Nothing good inside of us can or will exist outside of the person of Christ. Though we might do apparently good things, true goodness is obtained only as the Holy Spirit works in and through us on a daily basis.

As we approach the Word of God, our intent should be to uncover more about who he is. Oftentimes, we look to Scripture for answers about our life and identity. The Bible is about who God is. Yet, in knowing him, we do begin to better understand who we are and the purpose we have been given. As A.W Tozer famously says in Knowledge of the Holy, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (pg. 1).

The gospels serve as eye-witness accounts to Christ’s ministry on earth. We learn from his parables, his miracles, and ultimately, his example. I often reflect on the longest recorded message that Jesus preached, The Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapters five, six, and seven encompass many of life’s most important matters. Though each lesson holds tremendous weight and value, the Beatitudes in chapter five speak directly to one’s character. The word “blessed” that comes before each one is the Greek word makarios which can be translated to “happy” in our English language. All throughout Scripture, it is evident that our humble obedience to the Lord precedes his faithful blessing unto us. It is the character of God that allows us to be richly blessed in our depravity before him. He supplies our needs according to the riches of glory in Christ Jesus. His blessing is his heart towards us.

Character Activated

Perhaps humility is the most important characteristic of a believer. It is from our humility that we can love, serve, submit, and honor both God and others with authenticity. Without the acknowledgement of our nothingness outside of Christ, we walk in deceptive pride that hinders our obedience. Yet, in emptying ourselves daily, we are best positioned to glorify the Lord with the help of his Holy Spirit.

Character that is marked by the fruit of the Spirit comes as we walk closely with him. Christian calling and character are mutually dependent on one another. Romans chapter twelve says that we must resist conforming to the world and be transformed by the renewal of our mind. In order to serve Jesus from a place of spiritual maturity, integrity, and authenticity we must look different from the world around us.

Secular culture says that a calling is fulfilled in the measure of wealth and knowledge. On the contrary, John 13:35 says that the world will know a disciple by how they love. Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that we can obtain many spiritual gifts and talents, but without love, it is all worthless. It is not what we do that matters to God. It is who we are.

The mutual calling of every person on planet earth is to glorify the Lord. We exist to worship his name. Though many will not do this, it is why we are here. The specific calling on a person’s life is best revealed in seeking Jesus. Whether it be business, performance, creativity, pastoring, or parenting, our calling glorifies God as we operate in Christlike character.

When people look at your life, what do they see? Our character is positively or negatively viewed by others on a daily basis. For the Christian, a lot is at stake. If a well-known pastor preaches a remarkable sermon on generosity only to leave church and tip his waitress a few coins, there may be a character flaw. How we treat people matters. The love we operate in has every potential to point someone to Jesus. May our lives be a reflection of the only One who can save and deliver. May we never blend in but stand out. Character champions calling when Christ is at the center of all that we do.

Recommended Resources:

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)     

What is God Like? Look to the Heavens by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4) 

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

 

Annie Brown has joined us as Content Coordinator working with the Truth That Matters team. In this role, Annie will be creating written content meant to edify and equip lay learners and scheduling content channels as needed. In addition to being a student at SES, Annie has a B.S. in Family & Child Development from Liberty University. “I am grateful for the opportunity to serve on the Truth That Matters Team at SES. Using my passion of writing to prayerfully bless others excites me, and I look forward to what the Lord has in store.”

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3SoTLa7

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